September 2023 - Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

ATOMIC CITY – SPHERE

Sep 30, 2023 | MUSIC, MUSIC, ROCK, ROCK

Atomic City is the new song by U2 released on September 29.

U2 surprisingly performed a preview in Las Vegas a few days ago

Did you recognize Freemont Street?

That’s right: the location of the video I still haven’t found what I am looking for.

Listening to Atomic City, you recognize something else well too, don’t you?

I immediately thought, “Debbie Harry!”

In fact Blondie as well as Giorgio Moroder appear in the credits.

From Atomic to Atomic city then.

Although Atomic City is no longer a reference to Blondie but is what Las Vegas was called in the 1950s.

Las Vegas.

Since I saw the movie with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher whenever I hear Las Vegas mentioned I can’t resist without repeating it in various ways like they do in the movie, you know the scene?

Las Vegas in particular was U2’s choice for their residency show “U2: UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere.”

Achtung Baby needs no further introduction: simply the fact that it is the album that contains One, makes it memorable.

Sphere, or MSG Sphere is an arena created for entertainment shows at The Venetian Resort in Paradise, Nevada and is currently the most colossal and avant-garde sphere in the world: covered with LED panels that also allow images to be projected outside, as well as a virtual experience inside.

If you love math I recommend you take a look at this page: it contains an explanation of how centuries-old mathematical formulas and 22nd century engineering and technology were used to create Sphere.

Wanting to put on a Residency show as opposed to the tours we are used to in the music business, U2 thought to concretize creativity using the latest technology.

What are your thoughts on this?

According to Heraclitus, invisible harmony is a perfect and pristine sphere. The visible one, on the other hand, continually deforms under the weight of reality.

In this case the weight is of virtual reality …

KISSES OF ALASSIO

Sep 23, 2023 | JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG, JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG

This is a somewhat particular “step” on the mug-to-mug journey, or perhaps I should say it is more of a crossover with Coffee Kiss.

The kisses, however, are chocolate, and more specifically they are Kisses of Alassio.

Alassio is a resort on the Ligurian Riviera, and here there is real-time sea views thanks to a webcam.

In the 1950s Alassio became a popular destination throughout Europe, a haunt of artists and celebrities who gathered in the cafés still symbolic of the Dolce Vita.

I find this description particularly beautiful.

One such café is precisely Pasticceria Balzola, still making the sweets patented by Balzola Pasquale in 1919.

I thank Monica who gave them to us as a gift!

Have you tasted these Baci = Kisses yet?

Or have you already “seen them?”

Yes: Kisses in Alassio can also be seen, in the form of exhibited works: Artàporter issued a call for artists to submit tiles for the Muretto virtual version.

Alassio thus becomes METALASSIO and some artists have represented the Kisses this way:

Speaking of virtual kisses, have you ever heard of Kissenger?

I know, it’s a name that immediately evokes a parody …

But Kissenger really exists, though: it’s an app with a device you can attach to your phone to send each other kisses via phone …

I’ll pass, over the phone at most you can get me to sing … you know the song Kiss by Prince, also made famous by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman who sings it in the bathtub?

Or on the phone kisses can be written, quoting some of the most beautiful poetry ever written, for example there is
Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
in one another’s being mingle
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain’d its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea
what are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

But since we are talking about the sea, at this point I ask you: did you in Alassio eat the Kisses, see them, or give them?

AKTION GEHT UNTER DIE HAUT

Sep 16, 2023 | ENVIRONMENT, WORLD

Aktion geht unter die haut means action gets under the skin.

Literally, in this case.

What case? What action?

The case refers to Austrian Federal Minister Gewessler’s public relations campaign.

The action consists of a tattoo in exchange for an annual ticket valid for public transportation: a Klimaticket.

Klimaticket tattoo, then.

This campaign took place at the Electric-Love Festival in 2023. The executing company is One Mobility GmbH, founded specifically for the Klimaticket and 64.417 percent owned by the Republic of Austria.

Leonore Gewessler was at the Frequency Festival to promote the Klimaticket tattoo in person with the motto: aktion geht unter die haut “this campaign gets under your skin.”

Volunteers were able to choose one from a range of drawings and get tattooed directly on the spot.

All themes had to do with the “for the climate” ticket or the environment.

Samples included, for example, the word “Go Green” surrounded by a heart but also the words Klimaticket.

The first three people tattooed on the spot each received a free ticket valid for one year.

The promotion of public transportation is not in question, but the manner?

I find it offensive to young people in the first place, since place and conditions point to them as the main target audience.

We are really showing the young people the worst: our inadequacy, our incompetence, our lack of criterion, of values, of common sense.

