WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The glad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.199 are here. Let's get into it. The day after my 3 00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:13.960 official retirement, which I had marked not with a champagne toast, 4 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:15.919 but with the luxury of waking without an alarm, I 5 00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:18.760 set out on one of my habitual prowling strolls. It 6 00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:20.600 was a Wednesday, and the port side ere carried a 7 00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:22.879 hint of salt fell to press through the crooked stones 8 00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:25.079 and narrow back lanes that pleaded the old district into 9 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:28.559 a soft, persistent labyrinth. My walking loop wound by instinct 10 00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:32.000 and curiosity as much as familiarity. I told myself I'd 11 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:34.119 finally visit the marina or see the exhibition at the 12 00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:37.880 War Museum, but instead she was pointed of their own will. 13 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:40.159 I found myself threading the twisted lanes behind the cock 14 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:43.000 repair shop, hands in my pockets, sunglancing off old brick 15 00:00:43.560 --> 00:00:45.880 in an unassuming alley beelly of corridor between the backs 16 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:47.920 of shops and the crumbling finish of apartments. I was 17 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.880 drawn up short by an odd object fixed to the 18 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:53.719 wall across from a batted kitchen door. Bronze, rectangular, about 19 00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:55.560 the length of two hands and bordered in a walled 20 00:00:55.799 --> 00:00:59.600 almost art nuba flourish. It was conspicuous, clean, polish, nearly 21 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:02.280 to glee, catching and returning what lithe light made it 22 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:04.920 past the overhadding laundry, a shot contrast to the walls 23 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:08.480 pale scoffs and graffiti ghosts. What arrested me, though, was 24 00:01:08.519 --> 00:01:11.560 its detail. The plaque was filled edge to edge with 25 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:15.319 meticulous and raving. At its center a cluster of elegantly 26 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:19.239 stylized numbers and letters, encircled by compass roses and ouglass motifs. 27 00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:22.200 An inscription in a font evoking an era with few 28 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:26.560 maled certainties declare forty five point three billion, six hundred 29 00:01:26.599 --> 00:01:29.519 twenty one million, seven hundred forty eight thousand, three hundred 30 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:33.079 twenty six degrees N fourteen point one hundred eleven million, 31 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.439 eight hundred forty three thousand, two hundred seventy one degrees e, 32 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:41.280 almost absurdly precise. There was no dedication, no donor's name, 33 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:45.040 not even a date of installation. The numbers were crisped, unweathered. End. 34 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.760 As a mathematician accustomed to indicate her digits, it couldn't 35 00:01:47.799 --> 00:01:51.040 help myself without glancing up. I took my phone free 36 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:53.200 and thumbed open a map app ignoring a faint kind 37 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:55.239 gro of city sounds just beyond the ali's drone of 38 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:59.239 quite the first app blinked, locating the numbers. It painted 39 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:01.239 a pin point coinsdent with my current blue dot, then 40 00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:05.799 labeled it quite plainly Raijcat Croatia. Yet when out of 41 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:08.479 habit I opened my preferred navigation app, the same cord 42 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:10.800 in its drew a new result. Fifteen hundred meters to 43 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:15.280 the northwest trist Italy. If possible, there was not centimeter 44 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.560 of share terrain between these two cities, even the boundaries 45 00:02:18.599 --> 00:02:21.400 incoherently snaked as they were over decades of treaties, never 46 00:02:21.439 --> 00:02:25.159 overlapped at this location. Confused, I total to a third app, 47 00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:27.240 one favored by runners and near the pin landed still 48 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:30.439 further north squarely within the inner margin of Graz, Austria, 49 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:33.479 though no train would get either before tomorrow. I double 50 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:35.840 checked the actual numbers. They matched exactly down to the 51 00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:38.919 final decimal. I felt my own internal Marquiu shift, the 52 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:42.120 coal snap of proper curiosity, like a teacher's favorite riddle 53 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:45.560 taken home for private fund. It wasn't a typo, it 54 00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:49.319 wasn't a rounding error. Side by side, three reputable sources 55 00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:52.039 cleaned this alley belonged to three different countries, none adjacent, 56 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:55.400 each absolute in their declaration. No signs on the walls 57 00:02:55.400 --> 00:02:58.159 revealed the alll's name, only sun bleached posters, A weathered 58 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:01.479 pipe alone by skull lock to a metal Above me, 59 00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:04.599 someone's laundry sway gently, a pair of shirts pale with 60 00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:07.759 repeated washings. But the ticking sound a clock steady beat 61 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.439 somewhere nearby, possibly from the clock maker shop up the laney, 62 00:03:10.439 --> 00:03:13.439 gave the moment an oddly ceremonial hush. I ran my 63 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:16.000 fingers along the bronze surface, half expecting to find a 64 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:20.039 hidden speaker or cure code some modern bank. Nothing. The 65 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:23.120 mounting bolts holding the plaque were greened with age, almost 66 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:25.520 seized with corrosion, but the bronze itself was free of 67 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:29.199 even a spot of tarnish. I stepped back, even with 68 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:31.719 the rest of the world as background clamored deliveries trundling, 69 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:33.879 a cat darting behind a dust being the coordinate rooted 70 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:35.879 me in a moment I could not place on any map. 71 00:03:36.439 --> 00:03:38.319 There was nothing frightening in it, not even a trace 72 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:40.879 of chill, but I lingered, feeling rather as if I 73 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:43.759 stood outside a familiar house whose FASD had over night 74 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:48.199 become unexpectedly incorrect there but not precisely mine. As I 75 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:50.479 left the alley, the fainticking might have grown louder, or 76 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:52.879 my mind simply more returned, But either way I was 77 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:56.919 left carrying a question where exactly was I. Retirement is 78 00:03:56.960 --> 00:03:59.240 a myth, as any teacher knows, he simply changed the 79 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:02.319 topics they keep you at night. For forty three years, 80 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:06.199 I had navigated the pleasures and perils of secondary mathematics, proofs, games, 81 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:08.759 prize puzzles when students eye glazed to theory, teaching the 82 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:12.680 elegance that emerges from pattern and contradiction. My life outside 83 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:15.759 of school was gently geometric morning walks, tea at the square, 84 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.680 afternoons perusing the city's older sections with a notebook in hand. 85 00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:22.240 I live alone, quite by choice, in an apartment perched 86 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:25.040 above the Old Market Promenade, a vantage I preferred precisely 87 00:04:25.079 --> 00:04:27.920 for its subdued civic drama. Wedding procession here A parayed there, 88 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.079 always just oudible above the grind and cliff trolleys. The 89 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:34.279 city at off part Mediterranean, part Middle European part. Something 90 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:37.319 ineffable arrested like a stack of transparent sheets, colonnaded hours 91 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:41.439 that spoke Italienate ambitions, iron street markers hinting at Austrian exactitude, 92 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:45.000 with curly Gothic latters, scattering of Yugoslavira mural's offers by 93 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:48.079 city ordinances, now fading under sun and time, yet remaining 94 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:51.839 stubbornly visible. The city was famous, in its infinitesimal way 95 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:54.800 for confusing signposts. For restaurant men used to offer three 96 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:57.040 languages at once, for cobs repainted in a palete that 97 00:04:57.079 --> 00:05:00.000 seemed to respect nobody's state decree. There was an endurance 98 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:02.839 tension between precision and ambiguity, between what was supposed to 99 00:05:02.879 --> 00:05:05.360 be and what was subbornly practiced by those who actually 100 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:08.199 lived here. I loved those tensions for the same reason 101 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:11.759 I'd relish mathematical paradoxes. Each declared that, no matter how 102 00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:14.199 tidy the law care for the mapping, live reality had 103 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:17.279 ways of wriggling free. Each morning, I'd stop to greet 104 00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:20.600 the city's goose, Missess Valenty, whose bakery sought the world's 105 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:22.759 best wallut bread, the man at the bookstall who'd sell 106 00:05:22.759 --> 00:05:26.000 me volumes in whichever language matched my greeting. The city's clocksmith, 107 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:29.720 mister Kovack's, a man of bristly mustached sly silences, and 108 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:32.680 the permanent center oil and brass, whose window displayed not 109 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:36.639 just clocks, but every manner of temporal curiosity, raies, anemometers, 110 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:39.879 even a tiny sand glass shaped like a tower. Mister 111 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:42.680 Kovack's greeted everyone by name and adjusted prices to seat 112 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:45.000 the length of their hand shake. His shop was a 113 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.600 maze of ticking, chattering, and in a far corner a 114 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:50.079 large antique wall clock whose pendulum never seemed to sink 115 00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:53.240 perfectly with its hands border. As for factories, he'd once 116 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:55.439 told me, but here in the city, it is timing 117 00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:58.759 we measure. That is different. We Sisual bureaucracy drifted through 118 00:05:58.759 --> 00:06:02.199 our streets like pollen. Government workers in adjustable uniforms, some 119 00:06:02.279 --> 00:06:05.199 with Trist's City seal, some with Ryjkiz, some bearing of cure. 120 00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:07.959 Austrian crests were seen now and then, repainting zebra crossings 121 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:11.639 or replacing road signs one after another like chess piecesly 122 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:14.839 by an invisible hand. These changes never seemed to trouble 123 00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:18.480 my neighbors, with says Valante, for instance, claimed to Baker's 124 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:20.920 paperwork was like a ticket in a bad lottery, fluttering 125 00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:24.160 between free government departments. Her son, meanwhile, worked under a 126 00:06:24.199 --> 00:06:26.839 permit issued from the regional authority, which she referred to us. 127 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:30.360 Whichever building answers first. The price of Brookolinia shifted weekly 128 00:06:30.519 --> 00:06:33.240 receipts Cayman, free languages, and next to my building an 129 00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:36.199 agent fountain bore three bronze plates, in Italian to the 130 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:39.120 water carriers, in creation to those who thirst, and in 131 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:42.079 German for the citizens of this place, each slightly out 132 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:46.920 of alignment, each professionally engraved. Outsiders occasionally complained, but locals 133 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:49.800 never did. They grow an expert at collecting their pensions 134 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:52.360 from whichever window was open, with whichever signature would be 135 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:55.920 honored that week. Precision, then was a form of gracious cusi, 136 00:06:56.040 --> 00:06:58.879 rather than a state expectation. I kept maps and records, 137 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:01.000 partly as anchor partly it sport, my own way of 138 00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:04.399 honoring lived contradiction. But the platte coordinates had moved something 139 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:06.360 old and quitely sacred in me. The wish for puzzle 140 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:08.959 who solution, if not elegant, at least left one wiser 141 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:11.959 than before. On Thursday, compelled by a growing sense of 142 00:07:11.959 --> 00:07:14.160 odd order, I returned to the alley, prepared, this time 143 00:07:14.279 --> 00:07:16.680 clutching a batter GPS unit and the small tourist map, 144 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:18.920 purchased from a stand man by a man who insisted 145 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:21.879 in Italian corration and English that all maps were guaranteed 146 00:07:21.959 --> 00:07:25.279 up to interpretation. The alley, innocent in morning light, looked 147 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:28.160 just as before. Two shop doors painted contrasting shades of blue, 148 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:30.519 a trash bin printed with the city's tree emblem, a 149 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.879 fresh bray of laundry sagging between window sills. The bronze 150 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:37.879 plaqawaited radially out of place. First, I used my phone again. 