“Empty Cities”—a meditation on Las Vegas and Pyongyang, NYR Daily, the New York Review of Books blog, August 13, 2015.
“History Has no Place’”—a mistitled essay on Japan’s unsentimental taking care of sentiment—New York Times T Magazine, August 23, 2015.
“The Disappearance of Self in Japan”—an essay for the Berggruen Institute of Philosophy and Culture—Huffnington (World) Post, October 13, 2015.
“From Silence, Clarity”—a brief essay on the New Camaldoli Hermitage, appearing in Coast (The Orange Country Register magazine), October 25, 2015 and in The Orange County Register itself on December 20, 2015.
“The Unreal World”—an essay on authenticity in travel, New York Times T Magazine, November 15, 2015
Ikiru Many Autumns Later—an essay for Criterion DVD’s reissue of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru on November 23, 2015, which appeared, under a different title, on NYR Daily, the New York Review of Books blog, on December 30, 2015.