Lives of the Golden Geeks Dept.

I'm a great believer in the hidden lives, buried in obscurity, who secretly shape our worlds. I sometimes flatter myself to believe that in my own miniscule way, maybe I've been one of them. Then there's this guy...

He calls himself Joi Ito and he blogs occasionally on Japanese Culture, which is how I noticed him. I thought he was an American lost in the Kansai wilderness, trying to teach English in that dwindling market. Nope. Native-born Japanese, from a Todai-class mom and a business-class dad, or was it vice-versa, who spent some time in the States as a boy in the company of a nanny whose happy associations earned him to this day the nickname Jon-Jon among the geishas and maikos of Kyoto. (Quoting here... ;-)

He also happens to be the CEO of Creative Commons. One of the gods of geek, in other words, like Naruto, only more so. And the only thing wrong with his English is that he occasionally drops the "-ly" from his adverbs and shows a slight predilection for the null-set article ("I bought book"). I've met Noo Yawk bubblegummers who don't get that right.