A COFFEE WITH Archivi - Page 2 of 3 - Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

THE BRIDGE

Nov 19, 2021 | A COFFEE WITH, ROCK

The Bridge is out: the new work by Mr. Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner. Fourteenth solo album by the professor who shaked and coughed just like the old man in that book by Nabokov.

I’ve never been able to think of Sting’s undoubtedly great career without considering The Police which for me are a piece of history. Do you?

The announcement with a tweet presenting Rushing water and If it’s love.

I prefer Rushing water

At first listening it made me think back to the sounds of the 80s and somehow made me retrace this bridge backwards, taking me back to the carefree atmospheres that I needed.

Which is a bit like the intent of the song: Sting says “the song ‘Rushing Water’ is a fitting start to an album that seeks to bridge all of the petty differences that can separate us.”

And I really hope it can contribute in this sense: differences must not separate us.

This is the sound of atmospheres
Three metric tonnes of pressure
This is the sum of all my fears
Something I just can’t measure

Perfect words.
Words combined with a harmony of lightness that magically illuminates the bridge, which exists.

Certainly we are not at the level of what I think is his greatest alchemy: that is one of my favorite songs of all time ever, even if very often I read many detractors.

At this moment, however, I would rather mention the pearl from his first solo album The dream of the blue turtles: we can change the title by putting any other description but the concept is very topical.
Don’t you think?

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
But what might save us, me and you
Is if the … love their children too

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD 80 YEARS ?! NO: SHE IS TIMELESS

Apr 12, 2021 | A COFFEE WITH, FASHION, SHOES, WOMEN

Vivienne Westwood was born on April 8, 1941 in Derbyshire, a land that I immediately associate with Austenian atmospheres, but I have always attributed a Scottish soul to her, and I certainly do not feel I can attribute her 80 years in the personal sense.

The experience, on the other hand, is immeasurable, and in this regard I would be rather inclined to remember a different anniversary: in 1971, 50 years ago, in Chelsea – 430 King’s road a boutique was born destined to become history and become part of the places to visit: Let it rock.

It was punk at its deepest root, destined to evolve by continuing to be ahead of its time and to transform itself into the World’s End with the famous clock running backwards, obviously a “pearl” for me.

Another anniversary, this time to turn 40 is Pirates (1981): the first show, which went directly into history. In this video you can see the iconic Squiggle pattern inspired by the marine rope, subsequently reused in many variations on garments and accessories of all kinds.

In fact lately I’ve often talked about bags, so this time maybe it’s the case to take shoes more into consideration, or, better still, let’s stay on Pirate Boots, what do you think?

The symbolic fabric of the 90s, on the other hand, is Harris Tweed, idea born seeing a girl in the subway wearing a Harris Tweed jacket, in fact, and a bag containing ballet shoes.

As iconic garments we can directly consider the Time Machine Collection: National Museums Scotland.

From the 2000s I would like to mention in particular the costumes created for the ballet of the New Year’s concert in Wien. I remember that I was looking without knowing anything and that I immediately felt the need to go and find who had created that look that had so impressed me.

Vivienne strikes now and forever.
This is her birthday message.
This is her featuring Without You from My Fair Lady.
These are the issues on which she invites us to reflect.

And she writes them with “footprints” … who knows me “already knows” that they have always been my signature … right Luciana?

IN GOOD COMPANY

Dec 5, 2020 | A COFFEE WITH, CHRONICLE, MOVIES, WOMEN, WORLD

It’s the title of one of Scarlett Johansson’s many movies, but I’d say it’s a great caption for this image too.

Natalie Portman is indeed a good company to share a coffee with.

With her Scarlett also shared the sisterhood on the set of the film in which they played Anna and Maria Bolena which unfortunately I have not yet seen. You?

On the other hand, I have seen many others, starting with The Horse Whisperer, although she had already worked in other films: in fact she started very young and her career was a varied crescendo of characters and genres in which she always ranged with success.

In recent days, however, I was struck by her image rigorously without superstructures, as if to underline even more the accuracy of the appeal for the release of four people detained in Egypt, among whom we know in particular the case of Patrick Zaki.

Before being arrested during a visit to his family, Patrick Zaki attended the University of Bologna which in recent months has undertaken many initiatives in his favor, also by the rector himself who mentioned him in the opening address of the University.

But it is Scarlett’s words that hit the mark: “Speaking out loud has become dangerous today in Egypt” and for me they sound particularly terrible even in the light of what happened to Giulio Regeni.

After this message three people were released, but not Patrick Zaki, even if surprisingly, today there will be the hearing that after the renewal of the pre-trial detention was scheduled for January.

We therefore join the hopes that Zaki will soon find himself in good company.

And above all, we all continue to defend a fundamental and very important value: freedom of thought and speech.

I had already mentioned Evelyn Beatrice Hall:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

And since I recently talked about George Orwell I would also mention

If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

EMMA WATSON: FROM HERMIONE TO BLING RING? NO! TO KE RING!!

Jun 27, 2020 | A COFFEE WITH, BOOKS, FASHION, MOVIES, WOMEN

“Coffee?”
“A cappuccino please.”
“You?”
“What she said.”
“Same.”

off course I start from coffee, and off course you have already guessed where this conversation takes place and between whom.
We could almost call it a “keep calm” situation even if the calm does not last long …

About Luchino Caffe I love the checkered floor, but being able to find myself at that red table instead of coffee or cappuccino I would like a polyjuice!

“Has anyone seen a toad?”
Hermione won us over immediately: her hair, her way of moving her head to underline even more her wit, her “knowing everything” fully deserved.

Surely Emma Watson has been good at interpretation, as much as in not remaining tied to the character, accompanying her personal and professional growth with a completely unique path.

An emblematic coffee is the one completely different in Bling Ring. An opposite characterization, in which a certain inclination for the world of fashion emerges, which is the reason why I’m talking about her.

First, however, I would like to underline how hers is a completely personal style, which goes through very specific choices and relevant initiatives, among which the speech to the UN as women’s ambassador in favor of the HeForShe campaign for UNwomen in defense of the gender equality.

Yet she always remains simply magical, and becomes a book fairy by leaving copies of the book “Mom & Me & Mom” in the London Underground for booksharing Books On the Underground.

Or organizing a reading group, a sort of book club with which it promotes female sharing.

And even though she entered the Guinness Book of Records at only 19 years of age to be the actress of the decade that achieved the highest takings, she maintains a precise line also in terms of fashion: passionate about looks and trends, but only strictly eco-friendly.

You can follow her here.

So fashion, but ethical fashion, far from the sacked wardrobes in Sofia Coppola’s film!

A very precise “platform”, a concrete “platform”, a unique journey whose last stop is

KERING

Emma Watson has joined the board of directors.

“You really are the brightest witch of your age!”

IS THERE SOME REASON THAT MY COFFEE ISN’T HERE? HAS SHE DIED OR SOMETHING?

May 30, 2020 | A COFFEE WITH, FASHION, MOVIES, WOMEN

How not to worship Miranda Priestly?
Meryl Streep is a great actress and her works are undoubtedly one more successful than the other, but, in The Devil Wears Prada in particular, she has been able to give a own life to her interpretation.
So, Miranda Priestly is not only the character embodied by Meryl, and it is not even a version of Anna Wintour, no: Miranda Priestly is an icon in all respects.
Unique.
With an unreachable style, she captured each of us from the exact moment the elevator doors opened.
Miranda is demanding, edgy, tough, with a subtle ironic vein that subtly manages to have a bursting effect, and her sentences have become an integral part of common language.
Perennially committed to consolidating her role in an exclusive and ruthless environment, totally careless of others, she demands the maximum from her collaborators, and does not grant any kind of indulgence.
Is she bad?
I would like to dwell on the concept of wickedness, and I also refer in some way to Philip Zimbardo’s reflection on the Lucifer Effect bringing it back to a less extreme context, and using this quote which in a certain sense schematizes:
“Anger may repast with thee for an hour, but not repose for a night the continuance of anger is hatred, the continuance of hatred turns malice.”
Francis Quarles

Unfortunately, all of us daily deal with small amounts of anger that explodes in the people we interact with, but also in ourselves.
How often do you find that anger has accumulated beyond the level, or, to use the example of the quote, is the continuance?
Bullying, hysterical outbursts, sterile arrows on the poison, craving for punishments, completely free reproaches, verbally vomited resentment, and so on, even in the bad, are manifestations of human sides anyway, what percentage of understanding would you like to attribute?
Difficult to say, especially when you are a victim …
On end of school days like these, it is easy to consider how some profiles fit well with the memories of someone among the teachers.
In your experience, can you remind some cases in which the badness you have undergone has turned into any minimum aspect of teaching?
Going back to Miranda, for example, as iconic as she is, it is not her who teaches us, at least not as much as Andrea Sacks: “her biggest disappointment”.

COFFEE AT TIFFANY’S

Mar 8, 2020 | A COFFEE WITH, FASHION, MOVIES, WOMEN

I had other things in mind for today’s coffee, but honestly now I feel a strong need for lightness.
So who more than Audrey can represent the personification of lightness without ever being superficial and without taking anything away from the seriousness of the challenges life poses?
I am not talking about only to her characters: her personal journey is also a great example of strength, balance, and tenacity in all the stages she has gone through, in all the decisions she has made, while maintaining and defending her privacy.
Her style is to subtract, she taught us the value of the essential.
In these days, everything is screamed, every declaration amplified by the big chests of the desire to arrive first. It no longer matter whether true or false, no matter what it will entail or what reactions it will provoke, it is published everywhere, and then the consensus starts.
The damages are not taken into consideration anymore.
Why cannot we do it in civil conduct?
Elegance is not only image, elegance is also a way of being, behavior, as well as bearing.
And for me, today, elegance is also civic sense, and respect.
Among the many anecdotes about Audrey Hepburn, I would particularly like to mention the one related to the wedding dress donated. In 1952, the marriage to Lord James Hanson was canceled few days before the established date. The dress for Audrey made by the Fontana sisters is ready and of course, it is gorgeous. Such a pity. Audrey then orders that it be donated “to the most beautiful, poorest, Italian girl whom the Fontana sisters will be able to find“.
Beyond the fact that it sounds like a fairy tale, the concept is: if I cannot have or cannot do something anymore, it does not mean that I should also preclude it from others.
Here it is the thought I would like to leave today.
And then:
“remember, if you need a hand you’ll find it at the end of your arm. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. “
Audrey Hepburn