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Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 23, 2010

Petit Louvre stresses art education for kids, which is no small feat

Volcanic ash might have put the kibosh on the family trip to Europe, but a piece of Paris awaits you in Nagano Prefecture.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 18, 2010

Artist and architect rethink the condo

Drab, repetitive, formulaic, plain: some of the more polite adjectives that might be applied to most condominium design in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 16, 2010

Building a new history in Tokyo

The first thing that occurs to you as you survey the dark wooden floorboards, high skirting boards, deep-colored walls, fireplaces and — until July 25 — the selection of Eduoard Manet paintings at the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Marunouchi, Tokyo, is that on entering this grand redbrick building...
LIFE / Digital
Apr 14, 2010

Tech pushes Japan's music scene; industry won't budge

The music business reinvents itself every 20 years or so — basically every time a new format comes down the pike. But the industry has never faced the kind of fundamental challenge presented by the digital file-sharing revolution.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 9, 2010

The blond ambition of Tamara de Lempicka

I'm not sure what Lady Gaga — who arrives in Japan shortly — has in her art collection, but given time (and the millions produced by her phenomenal success) I think it is highly likely that a lady of her strong aesthetic drives will get round to emulating her model Madonna by acquiring paintings...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Apr 9, 2010

"Native Land"

Scai the BathhouseCloses April 17
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 2, 2010

Getting round the censors can make art even more creative

There are two main arguments to support censorship. One is that it protects the tender sensibilities of a weak-minded public prone to be led astray into immorality and depravity. The other is that it actually stirs the creative powers of artists to new heights by placing obstacles in their way. While...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Mar 28, 2010

Thatched spring in Setagaya

To slough off winter sluggishness and get into step with spring, I set a course from Seijo Gakuen-mae on the Odakyu Line to Jidayubori Minkaen — a compound of late-Edo Period (1860s) thatched farmhouses in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward — and ending at Futako Tamagawa Station, about 4 km away as the crow...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Mar 28, 2010

Our man, Mr. Pound

On May 15, 1939, readers of The Japan Times were introduced to a new correspondent — although, in literary circles, at least, he needed no introduction. He was Ezra Pound, then a 53-year-old American Modernist poet who could boast accomplishments that included having launched the career of T.S. Eliot....
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 21, 2010

Who ever could make war if they saw it through children's eyes?

The misery of war remains for many long years as scar tissue in the minds of children deeply traumatized by it. And yet, there are not many works of fiction or nonfiction that have conveyed the confusion and pain felt by such children.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 12, 2010

Family-friendly exhibit celebrates mammals

From Ueno Zoo's giant panda, Ling Ling, to a 2.5-meter-tall polar bear, around 280 stuffed specimens, fossils and skeletons of mammals will go on display at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo from March 13. Titled "Mammals: Diversity in Terrestrial Life," the exhibition examines the evolution...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 12, 2010

Painting the spirit that built great empires

As I write, the British pound is in sharp decline against a wide range of currencies, including even the Zimbabwean dollar! No, there hasn't been an editorial mishap and this is not the financial section of The Japan Times. I just mention these facts of economic decline to add some perspective to the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Mar 11, 2010

Revamps, re-openings, relocations and the return of Fashion Week

MISHA JANETTE Get ready for Fashion Week
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 10, 2010

Wait long enough and daikon legs get fashionable

Bridget Jones said a woman starts to feel her age when the fashion of the times comes full circle and she witnesses the ghostly resurrection of all the stuff she wore in her youth.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 7, 2010

Yoshiharu Fukuhara: 'Mr. Shiseido' blends beauty and business

In July 1942, seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor that started the Pacific War, Tokyo hosted one of the most ambitious exhibitions of art the world had ever seen. "Leonardo da Vinci," staged in an exhibition hall in the central district of Ueno, featured 600 exhibits by and related to the Italian...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 6, 2010

A brooper a day

This past fall I received an e-mail from a student traveling in France. There was a photo attached and the mail announced it would be a shot of cows eating "glass."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 28, 2010

Bulking up in Bush Warbler Valley

I'd like to improve my grip on sumo wrestling, so when a friend invites me to watch the big boys tussle through a morning practice, I jump at the chance. I get off at Uguisudani (Bush Warbler Valley) Station on the Yamanote Line, where the station-identity jingle is of this warbler's mellifluous chortle...
COMMUNITY
Feb 27, 2010

Something to be said for Japan's gray zone

It was an a-ha moment, an epiphany light-bolting across her face. It flickered with incredulous certainty and ended with awareness in her eyes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 26, 2010

'Pour Elle'/'New York, I Love You'

A gorgeous wife, a beautiful baby son and an apartment in Paris. What more could a man possibly want, especially when he's a humdrum schoolteacher? But then one morning the placid life of Julien (Vincent Lindon) is blown to smithereens. His wife Lisa (Diane Kruger) is arrested for murdering her boss...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 21, 2010

Laying it all out on the table

Hiromi Ito's poetry is often described as "shamanistic," and indeed, according to translator Jeffrey Angles, when she performs her poems she sometimes "sits on the floor like a shamaness and raps on a drum." That sort of thing, along with the insistence — often asserted but seldom supported — that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 19, 2010

Tokyo Jihen "Sports"

Given that she writes the majority of the songs in both projects and works with many of the same musicians, it's bizarre that Shiina Ringo's finest moments come not in her solo work but with her band Tokyo Jihen. Last year's long-anticipated solo release "Sanmon Goshippu" ("Superficial Gossip") was a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 12, 2010

Chatmonchy go south by southwest

"We want to establish our reputation as a rock band rather than a 'female' rock band. But I've noticed there are big differences in feeling between men and women, and it seems to be easier to convey how we feel and get into the rhythm as girls."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 12, 2010

Chicken Head Maker

Many bands dream of combining various musical styles to create a completely new sound, only to discover that it's a bit like trying to make bechamel sauce; if you're not careful the creamy concoction you dreamed of will curdle into an evil-looking slop. Chicken Head Maker, who happily converged on the...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2010

The best way to rebuild Haiti

WASHINGTON — In the wake of the devastating earthquake, there has been an outpouring of international support for Haiti. The first priority has been saving lives. That means getting water, food, shelter, medicine and other basic supplies to victims. The first rush must be backed up by an ongoing logistics...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 7, 2010

To resolve its 'core issue' Beijing needs to take heed of Dalai Lama

"From the perspective of Chinese Communist Party ideology, China was a victim of Western imperialism from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, and, as a result, the Chinese tend to remember the humiliations they suffered while rarely considering their own nation to be an imperial power."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 5, 2010

'Kazura'/'Boys on the Run'

The odds of two brilliant Japanese comedies opening the same day are high but not impossible, somewhat like the odds of the same director (James Cameron) making two all-time worldwide box-office hits ("Titanic" and that other film about blue aliens).
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2010

Tolls to be lifted on 1,626 km of highways

The transport ministry Tuesday unveiled a plan to make 1,626 km of the nation's expressways toll-free in fiscal 2010, an experiment in accordance with the ruling party's key election promise to eventually remove user fees from most rural expressways.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight