2026-09-10 08:00:00
Roden Readers —
Hello from Europe. My body hasn’t been this happy in September in years. The coolness. The chill. The clouds. The 0 UV index. What is this crazy way of summer living? Where you’re not being blasted by a death ray from above while wrapped in a wet blanket and shoved in a stove while tiny demons spray gasoline everywhere? This is not the September of Tokyo (although this year, from afar, looks freakishly wet and temperate(ish)?).
2026-09-08 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
For the last ten days I’ve been walking around London. Mostly in a little corner of it in the northeast part of the city. But can you even call a part a “corner” when the city extends in every direction without stopping? Whatever you call it, I’ve been in my little northeast section (if not corner) spending mornings reading and writing until I’m cross-eyed and then afternoons walking the streets over and over again.
2026-08-21 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
Hi, I’m Craig Mod and this is Ridgeline, a newsletter about walking — mostly in Japan, but this time in NYC.
Elsewhere:
Back in May, my original NYC plan was to do five or six days of huge walks while running a pop-up newsletter — basically go walk bananas in the city. But then I stopped for a second and thought: What if I just … enjoyed NYC? And so I did. I did the thing I have a hard time doing — simply enjoying a place or trip instead of turning it into a project.
2026-08-13 08:00:00
Roden Readers —
OK, so I need to retract something from the previous Roden sent just a couple weeks back. The weather in Japan, in AUGUST, has been … SOMEWHAT SANE? A series of typhoons — some glancing off Japan, others smacking it — has dropped the humidity, made temperatures livable, and cooled the evenings. Well, at least for a few days. We’ll see what torment next week brings. But: just making note of this miraculous Summer Weather Development. (Meanwhile, Europe broils.)
2026-08-12 08:00:00
The strangest thing I’ve done with an LLM lately is genealogical. I’m adopted. A couple years ago I connected with my birth family. Using details they’ve provided and genetic testing, aided by a swarm of blood robots, I’ve unearthed huge swaths of my history. Ancestry.com hosts extensive databases of: draft cards, Ellis Island arrival documents, marriage and death and birth records, newspaper archives. The monthly fee is hefty, and I’ve never paid for access before because the thought of digging through databases makes me wilt. But Claude could dig, couldn’t it?
2026-08-04 08:00:00
Roden Readers —
There is sweat and then there is s-w-e-a-t and the out-of-doorsness in Japan is presently a natural machine that produces nothing but sweat and sweat and sweat and swelter. Dryness has been eradicated. Fire is impossible to start. Blowtorch any single thing and it will laugh in your face. The implicit ubiquity of moistness inspired Japanese dictionary publishers to excise “dry.” A useless word. The only sane response is to find a cool cave at the top of a mountain and hibernate until November. (Or go to Victoria, Canada, which I did; more on that below.)