Japan Times

On Sept. 25, 2006, hundreds gathered in New York's Times Square to watch the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" on a jumbo screen. The Met, one of the world's most famous opera companies, was showing its opening night gala live to the general public for free.
Every opening night since, the crowds in Times Square — and before a large screen in front of the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in New York — witness a free event few would have imagined possible, especially since a ticket to the gala can cost well in excess of $1,000.

Hollywood is such a duplicitous, back-stabbing, narcissistic pit of weasels and vipers that making a satire about it should be no more difficult than, say, getting a gram of cocaine delivered to a 90210 address at four in the morning. And yet the conundrum is this: If you really tell it like it is, you can kiss your career goodbye. Hollywood, no less so than the Mafia, relies on a code of silence. Sure, you may have to eat dirt now, but suck it up, and in a few years, you'll be the one serving it to others.
Every now and then, someone — usually some poor sap with no bridges left to burn — comes along and speaks the truth, in books such as Julia Philips' "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again" and David Mamet's "Bambi vs. Goliath," or films like Robert Altman's "The Player" and David Rabe's "Hurlyburly" (a personal fave). Yet these are remarkably rare occasions.

Koya-san Cafe is an event that gives you a taste of what life is like at the Buddhist stronghold of Mount Koya in Wakayama Prefecture.
The annual event, which runs through Sept. 12, is in its fourth year and is aimed at promoting the cultural attractions of the mountainous area, home to the Shingonshu sect of Buddhism and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

NEW YORK — The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in what is euphemistically called the end of the Iraq war portends anything but the end of the conflict.
The consequences of the war will be felt for many years to come. Former President George W. Bush and his advisers are to blame for engaging in a war that has ravaged Iraq and cost the United States not only economically but also the lives and well-being of hundreds of thousands of its soldiers.

The 10 years following the end of World War II in Tokyo are marked by two things — war-related devastation and the march toward reconstruction.
The exhibition "Tokyo Fukko" ("Reconstruction of Tokyo") at the Edo-Tokyo Museum captures this period of Tokyo's history through color photographs and movies, with many of the items being shown publicly for the first time.

The Way of Tea has for centuries been a cornerstone of Japanese culture and aesthetic beauty. An old Japanese proverb states: "If a man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty."
Within the tea world there are stunning gardens, contemplative tea rooms, seasonal flowers, delicious foods, and varied tea vessels made of bamboo, lacquer, glass and most often clay. It's the latter material that is the most varied and used in the Way of Tea throughout its long history. How contemporary ceramic artists are adapting their tea wares to the present day is the theme of a most remarkable exhibition now showing at the Musee Tomo, Tokyo, and titled "The Musee Tomo Prize, Contemporary Ceramics for the Tea Ceremony: Free Creativity and Atypical Usage."

Combining letters from the names of the instruments they play — piano and cajon (a South American box drum) — to create their handle, Pia-no-jaC's stripped-down keys and percussion setup has netted the Tokyo duo a fair amount of attention.
Debuting in the fall of 2008 with "First Contact," the act instantly found a fan base for their unique art-jazz blend. With praise and sales figures increasing, they aimed to make a bigger splash in Japan's jazz and alternative- music scenes in 2009, issuing another album of originals and two very fun "Eat a Classic" records featuring reinterpretations of famed classical pieces by the likes of Ludwig van Beethoven and Frederic Chopin. They also managed to squeeze out a DVD, "First Movies," before the end of the year.

Taking Nintendo's Game Boy to places it was never meant to go, a lineup of international chiptune artists will be converging on Koenji High this weekend for Japan's first ever Blip Festival. The roster includes acts such as Nullsleep from New York, who takes a blowtorch to sweet "Super Mario" style ditties, gradually melting them down with a battery of zaps and bleeps until the listener is caught up in a dog fight (or goomba fight) of raw electronic sound.
"I kind of made a real pain in the ass of myself with a whole bunch of people trying to convince them (the event) was possible," says organizer David Adams over coffee in the Higashi Nakano area of Tokyo. He has made it his mission to bring Blip Festival to Japan ever since being blown away by it in New York in 2008, and it's hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm over the possibilities of the chiptune genre.

