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#72: Article 9 and the Imagination
 


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KJ News Updates

 

June 23: KJ#72 tweeted by Yoko Ono!
tweet

Yoko's tweet provides a link to excerpts from the magazine, at imagine peace.com


June 5: Kyoto Journal #72; Spring 2009 Special Issue

72 cover
The Power of an Ideal:
Japan’s Article 9 and the Imagination


In two short paragraphs, Article 9 of the post-WWII Japanese Constitution articulates the highest ideal in support of world peace — by actually outlawing war.


“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

The seeds for this special issue (due back from the printer very shortly now) were planted by the Global Article Nine Conference for Abolishing War, which was held for three days in Chiba in spring 2008, drawing an unprecedented 30,000 participants, including many from overseas. Widely diverse groups recognized common ground, and the positive repercussions that a Global Article 9 would have on their concerns, including nonproliferation and disarmament, expanding nuclear free zones, joint Asian security, reducing poverty, regional conflict resolution, gender equality, peace education, peace-building, human rights and environmental protection.

Downloadable pdf file with more details, here.



Molly _Nikki

KJ is pleased to welcome two new interns in Spring 2009:
Molly Harbarger, a student in the Missouri School of Journalism, and Nikki Lee, a writer and graphic artist from California College of the Arts


8 May 2009    
SFCC Demands N. Korea Free Two U.S. Journalists                 

The Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club wishes to protest the detention in North Korea of two journalists from Current TV, the San Francisco internet television network. The two, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been held in or near Pyongyang since they were picked up by North Korean soldiers on March 17. DPRK authorities have said they were arrested for “illegal entry” and “hostile acts.” The government has said that it has completed its investigation and is ready to bring them to trial.

Ever since their arrest, the two have been held incommunicado with no foreign visitors except a Swedish diplomat, representing U.S. interests in Pyongyang. They are not known to have any attorney to defend them, they are unable to hire an outside investigator, they have seen no friends or relatives and they have not been able to tell what really happened to them when soldiers seized them as they were filming along the Tumen River border between North Korea and China. We are particularly concerned by the government’s statement that it has obtained “documents,” suggesting “confessions” forced by prolonged interrogation.

We regard this treatment as inhumane and beyond the bounds of international law. Their continued incarceration is particularly cruel and unjust since they were clearly pursuing a difficult story on a professional basis. We take their silence while under interrogation and facing trial as evidence of the denial of the rights to which they are entitled under international law.

The DPRK has failed to specify the charges against Laura Ling and Euna Lee, to state when they will go on trial, to guarantee their right to a legal defense, including a foreign attorney, or to assure the presence throughout the proceedings of diplomatic and other foreign witnesses. There is no indication of the type of court before which they are to appear, whether military or civilian, or any understanding of the laws under which they are to be tried. Nor is there any statement of the penalties they face.

The clear impression is that Laura Ling and Euna Lee are pawns in a much greater struggle. The DPRK continues to hold them in isolation, beyond access to attorneys, friends or others in a position to help and advise them, while awaiting diplomatic moves by the United States and the United Nations. The calculated use of these two journalists for this purpose constitutes a grave abuse of human rights and is an affront to normal international standards.
In hopes of just resolution of this case, we call upon the DPRK to release Laura Ling and Euna Lee immediately in recognition of their rights as journalists to report along the Tumen River border, with full consideration of the hardships endured in holding them. While awaiting their release, we demand regular visitation privileges for foreign attorneys, diplomats, employers and friends. In the event the DPRK continues to hold them, we demand an open and speedy trial, followed by their immediate release regardless of the verdict and sentence.

Fulfillment of these demands represents the only fair and reasonable outcome of the prolonged incarceration of two journalists who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of soldiers while on a challenging and sensitive assignment.

Respectfully submitted,
Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club
Maeng Joo Seok, president

                                  


February 6:

FOT
Expand the horizon beyond the chashitsu and deeper within it.

