La Texte(ure) de la
ville :
Comes to me in a dream, it is dark grey, face pressed flat against a
glass surface, the cold of steel hoisting me up, the wind which caresses
lightly my façade, the steps over rough paving stones scratching my shoes
smooth day by day by day, my shins, my son’s shins, we are falling now and the
dream is of fair-time cotton candy big as clouds, brightly lit rides thrusting
teens loudly into the sky where they spin high above rooftops, drums low rumble
at 4am mid-winter as I touch my palm to their reflective surface and wait for
this version of me to molt into the next
as one generation of architects, urban planners, landscape architects, city
councilmen, citizens, immigrants, residents, visionaries replace the next and
reinvent me-this city.
(text written after reading Olivier Mongin's "La Condition Urbaine", Seuil/Points, 2005. In particular the sections "les villes de l'écrivain..." and "Espace mental, cosa mentale")
