Japan

Strawberry yields forever

Looking to impress your girl in NYC? Order her some Omakase berries from Oishii. Although they’ll probably be the most expensive strawberries you’ll ever buy in the States, a pack of eight, hand-delivered to you at a secret rendezvous in the Oculus at the World Trade Center, will still only set you back $50. That, as you’ll know if you’re inclined towards thrift in courtship, is significantly less than a dinner date within the same city precincts. Word on the street is that these berries are so good (a subtle hint is provided in the company name, Oishii, which means ‘delicious’ in Japanese) that you can be served a single one as dessert at a Michelin-starred joint in Manhattan and not feel gypped.

strawberry

A brief history of selling bath water

Instagram model Belle Delphine made waves in the news this month after she decided to sell tubs of her own bath water for $30 a pop. The ‘product’ sold out in just three days, and led to a bountiful trove of online content, including my own review for Spectator USA. But Delphine isn’t the first person to sell bath water to her followers. Shoko Asahara, founder of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo and the man behind the Tokyo subway sarin gas terrorist attack in 1995, which killed 12 people and injured over 1,000 more, also sold his own bath water to devotees who drank it during rituals.

belle delphine bath water

Trump: American shogun

Japan has a new emperor, and so do we. Donald Trump isn’t merely president. He wants to be America’s shogun. Already Trump has repeatedly made his contempt for his Cabinet officials and staffers plain as he routinely forces them to line up and sing his praises. Now, in an episode that is more redolent of H.M.S. Pinafore than Top Gun, TVSG, or The Very Stable Genius, is enmeshed in an embarrassing brouhaha over the USS John S. McCain, which was inconveniently parked off the shores of Japan, where Trump might see it. Klaxons apparently started sounding in the White House over Trump’s Memorial Day visit to Japan. It was time to clear the decks. Under no circumstances could Trump be allowed to espy the dreaded name ‘McCain.’ It would harsh his mellow.

donald trump fundraiser shogun