Friends of Tea (AKA Tea Beyond Japan) is an informal, heartfelt biannual gathering in the USA of English-speaking chado practitioners from around the world. All schools are welcome. Opportunities to share bowls of tea, lectures, convivial conversation and hands-on workshops. June 10 – 14. This year held at Dai Bosatsu Zendo in New York State’s Catskill Mountains.
REGISTRATION IS LIMITED AND IN ADVANCE.
www.FriendsInTea.org  845-757-5436 for questions and info


January 6:

cover

KYOTO JOURNAL DEVOTES ENTIRE ISSUE TO TEA: 30 CONTRIBUTORS COVER TEA CULTURE FROM A DOZEN NATIONS

Guest-Edited by California-based Tea Arts Institute

Editor: Gaetano Kazuo Maida
Art Director: Ayelet Maida
Contributing Editors: Lauren W. Deutsch, Josh Michael, Winnie Yu

5 January 2009 Kyoto/Oakland
Kyoto Journal
, the award-winning English-language arts and culture quarterly published in Japan, has devoted its entire upcoming issue to the subject of tea. The Oakland, California-based nonprofit Tea Arts Institute (TAI) is the guest editor, and TAI invited writers, artists, photographers and tea professionals to contribute. The issue, KJ 71, will be available January 15.

"The idea was to take readers on a journey for a glimpse of the range of the wide tea world-people, places, art, literature, history, metaphor, medicine, memory and most importantly, taste/sensation," says TAI executive director Gaetano Kazuo Maida. "We were very fortunate to get the participation of writers like Pico Iyer, Martha Avery, Bill Porter, Amanda Stinchecum, Norman Waddell, Terese Tse Bartholomew, Steven Owyoung and Lauren Deutsch, along with wonderful images from photographers including James Henkel, Jennifer Sauer, Michael Freeman and Matthew London, and the work of artists Kaz Tanahashi, Chitfu Yu, Pierre Sernet and Hirokazu Kosaka." He continues, "We're really delighted with the contributions from several key tea professionals, including Roy Fong, Wing Chi Ip, Kevin Gascoyne, Winnie Yu, Sebastian Beckwith, Chongbin Zheng and Donna Lo. They have stories from all over the tea world that people will be amazed to read."

The articles touch on all aspects of tea, from 18th century Japan, 9th century China and 16th century Mongolia and Russia, as well as contemporary pieces from Laos, Burma, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, India, Tibet, Vietnam, France, Hong Kong and the USA. Book, film and theater reviews, along with some fiction and poetry, complement the features. The issue was designed and produced by A/M Studios. "This is by no means definitive or encyclopedic," Mr. Maida adds, "There's an infinite amount of material, and tea is a thriving culture, so the stories continue."

The 96 page, four-color, perfect bound KJ 71 is $12 copy and is available online from Teance (www.teance.com) and through many tea retailers and bookstores. (Wholesale inquires: contact Teance at info@teance.com or call 510.524.1696.) Subscriptions are available directly from Kyoto Journal (www.kyotojournal.org).

Kyoto Journal started publishing in 1988 and garnered critical accolades from around the world from the start. Utne Reader has honored the magazine with its Art and Design Excellence Award, saying, "Kyoto Journal is a pleasure to hold as well as to read." Ode Magazine has said, "Kyoto Journal is forever looking for original ways of depicting people and life... We recommend it highly." The nonprofit quarterly is supported by publisher Harada Shokei and the Heian Bunka Center in Kyoto.

The nonprofit Tea Arts Institute (TAI) was founded last year. Its mission is to present, preserve, promote and make widely accessible the traditions of the tea world from every culture, including all the arts engaged. TAI is committed to fostering communication and cooperation among people from the many countries with a connection to tea. Programs include exhibitions, presentations, publications and multimedia, screenings, lectures and education. Its advisory board features well-known art and tea world experts including Jacquelynn Baas, Terese Tse Bartholomew, Milton Glaser, Wing Chi Ip, Hirokazu Kosaka, Steven Owyoung and Andrew Pekarik. www.teaartsinstitute.org

For additional information, interview requests, images or excerpts, contact director@teaartsinstitute.org or phone 510.985.1805.


