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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 15, 2003

MoT showcases artists who draw deeply from real life

"Art," wrote the French artist Robert Filliou (1926-87), "is what makes life more interesting than art." And this, dear reader, is just about my favorite quote. Profoundly mystifying, it serves as an M.C. Escher-esque comeback when the old "What is art?" line is thrown out less as a question than as...
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2003

New system to facilitate closer flying

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to more than halve the minimum separation distance between commercial aircraft flying over the busy North Pacific and polar route between Japan and the U.S. East Coast.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 3, 2003

Chic eats for the months ahead

It's prognostication time again and, just like Janus (after whom this month is, after all, named), the Food File likes to look ahead by surveying all that lies behind.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 29, 2002

Koma Square -- a new years' tale by RK

1997-99 He woke to the sound of a prerecorded voice booming from the nationalists' minitruck rolling through their neighborhood, making the windows rattle. Shirtless on the tatami, his bare back pressed to the ribbed weave, he heard the voice as part of his dream and then part of the day, and then...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 27, 2002

Roberto Carlos was best player of 2002

LONDON -- As the year winds down we are seeing a plethora of honors being handed out to different soccer players around the globe. Here are my picks for some alternative awards for 2002:
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 25, 2002

Ennosuke masters Mishima's extravagant vision

The Kabukiza Theater in Ginza concludes the year in style, with outstanding performances by the versatile Ichikawa Ennosuke, 63, and members of his troupe.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 22, 2002

A little something for the god

GRACIOUS GIFTS: Japan's Sacred Offerings, photographed by Gorazd Vilhar, text by Charlotte Anderson. Tokyo: Shufunotomo-sha, 1999, 128 pp., 172 color plates, 4,000 yen (cloth) All religions encourage gifts. From Catholic prayer boxes to Protestant collection plates, from the donation repositories of...
COMMUNITY
Dec 21, 2002

World of Gorgles and other prehysterical things

Any visitor this weekend to the Hirabayashi coffee shop opposite Yokosuka's Shioiri Station in Kanagawa Prefecture might be excused for thinking they had wandered onto another planet. They would be right. Until Monday, it is Clara Birnbaum's world: her World of the Gorgles.
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Covering their tracks on the way to war

To obfuscate the waging of war on several fronts simultaneously may seem an unlikely and incredible ambition. However, as more and more information surrounding Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in the Pacific on Dec. 7, 1941, comes to light, it becomes ever more clear that its military rulers...
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2002

Which is worse, adultery or promiscuity?

JEJU, South Korea -- Adultery or promiscuity: Which is worse? Oddly enough, that question hung over discussions at the United Nations-ROK conference* that convened last week at this South Korean resort. Those of us debating "changing security dynamics and their implications for disarmament and nonproliferation"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

'Mongrel' seeker after new self-understandings

"One day, people will realize they are a mongrel people with a mongrel history."
CULTURE / Music
Nov 17, 2002

Cozy up to the 'new' classical

Classical music fans frequently complain that avant-garde music made after Schonberg hasn't resonated with listeners and that composers create tunes for their own satisfaction, without audiences in mind.
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)....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2002

DoCoMo group profit plummets

NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Thursday its group net profit for the fiscal half plummeted 95.3 percent year-on-year to 4.17 billion yen, due to hefty appraisal losses on its overseas investments.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2002

Opposition lawmakers slam interim report

Lawmakers on a constitutional panel slammed a report issued by the panel on Friday, stating that the document had been edited to bolster pro-amendment views.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 1, 2002

Japan goes from clunky typewriter to waapuro

I wonder how many readers have ever experienced typing on an old-style Japanese typewriter. I tried my hand at it, just once. It was around 1973, and afterwards I was relieved that my clumsy effort was merely done out of curiosity and not necessity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Nov 1, 2002

Gathering closes summer's curtain

HIWADAKOUGEN, Gifu Pref. -- I was inside my tent changing from damp clothes to dry when the whooshing thuds of a low-flying helicopter took the campsite by surprise. I thought little of it until the commotion started. News travels fast in a village of nylon walls. Clearly something was amiss.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2002

At last, a move to cut down on popups

Sometimes you have to wonder what advertising gurus use for brains. For decades now, we've watched them fail to grasp the simple truth that television commercials repeated ad nauseam can actually drive viewers to boycott products rather than buy them. In recent years, though, it has been the idea of...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002

The lesser of many possible evils

THE UNITED STATES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC SINCE 1945, by Roger Buckley. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002. 258 pp., $65 (cloth) This is a wide-ranging, ambitious and informative work on an immense subject. Given the vast terrain and limited space, Roger Buckley has had to resist the temptations...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 2, 2002

Oppai -obsessed oeuvre that isn't well-rounded

I'm often asked the question: "What characterizes Japanese contemporary art?" At the risk of over-generalizing, I usually reply that two qualities recur among artists at the vanguard of this country's creative culture -- an obsessiveness vis a vis the subject, or an obsessive attention to detail in the...
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

William Tyndale: A martyr's memory heals old wounds

ANTWERP, Belgium -- William Tyndale, the first translator of the Bible into English from its original Greek and Hebrew texts, is making a comeback that -- if not miraculous -- is considered by many to be at least long overdue.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 22, 2002

Hsia Yu: modern, universal and refreshing

FUSION KITSCH: Poetry by Hsia Yu, Translated by Steve Bradbury. Zephyr Press, Massachusetts, 2001, 131 pp., $13 (paper) The title of this book, the first bilingual collection of work by Taiwanese poet Hsia Yu, is apt. In fact, translator Steve Bradbury, a professor at National Central University in Taiwan,...
COMMUNITY
Sep 15, 2002

Did Plato's Republic find a spiritual home in Japan?

Four hundred and two years ago this week, a battle was fought near the village of Sekigahara, 40 km northwest of Nagoya. Though short -- it was over soon after lunchtime -- the battle was decisive, ushering in . . . Plato's Republic?
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2002

Flawed jamboree had value

LONDON -- The vast jamboree at the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg involved a huge amount of partying and junketing. The costs of travel and accommodations for delegations of ministers and officials were huge. Was it worthwhile?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 7, 2002

Not Iraqi or English, just creative without borders

Hani Mazhar sits in Spica Gallery in Tokyo's Minami-Aoyama, looking unlike any artist ever met. He wears a double-breasted jacket with silver buttons, carefully pressed trousers, immaculately polished shoes. A perfectionist in more ways than one.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDUSTRY TRENDS
Sep 6, 2002

Demographic shift prompts toy makers to reach out to adults

Faced with an ever declining number of children, Japan's toy makers have started courting their parents, alluring them with frothy beer dispensers and matchbox luxury sedans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2002

Everlasting beauty left by everyday lives

Two thousand years from now, what will archaeologists unearth from the ruins of our civilization? Cars? Rice cookers? For sure, examples of "technology" so outdated as to provoke incredulity. The U.S. government believes that future humans -- or perhaps extraterrestrial excavators -- will uncover still-toxic...
EDITORIALS
Aug 31, 2002

Failure is not an option

Aside from its size, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is a touchstone that indicates how serious the international community is about reconciling its needs with the world's limited resources. It is billed as the largest United Nations gathering in history.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past