A CITY’S ECHO
A CITY’S ECHO
INTRODUCTION This work of fiction and design is inspired by Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. A work of inspiring literature which paints vivid imagery of metaphorical cities. In each city one can see their own city and the relations between the two.
To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like?
VA L D R A D A
The
ancient built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all flutings and jutting’s of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms’ interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of halls, the mirrors of wardrobes.
Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other does not repeat
SHE B OYG AN The quaint spirit on the lake, Sheboygan is a city of past traditions lived through each generation. The city on the lake was not merely formed by the water but formed by choices of men and women but not by chance. We remember our heritage, our upbringing in knowing that each choice we make has an echo, both past and future. A ripple through time that formed this city on the lake so that we may not succumb to forgetfulness.
EC
HO
the
spirit on the lake
Remember the days of old, Consider the years of all generations. Ask your Father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you.
Valdrada’s inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness.
O H EC
Even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even the murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck and more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating and murdering of images, limpid and cold in the mirror.
This awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness.
At times the mirror increases a thing’s value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happen in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point.The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them.
We remember our heritage, our upbringing in knowing that each choice we make has an echo, both past and future.
This book was designed by Taylor Dekker, set into type by Taylor Dekker, and printed and bound at UWM in Milwaukee,Wisconsin. The text face is Gill Sans, Designed by Eric Gill, issued in digital form by Linotype, United Kingdom, 1931
You only have to remember that what you've done in your life may change what someone else is doing in their life.