Claudia, Autore presso Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

PIAZZA DUCALE COVERED

Dec 2, 2023 | ITALY, WOMEN

I already told you about the Piazza Ducale in Vigevano: together we discovered the traces of Jewish presence, starting from the past to arrive at the present of the smart city version.

We saw it as a coffee lounge but also as a setting for cosplayers of Star Wars characters.

I wish you wouldn’t miss the Piazza Ducale “covered” version.

Suggestive, isn’t it?

Impressive.

At dawn

and sunset of a whole day dedicated to sharing.

These beautiful coloured blankets are all made of four knitted or crocheted squares joined together by a red thread as a symbol of relationship and union.

For months, many women worked to make these blankets with multicoloured wool and lots of imagination.

Some alone, like Betty during convalescence, some in groups, like Carola’s mother during the weekly meetings based on chatting, knitting and good things to eat.

And more blankets arrived from all over Italy, answering the call of Viva Vittoria.

Viva Vittoria is a relational work shared by women for women.

Knitting is understood as a metaphor for self-development and conveys a message of awareness: we are the creators of our own existence.

If we are able to bring about change in ourselves, change can also take place in society as a reflection.

The idea of bringing these blankets from moments of aggregation was born in Brescia in 2015 and the proceeds of the sale are used for charitable purposes.

In Vigevano, three thousand blankets were adopted in Piazza Ducale in a few hours, the sum collected will be donated to the association Kore alongside women victims of violence.

DESIRABLE FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS

Nov 25, 2023 | ENVIRONMENT, ITALY, WORLD

Italy appreciates the great collective effort made by Member States, EFSA, ECHA and the Commission to finalize a new evaluation of glyphosate, which took place a few years after the previous one and involved the examination of a very considerable amount of data.

However, regarding some issues for further investigation as highlighted by the EFSA opinion and which emerged in the discussions to adopt the renewal regulation, Italy deems it appropriate to underline that it is desirable:

• to launch, at community level, of further integrative studies for collection of data to fill data gaps in order to protect biodiversity and the various environmental matrices;

• to complete, without undue delay, of the evaluation of the dossiers relating to the approval or renewal of the approval of active substances that are potential alternatives to glyphosate;

• that the use of the active substance is not authorized in the pre-harvest phase.

This is our ‘contribution’ … i.e. Italy’s signature on the extension for a period of ONLY TEN YEARS! To the use of glyphosate.

Sure, why do not go on for a decade?

After all, Sleeping Beauty has been asleep for a hundred years, what can be ten in comparison?

In the meantime it is desirable, DESIRABLE! that Roundup is not used pre-harvest, of course, better not to have it freshly harvested in the dish, but nicely grown and integrated into the food.

Forgive my sarcasm, but I can’t stand these two sides: in recent years, governments have been ‘very concerned’ about our health, but apparently only about certain sides.

I wonder why, in this case, MORE studies are needed for at least ANOTHER ten years.

Yeah, another ten years, because, as I told you before, this story goes way back.

All this while a Californian jury found Bayer, the company that acquired Monsanto liable in a lawsuit brought by a man who claimed his cancer was due to exposure to the company’s Roundup herbicide, and ordered it to pay $332 million in damages.

The verdict includes $7 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages awarded to plaintiff Mike Dennis, who was diagnosed at the age of 51 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to a company spokesman.

But it is desirable that the use of the active substance will not be authorised in the pre-harvest phase for another ten years.

REBEL DAYS

Nov 18, 2023 | BOOKS

Giorni Ribelli (Rebel Days) is the latest book by Andrea Calugi, whom I thank most sincerely along with Manuale di Mari.

Andrea Calugi is from Tuscany and from his short biography I like to quote this sentence: he is still searching for his future, among a book to read, a page to write, a song to listen to and a glass of good wine to drink.

It is therefore easy to empathise, and as Andrea searches for his future, he offers us a vision of the future in his book.

A timeless future, a future that we cannot calculate, a future that is far away and at the same time near: all the time I had the perception of a kind of dualism.

I was reading about a future and thinking about a past, a clear representation of how everything changes but how in reality everything remains unchanged.

The days flow by and history repeats itself.

A history from which we do not learn, or do not want to learn.

A history of wars, such as the one that characterises Rebel Days, that invite reflection, that spur the search for Freedom before it is extinguished.

I loved a passage in the book in which Andrea compares the earth to a human body bleeding from the wounds of the bombs and “it hovered dust that slowly, like tears, fell back to the ground, flooding everything and everyone with its weeping.”

I wish everyone had the sensitivity to see the earth bleeding, to feel the pain of the earth, which is pain for everyone.

And I was struck by the thought of one of the characters that “the real fear was that with him would also die all those wonderful memories that should have survived him instead.”

Constantine is considered crazy for his way of thinking, what is the real fear for you?

Do you feel rebellious?

Who or what would counteract your rebel days?

ADD YOUR VOICE

Nov 11, 2023 | MUSIC, MUSIC

Add your voice is a call to action launched by Coldplay on their website.

More precisely: Add your voice to a new song:

Hello everyone. We hope you are all doing well in these wild times.

We have almost finished Moon Music. If you would also like to participate, perhaps you could add your voice to a song called One World. (We would love that).

All you have to do is record yourself singing “Ahhhh” for a few seconds at oneworld.coldplay.com.

You can copy the note on the site, or sing a G or C in any octave.

Thank you very much.

Love,

Chris, Guy, Will and Jonny

A concise and meaningful invitation.

One World, the title of the song, two words that for me evoke an extremely important message: I would like the world to be one, in the sense of united, in the sense of the same world equal for all.

We will soon find out what this “world” sung by Coldplay with the voices of so many people will be like.

I find this extended chorus in space a great bridge to unite voices even metaphorically.

But coming back down to earth, concretely this is the required note:

and you can register it by clicking after selecting the country of origin.

What do you say?

Will you add your voice?

As you know I always love to sing and indeed Coldplay’s songs are in general invitations to sing: very different from each other, joyful, at times spiritual, at times evocative enough to make the color come alive.

Chris Martin’s voice is introspective and also highly characterized: impossible not to recognize it.

The same cannot be said about him: after some time I am still very impressed by the time he decided to go to one of his concerts on the subway, among ordinary people, but also his fans on the same route, ready to listen to him, but not to spot him, so much so that no one noticed his presence.

Cold, coldness, detachment?

A “coldness” that they chose to represent to the sound of music.

Undoubtedly they are universal, but I ask you: as much as in some ways they reach everyone, do they then reach deep down?

They certainly reached in a way that I love when they decided to send letters typed to their fans to announce the release of the album Everyday Life.

I want to express my admiration for the tribute to Enjoy the silence, accomplice Anton Corbijn, in the unofficial video for Viva la vida, which is actually perhaps their song that I like the most, despite the fact that it seems that statistics show Yellow as the favorite.

And your favorite is what?

Going back to the call-to-action, will you sing the note?

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

Nov 4, 2023 | MOVIES, WOMEN, MOVIES, WOMEN

There is still tomorrow which sees the directorial debut of Paola Cortellesi is the film that won the Audience Award, Special Jury Prize and Mention as Best First Work at the Rome Film Festival.

Paola Cortellesi doesn’t need to be introduced, I always remember one of her gags in which she ironically listed all the things she has done, which are really so many and very different from each other, but which have the same feature in common: they are all done well.

I thank Elisa and her proposal: we went to the movies together fearing that we would have to use tissues to wipe tears and instead we mostly surprised ourselves.

The Friends.
In the movie: Delia and Marisa.

Emotion, however, was not lacking.

I, for one, was moved by the portrayal of a mother’s love for her daughter, who is played by Romana Maggiora Vergano in the film.

A love above all things, a love for which nothing is impossible, a pure and unwavering love.

Fragility and strength in a maelstrom of endurance and determination in which the ability to carry the crushing weight of a long interminable series of verbal and physical injustices and bullying, is catalyzed in the resolute will to seek a better destiny for Marcella.

Mother and daughter.

A crushed mother and a model daughter who does not understand Delia’s submission.

Succumbing and resisting at the same time, in a dance that is broken melody, is rock, is hip hop rap, is retro.

Marcella does not understand, but she will.

Marcella will look at her mother Delia and see the affirmation of a seemingly simple but extremely important gesture as a right, as a beginning.

Every change has a beginning.

There is still tomorrow represents “the music that changes” in a literal sense: I cannot fail to mention the repertoire songs from the soundtrack:
Aprite le finestre Fiorella Bini
Nessuno Naked Music
Perdoniamoci Achille Togliani
A bocca chiusa Daniele Silvestri
M’innamoro davvero Fabio Concato
La notte dei miracoli Lucio Dalla
Calvin The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
B.O.B. – Bombs Over Baghdad Outkast
The little things Big Gigantic featuring Angela McCluskey
Swinging on the right side Lorenzo Maffia and Alessandro La Corte
Tu sei il mio grande amor Lorenzo Maffia, Alessandro La Corte and Enrico Rispoli.

Surprising, isn’t it?

Surprising as what you don’t expect from There is still tomorrow: the ending.

Indeed, in my heart I hoped that Delia’s project would not be the obvious one, but at the same time I would not have guessed an epilogue like the one with which Paola Cortellesi invites everyone to a beautiful reflection.

Light yet explosive, simple yet disruptive, just like Delia, just like Paola.

Yes because Delia is Paola, she is Marcella, and she is our grandmother.

Delia is so many lives of giving up, Delia is so many years of suffering.

Like nothing at all.