Dont threaten me with love, baby. Lets just go walking in the rain.-Billie Holiday
from-Detour
Tom Neal: Money. You know what that is. The stuff you never have enough of. Little green things with George Washingtons picture that men slave for, commit crimes for, die for. Its the stuff that has caused more trouble in the world than anything else ever invented. simply because theres too little of it.
Cities & Desire
5-Italo Calvino
"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. "
It is funny how many ways we can view love in the human form...it is almost as if love itself is such a complex and interwoven sea of depth...that to unravel its understanding--is to fail at the actual act.....I mean do we love....or do we just think about all the things attached to the ideal of love.....
from-Detour
Tom Neal: Money. You know what that is. The stuff you never have enough of. Little green things with George Washingtons picture that men slave for, commit crimes for, die for. Its the stuff that has caused more trouble in the world than anything else ever invented. simply because theres too little of it.
Cities & Desire
5-Italo Calvino
"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. "
It is funny how many ways we can view love in the human form...it is almost as if love itself is such a complex and interwoven sea of depth...that to unravel its understanding--is to fail at the actual act.....I mean do we love....or do we just think about all the things attached to the ideal of love.....
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
it seems every man and woman defines love differently
i think that some definitions are better than others
i imagine that many individuals believe their definition to be accurate and perhaps comprehensive
it makes me think of the title to that song that sonny rollins performs
"you don't know what love is"
yet i can believe that all of these varied and individual definitions have their uselfulness for the people that hold them
your excerpt from calvino is an interesting parable of desire
and it seems reasonable to believe that we love what we desire
zh
rereading the parable by calvino
it seems to suggest the contradiction inherent in desire
that we may be easily ruined by it