M31 - March 2026 - Issue 007
M31 - March 2026 - Issue 007 Not only is this edition of the newsletter late, but it's also going to be a short one. In early February I experienced a seizure that left me with an injured spine and a fractured right shoulder, which required surgery. As you can imagine, this has left me in a state where I haven't been able to do much of anything for the past month and a half, other than healing, and now rehab. So although I still did want to sent out an edition of this newsletter for March, to stay consistent, I'll skip doing all the regular sections this time, and then came back to you in April with the regular round-up of creative activities I love doing, as I hope that by then I'll be in a state of creation again. Quickly though, I haven't thought at all about when the next PauseTalk will take place (Vol. 101), but our next PechaKucha Night (Vol. 51), kicking off our new season following January's momentous Vol. 50, will in fact happen next week, on Thursday, March 26, again at the wonderful Haworth space in Jing'an. I might be wearing a sling, but I'll still be there to host the evening's proceedings, as always. The other thing that saddens me is that this is the "007" edition of the newsletter, and Bond fan that I am, I would normally have done something to honor that. Oh well. -- What's M31? It's a name I used close to two decades ago as my sort of publishing imprint/company label for the activities I was doing while I lived in Tokyo, and I've decided to revive it. It's simply inspired by my birthday of May 31 (although I just recently realized that it's usually used to refer to the Andromeda galaxy, which also seems appropriate, considering how it covers my "galaxy" of activities). The logo you see above was designed by Ian Lynam, and is part of a set of 31 logos he created for me back in the late 2000s, which I've decided to start re-using for this newsletter. All the activities I organize in Shanghai have dedicated groups in WeChat, where you'll get the latest updates, and so please contact me to be added to any of them. Apologies for the short edition, but I'm trying to take this difficult period in stride, and hopefully something that will have given me the "forced rest" my body might have needed in order to get the creative juices flowing again in a positive way. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things sooner than later, and as always, for more frequent updates, I encourage you to join the various WeChat groups for all my activities. For more on me, you can alway have a look at my personal website (where I share the newsletters in case you missed previous editions) -- I've been blogging since 1998 -- or for lighter stuff (and lots of movie reviews) you can follow me on Bluesky.
M31 - March 2026 - Issue 007 |