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November 26, 2024

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CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Nov 17, 2002

Conveying messages of unity

It is estimated that an average of 220 people "evaporate" every day in Japan. The reasons are many, but can mostly be reduced to debt, love affairs, personal tragedy and involvement in crimes. And with no end in sight for the recession, the number is increasing year by year. Last year, about 80,000 Japanese...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Nov 13, 2002

Dishonor avenged, love avowed

By Rei Sasaguchi

This month, following the lead of the Kabukiza, the National Theater in Tokyo also presents "Kanadehon Chushingura (The 47 Loyal Retainers)" to mark the upcoming 300th anniversary of the famous act of revenge carried out by the 47 ronin (masterless samurai) on the night of Dec. 14, 1702 (on the old calendar)....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Nov 13, 2002

Little Creatures

By Suzannah Tartan

Little Creatures' 12-year career is a catalog of restless musical curiosity. Though their first moody releases were vaguely trip hop, their subsequent work defies categorization. Recent releases have touched on drum 'n' bass and jazzy Tortoise-like turns. ,fusing traditional instruments and electronics...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE

Nov 13, 2002

Look again at potting traditions

By Robert Yellin

In the world of Japanese ceramics, certain styles have clearly defined identities that have been appreciated down the centuries. Mere mention of Bizen pottery will likely bring to mind a rustic, brown, natural ash-glazed style.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Nov 13, 2002

"Tokyo: the Sex, the City, the Music"

By Philip Brasor

Just what we need: another Japanese club-music compilation. I still get a lot of enjoyment out of the old "Dance 2 Noise" series, and the "Sushi 3003" collection is what I usually recommend to the uninitiated. However, "Sushi" came out in '96, and while even a cursory listen to "Tokyo: the Sex, the City,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Nov 13, 2002

Pavement: "Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe and Redux"

By Jaosn Jenkins

Pavement fans should prepare to be very happy. Ten years after their lo-fi opus, "Slanted and Enchanted," blew our minds, the folks at Matador Records have released "Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe and Redux," a double CD containing the original album along with 34 (count 'em, THIR-TY-FOUR) additional tracks....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Nov 13, 2002

The garden of Escher delights

By Victoria James

"Mathematicians," wrote M.C. Escher in a 1958 essay, "have opened the gate leading to an extensive domain, but they have not entered this domain themselves. By their very nature they are more interested in the way in which the gate is opened than in the garden lying behind it."

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Nov 13, 2002

The Archie Shepp Quartet

By Michael Pronko

Archie Shepp was handed the free-jazz mantle directly from John Coltrane. After contributing tenor sax to Coltrane's quintessential "Ascension" recording in 1965, Shepp went on to record his own series of visceral works in a similar revolutionary style. With a group of like-minded players, Shepp continued...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 10, 2002

Coming of age in Heartbreak Hotel, New Jersey

By Leza Lowitz

WAYLAID, by Ed Lin. Kaya Press: New York, 2002, 169 pp., $12.95 (paper) This terrific first novel by Chinese-American writer Ed Lin revolves around a 12-year-old coming of age in New Jersey in the 1970s, burdened by his virginity and motivated mainly by the desire to lose it.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY

Nov 10, 2002

Balladeer does it in his own good time

By Michael Pronko

If there are no second acts in American lives, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, for some musicians at least, there's a second take. After famed recording sessions in the late 1950s that made him popular, Jimmy Scott's unique vocal style was not heard again on a new recording for some 30 years. Then, in the...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 10, 2002

On a voyage to Ionia

By Stephen Mansfield

THE INLAND SEA, by Donald Richie. Stone Bridge Press, 2002, 255 pp., $16.95 (paper) Since the publication in English of Yukio Mishima's 1954 romance novel, "The Sound of Waves," there has been a fondness for visualizing Japan's Inland Sea, with its islands of olives, oranges, sunburned fisherfolk and...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 10, 2002

The mismeasure of Emperor Meiji

By Victoria James

EMPEROR OF JAPAN: Meiji and His World 1852-1912, by Donald Keene. Columbia University Press: New York, 2002, 922 pp. + xiii + 18 pp. of illustrations, $39.50 (cloth) Like any great story, history prefers that its leading men (and women) have some sparkle, whether a foible (Henry VIII's marital tangles;...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

By Greg Dvorak

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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