A City ***For Mark (anahata.c)*** by Chipka
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Description
The richest lives in any city belong to its cats, its crows, its poets; the city of Ií-Upon (so different a city than Ií-Beneath!) is no different than any other city, though perhaps one may think that its cats, its crows, and its poets are insane and divine things. This stems from the simplicity of but one single fact. The only maps of Ií-Upon are maps of movement and maps of language. A traveler, a tourist, or a delivery-man beset by the need to find the Krüg Street Market will find no physical route to the place where poultry, hay, and watches are sold. The long meander of Krüg Street has never been inked onto fine, map-maker’s vellum, canvas, or glass. In the city of Ií-Upon (so different a city than Ií-Beneath!) Krüg Street is a motion, or a whisper hanging from the tongue of a young, hoodlum-poet. It is the silence of a cat’s whiskers, brushing across the crumble of moldy, eroding brick.
There are crows on Krüg Street: whole cacophonous squadrons of them; Krüg Street Upper is the motion of crows’ wings. There are cats on Krüg Street as well; Krüg Street Lower is the meticulous grace of furtive, clawed paws, darting from balcony to pavement with the grace of an elegant, cultured assassin. To find this street, or any street in this city, one must know crows. One must know cats. One must listen to the hooligan poet, standing in the shadows of an alley-way in his black kilt and grimy sandals. The poet-gangs of Ií-Upon (still a very different city than Ií-Beneath!) must know the motion of crows’ wings and the silence of a cat, passing. A hooligan-poet must know such things if he is to avoid the bone-shattering agonies of death-by-limerick, spat from the lips of his adversaries. The knowing traveler, tourist, or salesman is wise to know the ways of the poet-gangs; their voices will echo the movement of a crow’s wings, or the silence of a cat, passing, and in those sounds and in those motions, one may find any street one seeks in the city of Ií-Upon.
*
Though I’d been vaguely aware of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, it wasn’t until Mark (anahata.c) mentioned that book that I realized I was tardy in reading it. Within a week of his mention, I had a copy of it in my hands. I’d acquired it at a used bookstore. Within a week of that purchase, I bought a second copy, new, from Barnes and Noble for the experience of reading that slender masterpiece without someone else’s haphazard notions clogging up the margins. I absorbed that book in one voracious sitting. I sought out Calvino’s other works: handsome editions of such masterworks as Cosmicomics, Difficult Loves, and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.
In belated honor of Mark’s birthday, I created a collage (the one you’ve presumably just looked at) and I found myself thinking of the magical places described in Calvino’s homage to cities (of desire, memory, and mind.) Calvino only broke the surface: there are so many other cities to write about and so many modes in which to write about those unwritten cities. In honor of Mark’s birthday, I decided to mimic Calvino—though not his fictionalized Marco Polo—and present the city as it emerged from the image I found in the layers I’d stacked together.
It’s late, but I hope both text and image are a fitting birthday dedication to one of the more inspiring artists and people here in the digital realm of Renderosity.
As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week. And most especially: Happy (belated) Birthday, Mark!!! Though if I stop and make something up, this isn’t really belated at all, since it’s actually posted according to the Old Calander….yeah, that’s it! Now I just have to figure out which Old Calendar it is!
Comments (11)
giulband
Expressive !!!!!
jendellas
To me this shows the hustle & bustle of the big cities. Love these type of pics. x
kgb224
Superb post work and dedication my friend. Happy birthday Mark. God bless.
helanker
WOW! That is an image, Mark will love. Me too. So many details and I almost thought I saw BIG BEN, but I calmed down and realized that it is not very likely, but I do like it is there together with alot of other buildings and outside stairs for quick exit if something goes wrong. They alway make such great geometry. What a marvellous creation :-)
durleybeachbum
This is terrific, I LOVE it!
KatesFriend
A story which evokes cats as a prime mover is always a good thing. I have to admit, I don't know where I would be with out a convenient map. I studied Physics in my youth, hence my penchant for puns. We envision the entire universe as a giant, subtle, intricate time piece with the classical gears and springs and dials. And all powered by atomic decay! The juxtaposition of the opposite, or the ironic, is something we embrace. It's a bit like using a rotary dial phone - preferably of early '60's Soviet vintage - on a touch tone line. Your artwork and story are equally mesmerizing. I would never have stopped to consider being guided through a city by the motion of its parts. The art also seems equally in motion as a cacophony of intense colours and, I seem to feel it, sound. There is a sense of every place being scattered about but also all in the same place. Like overlapping conversations in a crowded room and you find your way through by seeking and focusing on one thread or tone. Or perhaps the scamper of kitty paws seeking an exit from all the noise.
