First being, I've been reading Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino on and off during and since the trip. There is something wrong with my head lately and I can't sit down, begin things, finish them, but this book is a subtle, beautiful creature and I want to share a some random excerpts here. His writing is so incredibly elegant and measured and fantastical... It just seemed kind of fitting because it's all little descriptions of imaginary cities, explained to Kublai Khan by Marco Polo. And I just went on a wacky adventure to a couple of distant lands. So that's nice.
Cities and Memory 3.
In vain, great-hearted Kublai, shall I attempt to describe Zaira, city of high bastions. I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades' curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper's swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen's nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn; the tilt of a guttering and a cat's progress along it as he slips into the same window; the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared beyond the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering; the rips in the fish net and the three old men seated on the dock mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat of the usurper, who some say was the queen's illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all of Zaira's past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls. Cities and Signs 4.
Of all the changes of language a traveler in distant lands must face, none equals that which waits him in the city of Hypatia, because the change regards not words, but things. I entered Hypatia one morning, a magnolia garden was reflected in blue lagoons, I walked among the hedges, sure I would discover young and beautiful ladies bathing; but at the bottom of the water, crabs were biting the eyes of the suicides, stones tied around their necks, their hair green with seaweed.
I felt cheated and I decided to demand justice of the sultan. I climbed the porphyry steps of the palace with the highest domes, I crossed six tiled courtyards with fountains. The central hall was barred by iron gratings: convicts with black chains on their feet were hauling up basalt blocks from a quarry that opened underground.I could only question the philosophers. I entered the great library, I became lost among shelves collapsing under the vellum bindings, I followed the alphabetical order of vanished alphabets, up and down halls, stairs, bridges. In the most remote papyrus cabinet, in a cloud of smoke, the dazed eyes of an adolescent appeared to me, as he lay on a mat, his lips glued to an opium pipe."Where is the sage ?"The smoker pointed out of the window. It was a garden with children's games: ninepins, a swing, a top. The philosopher was seated on the lawn. He said: "Signs form a language, but not the one you think you know."I realized I had to free myself from the images which in the past had announced to me the things I sought: only then will I succeed in understanding the language of Hypatia.Now I have only to hear the neighing of horses and the cracking of whips and I am seized with amorous trepidation: in Hypatia you have to go to the stables and riding rings to see the beautiful women who mount the saddle, thighs naked, greaves on their calves, and as soon as a young foreigner approaches, they fling him on the piles of hay or sawdust and press their firm nipples against him.And when my spirit wants no stimulus or nourishment save music, I know it is to be sought in the cemeteries: the musicians hide in the tombs; from grave to grave flute trills, harp chords answer one another.True, also in Hypatia the day will come when my only desire will be to leave. I know I must not go down to the harbor then, but climb the citadel's highest pinnacle and wait for a ship to go by up there. But will it ever go by? There is no language without deceit.5.Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone."But which is the stone that supports the bridge?" Kublai Khan asks."The bridge is not supported by one stone or another," Marco answers, "but by the line of the arch that they form."Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: "Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me."
Polo answers: "Without stones there is no arch."
In other news, I think I'm falling in love. I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist twice on the plane there and back again, not because it's a particularly good film (so thin, so thin! Soundtrack is v. acceptable though- more of a mixtape than a movie), but because Devendra Banhart has this awkward, gratuitously indie cameo about 2/3 of the way through, and he's just so adorable. Wearing the cutest cardigan. That is all, I need some alone time with his hairy head now...
I lost the gloves that my mother gave to me
While on my ways to the make believe sea
Amd I lost the rings that my lover gave to me
While on my ways to the Red Salt Sea
And I lost my ways to my happy pen club
And ended up where I still can't say but
I lost my favourite pen on the way
And I lost my friend but that couldn't be
I lost the friend who sang with me
I lost my son but that couldn't be
I lost the son who sat on my knee
I lost my man I let inside me
And I lost my friend that my love and I shared
While on my ways to the make believe cares
And I lost the tunes that stuck to my ears
While on my ways to the make believe hears
And I saw Sapiena she sang to the sea
The only person left on the island was me
And I love the man who took care of me
He owns the ship the Charles C. Leary
Yes I love the man who took care of me
He sails the world on the Charles C. Leary
P.P.S.
Like a fox.
Comme un renard.
Come una volpe.
Όπως μια αλεπού.
[Translations courtesy Babel Fish, corrections welcome bilingual dears.]
Does anyone else remember Dinosaurs? That mad Jim Henson TV show? I just restumbled upon it, but once upon a time was an absolute favourite. Circa early primary school methinks, but Googling it now reveals that the intended audience was (probably ragingly leftist) adults: according to Wikipedia, topical issues featured in Dinosaurs include environmentalism, women's rights, sexual harassment, objectification of women, censorship, civil rights, body image, steroid use, allusions to masturbation (in the form of Robbie getting caught doing a mating dance by himself), drug abuse, racism, peer pressure, rights of indigenous peoples, corporate crime, government interference of parenting, and allusions to homosexuality and communism (in the guise of herbivorism). Aww, the 90s... 
