Reading 5-due Monday, Nov 14
"Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino
Discuss in 3 paragraphs or more how "Invisible Cities" relates to the last project In/visible Borders. You can reflect on how the notion of a city or demarcated space is constructed through memory, desire and signs/symbols.
posted by Stephanie @ 11:16 AM
17 Comments:
"Invisible Cities" is related to the In/visible Borders project in the way that Italo Calvino describes the cities. Each city is described so that the reader can imagine clearly in their head what these cities look like. They also have some particular aspect to them that makes each different than the others. They all have something about them that makes them special than all the other cities, whether it is a specific way to reach them or a part of the city that makes it famous in a way, or how it has evolved since its past look.
An example of one of these cities and the one that stuck out to me the most in my mind was Maurilia (pg. 30-31). This city is known as the post card city because it has a collection of old post cards that display the city the way it used to look in the past; back when it first started out. If a visitor coming into the city ever saw any of these post cards, they would have to agree with the people who live in the city that the way the city looked in the past was better than the future condition of the city. That was the way the people who lived there felt.
"Beware of saying to them that sometimes different cities follow one another on the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another, without communication among themselves (Calvino, pg. 30). This quote comes from the same city that I was talking about above. This deals with the memory of the city and the inhabitants who live there. How one city can be known as a completely different city, but years apart. It all has to deal with who lives there and the conditions in which they lived and the city was in.
Our project on In/visible Borders has a lot to do with borders you can both see and hypothetical borders. Casey and I are doing the prison border where there is a border set up between prisoners and guards. This is a physical border in that there are actual people involved in this situation but there is no actual border separating the two. This is somewhat like the cities Calvino talk about and how they used to be one way but are different now. There is a border set up, but not physical in the way that a wall would be built.
Keith Dubuque
Invisible Cities/ Borders Project
Art-320
Upon reading this book, it has opened my eyes to the serious misconceptions of European cities that are under extreme pressure and violence. I believe it’s because I watch an over saturated amount of CNN and other news channels that hide some of the main details these arguments among nations and their historical evidence the issues arising. It’s pretty interesting how the that author of Invisible Cities relates the reader as a Venetian traveling around the land, coming across a new cities each time giving a harmonies description of what your seeing and what other travelers have seen from previous visits. The conversations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo’s are relevant to the previous chapters going into more depth of what’s going on in the cities themselves. Marco goes on trying to explain the cities to Kublai in an imaginable way, but Khan seems to have trouble understanding the descriptions. The descriptions of the cities are not as interesting as the kind of culture it represents giving a sense of their market, and what people are doing in their daily lives so Marco explains. These detailed descriptions of the people and cultural aspects will make it easier for my partner and I, to explain specific culture relationships with other cities through a navigational theme as well as the disagreements between the two. However, there is a unique significance of memory, signs, and desires. The three words relate to each other by the views of how memories are obtained through a mood a city gives even though one might have not fully entered into the heart of the city. Such signs depict directions of door and/ or cloud’s in the sky that circle the city on a given day. The signs almost become characteristics that are noticeable to the people that live there. Desires are chosen by the city that corresponds to it, or contemplates it. The desire reflects itself as an analogy describing why the traveler wants to go to that city. Desires can be interpreted through dreams for example the men of various nations having the same dream about the long haired women running in a city and none of the men being able to catch up to her. But instead they found each other and built a city that they saw together in their dream.
The navigational border theme needs to fully explain a mood and express the issue at hand with precise detail. This book provides interesting views upon who and what is being affected due to the historical significant of Kublai Khan and Marco Polo Tartar. The relevance of this book and the navigational site need to coincide so the entirety of the main issue is understood and not misconceived due to the lack of organization.
In the book, Marco Polo described the cities he has seen in his travels. At first it seems like he was describing different cities even though each of the places is really the same place. The book made me realize that there are so many ways in describing a place. These pieces of stories, when combined, would give someone a better understanding about a place, rather than just a general description or the big picture of a place. I think there are different approaches that we can take in tackling the In/visible Borders project, and using a similar technique that Calvino used in the Invisible Cities would probably be a more interesting way to learn and experience a place or a situation.
