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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 13, 2005

Vision of a 'superflat' future

NEW YORK -- Murakami-mania hit New York last week as the "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture" exhibition at the Japan Society opened to much media fanfare.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Apr 8, 2005

Honest, Doc, I can still dance

I missed everything in the doctor's explanation of my condition after she used the "A" word.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 5, 2005

Made in Japan

The Nintendo
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2005

ETC card users collide with barriers

About 1,500 vehicles with deactivated electronic toll-collection cards collided Friday with barriers at ETC booths on expressways nationwide because the drivers were unaware that one type of ETC card has become invalid, according to Japan Highway Public Corp.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Apr 1, 2005

Pining for things past

The accompanying 1830s woodcut print depicts Shirahige-jinja Shrine nestling in a pine grove beside the upper reaches of the Sumida River. In the center of the print is an embankment where pilgrims would descend the stone stairway on the left to a torii gate and then pray at the modest shrine to the...
Features
Mar 27, 2005

Mrs. Matsui

It was an open secret in my husband's course on modern Japanese literature at Radcliffe in the 1960s that his inspiration came not directly from the prose and poetry of Japan but from his absolute devotion to me.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 25, 2005

Chummy in the Chome

Shinjuku Ni-chome is still alive and thriving as the headquarters for Tokyo's gay bar scene. Unlike other party centers in Tokyo, I wouldn't say much has changed of late in the Chome, as the area is usually called by those who frequent it. No one ever calls it Shinjuku Ni-chome because that would be...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 20, 2005

The earnestness of being important

THE HEREDITY OF TASTE, by Natsume Soseki, translated by Sammy I. Tsunematsu, introduced by Stephen W. Kohl. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2005, 201 pp., 1,300 yen (paper). MY INDIVIDUALISM and THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LITERATURE, by Natsume Soseki. Translated by Sammy I. Tsunematsu, introduced by...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Mar 20, 2005

Artwork unfurled without a destination

MOSCOW -- To be popular with art historians, you have to be a dead Italian male. Everyone else is suspect to tenured professors and critics, particularly if the work is going to last for just 16 days and is made of nylon and steel. Such was the case with a revolutionary project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 13, 2005

Kaki King

Kaki King spent plenty of time busking in subway stations, coffeehouses and small New York clubs in the '90s. But with two critically acclaimed CDs under her belt, she now has roadies to haul up on stage her largish collection of electric, acoustic and steel guitars. She plays all these with a sophisticated...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 13, 2005

Out of the darkroom

JAPAN 1945 -- A U.S. MARINE'S PHOTOGRAPHS FROM GROUND ZERO, by Joe O'Donnell, foreword by Mark Selden, afterword by O'Donnell and Richard Lammers. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005, 88 pp., 80 b/w photos, $39.95 (cloth). In September 1945, Joe O'Donnell, a 23-year-old U.S. Marine Corps photographer...
EDITORIALS
Mar 11, 2005

Recalling the alternative to peace

It has been 60 years since U.S. bombers destroyed much of Tokyo in the spring of 1945. Survivors of the "Great Tokyo Air Raids" -- most of them now in their 70s and 80s -- are few and far between. Words like "B-nijuku" (B-29), "bokugo" (air-raid shelter) and "shoidan" (incendiary bomb) are no longer...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Mar 10, 2005

"The Whispering Road," "The Pig in the Spigot"

"The Whispering Road," Livi Michael, Puffin Books; 2005; 336 pp. If you haven't read Charles Dickens yet, what could be a better introduction than Livi Michael's "The Whispering Road"? Michael's first novel for older children imbibes Dickens' influences, dramatic storytelling and colorful characterization...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 25, 2005

A reason to be happy: Spike Bar in Shibuya

Shibuya is now headquarters for Tokyo's cool party crowd. In the last six years or so, countless little bars have set up shop and made themselves part of the night circuit around the station. Whether along Miyamasuzaka toward Aoyama, up Dogenzaka toward Daikanyama or south along the Yamanote tracks toward...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 23, 2005

Miro's best critic shows with stars of Surrealism

"Drifting Objects of Dreams: The Collection of Shuzo Takiguchi" is an exhibition which features the diversity of this famous Japanese artist and a host of collaborators. Though it started in the West, the Surrealist movement was expansive and noone, not even its founder-cum-leader Andre Breton, had a...
EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 2005

In praise of a 'billy sook'

With spring just around the corner, what images pop into the mind? Naturally, you're thinking cherry blossoms and daffodils, spring lambs and fluffy chickens, dolls and kites, eggs and chocolate. But some of you will also be thinking rabbits, and you are in luck, because next month brings the publication...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 18, 2005

Pristine paradise an hour from Tokyo

Thanks to the newly opened Noto International Airport, Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture is now just a one-hour flight from Tokyo, making one of the Hokuriku region's most popular tourist spots -- famed for its hot springs, local festivals, beaches and mountain scenery -- far more accessible.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Feb 11, 2005

Sweetest temptations

Japan's unique take on Valentine's Day sees women present their men with chocolate on February 14th, while the recipients reciprocate, often with branded trinkets or jewelry, one month later.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 10, 2005

Learning how to make the most of middle age

It's widely acknowledged that the Japanese not only tend to look younger than people in the West, some think and behave that way too. After all, this is a nation fostered on kodomo bunka (kiddie culture), visible in everything from fashion to architecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2005

Chimeras and shadows

In the service of the imagination of photographer Yuki Onodera, familiar objects become dreamily unsettled by memories and movements and, by degrees, disengage to the point of of unreality.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2005

Hansen's sanitariums were houses of horror

Five state-run sanitariums and a research center kept a macabre collection of dead babies and fetuses taken from Hansen's disease patients, according to a report released Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jan 28, 2005

2004: Year of the bounce; Serious Sirius

Calamitous. The world was a bouncin' in 2004.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2005

Loan shark handed five-year term but court stiffs victims for damages

The Tokyo District Court sentenced a senior member of a loan-sharking ring to five years in prison Wednesday and fined him 20 million yen for money laundering.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 10 YEARS AFTER
Jan 21, 2005

Quake-preparedness a patchwork effort

The thicket of wood houses and small shops that line the warren of alleys just east of Tokyo's Sumida River in the Higashi-Mukojima 1-chome district has been deemed "highly dangerous" by disaster-preparedness authorities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 16, 2005

Carlos Barbosa-Lima: "Frenesi"

Brazilian guitarist Carlos Barbosa-Lima, who first studied with classical guitar master Andres Segovia, has been honing his technique for over four decades. His crisp acoustic tones and fluid soloing blend classical precision with street-dancing cool. On his 26th recording, "Frenesi," the audiophile...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jan 14, 2005

Siphoning the cant out of decanting

Guidebooks recommend it. Nose-in-the-air sommeliers love it. Friends swear by it. But does decanting a wine really do anything to improve its taste?
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2005

Underground economy expected to boom

"No money and you're dead" is essentially what yakuza characters in novels and comic books say, and they mean that literally.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2005

Following the line to enlightenment

In order to write an article about renowned Zen master Tanchu Terayama's Hitsuzendo calligraphy exhibition, I was offered the rare opportunity to visit his mountain retreat in Ibaraki Prefecture to participate in a workshop with Terayama himself. I first got a call from Terayama's most dedicated student,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2005

Painting over old Edo

As a child, Akira Yamaguchi spent countless hours hunched over his desk, doodling the many space-age rocket ships and humanoids he encountered in his bedroom anime collection. The young artist, however, also remembers feeling a sense of guilt whenever he attempted to mimic more traditional Japanese art...

Longform

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