no draft


4 comments so far...

nobdy April 17, 2006, 09:37 PM
Cities & Eyes 1

The ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms' interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes.

Valdrada's inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness. Even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even when murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck and more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between the tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating or murdering of the images, limpid and cold in the mirror.

At times the mirror increases a thing's value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them.

-Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

insky April 18, 2006, 10:34 AM
nice
kodaky April 18, 2006, 05:01 PM
mirrored-Valdrada is everywhere, it is global thing by nowadays, sad image, nice photo
bere September 27, 2006, 02:31 AM
no draft
bookmarks mark :)
revisited at once
Add a comment...
Your name:
Your e-mail:





About 23

About 23
What is 23 and who's behind the service?
Just In
Discover the world from a different angle.
Here's a crop of the latest photos from the around the world.
Search
Search photos from users using 23
Help / Discussion
Get help or share your ideas to make 23 better
23 Blog / 23 on Twitter
Messages and observations from Team 23
Terms of use
What can 23 be used for and what isn't allowed
More services from 23
We also help people use photo sharing in their professional lives
  • Basque (ES)
  • Bulgarian (BG)
  • Chinese (CN)
  • Chinese (TW)
  • Danish (DK)
  • Dutch (NL)
  • English (US)
  • French (FR)
  • Galician (ES)
  • German (DE)
  • Italian (IT)
  • Norwegian (NO)
  • Polish (PL)
  • Portuguese (PT)
  • Russian (RU)
  • Spanish (ES)
  • Swedish (SE)

Popular photos right now