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Japan Times
16-07-2025
- Japan Times
Craig Mod's life in motion in a disappearing Japan
In 'Things Become Other Things,' Craig Mod's memoir about walking across the Kii Peninsula in western Japan, he describes how pilgrimages once offered an easy way for common folk to get permission to travel the land. When communities didn't have enough money to bankroll everyone who fancied venturing to Ise Shrine or the 88 Temples of Shikoku, the wayfarers were chosen by lottery. As Mod writes, they were 'lucky schmucks, carrying the purse of their village warm in the loincloths around their navels, adopted by all.' For the past decade or so, Mod has been working in a similar spirit. The longtime Japan resident, originally from the United States, describes himself as a writer, photographer and walker — not a vocation that you hear very often these days. He's been on some monster journeys: In 2019, he spent several months walking solo along the historic Nakasendo and Tokaido highways between Tokyo and Kyoto. But one of the places to which he's returned most often is the Kii Peninsula, home to Ise Shrine and the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route. Things Become Other Things, by Craig Mod. 320 pages, RANDOM HOUSE, Nonfiction. His chronicles of these trips are a mix of tech-savvy and determinedly offline, funded through a membership program called Special Projects. He has sent daily dispatches to subscribers in the form of SMS messages, emails, photos and 4K videos with binaural audio. He has also turned his journeys into beautifully crafted fine art books, which he describes as 'looser, lighter, more on the side of poetry than classic narrative nonfiction.' Borne from that Nakasendo trip, his 2020 release 'Kissa by Kissa,' a hymn to old-school coffee shops and pizza toast, is now on its sixth edition. 'Things Become Other Things,' released by Random House in May, is Mod's first book for a wider audience. In keeping with the title, it's gone through several transitions, starting as a daily 'pop-up newsletter' that he sent while walking the Kii Peninsula in 2021. After each day on the trail, sometimes covering distances of over 40 kilometers, he'd sit in front of a laptop and spend hours editing photos and videos, and writing. Mod isn't being hyperbolic when he calls it an 'ascetic practice.' 'That's why being alone is critical,' he says. 'If I'm with someone, that doesn't happen. But if I'm alone, 90% of the day is solitude, and then when I get to the end, it's like, 'OK, let's go.'' A longtime resident of Japan, Craig Mod describes himself as a writer, photographer and walker. | Courtesy of Craig Mod At a time when many countries were only just emerging from COVID-19 lockdown and Japan was still closed to overseas tourists, Mod's emails offered a vicarious escape, written in a conversational tone that slipped easily between erudite and irreverent. He was the 'lucky schmuck' who could afford to spend weeks on end roaming the countryside, hanging out in coffee shops and bantering with locals amused at this peculiar stranger in their midst. Many of the places he visited were on their last legs, but he deliberately avoided what he calls the 'lamenting' tone of writers such as Alex Kerr, whose 'Lost Japan' (1996) and 'Dogs and Demons' (2002) were required reading around the time he first moved to Japan. 'It's way more fun to be delighted by — and sort of find the beauty of — what's left, even in these countryside towns that are very clearly going to be gone in 10 years,' he says. 'You can be very depressed about that, or you can kind of treat it like a graceful end to a certain life cycle.' Pondering the shrinking communities and advanced decay he saw during the trip (documented in photos of shuttered main streets and nature vigorously reclaiming the landscape), Mod thought back to his childhood home: a blue-collar American town where the factories had closed, replaced by poverty, drugs and violence. 'The inspiration I've always drawn from Japan is that the lowest you can fall is not that low,' he says. 'Whereas I grew up watching people fall really, really low — frequently, and kind of hopelessly.' During his long walks through Japan's countryside towns, Mod was reminded of his childhood home in the United States, seeing similarities (and stark differences) in the shrinking rural communities. | Craig Mod 'Things Become Other Things' started out as a daily 'pop-up newsletter' that Mod sent while walking the Kii Peninsula in 2021. After each day on the trail, he would spend hours editing photos and videos, and writing. | Craig Mod His explanation for why similar levels of economic decline produce such different outcomes hinges on the Japanese term yoyū, which conveys a sense of sufficiency: enough time, enough money, enough energy. As Mod puts it, yoyū is 'the space in your heart to accept another person... another situation, another context.' 