We were tourists-- we were taking pictures: Dana's Invisible City Planning. This, of course, is not a Calvinian invisible city, per se, but an invisible city nonetheless. I have not imitated any style, choosing to write more as Dana, under the influence of Calvino and Eco, than as Dana, wearing the mask of Calvino.

Of Calvino, I used the tour guide persona, the elusiveness and impossibility of the city.

Of Eco, I have stolen images (library, labyrinth, detectives, a blind man who hates laughter), imagining myself a Jacobo Belbo, piecing together original narratives out of stolen fragments (Rilke, Neruda, Gogol, Benjamin, Eco). Like Eco, I have attempted to build a mental map of my fictional world first and then inscribe it with a narrative. Dana Turken