Victoria James - The Japan Times

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Victoria James

For Victoria James's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Oct 12, 2003

Livin' la vida loca

Charles Darwin must have been a regular at whatever passed for a bar on the HMS Beagle. During the ship's five-week stop at the Galapagos, the scientific superstar-to-be got his kicks from riding the trunk-size tortoises that give the islands their name -- galapago is Spanish for "saddle." Despite the creatures' saddle shape, Darwin complained of often falling off. Maybe they mixed gin-tonics stronger back then.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Oct 12, 2003

Back to life, back to prosperity

Ecuador was built on bananas. Then, in the 1970s, this tiny South American country struck oil. Forward thinkers, though, are looking to tourism to keep Ecuador's economy afloat when the oil dries up -- as it is expected to do an estimated 15 years from now.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Oct 12, 2003

Andean attractions

When you're tired from trekking around Quito's Old Town, there are plenty of distractions to be found just a short drive from the Ecuadorean capital. Here are five of the best:

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Oct 12, 2003

Paradise maintained

In 1959, to mark the centenary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species," the Ecuadorean government declared the Galapagos a National Park. In 1979, UNESCO proclaimed the archipelago a World Heritage Site.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 24, 2003

The dark, radiant world of Rembrandt van Rijn

It doesn't look like the face of a man who paints religious scenes. Fleshy, with that famously crumpled nose, he sports a jaunty hat and a look of shabby dandyism. In his later years -- more than two decades after he engraved this 1631 self-portrait -- the artist would be forced into bankruptcy, unable to fund his lavish lifestyle despite making good money as a painter, teacher and art dealer.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 3, 2003

World domination: Let's do it again

Many a country has enjoyed its time in the sun -- a period of dominance when the world (often quite literally) seemed to be at its rulers' feet. It's a difficult trick to repeat, though. Italy's Renaissance, glorious though it was, never recaptured the heyday of the Roman Empire, and Mussolini's attempts to invoke the country's imperial past remained a dictator's delusion.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Aug 27, 2003

Face to face with history's Greatest

Histor is wont to bestow epithets on its more colorful characters, from the vertically challenged King Pepin the Short (714?-768), father of Charlemagne, to Ethelred the Unready, who ruled England with singular incompetence from 978 to 1016. Few, however, have so richly deserved their title as Alexander the Great (365-323 B.C.), the Macedonian king who led his armies on an odyssey of conquest from Greece to India, crushing the superpower Persian empire and taking Egypt along the way.

COMMUNITY

Aug 24, 2003

The curious afterlife of Ada Lovelace

Celebrity is a fickle thing, as Ada Lovelace's famous father, the poet Lord Byron, learned to his cost -- sexual scandals and seesawing public opinion drove him into exile and to his death. For his daughter, however, the ups and downs of fame have mostly been posthumous.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Aug 17, 2003

Taking shape: Prehistoric art and us

In the 19th century, scientists finally junked the Biblical idea of a seven-day divine Creation -- with man, at the pinnacle of the process, being fashioned from clay on the sixth day.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jul 30, 2003

Drawn to the simple life

The French artists of the Barbizon School effectively colonized the small village of the same name in the mid-19th century; some 100 artists watched -- and painted -- every step taken by the few hundred peasants as they went about their daily tasks. However, an earlier group of German and Austrian artists had gone one step further: They lived the simple life for real.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jul 16, 2003

In your nightmares . . .

"In Room 101 is the worst thing in the world," Winston Smith's torturer told the defiant hero of George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984." Now, rooms 1-4 of the Bridgestone Museum of Art's temporary exhibition galleries are hosting a whole array of the world's "worst things."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jul 2, 2003

A chip off the old block

IWATE, Iwate Pref. -- The town of Iwate, population 17,302, is one of the last places you'd expect to find an international art event. But though the largely rural Iwate Prefecture put itself on the art map 18 months ago, with the opening of the Iwate Museum of Art (currently hosting a Frank Stella exhibition; see review on Page 9), its namesake town this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Iwate Town International Stone Symposium.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jul 2, 2003

"My most favorite artist? The problem with that question," says Frank Stella, settling back in his chair, "is what's the point of it?"

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 28, 2003

When heaven's riches rivaled Russia's czars

Church and State have, down history, done battle for wealth and power.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 28, 2003

An icon of her times

In the history of Russian icons, one image is pre-eminent as the most copied, most decorated and most adored: "Our Lady of Kazan."

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

May 25, 2003

A blow to Russo-Japanese relations

When, in 1891, Tsarevich Nicholas reached the age of 23, his father Czar Alexander III sent him on a tour of the Far East to "round out his political development," recalled Russian politician Count Sergei Witte some years later.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

May 25, 2003

The rise and fall of the Romanovs remembered

First of two parts At its height, in the middle of the 19th century, the Russian Empire ruled by the Romanovs covered more than one-sixth of the surface of the globe. It was a glorious era for a dynasty that had sprung from obscure beginnings, when in 1613, in a bid to end years of civil unrest at home and conflict abroad, a young prince named Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov was hastily crowned Tsar and Autocrat of All Russia amid the ruins of the Kremlin Palace in Moscow.

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink

May 23, 2003

Akebono lives life to the full

"It was," my dining companion recalls with a sigh, "a diet with just one purpose: to get you to put on weight."

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

May 4, 2003

It's early afternoon on a hot spring Sunday in Tokyo, and in the tranquil neighborhood park of Kodaira a fight is shaping up. Children still hurtle round the playground in one corner of the park, but at the far end, three men, burly and imposing, circle menacingly round a fourth. A crowd has gathered to watch -- at a safe distance.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 30, 2003

Now (and forever) a girl's best friend

Once the home of a prince, the Teien Art Museum is now playing host to a king's ransom in jewelry comprising a truly sparkling survey of the bijoutier's art in the four centuries spanning 1540-1940.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

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