About

I’m a graduate of Indiana University in Linguistics and Japanese Language, with interests in phonetics, syntax, language documentation, Taishō and Shōwa era culture, Japanese women’s literature, pop music, and the New Left.  I also have a strong academic background in labor history.

I live in London and cower in the shadow of King’s Cross.

My non-academic interests include curry, science fiction, cricket, cinema, Mexican food, sewing, internet culture, Bluegrass and indie music, and figuring out why the English are so weird.  I play the guitar, mandolin, dulcimer, toy piano, and maracas, to varying degrees of success. I’m working on my Welsh and Classical Japanese, also to varying degrees of success.

I’ve just finished polishing up my (finally) completed translation of WATAYA Risa’s Keritai Senaka (“The Back I Want to Kick”), after which I’ll probably move on to Install. But I occasionally do translations of writings in the public domain, which will certainly be posted here for your amusement (or otherwise, as the case may be).

‘All Wrongs Reversed’ is an obscure Belle & Sebastian reference ’cause I roll like that.

A photo machine in Kyoto in 2006 thought I looked like this: