Despina

Diomira,

Kublai Khan ekes not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expedi-tions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening 10 the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity Ihan he shows any other messenger or explorer of his. In the lives of emperors there is a moment which follows pride in lhe 1I0undiess extension of the territories we have conquered, and the melancholy and relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them. There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the san-dalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers, a dizziness that makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of lhe planispheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the despatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes lhe wax of the seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies' protection, offering in exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, anti tortoise shell. It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption'S gangrene has spread too far 10 be healed by our scepter, that the triumph over enemy sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing. Only in Marco Polo's accounts was KNblai Khan able to

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone. "But which is the stone that supports the bridge?" KJJblai Khan asks. "The bridge is not supported by one stone or another," Marco answers, "but by the line of the arch that they form. " Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: "Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me." Polo answers: "Without stones there is no arch."

Invisible Cities

ITALO CALVINa

i forget a few weeks back i forget if i'm even getting the acronym right or wrong but somebody brought up this gpl3 or some sort of ai library and there was an interesting article that started floating around that was 01:48:14 entirely written by this uh algorithm i don't know if others have read it but it's it's kind of interesting because it was an ai trying to convince you in its own writing that it's will never be capable of say taking over 01:48:27 the world or something like that i'll try and find it and share it if anyone's interested

Refutation of Time

$600,000