produce, consumpt, and die

happy 2009 from claudia's harbour...

lost along the road to peace

a sustainable island

however, in the middle of the whole xmas-consumption hysteria, there is an island where hope still holds...
EQUAZIONE, the fair trade store here in salerno. i always try to pop in whenever i'm in town, just to check what's going on. most products are the same, or very very similar to those we sell in the weltladen in heidelberg - they're evidently distributed by the same associations. some others are different, instead. for example, they now have fair trade jeans and sneakers, which we don't have. but also, this time i found a few products that are not from fair trade, but anyway pursue a more sustainable approach, which here around is pretty hard to get: the brita water filters and, more important, draft detergents for the house, dishes, washing machine, whatever... remember i already blogged about draft detergents a few times?? now i'm so happy you can find them back home :)
just they don't advertise it on their website, and they should! so i hope my voice counts as advertisement:

I DETERSIVI ALLA SPINA A SALERNO SI TROVANO NELLA BOTTEGA EQUO-SOLIDALE EQUAZIONE IN VIA IANNELLI, GIUSTO DIETRO PIAZZA PORTANOVA!!!!!!

maybe i'll even try to drop the idea in the heidelberg one...

xmas with the yours

back in italy, embedded in xmas stress up to unreasonable levels... me feeling mostly like the grinch, wanting to take the xmas spirit away from everybody, yet have to walk around wishing whatever to total strangers, and everything i see looks like this... xmas under the sea:

xmas eve, the salerno way:and after-xmas waste management...

seriously?! guess it's understandable now why i'm feeling grumpier than usual and even ended up dreaming about good old boring heidelberg (which hardly happens to me when i'm there!) and even in german! however the situation was so scary & unrealistic it could never happen... well, whatever...

at least there are the girls...
well, we're missing the gattacc, but still, the good old girls...
so here's my best wishes of grumpy holidays and a crabby new year to all the readers of this blog :)

fair-disco-labyrinth

last weekend i organised an anti-xmas-stress party (check the poster out: i made it! and am so proud of it!) with some people from the weltladen, and the dj - who works for this group called Party & Activism here in heidelberg - told me about a club in the Netherlands where they are trying to use sustainable technologies, like that they produce electricity from the energy of the people dancing... how cool is that?? i was super excited, as i am always whenever i hear about energy that is conserved and reused in a clever way, and not only dissipated! so i started looking for info about the whole business, and i found out a lot of stuff...

the club is called Watt, it opened 3 months ago in Rotterdam and it's the first sustainable dance club ever. first, there is a special dance floor which makes use of the piezoelectric effect: some elements, crystals like quartz, if deformed or compressed are able to develop a potential difference, which can be plugged into a circuit and directly transformed into electric energy! which means that the more the people dance in the club, ie. the better the party is, the more energy is produced, and you can directly see it in the light show of the club itself! it clearly has a tiny energetic efficiency, but still it raises awareness about energetic issues, plus the club is sustainable in so many other aspects, from the refillable cups to the spectacular toilet where the flush water comes directly from the rain collected on the roof... for more info check out the website of the company (Sustainable Dance Club) or - if you trust me! - this article i recently wrote (in italian...)

and now i want to go there and have a look, dance it out, produce some positive energy - and maybe take it along with me, i feel i need some...


Image credits: Mike Nolte & Giulia Melloni

a young... well, me

sometimes it happens that i see a baby that looks exactly like i did when i was born. basically a small head full of hair. makes me smile. a lot of things make so much more sense when you look into the eyes of a baby. and when one of them looks like you, and it's so brand new and everything, it's like breathing fresh air. a fresh start. everything is possible, or at least it seems.
last week something similar happened. i saw myself, but not 25 years younger, this time only 2 or 3. there is this girl, who came to visit and work with me (oh gosh, i feel so important when i hear that! but it's not true!) and she reminded me of myself when i started. young and enthusiast. where did my enthusiasm go? when did i become so scary and damaged? how did that happen? don't know, but actually it does not matter. i don't care. i'm done now. well, not really, but feels like it. and then, we'll see...

jigsaw falling into pieces

i feel absolutely awkward tonight. like i'm high or something. everything in my head is running at 1000 beats per minute although all my movements are slow and relaxed. i was packing - which i hate btw - and the train of thoughts and images and sounds in my mind couldn't stop. it's going so fast... maybe it's bec i'm sleep deprived. or anxious. too many things changing here around. don't know. maybe also bec i've been voiceless for the past few days, i felt the urge to blog, which is cool. and i realised i haven't been blogging in a veeery long while. it's weird. when i started, i was writing on my notebook less and less often, basically only when i was travelling (and couldn't blog). which is weird anyway, bec the blog has a different scope thus i write absolutely different things here than i would in my notes. but still. and now, i started writing for real - well, for real, what a big word, let's say for fun... whatever... and i stopped blogging... and another month is passing by, the year is almost over, i couldn't leave without a last post. i'm taking a train tomorrow, and then a plane, and then back to italy. i haven't seen the sea for almost 4 months, and the sun for nearly as much. and hopefully i will, but now i don't even want to leave, and i forgot why.

certain days

Mehrdad Zaeri
Käthe, 2005

wind of change

the river flowing in the opposite direction, and too much effort on the bike (or none, it depends). here's a couple of images that a windy day has not blown away.
and me wondering. am i really missing a chance? if i think about it in this way... well, but it's not what i want. if it's not what i want, why should i care at all? change is good. time for change.

fake plastic flowers

it's really been a lot i've had these cut flowers in a vase. weeks. i got them in mid september, and now, i mean now they're starting to fade! so i was wondering, are they really organic stuff, or just some chemical fake flowerish... whatever??
i mean, i don't often buy flowers myself, but this reminds me to point out there are flowers from fair trade, yeah! check it out ---> fairflowers

A green plastic watering can
For a fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself
It wears her out, it wears her out...