Starting in 1990 as a compilation of 100 "true horror" tales from ordinary folks around Japan, "Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro (Tales of Terror)" has spawned a series of short films broadcast on the BS-TBS cable and satellite channel and three theatrical omnibuses. The franchise is the snack food of J-horror.
The fourth and latest, "Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro: Kaiki" (Tales of Terror: The Bizarre), is directed by Makoto Shinozaki, based on a script by horror specialist Ryuta Mitake. Since debuting in 1995 with "Okaeri," a spare, powerful drama about a woman's descent into madness that was a key film of the 1990s' Japanese New Wave, Shinozaki has cut an idiosyncratic path across genres, from "Wasurerarenu Hitobito (Not Forgotten)," a heartfelt 2000 drama about the vanishing World War II generation, to "0093: Joheika no Kusakari Masao" ("Her Majesty's Masao Kusakari"), a goofy 2007 spy parody, and this summer's "Tokyo-jima (Tokyo Island)," a black comedy about a woman alone on an island with several dozen sex-starved guys.

Even among the architectural mishmash of Tokyo's jumbled backstreets, Bissori stands out. The two-story facade is sheer, rough-plastered, almost windowless. Creepers and bamboo obscure the few small square portholes. It's intriguing, enigmatic. Inside, though, is even more remarkable.
Entering the narrow arched postern, you pass through a small half-timbered antechamber to find yourself once again in the open air. Almost all of the original structure — walls, ceiling and roof — has been removed. What's left is an open patio, subtly illuminated, fringed with shrubs and, spanning the sky overhead, a handsome full-grown cherry tree. This is the main dining room at Bissori and it's magical.

A double bill of cutting-edge dance awaits fans at the Saitama Arts Theater this weekend.
Under the title dancetoday 2010, the first part of this two-course feast of leading Japanese contemporary dance features is "Island of No Memories," choreographed by international dance muse, Kaori Ito.

NEW DELHI — New Delhi at last has its proud defining modern monument at the very point of entry to India — a massive, sparkling new Terminal 3, which alone is the sixth-largest airport in the world. Remarkably, too, it was built on time, in three years by a public-private partnership, and on a $3 billion budget.
Gone are the long snaking queues in sweaty air smelling of insecticide and worse: You can now get through immigration and customs in air- conditioned bliss at least as quickly as in Singapore, faster than in Hong Kong and far faster than in London, New York or Washington with their crumbling Third World infrastructure and officials with the charm of a fourth world dictatorship.

After some meanderings, the campaign for election of the next president of the Democratic Party of Japan officially started Wednesday, with Prime Minister Naoto Kan and former DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa vying for the post.
As Japan is facing serious problems in the economy and in other fields, and since the DPJ head becomes prime minister, the two politicians must clearly present their grand vision of the future of Japan, road maps toward that goal, and policy measures to solve the problems assailing the country in that process.

Many Tokyoites believe there are two versions of the city: Version A is where the Japanese inhabit — defined by cramped spaces, excessively long working hours and totally functional toilets. Version B is the Tokyo known to non-Japanese, which by all accounts is ambivalent, exotic and infinitely more romantic.
The majority of Japanese Tokyoites go through their lives steeped in the realities of Version A, slightly aware of but not really familiar with the goings-on in Version B, except via movies about Tokyo by foreign directors. True, we don't get as much attention as New York or Paris, but over the years, a sizable number of auteurs have taken a crack at the city, from Wim Wenders ("Notebook on Cities and Clothes") to Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation") to Michel Gondry ("Tokyo!").

Shu Matsui's innocent smile is familiar. He's always beaming on TV ads, whether he's plugging a washing softener, playing a gentle new father or promoting mobile phones in the guise of a young doctor. But if you were to see any production by Sample, the theater company Matsui founded in 2007, you'd be amazed to find a huge gap between the 37-year-old playwright, actor and director's heartwarming small-screen personality and the disturbing scripts, bizarre story lines and abstract sets that are his company's trademark.
Matsui's theater work is making quite an impact: In May, he was named by the New York Times as "one of (Japan's) most important young directors." As if pre-empt any stereotyping of his work as offbeat, however, he will stage two completely different plays in Tokyo this month.