151 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:41.720 Two map apps, now loaded with offline overlays, each declared 152 00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:45.480 Daali stood in a different city, repeating yesterday's results. Patient 153 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:48.399 I switched on the old GPS. After several minutes of 154 00:07:48.399 --> 00:07:50.920 blinking calculation, it pinned me to the ventist at a 155 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.600 district reference to only in antiqustro Hungarian survey books. The 156 00:07:54.639 --> 00:07:58.920 co ordinates, unchanged, now appeared under German spelling. Curious, I 157 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:01.920 unfolded the tourist map, thick glossy stock with everything from 158 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:05.279 bus Rout's two points of mysterious interests signaled by exclamation marks. 159 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:07.959 The alley did appear marked faintly by hand and dotted 160 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:11.240 pencil not print near it. A border lion seemed to 161 00:08:11.240 --> 00:08:13.519 have been erased and re drawn several times. The faintest 162 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:16.360 choice of her previous demarcation running across the block, ghosted 163 00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:18.360 like a sense of deja vu, but never committed. An 164 00:08:18.360 --> 00:08:21.519 ink scribbled next to the alice's name were two smaller letters, 165 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:25.439 quickly smudged before I could scrutinize the symbol's further footsteps 166 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:27.600 announced to passer by a young woman in bright sneakers 167 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:30.959 wheeling her bicycle, breaking my long standing roll against odd 168 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:34.200 questions to strangers, I gestured to the plaque, pardon, do 169 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:36.960 you know which city this alley belongs to? She checked 170 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:40.919 her quick sidewise glance, then smiled, lifting one eyebrow. Depends 171 00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:43.799 on the day, doesn't it. She balanced her bicycle as 172 00:08:43.799 --> 00:08:46.960 if weeying possible cities in her mind. The Italian note 173 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:49.039 sports were up last week, but now she pointed down 174 00:08:49.039 --> 00:08:51.799 the lane, where a mute green sign in German suggested 175 00:08:51.799 --> 00:08:54.240 a new reality of their changing again. She seemed to 176 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:57.159 me used, not irritated, and mounting her bike, She called 177 00:08:57.159 --> 00:08:59.320 over her shoulder, if you want official, give it a 178 00:08:59.320 --> 00:09:02.480 week and try I again. Her laughter echoed un fossy 179 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:06.000 around the bend. I stood gps, still blinking, as the 180 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:09.200 plaque absorbed daylight on its clean and harnished field. My 181 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:11.679 attempts at locating myself, once a habit, now I how 182 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:13.840 befelt less like simple air and more like an answer 183 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:15.919 to a riddle I hadn't yet learned to ask correctly. 184 00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:19.960 It was not confusion, not even careful ambiguity. It was 185 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:22.440 a contradiction so firmly routed that even the numbers, the 186 00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:25.879 language of certainty, could not take hold. Some small, heated 187 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:28.039 part of my teacher's mind rebelled, surely this was just 188 00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:30.279 administrative failure at large. But the rest of me, the 189 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:33.080 child with the pocket magnifier, felt only the kindling of delight. 190 00:09:33.720 --> 00:09:35.840 My feet carried me home, but my mind stayed in 191 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:38.360 the alley. I had to know was I moving through 192 00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:40.200 a city or for a story that had borrowed the 193 00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:43.919 city shape. The momentum of curiosity once begun as hard 194 00:09:43.919 --> 00:09:47.639 to break. That afternoon, I resolved to approach the oddity directly, 195 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:52.000 easing the tools at hand, direct observation, comparison, documentation, and witness. 196 00:09:52.519 --> 00:09:55.519 Over the next days, I conducted a quiet, systematic survey 197 00:09:55.559 --> 00:09:58.440 of the alley and its immediate borders. I logged each 198 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:00.600 doorway if the one nearest the plaque showed hudoor buzzes, 199 00:10:00.639 --> 00:10:03.399 one labeled in Italian as Studio Medico, one in Croatian 200 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:05.440 as thou jackon at each of a different set of arrows. 