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Jim Rion

@jimrion.com

1.4K followers 590 following 2K posts

Peace, please, peace for all. Translator (Strange Pictures, Strange Houses, etc.). Japanese horror devourer. Bird picture taker Co-host of Sake Deep Dive podcast. 英訳者：「悪魔がきたれて、笛をふく」「変な家」「変な絵」等等執筆者：「Discovering Yamaguchi Sake」 20周年日本在中山口県万歳🙌

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3h

Just some shots from the morning's walk. #Birds

On today’s walk

Three snapshots of neighborhood wildlife.

jimrion.com

Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3h

Happy birthday!

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 1d

SHIT I didn't even realize a new JHJ was coming out! I'm a bad fanboy.

Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 1d

LOL. But that helps, because it felt somehow nostalgic and now I get it. She still brings that Breeders vibe (and a bit of Pixies?) to bear.

Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 1d

Thank you for turning me on to these.
Personally, that Kim Deal album is 🤌💋❤️.

Reposted by Jim Rion

Taylor Drew @mollymay5000.bsky.social · 1d

Nothing like a client telling you that they think you did a wonderful job on the translation! Even better when that translation is based on the dialect you grew up speaking. Feels good, friends 🥹

#AmTranslating

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 2d

Pretty sure I'm just going to move over to my own blog for posting pretty soon. Just autopost to social media to spread the word?
Dunno. I'm just fed up with fucking everything these days.

Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 2d

Good Boy was well worth pre-ordering, and now that it's out, everyone who likes scary stories and good dogs should pick it up asap. #Books #Horror

Book Review – Good Boy

A short review of Good Boy by Neil McRobert, which Jim loved.

jimrion.com

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Reposted by Jim Rion

Dr Eleanor Janega @goingmedieval.bsky.social · 2d

I am being forced to read The Secret of Secrets for work by my "friends" and Dan Brown is so loudly and confidently wrong about everything and I want to tear my hair out.

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 2d

Yay! I have a lot of elderly neighbors and the worry is real.

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 2d

Jim opens up a bit about trying to, well, be more open to the world. This time, he does it via a book market in nearby Hakata. #Books #BungakuFreeMarket #文学フリマ福岡11 ＃文学フリマで買った本

Bathing in Book Love

A bit of personal introspection about Jim and his search for human connection through books.

jimrion.com

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Reposted by Jim Rion

Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 3d

also disinclined to switch to a different atproto-based server because I mean I already left mastodon on purpose and don't feel the need to see it rebuilt from scratch

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Reposted by Jim Rion

jenny.rip 🪦🪱 @hacksawjenny.rip · 3d

I recently went to a neurologist and the first thing he said to me was "You don't use AI do you? Good. These studies just keep coming in about how they're destroying cognitive ability and brain function. Anyway, what are you here for today?"

Can we please stop defending this stuff?

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

Oh, those version steps can really mess things up sometimes. Even just in Word.

Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

No idea. Maybe some unusual formatting?

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

I got a new 23mm f1.8 TTartisan prime autofocus lens for "walkin' around" pictures and it's honestly pretty great. Especially at 23,000 yen. Fast, reliable autofocus, and sharp enough for these old eyes. It shows the two gantry cranes waaaay in the distance of pic 2.

An urban shot. A gridded, concrete building to the left is reflected in building windows to the right.

A short over the rooftops of Fukuoka. A gantry crane stands to the left foreground. In the far distant center, two more stand atop a construction site.

Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

I use LibreOffice for all my work these days, including tracked changes in DOCX format book manuscripts for publishing (I'm a translator, not a writer, but same issues, I think?). No problems yet, six months in.

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Reposted by Jim Rion

Kelly Haavy @kellyhaavy.bsky.social · 3d

My favorite rice paddy update: before and after the harvest.

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

なんとなく買った本だけど、暗いやつばっかり。読むのはお楽しみです。

#文学フリマ福岡11
#文学フリマで買った本

6冊の本。「月鱗のナツキ」「異常識探偵Honest Hornet」「蛇典」「完璧な家族の作り方」「千字小説蒐」「ぐひんの山」

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

Also, I spied something strange at Maruzen books in Hakata Station!
#Books

A bookshelf with many books, including Strange Houses and Strange Pictures by Uketsu, translation by Jim Rion. That's me.

