By Tom H. Brooks 3
NEW HORIZONS
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Here we go again…
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THE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITION
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FINALLY met a real and interesting Tokyo character named Aki. He was on the beach in Odaiba playing his guitar and singing. He was playing things like Bobby McFerrin`s Don`t Worry, Be Happy
and Bob Dylan`s All I Really Want To Do, Is Maybe Be Friends With You. He spoke really good English and he told us a little about his life and his adventures in Brighton, Great Britain where he learned English. He was a little goofy, but in a good way, like a Japanese beach bum. I had to appreciate that. He was a real true classic, this one….
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Any jabroni with some fancy equipment and a couple college classes under his/her belt can take an acceptable photograph. With a little technical knowhow about F-stops and apertures and a nice tripod, any photo-monkey can pump out masses of typical pictures. It takes a real artist to SEE the shots and to get them by any means possible, even with a shitty T-mobile flip cellphone. Believe it, baby…
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DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET SHOTS IN TOKYO WITH NO PEOPLE IN THEM?!?
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“At no time in the history of man has the world been so full of pain and anguish. Here and there, however, we meet with individuals who are untouched, unsullied, by the common grief. We say of them that they have died to the world. They live in the moment, fully, and the radiance which emanates from them is a perpetual song of joy […] like the clown, we go through the motions, forever simulating, forever postponing the grand event- we die struggling to get born. We never were, never are. We are always in the process of becoming. Forever outside”
― Henry Miller, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder
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“And we rise up and up into the stars with it. We go past the angels and the saints, past illumination itself and into the divine darkness, into the void, as we pass out of existence. In oblivion we are forgiven all things.”
Anne Rice
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Out of all the great things about Japan, the worst thing is their INSANELY STUPID prejudice against tattoos. I have only one small tattoo I got 25 years ago in San Diego and I was denied entry into a BEAUTIFUL spa and pools over the ocean in Enoshima. It`s like this EVERYWHERE. The Japanese powers that be seem to think that ALL tattoos are associated with the Yakuza or the Triads or some other form of organized crime. BULLSHIT. Do I really look like fucking Yakuza to you little assholes?!? Seriously, open your minds a little. It`s not the kids, it`s the old people.
Fuck it. I`m going back to Tokyo to swim in the waterfall pool in the gardens of Nishikasai where nobody gives a shit about my Keep On Truckin` tattoo….
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“This knowledge may change you somewhat. That`s all knowledge ever really does, I suppose…
Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can`t go on. To REALLY ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”
Anne Rice
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I think it may be possible that I am the hardest working man on Instagram….672 photos in a little over 2 weeks…..TOTALLY INSANE….!!!!!
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Up to 844 photos now, only 4 days later…..gotta stop….delirious….ADDICTION….»»
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6/7/14, Saturday
Awwww, shaving my bushy scumbag beard is a true sign that my spectacularly glorious 16-day vacation has finally come to an end…..it just breaks my heart, the vacation ending, I mean…
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“Whoever does not carry beauty within the soul will not find it anywhere.”
Noel Claraso
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“The task is…not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but rather to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees.”
Erwin Schrodinger
Nobel Prize-winning physicist
I think of it here along with photography…
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To me, a photograph is much more than just that. It is more than the sum of its parts. It is about light, shadow, composition, and above all….VISION. There are purists who do not believe in filters and photoshop and such things and that is fine with me. But I, on the other hand, often have a tendency to fool with the original composition and make it fall into the realm of something between a photograph and a painting, that which falls into the category of PURE ART…an entirely new creation that is singular and unique and something else altogether…
THB3
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“What if the CURE for CANCER was TRAPPED INSIDE the brain of someone who couldn`t afford a good EDUCATION?!?”
Banksy
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ME on fucking Instagram is like giving China White heroin and free needles to a goddamned junkie…
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“No one is listening…
Now you may sing the selfsong,
as the bird does,
not for territory or dominance,
but for self-enlargement.
Let something come from nothing…”
Stan Rice
From Texas Suite
Body of Work
1983
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One of the WORST jobs in the world….? Imagine…working in a clock store. ALL DAY, tick-tock watch the CLOCKS….HA! What a goddamned nightmare! I`d go totally mental…..
Time would literally be your hated ENEMY and a brutal killer…
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“Nothing will come of nothing; we must dare mighty things…”
William Shakespeare
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Okay, so in Tokyo, there is a direct ripoff of the Mexican restaurant, Chipotle. It is called Frijoles, and there is almost no difference at all (except there`s NO MEXICANS!).
Now, I can tell you, I REALLY miss IN-N-OUT BURGER. I love that place! I was thinking to myself today that if these Frijoles people can get away with it, so can I. Why not open a direct ripoff and call it HERE-N-THERE BURGER?!? Instead of the angled arrow logo, it could be a lightning bolt with a burger at the bottom. EXACTLY the same simple menu and recipes. HA! Instant success! Now if only I can find some investors… who’s in?!?
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“I feel sorry for people who don`t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that`s as good as they`re going to feel all day…”
Dean Martin
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“Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.”