filthy to the core

last year i heard (and blogged) about "biutiful cauntri", the doc film about the garbage situation in campania. being here, i still didn't manage to see it. but it's already time for a new italian documentary about waste management, in particular this one's about burning plants, dust and nanoparticles. it's called "sporchi da morire" (transl. as filthy to the core) and i just found out the trailer, which looks a bit confused, but still, i'm posting it. it's got english subtitles and plenty of controversial discussion topics. yep, as if this blog was a discussion platform... well, whatever, here it is:

a tale of two cities - or more?

there's this person, that leads some life and feels kind of stuck into it. sometimes she finds it hard to keep going on along the path she somehow happened to fall on, and thinks the best way would be to change it. but she does not have time, or guts, or both. so she does not change it. she keeps going along that path, but slowly, hobbling around. grumpy. and cranky.
and there is this other person, that she calls out in these moments, who is so cool. she calls her out when she can't stand feeling so cranky, to deal with all the things she wants to do, but can't. so this other person takes care of a lot of cool things that she (the first one) would like to do. but she does it underground. nobody really notices that, because she's not allowed to live the real life. because there's no time, or guts, or both. she is so cool, but she's not real, after all.
for a certain while, these two people get along pretty well with each other. it even helps at the beginning. the cranky one sees there are things worth going on, even along her path, and becomes less cranky. and the cool one, well, she does them, so she keeps being cool. seems it's working.
but then, the cranky one becomes cranky again, because she can't enjoy the cool things the other one does. she becomes jealous and subtly tries to sabotage the other one. who, in return, starts getting cranky herself, because after all, what she does is not real.
so they get back to each other, back to a single cranky one, back to the beginning. nothing lost, except time. and the unbearable feeling of being crabby, and knowing you're not going anywhere.
this happens often. it's like a pattern, with some kind of period, even though irregular. up, and down. up, and down. until sometimes, the cool one decides she really wants some space, and tries to get it. and if she's really convinced, and really wants it, she may be even able to convince the cranky one, and give her the necessary guts to turn something and get in the new character. and it could be a new beginning. get back to each other, without the usual crabbiness.
it could work.
just, most of the time, a third person comes out. there's not much they can do to avoid her appearance. she's the cynical one, and she starts laughing out loud, and does never stop. she laughs because she does not believe the cranky one has guts, she does not believe she can't be doing those cool things. she does not even believe the cool one exists. and she really believes in all that crap. so usually she manages to convince the other two, and it's back to crabbiness again. and again, and again.

guess that's why i always feel the urge to change, to move. to start something new, to wear a new character's clothes. and since i have no guts, i can't tell the world, look, i'm someone else now. so i need to change settings, to change the background, to prepare the scene for the new character. and this comes together with dropping things. and it's always been like that, and it's ok. just now i start thinking that if it's such a pattern, maybe it means something. but maybe not. got no clue.

space-allocation problem (am not the only one)

The room does have chairs in it - Mouse can see at least two, plus a short sofa - but it will take some reorganizing, before anyone does any sitting. The room is fantastically cluttered, with the sofa, the chairs, the shelves that line the walls, and much of the available floor space piled with stuff: boxes, books, toys, clothes, diverse bric-a-brac, and junk. "Sorry," Andrew says, seeing the look on her face. "I have kind of a space-allocation problem."

from Matt Ruff's Set this house in order

final score (can't believe it)

THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN

(me curious to see what's really going to happen after dawn)

big tuesday... let's see

piu' divani per tutti

here's the first photo of my new series
street couches:

it's not a secret i'm a huge fan of couches, and i'd really love to have some more whenever you might need them, like in the street, to make is cosier and more comfy to hang out...

so consider this the first step of a campaign in favour of street couches :)

in defense of state schools

"Let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that there is a party holding the power, a dominant party, which does formally want to respect the Constitution. It does not want to violate it, as a matter of fact. This party does not want to march over Rome and transform the parliament in dorms for the troops; what this party wants to do, is to create the seeds of a new dictatorship, without looking like it is doing so.

So, what could they possibly do to take possession of the schools and transform state schools into schools of the party? The party realises that state schools have the disadvantage of being impartial. There is some resistance; in such schools, there is always resistance, even during the fascism there was some.

Then, the dominant party decides to follow another way (it is a purely theoretical hypothesis, let us clarify this). It starts neglecting state schools, giving them a bad name, turning them poor. It leaves them anaemic, and starts giving favours to private schools. Not to all private schools. To the party's own schools, to that party's schools. Care starts drifting towards these schools. Care means money and privileges. They even start suggesting that students should go to these schools, because after all they are better than the state ones, they say.

And maybe there could be also prizes, as I shall explain, or it could be proposed to give prizes to those citizens who will agree to send their children to private schools, instead than to state schools. To "those" private schools. Exams are easier, you study less and you succeed more. So private school becomes a privileged school. The dominant party, not being able to publicly transform state schools into schools of the party, destroys state schools to make its own private school prevail. Watch out, my friends, this is the point we have to discuss in this convention. Watch out, this is the recipe. We ought to look after the cooks of this vile kitchen.

There are three methods to perform such an operation, as I told you:
1) destroy state schools, ruin them, make their finances poor, ignore their needs;
2) leave down the guard on private schools, avoid to control their seriousness, let teachers who do not have the minimum requirements to teach teach there, let exams become jokes;
3) give private schools public money.
This is the key point. Give private schools public money. This last method is the most dangerous one. It is the most dangerous phase in the whole operation.

The money, which belongs to all citizens, to all taxpayers, to all people who believe in different religions and are affiliated to different parties, goes to feed the schools belonging to one single religion, one single sect, one single party.
(...)

If ever allowed, this game of family prizes could be a rewarded incitement to desert state schools, therefore an indirect way to favour certain schools, an award for those who send their children to such private schools, which do not form citizens nor believers of a certain religion (it could still be worth respect) but build electors of a certain party."


from Pietro Calamandrei's speech
In defense of state schools
Rome, 1950

although it sounds like it could have well be written today.

sign for Roberto Saviano

there is a collection of signatures that came out a few days ago to support Roberto Saviano, the writer of the book Gomorrah, the book about the criminal system in my region and its huge economic power, which appeared a couple of years ago and i really suggest to read to anybody who still hasn't.
not only he's been living under death threaten for the last 2 years, but also people back in campania despise him for having brought shame upon their country. right, like if it was his fault. so a collection of supporting signatures is the least one can do to show that this is not the only reaction people have had about that book.

please have a look - the english translation follows the italian text - and if you feel like, please sign:

Appello per Saviano

I was born in the land of Camorra, in the spot of Europe with the highest number of murdered people, in the country where barbarity is tied to business, where nothing is worth anything if it does not produce power. Where everything tastes like a final battle. It seemed impossible to have a peaceful moment, not to live the whole time inside a war where every act can become a surrender, where every need becomes a weakness, where you have to conquer everything ripping the flash from the bone. In the land of Camorra, fighting the clans is not class struggle, it is not asserting the law, nor claiming back the right to be citizens. It is not becoming aware of one's own honour, nor defending one's own pride. It is something more fundamental, it is wildly carnal. In the land of Camorra, knowing the asserting mechanisms of the clans, their extraction kinetics and their investments means to understand how one's own time works in every respect, and not only within the geographic limits of one's own land.

I had my feet soaking in the swamp. I had water up to my thighs. I could feel my heels drown. In front of me, a huge fridge was floating. I threw myself onto it, I grabbed it strongly with my arms, letting it transport me. I remembered the last scene from "Papillon", the movie with Steve McQueen based on the novel by Henri Charriere. Like Papillon, I also looked like I was floating on a sack full of coconuts, trying to take advantage of the tide in order to escape from Cayenne. It was a ridiculous thought, but in some moments you cannot do anything but letting your own delirious feelings go along, as if they were not something you chose, but something you simply endure. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout out loud, I wanted to rip my lungs apart, like Papillon, with all the strength in my guts, bursting my trachea, with all the voice that my throat could still pump: "You damned bastards, I'm still alive!"

never leave unsupervised

otherwise i'll end up doing some stupid thing like crashing my head or burning my hair - accidentally of course! - or end up sick in bed, trying to treat sore throat with thai food. to name a few. sometimes i have the feeling i should really hire a tutor. or simply grow up, maybe.

i look around and my room reminds me of how it looked one year ago, when i had just moved here - and incidentally also started this blog... but i'm too weak right now to start sorting things out. maybe it is because being surrounded by this huge mess it's easier to delay stuff. stuff i have to do, stuff i'd like to do, my ambitious plans of whatsoever... (that was actually my ambitious attempt to shrink myself. pitiful.)

if left unsupervised, i start feeling moody. start wishing i'd be somewhere else, doing something else, but then i keep on feeling cranky doing something that makes me feel cranky in a place that makes me cranky. don't try to come out of that, because i'm scared. scared of what, this i don't know. or maybe i am just not ready to admit it to myself, that's why it feels like i don't know the reason. (here's another terrible attempt. need a better shrink than myself.)

last week i discovered a place i had no clue about. karlstorbahnhof. it's a cultural centre here in heidelberg. well actually i had been several times there, in the cinema, in the club, even in the theatre. but i had never seen what's behind that. the gray matter. the offices. then i had to go there to meet a guy from the fair trade store. and i found out this brand new world, these offices where people seem they're having fun, planning events and believing in a better world...

and being there, i realised several things. that you will always think a place makes you cranky even if it's not the place, but it's just your fault and you haven't being searching enough. that when you realise something makes you cranky and you think you've searched enough, even if it's not true, then you should try and change, because persevering in the quest won't probably make things any better. at least a change could do it. well, it's not like an epiphany. it's actually pretty trivial stuff. that i know and knew all over. just materialised, all of a sudden, in a place i though i knew, but not enough. whatever.

it's delirious, i know. after all, i'm still sick. better get some sleep now.

chocolate emissions

went to see tricky's concert a few days ago. in mannheim, which is the city round the corner, where the streets have no name. the concert was ok, nothing spectacular. way too short, definitely. but that's not what i want to talk about. the surreal thing happened actually right after the concert. as we were looking for our cars there around, we smelled something like... chocolate... or cocoa. weird enough, so we all reluctantly told to each other, not being sure of the feeling. i even thought i had hallucinations, but it really felt as if a chocolate factory had just blown out.
thanks to google, i found out that, actually, close to where we were, there is a chocolate factory, called Schokinag... probably it did not blow out, but was just releasing tons of its (maybe not so poisonous) gases in the atmosphere. funny to state it this way, in a moment like this, when european countries are trying to make plans on how to reduce CO2 emissions beyond the kyoto protocol, and italy is the only one saying no, that in times like these, with the finance crisis and everything, we should just screw the environment, basically. cool. great.

so i was thinking, it would be sweet if industries could just release cocoa instead than CO2. but i guess we're not leaving in the best world possible. not even close.

my fair (?) day

spent almost my whole day in the weltladen today. the fair trade shop here in heidelberg. there were delicate things to take care of, which came out unexpected, and also found out stuff about people there i had no clue about. so the hot tea spill situation was just the lightest emergency. had to stay there way too long, we had to close for a while, a mess. me blaming german people for ordering cappuccino all day long (honestly, how can you at 6 pm??) and especially when the cappuccino machine is broken! and my room is as messy as could be, was supposed to tide it up today but no way... we had still customers long after feierabend (closing time) guess we're the only place all around germany where we don't respect it by the book - love the idea, but still... at least one of them was the most adorable boy in town, whose name i still don't manage to understand, but still he doesn't really look at me so no, not fair enough! guess i just need to crush on the couch for a little while...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

while writing the previous post, i had a feeling...
and i checked... yep, it's true:
my blog is 1 year old today!!



congratulations for having lasted so long!
(after all, self-doubt was not right this time!)

not that scary, after all

browsing in search of possible information about science writing (yes, it's one of the ideas that are crossing my mind these days) i bumped into a text that really scared me. at least, at first. i mean, i already ask myself enough, why on earth should anyone be interested in reading what i write?? - and yet i keep writing this blog! but that's mainly due to my bad habit of not listening to myself...

being already so encased in self-doubt, you might want to read something more reassuring than ...
"Things have gotten so bad that hordes of researchers are now thinking of pursuing writing as a viable “alternative” career. Let’s take a step back and think about how ridiculous this is."...

which it is written by a science writer, so it has to be kind of true - at least, a bit. ridicolous, isn't it?! feeling of doomsday again, all over my head. damn. and as i go on reading, it becomes even worse...
"Possession of a Ph.D. and a word processor does not make one a science journalist, any more than a fedora and a camera make one a photojournalist. This is why many would-be science writers enter the field only to find themselves playing a game they do not enjoy, whose rules they do not understand."

makes total sense to me. it's actually what i'm already scared of the most. to begin playing a game i have no clue about. just that until now i thought it was only one of my paranoiae, which are very many and, often, a teeny bit excessive (that's also why i don't usually trust or listen to myself). now, reading it written by somebody kind of in charge, seems more trustable, and boosts the self-doubt by a million or so. damn.

but then i go on...
"It is a world where progress is marked in word counts and column inches, days filled with telephone interviews, transcription, and note-taking. The sound bite is king, and the quotes must be accurate."
and i think, well, but it's not that bad.
"Deadlines are sacrosanct."
well, what's wrong with that??
"The essence of the job is the craft of turning words into sentences, building up paragraphs and stacking them into stories, then watching them appear in print for the world to see."
it actually sounds perfectly fine... but again, it's probably just my romantic view of this job, being naive and having absolutely no clue about it.

i'm totally disenchanted by now... i go on reading by inertia, just to check how else this guy is going to crash my soul...
"About ninety-nine percent of researchers will find that job description depressing, perhaps even terrifying."
seriously?! how is that possible? even compared to... research?? seriously?!
"If you are part of that ninety-nine percent, you are truly seeking an “alternative” career. For you, I have two words of advice: law school."
law school?? no thanks. i guess i'm not in that 99% anyway.
"Writing is not an alternative to anything. It is a compulsion, and if it is not your compulsion, you will fail at it."
fair enough. sounds familiar, too... mmm, after all i kinda like what he's saying. let's see where he's heading to...

"If you are part of the remaining one percent, I already know a few things about you. Hidden somewhere in your home is a journal, where you collect ideas for stories you plan to write. You probably worked on the school newspaper and took creative writing classes, and you have a great idea for a novel. You think best with a pen in your hand. As a researcher, you have a hard time concentrating on your sub-field, preferring to browse widely in the scientific journals. You often see poetry, humor, and irony lurking in research results. In your spare time, you read an eclectic assortment of fiction and nonfiction, and history fascinates you. Writing is not something you do - it is who you are."

crap, that' s me! they're watching me - even more than the phdcomics guys do! it's true, i have a journal with ideas for stories to write, and it's true, i do think best with a freaking pen in my hand! after all, if i'm awake now and what i'm doing is writing, i guess there is an answer...

"If that description hits close to home, you are either going to become a professional writer or spend the rest of your life wishing that you were."

and it's not that scary, after all... spending the rest of your life wishing that you were, this is way more scary.

set this house in order

and this time it's nothing but a metaphor. the mess is in my head. in my life. in what i do and create around me. i'm sick of being grumpy old claudia, whining about not being able to make plans and yet making none. guess i don't really want a plan, right now, even though i feel lost without one: the one thing i'd like is to feel fine without a plan. and i can't.
i make lists. to do lists, reminders, whatever. i recently learned that multiple personalities do that, to keep track of stuff among different selfs. that's not my point. i'm not multiple, at least i hope i'm not. it's just a tool i use to try and overcome my laziness, which propagates to everything i set hands on. can't stand it. can't go on like that. but still, the lists don't work.
and i know it's stupid making resolutions (fitter, happier... whatever...) because even if i'm convinced about something, when i tell myself to do it, it always feels like fake. like i'm playing a character. i look at myself from outside (yeah, i'm a bit nuts) and the only thing i want to do is laugh. unless i believe it in my guts, i cannot convince myself of a single thing.
so, no new month resolutions, nor end of the year resolutions. no resolutions at all. except, to set this house in order. whatever it takes. even at the expense of having to multiply myself, and become less and less together myself...

spectralight

amazing sunset, today. again. felt the urge to go and bike through that light. to leave for a minute all the nonsense i was attempting to solve (without success, obviously). suddenly things make much more sense when they're embedded in so much light. it's a pretty cold palette, this sunset-after-the-rain lovely light we are often blessed with here in heidelberg, but still, makes things feel a little warmer. not that lately things make any less sense than they usually do, but guess i kind of feel more that time is passing by and i can't be an ostrich with the head in the sand forever. i need to make some plan. i usually hate plans, especially when they're tight and you don't feel comfy in them. but having no plan is unbearable - i found out. guess i'd like to love the idea, no plan, free, whatever... but i just can't stand it. unless, maybe, in the spectral light of heidelberg rainy sunsets. i might be even going to miss them. these short lapses of awareness. after all, life is not a continuous series of anything, just a collection of such momentary lapses. i might even admit that. one day. not now though. too early.

dying plant II or: cochineals

apparently i found out my plant and the neighbouring ones have been infected by some ugly form of insects called cochineals... which you can try to kill with a natural remedy, i.e. a very concentrated solution of marseille soap and water. i thought it might turn useful for people, so i wrote it down, even though it's full of posts and stuff all over the internet telling you how to deal with these white little devils.
so, i tried it on, let's see what happens now. too bad i had a raptus a couple of days ago, before i found out this remedy, and cut away a lot of branches. hope they survive this huge amount of torture...

dying plant

here is my dying plant. don't really know what to do with it. anybody has a clue??
thus far i just quarantined it, but i fear the white filamentary stuff has already spread to the other babies... :(









maybe i go look for some bio-blog...

doomsday machine

no i don't want to talk about any world-destruction scenarios like the ones currently discussed on the media. yep, there's a huge particle physics experiment getting started these days, which will explore energies so high we don't really know how physics behaves over there. and journalists and people everywhere are sooo scared that we're somehow going to blow up. though it'd be kind of cool, we're not. don't worry.
however, i didn't refer to that kind of doomsday. like, end of the world doomsday. i was just referring to the one happening in my head. feeling terribly tired, kind of weak too. head hurts. the weather sucks, true, might be that. plus my plants are dying, at least some of them. there's a white, filamentary matter tearing them apart. and that's not in my head, that's real... and me really really tired. big headache. feels like i might explode. not sleepy though. damn.

the age of disillusion

evidently it's a feeling widely extended beyond myself:


yet, somehow i'm not less confused just because others feel that way too. on the contrary, this common disillusion scares me even more.
when you're young and you're fascinated by science it's because you think it's this pure, neat thing:
principles --> methods --> results.
no compromises. nothing.
then you start practicing it, and you find out it's not neat at all. moreover, you realise the biggest compromise of all is just the one you accepted when you embraced science, thus withdrawing from the rest of society. society is not neat, it's not pure. and that's exactly the reason of its appeal. humans are not perfect, and that's why they're so freaking interesting.
so you find out that science breaks down and loses its charm right where everything else gains it. and when you realise it, you start thinking. and wondering...
neat is boring. true.
but at least it lets you sleep at night.

I thought of that old joke, y'know...

the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken."
And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?"
The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs."
Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.

Woody Allen, from Annie Hall

the silence of the universe

i believe this is the first time i ever blogged about science, astronomy and the universe. whatever... i mean, it's what i do every day, and probably that's why i write about everything but that. i don't dislike it, i don't hate it. guess i just need fresh air, from time to time. but now that strange ideas float in my mind and new projects come out, i need to set my thoughts in order...

in 1977 a new probe was launched by NASA: its name was Voyager, its main goal to explore jupiter and saturn. but eventually the mission proceeded along its way, beyond these two giant planets, towards the borders of our solar system... it is still transmitting a weak signal, the scientific instruments will work for another decade and keep us in touch, so to speak.
a probe sent by mankind and travelling across the immensity of outer space: how cool is that?? it could even thrill little girls and gently push them along a perilous way. but i guess some things are better left unsaid...

the mission had an additional source of charm: the naive attempt to attach some sort of signature, more precisely a record, containing images, sounds and music. a sign of our history, of our planet, to be found by a possible extra-terrestrial civilisation. bach, mozart, along with chuck berry and african tribal music. waves, birds singing and greetings in dozens of human languages.
ok, it's all very romantic, the whole message in a bottle thing, whatever. trust me, the chances of "someone" finding our message are as low as the whole idea is charming, or maybe even more. but still, even being a pessimist and a cynic, even now as an astronomer, not even remotely considering the "contact" option, still i find the idea kind of sweet. the idea of a piece of us, a piece of mankind, travelling out there in the middle of nothing (literally!). no need to be discovered by any form of intelligent et's for me to find it sweet.

a few years ago, i was talking about that with a friend of mine. i guess (if she only read my blog!) she would understand this post is dedicated to her just by a quick look at the title :)
we were talking about the whole Voyager record thing and the music on board. she might have asked something about how the music could be actually played out there in space, and then i said, instinctively (like it was obvious... indeed!) that in outer space you couldn't possibly hear a sound. freezing moment. she was impressed. she never heard of anything like that. that the universe is... silent... she probably didn't care much about my subsequent explanation on sound waves propagation and the fact that the interstellar space is extremely underdense. whatever. science talk is boring, just stuff for geeks. yet she was amazed by the silence of the universe.

this episode, and the silence of the universe, always make me think about the distance between science and the rest of society. science is difficult, it's not for everybody: sadly, that's the way it is taught, and the way lots of people think of it. most of the time we talk about different things, true. but sometimes it really seems like we're speaking a different language. i've always thought i would have ended up as a scientist, and even when doubts arise, it's difficult for me to think and judge with a different approach.
So einfach wie möglich. Aber nicht einfacher. Einstein wrote that some time ago. As simple as possible, but not simpler than that. can't possibly disagree. from my point of view, this is the way, the only one i consider viable. it's not possible to simplify without limit. and not only in science.
yet, if not simpler, there must be a way to make scientific topics more interesting, funnier, but without the creepy feeling you're telling a fairy tale. the link is already weak, let's try and not lose it. guess being a scientist in an ivory tower would be even harder than in the middle of society.













the globular cluster M3: a bunch of some hundred thousand stars, all bound to each other...
image credits: my astronze friends, when it was fun :)

the more perfect shot

my never gonna get it photo

there are some shots that stay in my mind, forever, even though i didn't really shoot. mostly it's because i'm shy. i like to shoot at people - ops, sounds scary this way... i mean, with a camera. my favourite subject are people. sometimes, when i find the perfetc shot, i take too much time so my newly found model realises i'm there and starts getting pissed, or simply leaves because it's his/her own freaking business. this way, most of my never gonna get it photos are born. my perfect london shot. my canada day picture. and many others... simply gone, and forever in my mind.
some other never gonna get it pictures have a more "logistical" nature: they just can't be. like i'm on a bus, and can't possibly ask the driver to stop in the middle of the freaking highway. this means i can't even go back there later and shoot. not really the perfect shot if i get crashed along with my camera... like these days, i've been going back and forth on the highway to naples, and more than once i passed by my perfect shot. if i were good at drawing, i would sketch it, but no way. i'll give it a shot though and try to describe it...
two viaducts from the top corners decline to the bottom, nearly meet in the centre, and peacefully procede on their own. usually these viaducts here around are huge monsters of concrete, uncareful leftovers brought to life by holy mother of destruction - and speculation. but these two are graceful, like if they're some kind of frame, and remind me of a (more) perfect shot from wim wender's paris, texas. in the middle of the shot, behind them, piles and piles of containers, and on the background, centre top, a crane from the harbour not so far away.
ok, i've got a thing for container terminals, everybody knows it. fair enoguh. but still, that was so close to the perfect shot. sooo close. so close i'm never gonna get it.

whatever...

always had it under my eyes...

... and yet had to come in the middle of the freaking continent to be fascinated by harbours. guess what thrills me is the routes of goods around the world, and being in the outskirts, even though stuff passes by all the time, still you don't feel part of the big planet dance...

sunset freak

i think today i saw the greatest sunset ever since i'm here in heidelberg. it was amazing. the sky was still filled with rain-carrying clouds which beautifully filtered the light, thus revealing a totally different colour palette. i am so not used to this light, and i have to admit it's one of the things i love the most here. unfortunately it rains a lot, but at least this means such shows happen pretty often. but never as it was today. shiny shades of yellow and green that i hardly ever saw. the trees on the hill were amazing, the reddish reflection from the buildings, the grayer shade of blue in the sky... i had to stop on the bridge and let me fill by this light. it's true, there is not much light here around, but sometimes it's so rich that it's worth the rareness. even looking at the ground was different, didn't even need to look at the landscape. and i was not the only one stopping, obviously. everybody was gazing, astonished. a couple of policemen even had a sudden u-turn in front of me and parked the car on the tram track (on the freaking tram tracks, for heaven's sake!) just to enjoy the sunset and shoot a couple of pictures. which kind of broke the magic of colours, but just for a moment. somebody would even say it's sweet - me, i was shocked. but just for a second. no time to think about bites of ungermanized germany when the light fair is on...

bye bye, aha

it's over. no more hopes.
one of our favourite places here in heidelberg is slowly going towards its sad fate. i think i already mentioned it some time ago. it's called Altes Hallenbad. AHa.
it was a public indoor pool, built in the '20s and closed at the beginning of the '80s. abandoned ever since, until recently some group of artists decided that the place had to be rescued and used and lived and given back to the citizens. so they started a series of dance and theatre shows, to make us people notice the place, to make us realise how beautiful this place is and how it could possibly become a wonderful cultural centre...
and we all believed this was really going to happen, until a month ago it started being clear that the destiny of the place was different, and last week more than clear it became official:

eine markthalle. a shopping mall. as if the thing that's missing in heidelberg are the shops...
sad, disappointed, disbelieved. what else? ten days ago i went to see their last show, which was pretty bitter. and there was everywhere this atmosphere of closing time that kind of hurts a little. tears almost pricking out of the eyes (i know, i'm too emotional) and the weird, uncomfortable feeling that it was the last time we could walk in that space as it is, as it was, as we got to know it...


it's been nice to believe in this place, to dream about it, to even be able to play a little with it (remember my post about the photo exhibition we managed to organise there??)

we are such stuff as dreams are made on,
and our little life is rounded with a sleep

time to wake up now

should never forget

this is the church of san felipe neri in barcelona. it is located in a lovely small square which is right in the centre, but not at all crowded (then i should probably keep my mouth shut about the place...)
the wall of the church still carries signs of the civil war. bullets from machine-guns.
i've been there three times and every time looking at that wall gives me the creeps.
and it might not be the real reason, at least not the only one. but i like to think that those signs are kept there to remember what happened.
to avoid the risk of forgetting.

something uglier and more worrying beneath the surface

a few months ago i was discussing with my friend giulia about the trials related to the violent facts that happened in Genoa during the 2001 G8 summit, which were taking place at that time in italy. several of the people who went there to demonstrate against the summit witnessed and experienced, during and after the summit, extremely strong abuses, then long, slow trials started. but now, after seven years, the trials are going towards a blind alley: of all the people who will possibly turn out guilty, none of them will have to serve prison terms, because of the long trial times and a statute of limitations we call "prescrizione". furthermore, in italy the accuse of torture still cannot be charged: it does simply not exist.

besides the forecast outcome of the trials, one of the things that pissed my friend off most was that there was no single word in the international press about that. she told me you should write something on your blog (as if it was a well known spotlight for information!). we even thought we ought to write letters to the main international newspapers. so many words had been spent against US off-border torture policy, but when something as scary as that happens (and is successfully hidden afterwards) within the good old gates of europe, it is largely ignored...

i am more and more scared we are becoming more and more like those people i described in the Guantanamo post a few days ago: are we really going to be insensitive to torture, even when it is performed in our own country? i hope not.

then a couple of days ago the final verdict of the trial came out. exactly as expected, the sentence is purely representative: none of the convicted ones will actually go to jail, no political investigation will be carried out to probe responsibilities.
and, not so ironically, one of the most interesting comments i read this time was not on the italian newspapers, but on The Guardian. at least this time the european press has not stayed silent.

so i am posting here a couple of passages from the article by Nick Davies, 17.07.2008:

(.....)
On Monday, 15 police, prison guards and prison medics finally were convicted for their part in the violence - although it emerged yesterday that none of them would actually serve prison terms. In Italy, defendants don't go to jail until they have exhausted the appeals process; and in this case, the convictions and sentences will be wiped out by a statute of limitations next year. Meanwhile, the politicians who were responsible for the police, prison guards and prison medics have never had to explain themselves. Fundamental questions about why this happened remain unanswered - and they hint at the third and most important reason for remembering Genoa. This is not simply the story of law officers running riot, but of something uglier and more worrying beneath the surface.
(.....)
No Italian politician has been brought to book, in spite of the strong suggestion that the police acted as though somebody had promised them impunity. One minister visited Bolzaneto while the detainees were being mistreated and apparently saw nothing or, at least, saw nothing he thought he should stop.
(.....)
Most of the several hundred law officers involved in Diaz and Bolzaneto have escaped without any discipline or criminal charge. None has been suspended; some have been promoted. None of the officers who were tried over Bolzaneto has been charged with torture - Italian law does not recognise the offence.
(.....)
Fifty-two days after the attack on the Diaz school, 19 men used planes full of passengers as flying bombs and shifted the bedrock of assumptions on which western democracies had based their business. Since then, politicians who would never describe themselves as fascists have allowed the mass tapping of telephones and monitoring of emails, detention without trial, systematic torture, the calibrated drowning of detainees, unlimited house arrest and the targeted killing of suspects, while the procedure of extradition has been replaced by "extraordinary rendition". This isn't fascism with jack-booted dictators with foam on their lips. It's the pragmatism of nicely turned-out politicians. But the result looks very similar. Genoa tells us that when the state feels threatened, the rule of law can be suspended. Anywhere.


