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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 31, 2003

Multitusking with talented pachyderm painters

Talk about eccentric.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 19, 2003

Two local novelists strut their stuff

THE BANG DEVILS, by Patrick Foss. New York: HarperCollins, 2003 305 pp., $13.95 (paper). AMBASSADOR STRIKES, by Robert J. Collins. California: McKenna Publishing Group, 2003 260 pp., $19.95 (paper). With so much rich material to draw upon, the relatively small number of English novels set in the Kansai...
COMMUNITY
Oct 18, 2003

Archaeologist turns west to save Siberian culture

Kazuo Morimoto made history in the early 1980s when he discovered a large Paleolithic site at Narita, north of Tokyo. Now his attention is balanced between digging up the past and preserving the future -- the future of a once-nomadic tribe in Siberia.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Sep 25, 2003

Worth fighting for

Most "greatest hits" games are too familiar. They were great when they came out last Christmas and everybody bought them, but now they're simply old.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 30, 2003

Andy and Karla Morris

WOORE, England -- This small Shropshire village in the Midlands of England is set in countryside that, even in the 21st century, keeps a picture postcard quality. Although it is near the thriving towns of the Potteries, and is on a major highway to the ancient cathedral city of Chester and the rugged...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 22, 2003

We can rebuild it

Asahi's popular "reform variety" series, "Before/After" (Sunday, 7:58 p.m.), only occasionally tackles very old, traditional-style Japanese homes, opting instead for the kind of rickety boxes that were built during the '60s and '70s, which are more of a challenge to rehabilitate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 8, 2003

Synergetic possibilities at the heart

The piano trio is the heart of jazz. This core unit of piano, bass and drums pumps life into the music. All jazz groups, big or small, rely on the piano, bass and drums (called "the rhythm section") for their crucial thrust of energy. Taken out of a larger group, the piano trio contains all the essentials...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 18, 2003

Living the papermaker's art

Tsutomu Kono's life is all wrapped up with washi, the handmade Japanese paper made of pure, natural fiber.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 7, 2003

Come on, come on, let's get together

There's collaboration in the air in Japan's contemporary theater world; collaboration between foreign directors and Japanese actors, directors and producers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Apr 20, 2003

Seeking tranquillity in Tohoku

Nobody goes to Tohoku. The region used to be known as Michinoku, meaning, quite literally, "the end of the road." Even today, its six prefectures -- Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi and Fukushima -- are among the least developed for tourism in Japan. However, if you venture north, you'll find that...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2003

Photographer shows images of Iraqis

A Japanese photographer who recently returned from a peace rally in Baghdad has captured on film the lives of Iraqis before the outbreak of the U.S.-led war on their country.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Mar 20, 2003

Walking on waters that were

Tsukiji, now famous as home to the world's biggest fish market, was reclaimed from the sea in the 17th century. Its transformation from seabed to seashore came after the magnificent first city of Edo, designed by Shogun Ieyasu in 1603 and completed around 1650, was destroyed by a fire in 1657. Then,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 19, 2003

Kenny Brown: "Stingray"

Some blues come smooth-planed and varnished. Other blues leave splinters. Kenny Brown's "Stingray" is the latter. Accompanied only by bass and drums, Brown eschews all slickness and gets to the core of hardworking blues.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2003

Taisho treasure

Tokyo is in the throes of a particularly bold face-lift. In the cause of urban regeneration, massive high-rises are shooting up in Shinagawa, Shinbashi, Roppongi and Shinjuku, transforming the skyline of metropolitan Tokyo. On the ground, wrecking trucks clear more land, demolishing old homes and felling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Feb 16, 2003

Lowdown on rising stars

They sing low and they're aiming high.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Feb 9, 2003

Female vocalists singing a new tune

In the past, female jazz singers in Japan were often just pretty faces up front. They had to sing, of course, but their main role was often to provide a contrast to the usually all-male band.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 9, 2003

