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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 6, 2003

A legend from Kyoto to Kerouac and way beyond

Gar Snyder is a legendary figure. The real-life original of Japhy Ryder -- traveling companion, friend and spiritual inspiration to the novelist Jack Kerouac -- he appears in that guise in Kerouac's 1959 novel, "The Dharma Bums." There, speaking as Ryder, he announces that, after study in the East, he...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Apr 6, 2003

Rock with a nasty bite

"What the hell happened to the Cobra Chicks?" I say, slapping last year's "Loaded" album onto the cafe table. Four rock chicks stare up at me from the CD jacket pulling pouty poses so effortlessly steamy that only a eunuch or a nun could resist dashing off to snap up a ticket for the next show.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 6, 2003

The grand illusions

Since celebrity is more a matter of exploiting opportunities than exploiting talent, this week's "Friday Showtime" (NHK-G, 8 p.m.) can be seen as an object lesson in cross-disciplinary synergy. Billed as an "astonishing entertainment" program featuring "music, comedy and illusion," the show brings together...
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.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Apr 6, 2003

Will Hussein go out quietly?

MOSCOW -- Last week a number of American officials were saying that the war in Iraq was not unfolding as quickly as had been hoped. The remarks sound like excessive modesty because the war has actually proceeded much more smoothly than its opponents predicted.
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2003

SARS carriers to be quarantined

A health ministry council decided Friday that individuals diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome will be forcibly hospitalized -- even if they refuse to seek treatment.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 5, 2003

Tokyo's fastest copywriter on the run for TELL

Bob Poulson is a runner. He runs for fun, and when a good cause comes along that he believes is worth running for, he will run for that too.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 5, 2003

The hardest adjustment to Japan: a slippery topic

I don't mind putting my foot in my mouth. That's one way to keep it clean.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 5, 2003

Peter Coney

Out of five sons in the Coney family of Melbourne, Australia, two are lawyers. Peter Coney said: "I realized from legal studies in high school how pervasive the law is in society. It's something intangible that shapes the way people behave. The influence of my brother, who was already practicing, encouraged...
BUSINESS
Apr 4, 2003

Mark-to-market suspension sought

The mark-to-market accounting method for corporate securities holdings should be suspended amid the plunging stock market, the head of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry said Thursday.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2003

Racket in public places is fraying nerves

Sounds abound in Tokyo, from the blaring advertisements in busy shopping areas like Shinjuku to the stream of announcements on trains.
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2003

Expert in resuscitating ailing firms to head IRC

The government has nominated Kazuhiko Toyama -- known as an expert in turning around apparently hopeless businesses -- as chief operating officer of a state-backed corporation given the task of doing just that.
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2003

Tokai plutonium removal figures revised

The discrepancy between the projected amount of plutonium extracted at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, and the actual amount was 59 kg, not 206 kg as initially reported, the government said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Apr 2, 2003

Fraying business sentiment augurs poorly for recovery

Dented by falling stock prices and fears that the war in Iraq will hurt any nascent economic recovery, business sentiment remained weak in March, according to a key Bank of Japan survey released Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2003

Photographer shows images of Iraqis

A Japanese photographer who recently returned from a peace rally in Baghdad has captured on film the lives of Iraqis before the outbreak of the U.S.-led war on their country.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2003

Postal agency becomes self-sufficient Japan Post

The Postal Services Agency on Tuesday became Japan Post, a huge public corporation that will operate on a self-sufficient basis.
COMMUNITY
Apr 1, 2003

Brave Tama-chan takes fame in his stride

If ever an amphibious mammal was catapulted to the forefront of a nation's consciousness, Tama-chan, the bearded seal who has taken up residence in Yokohama's Katabira River, is that animal.
BUSINESS
Apr 1, 2003

Official refuses to use postal savings to aid market

A key postal ministry official on Monday brushed aside calls by a senior ruling party lawmaker that the government use postal savings and insurance funds to prop up the slumping stock market.
COMMENTARY
Mar 31, 2003

Win the peace with Muslims after the war

LOS ANGELES -- Location, in politics as well as in real estate, is almost everything. When British Prime Minister Tony Blair came calling on U.S. President George W. Bush, America's foremost ally raised with Washington the tender issue of repairing badly damaged relations with America's "old Europe"...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 31, 2003

Modesty marked this great man of letters

NEW YORK -- Herbert Passin, whom I had the honor of knowing, died on Feb. 26. Like kabuki expert Faubion Bowers, whom I also knew, Passin was a top graduate of the Military Intelligence Service Language School, which was established in 1941 in preparation for the coming war with Japan. Both did wonderful...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2003

Fujimori dismisses Interpol notice

Peru's disgraced former president, Alberto Fujimori, has shrugged off Interpol's notice for his arrest on murder and kidnapping charges, insists he is innocent and promises that he will someday return home to Peru.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 30, 2003

An artist drawing on peace

Yoshitomo Nara is one of Japan's most popular contemporary artists, with admirers not only in Japan but also in Europe and the United States.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 30, 2003

East to West: the seductive Madame Sadayakko

MADAME SADAYAKKO: The Geisha Who Seduced the West, by Lesley Downer. London: Review Press/Hodder Headline, 2003, 336 pp., map, photos, £20 (cloth) In 1899, a 27-year-old ex-geisha who called herself Sadayakko embarked on a new career in San Francisco. With her entrepreneur-husband's enthusiastic backing,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 30, 2003

Behind the silver screen

THE FLASH OF CAPITAL: Film and Geopolitics in Japan, by Eric Cazdyn. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2002, 316 pp., $21.95 (paper) Those who dislike that branch of criticism and cultural studies that has come to be known as "theory" will probably not care for Eric Cazdyn's "The Flash of Capital:...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 30, 2003

Was WWF3 a washout for citizens' rights?

While the outbreak of war in Iraq may have disrupted proceedings at the Third World Water Forum being held in Kansai, it also lent them deeper significance.

Longform

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