![]() How the just, always cautious to evade the spying Pools of the baths where the unjust of Berenice reclineĪnd weave their intrigues with rotund eloquenceĪnd observe with a proprietary eye the rotundįlesh of the bathing odalisques, I should say to you Instead of describing to you the perfumed That a new precision mechanism is governing theĬity). ![]() Wheels (when they jam, a subdued ticking gives warning Like a climbing plant among the great cogged Pulleys and pistons and counterweights that infiltrates The stairs, linking a network of wires and pipes and In the shadowy rooms behind the shops and beneath The city of the just, handling makeshift materials Instead, I should tell you of the hidden Berenice, ![]() Porticos, feel even more imprisoned and short of stature). The balustrades and contemplate the atria, stairways, To polishing, when they raise their chins over Gears of its meat-grinding machines (the men assigned Which crowns with triglyphs, abaci, metopes the I should not tell you of Berenice, the unjust city, Which desires either erase the city or are erased by it. ![]() Two: those that through the years and the changesĬontinue to give their form to desires, and those in Into these two species, but rather into another Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities orĪmong the unhappy. This said, it is pointless trying to decide whether Its suspended stairways, a Zenobia perhaps quite different,Ī-flutter with banners and ribbons, but alwaysĭerived by combining elements of that first model. Like Zenobia that he imagines, with its pilings and But what isĬertain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia toĭescribe his vision of a happy life, it is always a city Perhaps grown through successive superimpositionsįrom the first, now undecipherable plan. Water, weather vanes, jutting pulleys, and fish poles,ĭesire drove Zenobia's founders to give their city thisįorm, and so there is no telling whether it was satisfiedīy the city as we see it today, which has Linked by ladders and hanging sidewalks, surmountedīy cone-roofed belvederes, barrels storing Placed on stilts at various heights, crossing one another, It stands on high pilings, and the houses are of bambooĪnd zinc, with many platforms and balconies Wonderful in this fashion: though set on dry terrain Now I shall tell of the city of Zenobia, which is The context is that Marco Polo describes the cities of Kublai Khan's empire to Kublai, though the context doesn't really matter. Here are a few of the vignettes that I enjoyed the most. Some of the magic that makes rationalists like Borges might also make them like Calvino. I read this book again on a recent flight, and I found it just as much fun as the first time. More by Scott AlexanderĪ reader has created a web app web that allows SSC readers to place themselves on a map. Regular threadsĪ blog by Scott Alexander about human cognition, politics, and medicine. A user also maintains an unofficial registry of bans. When making a claim that isn't outright obvious, you should proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.įeel free to report comments or message the mods with your thoughts. Assume the people you're talking to or about have thought through the issues you're discussing, and try to represent their views in a way they would recognize. See the Victorian Sufi Buddha Lite comment policy: comments should be at least two of. Companion subreddit for Slate Star Codex.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |