life Archivi - Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

AVANTI, PARLA – COME ON, TALK

Aug 18, 2021 | BOOKS

Come on, talk! About an order or a peremptory invitation?
Changing the pitch can be both.
What if the request comes from a longtime friend and the tone is simply curious?

As happened to me when reading Giulia Caminito‘s book, also in this case I found a completely unconventional way of writing, even if I have not been conquered in the same way.

When Porci con le ali – Winged pigs came out, Lidia Ravera‘s debut book, I was still reading Mickey Mouse but the echo of the sensation generated remained impressed on me, as well as the post-1968 wave that brought with it an epochal change.

This book brings back to those years, however, in a slow and alternating way, more like an undertow that laps slowly.

And slowly one realizes that the story was built specifically as a system on a very specific foundation: the base, the true fulcrum of the whole story.

If on the one hand I was curious to deepen a page of Italian history of which I have never read, but which I have lived through news stories, on the other I found myself questioning my way of thinking.

Is the constant effort on myself to eliminate judgments and prejudices really effective?

And again: would I have had the same point of view if I hadn’t found myself in front of a perfect “grandmother”?

How often have we said then that it is not enough to give birth to be mothers, but if life offered a second chance?

I firmly believe that children and young people teach us constantly, and that they are saving.

The food for thought also ranges from the controversial question of knowing how to forgive oneself, to the survival instinct.
From the intrinsic power of silence to the benefits of music.
From consistency to hypocrisy.

All this is a portion of what emerged from the conversations with Monica: this time too I owe this reading to her, just as I owe to her the enrichment on a human level that I was able to draw from it.

What do you think about it?
Do you prefer a book to reveal a story or a reflection?
Come on, talk …

CI VEDIAMO UN GIORNO DI QUESTI – SEE YOU ONE OF THESE DAYS

Jul 23, 2021 | BOOKS

See you one of these days … how often does this phrase occur in life?
Sometimes it happens punctually, other times less …

Also for this book I have to thank Monica and since the theme is Friendship, of those for which even the term sisterhood becomes an understatement, I dedicate a special THANK YOU with a built-in hug.

The initial sensation foreshadowed me a much lighter story, instead at an incessant pace we meet and collide obstacles of those who cut the legs and no one is exempt.

In fact, the sentence I wrote down comes at the end of a dialogue: “… from experience, messes by their nature like to add up.”

In its lapidary simplicity, as far as I’m concerned, it fits perfectly.

But I’d like you to tell me it’s not like that for you because I’d be really happy about it.

Just as I was happy for the positive vision that the book offers after a brutally tragic experience, as life itself knows to be.

In my case it wasn’t like that, but it’s nice and right to be able to think differently.

Personally, I also always appreciate the share of sweetened scenarios since ugliness and misfortunes still abound in everyday life.

Federica Bosco has kept a blog on her website, until 2017.

Reading it emphasized her irony, which I certainly appreciated, in particular I liked her post “Hypersensitivity is my superpower.”

And I don’t know how I ended up imagining myself like Red Guardian … that is alternative, out of time, out of sync and also out of shape.

But to give me a tone I step into the action and steal the title: See you one of these days … for a coffee?

SOLSTICES COMARI AND TAROTS

Jul 1, 2021 | BOOKS, CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, FASHION, ITALY, MEDIA, MOVIES, WORLD

itsIn recent days I have crossed various thoughts, starting from Gabriella‘s post on the Water of San Giovanni but also on the rite of fire to become comari, not in the sense that I had so far given to this word.

Therefore, water and fire.
Water and fire that according to Cicero “are not of more universal use than friendship.”
Water and fire, two of the four elements of life.

The water and the fire that the druids define Litha that is the light of the shore because the fire, or rather the sun, which has reached the zenith and has reached its maximum point, plunges into the waters, on the beach, at the meeting point between land and sea.

Of the summer solstice, which Alidada explained masterfully in her Uno spicchio di cielo, I fell in love many years ago reading Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd who, starting from the ice age, sees the birth of Stonehenge which in my imagination goes far beyond the status of “ringing rocks” for example, and is covered in mystery with that aftertaste of legend that I love.

But returning to Litha, I would like to resume a little the concept of Samhain: moment in which the veil between the two worlds is thinner, but moving the contrast between “above and below” just like a celebration of the opposite, which of course I love. It is no coincidence that Litha is also defined as a day out of time.

In this reversal, it is as if the elements of fire and water overturn their roles in a magical union.
A suggestive image representing this magic is realized in the floating candles.

Fire, water.
Bonfire and dew.
Waves and fires.

This is how Shakespeare in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream describes the reply of a fairy:
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire.
I do wander everywhere
Swifter than the moon’s sphere.
And I serve the fairy queen
To dew her orbs upon the green.

Fire, water.
Sun and moon.

And then I remembered the advice QueenFaee Studio gave me in the comments here where sun and moon draw inspiration from the Visconti Sforza tarot cards, just to point out the curious coincidences, and my connection with the land …

This short film by Garrone for Dior enchants like the magical floating of the stars under the marvelous vault of the Tuscan castle of Sammezzano which, exactly as if inverted upside down, leads them to float in the water of the fountain.

Maria Grazia Chiuri wanted to give a reinterpretation of the tarot cards by transporting them into a fairy-tale but also an artistic dimension, in which the precious embroideries and the refined textures of the fabrics give life to works of art: living paintings, which not only allow themselves to be observed, but drag on a journey in search of answers.

The first dress, among other things, struck me: leaves on lace, a sort of mixture of fashion and nature that not by chance I immediately found magical, and that made me think in particular of the tree in the photo under the title, with its dress of ivy, because Nature dresses wonderfully.

But perhaps my absolute favorite is Le Pendu.

At this point you will tell me “but what does all this have to do with it”

In reality, by crossing traditions, legends and fairytale atmospheres, I would like to interpret this summer as a series of cards that can offer a reading key that allows the re-appropriation of the magic of feeling aligned with the sun, ready to welcome the light.

And you?
What do you see or predict in your cards?
Water, fire, or what else?

PS: in the comments the Keep Calm version of Le Fou … or an upside-down creature who wants to be a comare, who is not silent like a cicada, who accumulates like an ant and who knows how to be heavy as a stone, but also loooong more “suspended” than Stonehenge

SAMANTHA BONANNO PAPER ART

Jun 16, 2021 | CULTURE, WOMEN

I have already written how enchanting I find the creations of Samantha Bonanno, but now that we met and that she explained her world a little I must absolutely reiterate: do not miss them!

The books, the paper, the words, take shape and magically transmit emotions in a new dimension, absolutely coherent but at a sensorially three-dimensional level that tangibly reveals the soul enclosed in meanings so far only thought and imagined.

Metaphors, impressions, sensations and feelings expressed in a visual, evocative, and at the same time real and engaging sense.

In particular, the Art exhibited at the Scuderia of Castello Visconteo Sforzesco in Vigevano on the occasion of the exhibition Con la natura e con le mani represent the myth of Persephone in sequence.

Geode. A stone, but also Earth from the root of the name: Geo.
A return to the origin to understand where we started and what we can discover in depth. Waves of matter as a flow of time.

Kore. Childhood, youth. The spring that Persephone herself brings to earth in this existence of hers divided halfway between her mother Demeter who opposes the abduction carried out by Hades, and the role of queen of the underworld.
Κόρη, literally: the daughter; another name, of which numerous variants are known, first of all, Persephone [Περσεϕόνη];
In the double life of Kore the very reality of nature is foreshadowed by which everything that has life is born from the bowels of the earth and – after having completed a certain cycle – returns to the earth.
CORE: In common parlance, by core we mean the “core of the body”.

Hekate. Sisterhood, transformation, dreams and magic. The cycle of life but also the center.
In ancient Greek: Ἑκάτη, Hekátē: she was the goddess of magic and crossroads and was the powerful mistress of darkness, she ruled over the demons, over the night, the moon.
She possessed in herself both the principles of generation, the masculine and the feminine. For this reason it is defined as the source of life and is attributed the vital power over all elements.
This work was made with pages of books in all languages.

And finally Ade. Created with a book not so good, but also in this case a balance: between good and evil.
Basically Persephone does not hate him, not everything is negative, just as from a less pleasant book Art can be born in such a sublime way.

Then maybe Samantha will correct me if I am wrong or leave something out, but in the meantime I advise you to deepen her works because even the sculptures are an unmissable experience for me: from falling in love.

And I would say that Samantha Bonanno in her works contains the essence of …
“To give human life a lofty and enchanting meaning.”
Hermann Hesse.

“NOW THE SOUND OF #BEIRUT IS SWEEPING GLASS, THE PIECES OF SHATTERED LIVES.”

Aug 5, 2020 | WORLD

Now the sound of #Beirut is sweeping glass, the pieces of shattered lives. It is and always is the people here who clean up the destruction of the establishment – and rebuild.

Rusted Radishes words struck me almost like the images that flow under our dismayed eyes.

Pieces of shattered life.
Terrible.

And after the bewilderment stunned one wonders WHY.
Impossible to understand it now.

The news chases each other, it all seems so absurd, incredible.
So I tried to read as directly as possible.
Looking for and hoping to find an entry.

Beirut Today writes:
“The highly-flammable chemical compound had reportedly been unloaded from a ship impounded at the port in 2013, and then unsafely stored in a warehouse there for six years, according to statements from both the prime minister and presidency.
Lebanon’s Supreme Defence Council said those responsible would face “maximum punishment.” The Lebanese Cabinet also tasked the army with placing all officials who oversaw storage and guarding at Beirut Port since 2014 under house arrest pending the end of the investigation.
The port is a major commercial route that has provided Lebanon, a country that relies heavily on imports, with a lifeline of nearly all needed goods. With its largest port and essential importing facility devastated by the blast, analysts are concerned how Lebanon can maintain the flow of much-needed food, and medical supplies.”

Instead of finding some sort of meaning, it is all the more absurd.

But above all I found Lama‘s voice
“Every official, parliamentarian, judge, minister, general manager, director, and piece of … who knew about the threat of the container that ended up blowing up and killing dozens, injuring thousands, and destroying our city is probably putting on their suit and readying themselves for another day of lies and deceit.
You’ve robbed the country blind. You’ve undermined each and every one of its facilities. You’ve drained every account, facility, fund, project, institution, and corner of this country.
Your resignations mean nothing. We demand justice and accountability.
We demand justice for every life lost, for every citizen injured, for everyone who lost their home and their business and their land due to your gross negligence and your criminal behavior.”