December 24: Nanao Sakaki 1923–2008

nanao

Nanao on Mt. Atago trail, 1993

Just Enough

Soil for legs
Axe for hands
Flower for eyes
Bird for ears
Mushroom for nose
Smile for mouth
Songs for lungs
Sweat for skin
Wind for mind

(Oshika village, Oct. 1984
–From Break the Mirror)


Nanao and the Wisdom of Small Things

It seems fitting that Nanao Sakaki’s birthday is January 1st, with a whole fresh new year always stretching ahead (while, as he says in one of his recent poems, in reality, “It is five minutes to eternity.”)

Nanao loves fruits, nuts and seeds – especially mushrooms that appear overnight. New life. Loves kids, loves to see things growing, new generations discovering their potential – “rip-roaring,” as he says in another poem.

At our kitchen table, or maybe walking the Nagara River, he once told me about receiving a generous gift of several kilos of extra-special nuts, energy-crammed, gleaming in their shells. This happened in the late 60s, I guess, when he was traveling, like Daikoku with his pack – or Kokopeli, the Anasazi flute-player – all over Japan, as throughout the last five decades, a walking one-man subcultural environmental community-news exchange. (He puts it more simply: “I’m a song. I walk here.”) Together with the latest stories, new poems and his own good-humored encouragement and original wisdom, he distributed generous handfuls of those fine nuts in the many scattered communes and alternative communities that he visited across the archipelago.

Of course, these days, thirty years on, many of those communities no longer exist.

In the ones that don’t remain, people ate the nuts, pronounced them delicious, asked for more.

In the communities that have survived, they thanked him for the gift, planted them, tended the trees that grew from them; they and their children and grandchildren still harvest the results.

Nanao’s poems. Fruits, mushrooms, nuts, seeds.

Plant them well.

–Ken Rodgers, from Nanao or Never, Blackberry Books, 2000

More



info
click to enlarge


coverPress Release Announcing Kyoto Journal's "Kyoto Lives" special issue (mailed out to contributors and subscribers Aug 25th)

Since its founding in 1986, Kyoto Journal has progressively widened its outlook to encompass a vast diversity of "perspectives from Asia." The all-volunteer-produced Kyoto-based quarterly has built a dedicated subscriber base as well as a far-flung community of contributors, and has been shortlisted every year since 1996 in the prestigious Utne Independent Press Awards (winning the Design award in 1998).

To mark its 70th publication, Kyoto Journal has taken the opportunity to focus in once again on Kyoto -- and its ongoing changes in the early 21st century – in a special issue entitled "Kyoto Lives." The deliberate ambiguity of this issue's title refers to the lives of the forty-one Kyoto residents interviewed, and also affirms that Kyoto, in its latest incarnation, is still very much alive.

Wide-ranging conversations with people young and old, Japanese and non-Japanese, together with context-building essays by John Dougill and Hal Gold, reveal continuity with both the city's renowned cultural traditions, and its similarly long-established role as a center for innovation and entrepreneurism.

"Kyoto Lives" is also highly visual, opening with a tour de force photomontage streetscape panorama by Tomas Svab, and featuring many other creative local photographers, including Mizuno Katsuhiko and his daughter Kayu, and artists such as manga-style cartoonist Sakakibara Taro.

Interviewees include well-known writer and nun Setouchi Jakucho, Kyoto Metro impresario Nick Yamamoto, Gion maiko/blues singer Makoto, chocolatier Nakanishi Hirofumi, dancers Nishikawa Senrei and Heidi Durning, shakuhachi master Kurahashi Yoshio, poet Edith Shiffert, woodblock artist Richard Steiner, kamishibai storyteller Yas-san, architect Nagasaka Dai, Honen-in chief priest Kajita Shinsho... and many more residents, each with their own unique point of view.

Members of KJ's core editorial team have lived in Kyoto since the early '80s. As founding editor and art director John Einarsen says, "We wanted to share with our readers just what it is that still makes Kyoto so special after all these years, as a way of saying 'thank you' to this city from which we have learned so much."

"'Kyoto Lives' is an attempt to reflect something of the essential spirit of Kyoto, its genius loci," comments managing editor Ken Rodgers. "May we all grow old as gracefully, actively and creatively."

