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August 15, 2024
 

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Philip Brasor
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 16, 2004
Shooting politicians in a barrel more fun than addressing pension problem
In the past two weeks the pension scandal that has touched so many lawmakers has progressed from a political embarrassment to pure farce. The offered reason for regret is that the people's "trust in politics" has been damaged, a suggestion that's risible even under normal circumstances.
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2004
Farmers Market
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2004
Joanna Newsom: "The Milk-Eyed Mender"
In pop, romance poetry and childlike sopranos go together like milk and cookies, and are often just as cloyingly sweet. From Joni Mitchell to Bjork, the ethereal method always sounds like a teenage girl with a crush on Byron. Joanna Newsom, who grew up in rural California, springs from this mold fully...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 9, 2004
If only divorces were scripted by TV writers
It's easier to get a divorce in Japan than anywhere else in the world. If both parties agree, all they have to do is affix their seals to a document and their union is instantly dissolved -- no trial separation period, no grounds, no mess.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 2, 2004
Japan welcomes students, but you might end up majoring in crime
The controversy over the increase in crimes committed by foreigners in Japan is centered mainly on appearances and interpretation. The National Police Agency's use of statistics to show that "foreign crime" is on the rise has given the agency license to initiate policies that many people, both Japanese...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 2, 2004
Mary J. Blige
Four years ago, the queen of hip-hop soul said she was through with drama, but Mary J. Blige without drama is like rain without water: No major R&B artist who emerged in the '90s has plumbed her own psychological depths so effectively without embarrassing herself. What she probably meant was that it's...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 25, 2004
Bob Dylan: "Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall"
The striking thing about the latest addition to the "Bootleg Series" is the realization that four years into his career Bob Dylan was still a callow youth. The concert took place Halloween night, 1964, a year after the Kennedy assassination, nine months after The Beatles conquered America, but a year...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 25, 2004
Shame lies with government and media over Iraq hostage crisis
Last week, the Asahi Shimbun ran an opinion piece by writer Genichiro Takahashi that was in the form of an advice column. The anonymous advice-seeker professed to having suffered the same fate as the three Japanese hostages who returned from Iraq to a chorus of derision. After all I went through, said...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 18, 2004
Media favors Al-Jazeera over government
In his new book, "The Unconquerable World," Jonathan Schell explains how "people's war" came to be the dominant form of international conflict in the nuclear age. People's war subordinates all aspects of warfare to politics, because only through politics can the strength of the people be harnessed to...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2004
"C'mon Miracle": Mirah
Wielding the purest voice of anyone on the Pacific Northwest indie scene, Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn has become the token female singer-songwriter on Calvin Johnson's proudly lo-fi K Records label, and is probably more famous for her work with Phil Elvrum's psych-pop band The Microphones than she is for her...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 11, 2004
Chosuke Ikariya: the professional amateur
In his autobiography, Chosuke Ikariya, who died two weeks ago at the age of 72, mentions that when he won a Japan Academy Award in 1999 for his performance in "Odoru Daisosasen (Bayside Shakedown)" he felt guilty because he had never taken acting that seriously. It sounds like the requisite modesty of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 11, 2004
Stereolab
With their Francophone vocalist and doctrinaire allegiance to analog synthesizers, Stereolab tread a fine line between arty brilliance and frothy silliness. The Marxist proselytizers who emerged on their early albums have evolved into lounge aesthetes who still know a rock tune when they play it. Tim...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 4, 2004
A responsible attitude needed toward 'privacy'
Everybody knows what they mean when they say "privacy," but when it's used in a legal context the word turns squishy and slippery. For instance, it's difficult to grasp why Barbra Streisand sued a photographer last year for invasion of privacy because her estate appeared in two aerial pictures he took...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 4, 2004
Dead Kennedys: "Live at the Deaf Club"
March 1979. The relatively benign Jimmy Carter was in the White House, the Zen-liberal Jerry Brown, Jr., in Sacramento. It may have been over-reaching of San Francisco's most stridently political hardcore band, The Dead Kennedys, to characterize the West Coast as a Nazi police state in "California Uber...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 28, 2004
Missy Elliott
What becomes a legend most? In Missy Elliott's case, it's not the minimal beats, which were revolutionary before their time, or the effortless wordplay that sticks to the roof of your brain, but rather an attitude that cuts straight through the usual hip-hop nonsense and speaks directly to her audience....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 28, 2004
Freedom is flagging in Japan's public-school system
Few people are probably aware that the national flags of many countries are not, strictly speaking, national flags. There is no law, for example, that designates the Union Jack as the national flag of the U.K. In most countries, the national flag and national anthem are defined, as such, by custom rather...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 24, 2004
Prince of Darkness
Why did Melt Banana, a local avant-punk band, open for Bonnie "Prince" Billy on his first-ever concert tour of Japan. Simple: Melt Banana like the music of Will Oldham, the man behind the moniker, and wanted to be part of his final show at O'Nest in Shibuya.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2004
Of Montreal: "Satanic Panic in the Attic"
Many bands belonged to the now defunct Elephant 6 indie collective, but Of Montreal was definitely the most interesting. Leader Kevin Barnes is one of those snotty kid geniuses who releases everything that pops into his head, and while much of it is tripe, the good stuff is so good that the inconsistency...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 21, 2004
'Mister' is a god, but he's not immortal
Former Village Voice media critic Tom Carson once wrote an essay in which he blasted the style imperative subscribed to by American men's magazines. These publications had invested so heavily in a certain male image that they couldn't imagine anything else. "You want to strike terror in the hearts of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2004
Nothing lost in translation of mum music
It's important to say the band's name correctly: mum, which is always written without an initial capital letter, is pronounced "moom." The band itself is from Iceland, and the name has no meaning.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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