Kabuki alert gets married
As soon as Obama made his big announcement about officially endorsing gay marriage, the comparison was inevitable. On some level everybody already knows that Obama doesn’t object to gay marriage, so...
View ArticleExpatriating acts
With all the kerfuffle over how Eduardo Saverin, one of the wealthy founders of Facebook, has abandoned his US citizenship on the eve of the IPO in an apparent bid to avoid taxes, on the heels of...
View ArticleFukushima media looks back on disaster coverage, one year later
Last month I translated the first half of a very interesting round-table discussion for Nippon.com, consisting of several reporters and editors from local Fukushima media, discussing both the...
View ArticleKikuchi Naoko’s sarin, as described by another Aum member
By now everyone knows that Kikuchi Naoko, one of the last members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult wanted for the 1995 sarin gas Tokyo subway attacks, was arrested on Sunday. Although her face had been...
View ArticleNYT making fun of Osaka Mayor’s dad
In a recent article about Japan’s idling of all of its nuclear reactors, the reporter made a casual aside about the parentage of Osaka mayor Hashimoto Toru. Instead, the central government has found...
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The Commandant’s House in Brooklyn
Last Saturday I was biking around some back streets in Brooklyn down which I had not wandered before and stumbled across what was clearly a very old fashioned mansion of landmark status, but...
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Passport blues
I have procrastinated for months in getting a new passport, even after my old one expired at the end of June, because the cover came off and it therefore counts as too damaged for a postal renewal....
View ArticleUsing a smartphone as a visitor to Japan
I just landed in Narita and came to my friend’s apartment in Koenji, Tokyo last night, coming to Japan for the first time since I finished graduate school last March, and for the very first time as a...
View ArticleCorner store
Waiting for a breakfast sandwich at the bodega. “I can’t get a bag?” asks a woman angrily, as she pays for her can of soda. Thin, probably in her forties, but looking unkempt and sickly enough that...
View Article“Unbuttoning the uniform”
Over the years, this blog has had so many posts on the wretched “kabuki play” cliche that we gave them their own category, but we never mentioned a related pet peeve cliche of mine: “opening the...
View ArticleThoughts on a 2014 relaunch
Hello to all, and a happy new year to you. I hope 2013 treated you well and that 2014 is even better. After a long and only mildly interrupted hiatus, I am finally starting to plan a proper relaunch...
View ArticleKabuki for lunch alert
You can always spot the undercover restaurant critics by their kabuki masks. “Ms. Lemos, I presume,” I said with a mock flourish. “Just call me Gael,” she said with a weary smile. This weary smile...
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Tamogami, former ASDF “chife of stuff”, Running for Governor
Toshio Tamogami, rightwing blowhard and former Japan Air Force General, is officially running for Governor of Tokyo in February 9th’s election. As you can see below, his official website profile is...
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Three Years of Coney Island Mermaid Parade Photos
Tomorrow (June 21, Saturday) is the 32nd Coney Island Mermaid Parade. The Mermaid Parade, a moderately venerable tradition dating back to 1983, describes itself as “the largest art parade in the...
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