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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2001

Constituents mattered most to Soichiro Ito

BERKELEY, California -- For the people of Miyagi Prefecture's 4th district, the generational shift in Japanese politics has just arrived. On Oct. 28, Shintaro Ito was elected to represent Miyagi's 4th district in a special by-election to replace his father, Soichiro, who passed away on Sept. 4.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 7, 2001

10,000 views of Mount Fuji, rising through the steam

The view from the bath is picture-perfect. Through the thick steam rising from the piping hot water, foothills dotted with lush pines and rolling fields of greens and gold give way to a turquoise-blue ocean. From the center rises Mount Fuji, its snow-dusted peak circled in a halo of marshmallow-like...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Sep 27, 2001

Medicinal ornaments

Last year, while searching the southern part of the Kii Peninsula for the elusive yellow-flowered toad lily (Kii joro-hototogisu, Tricyrtis macranthopsis), I came across an unusual tree, a "new discovery" that made my day.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 15, 2001

Icons of a forgotten femininity

Western culture is replete with empowering images of women, from the warrior Amazons of Greek mythology to Wagnerian Valkyries to computer game and movie heroine Lara Croft. Western women are spoiled for choice when it comes to assertive role models. Japan, on the other hand, has always cherished a more...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 8, 2001

Aida dishes up tough stuff to chew on

After spending the better part of the last year living and working in New York City, Niigata-born Makoto Aida is back in Japan with a show at Nadiff, a compact and cool art gallery/bookstore/cafe tucked down a side street just off Tokyo's fashionable Omotesando boulevard.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

Mario A's walking, talking, breathing, living doll

A new photography book titled "ma poupee japonaise" arrived in the post the other day, sent by German-Italian artist Mario A. After skimming through pictures of an apparently life-sized wooden doll posed mostly unclothed in a variety of private and public places, I uploaded a brief note about the publication...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Gimmickry belies a true phenomenon

A survey of 20th-century art would identify few individuals with as remarkable a story as Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), the Mexican painter whose life was one of those stranger-than-fiction phenomena. Already crippled by polio, the teenage Kahlo was impaled on a steel handrail in a trolley accident that shattered...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2001

Unleashing the power of color

The keynote of the ongoing exhibition at the Yasuda Kasai Museum in Shinjuku is the brilliance and vividness of color.
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2001

Basics must still precede computer skills: teachers

While the government is actively promoting education on information technology starting in elementary school, some teachers question the wisdom of getting children started on computers at such an early age.
CULTURE / Art
May 23, 2001

High-rise hair takes center stage

Early evening thundershowers have raised humidity in Harajuku's Lapnet Ship Gallery to near-sauna level, but despite the sticky discomfort the tiny room is packed on this Saturday night. It's the much-anticipated opening party for Vivienne Sato's exhibition "Wig Wig Wig," and by following a Marge Simpson-like...
JAPAN
May 10, 2001

Exhibition spotlights Diet members' Silk Road diplomacy

An exhibition of photos of Central Asia taken by 11 Diet members, including former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, opened Wednesday at the Parliamentary Museum in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 25, 2001

Homegrown approach to British Art Now

A couple of years ago, just outside the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale, a troupe of butoh dancers wowed the assembled art glitterati with a street performance. Afterward, more than a few people congratulated representatives of the Japan Foundation for the refreshingly alive and unaffected happening,...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2001

Disparaging title forces video delay

Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan Inc. was forced to stop release of a psycho-thriller video after receiving complaints from autistic patients whose condition is used in the Japanese title of the video, it was learned Thursday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 7, 2001

A view of the world from sidewalk level

Nami Kawase finds it hard to sit down. The world is too exciting. There are too many people to talk to, even if she can't speak their language.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2001

Homegrown IT plans are best

The government has unveiled the "e-Japan" strategy that it hopes will turn Japan into the most advanced information-technology-based nation in five years. Most mass media and IT experts are critical of the strategy. They say it lacks vision and workable plans, is late and is designed to benefit only...
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2001

Donald Richie: being inside and outside Japanese cinema

In his five decades as a writer, Donald Richie has investigated everything from the glories of noh to the mysteries of the Japanese tattoo, while attempting everything from the travel narrative ("The Inland Sea") to the historical novel (the meticulously researched, wittily engaging "Kumagai"). He is...
CULTURE / Film
Mar 17, 2001

Upon further meditation . . .

