Citizen of the Universe

So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one’s fatherland is to wish evil to one’s neighbours.

Patric San Juan's Bigger than a Cult, Smaller than a Mass (one, two backdrops), Raven Row, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, E1

The citizen of the universe would the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.

From Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)

Alive With Signs

For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman.

Folkestone, Kent, CT19

I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a ‘fiancé,’ why she had played at beginning again. Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite.

Walker's Court, Soho, Westminster, W1F

So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too.

Brentford Docks, Brentford, Hounslow, TW8

As if the blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.

Brewer Street, Soho, Westminster, W1F

Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother, really — I felt I had been happy and that I was happy again.

Percy Dalton's, Dace Road, Bow, Tower Hamlets, E3

For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

Duke of Wellington, Toynbee Street, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, E1

From Albert Camus’ L’Etranger (1942)

Rodinsky’s Room

This was an unrequired story. My feeling now is that the routines I listened to were the ones I solicited.

19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, E1

I was looking for confirmations and extensions of what I already knew.

Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, E1

Rodinsky was an empty space, a lacuna; that which was not to be uncovered something sealed and forgotten.

19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, E1

This was the period, the seventies between his disappearance and the breaking open the attic room. He wasn’t visible or invisible. He had neither presence nor absence.

Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, E1

His story hadn’t been formulated.

Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair's Rodinsky's Room (1999)

From Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair’s Rodinsky’s Room (1999)