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 3d

Man, I bought so many books today. Holy smokes.

Reposted by Jim Rion

Guillermo del Toro @realgdt.bsky.social · 3d

IF you are going to Pan’s Labyrinth’s Screening at Beyond Fest in LA… Don’t make plans after that… Feed the parking meter.

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Reposted by Jim Rion

Emily C. Hughes @emilyhughes.bsky.social · 4d

all the press around the Ed Gein show seems to insist that Robert Bloch used Gein as the inspiration for Norman Bates - it’s become the accepted narrative - but here’s the thing: he didn’t!

screenshot from robertbloch.net
(Audience question regarding the aspects of the Ed Gein murder case as they have supposedly, "historically" applied to Psycho. This otherwise cliched question rates inclusion here because of the breadth of Bob's definitive answer.)
BOB: First of all, I didn't know anything about those aspects when I wrote Psycho. I did not use Ed Gein as a basis for Norman Bates at all; I used the circumstances, which were: somebody could live in a small town, where everybody knows everybody else's business, and conduct a series of murders without anyone suspecting. But people don't like this. They like to believe the legend. When you get right down to it, Ed Gein did not run a motel. He killed nobody in the shower. He did not preserve the body of his mother. None of those things were part of Mr. Gein's background. I invented a character at the time which, not having read the details, which were not being printed initially or immediately, because they were very prudish in most cases. Life magazine and a few other publications later came out with a great deal of stuff, but I would not have used it even if it had been available, because it didn't meet with my particular plot requirements.
But the legend persists, and will continue to persist.
A little over two weeks ago, I think, a network show called Hard Copy asked if they could interview me regarding Psycho. I said I did not want to be interviewed; I didn't want to go down to a studio.
They said, "We'll send a crew out." I said to myself, well, if it's good enough for Ackerman, it's good enough for me...

screenshot continued
They came, and throughout this interview they kept asking, "Didn't you think of Norman Bates because of Ed Gein?"
Didn't Ed Gein inspire the
characterization, and blah-blah-blah. I kept telling them what I just told you, and the interviewer and crew kept looking sadder. And sadder. I said to myself this isn't going to happen.
Sure enough, the show came on, and they'd gone to Plainfield, which had been Gein's home town, and they did a very nice broadcast regarding the case, and they used some dramatization footage which I swear was probably part of a documentary that had been made at the time, because it was in black and white instead of color, and was not aired because it was undoubtedly too strong for audiences then. They salvaged that and put together this program. And I was a non-person. I didn't exist. My name wasn't mentioned, and I certainly did not appear onscreen.
Obviously, if I had, they would not have had a program, because their title was The Inside Story: The Truth About the Ed Gein Murders! And my denials were the exact antithesis.
This is a horrible lesson in how easy it is for media, today, to distort by omission, or by any kind of editing, what actually happened, what occurred.
What I'm citing is trivial; it doesn't mean anything one way or the other. But think of the implications-how this sort of censorship and willful distortion affects so called "news" reporting, and so-called documentaries, on various topics that are of social or historical importance to an audience. And that's something that scares me far more than the activities of Mr. Gein.

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Jim Rion @jimrion.com · 4d

Any book lovers in the Hakata area want to meet up at the Bungaku Free Market tomorrow?
Books! Yay!

文学フリマ福岡11 - 2025/10/5(日)

開催 2025年10月5日(日) 時間 11:00〜16:00(最終入場15:55) 入場料無料出店 484出店・545ブース出店者Webカタログ会場博多国際展示場&カンファレンスセンター 3F &nb ...

bunfree.net

Reposted by Jim Rion

Davenant 📸 @marcdavenant.bsky.social · 4d

One of the most useful apps for planning outdoor photo shoots is TPE. Shows the direction of the sun and moon at any location, date and time. This is how the sun will fall on Wandsworth Prison today, for a photo I’m doing for the ‘Rebellion!’ exhibition.

Map showing the direction of sunrise, sunset and moonrise with timings

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