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Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Oct 27, 2011

Artists who'll go bump in the night

If you catch sight of The Invisible Salaryman, or rather his bandages, dark glasses and business suit, as he loops Tokyo by rail on the Yamanote Line this coming Sunday, you may want to follow him to the "abandoned" hospital hosting the latest ArtGig Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 23, 2011

Tying up the loose ends of gaijin life

A ROOM WHERE THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER CANNOT BE HEARD: A Novel in Three Parts, by Levy Hideo. Translated by Christopher D. Scott. Columbia University Press, 2011, 115pp., $19.95 (hardback) One is certain that more than a few reviewers of Levy Hideo's "A Room Where The Star Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / IN THE RECORD
Oct 20, 2011

KOSS

Sapporo's Kuniyuki Takahashi, aka KOSS, has the ability to deliver an unmistakable fusion of culturally diverse and soulful soundscapes with his own organic take on deep house and techno. The Japan Times took a look inside his record bag.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Oct 19, 2011

Android privacy concerns rise over apps crossing the line

Tokyo-based IT company Milog is known for providing Android-based smartphone apps that let users share information about the apps installed on their phones and rank them by popularity. This small startup, established in 2009, has been supported by notable companies, including receiving a ¥310 million...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 16, 2011

Russia's grand schemers

RED SHAMBHALA: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia by Andrei Znamenski. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books. 268 pp., $17.95 (paper). Alexander Barchenko was a "dropout medical student and popular mystery writer." He believed that "by introducing the elite of Red Russia to Tibetan Buddhism...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 16, 2011

Break on through (to the puppet side)

It is often said that truly gifted teachers make their subject matter come to life. Jesse Glass has taken that concept to a new level by asking his students to take literary characters off the page and dance them about the room.
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2011

Setting Futenma's record straight

Yoshio Shimoji makes a patently false claim in his Oct. 6 letter "Close the air station ... tomorrow" that "Futenma was constructed while area residents were herded into concentration camps during and after the Battle of Okinawa."
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2011

Security Council failing the Syria test

On Oct. 2 in Istanbul, Syria's disparate opposition movements gave the go-ahead for the formation of a "Syrian National Council." This is the most important step yet taken by the fragmented forces that have been trying since May to lead a peaceful uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime. The...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2011

Public ways and means justify individual ends

Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and former Obama administration regulator (for consumer protection), is modern liberalism incarnate. As she seeks the Senate seat Democrats held for 57 years before 2010, when Scott Brown impertinently won it, she clarifies the liberal project, and the stakes of...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 9, 2011

Women warriors of Japan

"Ah, for some bold warrior to match with, that Kiso might see how fine a death I can die!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2011

"MAM Project 15: Tsang Kin-Wah"

Mori Art Museum, Gallery One Closes Jan. 15, 2012
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2011

Social media urban legends

The ever-expanding universe of social-media technologies — including video-sharing, mobile phones, and networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter that allow individuals to share and connect — is as ubiquitous as it is misunderstood. Apostles hail its power to oust dictators and bring us together;...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 24, 2011

You weigh 140 kg . . . how stylish!

Two years ago I had a bet going with my younger son about who could lose 10 kg the fastest. So I bought a Wii Fit unit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 22, 2011

Red Hot Chili Peppers

After a triumphant appearance at this year's Summer Sonic music festival, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming back to Japan via cinemas.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Sep 21, 2011

Interviewed like a star: Anonymous question and answer site is proving popular in Japan

Over the last month or so, a new social service has risen out of the blue in the Japanese Web.
COMMENTARY
Sep 19, 2011

'Our prosperity is not a threat to our neighbors'

Modern-day China still seems to search for a clear-headed sense of its true self and its proper place in the 21st-century sun.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 18, 2011

Existence is but a brief shimmer of light

INCIDENTAL MUSIC, by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa. BlazeVOX, 2010, 112 pp., $16.00 (paper); and NOTATIONAL, by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa. Otoliths, 2011, 68 pp., $12.45 (paper). If the saying is true that "writing about art is like dancing about architecture" — or, as Martin Amis argues, that, when reviewing poems,...
EDITORIALS
Sep 14, 2011

Big picture on evidence tampering

Ms. Atsuko Muraki, a former health and welfare ministry official, was acquitted in September 2010 of a charge of forging an official document concerning postage discounts for an organization for the disabled. Mr. Tsunehiko Maeda, a prosecutor of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office's special...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 10, 2011

A guide to fortunetellers

Japan is a fortunetelling nation and so, to start, here is Truman Capote's famous line about fortunetellers . . .
EDITORIALS
Sep 5, 2011

World's biggest blog obsession

Internet users in Japan spend more time reading blogs than any other country in the world, according to a recent study from comScore, a research company measuring the digital world. The average Japanese user spent 62.6 minutes reading blogs during June of this year, when the survey was conducted.
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2011

Net surveillance dangers

On March 11, the day when the massive earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region's Pacific coastal areas, the Kan Cabinet endorsed a bill to revise the Criminal Law to smooth investigation into computer crimes.
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2011

Unsavory ties for an entertainer

Popular TV personality Shinsuke Shimada and his agency Yoshimoto Creative Agency Co. hastily called a news conference on the night of Aug. 23 to announce his retirement from the entertainment industry, effective immediately, because of his relationship with a gangster.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 20, 2011

World's best shoppers at my beach shop

Having run a beach shop for eight years now, I've been able to observe the shopping practices of the Japanese firsthand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 28, 2011

Growing up with photography and picturing youth

You know how difficult it is to get good photos of children. They fidget. They cry. And just when you think you've got the perfect shot, they turn the other way. Now try to imagine how challenging it must have been for early photographers, who had to contend with exposure times of minutes rather than...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 26, 2011

The more things change ... the more they stay the same

Ex-Alien chief picks five phenomena from '90s Japan that are gone but not forgotten
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 24, 2011

What chance a 'free market' would cure all the world's ills?

An old friend is a successful investment banker who makes more money in a year than I will make in my lifetime. Like many people, though, he would like to make even more.

Longform

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