The character Marco Polo used different points of view in the book when telling his stories. Sometimes it was told through his point of view, sometimes he mentioned ‘the traveler’ or the ‘man who is traveling’ and sometimes he just took the point of view of the city residents themselves. I found that this particular technique used in the book is what made the storytelling so refreshing. Since each point of view gave great attention to different details, the tales became much more riveting. I think the border project would not be complete without this process. When describing a border that separate two places, I think it is important to give the different point of views from people on each side of the border who had different experiences about the border.
In the tale of Fedora, Calvino wrote ’In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature model, Fedora was already no longer the same as before, and what had been until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe.’ In the case of the border project, people on different sides of the border probably have their own perception and ideal about the other side which could change depending on the situation. Sometimes, such dynamic can also mean a change in the description of a demarcated space. Therefore, by adding a time dimension to our description of a place and/or a situation, the audience would not just get a stale description of a place.
"Invisible Cities" relates to our final project specifially by three cities described by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan. The first city, Diomira(p7), Polo is telling of a city of repetition, but that of which is being repeated from other cities. He tells of the traveler who, in this particluar city, "feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time". This idea can be applied to the gated community, because when they are visited, one would think that he has visited it before, when really he had been to one similar and the people who live in each appear to be happy in their supposed world of perfection.
The second city is that of Zora(p15-16), "but not because, like other memorable cities, it leaves an unusual image in your recollections". In this city, the "secret lies in the way your gaze runs over patterns following one another as in a musical score where not a note can be altered or displaced". This city can be applied to a gated community, because of the way they are built. Everyone has the same house, with little veriation such as color or one extra room attached to the back. There is a kind of rhythm as one glances over the identical streets watching the identical people move about their identical lives.
The third city is Melania(p80-81)where the inhabitants seem to renew themselves. "The participants in the dialogues die one by one and meanwhile those who will take their places are born, some in one role, some in another". These characters don't have lives as long as the cities life, but there are people needed to fill in the blank spaces left by those who have died. It seems that the dead get replaced, by chance, by those who are similar, yet not exactly the same. They are the same long enough to keep the rhythm of the city closley identical to its past, thereby not redefining the city for past travelers who will always remember how the city lived. This can be applied to gated communities, because these communities choose people who match those who have move out or died. This is why the people of these communites are genereally the same demographic: they have to keep the rhythm of the gated communities similar to the past.
These very different cities can all describe the ideas of a gated community. There are more, cities that can represent the idea of these communities, but it seems the ones that fit best are memory and the idea of the dead. Desire could fit, as these cities are built in search of the "all-American" ideal community. Whether anyone finds them to be the qunitessential community, it's all biased.
"Invisible Cities" relates to our project In/visible Borders in a number of ways. In "Invisible Cites" by Italo Calvino, there are many cities mentioned by the great explorer Marco Polo that are very different from eachother, but yet, at the same time they are the same. Each city has it's own way of being remembered, it's own memory, but simoutaneously they all are the same city. That city is Venice, Marco Polo's homeland, and he exaggerates qualities of this city and puts them into other fictional cities, to show the break down of perception and how memory is used to recall aspects of the past.
The In/visible Borders project is very similar to "Invisible Cities" in an abstract, hazy way. The conflict I am working on for the project, is the Palestinian and Israel conflict occuring in the middle east. The Palestinians and Israelis are two seperate cultures, and separate states but they share some of the same ideaology, space, and of course, Jeruseleum, thier holyland. But both of these states have religion barriers which creates conflict and aggresive behavior between the two.
"Invisible Cites" and the In/visible Borders project are similar in the sense of the states/cities are different from eachother, have thier own memories and past, but at the same time they are the same, because they all derive from the same place.
