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April 25, 2024
 

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BIOGRAPHIES

Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013
Capturing Olivier in his contradictory essence
Laurence Olivier was the greatest British actor of his time, primus inter pares of the trio who dominated our theater from the early 1930s to the 1980s. His superiority to his chief rivals, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, resides in the role he played in the creation of the National Theatre and in the way he came to embody for the public at large a sense of national greatness. His most magnificent and emblematic performances were as Henry V and as Archie Rice in John Osborne's "The Entertainer."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 28, 2013
Biography of Masaoka Shiki excels in the expanded details
Haiku, the short Japanese poem now proliferating overseas, scarcely needs an introduction anymore. Its three great pillars, widely read even in translation, are the poets Matsuo Basho (1641-1694), its first creator, then Yosa Buson (1716-1784) and Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), who renewed it.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 27, 2013
The violent, thuggish world of the young Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach is arguably the greatest of all composers, with the "St. Matthew Passion" and the "Mass in B Minor" among the most sublime masterpieces in classical music. But biographers over the past half century have "sanitised" his life, in the belief that only a saintly man could have written such heavenly music, according to one of the world's leading conductors and foremost interpreters of Bach.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 7, 2013
The murky past of Pope Francis: Is he really so humble?
I don't remember hearing the name of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis in March, or any of his fellow Argentinian Jesuits when I was in Buenos Aires in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They seemed strangely silent in such harrowing times when the fundaments of decent civilization were being set at nought throughout the Western Hemisphere at the multiplying demands of the Cold War.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013
Masterful ode to Liverpool's Shankly
'Red Or Dead" is a masterpiece. David Peace already has a considerable reputation but this massive, painstaking account of the career of Bill Shankly towers above his previous work. It's usual when praising a sports novel for critics to claim that "it's not really about baseball/running/beach volleyball — the sport is a metaphor." Make no mistake, this book is about football. Unremittingly, uncompromisingly about football. It's what Shankly would have wanted. For Shankly, ephemera such as life, love and death could be metaphors for football, never the other way round. Football was the thing itself.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013
Remarkable story of the independence, dedication of Isamu Noguchi's mother
Like many people, I like soft light and use lampshades of Japanese paper from the successful Akari series designed by the American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), certainly the artist's greatest influence on individual lives, especially at home. Some of his own upbringing is described in this book, which tells the story of his mother.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2013
Woman finds calling in aging district
Operating a restaurant is just one of the jobs Nabi Togo assumes in her quest to help revitalize Tsuyazaki, a scenic fishing area facing the Genkai Sea in Fukutsu, Fukuoka Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2013
Historical biography captures the spirit of early feminist Japan
Time distorts, concealing the individual drops of humanity within the great tide of history. "Beauty in Disarray" attempts to reveal one such individual threatened to be lost in time, a woman named Noe Ito. In telling Ito's tragic story, biographer Harumi Setouchi (now known by her Buddhist name Jakucho) also reveals early feminist Japan. Setouchi's work itself threatens to go out of print, but a Kindle version made available this year brings Ito's story to the digital age.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013
Authorized life of Thatcher is clear-eyed, rich in details
It is a tricky deal being an authorized biographer. Charles Moore's big advantage over those who have previously tackled Margaret Thatcher is that he has been provided with material denied to them. Of the arrangement that he was offered by his subject, he writes: "I would have full access to herself ... and to her papers. She would assist all my requests for interviews with others, including access to members of her family." With her support, the Cabinet Office (the department of the U.K. government responsible for supporting the prime minister and his/her senior ministers), was persuaded to allow him to truffle among all the government papers of her time in power, including those documents subject to the 30-year rule, which states that the yearly Cabinet papers of a government will be released publicly 30 years after they were created.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 12, 2013
Allowing Nijinsky's ballet to tell his life
How can we separate the dancer from the dance? Vaslav Nijinsky's art was a vanishing act, and his mystique depended on gestures that lasted only a second, like his leap through a window in "The Spectre of a Rose," or the slight but scandalous quivering of his thighs that mimed ejaculation when, performing Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun," he rubbed himself against the captured drapery of a fleeing nymph. Offstage he was stolid — as blockish as Stravinsky's wooden Petrushka or, according to the sniffy socialites who patronized the Ballets Russes, as unimpressive as a shop assistant, a plumber's apprentice or a stable lad. After his mental breakdown, he spent decades in a state of blank-eyed mutism, interrupted only by inappropriate giggling fits.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 5, 2013
Revealing the many masks of Mishima
This is a whale of a book — both unusually massive and extremely informative and stimulating. The title means "mask" in Latin and is probably an allusion to Yukio Mishima's first full-length novel, "Confessions of a Mask," published in Japan in 1949 and translated into English by Meredith Weatherby in the 1950s. It may also serve as a metaphor for the way Mishima lived his life, donning a variety of masks: novelist, playwright, essayist-critic, martial artist (karate, kendo and iaido), actor, singer, political commentator and sometimes activist, devoted family man, and skilled describer of same-sex fantasies, relationships and subcultures.
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
Tokyo issues strong warning on yen intervention as currency dips further
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki speaks during a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and South Korean Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok on the sidelines of IMF and G20 meetings in Washington last week.
Japan’s cannabis market growing rapidly amid regulatory shift
The legality of products that contain cannabinoids, a group of substances derived from the cannabis plant, has been somewhat murky in Japan.
North Korean animators may be involved in Japan anime production, report says
North Korean animators may be involved in the production of some Japanese and U.S. animated shows, according to a report by a website providing analysis on North Korea.
BOJ to hold rates with focus on hawkish signals to buoy yen
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda hasn’t ruled out responding to exchange rates with a policy move if the impact on prices is seen to be "non-negligible.”
New workers name Shohei Ohtani as 'dream boss' for two years running
Shohei Ohtani has been overwhelmingly voted as the “dream boss” for people who started working in April, according to a survey.
A craft beer crawl through Tokyo’s top bars, brewpubs and dives
If all you drink is Asahi, Sapporo and Kirin, you're depriving yourself of some of the best craft beer Tokyo has to offer — and there sure is a lot of it out there.
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
Tsukiji 2030s: A stadium, culinary center and transportation hub
A computer-generated image shows redevelopment plans for the former site of the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.
Hearing the impact of climate change in Okinawa, one bird call at a time
Toshihiro Kinjo (center), a research support technician at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, inspects an audio recording device in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on April 3 as Masako Ogasawara, a research support specialist at OIST, looks on.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability
Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

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