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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 15, 2011

The Bawdies get ready for their Beatles moment

Dropping their fifth full-length album, "Live the Life I Love," at the beginning of June made The Bawdies prime candidates for Japan's continually expanding summer festival circuit. The Tokyo four-piece have spent the last two months showcasing their infectious brand of throwback 1950s- and '60s-styled...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Sep 14, 2011

Smartphones replacing cameras? Not so fast!

For many consumers, compact cameras have gone the way of the dinosaur thanks to the growing popularity of smartphones. Why take a camera around in your right pocket, when you already have a camera phone in your left? Indeed, the term "camera phone" is itself somewhat outdated since nearly every mobile...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Sep 13, 2011

The strength of Tokyo's minimalists, Knit for Japan and rediscovering Beams

MISHA JANETTE and PAUL McINNES 'Irving Penn and Issey Miyake' For 13 years, celebrated fashion photographer Irving Penn took inspiring images of every Issey Miyake collection, without the designer himself ever stepping foot into the studio to guide him.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2011

Effect of contaminated soil on food chain sparks fears

Six months after the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture, the public's awareness of the threat posed by radiation is entering a new phase: the realization that the biggest danger now and in the future is from contaminated soil.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 11, 2011

Lions' Nakamura bucking trend in season of reduced numbers

It is no secret 2011 is the year of the pitcher in Japanese baseball. Batting averages, home runs and RBI totals are down, and the Hanshin Tigers fans especially must be getting tired of looking at the scoreboard in the seventh or eighth inning of their team's games and seeing a 1-0 or 1-1 score.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 11, 2011

The Russians are coming!

SATORI, by Don Winslow. Grand Central Publishing, 2011, 548 pp., $7.99 (paper) 9 GOLD BULLETS, by Christopher G. Moore. Heaven Lake Press, 2011, 365 pp., $14.95 (paper) Readers of mystery and thriller fiction can be extremely loyal and publishers, knowing this, sometimes arrange to bring fictional characters...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 11, 2011

A heartrending drive on the rebuilt roads of Tohoku

Before the March 11 tsunami, the Miyako area of Iwate Prefecture was a beloved tourist destination, famous for the beaches of Jodogahama and a national park with majestic views of coves and shimmering Pacific waters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 9, 2011

"Indigo Blue in the World: Textile and Fashion"

There are not many naturally blue-colored objects on Earth, which is why minerals that could be used to make blue pigments, such as lapis lazuli, were once as highly valued as gold. Indigo — a dark, rich blue pigment extracted from the tropical plant Indigofera tinctoria — was equally rare and expensive....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2011

Kyoko Kagawa retrospective looks back at Japan's golden age of cinema

Actress Kyoko Kagawa has starred in some of Japan's most successful films, over an impressive acting career that has spanned more than 60 years. She was the First Lady during the so-called golden age of the Japanese film industry in the 1950s and '60s, appearing in such classics as 1953's "Tokyo Monogatari...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2011

'Hanezu no Tsuki (Hanezu)'

Naomi Kawase is the most lyrical of Japanese directors now working. As both a documentarian and a feature filmmaker, she discovers in the common materials of everyday existence — sun, wind, water, trees, insects, people — a beauty and transcendence that is always present, seldom noticed. Set mostly...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 30, 2011

Winning: 'The Alien': readers remember life in '90s Japan

The following are a selection of the winning submissions in response to last month's Zeit Gist competition to win copies of "The Very Best of Neil Garscadden's Alien Humor," a collection of many of the pieces Garscadden wrote while editor of the humor section of The Alien magazine.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2011

Budget repair and liberal defiance

The residues of liberalism's Wisconsin Woodstock — 1960s radicalism redux: operatic lamentations, theatrical demonstrations and electoral futilities — are words of plaintive defiance painted on sidewalks around the state capitol.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 28, 2011

The best of his years . . .

This summer, my translator and I stood in Izumi Matsumoto's home-cum-office in Tokyo, where he had just been searching in vain for any original drawings from "Spring Wonder," which was, 27 years ago, the first manga serial he pitched to leading comics magazine Weekly Shonen Jump.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / Japan Pulse
Aug 25, 2011

Pulp it up: new directions for paper design

Designers realize their ideas by applying creativity to paper.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 25, 2011

Japanese brothers who championed Korean ceramics

In ancient times, Japanese arts and crafts were greatly influenced by the introduction of techniques and aesthetics from Korea and China. In particular, Japan owes the development of its ceramics to the skilled craftsmen brought over from Korea at the end of 16th century, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 23, 2011

Last chance for a fix of '90s 'Alien Humor'

The newly released "Alien Humor" (Treasure Productions, 140 pages, soft cover, ¥1,400) is a collection of many of the pieces that Neil Garscadden wrote while editor of the humor section of The Alien magazine. Features that readers might remember include "Why It's Hard to Explain Life in Japan," "Inventions...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2011

Gendercide: India's ticking demographic bomb

Ernest Hemingway's collection of stories, "Men without Women," examines tense gender relationships. In a particularly poignant story, a young man convinces his partner to have an abortion, viewing their unborn child as a hindrance to the status quo. Frustrated, the woman gives in.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 20, 2011

World's best shoppers at my beach shop

Having run a beach shop for eight years now, I've been able to observe the shopping practices of the Japanese firsthand.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 19, 2011

Kimono exhibition provides a taste of history

This weekend is the last chance to view a rare collection of antique kimono from the Meiji Era at a traditional merchant house. Hosted at Nishijin Tondaya, a registered national cultural asset built in 1885, the exhibition features kimono that are around 120 years old. Visitors now have the opportunity...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 14, 2011

Japan through the eyes of Richie

VIEWED SIDEWAYS: Writings on Culture and Style on Contemporary Japan, by Donald Richie. Stonebridge Press, 2011, 264 pp., $16.95 (paper)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 12, 2011

"Summer Museum For Kids and Grown-ups: Traversing the Times, Places and Attributes Of People Described in Art"

One of the most intriguing themes or motifs in art throughout the ages has been "human beings." In the collection of the Osaka City Museum of Modern Art, there are many works covering this familiar, and universal subject.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 12, 2011

"Moholy-Nagy in Motion"

This is the first retrospective in Japan of the Hungarian contemporary artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), who is known as a Constructivist artist, photographer and a professor at the Bauhaus arts and crafts school in Germany. He worked in a wide range of fields, which included painting, photography,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 12, 2011

"Summer Kid's Museum 2011 From the Permanent Collection"

The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, has been holding its "Summer Kid's Museum" series of introductory art exhibitions annually since 2001. This year, the theme is "Art is full of hide-and-seeks," and explores hidden elements in nihonga (Japanese-style paintings) and contemporary art works.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 11, 2011

"100 Years of Tokyo Transportation"

Edo-Tokyo Museum Closes Sept.10
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 5, 2011

"Nobuyoshi Araki: Higan"

Nobuyoshi Araki is most noted for his provocative depictions of scantily-clad women, often posed in submissive positions. His work has garnered him attention and admirers, including stars such as Lady Gaga and Bjork.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 5, 2011

"Glass Admired By The Russian Tsars"

Some of the most ornate and refined pieces of glassware from St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum — home to the former Russian royal residence, the Winter Palace — are currently on display in Tokyo.

Longform

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