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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 26, 2006

Doreen Simmons

Quite simply, Doreen Simmons is unique.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Aug 25, 2006

Gattaca, a utopia of good selections

Baar Gattaca is reasonably easy to find -- thanks to the blaring red banners of the bar next door. But, just to avoid confusion, the entrance is immediately to the right of this garish splash of red -- straight down the stairs to the basement. There, you will see the bar's name on the door and the tag...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 20, 2006

Airs and grimaces

You don't even need a guitar to let your hot licks hang out anymore. Duckwalk like Angus (Young; AC/DC), windmill like (Pete; The Who) Townshend and bow like (Jimmy; Led Zeppelin) Page -- no prob; all with air, but not like (Michael; Nike Air) Jordan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 20, 2006

The unique voice of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

RASHOMON AND SEVENTEEN OTHER STORIES, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin, introduction by Haruki Murakami. London: Penguin Classics, 2006, 268 pp., £9.99 (paper). In what is still the finest assessment of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's life and work, Howard Hibbett complained that for most, the...
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2006

Artist finds lifework painting shutters along shopping streets

HANNO, Saitama Pref. -- Sadao Kiyota airbrushes colors on the shutters of the Tonki tofu kitchen, which is closed one recent Monday as are neighboring stores on the Hanno Ginza shopping street near Seibu Hanno Station in Saitama Prefecture.
COMMENTARY
Aug 8, 2006

Danger of education divide

During its five-year rule, the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has completed a number of structural reforms, including the privatization of the postal service. To that extent, the administration deserves high praise.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 6, 2006

Japan's baroque theater

KABUKI: Baroque Fusion of the Arts, by Toshio Kawatake, translated by Frank and Jean Connell Hoff. I-House Press, 2006, 358 pp. with 78 illustrations, 1,905 yen (paper). This is the new enlarged and revised edition of an important book on the Kabuki, originally published by the University of Tokyo Press...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 6, 2006

Welfare's not fair when it comes to single mothers

In show business, you can't look as if you made up your own labels. Only someone as big as Michael Jackson gets away with calling himself the King of Pop.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 4, 2006

72-hour party people

Japan's foremost music festival, Fuji Rock, might be over for another year, but for those who couldn't make the trek to Naeba Ski Resort last weekend, or the 130,000 who did but couldn't catch everything, our reporting team -- Daniel Robson, Simon Bartz, Philip Brasor, Mark Thompson, David Hickey, Richard...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 28, 2006

Window on the West

It's hard not to feel well disposed toward a place like Nagasaki even before you set foot in it. Nagasaki was, after all, the port in western Kyushu that had to bear the torturous brunt of the anti-Christian persecutions assiduously pursued by the Tokugawa shoguns in the 17th century. And had it not...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 25, 2006

Soaking in the urban onsen scene

Taking a nice, long, hot bath has for eras been an ideal way to unwind, whether it is a soak crammed in the tub at home after a hard day's work, a trip to the local sento (public bath) for a leisurely scrub-down or a weekend getaway to the countryside in pursuit of hot springs and the healing powers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 21, 2006

Mighty Sparrow

Trinidad's famed carnival had two rival Calypsonians: Lord Kitchener and Mighty Sparrow. These two singer/songwriter/tricksters vied every year for the honor of Calypso Monarch and "Road March," the most played song during carnival.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 16, 2006

Adventures in Gerontology

THE OKINAWA DIET PLAN by Bradley J. Willcox, D. Craig Willcox and Makoto Suzuki. Three Rivers Press, 2005, 432 pp., $14.95/2,300 yen (paper). In works like "Awakenings" and "The Island of the Color Blind," neurologist Oliver Sacks showed how serious medical subjects could, in the right hands, be turned...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 13, 2006

Antiestablishment for all

Founded in 1970 by director Sho Ryuzanji, the Engekidan company was a natural bridge between two major theatrical movements in postwar Japan: the 1960s underground scene of dramatists such as Shuji Terayama and Juro Kara and the so-called "small-scale theater movement" started in the 1980s by the likes...
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jun 29, 2006

Japan fans flock to their 'other' football team

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- The Japanese are long gone from the competition, but there is plenty for football to be played.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 2006

The garden of earthly delight

An air of seclusion still hangs over Shikoku. This is despite the building of Japan's greatest civil-engineering white elephants -- three grandiose and grandiosely debt-ridden bridge systems that span the Inland Sea and connect the island with Honshu.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 13, 2006

Fuss over fingerprinting

No consistency The new law requiring foreigners to be fingerprinted and photographed at Japan's airports is unfair.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 1, 2006

"Vu Dan Tan -- Tanorigami: Suitcases of a Pilgrim"

Art-U Room Closes in 11 days
SUMO
May 24, 2006

F2 is born -- you read it here first!

F2! F2! F2! Rather a strange way to start an article on the recently completed Natsu Basho but as the dust continues to settle and as sumo fans around the world slowly adjust to life after the tournament, I for one believe the man with the Emperor's Cup now sat proudly on his sideboard is increasingly...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 13, 2006

Success stories cap memorable season for Premier League

LONDON -- After a couple of disappointing high-profile matches, those who rarely attend football games but love to put the boot into the national sport were almost at grievous bodily harm level with their attacks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 5, 2006

Man from Wareika returns

During a break in a Tokyo recording session, Rico Rodriguez puts down his trombone to lark around on the roof with the teenage members of Oreskaband, the all-girl ska band he's been working with. That, at 72 years old, he is now old enough to be their grandfather doesn't even faze him.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
May 2, 2006

"Cyrano," "Small Steps"

"Cyrano," Geraldine McCaughrean, OUP; 2006; 167pp.
BUSINESS
Apr 25, 2006

Sweden's IKEA back in Japan after 20-year hiatus

Furniture giant IKEA marked its return to Japan with the opening of a store Monday in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, but some domestic rivals question whether the Swedish firm has learned enough about Japanese consumers to please them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 21, 2006

The silly world of SpongeBob

OK, class, quiz time: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? No takers? OK, here's a hint: Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!
COMMENTARY
Apr 17, 2006

Ozawa confronts the LDP

The Democratic Party of Japan has made a fresh start under new chief Ichiro Ozawa, known for his "iron fist" leadership. His first priority is to revitalize the top opposition party, which has lost public trust following the fiasco over a fake e-mail.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 16, 2006

Ring trilogy spirals past science fiction

RING, SPIRAL, LOOP, by Koji Suzuki. Vertical Publishing, 2003-2005, each $24.95 (cloth). One cinematic treat that 1998 turned out was "Ringu," which was the rarity of a well-worked, intelligent horror flick that won broad appeal among movie fans who ordinarily look askance at efforts in the horror genre....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Ugly and macho or ultimate supercool on wheels?

The streets of central Tokyo are thronged with countless high-end automobiles, but one model above all others stands out from the crowd. Two meters high and 2.1 meters wide, with a mean, military-style mien, the Hummer H2 is hard to miss among the massed ranks of Toyotas, Nissans, Beemers and Mercs....
MORE SPORTS
Mar 26, 2006

Skating wasn't part of Mom's original plan for Mao, Mai

All parents have dreams for their children.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2006

Huts of homeless win architectural kudos

Like many Zen-inspired structures, Okawara's hut is a monument to simplicity. The size of a large tool shed, the wooden building blends seamlessly with the surrounding park. His door opens to a full view of Tokyo's Tama River.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake