The good things of the past, that’s what we must preserve. They have passed through the hardships of history to become a tradition, and we who are alive today must treasure them, and take care of them for the future.
(Ito Akira)

An Anthology of Good Things

I spent a good part of last weekend engrossed in the latest issue of Kyoto Journal. If you are not familiar with Kyoto Journal (shame on you!), it is a strictly non-profit, award-winning quarterly magazine, produced locally, taking as its theme fresh perspectives from Asia… and it’s good. Now I mean good primarily in terms of content, because the word “magazine” hardly does justice to Kyoto Journal’s consistent high quality, to the range of its content and to the sheer joy of reading it. But also let’s pay more attention to that word non-profit. Kyoto Journal has been produced for the last 23 years by an ever expanding community of volunteers. Not one person who contributes to its creation or production does so for profit. The people who make Kyoto Journal (and there are a lot of them) are motivated to do so by a simple desire to make something… good. So, more than a magazine, Kyoto Journal is an anthology of good things made by good people. [Read more…]