Jottings from the Granite Studio

…is up at Frog in a Well, Korea. Many thanks to Konrad Lawson for his hard work putting it together and for the kind words directed at this little hobby of mine. I wanted to particularly call people’s attention to the list of online video and audio history resources, kudos for pulling that together.

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This week was Valentine’s Day, and no matter what you think of market-driven holidays, it does provide a good occasion to take your wife out for a quiet dinner in an otherwise hectic week. Wanting to avoid the overpriced and crowded Valentine’s Day “specials” at the Chaoyang restaurants, we decided to go local: Dongcheng style, [...]

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Today is the birthday of Emperor Yingzong (r. 1063-1067), born in 1032. Yingzong came to the throne by a somewhat atypical route, he was not the son of his predecessor, Emperor Renzong (r. 1022-1063), who towards the end of his long reign had committed the huge imperial faux pas of getting sick without siring any [...]

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