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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 15, 2004

Servants of too many masters

The Tokyo National Theater is currently showing a three-hour bunraku performance drawn from the play "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami" (literally translated as: "Sugawara Certifies a Disowned Disciple to Perpetuate His Line of Calligraphy"), written by Takeda Izumo and collaborators in 1746.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2004

Anti-Disney style of 'manga' and 'anime' appeals to Americans

Animation in the United States once meant Mickey Mouse, Snow White and Winnie the Pooh.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 8, 2004

Trading in a master for an agent

When Yasuo Kitai first attempted to introduce Japanese calligraphy into Western art markets, he discovered he was up against thousands of years of tradition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2004

The heyday of body art

"Traces: Body and Idea in Contemporary Art," a new exhibition showing at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (soon to be seen in Tokyo) fleshes out what has been distinctive in art since the postwar '50s right up to recent times.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 23, 2004

Class action

What would you do if you were sacked for "clicking your pen too much in class," or for "talking to yourself during your break" . . . or how about for "only eating the topping on your rice during lunch?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 17, 2004

A new world order in a school gym

British sculptor Antony Gormley (born in London in 1950) is one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. A winner of the Turner Prize in 1994, Gormley is a conceptual artist working in a physical medium: He revitalized the sculptural vocabulary of the human form to articulate the universal abstract...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2004

Princess Nori to marry Tokyo metro bureaucrat

Princess Nori, the only daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, will marry Yoshiki Kuroda, an official in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, a senior Imperial Household Agency official said Sunday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 14, 2004

Onscreen breakthroughs

Picture Pikachu on a noir trip, popped loose of the 2-D plane.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 10, 2004

A journey through a landscape of clay

Kyoto ceramic artist Shin Fujihira creates works imbued with a childlike glee and an overflow of intelligent -- rather than intellectual -- energy that it's impossible not to fall in love with. The man, as a favorite singer of mine says, "has sharpened his sense of wonder" to the point of supreme refinement....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 7, 2004

Comedian Shinsuke looks to be at wits' end

Social distinctions related to class, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation that mean a lot in everyday life tend to mean less in the world of show business. Indeed, it's one of the few places where the normally dispossessed can expect an even break, especially in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 3, 2004

Feeling the joy of painting

Much has been made, in art and elsewhere, of the "East meets West" cliche. Here in Japan in the latter decades of the 19th century, the Meiji government sent boatloads of painters to Europe to study yoga (Western-style painting). They brought back oils and chiaroscuro, but their work -- as with the Japonisme...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2004

Designs for life

Whether you regard Sir Terence Conran as an ambitious visionary or a restless control freak, the fact is that this 73-year-old English designer and "lifestyle guru" stays forever busy. He designs chairs, sofas and vases; restaurants, bars and cafes; apartment rooms and hotels. He consults, he lectures...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 23, 2004

Good stuff, people and advice on how to tailor your consumption

It's back-to-school time again, and whether you are going back, sending your child off, or just getting swept up in the streams of backpack-wielding kids, change is in the air. Time for new books, new people and new gossip, and time to clear the desk even if only for a place to rest your head.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 15, 2004

Inside out and round and round the Yamanote

Johnnie Walker's A.R.T. gallery (Art Residency Tokyo), which opened last October, extends his philanthropic mission to promote cultural exchange between foreign and Japanese artists. Offering a window into Tokyo for many young hopefuls as well as a meeting point for the more established, the gallery...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2004

OPENING: Kansai

OSAKA "Emile Galle: A Retrospective" marks a century since the death of this French master of Art Nouveau glass by tracing his career with works made around the time of the Paris Expositions in 1878, 1889 and 1900, when he es tablished an international reputation; Sept. 11-Nov. 7.
BASEBALL / MLB
Sep 3, 2004

PL set to propose four-team league if 'Wave-Buffs move approved

The Pacific League is likely to propose a four-team league if a merger between the Kintetsu Buffaloes and Orix BlueWave is formally approved at an owners meeting next Wednesday, confirming a move for a second merger is in the works.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 25, 2004

Artists remap Americas

Bombarded as we are with the media's sound bites and video clips, it is difficult to imagine a time when the task of recording and recounting the news of the world was assigned to artists and their paintings.
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2004

Bad book with good message

LONDON -- Here's a slightly crazy story for these hot summer days. The book the whole world is reading on its holidays -- or at any rate the whole English-speaking world -- is called "The Da Vinci Code," by the American writer Dan Brown.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 17, 2004

Mosquitoes, surgery and cheap words

More on mozzies A reader named Rodney was interested in information about "ka" (mosquitoes) in a July column. He says there are few things he hates in this world, even among the insect family, "but I do abhor mosquitoes!" He did some research on mosquito repellents about a year ago and learned that...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 15, 2004

"Tuesday Suspense Theatre" on Nihon TV and more

There's a good possibility you'll be sick of the Olympics by about Wednesday, so if you're looking for alternatives you might want to check out the hospital serial "Shiroi Kyoto (The White Tower)," which is not a rebroadcast of the hugely popular series starring Toshiaki Karasawa and Yosuke Eguchi that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 11, 2004

In love with a beautiful woman

L'Histoire de Marie et Julien Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Jacques Rivette Running time: 150 minutes Language: French Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Among French directors, Jacques Rivette seems to have an enduring fascination for la femme -- and that's saying...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 9, 2004

Art's ancient moderns

Rimpa is usually defined as an artistic tradition and style begun by Towaraya Sotatsu (years of birth and death unknown) and Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637), who were at work during the Momoyama and early Edo periods from the late 16th century to the early 17th century.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 4, 2004

Guggenheim's show harks back to modern times

Several years ago, Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, approached Mori Building Co, Tokyo, about setting up a Guggenheim branch in Tokyo. The Guggenheim has recently opened centers in Bilbao, Berlin and Las Vegas. The idea was, in the end, rejected, but it did inspire...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 28, 2004

Pioneering painters surveyed in Shizuoka

Painting landscapes with oils in the open air has now become a universally recognized practice, but it was not always so. "The Romantic Prospect: Plein Air Painters 1780-1850" currently running at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art -- deals with a period in which painters famously started to go outdoors...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 28, 2004

Photos bloom in Ebisu's garden

Conceived during the halcyon days of Japan's economic boom, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (TMP) has seen plenty of ups and downs in its 10 years of operation. The fact that the TMP's entrance is hidden within Yebisu Garden Place has been one issue, but the bigger problem is that the TMP...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 25, 2004

LDP to promote architect of failed election

It's a strange promotion.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 24, 2004

Mycal brings high-flying fashion grad to Tokyo

Back in March, my traveling companion en route from London to Narita was Ben Archer, English crew chief of an airship -- one of those zeppelin-type balloons that fly around advertising companies and products. We tried to meet up, but schedules failed to mesh. Sorry about that, Ben.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 21, 2004

It's a wonderful (and weird) life

Cha no Aji Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Katsuhito Ishii Running time: 143 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Brimming with whacky invention and seemingly inspired by the stranger manga, Katsuhito Ishii's "Samahada Otoko to Momojiri...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 18, 2004

Hard-boiled and stuck to Thai ways

"When I finish a book I collapse and say, 'That's it. Never again,' " sighs Bangkok-based author Christopher G. Moore. "About three, four months later the demons pull me back, and the whole mad process starts over."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 11, 2004

Classic love-tragedy finds new blood

Noh, contemporary classical music and calligraphy -- each is an artistic form with its own appeal.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?