What the hell is water?

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

September 12, 2008 David Foster Wallace committed suicide. The next day I randomly ended up on his Wikipedia page. He then entered my life, a bless and a curse.

 

This blog takes its inspiration from that moment of your life when you realise what your environment is made of; in particular, when you manage to see it and think of it as the environment.

This is water, the speech.

Summer in faces

Everytime I come back home, I recall those lines,
And since there's no one else around,
we let our hair grow long
and forget all we used to know,
then our skin gets thicker
from living out in the snow.

It's what brings me back to my roots.
And I want it to be the soundtrack to this.

 

Bristol, 30/5/2012

Plymouth, 31/5/2012

London, 1/6/2012 - Field Day/Jubilee

Leeds, 4/6/2012

 York, 5/6/2012

Newcastle, 6/6/2012

 
Edinburgh, 14/6/2012

St. Andrews, 17/6/2012

Giffoni, 17/7/2012

Giffoni, 23/7/2012

Bernalda, 4/8/2012

Bernalda, 4/8/2012

Bernalda, 5/8/2012

Bernalda, 6/8/2012

Bernalda, 7/8/2012

Ancona, 12/8/2012

Numana, 14/8/2012

Sirolo, 17/8/2012

Metaponto, 19/8/2012

Bernalda, 23/8/2012

Bernalda, 28/8/2012

And then summer left without a face,
Bernalda, 1/9/2012

Song for Holden Caulfield

Writing about The Catcher in the Rye is a suicidal note.
But let the passion take over the masochism for a while. Because Salinger brings you back to the old school version of you, and Holden peeps out every now and then; never to be forgotten and never to grow out.

I've been trying for a while to continue writing this post, but something keeps me from summarising a masterpiece into a banal bunch of words. I might call this lack of self-confidence, shame or repulsion, but probably it's just what something this big can naturally haunt you with.
Because Holden's story might as well be everyone's story. A ritual of passage through the rye grass of life, adulthood and conscience.
I was 19 when I first read this novel, and someone told me that if you're older you're less likely to be impressed by the book. What I actually think is that there are several levels in everything we do, and thus several things to keep with you. The Catcher in the Rye is not children literature, it's not a bildungsroman; it is, instead, a stream of emotions and sensations we all feel during the course of our lives. And not only did Salinger give shape to what we feel all the time but never had the strength to forge, but he even antropomorphised it. In a shocking, uncompromising way. In a way that only Holden's words can truthfully explain:
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
And Holden is not a kid. Because there's no age that life can defeat of lock up. You can read the book at any age, you can read it at any level, but there is no age without sensations. And that's what makes this masterpiece a timeless, ageless, spotless journey.


And, I dare say, there's no heart within a person who hasn't cried to that tiny little moment between Holden and Phoebe, those minutes of epiphany of the soul.
"I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don't know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could've been there."

Ten pairs of shoes you should never date

Taking a piece of inspiration from the brand new trend of making lists, I thereby pronounce myself eager to fill in another one.
I have no intention of offending anyone, but well--if you feel offended, answer your own question. In fact it might look like I'm being mean, but I'm just drawn that way. (YES, I'M MEAN)

10. The cowboy boots

Okay, anyone in the world should seriously reconsider the barefoot style instead of this, because there MUST be something wrong with those who do like these shoes. And this should be taken as a sign. Especially if you're not riding a bull. And if you are, well maybe one ranch stand?

9. New Rock

The Eighties are long gone, but some happily disturbed people just like to be heavy in every sense of the word. The metalhead who wears this piece of art can be recognised by the zombie-style walk, every night I'm shuffling!

8. Flip-flops

A real threat to humanity, it's apparently impossible to tell a green field from a cold steel rail California from Milan, that's why all these people are confused about it! Therefore my piece of advice is: "help a confused Californian--take him to the seaside". At least we won't hear him dragging those rubbers, causing Panic! on the streets of Londoooon...

7. White Superga

Coleridge used the albatros to convey the damnation of the ancient mariner, Superga goes beyond the limits of modernity and introduces you to one of the worst breeds of humankind. Mandatory with chinos, white Supergas will take you out on a romantic date on their Porsche-shaped boat. Help yourself to some murder.

6. Toms

Or "the deceiving shoes". Always look down first, in order to avoid delusions. It's this summer's latest trend, and even the cool ones will eventually show up wearing them, one day. Unfortunately, hating Toms means hating the 80% of the population. Nevertheless, it will be helpful in the future. In the meanwhile, you can walk around with a cutter.

