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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 18, 2004

The literary perfect crime

SAYONARA, GANGSTERS, by Genichiro Takahashi, translated by Michael Emmerich. New York: Vertical, Inc., 2004, 311 pp., $19.95 (cloth). A poet is talking to a refrigerator. The refrigerator with whom he is conversing is Virgil -- yes, that Virgil, author of "The Aeneid" and later Dante's guide through...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 11, 2004

Believe it ... or not

Japan's vast hoard of war booty known as Yamashita's Gold was long thought to be buried in caves in the Philippines. But in their book 'Gold Warriors,' Sterling and Peggy Seagrave sensationally claim that the treasure trove was secretly recovered -- and continues to oil the wheels of politics in Japan...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 17, 2004

Some pictures worth 1,000 words

I take my hat off to those folk who can draw and paint. What a wonderfully inspiring skill. And when they can illustrate living creatures in lifelike form then I am in awe. What has prompted this outpouring is the fact that I am currently at work on a new field guide, so I am heavily involved in both...
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Jun 17, 2004

When the summer vacation is just too long

Just try to find something for foreign kids to do in Japan in the summer. There aren't many options, even if your children speak Japanese, as mine do. The most difficult period of all is the five or six weeks after international schools close down but Japanese schools are still in session.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 23, 2004

Should be handled with extreme caution

Violence is in, pop-pickers. You've seen those pictures of those troops whooping it up in Iraqi jails. Violence is clearly fun. It's cool. It basically rocks! Just ask Bush and Rumsfeld. They kicked the whole thing off.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 23, 2004

Foreign markets fail to grasp soul of anime

If, as many people claim, Japanese pop culture is sweeping the globe, then anime is the hand that wields the broom. A number of recent big-budget Japanese animated features, including Mamoru Oishii's "Innocence," currently in competition at Cannes, have attracted funding from Hollywood without the usual...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 8, 2004

Porto's Mourinho in line to be new manager of Chelsea

LONDON -- According to various back-page "exclusives" over the past week, Chelsea is buying Walter Samuel (Roma -- £15 million), David Beckham and Ronaldo (Real Madrid -- combined fee of £100,000 million), Ronaldinho (Barcelona -- £60 million), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool -- £30 million) and any other...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 5, 2004

Re-presenting the modern by any means

"So what's modern art all about?" is a question I am often asked. It's about as easy to answer as "What is the meaning of life?"
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 26, 2004

Meet the Office manager

Everybody knows about Office in Kita-Aoyama -- the funky little fifth-floor, no-elevator hangout with a photocopier next to the DJ booth. But few people have had the pleasure of meeting Sadahiro Nakamura. Then again, you may have met him and just not realized that he was the man behind the scene and...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 25, 2004

The bento -- a scrumptious expression of love

As the season of hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) comes upon us, it's timely to reflect on the single most important aspect of hanami -- the o-bento (boxed meal). I say this because I grew up in a family in which the creation of the hanami bento was so elaborately planned, heatedly discussed and lovingly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 10, 2004

Under the Taliban's shadow

Osama Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Japanese title: Afghan Zero-Nen Director: Siddiq Barmak Running time: 83 minutes Language: Dari, Pashtu Opens March 13 at Tokyo Shashin Bijitsukan, Yebisu Garden Place [See Japan Times movie listings] Of all the repression that the Taliban inflicted on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 3, 2004

Realist master on the prowl

Photographs capture the moment -- a second in time frozen on film. And yet, unless you're a Magnum hotshot, this most "real" of media can produce images that seem lifeless, flat and unmoving. As all visual artists know, portraying three-dimensional figures in a two-dimensional medium is extremely difficult....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 25, 2004

Happy Ko-Edo exile

Midori Fujii calls herself a "cityscape exile."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 11, 2004

Home sweet (old) homes

To buy a dream home is an aim shared by many, and in this respect Satoshi and Yumiko Takano were no different from millions the world over.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 10, 2004

Rosemary Wright

In following half a dozen different careers, Rosemary Wright succeeds in being outstanding in each one of them. Her range is wide and deep, from international scholarship to interdisciplinary art. She is equally a college administrator and gallery director, with a strong cross-cultural background in...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2004

What a liberal/conservative view means

MUNCIE, Indiana -- The new year is a good time to examine current applications and definitions of liberalism and conservatism. Writers to the letters section of newspapers often pen their missives in absolutes with few illustrations of what their ideological pronouncements mean or imply for citizens,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 4, 2004

Informed feelings elicit the essence of Japan

There are many good books on Japan (as well as a number of bad ones), so how do you decide which ones are best? The decision is subjective but, objectively, I think that the best are informed with a certain peculiarity, and it is in this that I would find their pre-eminence. "There is but one way of...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2003

High-rise denizens wage effort to regain sense of community

Tokyo, for many of its inhabitants, is a faceless concrete jungle lacking any sense of community, unlike the days when close-knit row-house neighborhoods were the norm before the capital exploded into a soaring, postwar urban sprawl.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 10, 2003

Is it a film? Is it a play? No, it's cinetheatre

Ever had a dream that was so real it made you lose your grip on reality? One that turned into hallucinations the following day? One that drove you close to madness?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2003

Koizumi fails to evict LDP elder

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tried Thursday to persuade two octogenarian former prime ministers to retire from politics because of their age, effecting a quiet exit in the case of Kiichi Miyazawa but running up against a brick wall in the shape of Yasuhiro Nakasone.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2003

Lee's intensity hardly dulled by age

HONG KONG -- A rare and remarkable Asian leader passed a milestone on Sept. 16. Former Singapore Prime Minister, now Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew celebrated his 80th birthday. He has been running Singapore, in substance if not in title, since his People's Action Party swept the polls in 1959.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 27, 2003

Tabaimo pulls ahead of 'fun art' pack

Although she has only recently turned 28, I am starting to think Tabaimo is one of Japan's most important artists. Here's why.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2003

O, what a tangled web we weave

Though nowhere near as all-encompassing as the Renaissance in Europe, the closed, feudal world of shogunal Japan did throw up a few periods of vigorous artistic expression in the more than two and a half control-freak centuries it lasted. One of these was about 200 years ago, from 1804-1830, during what...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jun 20, 2003

Solstice Music Festival off the calendar; Shared honors for 2002; new releases

It's like watching the lights go out at the stadium. You know, that low metallic "Klung!" "Klung!" "Klung!" as the off switches are hit in succession.
Japan Times
JAPAN / IN WITH THE NEW
Jun 5, 2003

Seiko Noda now a force in her own right — and name

Seiko Noda, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker in the House of Representatives, wrote in her elementary school composition class that her dream was to become a politician -- and ultimately prime minister.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 1, 2003

You gotta walk the walk, talk the talk

DJ Seen does have tales to tell. After I get all five members of Pico System to play a game in which they have to decide what kind of animal each of the others is most like (this does, believe me, occasionally yield some illuminating responses), Seen is voted a cheetah. Maybe it's got something to do...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
May 29, 2003

"Power and Stone," "Rome"

"Power and Stone," Alice Leader, Puffin Books; May 2003; 249 pp. There's so much more to history than memorizing dates.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

Art that's sweet enough to eat

In early summer, they might evoke dewy irises and swirling water. In autumn, plume grass trembling in the wind. Quite obviously, Japanese sweets are more than a mouthful of sweetness: They evoke the poetry and beauty of life itself.
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...

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building