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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2013

Japanese collectors take a conceptual turn

Echoing the choice of Koki Tanaka — a conceptual artist — for the Japanese pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale this year, "Why Not Live For Art? II: 9 collectors reveal their treasures" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery suggests that art collecting in Japan has taken a conceptual turn.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 3, 2013

Google crunches data on munching snacks in the office

Last year Google had an M&M problem. So, as it does with most dilemmas, the Internet giant put its data wizards into action.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Sep 3, 2013

Nukes, terrorists, intel gaps: U.S. 'black budget' shows extent of distrust toward Pakistan

The $52.6 billion U.S. intelligence arsenal is aimed mainly at unambiguous adversaries, including al-Qaida, North Korea and Iran. But top-secret budget documents reveal an equally intense focus on one purported ally: Pakistan, which appears at the top of charts listing critical U.S. intelligence gaps.
WORLD
Aug 31, 2013

Secret documents detail U.S. war in cyberspace

The Obama administration's cyber operations sometimes involve what one leaked budget document calls 'field operations' abroad, commonly with the help of CIA operatives or clandestine military forces, 'to physically place hardware implants or software modifications.'
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 28, 2013

Twenty years ago, Cornelius releases the track that defined Shibuya-kei

The song "The Sun is My Enemy," released 20 years ago on Sept. 1, 1993, may have only reached No. 15 on the Japanese singles charts, but its importance lingers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 28, 2013

SEPTEMBER LIVE

Students are heading back to school, the fireworks displays are pretty much done and the gyaru (gals) are a lot more tanned. It's too early to declare an end to summer yet, though. There are still plenty of music festivals and concerts in September to satisfy those who don't want to head back indoors...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 27, 2013

A 3-D replica of Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers,' — yours for ¥3.4 million

A poster of one of Vincent van Gogh's sunflowers is one of the traditional adornments to a student bedroom. The rest of us hang our reproductions in the knowledge that even the good ones are far from faithful to the originals — for which the going rate is £24 million (¥3.7 billion).
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 24, 2013

Long-gone writer tells it how it is

When Kenji Miyazawa was writing his stories and poems nearly a century ago, Japan was a country with a two-pronged mission: To become the first non-white, non-Christian nation to create a modern prosperous state — and to be the leader of an Asian revival.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 24, 2013

Chilling tales are tops when trying to beat the heat

Perhaps stemming from the belief that hearing a scary story will send a chill down the spine and provide welcome relief from the summer heat, August is Japan's favorite season for traditional tales of horror. At local festivals and in theme parks, the obake yashiki (haunted house) is a standby for dating...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 23, 2013

Was Fellers friend of Japan or master manipulator?

A Nagoya University professor is working on a book about the life of the late U.S. Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, who played a major role in absolving Emperor Hirohito (known posthumously as Emperor Showa) of responsibility for Japan’s wartime aggression across Asia.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Aug 22, 2013

Dr. Phil learns the dangers of erasing tweets

On Tuesday, Dr. Phil, drawling psychologist to the masses, posted a tweet that some interpreted as, at best, tone-deaf and, at worst, a tacit encouragement for date rape. "If a girl is drunk, is it okay to have sex with her?" someone from his account tweeted at 5:49 p.m. "Reply yes or no to @drphil #teensaccused."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2013

'Beauties of Nature: Rimpa, Jakuchu and Japanese Painting'

In Japanese, the term "kacho fugetsu" consists of the kanji for "flower," "bird," "wind" and "moon," and it refers to "the beauties of nature" — that ever-popular subject of nihonga (Japanese-style painting).
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 21, 2013

Globe made of ostrich eggs may be oldest to show New World

An Austrian collector has found what may be the oldest globe, dated 1504, to depict the New World, engraved with immaculate detail on two conjoined halves of ostrich eggs.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 18, 2013

Surveillance prompts creation of covert clothing

At the Pentagon and CIA, they are known as "countermeasures," the jargony adaptation of Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2013

Newspaper rescue defines today's good citizen

It would appear that Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos wants less to own The Washington Post than to set its values free financially, for at least a generation or two.
WORLD
Aug 16, 2013

Secret court's effectiveness dependent on U.S. government being honest, top judge admits

The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the U.S. government's vast spying programs says its ability do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 16, 2013

Race to build water-grab dams endangers Himalayas

The future of the world's most famous mountain-range could be endangered by a vast dam-building project, as a risky regional race for water resources takes place in Asia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2013

'Aichi Triennale 2013'

The theme of this second Aichi Triennale is "Awakening — Where Are We Standing?" and it aims to make us rethink the role of art as Japan continues to recover from the Great East Japan Earthquake and following disasters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 8, 2013

Eat yourself broke at Grand Front Osaka

You've gotta love a city whose primary motivation is to accumulate wealth then promptly squander it through the time-honored pursuit of kuidaore (eating oneself to bankruptcy). Now, with the opening of the massive Grand Front Osaka commercial, residential and entertainment complex on the north side of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2013

'Léonard Foujita from the Collection of the Pola Museum of Art'

A central figure in Paris during its eponymous School of Paris era, Léonard Foujita (Tsuguharu Fujita, 1886-1968) found early success with portraiture and painting. While the female nude was often the subject of earlier works, after World War II, he changed his focus to make children a central theme....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON: DESIGN
Aug 5, 2013

Easy furniture and all things green

Rearranging furniture with the flip of a coin
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 3, 2013

The messy, chaotic real life of artists

A couple of years ago, the New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm, who knows enough about journalism to hardly ever give interviews herself, spoke to Katie Roiphe for the Paris Review. Except that she didn't actually speak to her — or at least, not while Roiphe's tape recorder was rolling.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2013

Freddie Mac vet Koskinen nominated to lead IRS

President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated John Koskinen to head the embattled Internal Revenue Service.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2013

'Movie 43'

Somewhere in the nexus between "Family Guy," "The Hangover" and "Jackass," grossout humor became very, very mainstream. Once upon a time, a movie with jokes about pooping on one's partner or shooting Tabasco sauce up a bodily orifice would have been John Waters territory: fringe, freakish and low-budget....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 1, 2013

Isobe works herald rebirth for museum

'Scrap and build" used to be the mantra of Japanese developers when approaching out-of-date structures. The theory was that Japanese people preferred their buildings to be in a more-or-less constant state of "newness" — a la Ise Shrine, which is rebuilt every two decades.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 1, 2013

'Help us defend the country:' NSA chief

It doesn't get much stranger than this, even in Vegas.

Longform

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