Otafuku

With dozens of color photographs and fun, informative text, this guide to Japanese otafuku is a delight for collectors or Japanese culture enthusiasts. Anywhere you go in Japan you are likely to encounter the plump, smiling image of Otafuku. Author Amy Sylvester Katoh traces the roots and folk beginnings of this mythic figure, showing Otafuku's many delightful identities, and providing a magical glimpse into this charming character who has become a national icon. With a mixture of poems, photographs, anecdotes, and stories, she presents a veritable treasure chest of surprises that is sure to enchant readers.

"Time, this is what is central to video, it is not seeing as its etymological roots imply. Video's intrinsic principle is feedback." -- Gary Hill (From "Inter-view") For more than twenty years Gary Hill has been at the cutting edge of video, often setting the terms for its development and pointing it in new, exciting directions. Since the mid-eighties, Hill has established himself as one of the major voices in the medium. His work has been the focus of major exhibitions and retrospectives at museums in Europe and the United States, including the Guggenheim Museum in Soho, the Whitney Biennial, and the Lyon Museum in France. He has received numerous awards, including the coveted MacArthur Award (1998). Hill's work focuses on the poetic and philosophical implications of temporal perception. Tall Ships, for example, is a large-scale video installation that presents haunting images of isolated human figures in a darkened corridor, seen from a distance, then close up. Hill's representation of time in videos is partly informed by his adolescent experiences as a surfer in Southern California: his Learning Curve series invites the viewer to sit at the end of a long table and watch a black-and-white projection of a wave folding and unfolding upon itself. Other themes in Hill's work include meditations on the self-referentiality of the medium and explorations of the connections and conflicts between language and image. This new volume in PAJ's Art + Performance series is the first critical edition devoted to Hill's work. Edited by Robert C. Morgan, it anthologizes a number of critical essays tracing Hill's reception from the mid-seventies to today, a series of informative interviews, aswell as a selection of Hill's writings -- revealing him as an original and articulate thinker. The book also offers a detailed chronology of Hill's career, a bibliography and videography, and twenty-five photos from his installations. Morgan's introduction traces Hill's emergence as an artist out of the sixties' counter-culture and explores how his work creates dialogues with philosophers as diverse as Heidegger, Blanchot, Derrida, and Marshall McLuhan.

First published in 2006. For over fifty years, the Japanese-born Western-trained author of this remarkable volume devoted himself to explaining Japanese traditions and customs to foreigners through his newspaper columns, talks and four short books. The comprehensive work presented here, drawn from all these sources deals with all aspects of Japanese life and material culture - apparel and utensils; cures and medicines; houses and buildings; fetes and festivals; fish, birds and animals; folk tales; food, sake and tobacco; living habits; marriage, funerals and memorials; natural phenomena; plants and flowers; popular beliefs and traditions; recreation and entertainment; religious rites and social customs. With over seven hundred and thirty separate entries, this unique volume is the definitive work on all Japanese things.

In Zen Buddhism, the concept of freedom is of profound importance. And yet, until now there has been no in-depth study of the manifestation of this liberated attitude in the lives and artwork of Edo period Zen monk-painters. This book explores the playfulness and free-spirited attitude reflected in the artwork of two prominent Japanese Zen monk-painters: Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) and Sengai Gibon (1750-1837). The free attitude emanating from their paintings is one of the qualities which distinguish Edo period Zen paintings from those of earlier periods. These paintings are part of a Zen ink painting tradition that began following the importation of Zen Buddhism from China at the beginning of the Kamakura period (1185-1333). In this study, Aviman elaborates on the nature of this particular artistic expression and identifies its sources, focusing on the lives of the monk-painters and their artwork. The author applies a multifaceted approach, combining a holistic analysis of the paintings, i.e. as interrelated combination of text and image, with a contextualization of the works within the specific historical, art historical, cultural, social and political environments in which they were created.

The Religious Art of Zen Master Hakuin is a stunning volume containing many of Hakuin's finest calligraphies and paintings. Katsuhiro Yoshizawa, the leading Japanese expert on Hakuin, masterfully reveals the profound religious meaning embedded in each artwork, providing a richly detailed documentary of the life and lessons of one of Zen's most respected teachers.

While Human-Animal Studies is a rapidly growing field in modern history, studies on this topic that focus on the Ancient World are few. The present volume aims at closing this gap. It investigates the relation between humans, animals, gods, and things with a special focus on the structure of these categories. An improved understanding of the ancient categories themselves is a precondition for any investigation into the relation between them. The focus of the volume lies on the Ancient Near East, but it also provides studies on Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, Mesoamerica, the Far East, and Arabia.

Since time immemorial, Japan has been inhabited by supernatural creatures, spirits, monsters and demons…Here's your chance to meet them up close and personal! Strange Japanese Yokai assembles an extraordinary collection of mysterious creatures in every possible shape and size, each with their own unique back story. Some are well-known, others obscure. The one thing they share in common is that they are creepy and weird! The 122 different Yokai described in this book include: The Kappa: A dangerous creature who lives in lakes and rivers and attacks passers-by The Nurarihyon: A mysterious Yokai with a huge head who steals food, tobacco and alcohol The Yadokai: A mischievous former monk who wanders at night vandalizing and being a pest The Ohaguru:A scary Yokai with black teeth who looks like a beautiful woman from afar until she gets closer, smiles, and reveals herself And over 100 more! Yokai expert Kenji Murakami identifies each Yokai, explains the history, where they commonly appear, and their strange powers. The book is illustrated with hundreds of full-color drawings showcasing the fascinating features of these strange creatures. Every monster here, no matter how disgusting, is part of the rich cultural legacy of Japan. *Recommended for readers ages 14 & up*

Whether you’re mad about mac and cheese or loopy for lobster rolls, New York’s One-Food Wonders will satisfy your desires. It’s the first and only book to collect all of the city’s weird, wacky, and wonderful onesies — the spots where a single food is the star. From OatMeals to Forbidden Fruit and from Meatball Obsession to Puddin’, it takes you to scores of places you might have thought you could only dream about. It also tells you how people with dreams of their own relentlessly pursued their passions in their single-minded quests to supply you with yours. It’s about creativity. It’s about adventure. It’s about the unique joy of New York. New York’s One-Food Wonders is a passport to New York adventure. Wherever you are and whatever you crave, you’ll find it packed with all the information you need to guide you to your own singular sensations.