Another great comic from Fior. I was half expecting the protagonists go their separate ways. That would be more logical and the book almost comes to that point... I felt slightly annoyed by them coming back together, but hey, who wants 5,000 Kilometers Per Second2? Not me. Hypericon could be an alternative universe version of 5,000 kps though... I said too much already.
Like in Celestia, I find most of the dialogue superfluous. Ditto the internal monologue of Teresa. With some exceptions, of course. Such as Teresa and Ruben’s bickering.
I loved 5,000 Kilometers Per Second so I took another book by Fior from the library. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Celestia is visually stunning graphical novel with (too) many interesting ideas that don’t quite glue into a coherent story. For me, the best parts are those where the heroes keep quiet, especially Pierrot. I think the whole thing would benifit enormously from dropping the dialogue altogether.
A buyer of the English edition of Celestia complained at Amazon.com about nudity and sex scenes in the book that make it not appropriate for teens. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she didn’t complain about violence (unrelated to sex) which is also present there.
Then this story wouldn’t ever be written. There would be another story, maybe a happier one, which I doubt, and quite probably much more boring.
Instead, in his beautifully painted, masterfully narrated comic, Manuele Fior tells what happens when the lovers go their own ways. Best of luck to them.
It’s been a while since I watched Amarcord last time, still in Soviet (or maybe early post-Soviet?) era. Just like Cabaret, it was (brilliantly) voiced-over in Russian by Victor Tatarsky who sadly passed away this year. Now, watching it at the Filmoteca de València (and subtitled in Valencian!), I was able, for the first time, to enjoy the original Italian version in its full glory. It didn’t disappoint.
I learned about this fantastic album — and the band that created it — from the Songlines review. Co-produced by Justin Adams, who also plays guitar on a couple of tracks, Meridiana (“sundial” in Italian) is supposed to be a concept album about (different aspects of) time. But you don’t need to understand Italian to thoroughly enjoy the music; the order of the songs is not particularly important either. Collaborations include Pizzica bhangra with Red Baraat and Tic e tac with Enzo Avitabile (of Enzo Avitabile & Bottari, another band I first heard about, many years ago, thanks to Songlines.) If I had to name three favourites, they’d probably be the opening track Balla Nina; no less goosebump-inducing Lu sittaturu that somehow makes me think of an Ukrainian folk song; and wonderful Vulía.
You can listen to the full album on YouTube, complete with contributions of a number of Italian scientists and philosophers and quotes from Lewis Carroll, Marcel Proust, Friedrich Nietzsche and, surprise surprise, Carlo Rovelli.
Justin Adams: electric guitar (4, 9)
Giacomo Greco: synth, sound design; additional production (1, 3, 4, 5)
Valerio “Combass” Bruno: electric bass (1
Antonio “Dema” De Marianis: additional percussions (9)
Contributions
Maura Gancitano and Andrea Colamedici, philosophers and communicators
Gianfranco Salvatore, anthropologist and ethnomusicologist
Massimiliano Morabito, musician and ethnomusicologist
Francesca Corbo, Amnesty International Italia
Roberto Vacca, engineer, mathematician and science communicator
Domenico Licchelli, astrophysicist
Produced by Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Mixed by Francesco Aiello at Boombox Recording Studio
Mastered by Tim Oliver at Top Cat Studios
Executive production by Titti Santini
I came across this book in our library a few weeks ago. How come I wasn’t aware of this artist before?
Crepax’s wild imagination, encyclopaedic influences/cultural references and exquisite Beardsleyesque drawings had won me over from the first few pages. In Valentina’s world, the
boundaries between reality and dream are blurred or non-existent; in any case, her “reality” hardly makes more sense than her dreams. Considering the dreams she has, who should care about reality? Not me.
Inspired by the silent movie actor Louise Brooks, and by Crepax’s own wife, Luisa, Valentina presented something of a dilemma for Italian feminists. They approved of her sexual emancipation and Trotskyite politics, but were less taken by her fantasies and the speed with which she peeled off her clothes.
