A friend in Seattle (Mark is his name) introduced me to an inspiring publisher from Argentina that uses cardboard from the carteneros, men, women and children who scavenge cardboard and resell it to survive. This publisher, Eloisa Cartonera, pays five times the going rate for the cardboard and uses it to make covers for its books.

Mark heard about them from artonpaper (don't get too comfortable; the article cuts off halfway through and recommends that you buy the magazine). If you read Spanish, you'll get a lot more out of the publisher's website than I did (man, I wish more publishers would take good pictures of their books, like Craig's almost X-rated book porn).

It's refreshing to see publishers come up with innovative, inexpensive ideas. Us small fries need more of these to survive.

My bro, Dave Rutledge, will be manning the Chin Music booth at the NOLA Bookfair on Nov. 10. It's free and a lot of fun, plus Sarah Inman is performing on the trapeze a la her essay in Do You Know, "A Lesson from Below." Eyebrows raised yet? Come check it out. Dave will have all four Chin Music books for sale and will probably be offering some nice discounts (especially if you buy him a beer). Hope you stop by.

Anne Lovett writes good things about Last of the Red Hot Poppas on the Georgia Writers' website:

[I]t’s a delicious gumbo. Take the spirit of A Confederacy of Dunces, blend with a murdered Louisiana governor and a steel magnolia First Lady, then throw in a few corrupt politicians, the Mafia, zydeco music, a canny African-American undertaker, an Assistant Attorney General who’s trying to do what’s right, and a young woman trying to come to terms with her growing-up in the bayou with a stepfather who’s built a 60-foot tall statue of Jesus. Then thicken with a serious message about vested interests and the environment. You might come away feeling you understand a little more about what went wrong during the Katrina crisis.

We just posted new columns on Japan Infusion. I blather on about the future of publishing, Takumi gives us the second chapter of her ongoing family drama, and Taichi reminds us that even wild salmon are fed up with George W. Bush.

Next week: Part 2 of the Sushi Roundtable and Juzo Itami on women's breasts, the perfect bowl of noodles and closets full of cash.

Ever wonder what coffee does to a man's virility? Me neither. But 300-plus years ago, it was a big concern, as revealed by this week's Canned Coffee entree from 1674, The Women's Petition Against Coffee. Here's a snippet of the women's dismay at what coffee did to their menfolk:

(T)o our unspeakable Grief, we find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigor; our Gallants being every way so Frenchified, that they are become meer Cock-sparrows, fluttering things that come on Sa sa, with a world of Fury, but are not able to stand to it, and in the very first Charge fall down flat before us. Never did Men wear greater breeches, or carry less in them of any Mettle whatsoever. There was a glorious Dispensation ('twas surely in the Golden Age) when Lusty Ladds of Seven or eight hundred years old, Got Sons and Daughters; and we have read, how a Prince of Spain was forced to make a Law, that Men should not Repeat the Grand Kindness to their Wives, above NINE times a night; but Alas! Alas! Those forwards Days are gone.

Long gone. Before you take your next sip of morning joe, go to our sister site, cannedcoffee.com, and read why the women of 17th Century England urge you to reach for the Viagra instead.

Daniel Handler's email was like a little birthday present — albeit a day late — for Chin Music. Mr. Handler may be better known to some readers as Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events (check out the video on the Amazon site; now that's what I call a reading!) He's been following our work for some time now and has been quick with encouragement. Here's what he had to say about Goodbye Madame Butterfly:

Last night I finished reading the swell book you sent me. I thought it was just terrific: smart and lively and thoughtful and moving, like a good Studs Terkel without encyclopedic pretensions.

Thanks, DH!

Five years ago today I signed some papers, paid some money to the state of Washington and formed Chin Music Press Inc. Four books, two blogs and a slew of (pretty damn innovative) websites later, we're still here, hanging on and trying to figure out how to ride whatever next digital wave comes our way. It's been fun — no sugarcoating: it's also been hard as hell and at times extremely frustrating — and little by little, we seem to be getting stronger. We are betting on the tortoise in this race.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us. As corny as it may sound, it's the chance to connect with people that makes this venture worth it, from readings at the Saturn Bar in New Orleans, the Pink Cow in Tokyo or Mac's Backs in Cleveland, Ohio, to comments from readers on our blogs, and of course, to those lovely online orders that come through our site. That and the chance to work with up-and-coming writers and artists ... That's why we set out on this damn trip. So thanks everyone!

Our favorite sushi chef, Taichi Kitamura, just got a rave review from Nancy Leson of The Seattle Times for his new omakase (chef's course) restaurant, Kappo. We've been working closely with Taichi on one of our new projects, JapanInfusion.com. Check out what he has to say about choosing the right restaurant and enjoying your next sushi meal.

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting piece on Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, in today's paper. It chronicles his investments in participatory media (Digg and Second Life, for example) and his widespread disinterest in more traditional media companies (BBC, the Economist and WSJ.com are the exceptions). Here's a quote from his investment chief on why traditional media just can't keep up in the new digital world:

“It’s really tough for the incumbents to make decisions that are as decisive as they need to be. They’ve got models that worked for 50 years. It’s really hard to cannibalize yourself. We saw this a lot when eBay was getting rolling.”

Any Poppy Z. Brite fans out there? We recently posted another excellent review by Colleen Mondor of Ms. Brite's latest work, Antediluvian Tales over on our Voices of New Orleans blog. Check it out.

For those of you in Japan interested in checking out a copy of Goodbye Madame Butterfly and leafing through its pages before you plunk down the 2,200 yen for your own copy, our distributor informs us that the book is available at the following stores:

Maruzen(Oazo/Tokyo Station)
Maruzen(Nihonbashi)
Azabu Super Market(Ebisu)
Aoyama Book Center(Marunouchi/Tokyo Station)
Random Walk(Kyoto)
Random Walk(Shinsaibashi/Osaka)
Random Walk(Kobe)

Yuko and I have been working with the folks at Junglecity.com and sushi chef Taichi Kitamura (he runs both Chiso and the newly opened Koppa in Seattle's Fremont district) on a new project: Japaninfusion.com.

Chin Music has been working on the editorial content, but be sure not to miss Craig's excellent portraits of master sushi chef Jiro Ono.

The idea of the site is to chronicle the way Japanese culture is increasingly seeping into North American life and to offer information on how to infuse the best of it into your life. We're trying to do for Japanese culture and aesthetics what Dwell magazine has done for modern homes.

We would love your feedback. We have a very grass-roots, long-term approach to this site, so please feel free to offer criticism (helpful or otherwise) and/or contribute articles and images. We'll begin updating the site on a weekly basis later this month.

(Thanks to Laura Totten for the pic of the anime fan!)

There is a fascinating post and discussion over at Howard Owens' blog about the future of journalism. He has laid out 12 steps for journalists to become more relevant in the digital age, and at the risk of losing a lot of important nuance, they can be summed up as "become more like a blogger while hanging on to the good practices of your profession." For a better summary, check out this piece from Web Pro News.

This is the sort of thing that makes it so fascinating to be in media/publishing/journalism today. It's as if we're surfing; some of us are definitely going to get dumped in the water while others figure out how to ride these new waves. Before I drown that metaphor in the bathtub, let me steal a quote from Mr. Owens' site attributed to Eric Hoffer:

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

In his latest column for the Japan Writers' House Newsletter, Roland Kelts suggests that Goodbye Madame Butterfly might be ripe for online distribution, considering its intimate, "seductive" content. Maybe he's on to something ...