Japanese Art

The three vases are decorated in blue and such a brilliant yellow that they seem to radiate light. One has a picture of bamboo growing to the lip of the vase."

In her commentary, "Don't sign it" (Oct. 18), Ruth Goldstein notes that the Baltimore County zoning process is a game. She points out that "Mr. [Howard] Brown and Mr. [David] Cordish got outplayed by other developers. " She is absolutely right. What she doesn't pause to realize is that both sides are playing a game where the Baltimore County Council is the stand-in referee. As a citizen of Baltimore County, District 2, I do not want rezoning to be a game. It should be a process. Jujitsu is an ancient Japanese "art" or "technique" that represents the manipulating of the opponent's force against himself rather than confronting it with one's own force.

In her commentary, "Don't sign it" (Oct. 18), Ruth Goldstein notes that the Baltimore County zoning process is a game. She points out that "Mr. [Howard] Brown and Mr. [David] Cordish got outplayed by other developers. " She is absolutely right. What she doesn't pause to realize is that both sides are playing a game where the Baltimore County Council is the stand-in referee. As a citizen of Baltimore County, District 2, I do not want rezoning to be a game. It should be a process. Jujitsu is an ancient Japanese "art" or "technique" that represents the manipulating of the opponent's force against himself rather than confronting it with one's own force.

A family of five sets off on a snowy day in a Rambler with snow chains on the tires. While the kids in the back seat deal with petty concerns and car sickness, the parents reflect on the directions their lives are taking inside and outside of their marriage. All is far from calm and bright on "The Long Christmas Ride Home," Paula Vogel's remarkable play, which has been given a penetrating production from Single Carrot Theatre . No one in the car — the ride is vividly evoked in the simplest of means — has to ask, "Are we there yet?"

The third annual African-American Film Festival gets under way Thursday in the Baltimore Museum of Art's Meyerhoff Theatre with the screening of an American satire and a Senegalese adventure story."

Cherry Blossom Festival While tomorrow marks the first official day of spring, Saturday marks the true start of the season, as the Cherry Blossom Festival begins in Washington. The annual festival, which runs Saturday through April 9, commemorates the gift of 3,000 cherry trees from the people of Tokyo to the people of Washington in 1912. On opening day, visitors can take part in the National Cherry Blossom Festival Family Day and Opening Ceremony at the National Building Museum. Family day will feature various hands-on activities, demonstrations, performances and displays inside the museum's Great Hall.

A family of five sets off on a snowy day in a Rambler with snow chains on the tires. While the kids in the back seat deal with petty concerns and car sickness, the parents reflect on the directions their lives are taking inside and outside of their marriage. All is far from calm and bright on "The Long Christmas Ride Home," Paula Vogel's remarkable play, which has been given a penetrating production from Single Carrot Theatre . No one in the car — the ride is vividly evoked in the simplest of means — has to ask, "Are we there yet?"

Hiroshi Teshigahara had not yet arrived, but his presence was keenly felt in the frigid bowels of the Kennedy Center, where last Monday, a platoon of volunteer art students, Japanese carpenters and free-lance stagehands scrubbed, sawed, split and planed four acres' worth of bamboo, hauled to Washington from Georgia in two tractor-trailers.When the artist, revered in his native Japan and known internationally for his rhythmically powerful sculptures, did arrive later that week, he and assistants would use the prepped bamboo to create two stunning tunnels and a bamboo pavilion in the Kennedy Center's atrium, based on elaborate blueprints completed in Tokyo.

Sitting on the studio floor, the sculpture's head alone is taller than and several times as wide as Yasuhiko Hashimoto, the Japanese sculptor standing beside it. And, while Mr. Hashimoto is so soft-spoken it's sometimes hard to hear him with the other sculptors chopping away in the background, the head looks as if, were it to speak, it would at least growl and probably roar.Fudo Myoh-oh is a fierce looking Buddhist god. Don't be afraid -- he's on our side against the demons -- but he's probably going to look even fiercer next Sunday, with his head attached to his body and the whole sculpture raised upright for the first time to its full height of 33 feet.

Those who saw Mineko Grimmer's elegant and mesmerizing "music boxes" at the Maryland Institute's recent "Hypnosis" exhibit may be surprised to learn that this Los Angeles artist is represented here again so soon, in a show at Goucher College called "Confluence: Art at the Intersection of Japanese and American Esthetics."Although Grimmer's one work at Goucher is in principle much the same as the two at the institute, it's on a larger scale and in a different context."Confluence" brings together two artists who have experienced both Japanese and American influences, Grimmer and Tom Nakashima, to see how the two countries' aesthetics can merge in individuals.