'As the economy changes in those rural areas, I think you see a kind of grace because the foundations of support are still there, right?' he continues. 'They're not losing health care. They're not losing social infrastructure... And that gives them the yoyū to be able to accept the fact that their towns are disappearing, without degrading into substance abuse or violence or whatever. The contrast being in America, there's none of that sort of protection enabled, so you have none of that excess space.' Mod's newsletters — over 30,000 words in total — provided the raw material for the fine art edition of 'Things Become Other Things,' published by Special Projects in 2023. While working on the manuscript, he was encouraged by his editor to flesh out his remembrances of a close childhood friend, Bryan, who hadn't managed to escape the town's downward pull. The Random House edition of the book, which significantly ups the word count, is addressed as a letter to his absent friend. Framing it this way packs an emotional punch, but also gives Mod more freedom to insert context and humorous asides ('as opposed to just bloviating personal history or whatever,' he adds). 'Things Become Other Things' doesn't include details of how to get to the places Mod visits. 'I'm very deliberately picking places that are slightly difficult to get to,' he says. | Craig Mod One of the book's most striking innovations is the vernacular he uses for the residents of the Kii Peninsula. In his rendering, it's a place where people say 'ain't' and 'where ya from' and 'Mama woulda loved a handsome boy like you.' 'I was spending a lot of time in North Carolina when I started doing the peninsula walks, and I immediately just was like, 'Oh yeah, they're speaking kind of like North Carolinians,'' Mod says. 'You know, that kind of sing-song component to Japanese.' Neither edition of 'Things Become Other Things' includes details of how to get to the places Mod visits. This isn't conventional travel writing — though he does a bit of that, too. In 2023, he had a brush with celebrity after picking the northern city of Morioka for the New York Times' annual '52 Places to Go' feature. The list wasn't ranked, but many people assumed it was. Morioka's placement at No. 2 — second only to London — became a national news story. 'I'm very deliberately picking places that are slightly difficult to get to,' he says of his unorthodox choices. (He's since written about Yamaguchi and Toyama cities for the Times lists.) Mod's solution to the tourism boom that's been pushing Japanese hospitality to breaking point is to focus on the cohort of travelers who aren't just coming for the cheap yen and stuff they've seen on TikTok. 'I feel like overtourism is almost like a natural disaster,' he says. 'If you try to engage with it overly, you just drive yourself insane. It's like trying to stop an earthquake as it's happening. The more the tourism industry can focus on that 10% of hyper-curious, fully committed, deeply respecting-of-the-country people, I think there's a lot of great opportunity to be had.' 'But Omotesando is done,' he adds, referring to the heavily trafficked shopping district in central Tokyo. 'It's just done! You just have to pretend it doesn't exist anymore.'
Irish Independent
28-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Wexford County Council announce plan for what remains of old Dun Mhuire Theatre
Indeed with the local authority having failed spectacularly to provide a modular performance space in Crescent Quay in the interim, the arts community remains up in arms about Wexford's lack of an affordable mid-sized venue to host productions. However, on Friday, Wexford County Council officials circulated correspondence to local officials seeking to provide somewhat of a boost to the arts community. The local authority now intends to provide a rehearsal space in what is left of the old parish hall building, with a planning application due for submission later this month or in early August. "Work is under way whereby the Arts Department plans to submit a funding application to support the development of a space on the ground floor of the building for dance/circus rehearsal space and workshops,' the email stated. 'The maximum grant available is €150,000 with Wexford County Council to provide supporting funds of 40% of the grant amount. 'This development arises following the collaborative work between Wexford Borough and the Arts Office, together with the technical design input of Special Projects which will see an application submitted in July/August 2025. 'The Arts Officer has consulted with the sector to guide the development of the strongest possible funding application. This represents the first phase of positive developments of this vacant building.'
