Naked cities

During a run for essentials, I ran into a graffiti on a wall at a Philadelphia exit ramp: "Civilisation is pandemic." On any other day, I would not even think twice about such a street-smart philosophical pronouncement. Pretentious as it is, the graffiti does ring a truism about the double-edged nature of what we mean by civilisation. With civil now at a standstill—the Latin