Word: hirano
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...that the cultural integration of life and death would allow him to do that more freely. When Myth of Tomorrow was commissioned, his secretary and life partner, Toshiko Okamoto, questioned his decision to represent such destructive imagery. "He told her, 'Because it is Mexico, this will work,' " says Akiomi Hirano, Toshiko's nephew and the producer of the Shibuya mural project for the Taro Okamoto Memorial Foundation. The Mexican hotel developer who commissioned the mural, Manuel Suarez, immediately took to the concept. "Taro wanted the Japanese to surmount the misery of the past rather than to retract inwardly - to blossom...
...warehouse outside Mexico City, its surfaces deeply cracked from exposure, she made the recovery, restoration and return to Japan of Myth of Tomorrow her last project as director of the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum. She paid a fraction of the millions of dollars for the painting that Hirano says were spent transporting and restoring it. When it came to bringing it home, he says he and Toshiko explored every possibility of transporting the mural intact, but "even the pros couldn't do it ... I threw up my hands." Eventually they halved each of the original seven sections. The day Hirano...
...high ticket prices mean artists and promoters cash in even on a relatively small show. "Before, you could see foreign artists for 4,000 [$34] or 5,000 yen [$43]," says Hirano, who books gaijin acts for Creativeman Productions...
...From Boston to Chicago to Asia - the early '80s supergroup sold out a recent Japan tour - the bands "of yore," as Japanese concert promoter Keisuke Hirano calls them, can fill the halls of Yokohama or Osaka or Nagoya with middle-aged salarymen recapturing the youth they wished they had. And being "big in Japan" has kept many a washed-up rocker in leather pants and alimony payments...
...That complaint gets to the heart of Abe's political quandary. Japanese who feel uncomfortable with the reforms of recent years see Abe as just a friendlier version of the disliked Koizumi-while those eager for faster reforms have come to view Abe as an obstacle. Hisashi Hirano, an official with the Yubari government, couldn't stand Koizumi, but says that at least with him, "we knew where we were headed. With Abe you can't understand what his intentions are." At the same time, Koizumi's most ardent fans-especially the young, unaffiliated voters he lured back into politics...