201 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:09.200 Fliers posted beside the alley's entrance alternated a language by weeks, 202 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:12.120 sometimes even within the same cluster. An Italian poetry reading 203 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:15.000 scheduled next to Croatian job fare, a German language hiking 204 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:18.159 group stapled in between. I examined the trash bins. Some 205 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:20.960 bore the tree crest and community tryst. Others showed stat 206 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.320 grass or ops and a raijka, each municipality's brownding stamped 207 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:27.840 with equal authority, yet cohabiting the same pavement. A Troy 208 00:10:27.919 --> 00:10:29.960 street paint at my feet and saw that were faded 209 00:10:29.960 --> 00:10:32.720 blue lines used locally to denote official Italians city parking 210 00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:35.159 round beneath the dusting of chip yellow the Austrian standard. 211 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:38.000 Both had been overlaid in places by temporary white stickers, 212 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:41.399 now peeling away, revealing all and une. Beneath my next test, 213 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:44.720 conspicuous commerce. There was an antique shop in the alley, 214 00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:48.519 one whose window displayed pocket watches and postcards. I bought 215 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:50.759 an old keynscribe with the date in nineteen twenty four, 216 00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:54.480 nothing extraordinary, and collected a receipt fresh print out list 217 00:10:54.519 --> 00:10:57.000 to euros and bore an Italian address stamped to day's date. 218 00:10:57.759 --> 00:10:59.759 I examined a week old slept left lazily on the 219 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:03.440 shop counterprinted in Kunez reference in Croatia, out of sight 220 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:05.759 of the proprietor. I leaf through an older sales lock, 221 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:09.559 this one listing transactions in Austrian shillings, with grass as address, 222 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:13.840 three currencies, three cities, nun matching the alice dubborn geography. 223 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:18.200 The shopkeeper, when I press, shrugged, apologetic. I just use 224 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:21.600 what prints, what the customers expect. A day later, a 225 00:11:21.679 --> 00:11:24.960 missus Valenti's bakery inquired about paperwork for the Bakeri's rental. 226 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:28.679 She produced, with small snort, my uncle's papers, an ornate 227 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:32.440 official page stamped in triplicate Italian name, Italian seal, Italian 228 00:11:32.440 --> 00:11:35.960 tax ide. But my son, she added, rolling her eyes, 229 00:11:36.039 --> 00:11:38.639 his job from it comes from Croatia, same address. You 230 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:42.960 see new papers every time. Isn't that confusing? A press 231 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:47.080 testing her patience, she shrugged one shoulder. You get used 232 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:49.440 to it. I pay, who asks, feed? Who pays? There 233 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:52.679 are worse games in life. Here the contradictions weren't weeds 234 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:56.320 in the civic fabric. They were woven into routine. Yet 235 00:11:56.399 --> 00:11:58.919 instead of fermenting anxiety, they seemed to nurture a gentle, 236 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:03.679 even indulgent flexabil I brought my questions to the local library. There, 237 00:12:03.799 --> 00:12:06.879 old newspapers carried dust in metal drawers, headlines marked by 238 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:11.519 border disputes, broad arguments, or minor static about demarcations, yet 239 00:12:11.559 --> 00:12:14.360 none directly referenced the alley in question. Always disputes were 240 00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:17.639 bust out to other, more newsworthy places. The librarian, a 241 00:12:17.639 --> 00:12:20.120 middle aged man with a slight grin, assured me nobody 242 00:12:20.120 --> 00:12:21.799 in their right mind would print a map for only 243 00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:24.879 one city. Now new detail emerging. I began to notice 244 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:29.039 a pattern on the street. Government agents, sometimes alone, sometimes 245 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:31.720 in twos of threes, appeared regularly on the alley, carrying 246 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:35.200 metal plates, buckets of pain, or new signs. One day, 247 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:37.360 a man in a navy jumpsy replaced two signs in 248 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:41.080 rapid succession, first swapping trace Italian black Procroatian one, then 249 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:44.360 an hour later returning quietly to install a small stamped 250 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:48.000 metal bar reading stat graz the German word misspelled. Within 251 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:51.679 twenty four hours, all have vanished. When I asked locals 252 00:12:51.679 --> 00:12:53.600 about the flurry of activity, I was met with the 253 00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:58.200 same try hequonimity that them play tomorrow, Maybe new signs come. Commerce, 254 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:02.559 too yielded further oddities. Local poster workers delivered letters addressed 255 00:13:02.559 --> 00:13:05.399 in up to three different country systems, each envelope properly stamped, 256 00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:08.240 all directed to the same handful of names. When I 257 00:13:08.279 --> 00:13:11.399 asked a postwoman, she smiled in genuine amusement. You should 258 00:13:11.399 --> 00:13:14.159 see my sorting Beignett looks like United Nations, but everyone 259 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:16.799 still gets their mail. Every time I thought, I put 260 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:19.000 my finger on the cause the details would multiply a 261 00:13:19.039 --> 00:13:22.600 tangle scape. Easy theory. I wonder then less about who 262 00:13:22.679 --> 00:13:24.799 was doing this, and more about why nobody seemed to mind. 263 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:27.720 How could shops issue triple with seats, mail flow in 264 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:31.240 three directions, and government agents change signs daily, all without 265 00:13:31.279 --> 00:13:34.480 revolt or even friction. The more I traced these contradictions, 266 00:13:34.519 --> 00:13:37.679 the more resistant, they became to simple explanation. Yes, the 267 00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:40.080 stone itself was real enough beneath my shoes, and the 268 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:44.039 bread at a bakery was reliably fresh. But every official record, 269 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:46.480 every sign or sticker or printed urer note, disagreed with 270 00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:49.639 its neighbor, an official version of reality, write in law, 271 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:52.120 currency in ink was less certain than the day's weather. 272 00:13:52.679 --> 00:13:54.840 And all the while, the unwavering bronze plaque in the 273 00:13:54.919 --> 00:13:59.200 alley gleamed indifferent to my efforts, its numbers so firmly precise, 274 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:01.919 refused to belong to a single city, and deep in 275 00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:04.320 the background, the faint taking beat on as though measuring 276 00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.639 something other than mere seconds. That night, I paged through 277 00:14:07.639 --> 00:14:10.879 my own records, walking logs, neighborhood sketches, maps worn at 278 00:14:10.919 --> 00:14:12.919 the creases, and realized that my puzzle was not about 279 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:16.240 entangling the pass. The contradiction was not just a reunant 280 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:18.840 of shifting borders or the bureaucratic churn of old empires. 281 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:22.639 It was a living, breathing, on going negotiation. There in 282 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:24.600 the alley, and perhaps in the city at large, the 283 00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:27.000 present was as unresolved as the past, maintained with all 284 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.399 the purposeful absurdity of a teacher who changes the rules 285 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:32.799 for a brighter outcome. I slept fitfully, questions multiplying like 286 00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:35.960 numbers in a fibnaccio spiral. Every answers, suggesting a thousand more. 287 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:38.399 I no longer aim to solve. I aimed only to 288 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:42.279 understand enough to participate. Friday, I brought my gentle inquiry 289 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:44.879 to mister Kovak's, settling on the mismatched wooden chair in 290 00:14:44.919 --> 00:14:47.440 his bric a bract clutter shop. The air was thick 291 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:50.440 with the elderly panic of clocks in varying stages of rehabilitation. 292 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:53.480 Mister Kovacks himself, must as braced for the day, met 293 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:55.600 my curiosity with a knot, the corners of his mouth 294 00:14:55.600 --> 00:14:59.360 angling toward a knowing smile. I described the plaque, its coordinates, 295 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.559 and the mapping co he listened had tilted as if 296 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:05.360 hearing a melody. He'd nearly forgotten this end of man. 297 00:15:05.399 --> 00:15:07.759 Every year, he said, in a slow, measured way, to 298 00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:10.240 ask whose clock I repair? Always a different man. I 299 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:13.399 tell each it mixed three times, never one. He let 300 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:15.080 the statement bounce in the room like the echo in 301 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:17.919 an empty bell. Not the answer I expected, and yet 302 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:21.039 I found it oddly clarifying for whom does a tick, then, 303 00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:25.320 mister Kovacs, he winked, It depends who listens. The tick 304 00:15:25.399 --> 00:15:28.519 tells one story, the hands another. Some clocks, my friend, 305 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:31.320 are admired for running, even when not telling time. He 306 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:34.080 turned the subject to practical matters, repairing a tiny French 307 00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:36.159 carriage clock. He has showed me belonged to nobody, at 308 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:38.919 least officially. But the idea stock perhaps place here. It 309 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:41.519 was more contingent than I allowed. Not a matter of 310 00:15:41.559 --> 00:15:44.480 whose borders, but of whose stories won the day. Later 311 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:47.519 that afternoon, riffling through a bat of creative city directories 312 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:50.960 a flea market onnut an early twentieth century edition, false 313 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.559 battings of the Alice name co existed across four entries, 314 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:56.559 each labeled by a differing national government or regional authority. 315 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.639 Some years it was labeled Italian, some Croatian. In others, 316 00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:03.600 if floated between Austrian, German and a retrofitted local dialect. 317 00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:06.840 No pattern link the changes. Some entries flipped year on year. 318 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:10.600 Others reference categories as broad as administrators. I showed this 319 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:14.799 to missus Valente while buying another loaf. Ah, yes, she said, 320 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:17.000 When I was at school, our book flipped every year. 321 00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:20.919 One year, Catholic holidays, next eyuxlosport winners, after that, folk 322 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.240 songs in German. I thought all children had new countries 323 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:26.679 in their school books every semester. She laughed, slicing bread 324 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.480 with brisk efficiency, but only the dose stayed the same. 325 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.120 Her anecdote floored me. It was not just a bureaucracy 326 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:35.480 at fall, nor the memory of treaties sketched on tired 327 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:39.080 Dipomat's tables. Somehow of the city the alley really had 328 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:42.679 been and was still three places at once. A week ago, 329 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:45.360 I'd have shrugged it off as bureaucratic innosher, laughed at 330 00:16:45.399 --> 00:16:47.519 the slap dash of a lapping of stamps and signs. 331 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:52.440 Now it fell closer to something intentional, participatory, not an accident, 332 00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:55.120 not even a rivalry, a kind of quiet consensus arrived 333 00:16:55.120 --> 00:16:57.159 at not by decision, but by habit, by the practical 334 00:16:57.159 --> 00:16:59.320 need to belong to a place that history itself refused 335 00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:01.879 to fix on any man. The alley, with its black 336 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:04.839 extenciled lines, even its air, seemed no longer a borderal 337 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:08.319 and but a point of venique communal contingency. One afternoon 338 00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:10.680 in the sunlit back room of a tidy corner apartment. 339 00:17:10.759 --> 00:17:13.519 I met miss es Stein, an elderly local historian trusted 340 00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:16.279 enough by three generations to record births sintess in whatever 341 00:17:16.359 --> 00:17:19.039 ledger was in use. She accept in my questions with 342 00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:21.519 poetic patients and a thick bundle of family wrecker's birth 343 00:17:21.559 --> 00:17:25.440 certificates property deeds spread across her table. The records offer 344 00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:27.759 the same small stretch of alley were a spectrum, one 345 00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:31.079 in ornate Italian's grouped, another in Austro Hungarian bureau crites, 346 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:34.319 a third and crisp modern Croatian. She ran a careful, 347 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:38.119 tremulous finger over their seals. My mother was born upstairs, 348 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:41.000 she said, pointing to an address. Different numbers in each document, 349 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:44.880 same apartment in reality. This one Noustrian nineteen thirteen lists 350 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:47.359 our kitchen as No. Eight and turregus, but when she 351 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:50.000 was married, the same kitchen was in envied Mezzo fourteen. 352 00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:53.559 She trace dates, sometimes only three years passed between regimes. 