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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Jul 26, 2011

Fun and function for office and home

The hair dryer stylist Since its launch, the Plus Minus Zero brand, well-known for its series of minimalist electric fans, has been expanding its lineup, adding new items in new product categories. The Hair Dryer is an extra notch on its belt for its bathroom offerings.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 24, 2011

Unraveling the evolution of modern Japan

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF JAPANESE CULTURE AND SOCIETY. Edited by Victoria and Theodore Bestor with Akiko Yamagata. Routledge, 2011, 325 pp. (hardcover) This is a tremendous book and should jump the queue of all those books on contemporary Japan you have been intending to read. The editors deserve kudos...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jul 23, 2011

Zoos, aquariums weigh power cut, animal safety

While the Tokai region strives to cut electricity use this summer following the shutdown of the Hamaoka nuclear plant in May, local aquariums and zoos must continue to maintain a suitable environment for their fish and animals regardless of the circumstances.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 22, 2011

"Glittering of Imagination: The Visionary World Of Surreal And Fantasy"

The Surrealism movement, which began in Europe in the early 1920s, was an attempt by artists and writers to release and express the creative potential of humans' unconscious mind.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 22, 2011

"Photographs of Children: The Art of Photographing Children"

While giving directions to subjects may be possible when taking portraits of adults, it can be near-impossible to do the same when it comes to taking pictures of children. To get that perfect image, the photographer has to be one step ahead, using his or her ingenuity to get the child to hold a desired...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2011

A Greek Marshall Plan makes sense

It should now be clear to even the most blinkered observer that the Greek economy is in desperate need of help. Unemployment is 16 percent and rising. Even after a year of excruciating spending cuts, the budget deficit still exceeds 10 percent of GDP. Residents don't pay taxes. The system of property...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 17, 2011

Erasing the bloody wounds of war

IMAG(IN)ING THE WAR IN JAPAN: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Postwar Literature and Film, edited by David Stahl and Mark Williams. Brill, 2010, 375 pp., $179 (hardcover) This anthology is as incisive and demanding of consideration as any that I have read. The central question reframed again...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 16, 2011

Canadian martial artist finds the way to tea of tranquility

The intricate stained glass window in the heavy wooden door provides an artistic and unusual welcome. Stoop inside the restored Kyoto machiya (town house) and step into a future melded with the past. Drinking in the Art-Deco/Taisho roman decorations, your eye moves away from the geometric stained glass...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 16, 2011

What a waste! A human waste

Meet Ususama Myo-ou. He purifies the unclean. He hangs out in bathrooms. He's the guardian deity of the toilet. I'm thinking of inviting him to do a residency. Here's why.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 15, 2011

"Hiroshi Sugimoto Origins of Art: History"

A year-long project, "Origins of Art" is a four-part exhibition, which began at the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art in November last year. Its aim is to explore the inspirations behind Sugimoto's photography.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 15, 2011

"Creatures' Paradise: Animals in Art from fhe Kyoto National Museum"

For those who aren't familiar with Japanese art, works with animal motifs may be more accessible and enjoyable to see.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 15, 2011

"SUMO, Wrestlers In nishikie Woodblock Prints From The Otani Kokichi Collection"

Legend has it that a sumo match between gods determined the origin of the Japanese race.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 10, 2011

Media were quick off the mark with March 11 disaster publications

Within a couple of weeks of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, major magazine publishers and newspapers were already putting out extra editions covering the disaster. The first were mostly A4-size on glossy paper, which made them easy to display in the magazine racks at convenience stores and bookshops....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2011

"XII Biennial of Illustration, Bratislava"

Since 1967, Slovakia has hosted the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB), the world's largest and most prestigious awards event for children's book illustrators. Nominees are selected by an international jury, and the awards have showcased some of the best illustrations from all over the world....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2011

"Collection of Beautiful Women in Art: Gorgeous Women in Japanese Paintings"

