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Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Hot ice tops massif menu

In Nagoya City, so I heard, there's a mountain that is really tough to conquer. But as Nagoya is on the lowland Nobi Plain straddling Aichi and Gifu prefectures, how could that be, this trained observer wondered?
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2005

Innkeeper puts on her promotional face

Fumiko Motoya is one of the best-known faces of corporate Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 17, 2005

The Joe Locke/Geoffrey Keezer Quartet

The New Sound Quartet, also known as the Joe Locke/Geoffrey Keezer Quartet, is a powerhouse of a group. Since both musicians had independent, well-established careers before teaming up, their names vie for top billing. But this quartet, by any name, is still one of the finest exponents of hard- and post-bop...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 7, 2005

Learning a foreign language is a cultural journey, too

English students of Japan, unite! You have nothing to lose but your (conversation school) chains!
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 6, 2005

Jambo: 'hello' in Swahili, help for nature at large

David Howenstein does not believe in being jinxed, or in giving up, which is why after two abortive attempts to meet we finally link up. He arrives, suitably attired, by a typical three-speed bike for morning tea in Seibu, which is also rather derring-do.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 28, 2005

Med students set to train on superdummies

It's the most advanced artificial human outside of a Japanese sex shop. The Human Patient Simulator, also known as Stan D Ardman ("Standard Man"), may not look or feel exactly human, but it leaves sex toys behind when it comes to mimicking human physiology.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 27, 2005

Liberating Japan's world of ceramics

In the ceramic world of early 20th-century Kyoto, Chinese ceramics, not Kyo-yaki (Kyoto-style pottery) were the rage of the day, and any potter worth a spin on the wheel strove to emulate them. In form and color, the ability to perfectly copy an ancient Sung dynasty vase was held up as the highest peak...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 23, 2005

Sathya Saran

"I think I am a good writer. That's the only skill I have," said Sathya Saran on a visit to Tokyo from Bombay.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 20, 2005

Shock & awe: hotshots wow Shibuya

Two leading contenders to the throne of the contemporary drama world, now long occupied by Yukio Ninagawa, are certainly Suzuki Matsuo, 42, founder of the Otona Keikaku theater company, and the Asagaya Spiders' 30-year-old founder, Keishi Nagatsuka. Currently both of these rising stars happen to be staking...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 20, 2005

The Bard on the hanamichi

With his characters given samurai names and clad in kimono, whatever would the Bard make of this "Twelfth Night" by Japan's foremost Shakespeare dramatist, 69-year-old Yukio Ninagawa? This veteran theatrical explorer long vowed never to tackle kabuki, but is doing just that with "Twelfth Night" to packed...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jul 17, 2005

Taking it easy in the urban jungle

These days, "relaxation" spots are as ubiquitous as Internet cafes and pachinko parlors. As people seek a quick fix for the stress of modern life, businesses offering anything remotely "therapeutic" or "healing" are springing up everywhere. Whether it's reflexology (foot massage) salons in office buildings,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 9, 2005

Umibiraki -- drunk fish, a certain charm

On the first Sunday of July for hundreds of years now, a priest has performed a Shinto ceremony called umibiraki on Shiraishi Island. At this "opening-of-the-sea" ceremony, the priest blesses the sea making it safe for swimming.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2005

Women's gyms find favor with females wanting to shape up

Women's gyms are mushrooming in Tokyo, attracting those who want to work out and lose weight without having to worry about men viewing their exertions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 3, 2005

Puccini's masterpiece transcends its age

Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" is one of most beloved operas of all time. Musically rich, dramatically taut and shamelessly wringing every last drop of sentiment from its tale of innocence betrayed, it shows Puccini at the top of his form. Yet its seductive beauty and the emotional immediacy disguise...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Jun 30, 2005

"Silverfin," "Baby Touch Playbook"

"Silverfin," Charlie Higson, Puffin Books; 2005; 372 pp. For James Bond's legions of males fans (this possibly includes your father), Charlie Higson's "SilverFin" is news of the best kind. Not for this reviewer, though, who belongs to the female half of the planet and whose grouse is that there are already...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 29, 2005

Where did we go right?

