A very nice image and narrative Simon, thank you! It has a haunting quality which is somehow quite encouraging. It reminds me very much of Calvino's style in the best sense, as well as a very nice visit I had on Saturday to local Lake Nokomis here.
Yesterday I got a copy of a very interesting book by a scholar from UCLA, Thomas Harrison, titled Of Bridges: A Poetical and Philosophical Account. It covers a remarkable range of cultural meanings which have accompanied bridges since very early times. It delves into a wide range of contexts in which bridges feature significantly including religion and myth, urban design, music, geopolitics, literature, philosophy, history, identity, technology, and surveillance society. Leonardo is only mentioned very briefly, along with Michelangelo, in an account of their both proposing to build a span over the Bosphorus for Sultan Bayezid II. However, the book discusses Dantean bridges in great detail (as well as many illustrations and full discussion of Blake's images of the Commedia) as well as many other medieval and ancient bridge traditions which would have been well known to Leonardo. Eastern, non-European, indigenous, polytheistic, and folk cultures are all fairly well represented. The book also evaluates the concept of bridge from a network perspective, exploring the nature of connections i.e. how accelerated hyperconnectivity can be a form of isolation, control, and homogeneity lacking informational richness. >From the introduction: "The more connected we are, the more we become prone to an anxiety of access. What promises to produce connection often does not. And then, with all these external bridges, what bonds do we forge inside, in the inner world of subjectivity? Though bridges are the very issue of our time, we have not thought hard enough about what they are, and what they need to be." https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo60514698.html ________________________________ From: NetBehaviour <netbehaviour-boun...@lists.netbehaviour.org> on behalf of Simon Mclennan via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 3:11 PM To: netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> Cc: Simon Mclennan <mclennanf...@gmail.com> Subject: [NetBehaviour] Wavelets The picture - https://www.instagram.com/p/CUDmiY9oLZs/?utm_medium=copy_link Leonardo and Bron stood on the shore at Eboli. The flat sea stretched off to meet the emerald sky ahint. After a few minutes a little ripple arrived washing over their hot, dusty feet. Soon another and another. The waves broke on the shore in regular clumps. Bron shaded her eyes and looked out to the horizon. A brownish column of cloud was discernible. It got bigger and grew by the minute. The cloud grew quite tall and seemed to be approaching. Many seabirds flapped past the two as they gazed at the column which looked more like a big water spout. A wind ruffled the feathers of a roseate tern sitting by the pair. The column came closer and looked about one hundred feet tall. It shone. At the heart of it they could make out a shining human figure. It floated on the column of whirling water droplets. It put out its hand to them in a benediction and smiled upon their glowing little faces. They felt like Ratty and Mole standing meekly there. A warmth emanated from the column. Their faces shone more and reflected the watery golden light in dappled patterns that moved gently on their hair and skin. The column started to move away and gradually diminished. They turned to one another and their lips curled almost imperceptibly in knowing smiles. Simon Sent from my spyphone
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