Features
The Don Magazine Features is an archive of writing drawn from across the magazine’s issues — a place to dip in and spend some time. Take a look at the fiction, poetry, essays, and interviews that have defined Don so far. You might revisit a favorite piece or come across something you missed the first time.
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Wake Me Up Before You Rakugo
姿勢は正しく、服装も整っている。それだけでまん月（本名：松本倭）に会ったら、経済学を学ぶ大学生というより、伝統文化の詳しい人と話していると思ってしまう。しかし、この落語家は歴史の講義をするつもりはない。「落語をするときには…もちろん楽しい物語を観客に届けたい。笑ってほしい。でもそれだけじゃなく、雰囲気を作り出したいんだ。たいてい江戸時代や明治時代の落とし噺を語るから、その時代の雰囲気を観客に感じてもらいたい。」
Perfect posture, smartly-dressed: If you were to meet Mangetsu (real name: Yamato Matsumoto), you'd be forgiven for thinking you were talking to an expert on Edo traditions, not a 20-year economics student. However this Rakugo performer has no intention of giving you a history lecture. "When I perform Rakugo, I try to... Well of course I want to make the story fun and enjoyable for the audience. I want people to laugh. But on top of that I want to create an atmosphere. Most of the stories I perform are from the Edo and Meiji era, and I want the audience to experience and feel the atmosphere of those time periods."
5th Biennial Conference of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Speculative Entomologists Society (A.S.S.E.S. 5)
The Species War
I am in the future now. I’m here / now fighting in the war. You can call me GaBBriel.
From early on, it was pretty obvious the trees would win the war. The fighting that continued was just to determine how much the trees would reduce the rest of us to soot, goo or servitude. Most of the SpeciesWar happened before my time, but I was born into a resistance hive and heard all about it. “Heard” is, of course, the wrong term. Hearing is a human sense that I only know through an implant, but this message is for humans, so I’ll make some concessions for your cultural senses.
The Workshop
All the students except for Kai looked their usual selves, sitting with their backs on their chairs, their arms draped casually on their sides. Kai sat in his usual seat, the middle seat of an unusually long table that made it impossible for him to see the faces of those that sat on his side. He leaned back on his chair casually, hoping he could at least copy everyone else’s postures. Whatever it took to blend in, he was doing it.