Text & Photography © Manny Santiago / HESO
The Glassy Surface
The photos depicting peaceful inlets of coastal water are of Taiji, a little known whaling town on the Pacific coast of Japan’s Kii Peninsula in Wakayama Prefecture. The area is known as Kumano, and is a world heritage site, renown for its pilgrim trail and striking temples set in both ancient Cedar forests and along pristine coastline, such as this. The jagged asymmetry of the windswept trees perched on jutting outcroppings of rocks, themselves constantly battered by the sea, feels like …

As seen on Magnesium Photography.
The major problems facing the human race are massive as ever and show no sign of abating anytime soon. Resource wars are becoming the norm. The environment needs a breath of fresh air. American obesity is getting serious (picture a muumuu-clad Homer Simpson when his fingers were too fat to dial the phone). Despite the overwhelming negativity slowing most forward-thinking legislative bodies, there seems to be a palpable worldwide trend toward cleaner living. Maybe it’s the economic recession talking or perhaps people are finally getting the …

For those in the Tokyo community who don’t know her, know of her or haven’t attended one of her celebrated Parties For Peace DJ soirees, Peace Boat International Coordinator and activist Emilie McGlone is motivated and charismatic, a deadly combination when it comes to getting what she wants. Luckily her wish list is not laden with the many luxuries lining Ginza boutiques but rather consists of the altruistic desire to help people. That and party. Party positively, of course. It’s a long story, but an interesting one, …

An Open Eye Media U.K. production. (International sales: the Works Intl., London.) Produced by Rachel Wexler. Directed by Oliver Hodge.
With: Michael Reynolds.
Mike Reynolds is a true garbage warrior. For more than thirty years he has been pioneering the field of architecture by introducing a new method of self-sustainable building called “Earthship Biotecture.” Before it was cool, responsible or even common knowledge Reynolds was advancing the cause of recycling materials for use in building homes in bold and original ways. Taking old aluminum cans and glass bottles to make walls, packing …

An Alliance Atlantis release (in Canada) of a Sharkwater Prods. presentation of a Diatribe production. (International sales: Cinetic Media, New York.) Produced, directed, written by Rob Stewart. Executive producers, Brian Stewart, Sandra Campbell, Alexandra Stewart.
In his article Infodiction, Malik Robinson talks about orienting response (OR). He says, “The OR is a survival mechanism, shared by all mammals, that alerts us to unusual visual and aural information. Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov was the first to explain how it worked…Ancient behaviors tend to be rigid and indiscriminate, and the OR is no …

A Purple Turtle Films production. (International sales: Purple Turtle, Irvine, Calif.) Produced by Sam Bozzo. Executive producers, Mark Achbar, Si Litvinoff. Directed, written, edited by Sam Bozzo, based on the book “Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water” by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke.
Blue Gold: World Water Wars asks the questions, “Where does your drinking water come from? Where does your waste water go?
In the documentary by Sam Bozzo based on the 2003 book Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of …

Japan is most widely known for islands of the geological sort, but unfortunately the country is also the world’s premier spot for a completely different sort of island: Urban Heat Islands. Even if you’ve never heard of an Urban Heat Island, chances are you live on one if you reside in Japan. Technically known as the “Urban Heat Island effect,” the term describes how temperatures in inner city cores are abnormally higher than temperatures in surrounding, less densely developed areas. The underlying mechanisms behind Heat Island formation are rather complex, …

When hunger hits the community, children suffer the most. For those children tormented by empty stomachs, it is not going to school that is important, but eating. At present, there are between 350 and 400 million children in the world who are suffering from hunger. Among those who have reached elementary school age, 115 million are not attending. Eradicating the hunger of children who support the future of nations and further educating them is essential for poor countries to escape from poverty and hunger.
Poor families generally do not have enough …

The Japanese love fish: catching it, inspecting its quality, auctioning it, and above all, savoring the taste of its smooth, oceany richness. But in recent years, growing global demand for fisheries products has begun to outstrip supply, threatening to silence the sushi bars and auction houses. Some of the species that are closest to the hearts (and stomachs) of the Japanese are facing such intense harvest pressure that they are on the brink of collapse.
How did we get here?
Japan was the first country to take fishing and fish consumption global. …

The title of this article is stolen from a concurrently running Exhibition of ancient Japanese masterpieces depicting the Land of the Rising Sun in an infallible way and, what’s more, via these centuries old scrolls, kimono & woodblocks, implies that Japan is still this same country of beauty. Long having rested on their laurels stemming from remnants of a once-great culture, the time is ripe for a true exposition of what works of art this country truly offers. Don’t get me wrong: I like Japan. Mostly. Like Nipponphile Tarantino’s Pulp …

Japan has, at least since the 1980’s, been associated with the future. Ridley Scott based the set of his sci-fi classic Blade Runner partly on Osaka. Likewise, William Gibson’s Neuromancer (and a number of his other novels), the book that popularized the term cyberspace along with the cyberpunk genre, was set in partly in Tokyo. Both artists appreciated the hyper-consumerist, apocalyptic atmosphere saturating those cities. The overflow of concrete facades fixed with neon lights screaming shop names at potential customers crowding the streets: millions of ants swarming a discarded six-pack …

After nuking Japan, the Americans, in order to protect Japanese society from the dangers of marijuana, passed the Hemp Control Act in 1948. A few years later Japan experienced the first methamphetamine epidemic in the world. During the 1950s, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, approximately 30,000 people each year were arrested in connection with speed. Things have calmed down since then. But speed is still the number one illicit drug of choice in Japan, and its use is once again rising among young people.
There are …