invisible cities currently reading: italo calvino's invisible cities. i'm getting really frustrated reading this. i can't concentrate. i can't understand most of what he wrote. other people, i think even ludwig wittgenstein has said you start really reading only when you finally don't understand what you're reading.

goodness. so now i can't understand eric gamalinda's "the map of light" which is written in english by someone who was taught english as a second laguage. and now i can't understand calvino, who i read in translation from italian. i learned that i understand journalese the best. goodness: all of that is english. and i write in english. what is happening to me.

i think i'm just dumb. ya, that's it.

the previous book i finished before calvino is alfred yuson's voyeurs and savages, a book about the 1904 st. louis world's fair, that featured many native tribes, among them filipino groups from across the country. the book states that colonial powers, such as europe and the u.s., held these fairs to justify their roles as colonizers, the need to christianize, educate and civilize countries such as the philippines. it mentioned puerto rico and other countries as well. i know zilch about the 1904 world's fair, but i know chicago played host to one, in the late 1890s. the only remains of that exposition are the architecture of the museum of science and industry and the elevated train tracks, still in use today. hell, i ride the el everyday. it's my primary mode of transportation.

if i really wanted to be crazy, i should question what the hell am i doing riding an experiment, an exhibit in the same fair that featured my countrymen as objects? would it be justification if i said that i have no choice, i live here, it's my main mode of transport?

that would be totally insane, but i'm glad i was able to write that down, ahahaha. in the same fairs was electricity featured. nothing is black and white, everything is compromise. i should shake my being fundamentalist, ahahaha.  ¶ 8/27/2005 09:43:00 PM