5. MBT or The Rocking Shoes

Or how I learned to stop standing and love kinetics. People wearing this incredible, ergonomic piece of contemporary art should not be avoided. Instead, whenever you see one of these rockers you should hug them. Turn yourself in a pro bono social worker and help them realise it's a trap, an ugly trap. It's karma. What goes around rocks around.

4. Timberland

Unless you're Bob the Builder. Even if you are. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's album was Paint your wagon, not your shoes. It's too painful to write about these shoes, that colour is killing my eyes so I'll just move on.

3. Crocs

"I hate myself and I want to die" was written about this. I guess Kurt is now grinning at us. And I seriously hope this works. 

2. Mocassins

Usually worn by a demented person, the mocassin is unquestionably a sign of smartness and wealth (and I'm a serious person). The only solution to a sailing club addict is hiding in a yellow submarine because, although people use them on boats, there's no connection between the two of them. This is the logical reason for hating those who wear mocassins, with or without socks (you're hideous either way. There's nooo other waaaay.)

1. Hogan 

This is what made me lose faith in the Italian race. And emigrate. Regression and decadence of the postmodern era summarised in a shoe. Because yes, what you've despised for ages because it's orthopaedic now it's cool and what I'm wondering is whether all these designers we have nowadays will make any good to our environment and society. The answer is NO and I from now on I'm going to kill Hogan people to make human leather out of them.

 AND GIVE THE LEATHER TO GERMAN TOURISTS

Song for Bret Easton Ellis

I was sleepless last night, and restless I was looking for something to say, and somewhere to say it. Then I lost it.
But. Since I'm still eager to express a dead feeling, I will try to write it down.

I finished reading Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis yesterday.

It's Ellis's first work. Written in 1985 but as scary as a dystopian future, there's absolutely nothing relevant in the book. All that happens is winter holidays and a bunch of walking-dead people, spoiled and rich and famous and infamous. With an almost boring plot, it doesn't lead anywhere, you don't feel attached to the characters, no sympathy for the damned... But then, you get to recognise the main points. They make themselves visible.

The sign, the annihilation. Disappear Here.
The drugs. The syringe fills with blood.
The obsession for perfection. You're a beautiful boy and that's all that matters.
Money ruling over people. Wonder if he's for sale.
Depersonalisation. People are afraid to merge. To merge.

Ellis's talented writing uses these recurrent features to create the idea of the obsession for things. Things are what makes the world go round, what introduces a person to another. Just like Patrick Bateman's business card in American Psycho, the teenagers here are anticipated by their cars, shoes, drugs, partners. Recurrent is the sign Clay sees everyday, and every day he gets closer and closer to it; recurrent is sex, and the escape from it, until it becomes a torture porn movie; recurrent is the annihilation of every form of feeling.
This absence of feeling is probably the most disturbing feature in Ellis's work. As I mentioned before, you don't feel sympathy for the characters. But why? I reckon it's not about the plot, it's not about the lifestyle. It's about the process of depersonalisation Ellis uses with them. He is probably the one author that manages to depict a character and make it flat. Completely. No feelings. No heart. No soul, no point of view. Well, this is what the term 'alienation' stands for. People - well, characters - just hide behind their things, their drugs and habits. They don't coexist.
"No man's an island", Donne said. Here there are neither men nor islands. Here we have bottles and cupboards.
People are afraid to merge because they're bi-dimensional and they haven't been created with this merging function, they're not full-optional.
The only spark of hope, humanity and life is in those few paragraphs in italics. That's how it used to be; the spark is in the past, therefore it's gone. That's where our protagonist becomes human and three-dimensional, but that's just a dream-like sequence, you don't ever feel there's a way to escape.
In a situation where even time is subject to this inhuman shift, all that's left is nothing to lose, a deep digging down the elevator.

And as the elevator descends, passing the second floor, and the first floor, going even farther down, I realize that the money doesn't matter. That all that does is that I want to see the worst.

