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Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006

Take note of how to sort out your life

Despite working late every day, Yukihiro Misawa always felt he wasn't getting enough done.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 24, 2006

Can Japan absorb foreign influx?

When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 20, 2005

Ho, ho, homesick

Santa's checkin' his list twice to see who's been naughty or nice and foreigners from all corners of the world are wishing their stockings will be filled with things they can't find in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 25, 2005

Can you keep up with Autechre?

It's pretty much a character-defining kind of thing: Either you think the seminal U.K. electronic act Autechre are taking the ball and running with it to places you didn't know existed, or you're convinced that they've gone bleak, technical and chaotic, and you just want them to write some damn melodies...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 27, 2005

International winners at Praemium Imperiale

In 1989 the Japan Art Association established the Praemium Imperiale to reward major contributions to the arts in the fields of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and theater/film. It was the last wish of Prince Takamatsu, who had served as governor of the Japan Art Association from 1929 to 1987,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 25, 2005

Japan sees beginning of change

Writer Alex Kerr first came to Japan in 1964, since when he has worked as a translator, art dealer and in real estate during the "bubble" economy.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 16, 2005

LEARNING HOW TO 'SEE' WITH ALL YOUR SENSES

I arrived at "Dialog in the Dark" not knowing what to expect.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Oct 4, 2005

At what point is a child being too active?

Current media is full of warnings that kids are being overbooked, overstimulated and, ultimately, overwhelmed. While articles on stress used to invariably feature the children of Japan, taxed by the country's rigorous academic pressures and long hours of juku (cram school), the focus now is going international....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Sep 19, 2005

The Gathering 2005 preview -- return to Tsumagoi

Ready or not, here comes the spectacular end of another amazing summer season.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 16, 2005

Keeping up with the Norah Joneses

She may only be 16 years old, but Massachusetts native Sonya Kitchell talks with the assurance of a musician twice her age. It's a couple of days after Kitchell played a live showcase to a largely music-industry crowd in a tiny Shibuya jazz bar, following the recent Japan-only release of her debut album,...
Japan Times
Features
Sep 4, 2005

Nagano's champion of change

He is perhaps the most well-known governor in Japan, largely because he has been breaking with tradition ever since he took office in Nagano Prefecture in October 2000.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 7, 2005

Mao was closer to seventy percent bad

An elegant Georgian terrace house in London's Notting Hill Gate, perhaps the most upmarket area for Britain's chattering classes now that Prime Minister Tony Blair and his friends have deserted Islington, may seem an unlikely venue for a counter-revolution against Mao Zedong's revolutionary claims. Yet...
COMMUNITY
Jul 2, 2005

Tokyo's 'ambassador of light' high on old spirits

Channeler Rae Chandran refuses anything to drink but water. He sits on a "zabuton" and takes a deep breath, stiffens, then shudders, his posture and face relaxing into what can only be described as a light trance-like state.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 21, 2005

Matters of survival in a 'shattered world'

One of the best things about writing a newspaper column is that I get a chance to meet people whose paths I might otherwise never cross. Last weekend, at the Odaiba waterfront launch of Earth Day Tokyo 2005, I had the rare pleasure of meeting and interviewing two environmentalists I have long admired,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 23, 2005

Drawing circles is the secret to a new visual language

It is exceedingly rare for a contemporary art show to sell out at the opening reception, and especially so in Japan. It is rarer still to arrive at a vernissage to discover that the show has sold out even before it opened. But that was the case with the Keegan McHargue exhibition that debuted at the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 15, 2005

When is it OK to stretch the truth?