Associated Press
03-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Dolphin Subsidiary Special Projects Partners with The Peabody Awards on 2025 Awards Ceremony
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESS Newswire / June 3, 2025 / Special Projects, a subsidiary of Dolphin (NASDAQ:DLPN), returned for a fourth year to collaborate with The Peabody Awards in booking the host, performer, and presenters for the storied institution. NBC News' vaunted Chief Washington and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchellwas honored with the Peabody Career Achievement Award, and iconic, award-winning sketch comedy series 'Saturday Night Live' was honored with the Peabody Institutional Award. Both were celebrated at the 85th annual Peabody Awards ceremony June 1, 2025, in Beverly Hills, hosted by stand-up comic, television personality and Emmy Award-nominated documentary producer Roy Wood, Jr. Special attendees included Jon Hamm, presenting to Lorne Michaels and SNL alums Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen and Molly Shannon while NBC news' own Jacob Soboroff presented to Andrea Mitchell. Lee Fields performed a moving and powerful tribute of the classic 'Try a Little Tenderness' to honor legendary Memphis recording label STAX, the focus of HBO/Max's documentary winner, 'STAX: Soulsville U.S.A.' The winners represented a cross section of contemporary and historical issues with the common thread of bringing a smile and sense of community through thoughtful entertainment with notables such as Baby Reindeer's, Richard Gad, Shogun's Hiroyuki Sanada and Daughters' producer Kerry Washington, in attendance to accept their awards. Presenters included luminaries such as Mandy Moore, Anna Kendrick, Benito Skinner, Uzo Aduba, Linda Perry, Yvonne Orji, Randall Park, Stephen Merchant, Joel Kim Booster, Van Jones and Marissa Bode, among others. About Special Projects Founded by Nicole Vecchiarelli and Andrea Oliveri, Special Projects is a world-renowned talent booking, creative content, and special events agency that elevates media, fashion, and lifestyle brands through the unique use of celebrities and storytelling. Trusted by both companies and public figures, Special Projects creates opportunities that garner press, build engagement, drive sales, and uniquely position our partners within the zeitgeist. Our core services include talent strategy and partnerships, event activation and guest list curation, and brand amplification through celebrities, influencers, and culture-defining personalities. Our keen trend-spotting and cultural forecasting abilities allow us to keep our finger on the pulse of pop culture and highlight new talents before they hit the mainstream. Special Projects has been featured in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among other outlets. To learn more, visit About Dolphin Dolphin (NASDAQ:DLPN) was founded in 1996 by Bill O'Dowd and has evolved from its origins as an Emmy-nominated television, digital and feature film content producer to a company with three dynamic divisions: Dolphin Entertainment, Dolphin Marketing and Dolphin Ventures. Dolphin Entertainment: This legacy division, where it all began, has a rich history of producing acclaimed television shows, digital content and feature films. With high-profile partners like IMAX and notable projects including The Blue Angels, Dolphin Entertainment continues to set the standard in quality storytelling and innovative content creation. Dolphin Marketing: Established in 2017, the Marketing division, which was just named by Observer as the 2025 #1 Agency of the Year, is a powerhouse in public relations, influencer marketing, branding strategy, talent booking and special events. Comprising top-tier companies such as 42West, The Door, Shore Fire Media, Elle Communications, Special Projects, The Digital Dept., and Always Alpha, Dolphin Marketing serves a wide range of industries - from entertainment, music and sports to hospitality, fashion and consumer products. Dolphin Ventures: This division leverages Dolphin's best-in-class cross-marketing acumen and business development relationships to create, launch and/or accelerate innovative ideas and promising products, events and content in our areas of expertise. CONTACT: James Carbonara Hayden IR [email protected] 646-755-7412 SOURCE: Dolphin Entertainment press release
WIRED
03-04-2025
- WIRED
Want to Look at Your Phone Less? Just Cover Your Screen
Apr 3, 2025 4:00 AM An art studio hopes its concept for a phone case that can flip around to cover most of your screen will help cure your screen addiction. People love to hate their phones. After all, smartphones are an easy culprit of a collective sense of digital despair. They're devices designed for doomscrolling, portals to a media ecosystem dominated by neverending ads and social media algorithms that hoover up every scrap of our attention. And yet, we just can't seem to quit them. Not that there haven't been a plethora of efforts over the years to claw back that focus and attention. Both Android and iOS have a swath of digital wellbeing tools that can limit app permissions and restrict the amount of time you spend in places you'd rather not. Older 'dumb' phones have passionate adherents, as does the rise of efforts to deliberately hobble your smartphone. There are even whole devices, like the Light Phone, which offer only the bare necessities (i.e. no internet browsing capabilities) as a way to keep you from getting sucked into a device. Some of these efforts work better than others, but an art studio in London thinks it has found an even better way to help keep you from staring into your rectangular glass abyss: Just cover the damn thing. Out of Sight Special Projects, a design agency that focuses on digital wellness, has a prototype it calls Aperture. It is a concept phone case that aims to keep you from staring at your screen all day—namely, by covering most of it. The pitch works like this: Pop the case off the back of your phone, flip it around, then slap it over the top of your screen. There you go. