yes, i know it's rather geeky, but whatever... it's true!!!
Monday, May 04, 2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
another lost photo
these days i'm walking around doing normal stuff and i just miss having my camera with me. i should take it along all the time, just it's too heavy and anyway it's already enough if i remember to take my keys and my head along when i leave home in the morning, so, you do the maths... and these days i'm really seeing so many things i would like to shoot at... like the other day, i was at the grocery store and it was crazy! i mean, group-hysteria crazy! it was the day before may 1st, ie. the day before a holiday. so people were crowding in the grocery store like crazy... and with crazy i mean, that the whole grocery store (and it's a fairly big one) was in the end a huge, single queue to the cash register... when i got in, i just needed 3-4 things and it was not so dramatic, so i though ok, i'll give it a try. but then, in the time i picked up the above mentioned 3-4 things (incidentally, there was no bag of flour left! none! all gone! seriously??) the whole place had turned into a self-feeding serpent-shaped creature of obsessed people!!! and i know this year may 1st was a friday, so it means we had a long weekend ahead of us, but still, on saturday everything was open again, so what's the big rush?? maybe you're leaving town for the long weekend?? then you don't need to buy groceries anyway!!! what the hell?! anyway, back to the lost photo. i'm collecting a series of heidelberg/non-heidelberg pictures these days. i mean these situations that could happen everywhere but for some reason they happen here, in front of my very eyes. and this one was just perfect. people lining in the ailes, every direction possible. i couldn't look around without imagining possible shots. it was amazing. just, no camera. so, no shot. and since i'm not at all able to draw (although a girl i recently met told me it's not so impossible to learn in a reasonably short time... let's see, might be i'm gonna give it a try...) you have to rely on my narrating abilities. i'm sure i'm better at taking pictures. well, next time. just gotta remember to take my heavy camera along, i'm sure there will be plenty of mass-hysteria situations around me in the upcoming one month. right, forgot to mention. i happen to be leaving soon. but that's another story.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
aha - an update
well, i have to admit it... my blog is kind of stalled... i try to keep it going on, but it's pretty evident it's just a series of pro forma attempts... don't know, too much stuff going on in my mind, too many variables and - weird enough - i'm so confused i don't even feel like writing about it. well, whatever...
at least i thought i could write an update about one of the good old topics of this blog, the AHa, ie. the Altes Hallenbad here in heidelberg, this inner pool from the 20's that was about to be turned first into a cultural centre and then into a bloody shopping mall. i don't have information for sure, but it looks like it's becoming none of them. apparently, they're using one of the rooms, the female bath, as a club (already saw a few posters advertising parties) and the male one, which is larger, for concerts, debates and all this kind of stuff. well i don't know whether it's just a temporary solution, and what's eventually going to come out of that place. have to admit i would have liked more the theatre-dance whatever solution, but still, this is the very less of two evils. and the idea that the nasty construction tycoon who's currently turning the city upside down, the idea that at least once he got to lost, well it's simply great. especially in the one place i really cared about.
more info at: www.alteshallenbad.de
at least i thought i could write an update about one of the good old topics of this blog, the AHa, ie. the Altes Hallenbad here in heidelberg, this inner pool from the 20's that was about to be turned first into a cultural centre and then into a bloody shopping mall. i don't have information for sure, but it looks like it's becoming none of them. apparently, they're using one of the rooms, the female bath, as a club (already saw a few posters advertising parties) and the male one, which is larger, for concerts, debates and all this kind of stuff. well i don't know whether it's just a temporary solution, and what's eventually going to come out of that place. have to admit i would have liked more the theatre-dance whatever solution, but still, this is the very less of two evils. and the idea that the nasty construction tycoon who's currently turning the city upside down, the idea that at least once he got to lost, well it's simply great. especially in the one place i really cared about.
more info at: www.alteshallenbad.de
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
old and new fascisms
"There is no doubt (it is evident from the results) that the television is more authoritarian and repressive than any other means of communication in the world. In this respect, the fascist newspaper and the fascist slogans written on the walls of farms make us laugh as does the plough (sadly) when compared to the tractor. Fascism, I want to state it again, has not been actually able to even scratch the soul of the Italian folks: the new fascism, through the new means of communication and information (in particular, television), has not only scratched it, but it has ripped it apart, it has violated it and contaminated it for ever..."
1973
"I believe, I do believe, that the real fascism is the one sociologists have too cheerfully named "consumer society". A definition which appears harmless, purely representative. And yet it is not. If one takes a careful look at reality, and is especially good at reading around things, the landscape, urbanities and, above all, human beings, it is possible to see that the results of this perky consumer society are the results of a dictatorship, of a real and actual fascism.
(...)
Fascism had actually turned them into clowns, slaves, it may even have convinced them, but it didn't really touch them deep in their souls, in their own way of being. This new fascism, this consumer society, instead, has deeply transformed young people, touching them intimately, providing them with different feelings, life styles, ideas, cultural models. (...) It all means, in the end, that this "consumer society" is a dictatorial one. If the word fascism stands for the arrogance of power, then the "consumer society" has well accomplished fascism.
(...)
In my opinion, the issue is very complicated but also extremely clear: the true fascism, I've said it and I repeat it, is the one of the consumer society (...)
In my opinion, Italy these days is witnessing analogous processes to those happening in Germany at the dawn of nazism. Also in Italy nowadays one observes those phenomena of homologation and abandonment of the old rural, traditional values, typical of each particular region; such phenomena were the humus onto which the nazi Germany grew. (...) And Italy is exposed to this exact same danger."
1974
translated form P.P. Pasolini, Scritti corsari
(gosh, I've wanted to post these thoughts for almost a year now. sadly enough, they never get old - they actually get more and more true by the day)
1973
"I believe, I do believe, that the real fascism is the one sociologists have too cheerfully named "consumer society". A definition which appears harmless, purely representative. And yet it is not. If one takes a careful look at reality, and is especially good at reading around things, the landscape, urbanities and, above all, human beings, it is possible to see that the results of this perky consumer society are the results of a dictatorship, of a real and actual fascism.
(...)
Fascism had actually turned them into clowns, slaves, it may even have convinced them, but it didn't really touch them deep in their souls, in their own way of being. This new fascism, this consumer society, instead, has deeply transformed young people, touching them intimately, providing them with different feelings, life styles, ideas, cultural models. (...) It all means, in the end, that this "consumer society" is a dictatorial one. If the word fascism stands for the arrogance of power, then the "consumer society" has well accomplished fascism.
(...)
In my opinion, the issue is very complicated but also extremely clear: the true fascism, I've said it and I repeat it, is the one of the consumer society (...)
In my opinion, Italy these days is witnessing analogous processes to those happening in Germany at the dawn of nazism. Also in Italy nowadays one observes those phenomena of homologation and abandonment of the old rural, traditional values, typical of each particular region; such phenomena were the humus onto which the nazi Germany grew. (...) And Italy is exposed to this exact same danger."
1974
translated form P.P. Pasolini, Scritti corsari
(gosh, I've wanted to post these thoughts for almost a year now. sadly enough, they never get old - they actually get more and more true by the day)
Sunday, March 01, 2009
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