Reality...

"So states of un-satisfaction, objects which we see or which reveal an absence are the only performances to which the individual recovers in susceptive uniqueness. The city might fix it or establish it but I see it an existence of our own as a chance to see what the city must and can do, without the power to do it. It's all very well and precise to say that Baudelaire had mysterious wishes to be like the stone in the statue without posing the ability. You cannot present the poet is eager to extract some petrifiable image from this of the past. But the images which he left are situated in a life which was open and infinite in Baudelaire's sense of the word."

I don't how many of you listen to Interpol or have even heard of them, it's understandable. To those who haven't check them out but i will try to capture some of their energy and distill it for you. To those have heard of Interpol, i wonder if you have heard the alternate version of "A time to be small" which includes a little tidbit at the beginning which is quoted up there for your benefit.

As for me i have always been intrigued by perceptions and how they define or create reality. I found Baudrillard's treatise "Simulacra and Simulation" and found it quite enlightening. Ask me sometime... The basic gist of it is that initially we define what is real and then through media and interaction we reference what is real through simulation. for instance i create a new word to define a chair to someone else. Now that object is real in the most simplest form of the word. However if chairs were to disappear from earth my new word of chair would still persist and now define what a chair is even though they do not exist anymore. But what Baudrillard wonder was what would happen if my word was not able to fully capture the essence of what a chair is, which i think it no doubt would. My new definition now limits what a chair can be in reality. Again, you could imagine that my word only limited the chair to have 3 legs by a misunderstanding or mistranslation of my word then from then on chairs with four legs could exist as chairs. Any how check out Baudrillard's work its kinda awesome and you might understand it better

Now as to Interpol, that quote up there which quotes Baudelaire, i think it greatly intrigues. What defines an object is not always what we see but more a manifestation of an idea or a notion. In this instance a city is not really made up of bricks and mortar but of the people that inhabit and define it and that is what we reference when we say New York is a beautiful city. It is the dance and parade of notions which we have put together that define what New York is for all. But now we find that the reality of New York is not what draws us there. If New York where to cease to be... These ideas would be all we would have to reference and in rebuilding would really capture the truth of what New York was or would we capture something else. So what is real, what is reality- Actuality or....?

Charles Baudelaire on Wiki

Jean Baudrillard Wiki

Simulacra And Simulation

Now as to the song "A time to be small", i will say this: it is sung from the perspective of an urchin under a boat observing the going's on of either a father and son or a couple. interesting song, if you wanna give it a listen...