Radio Garden, circa 2012 (left) and 2023 (right)

rot is the primary tenant of the web. radio garden, the small building after which this site was themed that butts against the elevated tracks of the chuo line, embodies a similar outlook. first opened in november 1950, it still exists today, although absent any of the electronics and junk retailers that used to shape it with identity. hagiwara electrical, the last electronics shop in the space, moved out in 2023. the decidely retro lettering, which I have failed to design a good replication for still, has more recently been plied off so that it can now show a scrolling LED ticker.

even now as it is a vending machine enclave, radio garden has a personality that I find doesn’t exist in much of akihabara anymore. it seems impractical, much the way running personal websites does today, that it continues to exist surrounded by commercial developments and office towers. it does not have a lofty future, and yet it is still tended to in some cottage way. when I reflect on why I still want to write and publish despite the hurdles and obstructions that would be far easier to refuse than to attempt navigating, or the reality that there is little prestiege or audience to be squeezed from small websites, I remember the radio garden. while I’m not entirely eyeing the exit from every large platform, it is also a motivator for me to collapse more completely on my terms. even during a content apocalypse, I would rather choose to trim the overgrowth than to set myself on fire.

when I talk about the fatigue of socials, it is usually contingent on the moderation sucking out loud. bluesky is so far doing a great job of replicating some of cohost’s mistakes at about ten times the size with a hundred times the budget. frankly, I have never been all that great at socials either, so it is easier to step back from them without losing very much. even while there is a good core buried on bluesky that is thoughtful and funny, bluesky has definitely missed a useful critical mass that makes the maladies of socials harder to bargain with. the headache, as I experience bluesky, is that it is desperately in need of some sort of community notes solution. only second to this is that it needs more ero artists.

with this already top of mind, I soft launched denpa.denden.garden a few months ago. considering the announcement for it I’ve been massaging has sat in my drafts for about that long, let’s just call it fully launched today. the theming is heavily inspired by ayashii world, usually cited as a prototype that ended up cloned in many iterations. while I may eventually furnish some philosophizing on why that is and why a second website themed to it is a desirable thing to have, this is categorically a personal site in the neocities vein that aims to build up reference materials and loose collections. this blog is a casual presentation that I don’t intend to discontinue; the subdomain, instead, should be considered more like mumbling to myself.

my favorite pages at this stage are screencap stew and status messages, which let me imagine I’m funnier than I actually am, but poke around and decide for yourself! if you like what you see, feeds are, as always, available.

https://denpa.denden.garden

second: this blog now comes with a likes counter at the end of every post that allows you to donate happy points. drifting from socials has made me reconsider the value of comments, knowing email is maybe an even more powerful black hole and that solutions like disqus are a non-starter, so this feels a reasonable trial to take with rolling an API myself. for the moment, it’s unfortunately a small chunk of this site that strictly requires javascript. recalling cohost again, I’m planning to make the endpoints respond with images so there is some reasonable noscript alternative. the API layer is flexible enough for this and should hopefully prove extensible enough to add likes to the subdomain as well, if nothing explodes!

third: I’ve very graciously been approached to contribute on two projects, one as preface for a book and the other a more informal academic anthology (think fans writing critically for comitia). I’m tremendously nervous about adapting a digital voice into an authoritative style worth printing on bound pages. at the same time, it’s affirming to have earned recognition in what I regard as a fairly short overall journey for the blog so far, and I’m excited to stretch the longform a little more. the anthology piece will likely only end up published in japanese around november, but I have been cleared to post the original english here whenever that makes sense.

although it may feel short to me, enough time has passed that many of the hotlinks here have already begun to rot. there’s a smaller effort I’m undertaking to resolve these all to archives today and to ensure that new entries remain stable going forward. until I do finish trimming the overgrowth, though, please enjoy a pocari sweat or a boss coffee as a reprieve at one of these spun-out vending machine enclaves that I call websites.