Role models for a changing nation

One welcome exception to the gloomy news in Japan last year was the unexpected awarding of a Nobel Prize in chemistry to an apparently ordinary company worker. Koichi Tanaka's steadfastness, lack of personal ambition and open, nice-guy persona were a refreshing throwback to a less cynical age, and his...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2003

Shinsei experience: lattes in the lobby, free ATM transactions

A typical Japanese bank looks a bit like the dowdy, paper-shuffling office of a shoddily run company. There are plenty of bowing clerks. But don't count on conveniences like 24-hour ATMs.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 24, 2003

Shilingol: From the Mongol steppes to Sugamo

A chill gale of change is gusting through the sumo world, all the way from Central Asia. The demise of the Takanohana era does not, of course, mean we will stop eating chanko nabe. However, in honor of the incipient arrival of the Asashoryu dynasty, we felt impelled to set off in search of Shilingol,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 17, 2003

Izayoi: Fine fowl deeds in Azabu-Juban

The idea of upmarket yakitori -- presenting premium-quality charcoal-broiled chicken in suave settings, often with fine wine and other foreign influences -- is taken for granted in Tokyo these days. But nowhere else in the city is this venerable concept -- the skewering and grilling of fowl -- translated...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 15, 2003

Talent-laden 'festival' to bring back a pinch of that old magic

Once upon a time, rock shows were long, drawn-out affairs, with two or three opening acts who could be counted on to play as if they were headliners. Magic Rock Out, an event that will be held in Kobe and Tokyo in early February, is too limited in scope to be called a "festival" (only one stage), and...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 4, 2003

How to turn your house into a mosh pit

Already broken your New Year's resolution? Let me guess. You have yet to start dieting, and saving money is impossible during this season of "o-toshidama" and company parties to start the new year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 26, 2002

Arcade gem returns to glory

This is the time for bringing games back from retirement. Sega came out with new a new "Shinobi." Konami has a new "Contra." And Tecmo has brought back two great blasts from the past: "Ninja Gaiden" and "Rygar."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Chushingura Chushingura

Snow has been the backdrop to some of Tokyo's most colorful and epoch-making events.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 15, 2002

On the trail of a killer in ancient Kyoto

RASHOMON GATE, by I.J. Parker. St. Martin's Minotaur: New York, 2002, 336 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Scholars who pen historical mystery fiction must tread a fine line between being faithful to the materials they research and creating stories and characters that will appeal to contemporary readers. It's by...
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Dec 15, 2002

What's Uwajima so bullish about?

Long before you step into the firszt gift shop peddling the usual range of touristic fripperies, you are in no doubt about how serious Uwajima is on the subject of bulls. In fact, the first thing you see as you get out of the station is a great bronze statue of a bull, standing implacably before the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 8, 2002

Expat writers shoot from the lip

FACES IN THE CROWDS: A Tokyo International Anthology, edited by Hillel Wright. Printed Matter Press: Tokyo, 2002, 254 pp., 2 yen,500/$25 (cloth) "Faces in the Crowds" is a hyperkinetic grab bag that brings work by a cross section of Tokyo's expat writers, and Japanese writers working in English, together...
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Dec 5, 2002

Carping over muddy ponds

Me and Mr. Matsuki, we're developers. There -- I've said it. We actually alter habitat. We haven't got around to making golf courses yet, but about 10 years ago, when I bought another section of land to add to what is now the Nagano prefectural Afan Woodland Trust, there was a large section of it that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 4, 2002

The world out there

It is a few minutes before rehearsal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 13, 2002

Dishonor avenged, love avowed

This month, following the lead of the Kabukiza, the National Theater in Tokyo also presents "Kanadehon Chushingura (The 47 Loyal Retainers)" to mark the upcoming 300th anniversary of the famous act of revenge carried out by the 47 ronin (masterless samurai) on the night of Dec. 14, 1702 (on the old calendar)....

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