tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6785340770729881412024-02-08T04:10:33.175-08:00Invisible Cities SLUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-678534077072988141.post-19704695050606906622012-02-23T06:00:00.007-08:002012-02-26T05:14:23.910-08:00Italo Calvino-Invisible Cities Project 3D<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Invisible Cities By Italo Calvino</span></b></div><br />
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<div><div class="p1"> Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in San Remo, Italy. He is an</div><div class="p1">essayist and journalist as well as a novelist, and is a member of the editorial</div><div class="p1">staff of the Turin publishing firm Giulio Einaudi Editore. His other novels</div><div class="p1">include _The Castle of Crossed Destinies__ (also published in Picador),</div><div class="p1">_Cosmicomics,__ and _t zero.__ In 1973 Italo Calvino won the prestigious Italian</div><div class="p1">literary award, the Premio Feltrinelli.</div><div class="p1"><br />
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First published of Invisible Cities in 1972</div><div class="p1">translated from the Italian by William Weaver</div></div><div class="p1"><br />
</div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Invisible Cities</span></b></div><div class="p1"><br />
</div><div class="p1"></div><div class="p1"><b>_Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he</b></div><div class="p1"><b>describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars</b></div><div class="p1"><b>does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity</b></div><div class="p1"><b>than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his. In the lives of emperors</b></div><div class="p1"><b>there is a moment which follows pride in the boundless extension of the</b></div><div class="p1"><b>territories we have conquered, and the melancholy and relief of knowing we shall</b></div><div class="p1"><b>soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them. There is a sense of</b></div><div class="p1"><b>emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odour of the elephants after the</b></div><div class="p1"><b>rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers, a dizziness that makes</b></div><div class="p1"><b>rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the planispheres where they</b></div><div class="p1"><b>are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the despatches announcing to us</b></div><div class="p1"><b>the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes the wax</b></div><div class="p1"><b>of the seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies' protection, offering in</b></div><div class="p1"><b>exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and tortoise shell. It</b></div><div class="p1"><b>is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us</b></div><div class="p1"><b>the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption's gangrene</b></div><div class="p1"><b>has spread too far to be healed by our sceptre, that the triumph over enemy</b></div><div class="p1"><b>sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing. Only in Marco Polo's</b></div><div class="p1"><b>accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to</b></div><div class="p1"><b>crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites'</b></div><div class="p1"><b>gnawing.__</b></div><br />
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</div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Eudoxia</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> By Marcus Inkpen</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Machinima Fuschia Nightfire</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="p1"></div><div class="p1"> <b>CITIES & THE SKY 1</b></div><div class="p1"><br />
</div><div class="p1">In Eudoxia, which spreads both upwards and down, with winding alleys, steps, dead</div><div class="p1">ends, hovels, a carpet is preserved in which you can observe the city's true form.</div><div class="p1">At first sight nothing seems to resemble Eudoxia less than the design of that</div><div class="p1">carpet, laid out in symmetrical motives whose patterns are repeated along straight</div><div class="p1">and circular lines, interwoven with brilliantly coloured spires, in a repetition</div><div class="p1">that can be followed throughout the whole woof. But if you pause and examine it</div><div class="p1">carefully, you become convinced that each place in the carpet corresponds to a</div><div class="p1">place in the city and all the things contained in the city are included in the</div><div class="p1">design, arranged according to their true relationship, which escapes your eye</div><div class="p1">distracted by the bustle, the throngs, the shoving. All of Eudoxia's confusion,</div><div class="p1">the mules' braying, the lampblack stains, the fish smell is what is evident in the</div><div class="p1">incomplete perspective you grasp; but the carpet proves that there is a point from</div><div class="p1">which the city shows its true proportions, the geometrical scheme implicit in its</div><div class="p1">every, tiniest detail.</div><div class="p1">It is easy to get lost in Eudoxia: but when you concentrate and stare at the</div><div class="p1">carpet, you recognize the street you were seeking in a crimson or indigo or</div><div class="p1">magenta thread which, on a wide loop, brings you to the purple enclosure that is</div><div class="p1">your real destination. Every inhabitant of Eudoxia compares the carpet's immobile</div><div class="p1">order with his own image of the city, an anguish of his own, and each can find,</div><div class="p1">concealed among the arabesques, an answer, the story of his life, the twists of</div><div class="p1">fate.</div><div class="p1">An oracle was questioned about the mysterious bond between two objects so</div><div class="p1">dissimilar as the carpet and the city. One of the two objects--the oracle</div><div class="p1">replied--has the form the gods gave the starry sky and the orbits in which the</div><div class="p1">worlds revolve; the other is approximate reflection, like every human creation.</div><div class="p1">For some time the augurs had been sure that the carpet's harmonious pattern</div><div class="p1">was of divine origin. The oracle was interpreted in this sense, arousing no</div><div class="p1">controversy. But you could, similarly, come to the opposite conclusion: that the</div><div class="p1">true map of the universe is the city of Eudoxia, just as it is, a stain that</div><div class="p1">spreads out shapelessly, with crooked streets, houses that crumble one upon the</div><div class="p1">other amid clouds of dust, fires, screams in the darkness.</div><div class="p1"><br />
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</div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Armilla</span> </b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By Romy Nayar & Ux hax</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Machinima Hypatia Pickens</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Collaborator:</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Leona80 Mhia</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Nadiemequiere</span></b></div><div class="p1"><br />
</div><div class="p1"></div><div class="p1"> <b>THIN CITIES 3</b></div><div class="p1"><br />
</div><div class="p1">Whether Armilla is like this because it is unfinished or because it has been</div><div class="p1">demolished, whether the cause is some enchantment or only a whim, I do not know.</div><div class="p1">The fact remains that it has no walls, no ceilings, no floors: it has nothing that</div><div class="p1">makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses</div><div class="p1">should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be: a forest of</div><div class="p1">pipes that end in taps, showers, spouts, overflows. Against the sky a lavabo's</div><div class="p1">white stands out, or a bathtub, or some other porcelain, like late fruit still</div><div class="p1">hanging from the boughs. You would think the plumbers had finished their job and</div><div class="p1">gone away before the bricklayers arrived; or else their hydraulic systems,</div><div class="p1">indestructible, had survived a catastrophe, an earthquake, or the corrosion of</div><div class="p1">termites.</div><div class="p1">Abandoned before or after it was inhabited. Armilla cannot be called</div><div class="p1">deserted. At any hour, raising your eyes among the pipes, you are likely to</div><div class="p1">glimpse a young woman, or many young women, slender, not tall of stature,</div><div class="p1">luxuriating in the bathtubs or arching their backs under the showers suspended in</div><div class="p1">the void, washing or drying or perfuming themselves, or combing their long hair at</div><div class="p1">a mirror. In the sun, the threads of water fanning from the showers glisten, the</div><div class="p1">jets of the taps, the spurts, the splashes, the sponges' suds.</div><div class="p1">I have come to this explanation: the streams of water channelled in the</div><div class="p1">pipes of Armilla have remained in the possession of nymphs and naiads. Accustomed</div><div class="p1">to travelling along underground veins, they found it easy to enter into the new</div><div class="p1">aquatic realm, to burst from multiple fountains, to find new mirrors, new games,</div><div class="p1">new ways of enjoying the water. Their invasion may have been built by humans as a</div><div class="p1">votive offering to win the favour of the nymphs, offended at the misuse of the</div><div class="p1">waters. In any case, now they seem content, these maidens: in the morning you hear</div><div class="p1">them singing.</div><div class="p1"><br />
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</div><div class="p1"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">saura</span> </b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By Lanjran Choche & MORLITA Quan</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Machinima By NikoleX Moonwall</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="p1"></div><div class="p1"><b> THIN CITIES 1</b></div><div class="p1"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="p1">Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean</div><div class="p1">lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the</div><div class="p1">ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no</div><div class="p1">farther. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an</div><div class="p1">invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the</div><div class="p1">sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock's calcareous sky.</div><div class="p1">Consequently two forms of religion exist in Isaura.</div><div class="p1">The city's gods, according to some people, live in the depths, in the black</div><div class="p1">lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the</div><div class="p1">buckets that rise, suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the</div><div class="p1">wells, in the revolving pulleys, in the windlasses of the norias, in the pump</div><div class="p1">handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw the water up from the drillings,</div><div class="p1">in the trestles that support the twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on</div><div class="p1">stilts over the roofs, in the slender arches of the aqueducts, in all the columns</div><div class="p1">of water, the vertical pipes, the plungers, the drains, all the way up to the</div><div class="p1">weathercocks that surmount the airy scaffolding of Isaura, a city that moves</div><div class="p1">entirely upwards.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/NAR454czaG8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
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</div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Esmeralda</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By Rebeca Bashly</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Machinima Spiral Silverstar</span></b></div><div class="p1"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="p1"></div><div class="p1"> <b>TRADING CITIES 5</b></div><div class="p1"><br />
</div><div class="p1">In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and</div><div class="p1">intersect each other. To go from one place to another you have always the choice</div><div class="p1">between land and boat: and since the shortest distance between two points in</div><div class="p1">Esmeralda is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional</div><div class="p1">routes, the ways that open to each passerby are never two, but many, and they</div><div class="p1">increase further for those who alternate a stretch by boat with one on dry land.</div><div class="p1">And so Esmeralda's inhabitants are spared the boredom of following the same</div><div class="p1">streets every day. And that is not all: the network of routes is not arranged on</div><div class="p1">one level, but follows instead an up-and-down course of steps, landings, cambered</div><div class="p1">bridges, hanging streets. Combining segments of the various routes, elevated or on</div><div class="p1">ground level, each inhabitant can enjoy every day the pleasure of a new itinerary</div><div class="p1">to reach the same places. The most fixed and calm lives in Esmeralda are spent</div><div class="p1">without any repetition.</div><div class="p1">Secret and adventurous lives, here as elsewhere, are subject to greater</div><div class="p1">restrictions. Esmeralda's cats, thieves, illicit lovers move along higher,</div><div class="p1">discontinuous ways, dropping from a rooftop to a balcony, following gutterings</div><div class="p1">with acrobats' steps. Below, the rats run in the darkness of the sewers, one</div><div class="p1">behind the other's tail, along with conspirators and smugglers: they peep out of</div><div class="p1">manholes and drainpipes, they slip through double bottoms and ditches, from one</div><div class="p1">hiding place to another they drag crusts of cheese, contraband goods, kegs of</div><div class="p1">gunpowder, crossing the city's compactness pierced by the spokes of underground</div><div class="p1">passages.</div><div class="p1">A map of Esmeralda should include, marked in different coloured inks, all</div><div class="p1">these routes, solid and liquid, evident and hidden. It is more difficult to fix on</div><div class="p1">the map the routes of the swallows, who cut the air over the roofs, dropping long</div><div class="p1">invisible parabolas with their still wings, darting to gulp a mosquito, spiralling</div><div class="p1">upwards, grazing a pinnacle, dominating from every point of their airy paths all</div><div class="p1">the points of the city.</div><br />
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</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0