DECEPTIVE BEAUTY

DECEPTIVE BEAUTY

Jan 19, 2025 | ENVIRONMENT

Deceptive and dangerous is the beauty of the intense pink-orange and red sunsets that close the short winter days.

If you often witness these visual ‘spectacles’ it may be that you live in a wretchedly polluted area like mine. 

You must think I’m obsessed if I even associate sunsets with my periodic returns on the subject. 

Actually, these sunsets conceal a massive presence of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere.

ISPRA Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e Ricerca Ambientale  explains nitrogen dioxide (NO2):
a reddish-brown gas, poorly soluble in water, toxic, with a strong, pungent odour and strong irritating power. It is a pollutant with a predominantly secondary component, as it is the product of the oxidation of nitrogen monoxide (NO).

Nitrogen dioxide is a widespread pollutant that has negative effects on human health and, together with nitrogen monoxide, contributes to photochemical smog.

Photochemical smog i.e. the formation of secondary pollutants is conditioned by the presence of light radiation in the ultraviolet region.

We grow up learning that the sky is blue, did you as a child ever have the ‘why?’ period?

Why the sky is blue is explained to us by Rayleigh’s Scattering. 

To summarise the concept in a small format, a bit like espresso 🙂 the scattering of light reflecting off small particles.

I would also point you to an interesting publication reporting on a study of sunsets in paintings, and at this point I cannot fail to mention William Turner. 

Title of the article published by EGU European Geoscinces Union:
Further evidence of the important environmental information content in the relationships between red and green depicted in the paintings of the great masters.

Assumption: We examine sunsets painted by famous artists as information for the optical depth of particles after large volcanic eruptions. Images derived from precision colour protocols applied to the paintings were compared with online images and found to provide accurate information.

We can imagine what changed in the atmosphere after volcanic eruptions, but there are no volcanoes here, so what happens?

When nitrogen dioxide particles are present in the air, it is as if a kind of geometry is created that obstructs the sun’s rays.

In these cases the red light through an interplay of different frequencies and wavelengths somehow manages to prevail.

Deceptive beauty.

That is why we see sunsets of intense, bewitching colours and allow ourselves to be enchanted by what is invisible to the eyes …

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

Dec 21, 2024 | ART, ART, MOVIES, CULTURE, CULTURE, MOVIES

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodòvar’s film that won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

I went to the cinema with Monica thinking I would be moved but actually I got angry.

You can find the review on the blog Matavitatau and incredibly this time Nick was more lenient than me.

Of course: The room next door has a lovely part.

Everything concerned to the visual sphere represents perfection, starting with the colours used in a sublime as well as communicative way

In an interview, set designer Carlota Casado  mentioned Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings among the references.

If you look at her paintings:
Oriental poppies
Ladder to the moon
Jiimson weed white flower

you can get a clear idea of the range of greens that I particularly admired.

The costumes, which we could call outfits, by Bina Daigeler are a riot of colour, style and quality.

Every single detail is meticulous, even I quote: ‘the coffee machines.’

The settings are fabulous: New York at its most magical and a house that represents the perfect blend of architecture and nature.

The set is Casa Szoke, designed by the Aranguren+Gallegos Arquitectos studio  near Madrid, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and located on the slopes of Mount Abantos in the forest of La Herrería. 

As if that were not enough, the furniture elements are well-known design pieces and the painting People in the sun by Edward Hopper becomes an integral part of the narrative as well as the visual.

And Almodòvar completes the representation of beauty by quoting James Joyce: The Dead from Dubliners

The snow falling faintly through the universe, and faintly falling, upon all the living and the dead.

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodòvar’s first English-language film and his intention, I would say successful, was to make it as American as possible.

But then there is the verbose part, let me use the term, the dialogues in my opinion are that much excessive that they break the balance of everything else.

And there are a number of unfinished elements.

I will not go into the profile of the protagonist, nor into the euthanasia issue, because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

But remaining on the mere portrayal of the illness and the physical and psychological suffering, perhaps because I have unfortunately experienced it from my side, I could not help but get nervous.

An exclusive death.

Real life, however, is quite different.

Did you enjoy it? Did you find the ending unsettling or inspiring?

PIAZZA DUCALE COVERED

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.

ADD YOUR VOICE

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?

ON-BOARD DIARY FROM THE RED ZONE LOCKDOWN DAY 1

ON-BOARD DIARY FROM THE RED ZONE LOCKDOWN DAY 1

Nov 7, 2020 | BOOKS, ROCK

The sensation that is perceived is perhaps comparable to when you are in the last cone of light before entering the tunnel.

The lighting inside is annoying because there are no lights but intermittent glare.

The main feature is in fact these regular intervals, with almost telegraphic interruptions, at the end of which the monotone litany of any type of communication or information on the TV resumes.

I don’t know about you, but I have begun to hate some words that are adopted as mantras.

And instead of rainbows now only dividing colors remain: the colors of zones.

Personally I feel the need for my refuge: music and therefore I would say that the perfect song for today is The Resistance by Muse.

Starting from the cover, which to stay on the subject of colors, represents them in a psychedelic vision.
It is no coincidence that it was judged the best of the year 2009.

To continue with the multiple meanings contained in words, texts, metaphors, such as the fact that The Resistance represents a reference to 1984 by George Orwell, which Matthew Bellamy was inspired by.

 

The passage that directly quotes Eurasia is another, but in reality The Resistance itself evokes a lot of Winston and Julia forced into hiding so as not to be discovered by the Party.

Returning to United States of Eurasia instead, for many it represents plagiarism rather than a quote from Bohemian Rapsody, what do you think?

Also according to the detractors, who do not even like the ghost track Collateral Damage with the sonata Notturno n. 9 by Chopin, the influences that are heard are many and referable to a sort of musical pot pourri.

Did you notice them on first listen?
What impressions does this Muse work leave you?
Do you find the atmosphere of 1984?

Although it is a classic, I, as usual, have read it very late, that is “ahead in the years” and therefore it may be that my way of perceiving it has been influenced.

1984, as is known, is obtained by inverting the digits of the year in which it was written: 1948.

A curious coincidence: 1984 was an important year in my life, a year of change, a year of which I remember much more than other particular memories and I keep memories.

On the other hand, I am not as inclined to identify the current context with as much affection.
The downward curve towards the points where Orwell’s dystopian vision aligns with reality is accentuated more and more evidently.

A bit like the famous ball on the inclined plane, although I would like to continue to hope for a decline, albeit sadly obvious, at least not as accelerated and irreversible because, to return to The Resistance:
“If we live our life in fear” …

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