Kyoto Journal 35 Minamigoshomachi, Okazaki, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8334
KJ Website: http://kyotojournal.org E-mail: subscribe@ kyotojournal.org


August 21: PeaceWorks
Photographers Explore What Peace Looks Like

Yokohama, Japan

What does peace look like ?

Thirty-eight photographers from 11 countries hope to answer this question with their
exhibition PeaceWorks from August 24th through 31st at Yokohama ZAIM
(2F, 3F, and 4F, 12:00~19:00. 5 minute walk from Yokohama Kannai Station,
just behind Yokohama Stadium).

The PeaceWorks exhibition is divided into two themes.

Images by a Kanto-based group come under "My Inner Peace" and address the
problem of finding personal peace.

Images by the Kansai International Photographers Association (KIPA) are a
considered response to mainstream media "war photography" and seek to go
beyond simple stereotypes in "Visualizing the Ideal." This Kansai group has
held several PeaceWorks exhibitions in Kyoto, including shows at Kyoto
Sangyo University and Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

At the August exhibition in Yokohama, workshops for children and young
people will be held every day from 13:00~

The opening party will be held Sunday, August 24th, 16:00~18:00.
A panel discussion with participating artists is set for Saturday, August
30th, 16:30~18:00. Artists will be in attendance all week long.

For more information see: www.peace-works.net
Contact Masumi Ishihara at 03-3415-6570
Email: info@peace-works.net

mikhael
Mikhael by Paul Crouse

PeaceWorks Kansai

Some photos stop wars. In the Vietnam War, photographers took iconic pictures that helped people to understand the nature of the war. But "war photography" will never end war by itself. Through a never-ending, increasingly grotesque parade of images, war photography seeks to make people aware of the true horror of war, and shock them from their complacency. However, as Susan Sontag says in her book Regarding the Pain of Others, instead of prompting action, war photography often incites passivity - the problems are too big, too inflexible for any action by individuals to be effective. War photography objectifies and stereotypes those in conflict – they are either victims or perpetrators, Africans are poor, Muslims are violent. And shock wears off - we become immune, desensitised to its effects.

In this exhibition we try to create an alternative concept - "peace photography." Peace photography tries to capture the subjective experiences of people in conflict and peace. It moves away from the binary ‘us and them’ construction of war to an awareness of conflict from multiple-perspectives. In peace photography, we direct our attention towards the problems that lead to war. We seek to define peace through positive, not negative means. Our subjects are not victims, but collaborators. We try to develop tolerance and understanding, and challenge the stereotypes of gender and race. We work against political and religious oppression.

Peace photography helps us to revisit the way we see the world, providing food for thought and a ground for communal experience. It shows how experience-based art opens new forms for relationships and participation in the public that are key ingredients for a world of more understanding and integration. With cameras, compassion and humour, we are working toward a culture of peace.


April 17: Announcing an interview with our multi-talented Fiction Editor Leza Lowitz, by Suzanne Kamata, appears this month at the Women on Writing (WOW) website.

At the JWC, I talked about embracing chaos and uncertainty. Keats ascribed poetic genius to a kind of anti-talent, or Negative Capability. “That is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

January 14th: Message from old friend of KJ & way-back contributor Sidney Atkins:

Finally I've gotten around to posting the 5th Chapter of "Six Records of a Floating LIfe", this installment titled "Mountains and Rivers Without End". Here's the address:
http://www.telcomplus.net/satkins/photo6.html
I was a little superstitious about this one, feared I might never get a chance to do it, only four of Shen Fu's original "Six Records" survive, the other two are lost forever...


Includes some excellent photos of northern Kyoto, Kitayama – and Nagaragawa. Those were the days.
A great series.



loisDecember 24th: We are delighted to welcome Lois P. Jones as a contributing editor. In particular, she will be helping poetry editor Patricia Donegan to make poetry a stronger and more diverse element in KJ. Lois was born in Chicago, Illinois and currently lives in Glendale, California. Her poetry has been published in state quarterlies, anthologies, ezines and internationally in Argentina’s Los Andes – and in KJ. She is co-editor of A Chaos of Angels and the founder of Word Walker Press. In 2006 she co-wrote The Miracle of Mendoza, a three-part series documenting Argentina’s wine industry. Lois has workshopped under Mark Doty, Matthew Sweeney, Paul Muldoon and others at the annual San Miguel Poetry Week in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. You can find her as co-host at Moonday’s monthly poetry reading in Pacific Palisades, California and hear her poetry in recent and upcoming interviews on Poet’s Cafe, a Pacifica Radio broadcast in Southern California. (Her most recent reading/interview here: scroll down to Poet's Corner, Dec. 26th 12:00 noon; includes 'Father' which appeared in KJ #66).

