P165
". . . seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

P163

Quote. . . all the future Berenices [the unjust city, within which is the hidden Berenice, the city of the just, which contains a malignant seed hidden in its turn, which...] are already present in this instant, wrapped one within the other, confined, crammed, inextricable.

the real world has lossless compression

uncompressed real world infinite file size

damn there's something to that... the feeling of trying to calculate the file size of the real world, or anything real. just watching the number go up forever

P105

these cities and these characters
are disintegrating before my eyes
like memories, dreams, and stories;
like memories, dreams, and stories,
the harder i look the more they fall
apart into interpretation, into fiction,
into myth.

Here I am complaining, as the emperor does, of stones.

P82

QuoteMarco Polo describes a bridge stone by stone. . . . "Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me." . . . "Without stokes there is no arch."

P44

Quote. . . a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse. With cities, as it is with dreams: . . . You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives you to a question of yours.

Earlier today I felt somewhat directionless, purposeless. This is what a weekend is for, is it not?

I'm reading Invisible Cities in another way now, not as an emperor but as a traveller. It's better now.

Invisible Cities is giving me a strong feeling of lonely distance—I suppose what the emperor is feeling or what I would feel in his shoes.

When i say that i do not think the book is beautiful, i mean it leaves me with a terrible nameless ennui—a bad feeling. An ugly feeling.

The connection that i feel to this book is deeply true, but it is not inspiring, does not make me feel good, does not propel me, does not give me spirit...

It retraces old and bad thoughts.

The craft is impeccable and I do not reject these emotions within myself, but i do not need... I do not see a reason to pursue a work which stirs up such emotion right now?

That said, it is a complete work. I've started it, is exploring Something Uncomfortable, and if i don't finish it then perhaps I will never see the entirety of Calvino's great work.

P35

QuoteNo one remembers what need or command drove Zenobia's founders to give their city this form, and so there is no telling whether it was satisfied by the city as we see it today, . . . But what is certain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of a happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines. . . it is pointless trying to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.

Alive and dead, so to speak.

Was Mer the one from whom i heard of this book? Certainly her voice was one of them - she spoke of Fedora, the city of crystal globes.

Regarding Italo Calvino's
"Invisible Cities"

Self-Doubt

QuoteThere are singers considered among the best in the world who can't bring themselves to listen to their own voice. And these are not rare exceptions. Many artists in different arenas have similar issues. . . . Still, many continue to share their work . . . It's as if they have no other choice. Being an artist is who they are, and they are made whole through self-expression. . . .  We are not obligated to follow this calling . . . We're not being ordered to do this. If we'd rather not do it, let's not do it.

I have my ongoing doubts about games, and game-making, and I wonder if this is of a kind with these other issues. I don't think games as a whole, videogames that is, have a necessarily constructive effect on society, on humanity. I would never ask someone not to make games, but I often think that I should not, that I ought to be doing something else.

But, I am made whole through it.

That is the quality possessed by this book.