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CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2000

A philosopher behind the video camera

Hitherto, people confronted by "video art" would mentally steel themselves to be bored by an alienating experience that excluded rather than included. This is the reason why an artist such as Pipilotta Rist, originally a rock-video director, has gained such enormous popularity for being the easy and...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Sep 9, 2000

Putting no price on the beautiful

If all the pottery that I live with and use suddenly disappeared from my home, I would find myself quite blue. Those pieces, in their silent voices, spark my imagination and encourage me to live each day with grace and style; they are good friends. Someday I know I will have to part with them; that is...
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Sep 7, 2000

Seeding philosophy in the rice paddies

The zapping racket of cicadas rising and falling, undulating in and out of sync wakes me up soon after sunrise. Although it's not yet 7 a.m., the thick, steamy heat pours in through the open window in waves, and seems fused into one substance with the yazz and clatter of the insects.
COMMENTARY
Sep 3, 2000

New Zealand let down by laissez-faire

The collapse of the New Zealand dollar, now worth only a fraction of its former value, says a lot about the sorry state of economic punditry nowadays.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2000

Prospects bleak for Sharif, but may be bleaker still for Musharraf

NEW DELHI -- Pakistan's two most important political figures are facing bleak times.
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 31, 2000

Working together for the future

It's always your choice to live for today -- Raising your voice for all life to remain
COMMENTARY
Aug 30, 2000

The 21st-century neurosis

LONDON -- I think I've discovered a new neurosis of the 21st century. It involves frustration, guilt, shame and outbursts of destructive violence. The neurosis lurks wherever there are personal computers. (Business computers, and the work and commercial systems they create, produce similar feelings,...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 27, 2000

Dogs at Saatchi and Saatchi Gallery

The philosophy that primes Jun Fukukawa's work, a combination of painting and sculpture, is a blast from the recent past. Fukukawa is inspired by the writings of Carlos Castaneda, particularly the book "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" whose hallucinatory Indian mystical experiences...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 24, 2000

Shooting the breeze with affable Eddie

Sanfrecce Hiroshima manager Eddie Thomson HIROSHIMA -- Former Australian national team coach Eddie Thomson is the longest-serving manager in the J. League, but two weeks ago he announced that he would be leaving Sanfrecce Hiroshima at the end of the current season. However, the affable, 53-year-old...
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2000

Yokoyama's suspended term won't be appealed

OSAKA -- Prosecutors said Wednesday that they will not appeal the Aug. 10 court ruling that gave former Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama a suspended jail term for molesting a 22-year-old former campaign worker last year.
COMMUNITY
Aug 10, 2000

Have lifestyle, don't need kids

Kazumi Kato has been married for 15 years. When she got married at the age of 22, she planned to have a baby once she turned 26 or 27. But when she reached that age, she still did not feel like becoming a mother, and decided to wait until she was 30. When she turned 30, however, she still did not feel...
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

One man's fight to be a midwife

The baby looked pale as it started to emerge from the mother's body, worrying Hisateru Takikawa, who had been attending to the woman for hours since her labor started.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 8, 2000

The Bush machine rolls along

WASHINGTON -- There are three defining events for a candidate in the U.S. presidential campaign, events that reveal the candidate in a unique and important way. They are the selection of the vice-presidential candidate, the candidate's appearance at the convention, and the debates.
EDITORIALS
Aug 6, 2000

Between a rock and a riptide

Where culture and technology are concerned, the news isn't just news any more; it's a chronicle of emblems. Barely a week passes without some fresh development highlighting the fact that everyday life is caught up in a riptide of change. Even those still standing timidly on the shore can see the way...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2000

Lebanon's Daily Star does battle on a new front

BEIRUT -- The Daily Star did not need to send a reporter to the front line to cover the first salvos of the 15-year civil war that nearly broke Lebanon's back. The newspaper's offices were already there.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 1, 2000

Sowing authentic 'seeds of peace'

