Tony Petitti does not necessarily believe Marco Polo when he describes the various cities of the Big Ten. In the life of any Conference Commissioner, there is a pride in conquering vast swathes of new territory and a melancholy and relief of knowing he should give up any thought of knowing or understanding them. There is a sense of emptiness that comes in the evening, with the smells of unlimited Brazilian meats waft into his Rosemont headquarters and the traffic from the Jane Addams intensifies into a steady roar of passing cars rather than the grind of stalled traffic, and the din from the Chicago Dogs baseball stadium has died down. Only through the tales from the Venetian explorer could Commissioner Petitti grasp the subtle patterns.
Cities and transportation infrastructure 1: Angelina
Angelina is a great city of roads. The roads form a great circuit around the city and the residents travel through them all day every day to unknowable ends. The city is divided into those who can still remember the purpose for which they set off on the road and those who have forgotten and only travel upon the roads for lack of understanding of what else to do.
Travelers are constantly broadcasting their complicated routes to other travelers and describing the parts of the city they have heard about– the beaches, the gardens, the tar pits, the elevated street taco place that’s still authentic– they are all constantly explaining these plans and meticulously broadcasting them to other travelers who are making and explaining their own plans. The travelers all take to the airwaves to talk about their routes and then appear on other travelers’ broadcasts to have the same conversation.
Somewhere nestled in the mountains through ribbons of road there is a large, flat, bowl. The sun sparkles on it before setting into a picturesque scene, like a softboiled egg nestled in a purple broth. And yet, the bowl is empty. Travelers discuss games that take place there, they relay explanations of complex plays and detailed descriptions of violent tackles, but no one can verify them since they are not there. They have played an infinite number of games, each one altered by a traveler who has not seen it but has heard of it, the games warp in the retelling and become another game. In some accounts these games turn into perverse spectacle and others turn into farcical comedy, impossible comebacks, the endless, recursive return of onside kicks into touchdowns.
No one has seen the games because no one is there. The travelers of Angelina are circling the stadium in loops simultaneously arriving and departing until it is impossible to determine which is which. It all blurs into the same road.
Cities and waterfowl 1: Eugenia
The citizens of Eugenia complain of neck pain because they are always looking up. Their necks stick that way. Older residents are no longer able to see their own shoes and need to have them placed on by children with more pliant, flexible necks. Toddlers crawl and call out obstacles on the ground to older relatives, an imperfect system since they do not have a keen eye to discern obstacles, but they have been deputized for this important job by being lowest to the ground.
The residents of Eugenia must keep their heads up at all times because the city has a duck. Every day, the man-sized duck flies across the city on a nest of zip lines. The tallest buildings have been repurposed into zip line towers, and this duck zooms around, low to the ground, its webbed feet constantly clattering into unaware heads as distracted citizens are knocked into creeks and merchant stalls filled with fresh fish. Before the Eugenians adopted their signature pose, the duck was knocking scores of people to the ground every day as it zips around toward a purpose that no one has discovered.
Every day, the Eugenia go about their business to the din of the zipline and enter their low-ceilinged buildings where they read and write on their own ceilings and hang their belongings so they do not trip on them. Doctors say it takes five years for outsiders to be able to look up vigilantly enough to avoid the duck and unaware visitors expect to get kicked or belly bumped by a ziplining duck at least three times each day, depending on the duck’s activities.
The people of Eugenia like their duck and are horrified at any suggestion that the duck should be harmed or stopped from maniacally ziplining into the populace. You should get out of its way, they say to anyone who protests. This is simply what the duck does in this city. You should not carry large bundles of eggs or panes of glass.
The duck is whimsical. Every small joy of looking forward or bending over to smell flowers or even to avoid stepping into a pothole or pile of animal waste is subsumed to the enjoyable spectacle of a duck flying around, hopping from line to line, expertly lining up in front of a baker carrying an enormous layer cake unaware of the duck’s whereabouts.
No one needs to bicker or spread gossip. The only acceptable topic of conversation in Eugenia is what the duck is up to or speculation about where the duck might be going next or even talking to each other as if they were the duck him or herself even though the duck’s own thoughts are entirely inscrutable. People come to Eugenia with hopes and dreams and fears but they happily subsume them to hopes and dreams and fears about the duck in an annihilating relief.
The duck also has a motorcycle.
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