Calvino and lightnessItalo Calvino has a wonderful essay, “Lightness,” in which he

Calvino and lightness

Italo Calvino has a wonderful essay, “Lightness,” in which he honors lightness as an aesthetic choice and a difficulty, rather than as something to be easily dismissed. You cannot, after all, get something airborne on a mere whim…

A suspicion that lightness is not deeply serious (but instead whimsical) pervades aesthetic discourse. But what if lightness is a philosophical choice to temper reality with strangeness, to temper the intellect with emotion, and to temper emotion with humor? Lightness is then a philosophical victory over heaviness. 

–Sarah Ruhl