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is a series of fantastic descriptions of Kublai Khan’s vast empire as told by Marco Polo. Although each city is geographically different, in Marco Polo’s mind the descriptions are all really about his home- Venice. Throughout the book, there are many ideas that could be related to the gated communities of today.
As Polo describes each city to Khan, one thing that is noticeable is the fact that each city and its borders are made by the people who inhabit the territory and their stories. A city cannot exist that does not or has never had people in it. The experiences and stories that have occurred in each city are what shaped them, and what made them into what they have become. The cities of today are shaped by their past, and the same can be said about any area, including gated communities. They have evolved over time to become what they are today, and they have been shaped by things that have occurred in the past. Originally being purely a means of protection, things like immigration, crime, and a desire to return to the stories of the past are all factors that have molded these small cities.
I also noticed that each city appeals to people for certain aspects that are contained within their borders. It seems that for every vice, preference, or dream there is a city for one to live in within Khan’s empire. The same thing can be said about gated communities. Depending on what amenities you may want, or what area one may want to live in, etc., there is a gated community to suit your tastes.
There are a few cities in the book that can be related to gated communities. One of them is Zenobia. Calvino (or Polo) says “if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines”. I think that this is what gated communities are trying to achieve. The people who live there are trying to live in an ideal community, and if asked to describe their ideal living situation to an outsider, I think that the same thing would happen. They would wind up describing a place similar to where they already live, since gated communities are trying to be what is considered an ideal community.
Another city that I thought could be related to gated communities is the city of Zobeide. This city was created by men who had an identical dream about pursuing a woman throughout the streets of a city, but not being able to catch her. The men then created the city with alterations in the streets to “trick” the woman and be able to catch her. This is like gated communities because they were created in pursuit of a dream as well. The “naked woman” that people are pursuing in gated communities is the ideal community, the community of the past, or a utopia. The changes that are made within each community that is built are trying to better achieve these dreams, and “capture” a utopia within its walls.
Another city in the book that I thought could be related to gated communities is Beersheba. This city was created in the model of a celestial one, hoping that the celestial city and the terrestrial city can become one. The same can be said about gated communities. These communities are created in a model of an “ideal” city, with the hopes that they can become an ideal city, or utopia, for those who inhabit it. Beersheba also has an “underground” city that mirrors it, which contains all of the bad things that they do not want within its walls. Its inhabitants can look to this city as a model of what not to be. This is comparable to the ghettos that are on the outside of gated communities. The walls around gated communities were put there in the hopes that the undesirable people and actions of these areas would not enter their “utopia”, and the ghettos are a model of what they do not want their community to become.
Italo Calvino’s series of fictional conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan describe cities of long ago. While many of these cities may no longer exist, the stories about them can be compared to cities of today. Gated communities are one example of “cities” of today that can be related to the cities of Khan’s empire.
Invisible Cities describes dialogues between Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler, and Kublai Khan, the oriental emperor. Written by Italo Calvino, the book has no plot, no beginning, no development of characters, but it does have a string of stories all describing different cities. The book consists of fifty-five extremely short city descriptions, embedded within a duel between Polo and Khan. It is because of this that Calvino's writing in this book can only be described as surrealistic. At the end of the book we find that there is only in fact one city they are describing.
When I think of the University Heights I do not immediately associate much to the book Invisible Cities. I do believe, however, that some of the cities they are describing sound as convoluted as the areas surrounding the Heights. There are some areas of Buffalo around and near the heights that are beautiful. Then there are the areas, which have potential to look as good as they once were if the community put any time and effort into its reconstruction.
This is a part of dialogue in the book which re minds me of what could be seen from the city of Buffalo. The story involved a city, which was in a state of despair, and the entire community had to help heal its surroundings. "What meaning does your construction have?" he asks. "What is the aim of a city under construction unless it is a city? Where is the plan you are following, the blueprint?" "We will show it to you as soon as the working day is over; we cannot interrupt our work now," they answer.