HIROSHIMA WITNESS FOR PEACE: Testimony of A-Bomb Survivor Suzuko Numata, by Chikahiro Hiroiwa. Translated by Tadatoshi Saito. Tokyo: Soeisha Books/Sanseido, 1,000 yen. Thirty-six years ago, not two decades after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Kenzaburo Oe was already writing about the imperative...
COMMUNITY
Jul 30, 2000

Getting the measure of a master suitsmith

Vijay Wadhwani is an international tailor. A very super-duper master craftsman, who runs a miniempire of cutters, machinists and hand stitchers in Hong Kong under the name "NobleHouse." His job is to travel the world to court customers, discuss clients' needs and take the full complement of 30 required...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 29, 2000

Play revives old debate over Nazi A-bomb

"Absence of A-bomb: Were the Nazis duped -- or simply dumb?" So asks the weekly U.S. News & World Report in a piece for its July 24-31 cover story, "Mysteries of History." The question is being revisited now perhaps because of a recent Broadway import from London: Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen."
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2000

Pessimists in the mist: Japanese still mired in crisis of confidence

It's hard to find a word that has so traumatized a generation as has "globalization." The term has become a convenient shorthand for all the uncertainties and unknowns of daily life, a catch-all for the problems that tug at economies and threaten to unravel traditional social structures.
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2000

As mighty as the mouse

Here is an odd thing: The more people use electronic means of communication -- PCs, Internet-linked cell phones and organizers, and the like -- the more stationery stores there seem to be and the more customers they attract. These are not all mauve-haired old ladies in kimono either, although if you...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2000

A chance for Japan to define and refocus the globalization debate

The world is in an uneasy mood.
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2000

Okinawa dialects are taking on new sounds

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- For goodbyes, Okinawans no longer say "anayagabu sabira" -- Ryukyuan for "I pray for your happiness." They sing it.
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2000

Japan should rebrand itself: Blair adviser

Mark Leonard had a somewhat negative image of Japan before his arrival, thinking that people would be pessimistic over the prolonged economic downturn and that Tokyo would resemble a ghost town populated by listless youths.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2000

Growing Islamic tide in region heightens Singapore's vulnerability

SINGAPORE -- A red dot in a sea of green. That was how former Indonesian President B.J. Habibie, talking to a Singapore minister who was paying a courtesy call, once described Singapore's position among its bigger neighbors in Southeast Asia.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 13, 2000

Compulsories of sake keeps brewers in top form

Last month, I gave an overview of the Shinshu Kanpyokai, the national new-sake tasting competition held each spring, and its logistics. Here is a look at what kind of sake wins, and what the big deal is about anyway.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jul 9, 2000

Taking better care of business

The 37th annual Japan-United States Business Conference is being held this week at the Hotel Okura. Top business executives from the two nations who comprise separate, compatible organizations are spending three days discussing important issues that concern commerce between the two most important economies...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2000

The decade that was, and always will be

SAINT-REMY-DE-PROVENCE, France — The full-page ad gracing the back of last week's Village Voice hit me like a heavy pointy object. "HOT SUMMER TOURS," the headline blared. As a U.S. citizen residing in the city of New York, I enjoy the golden opportunity to see '70s band Steely Dan perform at the romantically...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 5, 2000

Mind reading, or am I just predictable?

It is often said that long-time married couples grow so close they can actually read each other's minds, but either that's hooey or my wife and I are out of synch, ESP-wise.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jul 5, 2000

The tyranny of the square

When talking to Ted Nelson, strap in tight. It's quite a ride. Trained as a philosopher and film director, he is equal parts visionary and crank. Many consider him to be one of the fathers of the World Wide Web. He coined the word "hypertext" in 1965, but he has become a scathing critic of the Web and...
COMMENTARY
Jul 3, 2000

Japan's money-loving youth

With industrialized economies entering the postindustrial age, key issues in domestic politics are shifting their focus from materialism to postmaterialism. The "materialistic" issues include economic growth, income redistribution, welfare, employment, industrial development and international trade....

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