Views of an Imaginary City VIII – A Neighbourhood Best Avoided after Dark

Posted on October 29, 2013 by julian peters comics

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A Neighbourhood Best Avoided after Dark

It’s a strange thing about those old narrow streets by the river in the eastern part of the Sofluri district. By day, the area is really quite picturesque and charming, with its cobbled passageways, its ancient doorways, and its lines of hanging laundry between the high stone buildings. But after nightfall… After nightfall, it becomes the horror land, the land of sordid and irreparable crimes, of flinching memories and sickening despair, of fathomless loneliness and dangling feet.

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Views of an Imaginary City VII – The Stairway to Nowhere at Tanalisca

Posted on October 22, 2013 by julian peters comics

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The Stairway to Nowhere at Tanalisca

Sensuka is a city of many religious orders, and contains within its limits an incredible number of sanctuaries, convents, monasteries, and missions. The monastery of Tanalisca is among the most famous of these, owing to the bizarre structure that rises in the middle of its extensive grounds, known colloquially as “the stairway to nowhere.”  This towering stone construction is indeed a staircase, albeit one with the curious peculiarity that the steps, which are quite wide at the base, get progressively narrower as they go up, to the point that the last step, which faces onto a seventy-foot drop, is barely wider than a thumbnail.  Continue reading →

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Views of an Imaginary City VI – The Street Where The Girl Lives

Posted on October 15, 2013 by julian peters comics

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The Street Where the Girl Lives

In narrow Labera Street, just inside the city walls near the Geroro Gate, at the southern end of the city, lives the girl with whom one might at last find happiness. One can see her sometimes, reading or embroidering by herself on the second floor terrace of her home. One looks up at her when one passes, but of course one cannot linger too long –what will the passersby think? At most one can walk by a couple of times affecting the air of one who is slightly lost. And perhaps one is at that. Of course, she is far too young for one, not to mention far too beautiful, one doesn’t have a chance, really… and yet, theoretically speaking, it is not strictly beyond the realm of … one cannot pronounce it categorically impossible that she could… And that razor-thin sliver of hypothetical possibility is enough to drive one half crazy. Continue reading →

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Views of an Imaginary City V – Lisipéh Terraces

Posted on October 8, 2013 by julian peters comics

viewsofanimaginarycity5Lisipéh Terraces

The Lisipéh Terraces take their name from Lisipéh hill, a rocky outcropping that rises steeply out of the narrow river valley upon which the centre of Sensuka is built. A century ago, owing to its forbidding topography, the hill was still largely uninhabited. The area thus constituted an untamed wilderness in the middle of the city that was much in favour with clandestine couples –both of lovers and of duellists. It was the Empress Kadoka who, partly with an eye to curtailing these sorts of activities, ordered the hill transformed into a vast public park, conceived as a series of concentric terraces rising up the slopes of the hilltop. Continue reading →

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Views of an Imaginary City IV – View of Rilito Harbour

Posted on October 1, 2013 by julian peters comics

viewsofanimaginarycity4View of Rilito Harbour

The Sensuka suburb of Rilito is built around a fine harbour that has long made it a centre of the local fishing industry. In the last decade, however, the neighbourhood has acquired an unexpected fashionableness, owing to the curious aristocratic pastime of capestadiven -play acting as fishermen and fishmongers- that was made popular at court by the Emperor’s head concubine, Biruégh. Nothing now amuses the imperial courtiers more than to head down to Rilito harbour for the day, where they don extravagant “South Seas fisher-folk” costumes and set out on a specially appointed “fisher-folk barge”, amply provisioned with fine food and drink –especially drink. A few fishermen from Rilito are brought along to do most of the actual fishing, although the lords and ladies will occasionally take turns dangling a fishing rod over the side of the boat.

It is only when the merry crew returns to shore, however, that the real fun begins. Continue reading →

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Views of an Imaginary City III – The Cloud Oracle at Marikora

Posted on September 24, 2013 by julian peters comics

viewsofanimaginarycity3The Cloud Oracle of Marikora

Rather than such messy and, when one comes to think of it, somewhat dubious sources of divination as are the reading of tea leaves and sheep entrails, in Sensuka the foretelling of future events is obtained through an altogether more pleasant and poetic method: the observation of cloud formations. This task is carried out by officially appointed priests, always of a very advanced age, who have spent their entire lives learning how to accurately interpret the prophecies contained within the tumbling masses of cumulonimbi, or in the subtle colour degradations in a streak of cirrostratus.

Although cloud divination can theoretically be carried out from any vantage point, Continue reading →

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Views of an Imaginary City II – View from Berino

Posted on September 17, 2013 by julian peters comics

viewsofanimaginarycity2View from Berino

The inconspicuously named 23rd Avenue in the outlying neighbourhood of Berino is blessed with one of the most spectacular views in all of Sensuka. The street runs along the crest of the high hilltop upon which Berino is situated, and then snakes its way downwards in a progression of wide curves in the direction of the city centre. On clear evenings, the sun’s dying rays fall upon the paving stones in such a way that 23rd Avenue appears as a curling ribbon of burnished gold, drawing the eye  down towards the reddening tops of the city spires and the shimmering sea beyond.

Berino is not a wealthy neighbourhood, however, far from it, Continue reading →

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Views of an Imaginary City I – The Two Main Squares

Posted on September 10, 2013 by julian peters comics

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The Two Main Squares

The previous imperial capital before Sensuka, Okrona, had been built around a grand central square. The square’s vast size made it a fitting setting for the celebration of imperial triumphs, and also provided sufficient space for the imperial dragoons to gather up speed when charging unruly mobs. For indeed, the major downside of having such a large open space in the heart of the downtown was that it provided a natural rallying point for the occasional popular uprisings that are an inevitable inconvenience of big-city living.

When laying out Sensuka, the Emperor Bulodi I wisely decided that, to avoid this problem in his new capital, the centre of the city should include not one main square, but two, Continue reading →

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Self-Portrait, c. 1490

Posted on August 18, 2013 by julian peters comics

botticelliportrait

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Coming Soon! “Fifty-two Views of an Imaginary City”

Posted on August 4, 2013 by julian peters comics

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This summer, mostly during the course of an artistic residency at the Maison Gai Saber in Leigné-sur-Usseau, France, I began work on a long series of watercolours depicting the sights of interest, neighbourhoods and inhabitants of an imaginary city called Sensuka. Inspired by Ando Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856-1859), as well as by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972), my aim with these images and their accompanying explanatory paragraphs is to explore various emotions and ideas associated with cities and city life (as well as any other emotions or ideas that may be running about my head ). My plan is to create 52 imaginary views, and ideally to post one every week on this website for a year. Look for the first installment at the beginning of September. http://maisongaisaber.com/hello.html

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