kasche | Entries tagged with rant:miracles:good italian people

Eugenio Scalfari* is BRILLIANT. The Festival of Journalism opened in my city yesterday, with his lectio magistralis, and I love, love, love that man.

Downside: I've also learned that I'm as bothered by people running a commentary to this kind of lectures (or any kind of show, really) as I am by those who talk/ask continuously questions during movies. People who think of themselves as heaven knows how smart or witty or funny, I've found, tend to desire the rest of the world to know it as well. Too bad all I'm likely to think is that they're twats. Have a little respect for those around you, would you? Jeez.

..woah, that was kind of a rant, wasn't it? :P I don't have many touchy subjects, I'm much more likely to play the role of the peacemaker (you know, "aw, it's not that bad, really", or "if you look at it this way, it's really kind of funny") than being irritated myself, but. They tramp on my nerves, they do! ;P

Still on the uninteresting side, MWAH I've finally received my copy of Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)! *squeals* I love those guys so much! :D ...of course, I'd been listening to the version I'd downloaded from their site for hours on end already, but I still played the CD on the stereo as soon as I had it in my hands. ♥♥♥

ELECTIONS AGAIN THIS WEEKEND! Booo, I'm busy as a bee these days - because, oh ha ha ha, someone has actually made me part of the executive committee of my commune (municipality? Not sure how that translates)'s political circle, for the PD. Oh, don't ask me why. ;) You know what? It's FUN. Granted, this is a "debate-junkie" speaking, there's hardly anything I like best than staying up nights with my friends (or people in general) discussing pretty much everything to death (and the sad part is, I'm very much not joking), but. It's stimulating. I love it! ...possibly because I'm quite new to it all, it's my first time doing anything like this - which meant that for the most part I've been doing a lot of observing. And I've been made "rappresentante di lista" too - someone charged with overseeing the voting operations and/or making sure irregularities don't happen. Each candidate has (at least) one in each polling station. I won't be alone, of course (thankfully). Gah! Can't wait. :D

...I'm seeing the people of the circle almost more often than I see my own folks. :P

I've been wondering whether to talk about all the situation going around here - oh, the stuff I hear daily on the news, I'm not sure you would believe it - but was wondering if anyone would be actually interested?

OH DEAR I'M LATE AS HELL. GOTTA RUN NOW. I'll have to talk some other time about my newborn interest in Cascading Style Sheets, then... *g*

LOVE YOU ALL!

* Founder and editor in chief (up to 1996) of La Repubblica, "my" newspaper. "My" as in "the one I've been reading daily for years", of course. ;P

Current Mood: (moderately) optimistic

This is something else I'm really happy about. :D

There are so many fucked up things about my country, but that we promoted that? Yeah. Makes me feel good.

That's the first image they showed (that I saw) when they said, on the news, that Daniele Mastrogiacomo had been freed.

Now, you tell me if that isn't beautiful.

( On sillier accounts, )

P.S.: Also? I am totally, totally inept at coloring things. I can't even begin to list all the things that are wrong with that picture.

Current Mood: relieved

There is this journalist.

Sadly (for me), he's already married & with kids. Not to mention that he's not that much younger than my dad, which would make it sort of wrong.

Even without the "sort of".

But.

All right, this comes from this magazine dad's taking because of a series of jazz cds, and there is this column called Preventive Satire, and I'm sort of hoping the cd series will never stop. (Kind of like with the ship models sold in newsstands. You know, the one with two plywood laths per issue.) Actually, I'd wanted to inflict on you the article he wrote after Provenzano's capture - I laughed so much at it that I started wheezing - but mum has lent that issue to my aunt, which means that I might never see it again.

But this one was quite good, too, so no you're not safe.

( Silvio in the Oberon Galaxy )

( Silvio nella galassia di Oberon )

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: Subsonica - Le serpi

All right, I've got the newspaper (the usual) spread out in front of me. (I didn't dress up to go to the newsstand, but it was close. I have a strange conception of pride.)

At 15:00 pm the projections were incredibly positive. But from then on, until 03:00 this morning (I'm not joking), we've all been dying a little on the inside. Head to bloody head all. the. bloody. time.

After dinner I gave up and watched Lost*. When it ended too soon, I went downstairs to help mum and gran make cappelletti (a kind of pasta, in a very approximative way) for the Easter lunch. It's five bloody years that I've been waiting for this day. Needless to say that I've been snapping at anyone and anything in reach.

But now, now I can say, as the votes of the Italians abroad has been counted in as well, that not only the Chamber of Deputies has gone to the Union, but the Senate as well.

We've made it. By a handful of votes - but we fucking did.

We did.

And, STRANGELY ENOUGH, it was only yesterday in the late afternoon that word gets out of a, let's say, strange fact. Gianpiero Fiorani, investigated for trying to make a bid for one of the main Italian banks, Antonveneta, during a questioning has made some excellent names. Some of which are, and I'm quoting from - page 23 of La Repubblica's issue dated 2006/04/11, Silvio Berlusconi in primis, but also Calderoli, Tremonti (Minister of Economy, by the by), Dell'Utri, Previti and Grillo. Amongst others.

I can almost hear Berlusconi's voice say once again, like he did ten years ago, regarding other processes (he has had a lot of those, over the years - if you're wondering, the answer to your question is 'prescription'), "I'm calm and relaxed, at night I sleep like a baby."