Is that so? Oh well. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with either Valentina’s fantasies or speedy undressing. She may have angered some feminists while encouraging others. American painter and photographer Jude Harzer said:
I was always impressed by the rawness and forwardness of a woman as a dominant character. I was inspired by the sensuality of Crepax’s work and in particular the sexuality and force of Valentina as a protagonist. Her strength as a heroine lay in her intellect, femininity, eroticism and talent rather than in a contrived super heroic ability.
Speaking of dreams: Luisa Mandelli, who died in November 2020, not just “inspired” Crepax, her spouse for 40 years: she told him her dreams that became the Valentina’s adventures. Also, she invented the language of The Subterraneans.
Apart from creating Valentina, Guido Crepax illustrated works of Marquis de Sade, Edgar Allan Poe, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Emmanuelle Arsan and Anne Desclos. He designed vinyl covers for Italian releases of jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Xavier Cugat, Fletcher Henderson, Lee Konitz, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jelly Roll Morton, Gerry Mulligan, Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sarah Vaughan, Fats Waller, Paul Whiteman and Cootie Williams, to name a few. Poking around, I’ve discovered Italian prog-rockers Garybaldi (Crepax designed the cover art for their debut album Nuda) and La curva di Lesmo, clearly named after the Valentina story of same name.
Quite apart from the fact that the story set in rural Italy, the protagonists, Giovanna (Clara Calamai) and Gino (Massimo Girotti), are more human and likeable than their 1981 American counterparts (that is, Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange). Even Giovanna’s unloved husband, Signor Bragana (Juan de Landa), comes out as somehow lovable: going fishing with a local priest, singing an aria from La traviata... For me, the best parts of the movie are Gino’s first meeting with “Lo Spagnolo” (Elio Marcuzzo) and ditto with Anita (Dhia Cristiani) as well as the scene on the beach (closer to the end). Oh, and that Trieste was mentioned a couple of times.
Nostalghia was the final film screened in Teatro Guiniguada as part of the Tarkovsky cycle. This was the first time I watched it in a quarter of a century; it turned out that have forgotten quite a few things since then. For example, was Ностальгия dubbed or voiced-over when I saw it in Russia? Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), for the most part of the movie, speaks Italian, but I distinctly remember her saying «Знаешь, кто такой зануда?» or «Говорит будто Фидель Кастро» in Russian. This time, in VOSE, I could at last hear her voice clearly.
For me, nostalgia is an inherently beautiful emotion. Tarkovsky’s own Solaris and especially Зеркало are full of it; Nostalghia, in spite of its name, is not [1]. In a way, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovsky) is a stereotypical exponent of the “mysterious Russian soul”, who does not (want to, or try to) see anything good outside of the Motherland: «Надоели мне все ваши красоты хуже горькой редьки» (“I’m fed up with all your beauties”) he mutters in the beginning of the film. The only reason for him to be in Italy, apparently, is another Russian intellectual, the 18th-century composer Pavel Sosnovsky. When Eugenia asks if Sosnovsky was successful or happy at all upon returning to Russia, Gorchakov reluctantly explains that no, the composer started to drink (surprise surprise) and eventually committed suicide. Gorchakov himself is unable live here and now, in colour: his true life and his love must be in black and white, beyond the reach. Worse still, the final scene implies that a Russian simply cannot enter, say, an Italian cathedral without transplanting there his izba and a puddle (and making it all black and white).
But Yankovsky wouldn’t be Yankovsky if he just portrayed a grumpy, judgemental, misogynistic asshole [2]. Sure, his Gorchakov is all that, but he is also sensitive, lovable, and has sense of humour which, while does not save the poor writer, saves the film. The story of the rescuer and the rescued is priceless; also, it explains the puddle.
Горчаков:
Есть одна история. Один человек спасает другого из огромной, глубокой лужи, понимаешь? Спасает с риском для собственной жизни. Ну, вот они лежат у края этой глубокой лужи, тяжело дышат, устали. Наконец, спасённый спрашивает:
— Ты что?..