Blue skies are calling

Ahhh. I haven't been writing for a while.
It's quite odd to be back on this platform after several months, and after all the things that have changed. It's like a different place. With a bittersweet taste.
I left England on the 29th of June. I saw the last English dawn from a car window, while going to the airport. Then I realised that we would all be apart; what scared me at the time was that feeling of detachment--we've been there, we've done that; now we're back to where we 'belong'. It's not a trip, it's an experience and it's what we've created from scratch just to watch it vanish a few months later.
Back here is like a parallel universe, still good but sometimes you have those flashbacks and you get pathetic (yes, you do!).
And I am pathetic indeed, that's why I will stop here and stop listening to To Tundra. Maybe a decent blog entry next time?

We don't need a sign 

to know better times 

Ciao!

Lullabies for strangers

I grew up with the — probably wrong — idea that you can tell how good a writer is by how unfathomable his writing is and how complicated the story is.
The fact is—sometimes the little things that catch you the most are those ones which not lie on the surface, but those which quickly grin at you from the depth, and then escape. Those are usually simple hints, allusions, word collocations, mental pictures.
The writing is clear, almost pure—there's only you and the story you receive. Probably those are the books you read raising a smile, it's as if the writer hadn't chosen to show anything but the fact — and thus, himself. It creates a strong legacy between the two of you, and it may seem like I'm writing bullshit, but the point is not "hey, I want you to believe in the purity of writing and kill every form of experimentation" — not at all. I am just pleasantly surprised when an author I know can be/do pretty much everything.
I ended up thinking that, despite the surface, the pure, discreet writing that doesn't make you feel its presence is probably harder to obtain. I mean, I am so purely fascinated by Ulysses's mental trips, I adore the genius behind those witty thirteen-lines sentences in Infinite Jest but yes, you can create whatever you want out of the blue, but when you want to remember the heart of the writing you tend to pick those little, unveiling bits of truth that pose in front of you. And when a writer can't do that — he is a bad writer. It is so hard to be clear. Words fail us. Feelings escape. The sensation of that moment is not to be replied, but if you can reach an effect, a climax — you're there. You made it. This is why there are few people who can write purity.

I missed the coach, the other day. I was in the city centre already, not much else to do. Grey skies. I walked into Waterstone's and spent there one hour wander, then bumped into this short stories collection, How we are hungry by Dave Eggers. I've know him for a few years. I had a coffee, I read. I almost cried; those little incidents can cause a motion from the inside, they do, they do. There is not much to say — he says that. The rest is just the bond that stands between man — or living creature — and the nature, the environment. The bond melts, there is barely a slight difference or maybe there isn't. Every story craves for being read, and the odd thing is that you finish. You look at some point in the distance. You think. And so on.
What surprised me was that I expected Eggers to be part of the "hard side". You expect it more from short stories, they're tangled and obscure. But here there is some purity that almost makes you fear he's trying to break in your head. Big deal.
This simplicity/simpleness remined me of that other big author, the same who wrote the cited Infinite Jest—David Foster Wallace. Both of them are among the most talented of these times, and both showed their true self with short stories. I still remember how painful it was to read The planet Trillaphon as it stands in relation to the Bad Thing [here in case you want], in which he openly spoke about the disease that eventually killed him; that is what he wrote in 1984—that is what he wouldn't do again, better, and I'd dare saying that nobody has ever spoken about depression in those terms, with such a nerve. No interviews. No advertisements.

When you can work with the experimental and still keep your feet still, you're on the earth. You make things exist. You run.


«I thought we were all the same but as I was inside my dead body and looking into the murky river bottom I knew that some are wanting to run and some are afraid to run and maybe they are broken and are angry for it.»

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe —

I never really understood

why

we run in circles but

we wait in lines


We say 5 feet tall

when — we all know

you're many times short


And what I hate about people

— and things, and even sensations —

is when they are irrelevant.


Are we wondering

or wandering?

The gig animal identikit

I've been to quite a few gigs and concerts, and yes, whether it is good or bad, big or just in a small venue, one thing is certain: when you get there, your "one gig stand" neighbours will be easily recognisable at first sight, and that definitely helps you get rid of them.

The fangirl
This is the most popular category. Usually a teenager, the fangirl is in the first row, she's been standing there since noon, she's wearing the band's t-shirt, she knows all the songs and does not spare your poor ear a single line, alternated only by hormonal deliveries on how hard she would bang the whole band — including the female vocalist, yeah, maybe she is also a bit unsure about her sexuality.
The subcategories of the fangirl are the elderly fangirl, who is usually in her husband's company, recalling her failed career as a pop singer, and the slutty fangirl, who's only wearing a bra and pushing you because «my friends are over there».

