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November 22, 2024
 

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Philip Brasor
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 11, 2003
Radiohead: "Hail to the Thief"
According to Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke, the cover art of the new album, "Hail to the Thief," is a road map made up of blocks of words that "rang bells" in his head whenever he listened to commentary about 9/11 and its political aftermath. Radiohead has always invited as much interpretation as the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 8, 2003
The police should be mapping out a future
Every year, the National Police Agency sponsors a nationwide traffic safety promotion campaign that is mainly carried out at the community level. In my neighborhood in Tokyo, the campaign involves setting up tents that are manned by local volunteers.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 1, 2003
Travel or reality show? A bit of both and neither
The TV Tokyo series, "Inaka ni Tomaro" ("Let's Spend the Night in the Countryside"; Sunday 7 p.m.), which started several months ago, is categorized as a travel show, but its appeal is similar to that which characterizes reality shows, namely the spectacle of people placed in real-life situations that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 28, 2003
Arab Strap: "Monday at the Hug and Pint"
The Scottish duo Arab Strap are the poet laureates of alcohol-induced sexual torpor. Vocalist Aidan Moffatt's slurred, sotto voce ramblings about unpretty girls picked up in seedy bars and bedded in a haze of beer and E would normally be an acquired taste, but in the U.K. the group's songs have graced...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 25, 2003
Time to examine different approaches toward education
The eradication of illiteracy throughout the world is an ongoing endeavor and a noble one. However, in countries where the vast majority of the population can now read and write, those populations did not, as the German poet-essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger once said, learn to do so "because they felt...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 21, 2003
Mira Calix: "Shimskitta"
The music of Mira Calix -- Chantal Passamonte to her friends and family back in Durban, South Africa -- is neither composed nor produced on a computer, though it sounds as if it was. Having burnished her ambient techno style at Warp Records, England's premier "laptop-music" label where she worked in...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 18, 2003
Tama-chan's secret link to white-robed cultists
You have to hand it to Tama-chan. The superstar bearded seal has caused some lively public discussion about important social issues. Because of Tama-chan, people have started talking about the disgusting state of the country's rivers, the cavalierly cruel treatment of animals, the impact that rubber-stamped...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 14, 2003
New Pornographers: "Mass Romantic"
In the liner notes of the New Pornographers' debut album, "Mass Romantic," the anonymous band member who wrote them betrays confidence that the record is a good one while continually confessing that most of the details -- such as who played what on which track -- are not clear. The album was recorded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 2003
Grrrls grrrls grrrls
A few weeks ago, Courtney Love placed an ad in the Village Voice for a new set of backing musicians. She not unreasonably specified that they had to be able to play their instruments. Not just that, but they had to be female. And not just female -- but "goddesses."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 11, 2003
Bailing the banks while letting the debtors die
Reportedly, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to address suicide, which has becomes something of an epidemic over the past decade as the economy continues its skid into the void.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 7, 2003
Banda Bassotti
A prominent critic once called the Clash "the only band that mattered," a comment that went beyond appreciation of the band's punk sound and acknowledged its radical political outlook.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 4, 2003
The Great Sasuke faces up to political reality
Two recent news items prompted an interesting digression in Asahi Shimbun's unattributed "Tensei Jingo" column April 23. Making initially veiled references to Lower House lawmaker Kenshiro Matsunami's alleged links with underworld figures and the election last month of professional wrestler the Great...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 30, 2003
Matthew Sweet: "Kimi ga Suki * Life"
When applied to pop musicians, the term "big in Japan" tends to be pejorative, as if Japanese fans were less discriminating than those in the rest of the world. The only way to dispel the condescension inherent in the term is by example.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 27, 2003
Life is one big show -- at least for Mino
On April 18, TV Asahi premiered a new quiz show called "Thumbs Up," hosted by Monta Mino. Until this show, Asahi was the only commercial network that hadn't hired Mino to helm a regular series, which means the gruff emcee is now approaching omnipresence. He hosts eight prime-time programs a week in addition...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 23, 2003
The Kills
The critical lowdown on The Kills includes the belief that the band would not have attracted the attention it has if it weren't for The White Stripes, since The Kills are also a boy-girl duo who play blues-based loud rock. But couldn't the opposite be just as true? It sounds impossible, since the Stripes...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 20, 2003
Looting the media for the best frontline news
Every Japanese TV network has female anchors, but Nippon TV seems to use more women in their news shows than any other. It was also the only commercial Japanese network to have a female "embed" reporting from Iraq. Since there weren't too many embedded women reporters in the first place, she naturally...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 16, 2003
Tibet Freedom Concert
The fall of Baghdad happened so quickly that no one had time to come up with an antiwar song that spoke to our doubts and fears and resentments of the military-industrial complex. No "Masters of War," not even a "Fixin' to Die Rag."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 13, 2003
Matsui, Matsui . . . and a little more Matsui
Because of coverage of the invasion of Iraq, it feels as if we're being spared the all-Matsui-all-the-time media blitz we were promised last fall when the former Yomiuri Giants slugger, Hideki Matsui, signed with the New York Yankees. We aren't. Matsui madness is everywhere, but because the war has engaged...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 9, 2003
Blood Brothers: "Burn Piano Island, Burn"
Though "Burn Piano Island, Burn," the third album by Seattle's Blood Brothers, has been hailed by headbangers as the first hard rock record in a while that will actually scare parents to death, its real value is in the way it reconfigures hardcore for fans who've become bored with hardcore's predictability....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 6, 2003
Selfishness and greed motor the American Dream
Watching the war in Iraq from the vantage point of Japan, you don't get as much of the propaganda-like white noise that accompanies the coverage if you're watching it from the United States or the Middle East. But that doesn't mean you get less information.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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