— Как что? Я тебя спас.
— Дурак! Я там живу!..
«Я там живу.» Обиделся очень.
Gorchakov:
Here’s a story. A man saves another from a huge, deep puddle, you understand? Saves him, risking his own life. Well, they are both lying on the edge of this deep puddle, breathing heavily, tired. Finally, the rescued man asks:
“Why did you do that?..”
“Why what? I just saved you.”
“You idiot! I live there!..”
“I live there.” He took great offense.
What it has is not nostalgia but тоска, a concept so awfully sad that Finns had to import it, as
tuska, together with quite a few other depressing Russian words.
Anatoly Solonitsyn, who was originally cast in the lead role, already played a similar character in Сталкер.
The most outrageous thing about this particular loss was that I wasn’t even aware of it until the day after, about noon, when I opened my backpack where there should have been my Chromebook. It was not there. The power cable and the mouse, yes. Laptop, no.
I distinctly remember having it there a day before, as well as taking it out at the airport security. The problem with air travel in winter, even if it is Spanish winter, is that you have too many clothes on. And then you have to take your coat and your jacket off, maybe even your boots, if you’re lucky, and they don’t fit in those trays anymore, and you take another one. The security guy insisted that I did not cover the notebook with my jacket, so I shoved it in another tray. And then, when they successfully reemerged on the other side, I stacked all three or four of them on top of each other and moved on to the free table, to put the stuff back on me. Keys, mobile phone, belt and suchlike. I must have left the laptop in the bottom tray. I must have.
I found the Lost&Found page of the airport of Valencia with a contact telephone number. As much as I hate phoning, this time I had to. The person I talked to, in English, was very polite and helpful. I explained what happened; he advised me to phone back in quarter an hour. I did. He said that yes, they have located the notebook. Can you come here, he asked. I am in Las Palmas, I said. Oh, he said. Do you happen to know somebody who lives a bit closer and can fetch it, he mused. Yes I do, I said.
He suggested my sending him an email describing my loss and authorising that kind person, with such and such ID, to collect it, plus a photo of my passport attached. I did exactly that and pleaded my friend to visit the Lost&Found office when she can.
When she got there, later the same day, she messaged me asking for the password. I sent it to her. I think it’s a normal procedure — they need some evidence that the device is mine. She unlocked it, they handed it over.
How easy and efficient it was, I thought. I remember a story I heard from a German scientist I met on a conference in Italy twenty years ago. He was travelling by train. Surprised by the timely arrival at the destination, he rushed out of the carriage leaving his laptop behind. On realising that, he immediately went to the police station and filed the report. Fortunately, the computer was quickly located and brought to the hotel where we stayed the following day. Needless to say, he was very pleased and praised the politeness and efficiency of Italian police over their German colleagues who (according to him) would question you for hours who are you and where did you come from and how did you dare to forget your property in the train. Well, that was in 1999.
Now let me say a few words about this Chromebook. My brother bought it for me last year when I visited him in the States, so you can imagine how annoyed I was with myself to lose it. It’s literally the coolest computer I ever had in my hands (or placed on my lap, for that matter), thanks to its aluminium case. Also, since there are no moving parts, it is virtually silent. It boots in seconds. It has really bright 14-inch anti-glare screen (specified as a full-HD but, according to WhatIsMyScreenResolution.NET, I can get resolution up to 2194x1234). It served me well in the classroom — videos, PowerPoints, Kahoot! quizzes, you name it — and the battery lasted the whole damn working day. I sure would appreciate more internal memory but for now I can live with 32 GB. And why there’s no SD card slot?!
I can’t say I’m over the moon about Chrome OS — I think this machine deserves decent software on its own, not only Android apps. Luckily, since 2018 you can also install Linux apps on it. I tried that and it works. I put there LibreOffice and Inkscape just a few days before my flight to Gran Canaria.
