Two weekends ago Tania and I spent a few good hours taking in the Araki exhibition at the Barbican. This exhibit, spanning his entire career, reveals Araki, internationally known as an erotic photographer with a penchant for bondage, but enjoying incredibly wide acceptance in his native Japan, as an exceptionally romantic, playful, and ultimately adorable old fool. The untimely death of his wife drove him to a fetishisation of her belongings, which somehow reminded me of Tony Leung’s conversations with his towel in Chungking Express. While at the exhibition I slowly grew more and more obsessed with one of Araki’s more recent lovers, the lovely ballerina Kaori (pictured being immortalised by Araki-sensei), whom I recognised from one of Roy Stuart’s books. I surmised that the connection must have happened through famous fetish connoisseur and patron of the erotic arts Benedikt Taschen, who has published the works of both photographers.

In other exciting news, a screenshot of my OS X Dashboard widget, Challenge!, made it to Steve Jobs’s keynote presentation last week. See if you can spot it (at approximately 17 minutes into the video).

Finally, I have been having some encouraging success reconnecting with friends from the old days, who — like so many of my peers — have gravitated to London. May progress in this field continue unabated.