Kabukichō is the red light district in Shinjuku, a commercial and administrative ward in central Tokyo. Apparently Kabukichō took its name from plans to build…
Robert Mitchum hated being a movie star. Being famous meant nothing to him. After all, as he often pointed out, one of the biggest stars…
For the past 30 years (if not more), you can see a re-creation of leather jackets, greased-back pompadours, and lollipop dresses, just like something out…
Introduced in the space age, gee-whiz year of 1959, the staggeringly popular Barbie and Ken have inevitably become symbols of America’s plastic essence. Both lack…
In 1982, Nick Fiend and Mrs Fiend, with their comrades-in-weird Yaxi Highrizer and Johnny Ha-Ha, hit upon the idea of kitchen-sinking sleaze punk, gothic darkness,…
I love New York, but New York is truly disgusting, and a lot of it is unbelievably ugly. The infrastructure is crumbling (dear god, the…
I’ve never been to Japan. My husband–who’s been there before and loves it–is always trying to convince me we should take a trip there. The…
Iva Toguri D’Aquino The Tokyo Rose is one of the more ingenious and chilling bits of psychological warfare in human history. During World War Two,…
A lot of folks are familiar with “Tokyo Rose,” a series of English-speaking female broadcasters who trolled Allied forces during World War 2. The idea…
In an area of Tokyo known as “Foot Town,” a G-rated entertainment neighborhood for tourists, there sits the Tokyo Tower’s Wax Museum, the world’s greatest…