The giant mosher
Usually a man, he's a sweaty, dirty, hairy monster who easily has fun, although people are scared of him. The giant mosher comes in two categories: the stalking mosher is the bad guy who's drunk and seems to chase you because he apparently wants you dead; the good-hearted mosher is usually a huge, cute redhead that sees you (i.e. me) and says something like «you're so small, you're gonna be hurt, so I'm gonna protect you!»; this is my favourite category, because he moshes and protects you at the same time, letting you easily get to the second row.

The chatty drunk
Teenaging guys who share one brain for the whole bunch of them, the people in this category are very common. Probably they don't really like the band, they're just there because only one of them does. Thus, the rest of them dedicate themselves to hard-drinking and hard-annoying. Always talking for the sake of it, usually incomprehensible and nonsensical, they are sometimes part of the picking up subcategory, which witnesses them showing their charm and loving abilities to any living being with boobs. After the concert, the chatty drunk is always happy and lets everyone on Facebook know about it.

The guy with another band's t-shirt
This small but ever-present group is there to show how alternative they are. Always carrying a DSLR camera, they're not there for the concert, they're just live-tweeting an improvised review, which will be posted on tumblr straight after the concert. Along with a couple of blurry, photoshopped pictures.

The smelly
Usually part of the mosher category, their fake cotton t-shirts are over-worn; the surrounding noses are not helped by their involvement with the song, which forces them to raise their hands, as if they weren't already visible - and not only - enough.

The mother
Especially popular in the UK, the mother hates being there but she's been forced by the fact that her daugher was been given a ticket as a present for her 16th birthday. Bored and pissed, the mother eventually decides to annoy people, claiming that her spot must be wider, and complaining that everybody's pushing her. After the second song, the mother withdraws to the back of the standing area, leaving her daughter bitching around, because she doesn't want to follow her. That, obviously, was the daughter's first though when she took the mother to the second row.

The couple
Very common and rather annoying, the couple is usually a double-sized mosher preventing everyone from moving; the couple - that we will here consider as a single element - is surrounded by disgusted people who went there to see another show. It is a sugary being that dances and kisses at the same pace all night long. For the couple, every song is a love song, although the male part is often the bored one, the one who would be a mosher, if only she weren't there...

England Your England

"When you come back to England from any foreign country you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! [...]
It is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you."
-- George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn

The (h)OST

Some songs have obsessed me in different periods of my life, some songs just can't get out of my head (la la la... no).
I usually stick to songs because I fall in love with the whole of it: it's not about the lyrics, the music or whatever. It's, instead, the irrational feeling you get when you're listening. Synesthesia.
Moreover, there happen to be two, three lines of the song in which the singer vomits spirit and interiors — and you can feel it, you almost do the same. Those are maybe the lines that catch you and embrace you, watching your brain from the outside for a few months.

Neutral Milk Hotel — Two-Headed Boy

And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine


I came across this song during a discovery tour on YouTube. It tore me apart. I remember moving in this flat, in Birmingham, and singing it out loud. And these lines give me goosebumps, it is sex.


Los Campesinos! — To Tundra

There was more life in the weeds than in the few hundred seats
and
Take a body to water, take a body to tundra
Just take me with you as well

It was hard to choose a couple of lines; I love the lyrics. The song is stunning and inspiring, it's homesickness and joy of departure.


The Horrors — Oceans Burning

 

Then the life sent itself into the air

Love at first sight with the song. Then I heard this line, and it reminded me of that one in Spoon River Anthology:
Kissing her with my soul upon my lips
It suddenly took flight.
It reminded me of the Italian translation, actually:
Mentre la baciavo con l'anima sulle labbra,
L'anima d'improvviso mi fuggì.


 Brand New — Degausser

 

I don't mind you under my skin
I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in

My freaky head is having its Seventeen-year-old-revival at the moment. But it's okay. This song is self-destruction. It's waving for a help we don't want. And it's not only about the irony I was caught in as the first line says "Goodbye to sleep"... Well, that's mmmh—*fuckmylife*

Amy Winehouse — You know that I'm no good

I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would

I was never a fan of her. I happened to listen to this song again because a friend posted it and wanted to draw everyone's attention to the instrumental part; I was writing on this blog and I found it very inspiring as a background and a soundtrack. I remember when she died and I was on holiday; I was busy travelling across Italy and she died the night I was moving from Salerno to Salento. I miss so many things and people.