Sometime after Gus Van Sant had released "Goodwill Hunting," he took a trip to India. During his stay, he was faxed a screenplay from Sony Pictures. Written by an unknown anchorman called Mike Rich, "Finding Forrester" had everything that prompted Van Sant to cut off his journey and return to LA. Three...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 17, 2001

Taking the Watanabe optional tour

Few of us can understand why the Taliban in Afghanistan is destroying the awe-inspiring giant Buddhist statues at Bamiyan instead of turning them into profitable tourist sites generating millions of dollars in T-shirt and other souvenir sales. Someone who might, however, is Satoshi Watanabe, whose own...
LIFE / Digital
Feb 16, 2001

From video game to big screen

HONOLULU -- Aki, the scientist/heroine of Square Picture's new movie "Final Fantasy," steps from the door of her space shuttle and surveys the wreckage that is Old New York.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 10, 2001

One for the guy upstairs

If God was in the mood for a really good movie, chances are he'd flip through the listings and make tracks for "Unbreakable." Everything about it has a huge appeal to the Omniscient: the dynamics of Good and Evil, the fundamental questions of Existence, man's helplessness in the face of accidental fate....
COMMENTARY
Feb 1, 2001

Resist the revisionist impulse

LONDON -- Digging up the past has become politics, not archaeology. All round the world, whether in dusty archives or beneath sand-covered mounds, new "facts" are being uncovered, half-forgotten outrages reanalyzed, old myths debunked, old grievances exhumed and apologies or compensation, or both, demanded....
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2001

Beauty can be ugly -- insouciant Frenchman

What makes a great photographer? An artist usually needs to have special skills or unique concepts, but a photographer in a well-lit studio with the right equipment and beautiful models can get by even without good timing if he uses enough film and then selects the best images.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 30, 2000

'Discovering' Heinrich Vogeler

With most Tokyo galleries closed during the New Year's break, it can be difficult to find an interesting contemporary art show in the city.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 4, 2000

The good, the bad and the confusing

"No. 7 Needles" (1975) oil on canvas Like many of his paintings, Luc Tuymans is a man easily misunderstood. At first glance, the tall and hulking Belgian seems more like the president of a stodgy old European corporation than the internationally acclaimed avant-garde artist that he is. Tuymans, 42,...
COMMUNITY
Oct 29, 2000

Food Bank Japan to aid homeless

It is hard to imagine how Charlie McJilton makes ends meet as a single father living in Tokyo. He says he does "this and that" to pay the bills. Committed to staying in Japan for love of his daughter, most of his time is spent helping those in the direst need -- foreign residents who have fallen through...
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2000

Pressure mounts for Mori to dump top aide Nakagawa

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa came under heavy fire Thursday over scandals involving a rightist figure and an extramarital affair, with some ruling bloc officials joining the opposition's calls for his resignation.
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2000

Tokyo poised to lift ban on exterior train ads

How can Tokyo buses and streetcars make more money without attracting more passengers? One answer: advertising.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 4, 2000

Close-up and personal with Peak District scenery

On Friday morning I was a point, press and hope-to-get-a-good-one sort of photographer; by Sunday evening I knew the raison d'e^tre of an f-stop and could talk solarization, ambient lighting and reversals.
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2000

Museum buffs image of newspapers

YOKOHAMA -- A museum visit is not likely to raise the pulse rates of children these days, and a museum dedicated to newspapers seems certain to draw only yawns.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’