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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 9, 2006

The art of the machine

The phenomenal success of MTV's "Pimp my Ride," a show in which everyday folk have their unglamorous vehicles jazzed up with chrome wheels, fancy paint jobs and state-of-the-art sound systems, has sparked huge interest in the art and practice of motor-vehicle customization. So it wasn't long before a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 2, 2006

Love, Peace & Money?

Tokyo Design Week brings together international and local designers, manufacturers, retailers and entrepreneurs for a raft of exhibitions, gatherings and design-related events, and, of course, parties -- wherever designers get together, a party is not too far away. But apart from the civilized pleasure...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 26, 2006

A change in gender for new political series

For more than two decades, Yasumasa Morimura, one of Japan's most internationally celebrated artists, has inserted his own face into iconic paintings by van Gogh, Manet and Rembrandt, as well as portraits of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Vivian Leigh. With his elaborate, hilarious and often gender-bending...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

"Letters First"

Space Edge October 20 & 21
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 30, 2006

Frances Fister-Stoga

The Linguapax Institute, located in Barcelona, Spain, is a nongovernmental organization affiliated with UNESCO. Linguapax Asia, associate of the Linguapax Institute, carries out the objectives of the institute and of UNESCO's Linguapax Project, with a special focus on Asia and the Pacific Rim. The objectives...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 10, 2006

Looking beyond the West

Art historian Dr. Charles Merewether is the artistic director and curator of the 2006 Biennale of Sydney (established 1973). Merewether has worked and taught in Mexico, Spain, Australia and the United States and is the author of a number of books on art, including "Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations...
LIFE
Jul 2, 2006

Showdown at Budokan

The rightwing reactionaries were arriving in their menacing black-and-white trucks, blasting military music. The politicians were shaking their fists and telling people to go to a garbage dump. The police had locked down all entrances to the Imperial Palace grounds. Riot police lined the road leading...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 25, 2006

Writing a challenge in clay for his proteges

When asked "What kind of ware do you make?," ceramic artist Kimpei Nakamura's tongue-in-cheek response is "Tokyo yaki (Tokyo Ware)." It's a label of his own invention that pokes fun at the traditional system of classifying ceramics by their ties to ancient kiln sites that existed long before the city...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 14, 2006

Home and away

AUSTRALIA Respect brings harmony without being workaholic
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2006

Aso pitches for creation of 'Nobel Prize' for foreign 'manga' artists

Nobel Prize for up-and-coming non-Japanese comic-strip artists as a way to boost the country's diplomacy. "I would like Japan, as the origin of manga, to give these rising artists an award equivalent to the Nobel Prize," Aso said. "In that way, they would feel a connection with Japan."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 19, 2006

Myths behind the rise of the mobile

PERSONAL, PORTABLE, PEDESTRIAN: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 357 pp., $39 (cloth). Consider the refrigerator. The changes this appliance brought in its wake are monumental. Thanks to that big humming machine in the kitchen,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 27, 2005

Donald Keene

One of the greatest scholars of Japanese literature, 83-year-old Donald Keene has spent the past 52 years in Japan, with the exception of his time spent teaching at Columbia University in New York, where, in 1986, The Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture was established in his honor. So far he has...
Features
Dec 25, 2005

Haruki Kadokawa: Spirits of the Yamato

Haruki Kadokawa is the closest Japanese equivalent to fabled Hollywood moguls like Sam Goldwyn or Howard Hughes in their glory days as master promoters and unrepentant egotists.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 18, 2005

What did you read about Asia this year?

Donald Richie THE COLUMBIA ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE, edited by J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel (Columbia University Press) This new take on Japanese modern classics -- old standbys and lots of recent writing as well -- is big (864 pages and it's only the first volume). It includes examples...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 12, 2005

Sixteen square feet of ignorance, and other trivia

"Tell me something I don't know," said my first son.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2005

Nossiter says 'bon sante!'

If nothing else, Jonathan Nossiter's "Mondovino" created a stir and no doubt triggered many discussions amid the opening (and sniffing!) of corks all over the world.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 17, 2005

Talking about the modern Japanese woman

Meeting last Monday, Barbara Hamill Sato is not sure how many women won seats in the previous day's general election, but suspects it may be the most ever.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2005

Koizumi's bare-knuckle power play may soon haunt him

Sunday's election for the Lower House stands out as abnormal, but not because of its abruptness. Many surprise elections have been held before. On March 14, 1953, for instance, then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who was president of the Liberal Party, dissolved the Lower House following the passage...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 17, 2005

There's nothing quite like a good Indian argument

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, by Amartya Sen. Penguin, 2005, 356 pp., £25 (cloth). "We do like to speak," admits Amartya Sen, citing a well-known fact about Indians in the opening paragraph of "The Argumentative Indian." But what the Nobel Prize-winning...
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2005

Miyazawa urges Koizumi not to visit Yasukuni

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi faced fresh pressure Sunday over his visits to Yasukuni Shrine, with former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa saying Koizumi should not go again because it would hurt Japan-China relations.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 15, 2005

The great corporate escape: Blame it on the factotums and avoid responsibility

The news media's breathless coverage of the train derailment in Amagasaki that claimed 107 lives last month operated on several levels. On one level was an investigation into the details of the accident itself. On another was the coverage of victims and their families. And on a third was the gradual...
COMMUNITY
May 14, 2005

Extraordinary Ainu strut their stuff in Scotland

Val Aldridge is the researcher of the exhibition "The Extraordinary: A People Called Ainu," which opened at Scotland's Perth Museum and Art Gallery in April and will run through to the end of the year. It is hoped that it will generate some interest in July when the Group of Eight summit takes place...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 17, 2004

Power of hope

Toshiko Akiyoshi's Jazz Orchestra is one of the most innovative big bands in jazz -- not just in Japanese jazz, but worldwide. Her work has received both critical praise and consistent popularity over the course of 50 years of live performances and some 40 recordings.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 15, 2004

Coach Baxter making a name for himself in world soccer

"Stuart who?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 6, 2004

Shinya Tasaki: Sommelier supreme

Shinya Tasaki was a teenager when he made his first solo trip to France in 1977. Even back then, he was so eager to learn about French food and wine that he visited as many wineries as he could -- only to be turned away from most. But his determination kept him from giving up -- and now nobody will turn...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 11, 2004

The struggle to find a collective identity

JAPAN UNBOUND: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose, by John Nathan. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 271 pp., $25 (cloth). In this engaging book, largely based on extensive interviews, John Nathan probes the pathologies, contradictions and search for identity in contemporary Japan. He ranges...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 25, 2004

To give proves easier said than done

JAPAN'S "CULTURE OF GIVING" AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, by Akira Matsubara and Hiroko Todoroki, translated by Richard Forrest. Tokyo: Coalition for Legislation to Support Citizen's Organizations, 2003, 45 pp., free (paper). Japan's transformation is proceeding quietly, slipping beneath media radar screens...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2004

World's young see Japan wealth, diligence waning

An increasing percentage of young people in Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany and Sweden see Japan's economy as waning and Japanese as less diligent than before, according to the results of a government survey released Monday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 10, 2004

Rosemary Wright

In following half a dozen different careers, Rosemary Wright succeeds in being outstanding in each one of them. Her range is wide and deep, from international scholarship to interdisciplinary art. She is equally a college administrator and gallery director, with a strong cross-cultural background in...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear