Last week I was at the Shin-Marunouchi Building to have lunch at Rigoletto with my wife, and checked out Nagi Noda, Shinji Konishi, and Asami Nemoto’s “Animal Behavior” hair hat exhibition (it’s on the Marunouchi House floor). It runs until May 6.

Pictured above, a tote bag being sold featuring Nagi Noda’s Hanpanda.

Earlier this week I went to the opening for the “Light Construction” exhibition at Center for Cosmic Wonder in Aoyama.

The show brings together Mike Mills, Elein Fleiss, Yoshimio, and Yukinori Maeda, and runs until June 30.

Hanging out inside this installation was quite nice.

I wanted to go and chat with Mike Mills — I quite like his work — but was too shy. I ended up having a good time with Liliyo though, OK Fredders Ay2 and Yoshi’s daughter.

Congrats to the Chin Music Press crew for the crowded book launch of ART SPACE TOKYO this past Tuesday. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, then it’s off to the AST site you go. I predict this will become their best-selling book. Yeah, it’s that good.

The Speakerdog paper toy exhibition at Cafe Pause is now on! Even better, it will be running for two weeks, until April 20.

The exhibition includes 60 designs, which make up a collection of favorites from all 5 series of Speakerdog paper toys that have been released so far.

If you love what you’re seeing in these photos, go here and download any template and make one yourself!

Ben and Fiona, the fine folks behind Speakerdog, are actively looking to get submission from Japanese artists, illustrators, and designers in order to release a Japan Series later this year. You can contact them directly for more details.

As part of the exhibition, I also invited Josh McKible to bring in his first series of NaniBird paper toys, and it even includes a collaboration between Josh and Ben (pictured below).

I’ve added a few more photos in the following Flickr photoset, and will add some more over the next week.

I took this shoot last Friday night during the reception for the re-opening of the Claska hotel in Meguro. There’s something I really like about this shot of Marxy and Verena, like we’re spying in on something.

I had a chance to go to last night’s TAB Talks (#3) at the Gotanda Sonic event space. It featured three French creators (Gwenael Nicolas, Audrey Fondecave, and Jerome Senaillat) talking about their work and life in Tokyo.

I know, I know, it’s such a cliché to put up photos of the cherry blossoms in full bloom at this time of the year, but I finally made it out for a quick bike run today on my regular route alongside Kanda river, and it really was an amazing sight. You can see more (all 20) in this Flickr photoset.

Today I put up the second poster in the “Cafe Pause Poster Series,” replacing the previous one that was designed by Ian Lynam. The new poster is by PMKFA. Thanks, Micke! Below is a better a look at the poster.

It’s been a while, but designer Koji Kimura has brought in some new chairs at the cafe. Currently there are two like the one pictured above (the other one is yellow), and I believe there will be a third one, but I’m not sure if it’ll have the same shape, or if it’s something else entirely.

A few photos from the live event by Hiroaki Koshiba and Shantell Martin held this past Sunday (March 16) at Cafe Pause, marking the end of Hiro’s exhibition at the cafe.

They each took turns on separate canvases, switching midway.

Update
Here’s a video of the two in action.

My new coffee mug, which my wife got for me the other day when we went to newly opened J.S. Burgers Cafe in Aoyama (it’s on the street that leads to the A to Z Cafe). The J.S. stands for “Journal Standard,” but I like to pretend they are the initials for my name.

A few photos from Hiroaki Koshiba’s live painting last night at Cafe Pause, for the opening of his “Harmonic Lines” show (until March 16).

Hiro will be present at tonight’s edition of PauseTalk to talk about the exhibition.

I stopped by the Creation Gallery G8 in Ginza the other day for the “86th Art Directors Club Annual Awards” exhibition. I always enjoy going to this to see all of the interesting ad work and TV commercials I don’t see here in Japan, and this year I really liked watching the winning works in the hybrid section (sort of a mixed-media category).

The show also has me thinking that I need to start buying THE NEW YORK TIMES on Sundays, just to get a hold of the Sunday magazine — a bunch of their covers and layouts were awards winners, and looked amazing. Also, great to see Canadian magazine THE WALRUS get some attention. You still have a few more days to catch the exhibition (until February 29).

Studio Coast in Shin-Kiba, where I saw The Arcade Fire perform earlier this month. It’s part of the Ageha club complex, and seeing that show marked the first time I’d been in the area — the only time I’m even in Shin-Kiba is to change trains on my way to the Makuhari Messe convention center. The hall itself was rather nice, and it’s pretty much as big as I can handle for a live show (I avoid stadium shows at all costs).

This past Friday night saw the opening of Alin Huma’s new gallery space, Ginza the Edge. The inaugural show, “Photography,” runs until February 29.

It was a great turnout, and we pretty much filled up the relatively small space. The gallery actually takes up Alin’s apartment, and so every piece of “daily living” got removed to make space for the show.

Digiki was there — he helped out in the conceptualizing of the show and space. Busy man indeed, what with the 101TOKYO art fair fast approaching.

The desk of the man behind the show. That MBP has certainly seen better days!