Jul 22, 2003

Is one supposed to publicly respond to something publicly stated in a blog? Somebody needs to draw up the charter of this ghost city.

Anyway, you're welcome, James. Glad you liked the poems.

The idea of the soft city seems pretty relevant to the Gloucester crew since so much of their lives seem to be split between Boston and Gloucester, thus comprising a sort of macro soft city that extends beyond the confines of the hard city. I suppose in that particular way the ghost city can be a vehicle for the soft city. Now I'm seeing a sort of Lacanian diagram with three circles representing the three players.

I'd agree that the concept of 'soft City' is pretty relevant to Polis, though I'm not sure that Olson would necessarily have recognized the hard city/soft city dichotomy. I reckon Polis (by way of the MAXIMUS POEMS) to be something more akin to terroir in wine, the way particular characteristics of the landscape (hard city) define the properties of the wine (the individual, and by that route, the soft city. Though I'd say that the soft city isn't contained within individuals, but rather comprised by them... Though each person's experience of the soft city is different. But does that mean that each person is a soft city unto themselves? When you look closely, the binary begins to dissolve.)

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