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Not that the whole screen will be completely covered. Most cases have a small hole where your case makes room for the cameras on the back of the device. It is in that space that Special Projects wants to present a small window that prioritizes only the most important things you do on a phone—messages, calls, asking for directions. Behind the scenes, an app on the phone controls what you see and presents it in a clean, minimalist format—ideally one that fades to black the second you don't need it anymore. But that window is all you get to see on your screen. The rest is physically covered, keeping you focused on the important things you want your device to display. The idea, according to Special Projects cofounders Clara Gaggero Westaway and Adrian Westaway, is to make it just enough of a bother to remove the case from your screen once you've got it on there. 'What's nice with this is that it is quite a pain,' Adrian says. 'I mean, taking your case off is not a real pain in the scheme of life, but it has that sweet spot of friction that you're not going to be flipping it and doing it all the time.' 'It's basically transforming a compulsive behavior into a conscious behavior,' Clara says. The Aperture case doesn't actually exist yet, mind you. It's more art project than actual project. But while it may not be a reality, Special Projects hopes it inspires more thoughtful reflection about the time we spend on our phones. Something like an app that keeps you off your phone by guilt-tripping you about killing a digital tree if you scroll too much. 'This is something that many people are struggling with,' Adrian says. 'There are many solutions, but there was something about this that just clicked.' Aesthetically, Special Projects' works evoke a sort of Teenage Engineering ethos in the pursuit of digital wellness. The idea for Aperture came about while the team worked on a project called Paper Phone, an app that let you print out a sheet of paper with all the information—contacts, calendar meetings, grocery list, for example—you might need from your phone for a day. During this project, the Westaways noticed that the window carved out for the cluster of camera lenses on the back of a phone case were about the same size as an Apple Watch. With Apple managing to get plenty of information into the limited window of its wrist-mounted device, the Westaways figured it would be easy enough to do the same on the phone. What if you could enable that by just flipping your phone case around? 'We just started playing with these ideas,' Adrian says. 'The idea that we quite liked was by using two things you already own, you can transform them into what feels like a new kind of device.' However, while the original vision was to transform any phone case into an Aperture-enabled helper, the reality is unlikely to play out that way. Firstly, the switcheroo might not work with just any phone case, because depending on how the case is manufactured, it simply might not fit the other way around, or might inadvertently press buttons along the side of a phone. The other problem is accessing the operating system to be able to display information in the cutout window. To get that to work, you'd need to download an app, then grant that app all sorts of permissions to create its minimalist display onscreen—messages, phone calls, proximity. In order for all that to work—and to work without exposing all your data—the app would need to work with manufacturers like Apple and Google. Despite the appeal of not having to buy a new device, a la the Light Phone, Aperture might wind up having to be a separate product after all. But as a starter, the Westaways say Special Projects is working with a phone case manufacturer to design cases that can fit just fine either on the back or front of the device. 'It's a vision,' Adrian says. 'And now we've had in a small group of people some interests and we're now trying to see how much of this we make real.' They're hopeful that the physical blocking of a screen will be more impactful than what software tools let you do. It's easy to ignore a warning notification, or just go back into your settings and turn off an app timer when you really need just one more minute of TikTok this time, you swear. But a recent study found that hard blocking mobile internet access on phones resulted in boosting people's attention spans, mental health, and 'subjective well-being.' Perhaps hard blocking a screen could have the same impact. 'I'm very aware of how much control has been taken,' says Matteo Bandi, a designer at Special Projects about his own efforts to reclaim his attention. 'I've tried a lot of things. The turning the phone black and white, making a no-phone safe area around kind of tactical places, like the bedroom and all that. It works—for brief periods of time.' Again, the Aperture case isn't out yet, but Special Projects is asking for feedback for what features should be included if the idea of just covering your screens actually takes off. 'We never think that taking away technology altogether would be the right choice,' Clara says. 'But how can we help people to use the phone, to use technology rather than be used by it?'
