Passaggi Obbligati
by Adam | Tuesday 24 August 2010
31/7/10
Istanbul
We sat in an outdoor cafe, which was more like a patio once meant for something else and while he sketched the view across the Bosporus, I read aloud from a book I'd picked up that morning during a sojourn through Beyoğlu. It didn't strike me as odd that he asked me to read aloud; our friendship always on its countenance was interactive. As alchemy does its work, there were few sentences more appropriate than the [first] one I read aloud on the opening page of the book:
A general explanation of the world and of history must first of all take into account the way our house was situated, in an area once known as `French Point,' on the last slopes at the foot of San Pietro hill, as though at the border between two continents.
Calvino in his book was overcoming a lament on the frailty of recollection to make a diminutive place, like the patio on which we both drank Turkish coffee and lemonade in stout plastic chairs, endless in its horizonal opportunity.
People that passed, native and voyeur alike, looked at his work and then gazed back at the same panorama, lamentful possibly at the frailty of recollection, or perhaps, fleetingly engaged with knowing if they saw things the same way.