Roden
Issue 071
August 13, 2022

Pop-up Tokio Newsletter + New Print

Come, walk Tokyo with me for a week



Hello gentle subscriber to Roden. Please allow for this quick interlude to announce two things:

One: New Pop-up Newsletter

I’m running a new pop-up newsletter called TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO. It starts in two days (Monday the 15th). I’m walking Tokyo for seven days photographing and documenting the routes. It runs from the 15th to 22nd, and then I delete the list. You can subscribe here. I wrote a bit more about why I’m walking Tokyo in Ridgeline.

Tokyo. What a word, what a name. Great shape, great sound: TOKIO, TŌKYŌ, TOKYO. Romanize it how you like, it’s still the “eastern capital” and just saying the word itself brings to mind celestial images of an infinite city, a visible city.

SO! For seven days, each morning at daybreak, I’m going to walk a chunk of that infinitude. Fifteen to twenty kilometers a day. A hundred kilometers or so in total. The plan is to trace back over those twenty-two years of my life, thinking about how the city has changed. Because Tokyo has changed. Significantly. The building boom of the last two decades (and the last decade in particular) has reshaped so much of its topography.


Some tomato farmers

Two: A New Print

I don’t think I’ve yet announced this here but I have a new limited edition A4 signed + numbered print available: The Tomato Farmers. It ships in a custom kiribako (wooden box). It is not cheap — $475. But it’s a closed edition. And SPECIAL PROJECTS Yearly members get $95 off.

If you bristle at that price, I apologize! Cheap, print-on-demand prints don’t interest me. I’m a bit fussy about the work I put out into the world, and my goal is not to “saturate the markets” with CRAIGMODSTUFF but rather to put out a few things with great deliberation. Unfortunately, it can mean they’re sometimes expensive. I’m also looking at doing open-edition signed prints in the future. They should be cheaper ($150?). I’m learning as I go along — about production, distribution, and pricing. Thanks for your patience and understanding. And support!

Some tomato farmers


Alright, the wind is lashing the rain (truly, lashing it like giant ropes of water) against my studio. The thunder made me laugh once again in bed it was so loud. I’ve got a pile of equipment on the floor ready to be packed. Tomorrow, I head up to Tokyo to make camp and get ready to mega-walk the week away.

As always: projects like TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO are made possible by SPECIAL PROJECTS memberships. So: a huge thanks to those who are (or have been!) members.

More soon,
C