I’m the 20th Century

Dalle pagine del denso ed enigmatico “V” – romanzo di Thomas Pynchon – ecco estratte delle liriche scritte da un suo personaggio. Legge Isabella Giovannardi, accompagnano in jam session pianoforte, basso e finestre jazzanti.

I am the twentieth century.
I am the ragtime and the tango; sans-serif, clean geometry.
I am the virgin’s-hair whip and the cunningly detailed shackles of decadent passion.
I am every lonely railway station in every capital of Europe.
I am the Street, the fanciless buildings of government. I am the cafe-dansant, the clockwork figure, the jazz saxophone, the tourist-lady’s hairpiece, the fairy’s rubber breasts, the travelling clock which always tells the wrong time and chimes in different keys.
I am the dead palm tree, the Negro’s dancing pumps, the dried fountain after tourist season.
I am all the appurtenances of night.