Cities & Desire

From there, after six days and seven nights, you arrive at Zobeide, the white city, well exposed to the moon, with streets wound about themselves as in a skein. They tell this tale of its foundation: men of various nations had an identical dream. They saw a woman running at night through an unknown city; she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of pursuing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her. After the dream, they set out in search of that city; they never found it, but they found one another; they decided to build a city like the one in the dream. In laying out the streets, each followed the course of his pursuit; at the spot where they had lost the fugitive's trail, they arranged spaces and walls differently from the dream, so she would be unable to escape again.

This was the city of Zobeide, where they settled, waiting for that scene to be repeated one night. None of them, asleep or awake, ever saw the woman again. The city's streets were streets where they went to work every day, with no link any more to the dreamed chase. Which, for that matter, had long been forgotten.

New men arrived from other lands, having had a dream like theirs, and in the city of Zobeide, they recognized something from the streets of the dream, and they changed the positions of arcades and stairways to resemble more closely the path of the pursued woman and so, at the spot where she had vanished, there would remain no avenue of escape.

The first to arrive could not understand what drew these people to Zobeide, this ugly city, this trap.

(Words by Italo Calvino, photo by Geoffroy Demarquet)

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)

Tightrope

"Last night I dreamed I died and that my life had been rearranged into some kind of theme park. And all my friends were walking up and down the boardwalk. And my dead Grandmother was selling cotton candy out of a little shack. And there was this big ferris wheel about a half mile out in the ocean, half in and half out of the water. And all my old boyfriends were on it. With their new girlfriends. And the boys were waving and shouting and the girls were saying Eeek. Then they disappeared under the surface of the water and when they came up again they were laughing and gasping for breath.

In this dream I'm on a tightrope and I'm tipping back and forth trying to keep my balance. And below me are all my relatives and if I fall I'll crush them. This long thin line. This song line. This shout. The only thing that binds me to the turning world below and to all the people and noise and sounds and shouts. This tightrope made of sound This long thin line made of my own blood.
Remember me is all I ask And if remembered be a task forget me. Remember me is all I ask And if remembered be a task This long thin line. This long thin ine. This long thin line. This tightrope. Remember me is all I ask And if remembered be a task forget me. This long thin line. This long thin ine. This long thin line. This tightrope made of sound."

(Words by Laurie Anderson, photo by Geoffroy Demarquet)