353 00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:58.680 Sometimes the names changed twice in a decade. Each document's urgency, stamps, seals, 354 00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:02.119 signatures was absolute, but none agreed. I picked up a 355 00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:04.880 letter from a much lighter paralleomo from Canada, postmarked in 356 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:07.799 the nineteen sixties, addressed to the alley with an Italian 357 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.160 city name, local district and the familiar house number. This 358 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:14.480 misses Stein confided is for my aunt, she always wrote, 359 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:16.359 as if we were in her own country. Never mind 360 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.799 the stamps. The truth is we were, at least to her. 361 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:22.640 She poured tea and produced a battered folder. Inside were 362 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:25.519 minutes of local council meetings dating back beyond living memory. 363 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:29.079 Again and again, inning brown by time was repeated, single 364 00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:32.079 phrase in each year's language, deliberation to confirm the current 365 00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:34.559 status of the coal de Mesa alley. In none was 366 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:38.559 the actual status specified, No ruling, no declaration, Only the 367 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:41.759 same careful in vocation, year after year, regime after regime. 368 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:44.720 On my way home, mister Corvacs waved me in from 369 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:47.920 the street. Wait, he said. Rummaging in a back cupboard, 370 00:18:48.359 --> 00:18:52.599 he handed me a map ole fraid marvelously detailed for scalos, 371 00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:55.839 he insisted, the alley was indicated not by a name, 372 00:18:55.880 --> 00:18:58.480 but by a bracketed phrase in all three languages, Terror 373 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:01.759 and Cognita, dotted rather than solid lines mat the paths, 374 00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:05.160 the borders softly penciled in, not committed. As I made 375 00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:07.200 my way past the square at a shop keeper sidled 376 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:11.160 up confidential mentioning that whenever major events occurred, to treaties, wars, 377 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:14.720 even an especially rare astronomical conjunction, the alley updated overnight. 378 00:19:15.319 --> 00:19:19.039 It's always been that way. Ask anyone he grinned, and 379 00:19:19.119 --> 00:19:23.400 yet nothing else changes. Missess fallany over a coffee confirmed 380 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:27.839 during the big football championships. Sometimes the official signage flips overnight, 381 00:19:27.960 --> 00:19:30.359 new flags and windows, but the bread stays the same. 382 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:33.359 Returning to my borrowed library table, I come through in 383 00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:36.519 a large sheaf of local papers. I found small notes, 384 00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:39.960 once a minor protist, another time official document referring to 385 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.400 reconciliation of contested administrative units. But always elsewhere, at never 386 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:47.160 this place. The city was improbably maintaining a living contradiction, 387 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:49.960 not out of confusion, but out of preference, out of practicality, 388 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:53.400 out of quiet communal habit. The records did not show chaos. 389 00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:56.240 They showed routine. I found myself for the first time 390 00:19:56.319 --> 00:19:59.000 swept by nart electric excitement not felt since my first 391 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:02.640 impossible proving grind budgets skull. Perhaps in rare places, reality 392 00:20:02.680 --> 00:20:04.839 bends itself into consents is not by force, but by 393 00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:07.720 layered collective agreement, one in which the borders are recalculated, 394 00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:10.200 not on paper, but in lived narrative, silently renewed each 395 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:13.160 time the world's focus shifts. The alley and its plaque 396 00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:16.359 were not just oddities, I realize, nor accidents of time. 397 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:20.920 There were somehow little monuments to the possibility at certain contradictions, 398 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:23.720 if embraced, might at last even the most determined of bureaucrats, 399 00:20:24.359 --> 00:20:27.279 the regulars that Massess Valenty's vickery started greeting me as 400 00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:29.119 if had grown a new kind of seriousness, one that 401 00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:31.839