WhiteBoard News

Aomori, Japan (Japan Today):

A Japanese man has been hiring himself out as a human punch-bag for two years to pay his debts.

Akira Hareruya works as an electrician during the day, but charges passers-by 1,000 yen per minute to hit him at night.

The former boxer reckons he has been hit by 8,000 people since he started and has written a book about his experience.

Mr Hareruya, who lives in Aomori, never hits back even though broken ribs and bruises are an occupational hazard.

His business debts total 15 million yen (about £90,000) and he says this is his only option.

During his career as a punch bag he has been hit by everyone from angry couples to martial arts masters, reports "http://www.japantoday.com".

In his new book, Mr Hareruya tells how a gangster once tried to get him to pay 50,000 yen, around £300, in protection money.

He replied: "I am sorry, but I have no money. That is why I am doing this. If you insist on me paying you 50,000 yen you can punch me for 50 minutes."

* * * * * * * * * * * London, England (Nandotimes):

A British man plans to systematically destroy all his worldly possessions, from his socks to his Saab car, all in the name of art.

Michael Landy, a 37-year-old installation artist, is staging a spring cleaning with a difference as part of an avant-garde exhibition that gets under way on Saturday.

It is the latest manifestation of Brit Art, the anything-goes school of modern art that has seen a pickled cow, an unmade bed and a seat made of cigarettes attracting large crowds to British galleries.

Landy's girlfriend is Gillian Wearing, who won the prestigious Turner Prize for modern art for a massive concrete cast of the inside of a house.

Over the past year, Landy has compiled an inventory of all his belongings, numbering 7,006 items.

In an empty store in Oxford Street, London's principal shopping street, Landy and a team of helpers will load the possessions onto a conveyor belt before dumping them into an industrial shredder.

The exhibit, called Break Down, will run for about two weeks.

Once it is over, all he will have left is the clothes on his back. His cat, Rats, will mercifully also be spared.

Landy said his aim was to highlight modern society's obsession with material possessions and consumerism.

"It's about the amount of raw material that goes into making objects and about the lifespan of things," he said. "But the title also reflects an emotional breakdown."

"I see this as the ultimate consumer choice. Once Break Down has finished, a more personal break down will commence: life without my self-defining belongings."

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), February 16, 2001

Answers

Reminds me of fakirs lying on beds of nails, snake charmers, bearded ladies and knife throwers. When you go into the bazaar, you never know what weird or degraded thing someone will do in public to earn money or attract attention.

That Landy guy who is destroying his "self-defining possessions" is going to be in for a shock, if he thinks this will rid him of anything he really wants to be rid of. He will just be the same guy as before, only poorer. He'll be filled with same petty desires and empty satisfactions, the same delusions and confusions.

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), February 16, 2001.

The great illusionist Harry Houdini was killed when he allowed someone to punch him. Granted, Houdini wasn't "ready" for the punch, but Hareruya is no Houdini.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 16, 2001.