-
2 days ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
Let me start here by saying that I haven’t followed the New York City mayoral race particularly, and I mostly know that eventually New Yorkers will want a new mayor—at least, few former New York mayors seem to end up widely well regarded.
-
3 days ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
Take a look at this vacant strip plaza (image from 2021) in Arlington, Virginia, at the major intersection of Columbia Pike and Glebe Road:That spot just to the left of the old Boston Market, in this image a title loans shop, is the one we’re interested in today. Until late 2017, it was this: sorry for the image quality, the name is Dave’s Seafood and Subs:Now you might be wondering if that’s important, and no, it isn’t.
-
4 days ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
I describe this newsletter as being about “mostly urbanism,” and today’s piece is one of the reasons I say “mostly.” I’m writing about a video game today, kind of a wandering review of a game I’ve been playing on the Nintendo Switch. It’s a 2019 game by a small Brazilian developer called Blazing Chrome, that pays homage to the big names in the run-and-gun genre, Contra and Metal Slug.
-
5 days ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
One of the things I read about while getting ready for our vacation in Japan were these famous tiny businesses: bars or izakayas with four seats, narrow little bookstores or record shops in people’s houses or the bottom floors of small buildings, hyper-specialized or themed bars owned by one passionate guy. (There’s one that’s chock-full of Star Wars memorabilia, for example.)We got to visit a couple of such places, and saw many more from the street.
-
1 week ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
I’ve been thinking about stuff. Possessions. There’s a kind of abstracted, Westernized version of Buddhism—and I believe the concept is in the genuine article, too—that the way to be happy is not to have everything you want, but to not want anything. Desire is the source of unhappiness. Jesus taught something analogous: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think about that a lot. “Desire is the root of unhappiness” may or may not be metaphysically true.
-
1 week ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
Who drank all the matcha? How tourism drained a Japanese town, BBC, Marina Wang, June 6, 2025First of all, yes, we visited Uji and tried to buy matcha powder from one of the famous stores. We ended up finding some in Kyoto. There really is a big matcha fad right now, and no doubt a lot of the people buying the stuff don’t quite appreciate it or know what to do with it.
-
1 week ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
My HOA keeps sending out updates about a proposed apartment project on HOA-governed grounds, assuring us that they’re doing everything they can to stop it and that they hear our concerns. I wrote about that proposal in my neighborhood, my first experience listening in on a public input session, and how absurd our whole land-use system is. I wrote a lot in that piece, but I keep thinking about this bit.
-
1 week ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
I want to show you the Old Stone Bank building in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1854 (the dome and upper part are from 1898, and it was expanded in 1956). It’s a stately granite structure with a dome, a classic example of the kind of architecture that important commercial and civic buildings used to get. We passed it while doing a walking tour in Providence, the tour being one of the Strong Towns National Gathering conference sessions.
-
1 week ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
I remember, back when Pope Francis was elected, there was this little graphic that went around. It was in response, I think, to the feeling among some conservative Catholics that Francis wasn’t enough of a doctrinal hardliner:I remembered this while thinking about urbanism and the different flavors or strands of urbanism: the doctrinaire New Urbanists, the activisty YIMBYs, the folks who like historic towns and cities but are wary of “experts” trying to do it again, etc.
-
1 week ago | 
thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro
I got home a few days ago from the Strong Towns National Gathering in Providence, Rhode Island. I went to last year’s in Cincinnati, and while I had, and have, a lot of session notes and great conversations, I think what stands out the most to me from these gatherings is the cities themselves. Cincinnati is a city I still occasionally think about, which is more than I can say for a lot of places I visit.