invisible cities

[turbogrrl]

"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno 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 no inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

— italo calvino, Invisible Cities


I learned of Italo Calvino from a girl too cool and too smart and too busy for me; we had one ill-fated date, at a too-loud bar, followed by greasy food at Ben's neither of us wanted. The words we didn't say were interrupted by the Ethiopian cabbie, who after dropping her off, instead of taking me home, drove me to an Ethiopian restaurant and asked me to marry him. I have nothing more of her but books read and unread, a litany of thoughts unspoken, vague wonderings. That said, it was worth it, to have discovered Italo.

Comments

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

fortunately, she's too smart for that. One of the smartest people I've met, actually. When I met her she had a phd in chemistry and was also practicing law, and was in her 20s. hence the too smart and too cool for me.