{"id":336,"date":"2014-08-23T21:05:52","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T21:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/monochromist.com\/2014\/08\/23\/cities-have-often-been-compared-to-language-you\/"},"modified":"2014-08-23T21:05:52","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T21:05:52","slug":"cities-have-often-been-compared-to-language-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2014\/08\/23\/cities-have-often-been-compared-to-language-you\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Cities have often been compared to language: you can read a city, it\u2019s said, as you read a book. But the metaphor can be inverted. The journeys we make during the reading of a book trace out, in some way, the private spaces we inhabit. There are texts that will always be our dead-end streets; fragments that will be bridges; words that will be like the scaffolding that protects fragile constructions. T.S. Eliot: a plant growing in the debris of a ruined building; Salvador Novo: a tree-lined street transformed into an expressway; Tomas Segovia: a boulevard, a breath of air; Roberto Bolano: a rooftop terrace; Isabel Allende: a (magically real) shopping mall; Gilles Deleuze: a summit; and Jacques Derrida: a pothole. Robert Walser: a chink in the wall, for looking through to the other side; Charles Baudelaire: a waiting room; Hannah Arendt: a tower, an Archimedean point; Martin Heidegger: a cul-de-sac; Walter Benjamin: a one-way street walked down against the flow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class='attribution'>Valeria Luiselli, \u201cRelingos: The Cartography of Empty Spaces\u201d (via <a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/invisiblestories.tumblr.com\/\">invisiblestories<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cities have often been compared to language: you can read a city, it\u2019s said, as you read a book. But the metaphor can be inverted. The journeys we make during the reading of a book trace out, in some way, the private spaces we inhabit. There are texts that will always be our dead-end streets; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-video_graphics","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5sGHy-5q","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":797,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2013\/08\/03\/adestrosasecretaeros-0422-a-book-about\/","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":0},"title":"adestrosasecretaeros: 04:22\u00a0A book about falling\u2026\u2026","author":"monochromist","date":"August 3, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"adestrosasecretaeros: 04:22\u00a0A book about falling\u2026 before I fly.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;motion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"motion","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/category\/video_graphics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/tumblr_mqza8zgEKk1snlocko1_1280.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4149,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2011\/02\/19\/review-of-every-small-press-novel-ever-written\/","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":1},"title":"REVIEW OF EVERY SMALL PRESS\u2026","author":"monochromist","date":"February 19, 2011","format":"gallery","excerpt":"REVIEW OF EVERY SMALL PRESS NOVEL EVER WRITTEN | \u2018other\u2019 The language in this book ripped my arms off and fucked me with them. The language in this book made me pregnant with a dictionary and then fucked me with the dictionary and made me pregnant again and then melted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;motion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"motion","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/category\/video_graphics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/tumblr_lgupfeK4o91qzsz45o1_500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5170,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2011\/03\/20\/why-the-net-matters\/","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":2},"title":"Why The Net Matters","author":"monochromist","date":"March 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Why The Net Matters: How the Internet Will Save Civilization\u00a0is a digital book\/iPad app that develops a new kind of way to navigate a non-fiction argument, to zoom in and out on 3D interactive figures, and to navigate with random-access chapters. This is not an iBook, but instead a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;motion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"motion","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/category\/video_graphics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Net Matters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.eagleman.com\/images\/stories\/netmatterslogo.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1342,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2013\/07\/19\/somecatsjustswinglikethat-anna-atkins-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":3},"title":"somecatsjustswinglikethat: Anna Atkins 1) A\u00a0cyanotype\u00a0photogram\u00a0which\u2026","author":"monochromist","date":"July 19, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"somecatsjustswinglikethat: Anna Atkins 1) A\u00a0cyanotype\u00a0photogram\u00a0which was part of her 1843 book,Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. 2) A cyanotype photogram of\u00a0wood horsetail\u00a0from the 1853 book\u00a0Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns\u00a0by Atkins and Dixon","rel":"","context":"In &quot;motion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"motion","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/category\/video_graphics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/tumblr_mq7csmSamJ1rkfompo1_1280.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4655,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2010\/03\/31\/fifty-dangerous-things-you-should-let-your\/","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":4},"title":"Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)","author":"monochromist","date":"March 31, 2010","format":"link","excerpt":"Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) is the first book from the people who created Tinkering School. With projects, activities, experiences, and skills ranging from \u201cSuperglue Your Fingers Together\u201d to \u201cPlay with Fire,\u201d along with 48 other great ideas,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;motion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"motion","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/category\/video_graphics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5383,"url":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/2014\/10\/12\/via-bad-subjects-shel-silversteins-the-missing\/","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":5},"title":"(via Bad Subjects: Shel Silverstein\u2019s\u2026","author":"monochromist","date":"October 12, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"(via Bad Subjects: Shel Silverstein\u2019s The Missing Piece: A Lacanian Reading) Shel Silverstein\u2019s book The Missing Piece creates a system of relations between beings where the structure of desire is presented without gender, but references a division between beings that resembles gender. Nate Garrelts The children\u2019s book The Missing Piece,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;motion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"motion","link":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/category\/video_graphics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/tumblr_ndbo9acSkX1u165f3o1_250.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochromist.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}