Kasabian — Goodbye Kiss

The last stand
Let go of my hand

There's nothing particularly amazing in this song. It is just true and catchy. And I miss my friends, whe used to play it in my / their car all the time last Christmas. Like "driving in your car, I never never want to go home".


Antonio Vivaldi — Winter (1st movement)

This is just so powerful I could headbang to Vivaldi. Who says winter's not cool?


Ciao!

———

You keep living and things just happen and you're somewhere else, far away.
I feel numb because I can't do anything, life flows and we take it for granted, and it also makes me think about how many mistakes we make and how many regrets we have to carry with us... People don't just leave or pass away, they die and something within us dies with them. And something of them still lives.

This is something, this is everything

I don't really know why I'm so mean to myself, writing posts when I'm drunk/sleepy/hangover. I just really felt like writing now.
I'm always so curious about different experiences of reality and things such as mise en abyme. When a reality is into another reality, which one is true? You just lose the sense of being and you feel like you're touching the sky, the end of the sky as Truman does in that movie. But the point is that there is no such thing as a real sky, when you don't construct it.
I was watching Synecdoche, New York yesterday. I chose to translate it for my translation class; it's a hard work, but I think Charlie Kaufman is the best screenplay writer of all times. He's not only the genius who wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he's a clever thinker always playing with these figures of speech. Synecdoche is a part pro toto, it's when you use a part of something to describe the whole of it.
This movie is a play-within-a play, it's a whole life spent on a lifelong project which wants to depict life. The main feature in Kaufman's works is that they manage to actually enter your life: they're mind-openers, and you can never get rid of them. You feel like you're in Caden's play.
For example.
I had a dream yesterday. This is something really stupid but the idea is the point. I dreamt that I was supposed to spend my last three months of Erasmus in London. Which is like WTF. At the beginning I was like Yeah, London's cool, but can I just stay in this shitty place? I'm okay here. Really. And I was asking people around me, Can I stay? What do you think? Should I talk to someone?
Then, after a few people, I started to feel some scratches. Something's wrong in here, I said to myself. I was meant to stay here. Right? I was feeling like Caden, when he tears the map of the Synecdoche of Schenecdaty. I struggled with my own subconscious until I fought it, You bitch!
"I cheated myself, like I knew I would".
This is not a weird way of saying how strong I am. I'm just basically saying that everyone should watch Kaufman's films, they're such a trip and such a good entertainment at the same time. He's no Kubrick, no Herzog, no Bergman, but he's not even a Wenders, a Reitman or anyone else.
He doesn't talk about realities, he creates them. As he did with Synecdoche, his greatest and ultimate — in my opinion — piece of art.

— The sun is rising and I should really go to bed. I apologise for the grammar, but still I don't c————

There was more life in the weeds

 

I don't usually get the feeling of nostalgia; maybe I grew up with the awareness of leaving my small town at some point, and that's why I haven't actually felt at home anywhere for the last three years. But this is okay — I mean, everything's in the right place as long as you keep enjoying the nomadism of the self. 

A small trip is a one-day-package emotion, and visiting Cornwall, then leaving it, was just a short summary of what I do feel, an epiphany of the real melancholy of departures. What I saw in myself is that it's more about the things you feel and taste, rather than the concrete objects standing in front of your eyes.

I've always been the weird one; almost nobody has seen me crying, as I'm usually the esprit d'escalier crier, I close the door with a smile and I might end up crying it out two months later.

The wind of the south, that peculiar British sunshine that makes everything looke just a bit more golden, the perfect Sunday morning feeling (when you don't have a hangover, of course); everything is lyrical and stunning and everything of it is a part of the nostalgic memories of my Italy, those that apparently had chosen to be hidden for a while — just so they could pop up at the right time, in the right place.

I managed to tear the one-day package and let them flow all together.

So I wondered—why haven't I ever written about my hometown? Landscapes, beaches and hills are there, and I just never realised it. It's always looked like my long-term, boring package, and I let it go. I wonder if I will ever be able to find the poetry in the everyday 'assessment' of 24 hours.

Or maybe it is different, maybe some places just have some lyrics that still need to be written in them. In their DNA. And some haven't. Or maybe, well, some people just have the poetry in themselves and are able to make pretty much everything out of it. 

And, while listening to those lines, I watched the sunset from my Megabus dirty window. I took my phone, I struggled with this website; I wanted to have something that could last a little longer.
Been there, done that.