I also remember Roberto Benigni replying "As to say that he wakes up every three hours and cries."

* Which has finally started! I've only seen the first handful of episodes. Save the first. ("Hey, there's Lost on Raidue!" "Finally! When does it start?" "Yesterday." "...Oh.") I have to say that there's one pretty boy that has quite caught my eye. When I tried to catch his name, it sounded something like 'Bum' It probably wasn't it. I'll keep on calling him that anyway.

Current Mood: disbelieving
Current Music: Nicola Toscano - My Dramatic Situation

I'm so late. Tons of things I should be doing. Damn damn damn. All right, I'll suppose I should just get back and actually WORK. *sigh*

Let me say something first, though. Actually, I should have posted this the last 2 November, but well, better late than never. I'm not exactly proud of being Italian. Italy is a beautiful place to come and visit, but it's becoming less and less a place one can live in. It's just - we're this big, awful joke, which is funny only in a very bitter kind of way. I'm not going into the details, but really, it's not exactly something you might want to know. Still, it's good to know that there are people who still get angry, who refuse to take whatever shit others want to feed them. It makes me believe that things can change. And, well, thirty years ago died one of those people. This is my way of remembering him.

I know.

I know the names of those responsible for what has been called a coup (and what was in fact a series of coups set up as a power protection system).

I know the names of those responsible for the bloodbath of Milan on December 12th 1969.

I know the names of those responsible for the atrocities of Brescia and Bologna in the early months of 1974.

I know the names at the "top", those who manipulated the old fascist coup organisers, the neo-fascist authors of the early massacres and the "unknown" authors of the more recent attacks.

I know who is behind the two different, indeed opposite, phases of tension: the initial anti-Communist phase (Milan 1969), and the second anti-Fascist phase (Brescia and Bologna 1974).

I know the names of the powers-that-be who, with the help of the CIA (and of Greek Colonels and the Mafia), first tried to launch an anti-Communist crusade (which failed miserably) and stop the 1968 momentum, and then, again with the help and inspiration of the CIA, tried to claim for themselves an anti-fascist virginity to somehow help pick up the pieces from the disaster of the referendum.

I know the names of those who, between one church Mass and another, have given orders to, and guaranteed the political protection of, old Generals (kept in reserve, ready for a coup d'état), of young neo-fascists, or rather neo-nazis (to create a real base of anti-Communist tension) and lastly of common criminals, whose names are as yet, and may always be, unknown (to create the subsequent anti-fascist tension).

I know the names of the serious and important people who are behind such comic characters as the General of the Forestry Commission who worked, albeit somewhat theatrically, at Città Ducale (while the forests went up in flames) or behind the greyish, purely organisational characters, such as General Miceli.

I know the names of the serious and important people who are behind those tragic youths who have opted for suicidal fascist atrocities, and the common criminals, Sicilian or not, who have declared themselves available for murder and assassination.

I know all the names and I know what they are guilty of (attacks on institutions and public bloodbaths).

I know. But I have no proof.

Not one evidence.

I know because I am an intellectual, a writer, who tries to follow what is happening, to read everything that is written about it, to imagine things nobody admits to knowing, or things that are left unsaid; who links even distant facts, who puts together the shattered and scrambled pieces of a whole, coherent political picture that puts logic back where arbitrariness, madness and mystery seem to reign.

All this belongs to my profession and to the instinct of my profession. I think it unlikely that my "plan of a novel" is wrong, that it doesn't correspond to reality, and that its reference to true facts and real people is inaccurate. I also think that many other intellectuals and storytellers know what I know as an intellectual and a storyteller. After all, it's not so difficult to reconstruct the truth about what has been happening in Italy since 1968.

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Il romanzo delle stragi
published on "Corriere della Sera", November 14th 1975

Translation from here;

The original (and full) text is here.

Oooh, good. I forgot what piece of utter art was the show on Vajont, by Paolini. Marco Paolini. Not that I really expect many of you to know him, but still. He has the rare quality of mixing humor and profundity, in telling the story of one of our main (natural ?) disasters. Involving the dam built in Vajont. I wish you could see the show. I've seen it, really by chance, the first time they broadcast it. Paolini uses both Italian and northern dialect. He talks about facts. He talks about the people who lived the facts. He talks of documents. Surrounding them with funny anecdotes, old women with shotguns, but never forgetting the truth that lies just under the surface. And when he will be releasing the blow, because a blow will come, be sure it will hit more deeply that it would have had you otherwise. He had made you laugh. Your guard is lowered. But the facts are still there. And the facts are actually that people, and a lot of them, died, because there were economical interests to safeguard. A *propaganda* to carry on. Really, I wish you could fully appreciate it. The show, I mean. Obviously I'm not talking to Italians, who I hope had seen it. And if you hadn't I warmly suggest you to.

This year, Paolini had been collaborating with another program, Report; placing aside the already existent structure, his own interpretation. Interesting, really. Especially the installment dedicated to Ilaria Alpi.

And the last half of November I'll go to theater with my best friend. To see a show written by Michele Serra, an Italian journalist, one of my favorites, and played by Claudio Bisio. Mostly known, Bisio, because of a comical program which had become famous last year, but whom I remember for his performance of Banjamin Malaussene's role, again at theater, in Daniel Pennac's Monsieur Malaussene.
I'm looking very forward to it.
I always appreciated Serra's wit and his irony. I'm curious of what will come of it.