What is a Chaldron? (And Other Stuff)

So I'm well now. Thanks, all, for the kind wishes and the birthday greetings.

I've been taking a lot of photos lately, so today I'll just run some photos with some recently arrived links, some remarks about the current state of my free software…plus a discussion of Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City with a particular focus on the question, "What is a chaldron?"

My artist friend COOP told me about a site with information about Kanegon—if you scroll way down on the page linked to, you can find...