68

December 23rd: KJ 68 is out, has been mailed to contributors and subscribers, and is in selected bookstores in Japan.It is on its way to our distributor in North America, will be in stores there in late February.


December 9th: Again this year we were pleased to be invited by the Pushcart Prize to nominate six articles (by US writers) published in KJ during the last year. The final selection was as follows:

1. "Siddartha and the Great Bird" – Heinz Insu Fenkl, KJ#65
2. "Little Soman's Little War" – Keith Harmon Snow, KJ#67
3. "A Day and a Half of Freedom" – (Tr.) Ralph McCarthy, KJ#66
4. "Nakahara Chuya & the Art of Translation" – (Tr.)  Christian Nagle & Ry Beville, KJ#66
5. "Origami Lion" – Jacob Adelman, KJ#67
6. "The things we've been through together" – Gail Gutradt, KJ#68

November 8th: Singapore-based KJ Contributing Editor Vinita Ramani sent photos of her recent wedding.

click on photos to enlarge...

wedding more
We wish her and her husband every happiness and success!

 


October 19th: We're delighted to announce that KJ has been nominated again, for the 11th successive year, for the annual Utne Independent Press Awards:

UTNE READER ANNOUNCES THE NOMINEES FOR 19th ANNUAL UTNE INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARDS 2007
– 111 STANDOUT PUBLICATIONS MAKE IT TO THE FINAL ROUND 

UTNEMinneapolis, MN (October 18, 2007) –Utne Reader has officially announced its nominees for the magazine’s 2007 Independent Press Awards, which honors the very best in independent media from the pool of more than 1,300 sources Utne uses to cull its content. Among the 111 nominees selected were old favorites as well as a number of newcomers.  Utne will announce the winners in January/February 2008.

Magazines (General Excellence)

ColorLines
Columbia Journalism Review
Discover
Film Comment
Foreign Policy
Kyoto Journal
The Sun
The Wilson Quarterly


ABOUT UTNE READER
Since 1984, Utne Reader has been a leading voice for independent thinkers, bringing readers an informed point-of-view on issues ranging from the environment to the economy and from politics to pop culture—the kind of stories you’ll find in the mainstream media months or years from now. Utne Reader taps into the pulse of what’s emerging in the culture by engaging with the most visionary thinkers and doers of our time and by presenting the best articles and ideas from thousands of indie publications, websites, blogs, newly published books, films, and other off-the-beaten-path sources.

 


Kyoto Journal #66 Release Eventandre
Saturday May 19th at Kampo Kaikan 4F, Okazaki

Special guest Andre Vltchek presented and discussed his full-length documentary on the turbulent politics of Indonesia: TERLENA – BREAKING OF A NATION

“Terlena” means to forget, to be off guard, or in oblivion… Shot on location in Jakarta, Bandung, Depok, Yogyakarta and Bali, TERLENA (http://www.millache.org/) investigates Indonesia’s turbulent political past through Indonesian testimonies, including those of former President Abdurrahman Wahid; novelist and former prisoner of conscience Pramoedya Ananta Toer; leading historian Asvi Warman Adam; human rights lawyer Ester Jusuf; Ilham Aidit (architect and son of the assassinated PKI leader), and many other political and cultural f
igures. TERLENA is also full of music (traditional and modern), moving from historic footage to present-day realities, from political offices to Indonesian countryside, art galleries and theater stages.

Andre Vltchek is an American writer, journalist, political analyst, playwriter and filmmaker. Raised in Central Europe, he studied film in New York, and has reported on military conflicts and social unrest all over the world, predominantly in Southeast and South Asia, South Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America. In over 10 years in Indonesia he has covered all conflict zones including Ambon, Papua, and East Timor - before and after its independence. He is the co-founder of Mainstay Press
(see announcement below), and Asiana Press Agency, and a senior fellow of the Oakland Institute, a progressive political think tank.

