NUMBER 61

From Japanese writer Yoko Tawada, a rumination on snowless winters in Tokyo.

NEPAL – A provincial Hindu festival during which some 250,000 animals are ritualistically slaughtered for Gadhimai, a goddess of power, began today in earnest.

Zombies, he tells us, are real, not some figment of the collective Haitian imagination but men and women who have died (or rather who appear to have died), been buried, then brought back to life to pass the rest of their days as imbecile slaves.

We’re talking real imaginary zombies—the voodoo kind, not the braiiiins kind. Mischa Berlinski tells the tale in the September issue of Men’s Journal.

One of my favorite things on McSweeney’s: David Orr, laid off during our Great Recession, bought a one-way ticket to India and began wandering. (And writing!)

Dispatch One / Two / Three / Four

Via Coudal. Photographer Toby de Silva’s pictures of Aokigahara, an eerie-looking forest at the base of Mount Fuji that also happens to be one of the world’s hottest destinations for suicides.

Intrepid young graphic designer buys an All-You-Can-Jet pass from JetBlue and sets out to visit and see – from tarmacs and terminals – 43 cities in 30 days.

He made a site, The 30-Day Flight and intends to chronicle his journey.

Yesterday – Day 10 – the guy sitting next to him was the guy who designed the ambient music system at Walt Disney World.