Reflections

Regarding infamy

Owners of such working land and negradas were lazy and eager mane knights, who lived in large mansions looking over the river—always with a pseudo-Greek porch made of white pines. A good slave cost them 1,000 dollars and did not last long. Some perpetrated the ingratitude of getting sick and die. We had to take out of those insecure the largest possible yield. That is why they were held in the field since the crack of dawn until the last sun; thus they required an annual harvest of cotton or tobacco or sugar from the estates. The weary land by such impatient culture was left exhausted in just a few years: the confused and muddy desert penetrated into the plantations.

Jorge Luis Borges Universal History of Infamy

 

Regarding stopping spring

You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming

Pablo Neruda

 

Regarding urban fear

Fear generates isolation and social life wrinkles and reduces. The city becomes a place for habitation not living. Working, commercial, free-time spaces are incorporated. Public space is just a transit point. Urban energy is metamorphosed in pure circulation; it is about arriving, not stopping; to circulate, not to ambulate. Reclusion practices in intimate spaces gain importance and only the young keep some city places alive for transportation and to gather outside of what is private.

Claudia Laub