Faemike55
Cats and Crows - Crows and Cats : A junction of ground and air - all leading to somewhere that a map cannot show but is there. Great gift to Mark
anahata.c
I delayed commenting because I wanted the time to do it justice. ("Do it justice" sounds like it'll stand before a freakin' judge...how about "to give it the attention it deserves"...) You open, "The richest lives in any city belong to its cats, its crows, its poets..." Terrific opening, Chip, a Chip opening to the tee. You've been writing Invisible City tales for a long time without knowing your link to Calvino, though Calvino would be honored by his link to you, believe me. When I mentioned the book in one of your uploads, I automatically assumed you'd read it, as you've read tons more than I have. (I still have a list of Chip titles I want to get to.) When I found that I'd actually turned you on to such a Chip-like book, I was thrilled. Anyway, your short, 2 paragraph piece on Ií-Upon is chock full. The idea that the only maps of the place are maps of movement and language is wonderful. And, as you've been doing for years, you go on to give us a few well chosen specifics which paint a whole world. Ie, the poet with a black kilt and grimy sandals, the cat's whiskers brushing up against a moldy crumbling wall, the flight of crows' wings carrying maps and instructions to places we can't even imagine yet, the whisper hanging from the tongue of the hoodlum poet, etc etc. I like the repetition of íl-Beneath, too, and the hint of a subterranean city perhaps beneath its Íl-Upon sibling. (You know, quoting from you ain't easy---all these diacriticals!) And the "c"s of Cat and Crow., or the wonderful rhyme/assonance of "clawed paws" or "bone-shattering agonies of death-by-limerick, spat from the lips of his adversaries" (lots of "short a's" in there; and the phrase is just terrific, in meaning but also in sound; it just bangs and bounces along in a dance; man you do that well; your prose flows like poetry). All in the service of this shapshot of a place, built on hints and traces which, if we follow them, will reveal whole neighborhoods, markets and gatherings, etc. A sinister place which feels like it has a lot to say to anyone who sticks around long enough to hear. And the whole idea of "bone shattering agonies of death-by limerick" is so strange and tantalizing and sinister, a place where tales---maybe ancient---have the power of life and death. Long traditions we're only peeking into, of poems which, when spoken from the right mouth, can fell a mysterious hoodlum. A whole world in this little piece. As for your first copy of Invisible Cities, it may well have been put there to lure you in: It did its job, and now it's finished. I believe in lures, they pop into our lives and serve their purpose---as messengers, for a moment---and then we discard them. They may have waited forever, rotting away in a bookstore or under a tree, and, when found, they give up the ghost. And we, then, pass a new lure for someone else. (The chain has to keep going.) So who knew where that used book traced back to...Anyway, you dived into Calvino, which is great. More input for your prodigious mind and heart. Ok, the image: It's like your tale: It's got lots of Chicago in it, both recognizable towers, clocks, lamps, etc alongside fire escapes, hidden streets and grime. Your colors have a sense of after-midnight alcohol-induced lights that seem to emerge out of a soup late-night signs. I mean the way the green breaks through the din, or the reds, etc. Manhattan looked like this in the 70s, a drugged, drunken melange of lights faded into each other, with some lights popping through the mix like light-shows. All that and the lines in your image (I assume from moving your camera) capture the Movements, wings-traces and whispers on the tips of tongues, of your tale. A maze of intense motions and hints, where clear cut streets and locations are only attainable through "listening to the wind". Terrific job. Finally, as for the calendar thing ("I wasn't late, I was just on the Old Calendar," lol): I totally accept! You don't have to explain belated anything, the very fact that you posted something for me on any date is wonderful; but the calendar story not only works, I have a feeling it's true. Thank you so much for the wonderful writing and wonderful image, and the Old Calendar reason---I greatly appreciate all of it, Chip, every bit. And btw, I visited a friend in ancient India who was about to join a huge battle in an ancient epic, when a huge roar came by overhead. We looked up, he shouted, "damned El!" And then he ran off to battle. I got on the el, asked if it went to Chicago, and went home. (Took a few hours.) It actually happened---though the first stop was in 1930. (I got back on and got off 2 stops later.) If you read the "Mahabharata" (I've only read parts, it's only about 9 billion volumes), there's a section that actually mentions that El. Krishna's talking when suddenly he says, "Sh_t! Damn thing cuts me off every time!" (It was loud.) Arjuna says, "I didn't hear anything." And Krishna says, "yeah, I know, you're freakin' deaf! Anyway---where was I?" Then the epic continues. There's also a little known cry, right after that passage, of a passenger looking down on ancient India, and crying, "Go Cubs!!!" Everyone looks up, muttering, "are there BEARS around here???" But the passenger shouts, "no, the TEAM, idiots!" And the el roars away. Only appearance of the El in ancient India. (It's a little known gloss. Some people think it was added later. But I was there---it wasn't added.) (There was ALSO a fire escape in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and---in the background---in 6 stories of Spider Woman. But that's for another time. There was a chicago taxi in the original story of Noah. And---never mind, I'm losing track...) This is a marvelous gift, Chip, thank you so much. Your city-tales go places Calvino and Marco Polo didn't dream of, they're all yours. Wonderful gift---thank you!
MrsRatbag
Superb bit of tale telling, Chip, even if it is short, like an El stop in a strange part of town...the image is perfect, and would be even more perfect if seen through a layer of grimy glass with raindrops streaking down and across!
wysiwig
You and Mark ought to team up. His commentary was almost as mind blowing as your story. But then your stories are almost always mind blowing and thought provoking. I've been trying for a while to figure out why that is. I have come close several times. Part of it is that I find your writing very cinematic. As one reads the words the imagery unfolds like a movie. It fires the imagination and allows jaded minds to see things with new eyes. In other words, very enjoyable. And the photo montage wasn't bad either.
claude19
Immediately struck by the vision of a dreamlike and surreal world, I wanted to read on the text associated with the image ... it appears to me as the result of a confused memory tired, surreal text in many respects me displaying various wanderings Night in this ghost town like 12 Monkeys if I'm not mistaken ... the different layers of the painting, dream-like editing an intelectuel vagrancy is as realistic as these fragments of urban memories that have always haunted you, Dear Chipka! I just spent a rich moment of prints, colors and smog of !!! Thank you dear ArtFriend !!!