When it opened on Broadway in the spring of 2001, Mel Brooks' musical comedy "The Producers" became an instant cultural phenomenon steeped in irony. The day after its premiere, 33,000 tickets were sold at $100 each, a record high price, and the production was able to pay off its initial investment of...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 26, 2005

New book offers interesting retrospective on Japanese game

Remembering Japanese Baseball, an Oral History of the Game is the title of a new book by Robert K. Fitts, the creator of RobsJapanese Cards.com, the world's largest Web site dedicated to Japanese baseball cards and memorabilia.
Features
Jun 26, 2005

Learning to fly

He had been looking for someone to commit suicide with for a long time. Now that he had found the right person, Ken had traveled half the way around the world in order to carry out his plan. He was nevertheless surprised to find himself standing on a familiar-looking train platform with his hands tucked...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 22, 2005

Breathing the life into the dance

"I had a hard time finding the title," Pina Bausch tells me during an interview about her most recent work, "Nefes." The Turkish for "Breath" is the title of the latest in a series of works which the choreographer, who will turn 65 in July this year, has created in collaboration with theaters around...
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 19, 2005

Only one way to get that big band sound

Forming a jazz big band in this day and age is a somewhat insane undertaking. Scheduling the right musicians, writing elaborate arrangements and hiring a studio with the right equipment to record 16 players at once are headaches big enough to hold back even the most inspired leader. The bottom line for...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2005

Only one way to get that big band sound

Forming a jazz big band in this day and age is a somewhat insane undertaking. Scheduling the right musicians, writing elaborate arrangements and hiring a studio with the right equipment to record 16 players at once are headaches big enough to hold back even the most inspired leader. The bottom line for...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 17, 2005

Alcohol continues to fuel Best's free fall toward tragic ending

LONDON -- When George Best was having problems with his first wife, Angie, I shared a flight back to England with him from Miami -- he was playing for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the North American Soccer League at the time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 15, 2005

The art that rocks the boat of war in Iraq

If you don't like U.S. President George W. Bush -- particularly if you don't support his war in Iraq -- then there is a new gallery exhibition in Tokyo that you will relish.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 12, 2005

Music of Thad Jones: "One More"

For 40 years, every Monday, New York's Village Vanguard has featured one of the most stylish mid-size bands in jazz. Started as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, 1965-1979, trumpeter and composer Jones was the brains behind it and drummer Lewis provided the fire in front. After Jones passed away...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 8, 2005

A fling to remember

The all-male reworking of "Swan Lake" by English choreographer Matthew Bourne has become a dance and stage legend since its November 1995 premiere at Sadler's Wells Theater in London. This powerful piece of ballet zeitgeist toured widely before arriving in Japan in spring 2003. With nonstop curtain calls,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 7, 2005

Have you heard the one about . . ?

'And then, when he saw the other side of the car, where his date had been sitting not 15 minutes earlier, on the door handle, hung . . . a bloody . . . HOOK!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 29, 2005

The Alban Berg Quartett know Schubert inside out

The Alban Berg Quartett occupies a near-legendary position among string quartets. Their technical fluency, the beauty of their playing, the harmony of their interpretation -- have left critics searching for superlatives and ensured their constant demand in recital halls around the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 18, 2005

Spectacular diversity of clay

As noted in this column last month, Japanese ceramic art is finding a wider audience overseas. Many collectors search out the great potters of the past, such as Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) or Kanjiro Kawai (1890-1966), while more savvy collectors are looking to find out who's hot in Japan today.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 8, 2005

Window dressing the great divide

THE SARI SHOP, by Rupa Bajwa, W.W. Norton Company, 2005, 224 pp., $13.95 (paper). Indian-ness has ceased to be the flavor of the season, or at least that's what they've been saying in Indian publishing circles. One only wishes this were true. The "Indian experience" is the proverbial dead horse, flogged...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb