"A city is a congregation of animals whose biological history is enclosed within its boundaries; and yet every conscious and rational act on the part of these creatures helps to shape the city’s eventual character." Claude Lévi-Strauss in Tristes Tropiques.
I like to think that I shape cities in my masterplans. They get built and become reality.
That's just the megalomaniac I am. Armistad Maupin wrote Tales of The City as if San Francisco could be embodied in the personalities of his whacked out characters.
There are pockets of urban spaces I call home within my city.
An apocalyptic sky over Darling Harbour.
Taken on the Western Distributor flyover heading towards the Harbour Bridge.
Clovelly Beach on a Sunday morning. People here are a mix of bohemians and the bourgeoisie. Everyone leaves their things on the concrete and forgets about it for an hour or so while they have a swim'n'bake. When they come back, it's always there. There's a good sense of community here.
Neil Gaiman spun a wonderful urban tale in his one of his Sandman graphic novels, World's End.
In it, a generic unamed city dweller finds himself lost in an unamed generic city.
He bumps into a generic old man on a generic street who says this:
"Each city is a collection of lives and buildings and it has its own personality.
So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams."
End of intellectual wankery.
Back to the intellectual MBA books sans wankery. (i.e: not very much fun at all)
2 comments:
I have that book, as well as the entire Sandman series.
Muahahaha.
Nice evil laugh.
Tell me, do you own David Mack's Kabuki series as well?
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