Milestones

AWARDED. HA JIN, 49, Chinese-American novelist; the PEN/Faulkner fiction prize, given to the best novel or short story by an American author, for War Trash, the tale of a Chinese soldier captured by Americans during the Korean War; in Washington, D.C. Ha Jin previously won the award for his 2000 novel Waiting, and becomes only the third writer after Philip Roth and John Edgar Wideman to win the prize twice in its 25-year history.

RELEASED. JIANG YANYONG, 73, Chinese military surgeon whose 2003 open letter to the government exposed a cover-up of the sars epidemic; from house arrest; in Beijing. Jiang was detained for questioning by military officials last June over another letter he sent senior Chinese leaders, this time asking for a reappraisal of the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. Jiang is now free to leave his house, but has been ordered to submit regular “thought reports” to his local Communist Party Committee and is barred from talking to the media.

FREED. BOBBY FISCHER, 62, chess legend; from eight months of detention in Japan on an alleged passport violation; after being granted citizenship in Iceland, where he is a hero for his 1972 victory over rival Boris Spassky. Fischer, whose extradition was sought by the U.S. for violating sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a rematch there against Spassky in 1992, flew to Reykjavik and held a press conference in which he denounced the U.S. as “hypocritical and corrupt.”

DIED. BOBBY SHORT, 80, cabaret performer whose combination of swank elegance and boyish exuberance became a symbol of Manhattan sophistication, drawing glitterati from Woody Allen (who featured Short in two movies) to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor; in New York City. His Great American Songbook repertoire included stylish, raspy celebrations of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller. After first playing professionally at the age of 11 as the “Miniature King of Swing,” he became a fixture for 36 years at New York’s Carlyle Hotel Cafe, where he would have opened its 50th anniversary season in May.

DIED. JOHN DELOREAN, 80, flashy, maverick General Motors executive who went on, as head of his own Northern Ireland-based company, to develop the DeLorean sports car, now a collector’s item; in Summit, New Jersey. After making just 8,900 cars, he was arrested for allegedly selling $24 million worth of cocaine to finance the failing company—which quickly collapsed. (He was later acquitted on an entrapment defense.) His stainless steel two-seater with doors that open upwards like a gull’s wings did not sell, but won lasting fame as the time-travelling vehicle in the 1985 film Back to the Future.

DIED. BARNEY MARTIN, 82, New York City detective-turned-actor who appeared in movies (Mel Brooks’ The Producers), stage musicals (The Fantasticks) and, most recently, as Jerry Seinfeld’s curmudgeonly father Morty on NBC’s Seinfeld; in Studio City, California.

Appreciation
KENZO TANGE, who died last week at the age of 91 at his home in Tokyo, was more than just an internationally-renowned master builder. He was the house architect of Japan’s post-war re-entry onto the world stage—the man who, more than any other, defined the nation’s architectural identity in the last half of the 20th century. The University of Tokyo-trained Tange rocketed to fame with his 1949 design for the Peace Memorial Park at Hiroshima’s ground zero, the concrete museum, arched cenotaph and mammoth public square of which managed to be arresting without quite being beautiful, distinctive without quite being iconic. His later commissions embodied Japan’s re-emergence as an increasingly confident economic power: the sweeping National Gymnasium Complex for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games; the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka; the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in 1991; and the 1996 Fuji TV Building, built on a gigantic landfill development in Tokyo Bay.

Tange’s designs were unique, visionary, and hugely influential for their unapologetic urbanism and bold experimentation in both form and materials. A lifelong devotee of Swiss modernist Le Corbusier, Tange shared many of his idol’s best and worst tendencies—his buildings could be brutal, cold and impractical, and have never been as well-loved as they are well-respected. A tireless theoretician and teacher, Tange’s four-decade reign as one of architecture’s brightest stars launched the careers of numerous disciples who continue his modernist mission—as he described it, to seek “the union of technology and humanity.”
By Jim Frederick

FAKE WATCH
Last week Beijing added 25 luxury brands to a list of commonly copied labels banned from sale at the capital’s knock-off laden markets, including Prada, Chanel and Louis Vuitton—but not the widely pirated Nike. Why will the swoosh still stay in play, threatening the footwear giant’s more than $300 million per year in mainland sales? Because the shoes aren’t considered luxury items, and in stores a pair of Nikes are “the same price as at the markets,” said city official Zhang Guohong. Maybe it’s time to raise prices.

Numbers

30 sec. Moment of silence observed at a Tokyo subway station last week on the 10th anniversary of Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attack, which killed 12 and wounded 5,500
1,650 Number of followers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, now known as Aleph, down from 11,000 at the time of the attack

1,500 Number of people in Southeast Asia who die every day from tuberculosis, the highest rate in the world, according to the WHO

325 Number of pirate attacks reported worldwide in 2004, down from 445 in 2003
93 Number of 2004 attacks that occurred in Indonesian waters, the world’s most dangerous seas

$700,000 Amount Taiwan agreed to spend restoring two Guatemalan monasteries in the hope of maintaining official diplomatic ties
25 Countries that formally recognize Taiwan. Beijing is seeking to woo away Taiwan’s allies in Central America, where many of the island’s diplomatic partners are