The border problem in Buffalo would not be as apparent if the economy was at all in the shape it should be for the second largest city in the state of New York. For a community, which has a major income from the universities crowding the area, there should be more effort put in by all. I believe that Buffalo has the potential to be a great city, and that the Heights will one day figure out an answer to there border problems and start a reconstruction which leads to greatness.
I have read the entire book, Invisible Cities, and have found very little that I can relate to a worthwhile experience of rational thought. All I can hope to do is make lose associations between homogenized story telling and the Chinese Cultural Revolution(s).
Our project on the Great Wall of China uses the Chinese wonder as a metaphor for the cultural boundaries established over the twentieth century, and which now are beginning to be removed. The Chinese people’s lives have dramatically changed because of the life and death of Mao Zedong. In his control of the country as Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, he radically affected Chinese culture by abolishing many traditions and creating cultural boundaries (or walls).
It’s hard to fathom such distinct changes in culture. We, in the United States of America, have a mere fraction of the history China does. Their civilization is thousands of years old while we live in an infant country by comparison. Likewise, we are fortunate to have a smooth transition of government leaders. A revolution that would dramatically alter our way of life doesn’t seem possible in the U.S. The story of Melania in Invisible Cities (p.80) talks of roles changing over time in a city. In our society today it’s hard to believe roles could change in a lifetime, but they did in China.
There is some speculation about why the Chinese Revolution was successful in altering the way of life in China. For hundreds of years the emperors of China were earth bound deities enclosed behind the walls of the Forbidden City. The Emperor was so exalted in the minds of the people that he was considered divine. Mao, like the emperors of Chinese heritage, unified the country after war and repeated history as many were concerned. The Khan in Invisible Cities is Kublai Khan, the Mongol leader who completed his conquest of China in 1279 when he defeated the Song Dynasty. Many of the accounts between the Khan and Marco Polo from Invisible Cities could have taken place in the same area of Beijing where Mao ruled with an iron fist. Kublai Khan was able to infiltrate the Great Wall of China, and conquer the country because of a weakness in Chinese politics and the poverty of the people.
Mao, seen as the latest Chinese emperor by some, wanted to avoid the circumstances that led to the downfall of other dynasties. His policies led the country to strengthen its boundaries by limiting outside influences. Since his death the borders have been infiltrated again, but this time by the invading army of global culture. Tradition may be lost to modernist views of a global village and Beijing may become like the city of Trude.
“If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I have taken off” (p.128). Will China’s new globalization lead to a lost of individual culture for its inhabitants? As in the case of Trude, will I be able to fly to a New York City in China some day, or will I still notice other differences besides the name of the airport?
Invisible Cities relates to our project, in/visible borders, in many ways. For example, my topic for this project is the berlin wall. The Berlin wall divided the east and west side of Germany after WWII. Although both of these sides are part of Germany, because the wall was put up, these two sides were treated very differently. Rules and regulations of the west side were made and their were many restrictions. The westside could not commute by no means with the outside. This relates to invisible cities because Calvino separates cities and turns them into surreal places. He sets the cities in this abstract surrounding to show their differences.
These cities are explained from different point of views. The stories told by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan about various cities inside the great empire explained the different cities in their individual opinions which made them seem memorable. Polo would talk about personal memories so the reader would get a personal idea of the cites while Khan, being the emperor, saw the cities as one.
I feel that this is simular to The Berlin wall conflict because before the wall was built Germany was not divided between the east and west. They both were able to commute and trade with eachother. Once the wall was put up, that put Germany in a very different economical state and was very hard for the people on the westside who could no longer communicate with anyone outside it and it also had an affect on people in the east who were use to communicating with the west.
Invisible cities, in my opinion, is simular to our project because it looks at this one area in a surreal way by dividing it into these fantasy cities and are completely different from eachother. These borders that are put up between these different areas for our project topics are simular and deal with the same surroundings but because this border is there are viewed very different from eachother.
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