How often do you slow down? I don’t slow down, enough.
On rules, Tendon, and the Classroon
“They had rules, and you had better obey those rules,” wrote Craig Mod of Imoya, a small, six-seat tendon restaurant he frequented as an American student in Japan in 2002 (Mod 2005). It was run by a cantankerous couple who served bowls of tendon to hungry, poor students—to hundreds of thousands of them over 50 years. The tendon was out of this world. Mod called it Michelin-star quality at McDonald’s prices. The restaurant was crowded. To keep people moving, it had rules. The cook’s wife was the enforcer.
No talking, only eating. That first rule. No books either. Get the customers through. Only eating. The wife would yell at you should you talk, or, God forbid, take out a book.
Phones? Heaven forbid. Phones in Japan in 2002 were flip phones, not the black doom-scrolling vehicles of distraction that we have today. There were no phones in Imoya. For five decades, it offered food at the lowest price for hungry students. There were no phones, no books, and no talking.
From 18 until I did fieldwork in 2010, or so, I never had a phone. I was bored and walked and traveled and daydreamed a lot. I had no phone. I did have a black and white, portable computer. Whether through being a poor student, or through luck of being of a certain generation, the “rules” I had to live by gave me time to think.
Mod remembers jazz clubs too. They had their rules. They were a remnant of a time when the only way to listen to new American music was in a club. The clubs that sprang up in the 1960s and 1970s in Japan were the only place to hear American music. (Haruki Murakami started a jazz club before he became a writer. That is the extent of my familiarity with the scene.) Mod says the jazz clubs were for listening to music, but not talking. Request a song, and you’d better be there when it played. (No bathroom breaks.) You went to listen. It was long before Spotify and Apple Music.
Mod wonders, what if cafes banned phones again? Or restaurants? What about university classrooms? Elementary schools and high schools are banning them. What if we did too, in the classroom? Ban computers and phones.
It would go badly, of course. These are useful tools at times. But why not have some cantankerous rules?
What would cantankerous rules in a classroom look like? What about a writer’s rules? Or an editor’s rules?
I’m not sure you can do that in the classroom. But there’s a place for contextual rules, maybe—rules that shift depending on the situation. A time for computers and notes, but a time for listening, for no phones, for talking. A time for paper and notebooks.
Why not make times for conversation, for experimentation with computers and large language models, for working on a computer or device, on paper and notebooks, for a walk.
What if we had rules for being a writer, a professor, a reader, a father, an academic? What if we had ways to keep them from overlapping?
But Imoya’s rules were enforced.
How would you enforce rules for yourself, or for students, like the woman in the tiny Imoya tendon restaurant near Waseda University in 2002?
Who will scream at you: no phone, no computer, no books? Who will give you time to eat and think?
Mad rules might help.
References
Mod, Craig. 2025. “No Phones in The Ten-don Shop: Thinking about shops with rules and how we could use some more.” https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/218/.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (20/31)
It’s been a while. I’m going to try to get back to the book. Sometimes a check in, and a check out is a good way to proceed. So, today, I’m checking in to work on the makeshift chapter.
Tasks
- [ ] Code everything in the old makeshift book
- [ ] Review text coded makeshift, and code it again
- [ ] Find relevant “shorts”
- [ ] Find a tentative structure for the chapter
- [ ] Make an outline with word count
- [ ] Put words into outline
- [ ] Cut, edit, revise to fit
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (19/31)
It’s been a month, I got side tracked with administrative work, curriculum write, writing plans, the beginning of term, and simply haven’t worked on Makeshift since August 21. No matter. This morning, I got into it again. Didn’t get a post done, but did write some notes on a chapter I in August about the write of the poor to think. That will be one post. I also brought together all my coded notes on Deep Writing, which I’ll come back to tomorrow. I updated my writing log. I’ll be back at it tomorrow.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (18/31)
Back from camping. Wasn’t sure where to start. So, I revised and finished a draft of a few notes. Imagine Second Fieldwork / Writers, Agency, and Control? / An impromptu method, not a scientific one. Posted to the newsletter.
Writing while camping is not easy. I did a few posts, but it’s harder to find the time to focus. Also, being of the computer makes things much slower.
It’s been a month since I started this, and I’ve sent 60 of these notes. Not nearly 100%, but much better than I had before. I’ve also got about 31,000 words. I’m going to keep at it, for another month. See where I get to.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (17/31)
Short post today. I’ve been camping, running, driving, and am behind on these posts. But, no matter. Today, I posted a short piece on practice and writing as a memoir. Not sure my word count, but it’s getting there. Slowly going up.
Some other thoughts. Writing with DevonThink to find similar words, is very useful. Writing with a folder to put words that might be useful, but not here, is excellent. Writing in the slip box, as a folder of text files great, but you can use other tools to work with the text. Lots to write about on teh process of writing from a zettlekasten.
But, to today.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (16/31)
It’s Friday. I went camping from Monday till Thursday. Lots of driving. Tadoussac in Quebec was spectacular. I had no idea. What was the consequence? I edited a long piece before I left, which was something I’d written a few months ago, but I edited and finished it. It was likely a chapter, 8,000 words. This morning, I posted two short pieces, again that I’d already written and revised. These were 1,500 words.
The point isn’t always new words.
Nor is it to beat yourself up for “missing” three days. But it’s to come back to it.
For both what I wrote today and what I “wrote” on Monday, I didn’t go back to my fichero to find notes to bring similar text together. I’ll need to do that. But I suspect it’s going to be an editing step at some point.
But for now, in the midst of summer holidays, helping students finish their thesis, prepping for the term, I’m posting regularly enough to 789 Serialized, and I’m making some steady progress on the Atarraya book.
I think back to Craig Mod’s early posts, and I realize on Things Become Other Things, which inspired me for this mad rule. And I realize, I’m in the even earlier stage than he was when he started. I’m still doing the daily writing, as he would do one of his long walks. In short, a book is more like a steady accreditation of pieces than a rush. So I need to keep resisting the urge to rush.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (15/31)
This is a three for one day. I wrote, but didn’t post a piece two days ago. Didn’t post yesterday. So, this morning I posed what I wrote, revised one from yesterday, and did one from today.
I’m caught up. But, behind.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (14/31)
Today’s post, another quick one. This time, on Trying to Get Ahead. The process is working well. Find a topic in the notes, don’t think too much. Bring all various notes on the same topic together. Read it. Delete duplication. Find a first order. Edit it. Work out a better order. Cut. File notes that don’t find in a too code folder. Revise. File. Post. Update the writer’s log. Move on. All this, after a morning stacking firewood. A good day.
Weaving and Atarraya: A Diary of Book Making (13/31)
A post a day, without too much forethought. That seems to be my mantra these days. I did a bunch on Fichero late last night, and this morning did some work on a GUI. But, then I had a swim, and then sat down around 4:00 pm to do my words for the day. I edited about 1500 words. It’s good. The part on self help for writers. Tomorrow, I’ll do something else. But, for now. I’m happy that I’m making steady publications, and the words aren’t so bad.