city

In his mind, the city, as it awoke from its slumber, seemed to be built on quicksand. The stability was illusory.

Valerie, I love you so much. I wanted you to have a normalchildhood__o I lived a double life. Hiding in plainsight. Living modestly._ He began to pace the room, thewords tumbling out of him. __ tried to keep it up, but I__ebeen so disrespected. Even by my own wife. I couldn__ do itanymore. I__e settled for far less than I deserved, and I justcouldn__ do it anymore. I decided it was time to leave forthe city....For richer hunting grounds._ Cesaire was snarlingnow, a scary, powerful force. Valerie felt herself beingdrawn to it....She took a deep, steadying breath. It was not just fearthat she felt. What she felt was so much more complexthan that, something she couldn__ understand. __hen whydidn__ you just go?___ecause I loved you girls, and I wanted you to comewith me. To share the wealth.___ut you had to wait until the blood moon.

6 months, 2 weeks, 4 days,and I still don__ know which month it was thenor what day it is now.Blurred out linesfrom hangovers to coffeeAnother vagabond lost to love.4am alone and on my way.These are my finest moments.I scrub my skinto rid me from youand I still don__ know why I cried.It was just something in the way you took my heart and rearranged my insides and I couldn__ recognise the emptiness you left me with when you were done. Maybe you thought my insides would fit better this way, look better this way, to you and us and all the rest.But then you must have changed your mindor made a wrongbecause why did youleave?6 months, 2 weeks, 4 days,and I still don__ know which month it was thenor what day it is now.I replace cafés with crowded bars and empty roads with broken bottlesand this town is healing me slowly but still not slow or fast enough because there__ no right way to do this.There is no right way to do this.There is no right way to do this.

Laughing like crazythe child goes back to the citygives birth to monsterscreates earthquakeshairy women run nakedold folks who look like fetuses laugh and smoke.

Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.

They were young and gay and the femininity of their teenage years had only recently hardened into the muscle of a competitive sexual economy. Their muscles met the demands of the city, and the city met the demands of their muscles.

A city is not adorned by external things, but by the virtue of those who dwell in it.

If you aren__ paranoid before you arrive in this city, give it a few weeks and you will soon notice it creeping in, dripping into your subconscious like a leaky tap. The trick is not to give a flying fuck what anyone thinks about you, and if you are in the right frame of mind this can be an easy trick to perform but if not you__l soon notice that for a city full of people who do a great Stevie Wonder impersonation when it comes to the homeless and beggars and casual violence towards others, wearing the wrong kind of shoes or a cheap suit brings out a sneering, hateful attitude that can have weaker minded individuals locked in their houses for weeks before harassing their doctors for prescriptions of Prozac and Beta blockers just to make it out the front door.

The city blew the windows of my brain wide open. But being in a place so bright, fast and brilliant made you vertiginous with possibility: it didn't necessarily help you grasp those possibilities. I still had no idea what I was going to do. I felt directionless and lost in the crowd. I couldn't yet see how the city worked, but I began to find out.

The greatest drug of all, my dear, was not one of those pills in so many colors that you took over the years, was not the opium, the hash you smoked in houses at the beach, or the speed or smack you shot up in Sutherland's apartment, no, it wasn't any of these. It was the city, darling, it was the city, the city itself. And do you see why I had to leave? As Santayana said, dear, artists are unhappy because they are not interested in happiness; they live for beauty. God, was that steaming, loathsome city beautiful!!! And why finally no human lover was possible, because I was in love with all men, with the city itself.

I remember when I was twenty-five,â_ he said. â__o client comes to you when youâ__re twenty-five. Itâ__s like when you are looking for a doctor. You donâ__t want the new one that just graduated. You donâ__t want the very old one, the one shaking, the one twenty years past his prime. You want the seasoned one who has done it so many times he can do it in his sleep though. Same thing with attorneys.

A girl without braidsis like a city without bridges.

I have never heard of an electromagnetically hypersensitive person recovering from the condition using shielding and Faraday cages, they just seem to become social lepers due to their increasing reactivity to the city environment and addicts to their shielded environment.

Cairo is in a state of becoming_ We just don't know what it's becoming yet.

Even through the smoke,you are still the most beautiful thingin this city and I, well, I am stillthe last thing you__ save in a fire.

When the Stranger says: __hat is the meaning of this city ?Do you huddle close together because you love each other?__hat will you answer? __e all dwell togetherTo make money from each other_? or __his is a community_?Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.

It is always easy to create an ordinary city; what is difficult is to create an extraordinary one, peaceful and restful one, smart and tidy, artful and cultivated one, in short, a livable one! And Zurich is such a city!