With Christmas holidays and all that, my friend only was able to go to the post office after the New Year. Even then, she was warned that the laptop is unlikely to arrive before Reyes. It took longer than that.
The day she sent it off, I got both email and SMS with the tracking number so I was able to check the shipping progress on the Correos website. In practice, for five days or so I was stuck with its original location, that is, Valencia, followed by the terse “en camino” (“on the way”). Finally, it arrived to Canaries.
Último estado del envío: En tramitación aduanera
Se ha emitido aviso al destinatario para poder completar la tramitación
I started to worry. We dealt with customs before, and every time they wanted money. Normally they would send you a paper enquiring about the value of the imported goods so they could determine how much you must pay on top of the postage. In theory, that should be only applicable to new goods, but you never know. In any case, I still didn’t have any notice.
I went to the post office for a consultation. They told me basically what I already knew and their advice was to wait a couple more days. I did that and, naturally, in a couple more days came back. This time I’ve got the email address of the customs. Write to them and explain the matter, the postal worker said. So I did.
Dear Sir/Madam, I wrote, I am waiting for a package sent on January the 2nd, with tracking code XYZ, containing a laptop I lost at the Valencia Airport. The laptop is used and doesn’t even have a power cable. The package should have been delivered to such and such post office. I was supposed to get a message from you but I didn’t. Waiting for your response. Big hugxoxoxo Yours sincerely.
Imagine my joy mixed with amusement when I received their response the very next day.
Buenos días,
La información que nos ha enviado es correcta. Le llevarán el envío a su domicilio. Si no estuviese, le dejarán un aviso para que usted vaya a retirarlo a la oficina de Correos que le corresponda. Puede realizar el seguimiento de su envío en nuestra página web introduciendo el código del mismo.
Gracias por utilizar nuestros servicios
Saludos
But of course the information I sent them was correct. What, I wonder, would they do if I hadn’t provided them with that correct information? Anyway, the next morning I got the SMS saying that my parcel is waiting for me in the post office. Contrary to what the email said, they never planned to deliver it to my home address. Which suited me fine. I showed my ID, they gave the box to me. It all took just four weeks. Happy end of story.
Pyatigorsk, summer 1981. I went to see Зеркало (Mirror) together with my brother and my cousin — thanks to the latter who found out about the film’s screening in a regional newspaper. Зеркало was unlike any film, Soviet or foreign, that I’ve seen until then. I was blown away. The same cannot be said about most of the audience, I’m afraid.
It so happened that the following year, Margarita Terekhova came to my school in Odintsovo. (It was fairly typical for Soviet celebrities including writers, actors and cosmonauts to visit schools and meet with the students.) She was best known for her roles of Diana from The Dog in the Manger and Milady from D’Artagnan and Three Musketeers. Most of the evening Margarita Borisovna was speaking about her work in TV and theatre; in the end, there was some time for questions. I raised my hand and asked her: “Could you tell us please a bit about your work with Tarkovsky?” The awkward silence ensued. Terekhova clearly did not expect that question from a 15-years-old boy. The rest of the audience, teachers and students alike, had no idea who I was talking about and asked each other in whispers: “Who?”, “What?” [1]. Finally, Terekhova thanked me for an “interesting question” and said that sure, of course, but it would take two evenings like this one, you know, but maybe, who knows, we can do that in the future...
I have to disappoint my readers: there never was another opportunity to meet her and hear about Tarkovsky. However, as a result of that meeting, I temporarily became a minor celebrity in our school. They kept asking me, what was the name of that director again? Luckily, after a week or two, they left me in peace.
Зеркало remains my favourite of all Tarkovsky’s films. In Russia, I never lived in a traditional country house like the one in the movie (the house we lived in Finland five years ago was more like it); yet, through some magic, it became the idea of my childhood home.
