ben frost tokyo weblog
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jan 2004 1 2
feb 2004
march 2004
april 2004
may 2004
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photo below is of my cat - swiss tony - with his first mouse catch. my parents are looking after him while im away and they sent me this a few months ago. ahh i do miss him.. . other photos here are of what i remember to be a cafe or maybe a hair salon called coco, the archway over the highway near the museum of contemporary art, a hotel maybe in kameido with small side castle in case you have the urge to be king for a day - fool for a lifetime. tried to walk to work today but got a little lost - i think i was on the right way but i got skittish and took the train option as it was at hand.
finished all work for black and white magazine today. anthony's last issue as art director. was cool doing these projects with him. have had some amazing realisations about where everything is at of recent. will write some essays on these things and post soon.
have been doing a few interviews of late which is good to verbalise where im at. can't believe how quickly this year is starting. all so suddenly nearly march. during december i was thinking of putting in my notice at work and leaving end of march, but i can't really justify where is better than anywhere else and i still havent done half of the things i wanna do here.
my first foray into music begins next week with abikyokan. its gonna be a laugh.
back after long weekend. working pretty solidly finishing up Black + White illustrations and a list of other jobs i havent even started looking at yet. im so sporadic. cant work - cant not work. maybe there's some sort of pill for this condition.
saw cool documentary on william gibson - there are no maps for this territory. quite interesting. cool suggestion of time perception relating to the contemporary - such that everybody (most) really lives in a headspace 10 years ago, because the present is too hard to digest.
saw finding nemo on dvd. awesome movie. story is pretty average, but the sea space concept and cgi is glorious.
also saw this flick called you stupid man. milla jovavitch is cast with a bunch of strange choices in a somewhat annoying premise - but she is great. you can see why some supermodels are supermodels. its more than just what u can pick up in a photograph - its the package of movement and speech and implied personality. shes incredible.
have been watching tons of stuff lately - deathwatch - a british horror film set in the WW1 trenches. predictable in parts but the concept is full on.
took a walk into ginza this morning. took these photos.
day off to day. went into roppongi all night last night with scott, adam, jim and andrew. was pretty cool.
started abikyokan web site. its still a shell and pretty standard at the moment. view it here.
photos below are taken from between kiyosumi-shirakawa and ryoguku. i took a walk around there on thursday. found a cool second hand clothing store called taurus. everything was 50% off. bought a dandy brown argyle vest. they have some ties there that are incredible - 50's silk numbers but they cost around 3000 yen each. will go back soon and pick some up.
im happy in tokyo lately. its good. wholesome almost. i don't have any overpowering concerns. nothing really to worry about. im hoping to stay until at least june/july - which will have fleshed me out for a year.
guernica
gun shop
joy see.
all in a days work
above - shrine/memorial for people killed in the WW2 air raids
right: in koyosumi shirakawa area there is this street and every five meters is a sign or a poster with this character on it. its almost a theme town. was really strange/
took these photos last week. looks like doraemon has a new movie coming out. to celebrate, kids are led up to the prostrate blue beast - propped beside him - photographed then led off to a back room somewhere for electro shock therapy.
band practice tonight for our new group - 'abikyokan' - japanese for death/destruction.
kraftwerk on acid with guitar. total and utter insanity. heres photos of us.
first gig march 6th in kinshicho at liquid polka 2. hilarity ensues.
went and saw kings of leon at club quattro in shibuya on sunday night with anna. cool little venue -must have a capacity of 800. wire are playing there at the end of the month. would love to check them out but 6000yen stings.
other photos here are from around monzennakacho.
saw roger and me today - its pretty cool. also seen in the last few weeks -
the girl with the pearl earring -
salvador
, wonderland
retortmagazine have done a spread on my bleeding man performance - check it out here
big night last night in roppongi with scott and hoon. started at the launch of pf flyers, then out to super deluxe and then to chandelier in shibuya. was way cool.
just finished a portrait of will anderson for black and white magazine.
used a whole heap of tracing paper and coloured pencil. reduced pallete, scanning large bits and overlays cutting and pasting. was fun. pictured here are the scraps of this technique with the finished product.
