Plato Was Not Enough

I have spent my life asking one question: what is culture for?

I found it in Plato. I found it again in Dostoevsky. I have paid for it in refugee centres, in a Roma camp, in a publishing house, in a psychiatric foundation. And I found the answer in the Venetian lagoon.

The Ship — thirteen hundred guests in a building built for three hundred, and the word that sank me.

The Knives — the sophist does not attack you because you are wrong. He attacks you because he needs an enemy.

The Publisher — Dostoevsky's drawings, a state massacre, and the machine that turns on those who open the hood.

The Oar and the Bottle — the oar that holds you up while you fall, and the bottle cast into the sea.

I row Venetian style: standing, facing forward. The blade that takes your force is the blade that keeps you from falling.

This site is the hood, opened.