Kenji Kawakami
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About Kenji Kawakami
FROM JAPAN, the original and founder of Chindogu is Kenji Kawakami, designer, anarchist, and pathological mail-order enthusiast. He began his creative career in the Sixties writing scripts for animated TV series, and went on to arrange media events, becoming an avid opponent of such Japanese institutions such as karaoke. After designing the Tokyo Bicycle Museum in the mid-Eighties, he became editor of a popular home shopping magazine, in which the concept of Chindogu was born -- the art of "the unuseless idea". The author of four books of unuseless inventions, and founder of the 10,000-strong International Chindogu Society, he is famous throughout Japan for his bizarre gadgets and his tireless work for the better understanding and appreciation of the tenets of Chindogu.
(Excerpted from "101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions" by Kenji Kawakami; published 1995 by W.W. Norton & Co., NY)
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