Daido Moriyama: Shinjuku [first edition]

"The current town of Shinjuku shows sign of becoming a near future city. The real and virtual , pleasure and pathos are entangled night and day, and this becomes a huge stadium where the gathering crowds wander, holding their raggle taggle desires. There is no place for which words such as "melting pot" or "purgatory" are more suited than the town of Shinjuku.... When we try lining up in a row cheap words stained with finger marks such as chaos, deluge, greed, vulgarity, vice, indecency, etc., every single one of them epitomizes Shinjuku, and I unintentionally start laughing. This is also an impressive point, as no matter how or where you search in the world, you wouldn't be able to find a city that is this weird. From the eastern JR train line, in other word this side where it seems like a stew in simmering and boiling, to the phantom landscape of high rise buildings that seem like a mirage over the west side, Shinjuku vividly exhibits all the shadiness, toughness, and considerable disconsolateness that a city has, like a truly unfathomable mathematical functional relationship,like a modern Babylon. I and Shinjuku, as well as my attraction to it and shooting photos of it, must have some kind of similar character somewhere."--Daido Moriyama. 1 v. (unpaged) : all ill. ; 25 cm. + 1 folded sheet (ill. ; 37 x 50 cm. folded to 19 cm.) Essay in English and Japanese, printed on folded sheet (inserted). SOFTCOVER.