Elephants are escorted through Uptown on Tuesday January 29, 2013 as part of Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus Grand Animal Walk. The circus will be performing in Time Warner Cable Arena until Sunday.
Credit Briana Duggan
Waiting by traintracks off Graham Street, uptown, a boy crouches in hopes of getting an early glimpse of the Grand Animal Walk animals. The circus still travels by train. The train that arrived on Tuesday is over a mile long.
Credit Briana Duggan
A police officer stops traffic on Graham St. and Trade, to allow the Greatest Show on Earth's Grand Animal Walk to pass. The parade made its way through the center city and ended at Time Warner Cable Arena.
Credit Briana Duggan
Families watied off the train tracks in uptown Charlotte to watch elephants and horses make their way to Time Warner Cable Arena.
Elephants paraded through Uptown on Tuesday as part of Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus Grand Animal Walk. The circus will be performing in Time Warner Cable Arena until Sunday.
William H. Macy is the first to admit that he has played his fair share of losers. His latest role, as the alcoholic, narcissist Frank Gallagher — the single dad of a dysfunctional six-kid family — on the Showtime series Shameless, adds to the list of hapless characters Macy has portrayed on screen and stage.
Originally published on Thu January 31, 2013 12:03 pm
There are three phrases that are almost always bad news for a piece of cultural writing.
They are:
1. "The masses."
2. "Middle America."
3. "The lowest common denominator."
All three are ways to separate the writer and her sensibility — which are presumed to be congruent with the reader and her sensibility — from invisible and undefined others, for whom bad cultural content is produced and by whom it is unquestioningly gobbled up.
It used to be a truism among critics of British poetry that Keats and most of his fellow Romantic poets worked in the shadow of John Milton. I'm not making a perfect analogy when I suggest that most contemporary Japanese writers seem to be working under the shadow of Haruki Murakami, but I hope it highlights the spirit of the situation.
Originally published on Thu February 7, 2013 1:44 pm
"What are those?" I asked my mom, suspiciously eyeing the little cardboard tub with its cellophane cover. It held a heap of pale, miniature cabbages. "They're Brussels sprouts," she said. "They're supposed to be good for you," she added, sealing my doom.
At dinnertime, the mystery vegetable reappeared, steaming hot and greenish-yellow but otherwise unaltered. It gave off a sulfurous stench. I recoiled, but I knew my job. I took a bite.
Hannari Tofu is a character who shows up on a range of plush merchandise.
Credit yoppy/Flickr
Food imitates art imitating food: a pancake shaped to resemble Anpanman's sweet roll head.
Credit St Stev/Flickr
Two of the heroes from the anime series Go! Anpanman. The head of Shokupanman (left) is made out of white bread. Anpanman (right) is named after a Japanese sweet roll stuffed with red bean paste.
Credit StreetFly JZ/Flickr
To-fu Oyako is a soybean-curd-inspired line of products, including bags, planners and pillows.
Credit Saotin/Flickr
A kyaraben, or character bento, inspired by characters from the anime Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san.
From an early age, Japanese kids are taught to "eat with your eyes," and this emphasis on the visual delights of food can be found in many aspects of Japan's vaunted culture of cute.
Take children's television, for example. Some of the most beloved cartoon characters in Japan are based on food items.
