Woven from ever repeating feeding cords, the MÉDIATEUR branches out into the sea. Its citizens, allured by the promises of freedom echoing from the endless flow of goods, took to the sea only to find themselves utterly dependent on the Médiateur’s docks.

We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side by side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein.

The Grid—or any other subdivision of the metropolitan territory into maximum increments of control—describes an archipelago of “Cities within Cities.” The more each “island” celebrates different values, the more the unity of the archipelago as system is reinforced. Because “change” is contained on the component “islands,” such a system will never have to be revised.

AUTONOMY

"autonomous condition, power or right of self-government," 1620s, of states, from Greek autonomia "independence," abstract noun from autonomos "independent, living by one's own laws," from autos "self" (see auto-) + nomos "custom, law"

A hundred profound solitudes together constitute the city of Venice. That is its charm. A model for the men of the future.

AFFINITY

"sympathy marked by community of interest, likeness based on relationship or causal connection", 14th century, from Latin affīnis "bordering (on)", from ad- AD- + fīnis "boundary, limit" + -itās -ITY

Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts.

IDIOMORPHIC

"having the proper form or shape", used of minerals whose crystalline growth has not been interfered with, 1887, from Greek idiomorphos, from idio- + -morphos -morphous

Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.

We always find ourselves within multiplicities. Multiplicities are ensembles of singularities.

I think the fragment is the only possible moment and the only possible place to understand.

I am living permanently in my dream, from which I make brief forays into reality.

Life. Too much of it, and not enough. The fear that it will end some day, and the fear that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday.

We have two kinds of evidence of the passage of time. One is rhythmic repetition-the heartbeat, breathing, sleeping and waking, hunger, the cycles of sun and moon, the seasons, waves, tides, clocks. The other is progressive and irreversible change-growth and decay, not recurrence but alteration.

We finally landed on the Isle of Freedom and burned the ship that took us there.