| " |
When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isadora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isadora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isadora in his old age. In the square there is a wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
|
" |
I have been searching for them, the imagined pictures of any of my many destinations before the arrival, before settling and the routines. I remember nothing.
Having arrived here it's the same story. Busy rearranging my space, I cannot recall what it was I expected to find here, how I may have imagined my table and chairs in a room, how I may have passed the time, or what I desired from the weather.
Despite my perceived absence of expectations of this or other places I have been, I can say for certain that no arrival anywhere has compared with that of being in New Orleans. New Orleans will always be my Isadora, that dreamed-of city where desires are already memories.
Going up the Country - Canned Heat