An extract from his co-authored EXILE–Conversations with Pramoedya Ananta Toer is featured in KJ #6. Andre also the author of a political novel, Point of No Return and a book of non-fiction endorsed by Noam Chomsky: Western Terror - From Potosi To Baghdad.



preston

Late-breaking News....Congratulations!

Preston Keido Houser (a long-time KJ contributing editor) received his shihan from Yoshio Kurahashi-sensei of the Muju-an Shakuhachi Dojo, February 24, 2007, Kyoto, Japan.

Preston writes: "I performed two pieces, one at the beginning of the recital and another at the conclusion. The first was a Zen piece which I performed solo, “Muju Shin Kyoku” which could be translated as the “song of the heart/mind with no abode.” I also performed the concluding piece, “Tamagawa.” with three shamisen musicians: Kimiko Hayashi, Chieko Iwasaki, and Ikuko Sakai. I performed with Hayashi-sensei in my very first recital over twenty years ago and I was honored to perform with her again."
http://www.shakuhachi.com/


Feb 28: Announcing a new Asian news source: Asiana Press Agency

"While many people of good conscience are decrying the growing media consolidation in the hands of a few and the correlating dearth of truly progressive voices, the founders of Asiana decided to take concrete steps to do something about it. The agency exists to promote writers, filmmakers and photographers who are firmly committed to a progressive ethos, and are willing to utilize their talents in its furtherance.

It goes without saying that many progressive journalists, filmmakers and photographers do not receive sufficient attention from mainstream media outlets to properly promote their work. At Asiana, these individuals will get top billing as we endeavor to match them with business entities desiring to receive high-quality, timely research/writing deliverables. Our very selective vetting process assures the best possible finished product, and we guarantee full customer satisfaction.

Beyond our dedication to progressive causes, such as human rights, global peace, environmental sustainability and equality for all, we have decided to focus our attention on Asia — thus the name of our agency. It has been said by more than a few knowledgeable commentators that the global balance of power is shifting decisively to Asia, which is projected to dominate this new century as Europe and the United States become correspondingly less dominant. While this claim might be debatable for some, it is beyond question the region has become a hotbed of economic activity, boasting some of the fastest growth rates in the world — mainly in China and India. As such, this part of the world will generate some of the most important global stories and we will be there to provide coverage, with the express intention of bringing them to a wider audience."

Editorial Director Andre Vltchek is a novelist, journalist, filmmaker, and cofounder of Mainstay Press publishing house for political fiction. His recent books include the novel, Point of No Return, and a book of political essays, Western Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad. Mr. Vltchek also produced a 90-minute documentary film about Suharto's dictatorship and its impact on present-day Indonesia, Terlena - Breaking of a Nation.
A senior fellow at the Oakland Institute, he has covered various conflicts and wars, including Bosnia, Peru, Chiapas, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Gujarat, East Timor and Aceh. Fluent in six languages, Mr. Vltchek has worked for both mainstream and independent publications and media outlets. Presently he lives and works in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

Technical Director David Elliott is a Web Administrator, editor, and journalist. He specializes in designing and maintaining Web sites for newspapers, and recently did so for the Daytona Times and Florida Courier weekly periodicals. He has over ten years of experience in online publishing, Web design, and Web programming.



Jan 29: We are delighted to welcome Leza Lowitz on board as KJ fiction editor, and Jenny Hall, as a contributing editor.

Leza was born in San Francisco and grew up in Berkeley, California. She has a B.A. in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She first made her way to Tokyo in 1989, where she worked as a freelance writer/editor for The Japan Times and Asahi Evening News, as an art critic for Art in America, and as a lecturer at Rikkyo and Tokyo University.

After almost a decade in California, Lowitz relocated to Tokyo in 2003, where she opened Sun and Moon Yoga. She has long been connected with Kyoto Journal; readers may remember her appearance in “They Who Render Anew,” our first In Translation feature, and her poems in #53.