The beauty of women has long been a favorite subject for many artists. For example, during the Heian Period (794-1185), beautiful women were often depicted on picture scrolls, and in the Edo Period (1603-1867) they were seen in ukiyo-e (Japanese-genre paintings and prints).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 7, 2011

The art of spying on bathing beauties

Women at times are like canvases. You see them on the trains, painting their faces, or else walking around wearing intriguing outfits, usually somewhat poker-faced. Consequently, the thought keeps occurring that perhaps they want to be looked at rather in the same way that a painting is looked at —...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 3, 2011

Have a hideously good time in Tono's past and present

The professor's snoring had kept me up until the wee hours of the morning. When I awoke, the reading light in the hostel's upper bunk was still on and a copy of "The Legends of Tono" lay open at the page where I had dozed off. With that book being full of hobgoblins, ravaging wolf packs and rural satyrs,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 1, 2011

"Fossil: Messages From the Past"

This show presents about 900 fossils spanning billions of years of Earth's existence. The collection, which includes fossils of dinosaurs, plants, and insects trapped in resin, is displayed in chronological order so that visitors can not only learn about fossilization, but also visualize the evolution...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2011

Debris removal, recycling daunting, piecemeal labor

Removing and disposing of the debris generated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami are crucial parts of the recovery process as the people in the devastated region move forward with rebuilding their communities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2011

"Hello, It's We: New Paintings by Rob Judges and Mike Ness"

Moscow, Nakameguro Closes Aug. 25
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 26, 2011

Morishita: treats in place of the trees

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. According to Akinori Saito, a historian in Tokyo's Koto Ward Office, the area known as Morishita (lit. "forest below") was most likely named for woods that surrounded the yashiki (residence) of a feudal lord named Saemon Sakai (1564-1619), a retainer...
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2011

Is there an Afghan solution?

The war in Afghanistan has now lasted almost 10 years. It has cost many billions of dollars and the lives of thousands of soldiers from the United States, Britain, Canada and other NATO countries. Many more have been injured. The loss of life among Afghan military and police forces has been even greater...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011

Impressionists and friends: on the verge of the modern

There seems to be an exhibition of Impressionist art somewhere in Tokyo every year, such is its popularity in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 19, 2011

Summer's joys in snow country

If you'd only ever experienced Niseko under a four-meter blanket of snow, you'd barely recognize Hokkaido's most cosmopolitan winter-sports resort in summer — in the best way possible.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 16, 2011

Waraku Ensemble serve up some summer classics

Despite a day of torrential downpour to kick off Japan's rainy season, Junnosuke Uehara is grinning from ear to ear. He's got his shamisen with him and he says he's excited to introduce a new person to the instrument. In fact, his love for the shamisen is so strong, he clings to it as if it were his...
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2011

A life in the coal mines

This May brought unexpected news of the selection by UNESCO of annotated paintings and diaries by Sakubei Yamamoto of life in the Japanese coal mines for entry in its Memory of the World Register.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 12, 2011

Eccentric wanderer discovers his destiny in Meiji Japan

"Japan," asserts the fictitious character Lafcadio Hearn on page 97, "has chaos at its core. The closer one approaches that core, the deeper one fathoms the world of illusion and warped contradiction. Such a country is begging for citizens such as Yakumo Koizumi, that is, me."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2011

"People Who Lived in the Azuchi-momoyama and Edo Periods: Portraits, Genre Paintings and Ukiyo-e"

Nara Prefectural Museum of Art has in its collection nihonga (Japanese painting) works mainly from the Edo Period (1603-1867), which were donated to Nara Prefecture by Kanpo
CULTURE / Art
Jun 9, 2011

World's third-largest art fair ups profile of Asian works

For Japanese artists in need of international exposure, Hong Kong, it seems, is their closest window to the world. Last month, the city's international art fair, ART HK 2011, now in its fourth year, attracted art-lovers from all over the world, including many from mainland China, where the booming economy...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.