This time, we went to watch the film with Timur. Although he confessed that it is “a little weird”, he seemed to like it overall and especially the wartime sequence with Asafiev, an orphan boy who interprets the drill command Кругом! (“About face!”) as a 360° turn. Just like it was the case with Андрей Рублёв last week, I discovered no “new” (I mean, forgotten) bits; but I was pleased to realise that I understand the dialogue in the scene with Spanish immigrants (in the Mirror’s “now”), one of whom appears to be a big fan of matador Palomo Linares [2].
Life, Life is a poem by Arseni Tarkovsky, the director’s father. In the film, it is narrated by the author over the wartime footage of Sivash crossing followed by Asafiev climbing the hill in a visual quote of Pieter Bruegel’s painting The Hunters in the Snow.
Арсений Тарковский
Arseni Tarkovsky
Жизнь, жизнь
Life, Life
translation by Alex Nemser and Nariman Skakov
I
Предчувствиям не верю и примет
Я не боюсь. Ни клеветы, ни яда
Я не бегу. На свете смерти нет.
Бессмертны все. Бессмертно всё. Не надо
Бояться смерти ни в семнадцать лет,
Ни в семьдесят. Есть только явь и свет,
Ни тьмы, ни смерти нет на этом свете.
Мы все уже на берегу морском,
И я из тех, кто выбирает сети,
Когда идет бессмертье косяком.
II
Живите в доме — и не рухнет дом.
Я вызову любое из столетий,
Войду в него и дом построю в нём.
Вот почему со мною ваши дети
И жены ваши за одним столом —
А стол один и прадеду и внуку:
Грядущее свершается сейчас,
И если я приподнимаю руку,
Все пять лучей останутся у вас.
Я каждый день минувшего, как крепью,
Ключицами своими подпирал,
Измерил время землемерной цепью
И сквозь него прошёл, как сквозь Урал.
III
Я век себе по росту подбирал.
Мы шли на юг, держали пыль над степью;
Бурьян чадил; кузнечик баловал,
Подковы трогал усом, и пророчил,
И гибелью грозил мне, как монах.
Судьбу свою к седлу я приторочил;
Я и сейчас, в грядущих временах,
Как мальчик, привстаю на стременах.
Мне моего бессмертия довольно,
Чтоб кровь моя из века в век текла.
За верный угол ровного тепла
Я жизнью заплатил бы своевольно,
Когда б её летучая игла
Меня, как нить, по свету не вела.
1
I don’t believe in presentiments, and signs
Don’t frighten me. I run from neither slander
Nor poison. In the world, there is no death:
All are immortal. Everything is immortal.
One should not be afraid of death at seventeen,
Nor seventy. There is neither gloom nor death
In this world, only clarity and light.
We are all already on the shore of the sea,
And I am one of those who pulls in nets,
When immortality swims by like a shoal.
2
Live in a house — and the house won’t collapse.
I will summon any of the centuries,
I will enter it and build a house in it.
Here is why your children and your wives
Are seated with me at a single table, —
At a single table, your ancestor and grandson:
The coming time is being enacted now,
And if I raise my arm up just a little,
All five of the rays will remain with you.
I propped up every day of the past,
Supporting with my collarbones.
I measured time with a surveying chain,
And passed through it, as if through the Urals.
3
I picked the age according to my stature.
Going south, we held dust over the steppe;
The tall weeds smoked; the grasshopper made mischief,
Touched horseshoes with its whisker, and prophesied,
And threatened me with destruction, like a monk.
I fastened my fate to the saddle;
And now, in the coming times, like a boy,
I raise myself up halfway in the stirrups.
For me my immortality is enough,
That my blood should flow from age to age.
For a faithful corner of unchanging warmth
I would pay wilfully with my own life,
Whenever its flying needle
Would lead me, like a thread, around the world.
Back then I did not quite understand what was going on, why in the Soviet Union they built a wall of silence around the best film director the country had. Earlier that year, Tarkovsky went to film Nostalghia in Italy; although it was not in his plans to stay there for good, he was never to return to the USSR.