the full article can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/italy.g8

blue & joy (me definitely joy)

there's this hilarious though discouraging italian comic where the characters are called blue & joy. clearly, blue is always happy, although he looks like sad, and the other way around for the ever smiling joy. and clearly i feel like joy, because (even though?!) i'm feeling blue :)
after all, mondays always give me the blues...

tom waits. she sleeps.

waiting for tom

innocent when you dream

and it's such a sad old feeling
the fields are soft and green
it's memories that I'm stealing
but you're innocent when you dream

all that glitters is gold

you might have been driving for ten hours and you’re tired and sweaty, but it doesn’t matter.
you might have been waiting outside in the line, and now you’re sitting in the theatre and still waiting, and still it doesn’t matter.
and those 40 minutes could have even been longer but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because when the lights go off and smoke starts filling the stage, you know it’s going to be exactly as you’ve always imagined.

grumpy old man sang and shone for more than two hours in a raw, even though time was not a factor inside that room.
and it's time time time…

and again i’m not a writer, so i’m sure i’m not easily going to find words to describe his stroboscopic hat rotating and shining all over the place, and his sweet and kind of clumsy way of clapping hands, always trying to trick the audience out of rhythm, and his voice on the megaphone...
nor the fact that throughout the concert i had the feeling his voice was somehow large, bigger than anything i've ever heard. huge. if a voice can possibly be large, or big, or huge.
everything could fit in that sound…

at some point he starts telling some stories about the lost luggage storage in milan, and his trips around europe, where he recommends always to take an attorney along - wasn’t it in the US that you could get sued for anything? anyway...
so he’s sitting at the piano telling stories and you’re trying to catch his irony about drinking fishes and smoking monkeys and you don’t realise it, you couldn’t possibly realise it until you hear the words “wasted and wounded” and you would have never ever thought he would sit there at the piano and be singing tom traubert’s blues, for real, with the bass playing along, just a few meters away…

and it's nothing but shivers running down the spine and skin curling, this one is really the part i’ve always imagined. and it’s true. and i’m also dying to go downstairs and approach the stage and shoot a great photo, but anyway i don’t have a huge lens able to catch those few light rays reflecting from his face, and i’m not that good anyway, so i’d better just sit here and enjoy this trembling feeling in my arms.

and you might be a little sad when he’s singing make it rain and shiny glitter is actually raining on him, because you know it’s going to be over in a few minutes, but still you’re not sad, because that shivering sensation feels like it's gone now, but it’s not. it’s all over, but it’s not. some of the glitter's still there.
even when you go out and look at the weird combination of humans coming out of the theatre, even when you stare at the full moon shining, even when you think there’s a whole switzerland to cross tomorrow, five hours (or hopefully less!) where all the world is green...
even then, the glitter’s not gone.


tom waits - glitter and doom tour
teatro degli arcimboldi, milano, 19th July 2008

gotta go painting today... again...

here's a story which is extremely old-fashion romantic and somehow freaks me out at the same time....
on the 5 freeway, north of seattle, there is a rock. when i passed by on the bus it was painted with flowers. fair enough, people paint walls and rocks all around the world.
but the bus driver, who btw was a super lovely lady (besides being "a hell of a driver" as another traveller pointed out) and chatted with me throughout the whole trip (for a change!), told me that every time she passes by, that rock is covered with a different painting. like hearts, or abstract patterns, or with something written. and she's been driving along that way for 4 years now, 3 or 4 times per week.
ok, this can mean very many things...

but i can't take away from my mind this idea of someone who every morning wakes up, takes his/her brushes & colours, drives all the way there and paints a different rock every day.
like if it were a duty, a gift to the commuters driving along the same road every freaking day. at least they see something different. or maybe it could be a message to a special one of them, may it be a way to make someone fall in love every day more, to say hello to an old friend you got no time to speak with anymore, whatever. after all, everybody's gotta have a goal to wake up in the morning...

"My Guantanamo Diary"

The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me.
by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan

"It’s easy to mistreat something called No. 1154. It’s easy to shave its beard, to kick it around like an object, to spit on it, torture it, or make it cry. It’s harder to dole out such abuse when No. 1154 retains its identity: Dr. Ali Shah Mousovi, a pediatrician who fled the Taliban, worked for the United Nations encouraging Afghans to participate and vote in the new democracy. It’s harder to hate No. 1154 when you realize that he’s more like you than he is different. His wife, an economist by profession, waits month after month, year after year for the news that her husband is coming home; his two sons and young daughter grow up without him."

when i was in seattle i ended up at a book reading where Mahvish Rukhsana Khan was introducing her book. she is an american lawyer, born to immigrant afghan parents in michigan. being fluent in pashtun, she managed to become a translator between american attorneys and guantanamo detainees.


what she describes in the book are the personal stories of the prisoners. because, she claims, when the community start consider the prisoners as individuals, disappointment against what's going on there will grow stronger in the country and more and more people will ask for the place to be closed.

makes sense, to some extent.
although for me it's still impossible to clearly understand why you need to say that much to convince people that torture is wrong. it's still impossible for me to understand how, to some, the possibility of torturing an innocent might still be the main problem about guantanamo, and not torture itself, and non-existing trials.
but i can't pretend to understand a world i've been observing only for a couple of days.

apart from the book, which sounded interesting and i ended up buying, it was also interesting to be there at the reading. there were several questions, and you could clearly distinguish people supporting and appreciating her work, and those who were skeptical and kept repeating that the troops are doing a great job and that the possibility of capturing a true, dangerous criminal justifies everything else... tough...

more info about the book at www.mahvishkhan.com
here's the washington post article from 2006 from which the book developed and here's a podcast with a radio interview where she says most of the stuff she said at the reading, too

tonight, tonight

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.


if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.


don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.


when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.


there is no other way.

and there never was.



From sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way by Charles Bukowski

almost

almost risked to be stuck in toronto...
not that it would be a bad idea... never been there, but still...
guess i was kind of tired, plus sick of huge time difference, so when they almost told me i could not board on the toronto-frankfurt flight i almost had a breakdown!
but eventually everything worked out fine and am back in good old boring heidelberg...
back to good old grumpy claudia :)

this seattle grace

when frank gehry might be exaggerating...

usually i like frank o'gehry's buildings.
so far i had only seen two, the dancing house in prague and the guggenheim museum in bilbao, and i loved them both. and the huge sculpture-like whatever thing it is inside the DZ bank in berlin, too. which is also kind of cool.

then i watched this documentary about him by sidney pollack, and noticed how some of his projects, it's true, are a bit over the tone... eg. the disney concert hall in LA... way too much stuff!!! and then i found myself walking past one of these hyper-projects... the experience music project in seattle... pink and red and silver and gold and blue... isn't it a bit too much??













but i have to say, he's a pretty honest guy. he was contacted by the local administration in salerno about a project for a garbage burning plant, and a lot of noise appeared in the news, with his pictures all over! but when they eventually dumped him without notice, he complained that making use of his name was only propaganda (i would say, to praise the community and not make them notice how bad a burning plant is for them...)
cool frank, when you don't exaggerate, i really like you!

eco friendly seattle

apart from the fact that a lot of people ride bikes... a real lot!!! and the place is so freaking full of hills! i thought about hiring one myself but then i had a look around and no way i'm going to bike over all those hills...

and apart from everybody being obsessed with organic food and organic farms and eat local and eat more veggies...

thumbs up for both facts, but this time i wanted to bring attention to seattle's green building strategy: one of the examples is the seattle public library, built with energy efficiency, water conservation, recycled materials and improved environmental quality in mind. isn't it cool?
when architectural choices can avoid waste of energy and resources, why not doing it?!

i've got a thing for ferry boats

haha :)
not true, actually.
but i do have a thing for container terminals!

this friendly seattle

sooo... i have to take my word back. when i arrived here it was late and i was tired, and true at night downtown the only people walking were me and drunken guy and homeless guy.

but then, during the day, it's another world...
not only do people walk on the street and take buses all over the place, they are also sooo friendly! they smile at your face, when you cross them in the street, they ask you how're you doing? and it's not being overnice, they're just friendly! even if you're not having a clumsy-looking-on-the-map moment, they often stop by just to have a chat...
how cool is that?!?

i spent three days walking around the neighbourhoods of seattle and spoke with so many people i can hardly remember...

let's see... there was san diego bus girl, who was very nice and told me about how she's in between jobs, then there was old park janitor guy, who made fun of me entering the cemetery while still being alive, and then mask and smoking on top of the van guys, who asked me the difference about saying i love you and i'm in love with you...

and by the way, i think i got it wrong... being italian biased, i still think the first one is kind of "serious" while the second one may be also weaker, but probably in english it's the other way around... after all, they say i love you all the time!

and then there was the bunch of lovely muslim girls i met at the book reading about guantanamo (i'm going to write a separate post about it), and then police sushi guy, and finger-crossed football guy, who maybe was not that friendly for free after all but who cares (i'm sure he's a republican or something else as bad!), and drugstore south carolina guy, who showed me a great spot in queen ann hill with top view of the lake, and army nutrition guy who told me about his upcoming trip to europe, and today cat guitar girl who took me around brainbridge and her boyfriend whom she met on the ferry boat (sweet!) and then magnolia chatty lady on the pier, there was old veteran guy who was actually not so friendly, he just smiled but was probably kind of grumpy after all, with his 4th of july beautiful flag, then hostel desk guy, who probably said "nice" way too much but still was totally friendly, and hostel desk girl who was sure i had a spanish accent and said my glasses were very seattle style, and all the lovely somalian cab drivers i found along the way...

am i forgetting anyone?? yes... super charming bookstore guy! who works in the greatest bookstore i've seen in ages (check it out: the Elliott Bay Book Company) and suggested me this seattle written & based novel about multiple personalities... i hope it's really as cool as he described it :)
and of course all the young volunteers campaigning for obama at every corner and believing that (maybe) they can - sorry for disappointing any single one of you by telling i can't vote, it's just so true!

you friendly friendly seattlites, i guess i'm gonna miss you all the way back to germany...

no country for pedestrians

always heard that about the US but never actually experienced it. without a car, you're nobody.
only people walking are me and homeless guys. or drunk guys.
scaaaaaryyyy

apart from that, seattle seems kind of cool.
guess now i'll just collapse, more stuff to see and shoot and tell tomorrow...

land of plenty

no way! i'm doing that... i'm blogging... from the bus!
i'm literally blogging from the bus!
i should be watching the US landscape right now but there's nothing except flatness and very straight roads, so i thought... let's blog...

just crossed the border by the way. here i am.
the land of plenty.
where things are huge and stuff cost nothing.
at least, they say...
let's see whether it's true

my favourite vancouver pic

my flightmate gordon, or: facts about canada

on my frankfurt-vancouver flight i had a very chatty seat neighbour... i think he spoke for a good third of the 10 hrs or more, but it wasn't annoying, actually kept me company...
and i found out a lot of facts about canada!!

for example:
* canadians are pretty harmless. they do have more weapons per inhabitant than in the usa... but they use them to hunt! like if you live in the northern territories you go out one day and shoot at a moose, put it under salt and have meat for the whole winter...

* you cannot smoke in the street if you're standing closer than 5 meters to the door af any public place. seriously!

* there is a valley in british columbia some 100-200 km east of vancouver where the weather is great, bec the perturbations coming from the ocean hit the rockies and shower all their rain over vancouver, and then the wind continues dry onto this valley. they grow any kind of fruit there for the whole state, and wine too. does this also explain why vancouver is way more rainy than victoria?!

* there is a small tiny island close to greenland which is contended between canada and danemark bec probably there are huge mineral resources beneath the ground. so when the canadian navy passes by takes away the danish flag, puts a canadian flag and leaves some canadian alcohol under it, and the same do the danish with their flag and alcohol... (am not really sure i understood the alcohol part correctly, sounds kind of gross!)

ok now i don't remember anything else... but i'll keep updating the post, i'm sure he said so much more...