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CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2001

How Klimt's Vienna changed the world

There are two paintings of artist's studios that say it all. The first is part castle, part Old Curiosity Shop, packed with statues, bearskins and whatnot, where a successful Viennese artist of the old school sits in gloomy splendor. The second is filled with light. There is no artist, but a woman's...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2001

Bottling everyday beauty on film

With an oeuvre more than a quarter-century in the making, Mamoru Sugiyama is due for a retrospective exhibition. So that is exactly what Tokyo's respected Photo Gallery International has given the 49-year-old photographer, in a show featuring some 30 of Sugiyama's representative black-and-white still-life...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 10, 2001

I'm a loser bunny . . . so why doncha pay me?

On a busy sidewalk in Harajuku, a man dressed in a suit sits drinking from a hip flask of Scotch, surrounded by five pink, fluffy rabbits.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 9, 2001

Dirty, rotten, brilliant scoundrel

Woody Allen's films tend to be best when he manages to get beyond himself, which isn't often these days. But if there's one thing Woody loves more than a part in which he lands a younger leading lady, it's jazz. "Sweet and Lowdown," Allen's latest film, is a semifictional paean to guitarist Emmet Ray,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 7, 2001

It ain't easy being green: Irish or just full of blarney?

Each time I grin into the mirror to find a hunk of seaweed wrapped around my teeth, I am reminded of my family background.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

French firms profiting from Japan

For many Japanese, France has long represented wine and fashion. That image, however, is changing with French companies in other business fields increasing their presence in Japan.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 28, 2001

Take the path of the pilgrims to mortal happiness

Two types of pilgrim come to Matsuyama in Shikoku's northeasterly Ehime Prefecture: Buddhists and bathers.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2001

The best of young modern art

Once a year, Tokyoites have the opportunity to see some of the best contemporary painting and photography from across Japan in one location, the Ueno Royal Museum.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2001

Moody's downgrades Mitsui Mutual

Moody's Investors Service Inc. said Monday that it has changed its rating outlook for Mitsui Mutual Life Insurance Co. to negative from stable, due to increased uncertainty over Japan's life insurance industry as a whole.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2001

Moody's downgrades Mitsui Mutual

Moody's Investors Service Inc. said Monday that it has changed its rating outlook for Mitsui Mutual Life Insurance Co. to negative from stable, due to increased uncertainty over Japan's life insurance industry as a whole.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2001

Renoir's transition to Old Master

Renoir's world is a chocolate box, full of plump women, sweet children and pastel whirls. But even if you prefer paintings with more bite, do not dismiss Bridgestone's new Renoir exhibition. This interesting selection reveals a talent of more depth and restlessness than you may have seen before.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Itabashi fix-it men shed light on wasteful society

In the basement of Itabashi Ward's Ecopolis Center, knives, pots, umbrellas and other knickknacks find a lease on life.
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2001

The accidental ambassadors

Less than six months after bathing in the international attention that came with hosting the Olympic Games, Australians are celebrating their nation's 100th birthday.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 10, 2001

One for the guy upstairs

If God was in the mood for a really good movie, chances are he'd flip through the listings and make tracks for "Unbreakable." Everything about it has a huge appeal to the Omniscient: the dynamics of Good and Evil, the fundamental questions of Existence, man's helplessness in the face of accidental fate....
JAPAN / STAGING A COMEBACK
Feb 7, 2001

LDP still kowtows to vested interests at the economy's expense

Pop into a convenience store and you may still find inconvenience: They don't sell medicine and you may not find cigarettes or alcohol at some shops.
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2001

Justice delayed or justice denied?

Thirteen years after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, a decision has been rendered. Three Scottish judges in a court in the Netherlands sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi to life imprisonment for the bombing. His codefendant, Mr. Lamen Khalifa Fahimah, was acquitted....
CULTURE / Books
Feb 2, 2001

Casting a literary eye on Japan's aging society

The sociologist and feminist Ueno Chizuko has released a collection of past essays that examine Japanese literature as primary source material reflecting the society and era in which it was written.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 27, 2001

The art of appreciating ceramics

In pottery, as with life, sometimes the most basic questions are the most important: Why is this so? Or, how did this happen? Or, what does this part mean?
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Tokyo Sowa buyer to restore bank's niche role

Officials of Tokyo Sowa Bank's new owner-to-be said Thursday they intend to rebuild the failed regional bank's "niche retail" functions by targeting small firms and individuals left behind in the era of megabank mergers.
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2001

Panel told to lift stock-buyback ban

Two business lobbies on Friday asked a Liberal Democratic Party panel to remove a legal curb on companies buying back and holding in reserve their own shares.
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2001

Failed insurer to sell Hotel New Japan site

Restructuring Chiyoda Mutual Life Insurance Co. is selling the site of the now-closed Hotel New Japan, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 17, 2001

Asian environmental extremes

As if the greatest mountain range on earth were not monument enough to the scale of Asia, other ranges, such as the Tien Shan and the Altai, join ranks with the Himalayas to make Central Asia the roof of the world.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2001

Writer bucks corporate norm

Writer Hamao Yokota seems to enjoy portraying an eccentric image.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 14, 2001

Ensor, Delvaux span era of art

Skeletons in fancy dress fight over a corpse with brushes and mops. Women wearing nothing but pink bows and dreamy smiles trail through classic courtyards, while mountains crumble at their feet. "From Ensor to Delvaux," is a glimpse into the weird and wonderful world of 20th century Belgian art. The...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 3, 2001

Kicking up a stink about smelling as natural as a skunk

While beauty traditionally belongs to the beholder's eye, correct hygiene might be better ascribed to his or her nose.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 1, 2001

Odd echoes of the Meiji Restoration

JAPAN'S EMERGENCE AS A MODERN STATE: Political and Economic Problems of the Meiji Period, by E. Herbert Norman, 60th Anniversary Edition, edited by Lawrence T. Woods. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, Sept. 2000, 336 pp., $75 (cloth), $25.95 (paper). It's hard to fault E. Herbert Norman's analysis of Japan....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

Progress alone won't be enough

IT, shorthand for information technology, was a buzzword in Japan in 2000. Never before had computers and the Internet caused such a furor in the media. To be sure, IT had created a boom several times in the past, but its impact had been confined to the corporate sector. In contrast, the latest boom...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 31, 2000

Minoru Akimoto

"For a college kid in a provincial town in the early 50s, there were not many options for learning English. My teachers were Hollywood movies. I memorized a script and then sat in a movie theater all day, watching and listening to the same movie time and again."

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat