Art Cures, our new weekly series, offers a themed list of music, films, books, events and other cool stuff in hopes of supplying you with a sufficient art fix, as well as the cures you didn’t know you needed. So whether you’re reeling from a recent break-up, seeking inspiration for your creative block, or just needing a change of scenery, these lists will help raise your spirits and remedy your ills.
You don’t need to travel to Japan to know that it’s awesome AF. From Japan come the scariest movies, the cutest toys, Sailor Moon, and some of the most incredible art. And their culture is straight up fascinating — the different types of spirituality and perspectives are crazy-interesting, as is the general history. A round-trip ticket to Tokyo costs over 1K, so for now, let’s take in the culture from the states.
- Read In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami. The author is probably best known for his novel Audition, which was transformed into the nightmarish Takashi Miike-directed horror film, so it’s fitting that the rest of his books are extreme and twisted. But ITMS is particularly eerie, and it points out some of the weirdest (and ugliest) parts of both Japanese and American cultures as they collide in an oddly memorable ending.
- Listen to Night Lines, the new 4-track EP by Tokyo-based Cuushe, which is streaming via Dazed Digital which released on April 7. It’s super dreamy, and is meant to communicate the artist’s “24-hour lifestyle in Tokyo.” It’s safe to say that Night Lines is one of the best releases as of late.
- Discover Japanese art at The Met at the appropriately titled exhibition “Discovering Japanese Art.” View 200+ works, and learn the story behind the growth of the museum’s impressive collection.
- Learn the history of cats in art at the Japan Society’s exhibition “Life of Cats: Selections From the Hiraki Ukiyo-E Collection.” Art + cats = yes, please.
- Watch the brilliant anime thriller that’s inspired multiple Darren Aronofsky films: Perfect Blue. It’s a psychological trip about a pop-singer-turned-actress who totally loses her sense of reality. Or does she? The similarities to Black Swan are pretty evident, but it’s a little creepier.
- Subscribe to Kawaii Box. Each month, you’ll receive a bunch of hand-selected items such as stickers, pens, candy, mini stuffed animals and key chains from Japan (and Korea) and it’s only $18.90. Cancel your Nature Box, and switch to this.
- Discover some next level kaomojis at JapaneseEmoticons.net. There are over 10,000 things like this ୧༼ ” ✖ ‸ ✖ ” ༽୨ for you to copy and paste into your Tweets, Facebook statuses, sexts, and/or whatever else you send people. Pretty soon, words will be totally irrelevant.
Article by Nicole Woszcyzna. Follow her on Twitter @nicolewosz.
