Across the barren steppe totem flags flap in the cold winds that blow from the Altai mountains beneath a bright blue sky. The world’s last wild horses run in the distance as herds of goat, sheep and cows graze on the sparse grass. A shaman’s drum beats rhythmically across the land while a woman in a sheepskin deel robe emerges from the lone white tent standing out against the blue sky to gather dried dung for the evening fire. A few hundred kilometers west of the Soviet built capital of …

It is somehow fitting that I write a certain kind of eulogy for two men I didn’t know, a week after the fact of their unrelated deaths, from Tokyo of all places. Nothing is as it was. Not that it ever was, but there is a seemingly palpable sense of hyper-reality lurking about these days, in the people and the places we haunt, that pervades life in modern society, so much we have forgotten that there was a time when it was normal to write by typewriter or talk into …

In Japan, the land where sake flows like a never-ending river and lubricates both awkward social interaction between men and women as well as cements business transactions amongst a bevy of black-suits, it’s easy to think of the past, present and the future in terms of drinking. There is the sobering post-war period of infrastructure and economic rebuilding called the 日本の一番長い日 (Japan’s Longest Day). Then came the exuberant 80s, which were the time of overflowing Cristal pyramids and buying and selling the world’s treasures like so much Bolivian blow in …

An Oceanic Preservation Society presentation of a Jim Clark production, in association with Diamond Docs and SkyFish Films. Produced by Paula DuPre Pesmen, Fisher Stevens. Executive producer: Jim Clark. Co-producer: Olivia Ahnemann. Directed by Louie Psihoyos. Written by Mark Monroe.
With: Richard O’Barry, Louie Psihoyos, Simon Hutchins, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, Kirk Krack, David Rastovich, Scott Baker.
This is The Cove’s second time in Japan, and each time it comes into town carrying lots of baggage. The first time through a few years ago, toting their massive amount of production equipment from the U.S. …

“It now appears that books in the form so beloved by Uncle Alex and me, hinged in unlocked boxes, packed with leaves speckled by ink, are obsolescent. My grandchildren are already doing much of their reading from words projected on the face of a video screen. Please, please, please wait just a minute.
At the time of their invention books were devices as crassly practical for storing or transmitting language, albeit fabricated from scarcely modified substances found in forest and field and animals as the latest Silicon Valley miracles. But by …

Hitler and Einstein are towering icons, one often seen as epitomizing the megalomaniacal villain, the other, an example of the greatness of human achievement whose name is sometimes synonymous with the word “genius.” These two men were products of the 20th century, itself the result of an unprecedented amount of potential, opportunity, power, struggle and chance. They had many differences but also shared some things, one of which was chess.
The 20th century saw a feverish amount of invention and dissemination of ideas. Among the ideologies, theories, and emerging philosophies, the …

Tattoos leave an impact, both literally and figurative. People are as drawn to them as they are repelled by them. In this dichotomy, the world of tattoos has either been pulled behind a veil, as in the case of Japan, or it has taken its own shirt off for all to see. Whether you have one (or several) or none, there is no denying that tattoos capture the imaginations of those who admire them, those who are disturbed by them, and those who wear them. By scratching the surface of …

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 …