C.C. Sheffield Actress/Model, 22 It's okay to lie sometimes, when the result is going to be better than if you told the truth. For example, if your friend asks if she looks fat and she is fat. Tell her she's not.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 6, 2005

Calls for change as WHS status threatens one of Japan's gems

The breathtaking mountain landscape of the Kii Peninsula, and its ancient temples, monasteries and shrines have captivated the Japanese people for more than 1,000 years.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 6, 2005

Drawing on experience

At age 82, Shigeru Mizuki (above) is undoubtedly among the most popular -- and certainly one of the longest-standing -- cartoon artists in Japan. There is probably no Japanese adult who is not familiar with his name, or who has not at least glanced at the voluminous comics/animation series "Ge-ge-ge...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 12, 2005

Balancing act

Singer-songwriters are the half-breeds of pop music. Evolved from Bob Dylan's navel-gazing spawn, they lead hyphenated existences because each half of their calling is considered insupportable without the other. Though many are accomplished vocalists, what distinguishes them as singers doesn't always...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Nov 28, 2004

The power of one note

Power and imagination have been Kazumi Watanabe's mainstays for over 30 years. As a prodigy on electric guitar, his first release was in 1971 at the age of 18 and his ever-evolving guitar technique has served as the central pillar of near-annual releases. In the 1980s, his progressive and very muscular...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Nov 18, 2004

Bush-Kerry presidential contest was one for the textbooks

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush's re-election victory was a masterpiece of political strategy and execution by the Bush campaign team. There has been a feeling of relief throughout the nation that:
MORE SPORTS
Nov 12, 2004

Top coach Bollettieri backhands rule changes

The last time I spent $1,500 in one hour, the scenario involved chips, cards, a green velvet table and blurred vision. $1,500 is also the fee for a one-hour, private lesson with unquestionably the world's most renowned tennis coach, Nick Bollettieri. Returns on investments of this nature can be significant...
CULTURE / Music
Nov 7, 2004

Brooks cuts through a lot of red tape

Andrew Brooks has the confident aplomb of a producer and musician with two highly lauded records. His first album, a house-inflected dance record titled "You, Me & Us," brought him jobs remixing songs of Outkast and Scissor Sisters. His second album, released on Soundslike, the label of influential producer...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2004

Chaos theory you can dance to

Things are looking good for Grandadbob. The quirky house music duo of Dave Johnson and Vanessa Robinson released their debut album, "Waltzes for Weirdos," on Fatboy Slim's Southern Fried label to rave reviews in Britain last year and are about to tour Japan with the wild and crazy DJ himself. Now that...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 5, 2004

Takafumi Horie: Livedoor whiz kid sets a new style

Takafumi Horie, 31, has been the man in the news since the end of June, when he announced that his Tokyo-based Internet service firm, Livedoor Co., was in the market for Osaka's debt-ravaged Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2004

Telling some truth in black & white

Dirty Pretty Things Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Stephen Frears Running time: 97 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] I'm not one of those cranky post-Marxist social critics who believe that the movies, particularly the American brand, subtly...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 1, 2004

Violin maestro with many strings toher bow

Violinist Midori Goto was only 14 when, in 1986, she played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the late maestro Leonard Bernstein at the annual Summer Festival at Tanglewood in rural Massachusetts. That was remarkable enough, but what made Goto world-famous was not simply that she...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 23, 2004

Putting it in motion

When the British choreographer Matthew Bourne first staged his "Swan Lake" in 1995 at the off-West End Sadler's Wells Theatre, most critics and members of the dance establishment simply didn't know what to make of it. That, however, didn't stop the production becoming an instant hit in the West End...
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 11, 2004

Kidnap crisis poses a new risk

When five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq last month, huge public concern for their safe return quickly gave way to hostility and a campaign of vilification. A disastrous public appeal by the families of three of the hostages for the withdrawal of SDF troops from Iraq encouraged the government to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 11, 2004

'Experimental novelist' kicks the regular rulebook into touch

During a recent tour to Guam, members of the Tsunami Teetotallers (a Japan-based ad hoc rugby team) were left speechless when, during prematch introductions, their scrumhalf Richard Beard declared himself to be an English "experimental novelist."

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