Cherry Blossom Festival While tomorrow marks the first official day of spring, Saturday marks the true start of the season, as the Cherry Blossom Festival begins in Washington. The annual festival, which runs Saturday through April 9, commemorates the gift of 3,000 cherry trees from the people of Tokyo to the people of Washington in 1912. On opening day, visitors can take part in the National Cherry Blossom Festival Family Day and Opening Ceremony at the National Building Museum. Family day will feature various hands-on activities, demonstrations, performances and displays inside the museum's Great Hall.

Morgan Johnson called her mother frantically on her cell phone -- she had left the giant boomerang at home. The 5-foot-long boomerang, which dwarfed the petite 13-year-old, was essential to Morgan's costume, Sango the Demon Hunter. Morgan had cut the shape from foam, wrapped it in duct tape and painted it tan and brown. Luckily, her mother rushed in with the boomerang just as the costume contest at Saturday's anime and manga convention at the Brooklyn Park library in northern Anne Arundel County began.

Dez Fitch showed up as Lei-Lei, a blue-skinned zombie who is controlled by her sister. Connor Albers was No Face, a mute who wears a black robe and has the power to transform air into gold. And Brandon Connolly came dressed as the martial-arts expert Rygoa Hibiki. Fitch, Albers and Connolly were among thousands of fans of Japanese animated characters who arrived yesterday for the 12th annual Otakon, a three-day event at the Baltimore Convention Center. Otakon is expected to draw more than 20,000 people.

Laurance Page Roberts, an internationally known Asian art scholar who had been director of the American Academy in Rome, died Sunday of a heart attack at his Bolton Hill home. He was 95. Mr. Roberts' career in the world of art and culture spanned about 70 years. He had lived in a Bolton Street rowhouse since 1988, when he and his wife moved to Baltimore after 15 years in Venice, Italy. Born into a life of privilege in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., Mr. Roberts was a descendant of settlers who arrived in Pennsylvania in the 1600s to accept a land grant from William Penn.

HE WAS DESCENDED from royalty, the last of a long line of French successors to the House of Toulouse in Albi. And he was a graphic artist whose color lithographs made him and the medium famous.The Metropolitan Museum of Art's stunning exhibition of the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec has become the art-show sleeper of the summer. It remains on view through September 29.Popularized and sentimentalized in film and fiction, Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is, like his one-time art school classmate Vincent Van Gogh, nearly as well known for his physical disfigurement as for his art.Cousin, cousineIn Lautrec's case it was the embarrassingly short height of 4 feet, 11 inches, a deformity attributed to a genetic disorder traced to his parents having been first cousins.

Anyone who thinks watching cartoons is a passive activity has never been to an anime convention.Take Otakon '96, for example. Billed as the "Convention of Otaku Generation," it will bring several hundred otaku -- that is, fans of "anime," or Japanese animation -- to Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn this weekend. And while there will certainly be plenty to watch, what with four video theaters screening material virtually around the clock, cartoon-viewing barely scratches the surface of what Otakon will offer.

HE WAS DESCENDED from royalty, the last of a long line of French successors to the House of Toulouse in Albi. And he was a graphic artist whose color lithographs made him and the medium famous.The Metropolitan Museum of Art's stunning exhibition of the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec has become the art-show sleeper of the summer. It remains on view through September 29.Popularized and sentimentalized in film and fiction, Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is, like his one-time art school classmate Vincent Van Gogh, nearly as well known for his physical disfigurement as for his art.Cousin, cousineIn Lautrec's case it was the embarrassingly short height of 4 feet, 11 inches, a deformity attributed to a genetic disorder traced to his parents having been first cousins.

The Arts of Japan Festival is a prelude to the National Cherry Blossom Festival, a two-week showcase of Japanese culture that honors the continuing friendship between the United States and Japan. The celebration, highlighted by the National Cherry Blossom Festival parade, begins March 31 and concludes on April 14. Here are some festival highlights:Throughout the festivalStamp collectors can add a National Cherry Blossom Festival Postal Cancellation to their collection, from 10 a.m. until 5: 30 p.m. at the National Postal Museum, 2 Massachusetts Ave. NE."