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ENVIRONMENT / IN BLOOM
Jun 28, 2001

Benihana (Safflower)

"The dew of the rouge-flower, When it is spilled Is simply water."
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2001

Bending the rules of noir

The Monkey's Mask Rating: * * * 1/2 Japanese title: Poetry, SexDirector: Samantha Lang Running time: 93 minutes Language: EnglishShowing at Yebisu Garden Cinema Murder mysteries have been set in just about every locale possible, so why not the cloistered world of Australian poetry? That's what director...
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2001

Asian literacy conference kicks off

A five-day international conference to discuss how to improve literacy rates in Asia kicked off Tuesday in Tokyo with representatives from 19 countries.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2001

A blueprint for total disaster

Minna no Ie Rating: * * * 1/2 Director: Koki Mitani Running time: 115 minutes Language: JapaneseShowing at Shibutoh Cine Tower and other theaters A fatal hard-drive crash (signaled by the sound of the computer going whack-whack-whack instead of the usual varoom) is one of those complacency-shattering...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 27, 2001

Noda weaves another fantastical web

Hideki Noda, head of the cutting-edge theater company Noda Map, wrote and directs its latest production, "Nisesaku: Sakura no Mori no Mankai no Shita (A Fake: Under the Cherry Trees in Full Bloom)." He also acts, as the King of Hida, often running with all his considerable force along the sakura-draped...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 27, 2001

'Wicked Grin': John Hammond

John Hammond is a guitarist and singer who has mined the deep veins of traditional country and urban blues since the 1960s. So why he wanted to take on the contemporary street poetry of songsmith Tom Waits might at first seem curious. After all, there's no shortage of blues songs aching to be excavated,...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 27, 2001

Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur's 1973 debut album remains, for better or worse, the template for all those eclectic SoCal songbird collections by people like Linda Ronstadt and Valerie Carter; albums that included a little jazz, a little blues, one or two country songs (written by Dolly Parton, usually) and a familiar...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2001

Deconstructing the concept of 'home'

An exhibition of works by artists, architects and designers on the theme of "home" opens July 1 at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2001

B'z management hid income to the tune of 840 million yen

The production company behind the pop music duo B'z failed to declare about 840 million yen in taxable income in the two business years through September 1999, industry sources said Monday.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 26, 2001

The temples of the Nile

To float down the Nile, stopping at the temples, sleeping on my ship -- this was my desire and now I am in a stateroom on the Cheops I, a floating hotel rather than a mere boat, looking at the wharf at Aswan and reading Flaubert's journal of a similar voyage he made in 1849. I notice many of the same...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 26, 2001

Down the Devil's Washboard

When evening falls on Miyazaki, a scarlet and indigo sky drops behind the phoenix palms that line many of the city's roads. You might think you were strolling through a middle-class quarter of Cairo or Marbella.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2001

'Koizumi effect' credited for LDP's big Tokyo win

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed hope Monday that his Liberal Democratic Party's strong showing in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election would lead to another victory in the Upper House election next month.
JAPAN
Jun 25, 2001

LDP wins big in Tokyo assembly election

Tokyo voters rescued Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday, giving the battered party 53 seats in the metropolitan assembly and a new lease on life.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2001

Japan's structural reforms may see greenback push 145 yen

The dollar has continued to rise against the yen over the past three weeks amid the release of several weak Japanese economic gauges, with some market traders saying the trend may further dog the market this week.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 24, 2001

Born donors offer gift of life

People can engage in voluntary work and make donations from a young age, but Takumi Shimizu had an unusally early head start: He made a potentially life-saving donation before he was a day old.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 24, 2001

That's declassified innovation

There are several reasons to admire the Kronos Quartet, and, unquestionably, the primary reason is their extraordinary talent. But I'd like to add two more: their musical and professional integrity, and their belief in music as a spiritual quest.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 24, 2001

Spanish city puts its foot down on dog-do plague

MADRID -- To keep them clean, most cities have their own army of street cleaners. More meticulous cities employ leaf blowers and tree-branch cutters. Madrid goes so far as to employ its own force of dog-poop cleaners.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2001

When reason became treason in China

JAPAN'S IMPERIAL DIPLOMACY: Consuls, Treaty Ports and War in China 1895-1938, by Barbara Brooks. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2000, 272 pp., $55. Why did Japan suddenly lurch from being a good international citizen in the 1920s to becoming a regional rogue in the 1930s? Usually Japan's Asian...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2001

Nagashima provides balm for the caregiver's soul

THE GIRL WHO TURNED INTO TEA, by Minako Nagashima, translated by Hiroaki Sato. P.S., A Press, 2000, 56 pp., $12. The frailties and failings of the human body and mind are not usually the stuff of poetry, but Minako Nagashima, a longtime social worker and aid to the physically and mentally handicapped,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 24, 2001

Finding nature by design

JAPANESE DESIGN: A Collection. Photographs and text by Kenneth Straiton. Forward by Peter Grilli. Tokyo: Tuttle Shokai, 1999, 160 pp., copiously illustrated, 3,800 yen. Traditionally the Japanese are a patterned people who live in a patterned country, a land where the exemplar still exists, where there...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jun 24, 2001

Juttoku covers all the bases

Juttoku comes close to being all things to all people. Although it has been around for 20 years, it doesn't attract too much attention, sitting quietly on the edge of the concrete jungle of Shinjuku.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jun 24, 2001

Singing the body electric

The only body parts usually involved in house music are the twirling fingers of the producer, tweaking samples with a twist of knob or dial, or the swaying, sweaty bodies grooving to the finished product on the dance floor.
BUSINESS
Jun 23, 2001

Get a grip, brokers -- this is only a first step

The introduction in October of the much-touted U.S. 401(k)-style corporate pension system in Japan will have little impact until individual investors feel more confident about the regulatory environment and the economy, said Brian Murdoch, president and CEO of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.
EDITORIALS
Jun 23, 2001

Demobilize the children

About 800,000 children are being forced to serve as soldiers worldwide, reports the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. This is shameful. The use of child soldiers must stop. All governments should end the recruitment of children into their armed forces. Then their demands for opposition forces...
BUSINESS
Jun 23, 2001

Diet enacts pension-benefits law

The Diet passed into law Friday a new defined-contribution pension bill that will go into effect Oct. 1, introducing a scheme modeled on the U.S. 401(k) plan, the benefits of which hinge on the performance of investments.
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2001

JAL near-collision report released

A near-collision involving two Japan Airlines planes on Jan. 31 was caused by a combination of communication mixups and maneuvering that contradicted orders from an automatic warning system, an investigative committee concluded Friday in an interim report.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 23, 2001

Lessons to be learned for both teams after Wales' Japan tour

Rugby tours were always supposed to be the highlight of the season. A chance to unwind, explore strange places, meet new people and drink strange brands of beer.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jun 23, 2001

U.S. Democrats take control

Despite the confusion surrounding the changing of power in the Senate, things are still getting done in Washington. The Senate recently passed the education bill, a major item from the agenda of President George W. Bush, and sent it on to conference with the House of Representatives that had already...

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.