Author: nakedcitiesjournal

Naked Cities Journal attempts to bring together a number of passions that have captivated me over a lifetime: a love of exploring the urban landscape and its extraordinarily diverse range of places and spaces; a love of journeys both internal and external; a love of keeping writer’s notebooks; and a love of Urban Studies an intellectual discipline – Marcus D. Niski
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John Burroughs — The Vale of Soul-Making

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is, “Look under foot.” You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the centre of the world.

— John Burroughs, Studies in Nature and Literature (Fredonia Books [NL] July 27, 2002) 

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Roland Barthes — The Vale of Soul-Making

To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love (the other), to know that writing compensates for nothing, sublimates nothing, that it is precisely there where you are not–this is the beginning of writing.

— Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. (Hill and Wang; Second Printing edition June 1, 1979) Originally published 1977.

Roland Barthes — The Vale of Soul-Making
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Art of Traveling (a text of Dany Laferrière translated by Vadim Bystritski) — Before and After Francis Ponge

The ultimate luxury in our increasingly gregarious world,  the thing more and more refused to each other, is being alone. That is why we need to have delivered to a small local hotel the complete works of Balzac, then announce to everyone our departure on a trip, severing all links and making ourselves unavailable for a few days. […]

Art of Traveling (a text of Dany Laferrière translated by Vadim Bystritski) — Before and After Francis Ponge