We surely haven't been the only ones thirsting for ice cream throughout this long, sultry summer. Those cravings have been assuaged by regular doses of the superb gelati made by Grom. As of last month, there are now three outlets in Tokyo for these outstanding (and pricey) Italian ices, which many people rate as the finest in the world.
But, wonderful though they are, Grom's super-premium scoops have not been our absolute favorite this year. That accolade goes to The Market SE1, a brilliant little gelateria close to the Shonan coast in Enoshima. Open since last summer, this tiny place redefines the very meaning of hands-on artisan quality.

"It's really fulfilling to tackle a truly classic song with a beautiful melody; just to merely touch a song like that feels wonderful," says Shiho Ochi, better known to her legion of fans as J-pop soul diva Superfly, as we chat in her record company's Tokyo office.
Released this week, her 10th single, "Wildflower," comes backed with a 15-track covers CD, compiling her versions of time-honored soul and rock 'n' roll songs that were included as B-sides on previous singles (usually as the third track) or recorded live. Because of the inclusion of this second disc, the single will be counted by Japanese chart compiler Oricon as an album, and is almost guaranteed to follow her self-titled 2008 debut and 2009's "Box Emotions" to the No. 1 spot.

The Park Hotel Tokyo is celebrating its seventh anniversary in September and has prepared special kaiseki lunches and dinners at its Japanese restaurant Hanasansho.
The courses feature Japan's popular autumn dish dobin mushi, a soup of matsutake mushrooms steamed in a teapot, among other carefully prepared seasonal dishes. A cup of sake that matches the dishes will accompany the meal.

For her first solo exhibition in Tokyo, Seoul-based artist Kim Siyeon brings her home to Gallery Foil in the form of photographs of installations that she created inside her house. Though she is known as an installation artist, the delicate nature of Kim's work and its location, which is an important element to her pieces, has meant that the public have only seen this "Barricade" series in 2-D form.
Photography, however, provides an aptly quiet and beautiful presentation of Kim's very personal work. We see installations built in rooms of her home, constructed from everyday household objects such as egg shells, bars of soap, glasses, delicately composed blocks of salt, even birth-control pills. Intimate and fragile — one sneeze and each "barricade" would surely tumble down — Kim's works convey a sense of anxiety, isolation and melancholy.

NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) Andre Agassi leads the list of 2011 nominees for the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Owner of a career Grand Slam and an eight-time major champion, Agassi is the only nominee in the recent player category. He retired in 2006.

Democratic Party of Japan heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa on Thursday backpedaled from his claim the previous day that he had a new, specific plan for relocating U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and basically said the pact reached in May to move the base to Nago, Okinawa, stands.
Speaking to reporters in the first public debate with Prime Minister Naoto Kan ahead of the party's Sept. 14 presidential election, Ozawa also touched on his possible indictment over the mismanagement of his political funds, saying, "I will not evade (any charges)."

NEW YORK (AP) The scene was simply scary: Victoria Azarenka, a 21-year-old on the rise in the WTA rankings, paused about a half-hour into her second-round match Wednesday at the U.S. Open, then staggered, stumbled and collapsed to the court.
Azarenka, seeded 10th in the Grand Slam tournament, rolled over to rest her head on her arm, and a trainer rushed over. Someone covered Azarenka's legs with a white towel. She eventually was helped into a wheelchair, her yellow visor askew atop her head, then taken to a hospital, where tests showed she had a mild concussion.

KYOTO — An exhibition of the latest manga, "anime," art and the next generation of electronic entertainment technology from Japan and abroad opened Thursday in Kyoto.
Since 1997, the Cultural Affairs Agency has sponsored an international festival of Japanese and foreign manga and anime artists, as well as those artists working on modern designs or involved in entertainment.

Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori submitted a letter of resignation Thursday to his Liberal Democratic Party faction, citing his displeasure with colleague Shinzo Abe, a former prime minister, sources said.
Mori, 73, and Abe belong to the faction led by former Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.

ZAGREB (Kyodo) Koji Murofushi won the men's hammer throw for the second meet in a row Wednesday at the IAAF World Challenge Zagreb.
The 2004 Olympic champion prevailed with an effort of 79.71 meters, beating second-placed Slovakian Libor Charfreitag (77.24) and Hungary's Krisztian Pars (76.96).