During the Spanish Civil War, thousands of children were evacuated from the Republican zone, including to the Soviet Union. They were not allowed to return to Spain until after Stalin’s death.
My friend, colleague and bandmate Sergio presented me with this book when we last met on occasion of my leaving for Fuerteventura. He said that it is kind of classic and it comes from Trieste. Trieste!
I had an uneasy relationship with this place. Until 1993, the only thing I knew about Trieste was that it was the name of bathyscaphe that reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I was not even sure in which country Trieste the city was. The history of Trieste suggests that I was not alone in that. Then I spent most of 1994 right there. During that year, I discovered Italian food, Italian coffee, proper gelato, Jovanotti, Cab Calloway, the World Wide Web, the naturist beach, Dolomiti, Venice, Milan, Sardinia, Hungary and, finally, Leeds. That’s right: as soon as I set my foot in Trieste, I was trying to get away from there. And as soon as I left it for good, I started missing it. The phrases I brought from my time in Trieste include piccoli problemi and pozor na psa. Where were we, anyway?
Ah, forget that. No special Triestine connection is actually needed to enjoy Zeno’s Conscience. The style reminds me of Kharms. The (anti)hero is a really lovable type. And who would have thought that sixty tons of copper sulphate could be made into a running gag?
I have never suffered from miserliness, and Giovanna immediately had her glass filled, to the brim. Before she could finish saying thanks, she had drained it, and she immediately cast her bright eyes on the bottle. So it was she herself who gave me the idea of getting her drunk. But that was no easy undertaking!
I couldn’t repeat exactly everything she said to me, in her pure Triestine dialect, after she had drained all those glasses, but I had the profound impression of being with a person to whom, if I hadn’t been distracted by my own concerns, I could have listened with pleasure.
First of all, she confided to me that this was precisely the way she liked to work. Everybody in this world should be entitled to spend a couple of hours every day in just such a comfortable chair, facing a bottle of good brandy, the kind that doesn’t cause any ill effects.
Rome, October 1993. I was outside the former USSR for the very first time. My visit to Italy coincided with some rather disturbing events in Russia. A few weeks before that, I received my very first grant: US$500 from Soros’s International Science Foundation — a huge sum of money for me. I was determined to bring something great from Rome.
This Italian beauty looked and sounded just right. I think I paid about 200,000 Italian lire for it. It travelled with me back to Moscow, then back to Italy, back to Moscow, then to England. It became a standard of a classical guitar for me. I have seen and played apparently superior — well, at least, much more expensive instruments. None of them ever did feel as good. Last time I tried to find a better guitar, I ended up buying Parker PM-20 instead.
Four years ago, Clarissa went through a repair. The soundboard was all warped and the bridge had to be reattached. After that, I found that the action is too high for my liking. After mutilating the original saddle beyond recognition, I finally took it out and put there a bit of old Rotosound Tru Bass black nylon string. It is still there, you can see it on the photo.
Yuri was learning guitar on it for two years. Now Timur does the same. Long live Clarissa!
I hope that the DVD box sporting the quote “Charming, romantic comedy — The Sun” (yeugh) won’t put you off. Maybe not your typical romantic comedy, but Italian for Beginners, written and directed by Lone Scherfig, is a wonderfully funny and touching movie. Sure, there must be viewers who find it boring or depressing: it is almost completely devoid of both violence and sentimentality. (Well, there was violence behind the scenes: “There was some disagreement about the accentuation of a hymn. Pastor Wredmann got rather physical. He pushed the organist over the balcony.”) But it has life, death, funeral (x 3), love (x 3), some very Danish humour and, of course, Italian. Low budget, great result.
This is the only album of Jovanotti I have, and almost every song there is great. Penso positivo was kind of soundtrack for my life in Italy in 1994.
Io penso positivo perché son vivo, perché son vivo
Io penso positivo perché son vivo, perché son vivo
niente e nessuno al mondo potrà fermarmi dal ragionare
niente e nessuno al mondo potrà fermare, fermare, fermare