Not even Orwell came up with such an idea.

By now we are not even consumers anymore, but merchandise, with an expiration date moreover.

Even our skin becomes an advertising space, to be sold off, by the way.

Am I exaggerating?

LECCESE COFFEE

Sep 9, 2023 | ITALY

Leccese Coffee is a specialty with a distinctive freshness.

We chatted about coffee in Milan, delved into the three cs of Naples, n and discovered the Nero of Trieste.

In Puglia, however, coffee is cold, because an essential ingredient is ice.

And it is no coincidence: ice constituted the business of Antonio Quarta who sold it by weight.

Who was Antonio Quarta?

My grandfather used to say that there was a need for a drink that would give relief to our sultry and scorching summers between the two seas. But because classic iced coffee often suffers from acidity if kept in the refrigerator for a long time, my grandfather Antonio had a brilliant idea: coffee on ice.

The process is simple but no one had thought of it before. Prepare coffee normally, sweeten it, and then pour it into a glass filled with ice cubes. Grandfather, who had a small ice-making factory, began to serve freshly brewed coffee this way. And, without meaning to, he had invented a real recipe for Caffè Salentino that soon spread throughout Lecce and the province.

These words are from Antonio Quarta (nephew), two-term president of the Italian Association of Coffee Roasters, and now a member of the Executive of the Italian Coffee Committee, as well as a director of the Quarta Caffè roasting company, a company that has been operating in Salento for more than 60 years.

In recent days a controversy has arisen in the Leccesi in Lecce group with the slogan STOP CALLING IT LECCESE COFFEE.

The object of contention is almond milk: apparently someone in Lecce does not like it being associated with the ingredients of Leccese Coffee.

Iced coffee involves the strict addition of coffee in the cup where there are already cubes, as also confirmed by Antonio Quarta, who claims the idea of the extraordinary alchemy between the warm aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the coolness of water crystallized to the right point.

Widely taken for granted is the addition of almond milk to iced coffee, considering it an integral part of the ingredients.

Even according to the Silver Spoon Leccese Coffee is a preparation that has made the whole of Italy fall in love with it, and includes the recipe with almond milk.

The Leccese people, however, apparently do not intend to take almond milk for granted, calling it an extra addition, a Salento custom.

In fact, the story told by Antonio Quarta goes like this: another variation saw the introduction of almond milk into the iced coffee, instead of sugar, becoming a welcome breakfast drink for consumers to pair with the Leccese pasticciotto.

I would say that this Leccese controversy is indeed a “pasty”.

What do you think about it?

Have you ever happened to drink or order Leccese Coffee?

A POSTCARD FOR PATRIZIA

Sep 5, 2023 | WOMEN, WOMEN

I share from the blog ESCAPE FROM POLIS.

Why a postcard, and who is Patrizia ? Let’s start with the important things:

Patrizia is the wife of our Andrea “Kikkakonekka,” so we can refer to her as “our” Patrizia. In email conversations with Andrea, I learned that they are going through a delicate and difficult time, for both of them, and that the period in question is one of those-which sooner or later in one way or another touches everyone-where every little positive “input” from the outside world can help to lighten the difficulties, to generate a smile, a nice thought, in short, to feel less alone in the difficulty.

Andrea thought (and I fully agree) that it would be nice if all of us Friends (even if virtual, here on FdP we are Friends) could send at their home address a “old-fashioned” postcard, from all the places where we are at the moment, with a greeting to Patrizia, handwritten on paper, like in the old days. A way of making “real” the “virtual.”

I think this is a very shareable thing: I make it my own and personally request to all of you to participate, in the full spirit that has always animated this Blog. I know that it requires a minimum of effort (it may sound strange, but I realize that nowadays it is easier to do something online than to write a postcard, stamp it and physically mail it), but I ask you within the limits of what is possible to do it, this “effort.”

For clear reasons of expediency, the mailing address to send the postcards will not be posted here (as it is their home address), but if you would like to participate you can ask Andrea or me directly by email. The addresses (which I write cryptically to avoid “bots” that steal emails from sites) are as follows:

For Andrea: kikkakonekka [at] libero [dot] it

For me: albert-1 [at] virgilio [dot] it

Key thing to know: this whole thing, for our Patrizia is a surprise, and she reads Andrea’s Blog. So, please don’t mentioned it on his blog. All communication, questions and comments should be made exclusively by email or on FugaDaPolis.

Andrea also wanted to share some of his feelings on his Blog, find his article from last Friday here.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation, I know things on FdP work well because we are cool people, so I expect massive participation. It is important, please do your best !