Written by Arianna Hayes Having been a resident of Nagoya for about seven years, I was asked to write about the differences between The Bay Area and Japan. I’m sure you’re expecting to hear about how Japan supersedes America in all forms, and how anime is amazing. I mean, the

Yasumasa Morimura may be Japan’s most well-known appropriation artist. He’s reimagined some of the best-known images in the world. Morimura has painted himself into iconic pieces of art and superimposes himself into historical photographs. His aim has been to push racial, ethnic and gender boundaries in his conservative Japan and

I’ve got some awesome news! We received a grant from the Civic Joy Fund to put out a literary magazine celebrating SF and acting to counter the stupid “Doom Loop” narrative. It’s a gift to the people of San Francisco. And after months of working on this project it’s now available

When you’ve got Midori and several Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence onhand at a 17th century Japanese brothel party, you pretty much clear your calendar for that shit. And that is exactly what’s happening tonight, Thursday, February 19 at the Courtesans, Cooks, Samurai and Servants opening night party, also featuring the Theatre of Yugen

Last week, I spoke about the People’s Climate March and my disdain for corporate sponsored parties disguised as demonstrations. Lest I be viewed as nothing more than a cranky naysayer, I want to highlight a protest movement with real vision and brilliant tactics. Hopefully some of the idealists here in

This photos sums up Japan rather well My good friend Sato is a Japanese-American who now lives in Japan. A few  years ago I had a dream that he was getting married. While he wasn’t at the time I decided that when he did get married I would attend the

For those of you who may not remember, it has been nearly a year since that devastating earthquake hit Japan, causing a nuclear accident. Shortly after the disaster, actor James Yaegashi called on friends in the New York theater community to “do something to help our fellow artists on the

If there’s one thing that can make a 9.0 earthquake more terrifying, it’s meltdown at a nuclear power plant. While you probably don’t have a spare helicopter or nuclear physicist to lend to Japan, you can help the earthquake relief effort by taking a Shibori workshop. The Textile Arts Center

Indispensible Technological Improvements Well, isn’t this something. Here I was always under the impression that Hello Kitty just sort of, like, happened. Like one day we all went to sleep and the next we woke up and there was this ubiquitous, mouthless cat that was emblazoned upon anything with a