Charles Bukowski
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“There is a language that extends beyond words…”
Paulo Coelho
(PHOTOGRAPHY)
“Nothing that surrounds us is object, ALL is subject…”
Andre Breton
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“A word of advice….if you`re picking the wrong fight, at least pick the right weapon…”
Jason Statham
Blitz
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“Blessed is he who talks in circles, for he shall become a big wheel…”
Frank Dane
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EVEN IF YOU DON`T LIKE IT,
YOU GOTTA PLAY THE GAME
A LITTLE BIT TO GET AHEAD IN LIFE…
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“Everything is true. Everything anybody has ever thought.”
Philip K. Dick
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Quotes from Frank Dane (This guy was fucking CLASSIC….)
“Life is strange. Every so often, a good man wins…”
“Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.”
“The way to a woman`s heart is through your wallet.”
“A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn`t own.
A conservative is a fellow who thinks a rich man should have a square deal.”
“Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately…”
“IGNORANCE IS NEVER OUT OF STYLE. IT WAS IN FASHION YESTERDAY,
IT IS THE RAGE TODAY, AND IT WILL SET THE PACE TOMORROW…”
FRANK DANE
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As the world spirals deeper and deeper into war and self-destruction; as religious differences cause irreparable rifts between tribes and cultures; as we destroy our earth ruthlessly and without remorse; as world weather patterns become more erratic and unpredictable and what would have been called a storm in yesteryear is now named “superstorm”; the story of Noah and The Great Deluge does, indeed, come to mind…..
“The time for mercy is past. Now…the punishment begins…”
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THE TEDIOUS AGONY OF USELESS TOIL
The crystal clarity
of freedom
is infinitely better
than the torturous horror
of grim working imprisonment
To fly with the wind
through azure skies
and towering white clouds
or to swim in a muddy
trash-filled lake
The despair of the darkness
The long hours sliding by
like razor blades of time
cutting your flesh
as your soul bleeds out
To flounder there
in the shadowy depths
ever-reaching for the light
Seeking an exit
Waiting for a savior…
And the bell tolls
The day has ended
You are released again
into the bright world outside
Everything looks better now
You will make full use of your time
You will dream and live fully
The world is yours again,
for the night, at least,
for tomorrow, you die all over again…
THB3
Tokyo, Japan
Written AT WORK
July 9, 2014
1:30pm
Yes, to answer your question, I am a gravedigger…
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“Keep a green tree in your heart,
and perhaps a singing bird will come…”
Chinese Proverb
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“Kyle! This is the way the world works! If you want to find some quality friends,
you gotta wade through all the dicks first!”
Eric Cartman
“Dude, FUCK FACEBOOK!”
Stan Marsh
South Park
You Have 0 Facebook Friends
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D E P R O F U N D I S (latin: “from the depths”)
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“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
“…all the speed he took, all the turns he`d taken and the corners he`d cut in the night city,
and still he`d see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void…”
William Gibson
Neuromancer
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A GOOD PIECE OF CHEESE
DOESN`T STAY GOOD FOREVER…
THB3
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“Youth is wasted on the young…”
George Bernard Shaw
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Your whole life in the city, you hear the sirens passing by on the dark night streets, taking someone somewhere; alive or already dead, they are being carted away to somewhere they did not expect to be at a particular juncture in time. Accidents, random violence, peaceful death, choking, sickness, the black hand of fate. The sirens drone across the night city, coming and going constantly with horrifying regularity and you become numb to it. You ignore it. But some nights, after midnight, you notice them again. All is quiet, but suddenly, you hear it, that familiar drone… it`s calling out to you once again, echoing through the canyons of stone. As the years pass, it almost seems as if they`re circling around you, getting closer and closer, zeroing in on your location and howling at you like the hounds of hell, at last, come to steal you away from your life and this world to a place that none of us can really KNOW until we get there. Until then, you wait, sometimes shivering a little bit, a slight clammy chill rising on your flesh as the night closes in around you and threatens to smother you in its cold embrace. You lie there and you wonder….
THB3
7/19/14
After Midnight…
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LIFE IS A SERIES OF ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES.
IT`S ONLY THE FINAL DESTINATION THAT WE CAN BE ABSOLUTELY SURE OF…
THB3
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“Raise your words, not your voice.
It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
Rumi
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“ART SHOULD COMFORT THE DISTURBED
AND DISTURB THE COMFORTABLE.”
Banksy
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“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an ARTIST…”
St. Francis of Assisi
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“YOU MUST HAVE CHAOS WITHIN YOU TO GIVE BIRTH TO A DANCING STAR.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
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“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though EVERYTHING IS A MIRACLE.”
Albert Einstein
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“I sit in the sky
like a sphinx,
misunderstood,
my heart of snow is wed
to the whiteness of swans.
I hate the movement
that displaces the rigid lines
with lips untaught,
neither tears nor laughter
do I know…”
Charles Baudelaire
Les Fleurs du Mal
(The Flowers of Evil)
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See you next time….whenever that may be….
»»»»
THB3