Lowitz has published over 14 books, including the best-selling Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By (Stone Bridge Press), which was just issued in paperback. Most recently, she has published a collection of short stories, Green Tea to Go (Printed Matter Press), and co-authored Designing with Kanji: Japanese Character Motifs for Surface, Skin & Spirit (Stone Bridge Press) with Shogo Oketani, and Sacred Sanskrit Words: For Yoga, Chant and Meditation (Stone Bridge Press) with Reema Datta.
She also edited The Japan Journals 1947-2004 by Donald Richie (Stone Bridge Press). She has published six books of co-translations, including the award-winning anthologies of contemporary Japanese women's poetry, A Long Rainy Season and Other Side River (Editor, Stone Bridge Press). Together with Oketani, she translated modernist poet Ayukawa Nobuo’s America and Other Poems (forthcoming, Kaya Press, 2007), for which they received the 2003 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature from the Donald Keene Center for Japanese Culture at Columbia University.

Lowitz is the recipient of numerous honors for her poetry, fiction, and translations, including the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Best Book of Poetry and The Bay Area Independent Publisher’s Association Award for Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By and the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. She has received an individual Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a California Arts Council Individual Fellowship in Poetry, an Independent Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Other honors include the Copperfield’s Dickens Fiction Award, the Barbara Deming Memorial Award in the Novel, the Tokyo Journal Fiction
translation award, the Japanophile Fiction Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award for Editorial Excellence, the Tokyo Journal Fiction Translation Award, and two Pushcart Prize nominations in Poetry. Lowitz served as Reviews Editor for Manoa journal for over a decade and edited two anthologies of Japanese literature for Manoa. She can be reached at www.lezalowitz.com and www.sunandmoon.jp.

Jenny Hall, a Kansai resident from Australia, joins us as contributing editor – having already provided articles and fine photos from her extensive Asian portfolio. An Osaka-based travel writer and photographer, Jenny is currently the travel editor for Kansai Time Out magazine. As a member of the Kansai International Photographers’ Association, she has taken part in two group exhibitions, PEACEworks, (November at Kyoto Sangyo University, and December 2005 at Kyoto International Community House), and SLOW, (June 2006, Gallery Prinz). More of her photographs can be found at http://jenny-hall.smugmug.com


Jan 28:KJ #65 has been mailed out to contributors and subscribers. See our Current Issue page for full content details. Sincere thanks to all who helped to make it happen! In Japanese bookstores soon, and to be released in the US in early March.




DEC. 7: Again this year we were invited by the Pushcart Prize to nominate six articles (by US writers) published in KJ during the last year. The final selection was as follows:

1. “Writers and the War Against Nature” — Gary Snyder, KJ 62
2. “Where is the Wild” — Robert Brady, KJ 62
3. “Migrating Genius” — Stewart Wachs, KJ 62
4. “A Pyrrhic Victory: Religion and Suppression in '30s Japan” — Benjamin Freeland KJ 63
5. “Beingness, Seeking to Be” — Keith Harmon Snow, KJ 63
6. “What's Wrong with Japanese Men” — Kaori Shoji, KJ 64

 


NOV. 26: UNBOUND LAUNCHED NOV 25th IN KYOTO



Over 100 guests helped us celebrate the release of the Kyoto Journal 2006 special issue "Unbound: Gender in Asia" in Kyoto last night. We held the launch at Sarasa, Nishijin, a cafe/bar in a converted bathhouse located in the weaving district of northern Kyoto. A slide show of images from photographers and artists featured in the issue was projected onto the wall, accompanied by music from DJ Kentaro & friends.

Many thanks to all our guests who enthusiastically joined the launch party, some making the trip to Kyoto from as far away as Tokyo. Thanks also to Sarasa Nishijin staff for their cooperation.
Special thanks to all KJ staff who helped with the event organisation and braved the chilly Kyoto night air on the reception desk.

Photos from Albie Sharpe and Stewart Wachs here, and more, from Paul Crouse, here, Matthias Ley, here, Micah Gampel, here and Jenny Hall, here.

Party organizers Sally McLaren (special issue editor)
and Eric Luong (contributing editor/co-designer)

 


...to KJ News Archive