Japanese Junkspace
Rainy season—today is just one of those gray Blade-Runner-on-a-bad-hair-days. Days like this compel me to change my desktop wallpaper to something more appro such as the gray concrete fractal view from South Shinjuku or fishheads in the Tsukiji market.
While surfing for a new gray wallpaper, I stumbled across a random book review by Ron Mexico in HESOmagazine.com
describing of the concept of Japanese “Junkspace” in his book review of the urban theorist Rem Koolhaas’ manifesto “CONTENT.”
Hot damn, this is why I loooove the Internet—Ron Mexico entertainingly describes my gray, rainy day here in Junkspace as….
…. a tacky stew of vending machines, hair salons, love hotels, karaoke equipment and pachinko parlors in a “coagulate” of gray concrete. Vending machines that propagate the banalities of Japanese culture: “Samuidesune! Nanmaekiteruno?” before dispensing liter-bottles of cheap booze…
…Karaoke bars with dragons or giant crabs molded to their façades, full of people that think they’re participating in a legitimate social activity. Electronics stores that sell VHS tapes, DVDs, and memory cards, all featuring “School Girl Rape 13 with Bukkake.”…
…meeting a nurse, a dental assistant, an OL, and an elderly-care worker, and having them all say that their hobby is shopping. Taking them to love hotels and dressing them in a rented schoolgirl uniforms; double-penetrating with the Hello Kitty vibrator and the Pokemon anal-beads, torturing with the Moomin nipple-clamps, capturing it all with the keitai’s 45 second movie feature….
…instinct is an express train speeding us towards some exciting destination, and our car is populated with farting salarymen and ass-grabbing chikan. Make the best of it. Breathe deep and grab yourself some ass—you can’t get off the train…
“ Do androids dream of Tokyo?”
More photos via the bladerunner Japan Flickr Hive Mind
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June 29th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Ha, ha, “JUNKSPACE” is the perfecto way to label the Tokyo sprawl.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Luv the androids dream of tokyo pic…reminds me of syd mead’s artwork…even though this is real…..amazing how life transforms art that transforms life….all in a state of flux and static…
July 9th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Well say what you want but you’ve gotta admit the pokemon anal-beeds are pretty damn classy.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Shhhhh, don’t say that too loud or Y-chan might ask you for some.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Hahaha….I’m actually surprised she hasn’t already done so.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hey, thanks for following HESO! We do our best to make sure that all points of view are expressed without bias, therefore I would like to take this opportunity to announce HESO’s first ever article actually written by a farting salaryman chikan wearing nippleclamps. Be on the lookout for it in the next issue