Did you ever stop to think?

I love Marciac, the proud little Jazz town of South-West France. I love it in the winter; when the sun sidles through the sky and allows you to sit outside in the middle of December. I love it in the summer; I love it for introducing me to Dianne Reeves, and I love it for the moments of magic it gives me. 

And this piece is stunning. It’s such a shame I don’t know more about it. What I do know is that it’s substantial; occupying a healthy space in one corner of the massive market square in the heart of the bastide. Latin text, laid into the ground for people to walk on, and I still don’t know what it says. There’s something about years, something about the town being constructed (?) but that’s all I get from it. I need to transcribe it some day.

And yet, I don’t know if I want to. I love the feel of it. I love the way I can’t resist, on a hot day, slipping my shoes off and feeling the coolness of it under my feet. I love the way the Ps and the Os are so solidly filled. I love the steel grey and the nonchalance about it. 

This, for me, is a prime example of writing-art. Or, to be more prosaic about it, Performance Writing. This is performative language. I judge these words, not on what they mean, but on an aesthetic, symbolic level. I look at how they relate to each other, how the cursive of the S slips into the rigidity of the I. This is language. This, though it may not shout it from the rooftops, is art.