Monday, November 14, 2011

5,000 years of cultural supremacy

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2 comments:

Arelcao Akleos said...

" Returning from his last mission, Marco Polo found the Khan awaiting him, seated at a chessboard. With a gesture he invited the Venetian to sit opposite, and to describe, with the help only of the chessmen, the cities he had visited.
Marco did not lose heart. The Great Khan's chessmen were huge pieces of polished ivory: arranging on the board looming rooks and sulky knights, assembling swarms of pawns, drawing straight or oblique avenues like a queen's progress, Marco recreated the perspectives and the spaces of black and white cities on moonlit nights.
Contemplating these essential landscapes, Kublai reflected on the invisible order that sustains cities, on the rules that decree how they rise, take shape and prosper, adapting themselves to the seasons, and then how they sadden, and then how they fall in ruin.
--Italo Calvino, from "Invisible Cities".

11/14/2011 9:00 PM
Tecumseh said...

Nice quote, AA. Didn't know it.

11/14/2011 11:36 PM

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