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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2008

Heroes ska'ed for life

Making musical history was the last thing on Doreen Shaffer's mind when she joined The Skatalites. Still a schoolgirl, she was just happy to be singing in a band.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 19, 2008

Maison de la Bourgogne: A fine bistro life in Kagurazaka

At long last it's safe to come out from under the air conditioning. The heat has finally broken, our appetites have perked up, and there are some long, balmy evenings ahead — perfect for some leisurely outdoor dining.
Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2008

Draining blood from a boar

Regarding the Sept. 13 article "Hunter finds life a boar but crow risotto anyone?": An Aishin hunting club member is quoted as saying that blood from a wild boar should be drained "while the heart is still beating, and the body should be cooled immediately" . . . to avoid becoming sick.
Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2008

Merits of archery-only hunting

I grew up on venison and have hunted deer all my adult life. I am 46. People are now discovering what hunters have known for ages: Eating wild game is healthy. While it may be difficult to promote hunting in Japan because of gun laws and fear of guns, I have never understood why Japan doesn't have an...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008

Artistic director Tsutomu Mizusawa delves into his 'Time Crevasse'

For the last two years, Yokohama native Tsutomu Mizusawa has been juggling two jobs — chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama, and artistic director of Japan's biggest exhibition of contemporary art, the Yokohama Triennale. The Japan Times caught up with him on the first day...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008

Hitting skins to find sound's color

'It is amazing that I have participated in 12 out of the 31 performances of the 'Nihon no Taiko' program that started at the National Theater of Japan in 1977," says the drummer Eitetsu Hayashi, who helped start the wadaiko (Japanese drums used in festivals) boom that has lead to the formation of more...
COMMENTARY
Sep 17, 2008

A tale of two women candidates

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — This is a tale of two high-profile political candidates who don't simply happen to be women. They are political women up for very big jobs. This is also a story of two very different political cultures.
BUSINESS
Sep 17, 2008

Collapse echoes through Japan

Monday's bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-biggest financial institution in the United States, sent shock waves through the global financial industry, and Japan was no exception.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2008

Euro serves as Europe's anchor of stability

FRANKFURT — At less than 10 years old, the euro is by all measures a young currency. Yet it has become a reality of daily life for almost 320 million people in 15 European countries. In the wake of the euro's performance during this year's global financial crisis, even its strongest critics cannot...
Reader Mail
Sep 14, 2008

Flagging spirit dogged Fukuda

Regarding the Sept. 9 Views From the Street question "What do you make of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's decision to quit?": Fukuda showed a lack of political spirit. He made an effort domestically to improve the nation's devastating finances and, internationally, to improve the cold relationship with...
Reader Mail
Sep 14, 2008

Women-only train cars shameful

When I stayed in the United States, I realized how advanced public transportation is in Japan. But there is one thing about our train system that I am ashamed of: the women-only passenger car. India also has this system, but Indians adopted it for religious reasons. In Japan, it was adopted because of...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Sep 14, 2008

Kitanoumi epitomizes all that is wrong with sumo

Every time I hear somebody refer to sumo as "Japan's national sport," I just have to shake my head in amazement.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 14, 2008

Feed, don't fight, Afghanistan

The circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and killing of Japanese aid worker Kazuya Ito in Afghanistan last month remain unclear. In the web journal Japan Focus, Michael Penn conjectures that Ito's death resulted from a "botched effort to abduct him, not . . . premeditated murder." The gunshot wounds...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Sep 14, 2008

'American Graffiti,' Japanese style

First of two parts
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 13, 2008

WWE's U.S.-style rassling brings pay-per-view mat dramas here

Posing proudly for a snapshot with a glittery championship belt, Seigi Nishiyama was among some 600 wrestling fans packed into a Tokyo theater who can't get enough of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2008

'The Fall'

Director Tarsem Singh has been blessed with a successful career in commercials, but when it comes to the cinema, he's suffered the curse of bad timing. His debut feature, "The Cell" (2000), came out as the serial killer boom was starting to tank. His new film, "The Fall," is told through the eyes of...
Japan Times
JAPAN / LETTERS FROM KOBE
Sep 11, 2008

Theater, stores cheered up locals

Fifth in a series
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2008

Saito set for eighth solo around

Plan A: Sail dead south from Yokohama, turn right past Tasmania, duck under Australia, skirt the Cape of Good Hope, pound farther south, keep the hairy Cape Horn just off to the right, then turn right again and beat a rhumb line northwest back home — all without stopping and alone.
Japan Times
JAPAN / LETTERS FROM KOBE
Sep 10, 2008

Mixed-race babies in lurch

Fourth in a series
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 10, 2008

Sanyo sheds some clean light on subject of renewable energy

Bright energy: Japan is known far and wide as the Land of the Rising Sun, but it desires to be known (again) as the Land of the Solar Charge. Once the world's leader in installed solar power, Japan has since 2005 slipped second behind Germany, which now has about double Japan's capacity. Politicians...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 10, 2008

Dolphin 'crimes' exposed

I love it when animals do things that we don't expect, especially when they do things we might have species- centeredly thought were unique to humans, or when they do something that appears to be "out of character."
EDITORIALS
Sep 9, 2008

On to November

The race is on. With the official selection of Arizona Sen. John McCain as the GOP contender on the November ballot, the campaign to be the next president of the United States gets down to business. With less than two months to go before the election, the two parties' strategy and tactics are clear,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 9, 2008

Tatsuo Asakura

Tatsuo Asakura, 29, is a driver on the Flower Nagai Line, a tiny one-car train in the middle of Yamagata Prefecture's rice and wheat fields. Although it's the only form of transportation for school children and the elderly who live in farmhouses scattered around the valley, the dire financial straits...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 7, 2008

Multiple interpretations of a tale told in many forms

ENVISIONING "THE TALE OF GENJI": Media, Gender, and Cultural Production, edited by Haruo Shirane. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, 400 pp., 11 color plates, 66 b/w illustrations, $32.50 (paper) "The Tale of Genji," Murasaki Shikibu's long monogatari, upwards of a thousand pages in translation,...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 7, 2008

Takashi Hiraide's 'Walnut' is tough nut worth cracking

FOR THE FIGHTING SPIRIT OF THE WALNUT by Takashi Hiraide, translated by Sawako Nakayasu. New York: New Directions, 2008, unpaginated, $17.95 (paper) When a fan of the neglected American genius Guy Davenport wrote to tell him that she admired his ability to express himself, his response was: "Yick!" Davenport's...

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan