Japan does a booming business exporting contemporary art, and its artists have begun to weave occidental elements into their works, making the pieces that much more attractive to foreign collectors. The king of creating J-pop art with a Western twist is Tokyo's Takashi Murakami , he of the cheerful, cherry-bedecked Louis Vuitton handbags. This hybridization has also proven fruitful for Murakami's protégés: Many of his students — ex-assistants at his Kaikai Kiki art "factory" or discoveries from Geisai, his biannual art fair — are becoming noted talents in their own right. "We wanted to create a training ground in the Tokyo art scene that would cultivate a new surge in Japanese art," Murakami says. Consider this surge a success. Here are three of his most apt pupils.

Forbes Celebrity 100 Drop-Offs

When the resort our reader is supposed to stay says its never heard of her, she's sent to a different hotel that's out in the boondocks. What is she owed for the reservations snafu?

Settle down in a small town in North Carolina, go country hopping in South America, or find a comfortable middle in one of the three other special offers this week.

How you can trade large groups of tourists, long lines at attractions, and booked out hotels for small villages, Roman ruins, and inexpensive chateaux.

Check out this installment in the infamous series of religious anti-evolution videos starring former TV star Kirk Cameron. In this one, Kirk looks on in amazement as some weenie explains that the banana is "the atheist's nightmare," because it is so perfectly suited to the human hand that God must have created it expressly for our benefit. As Kottke sez, "Not that this guy cares or whatever, but the modern banana is a cultivated fruit...i.e. pressured by humans to, oh what's the word...evolve into its present form. And other varieties of bananas are smaller or larger and differently shaped. Some wild bananas have large hard seeds. I could go on...." Link (via Kottke)...