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COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 8, 2008

Bottle of water delivers wrong message

NEW YORK — "You really have to wonder at the utter stupidity and the irresponsibility sometimes of American consumers," Salt Lake City Mayor Ross "Rocky" Anderson said. "These false needs are provided, and too often we just fall in line with what Madison Avenue comes up with to market these unnecessary...
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2008

Embodiment of Pakistan's paradoxes

LOS ANGELES — A gift given to me years ago from Benazir Bhutto, an elegantly decorated wood jewelry box slathered in glossy lacquer, still adorns a sideboard in our home.
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008

Sexual division of labor

In the Jan. 1 Zeit Gist article, "Seeking life in balance," writer Michael Hassett says some insightful things about policymakers' responses to the birthrate decline. But he misses one important factor -- the "rational decision-making" of women concerning their fertility. In cultures throughout the world,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 31, 2007

The falsity of 2007

The kanji for the Japanese word "nise," meaning fake or false, has been chosen by the Kyoto-based Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation as the kanji that most appropriately defines domestic events in 2007. Unveiled at Kiyomizu Temple in the ancient capital, the choice underscores flawed ways of thinking...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Dec 24, 2007

Tree goes up for 70th Christmas

Warren Nobuaki Iwatake's family has seen more than its share of calamity.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007

Japan's 'Hidden Christians'

"It is 12:30 p.m. in Nagasaki, on March 17, 1865. Father Bernard Petitjean, a priest of the French Societe des Missions Etrangeres, hears a noise at the back door of his little chapel. On opening he is surprised to find a group of 15 middle-aged Japanese men and women — surprised because all native-...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 21, 2007

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Don't expect any seasonal cheer from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. For almost a decade, the Los Angeles-based three-piece's dark brand of bluesy garage rock has been burning a trail across the music scene. The demons that fuel the band's successes are the same ones that have, in the past, caused them...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 8, 2007

Yes — I have a cell phone

"Hate" is a powerful word, and one that I would never toss around lightly, not even to such potentially worthy targets as the Tokyo Giants, Fox News and eggplant (blech!). But having said that, let me further say this:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2007

'The U.S. vs. John Lennon'/'Chapter 27'

This Saturday, Dec. 8, marks 27 years since ex-Beatle John Lennon was gunned down outside his New York City home. Fans of the singer — and he still has many — often mark this sad anniversary by playing his music, raising a glass to his memory, or lighting a candle in Strawberry Fields.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2007

'Angel'

Had filmmaker Francois Ozon ("Under the Sand," "The Swimming Pool") been around in Vienna at the same time as Freud, he would have put the good doctor out of business in a week; this is one man who really, truly understands women and what they want, seemingly without the mighty and constricted efforts...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 23, 2007

'The Number 23'

Any student of music, and especially anyone who's studied their John Cage, knows that if you listen hard enough, you can always discover patterns. Producer Brian Eno once described recording a walk in the park, and taking a 3 min.-30 second segment of it and listening repeatedly: patterns emerged, the...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2007

Crime and punishment, refugee style

PRAGUE — The horrible murder of Giovanna Reggianni that took place near a Romanian refugee camp in the suburb of Tor di Quinto in Rome shocked both Italy and Romania. The case gained significance by adding fuel to the fiery public debates now under way not only in Italy but across Europe on the status...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 18, 2007

Up, up and away

Imagine an oblong balloon that's longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet and has a small glass bowl of a passenger compartment dangling precariously from its underbelly. Despite the slogan "Fly with me" emblazoned along its length, the Zeppelin NT didn't look like the most reassuring vehicle in which to entrust...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2007

Hopi activist brings two messages to Japan

Playing drum and chanting an eagle song, Ruben Saufkie Sr. — a Hopi messenger and silversmith — brings East and West into balance at the leading shrine in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2007

Restoring the innocence of childhood

With just a few days before International Children's Day (Nov. 20), it is high time to ponder the issues in the leadup to the event. This day is marked to commemorate globally the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was signed by the United Nations on Nov. 20, 1989, and celebrated as Children's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2007

Late architect Kisho Kurokawa's mecca built on philosophy

Not many people get to build cities and choose prime ministers, yet that was his claim to fame. In one of the last interviews before his death on Oct. 12, self-styled leader of the Symbiosis movement Kisho Kurokawa talked about the ups and downs of life as a mainstream architect, political maverick and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 9, 2007

From trailer park to catwalk

"Sorry, I'm having pure chaos!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 9, 2007

'Four Minutes'

"Four Minutes" was inspired by a single photograph of an 80-year-old woman who worked as a piano teacher in a women's prison. She sat at her instrument, her hands placed lightly on the keys, and filmmaker Chris Kraus was struck by the contrast between her old, ravaged face and youthful, elegant hands....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2007

Rural living of an old man who does as he pleases

Late Poems Of Lu You, The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases: New Translations by Burton Watson. Burlington, Ontario: Ahadada Books, 2007, 74 pp., $12, ¥2,000 (paper) Lu You (Yu) (1125-1210), often referred to by his literary name of Lu Fangweng ("The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases"), is one of China's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2007

'Always Zoku 3-chome no Yuhi'

Are the Japanese more nostalgic than the rest of us? It's hard to say, but here cinematic look-backs tend to be more bittersweet than in the West, especially films set in Tokyo, which was obliterated in World War II and has undergone several reincarnations in the six decades since.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 2, 2007

Shins wince their way to success

In a recent article in The New Yorker, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones said that the term "indie rock" has become "an aesthetic description, and no longer has anything to do with (record) labels." If that's the case, then exactly what kind of aesthetic does indie rock describe?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 1, 2007

Curios spice commercial fare

Tokyo International Film Festival remains an ambitious also-ran on the circuit, even if its regional-movie showings give cheer
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2007

'Vitus'

How does the world (and a parent in particular) deal with a child prodigy? Though Swiss film "Vitus (Boku no Piano Concerto)" doesn't provide any definite answers, it parts the curtains on the mystery, letting us share a little in the experience of getting to know and learning to love an incredibly gifted...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2007

'Quiet Room ni Yokoso'

I once did a story on a psychiatric hospital in a Tokyo suburb, in what now seems like a previous life. After an interview with the hospital director, I toured the wards and chatted with the patients. One, a middle-age housewife type, told me frankly that she was there for alcoholism. She struck me as...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Oct 17, 2007

Florist brings affordable flowers to the masses

Hideaki Inoue, president of the company that runs the Aoyama Flower Market chain, earlier in life had no particular interest in flowers. But today, the former accountant cannot live without them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 13, 2007

Shining on after the darkness of death

In July 2005, Kim Forsythe lost her 2-year-old son, Tyler, to acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Even before that time, she had begun to realize how the emotions she was experiencing could be turned into something positive, something that could ease the pain of Tyler's passing while providing aid and comfort...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 12, 2007

Dedicated followers of suburbia

Think of New York and rock musicians and you might well think of Lou Reed, whose identification with his home town is so secure that he remains the only rock star with the guts to actually title an album "New York." Even Billy Joel restricted himself to "52nd Street."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 11, 2007

Zen direct to you

Perhaps the most celebrated of the late-Edo Period Zen artist-priests, Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) left a large number of ink paintings on Zen-related subjects, of which by far the largest collection is in the Idemitsu Museum opposite the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years