The Invisible Cities: "Cities & The Dead"

What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling, on every stair another stairway is set in negative, over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist: the dampness destroys people's bodies, and they have scant strength; everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway, it is dark.

From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say "It's down below there," and we can only believe them. The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam.

(Words by Italo Calvino, photo by Renato Corradi)

Pantone

A friend of mine who used to call himself 'Charlie' is sitting before me outside a shopping mall drinking orange juice. "Why is it that we're always feeling as if we are about to collapse, and then we go on stronger than ever! Our society is built upon this, my friend. Nothing ever works around here. Nothing ever did! What keeps this country from falling apart? Our community is governed by corruption and lies, we suspect, hate and envy each other, the country is being run by complete imbecilles and yet there's always one man/woman in every corner who rescues us and gives us back our dignity, our hopes, the will to create and 'prosper'. It's conscience. In every randomly pick of, say, a hundred bastards there will always be at least one bastard with conscience. And even when he/she collapses, he/she will back next to start all over. This bloodline of people hidden in the obscurity of an office, a farm, a boat, a plane etc derives from ancient times to keep you in the right track when you stray and hold you tight when you're about to fall on your arse! Personally speaking, this is what fascinates me about human beings; no matter how bad things are there's always one to keep the head up for the rest of us..."

(Video is 'Pantone' by To Rococo Rot)

Transformations # 2

"Life in the city has changed me..." T. says in a buzzy cafe we often retreat during peak hours. "I'm not the real me, you know. I'm a different person, one I hate and could harm if push comes to shove! How did we ever come to this! Is this natural progression? Maturity?". While he's talking he holds his spoon in a gentle way like a 'maestro' directing an invisible chamber quartet into a increasingly fading adaggio! "Sometimes when I think about the triviality that surrounds me, the little nothingness that consists of my 'creative' hours at work, I'm certain that there must a be a way out. This can't be it! My life! I became the faceless passer-by I used to -not- notice through this glass, I drift slowly into invisibility even from myself...and the more this transformation devours me the less I tend to resist. The realisation of the change doesn't make me a better man for myself while I seem to become more acceptable as a citizen. I'd never imagined that invisibility would ease my way into society and yet this is what is all about. A vicious circle that transforms people into statistics while rips their soul in order to include them into a gigantic faceless pit where even a supposed individuality is part of this theatrical performance we call modern life..."

(photo by Cyjanopan)

That's Entertainment

A police car and a screaming siren -

A pneumatic drill and ripped up concrete -
A baby waiting and stray dog howling -
The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking -
that's entertainment.

A smash of glass and the rumble of boots -
An electric train and a ripped up 'phone booth -
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat -
Lights going out and a kick in the balls -
that's entertainment.

Days of speed and slow time Mondays -
Pissing down with rain on a boring Wednesday -
Watching the news and not eating your tea -
A freezing cold flat and damp on the walls -
that's entertainment.

Waking up at 6 a.m. on a cool warm morning -
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol -
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard -
Watching the tele and thinking about your holidays -
that's entertainment.

Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes -
Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume -
A hot summers' day and sticky black tarmac -
Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were faraway -
that's entertainment.

Two lovers kissing amongst the scream of midnight -
Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude -
Getting a cab and travelling on buses -
Reading the grafitti about slashed seat affairs -
that's entertainment.

(words by Paul Weller, photo by Mohain)

Game Over

The cables are mixed/the telephone wires flicker/the sky looks just like a fractal/computers working unplugged and with no battaries/alcohol is being consumed/cigarettes are smoked/figures around me fade/the fog rolls in/money grow wings and fly out of the window/so do my hopes in (and for) this world/my dreams get worse/my hair grow longer/my eyes are wet/i'm chocking/the window is shrinking/and the door is locked/less oxygen/dead end in TombRaider/ my hands are shaking/my body is weak/and my mind ransacked

(Video: Game Over, music by Ken Ishii)

Static

I met this bloke on a night bus in London back in the early 00s. He was a universal traveller, one of those braindead types who 'circled the globe for things we haven't tried before'. He took Garland's Beach literally and couldn't stop catalogising every drug he did, where, when, its cost, the side effects. He told me about a stop-over in Pyongyang and the airport security 'morons' that didn't let him sleep in the airport. He slagged off all asian people as he went on about sex in Thailand, pot in a Godforsakentown and all the useless details he thought that would amaze me. As the bus approached Lewisham I couldn't help but thinking that the guy next to me, no matter how many travels he'd made and the people he'd met, he was the most static person I've ever come to meet! It's not the miles you leave behind that matter but the understanding of what you see...

(photo by Yannis Kontos, 1 and 2)

The Time Of Your Life

"Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking that we're dead. That we died a couple of years ago, back when I was a rock and roll star. And that all this is Death's last joke. That we're living one last dream, before the lights go out. And then I think, so what's new? And I roll over. And sooner or later I go back to sleep..."

(from the graphic novel 'Death: The Time of your Life' by Neil Gaiman, published by Vertigo)

Jacob's Ladder

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn 'em all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So the way he sees it, if you're frightened of dying and holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth. It's just a matter of how youlook at it, that's all."

('Louis' played by Danny Aiello quotes a philosophic-theologic theory by Meister Eckhart in Adrian Lyne's film "Jacob's Ladder")

(Photo By Geoffroy Demarquet)

The Invisible Cities: "Inferno"

And Polo said: "The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

(Words By Italo Calvino, photo by darkness has fallen)