"Moon"

Fly me to the moon, and assist to my recursive death; escape your faith by interstellar burst. It does not matter who I am, I will survive your rescue team and break free.




Kevin Spacey managed to make a computer voice more monotonic.

Kings of Convenience - Renegade

Go easy on me,
I can't help what I'm doing

Arousal and Sadness

M.A.T. in Concert

M.A.T. is on tour again. Tonight concert in Kraaij en Balder. It will be streamed live on the internet somewhere somehow. After the concert, the afterconcert.

Millennio

Pepe Carvalho is running. He is running from a corrupt Barcelona, he is running from his whore, he is running from Berlusconi’s mafias Italy, he is running from the memories of his first wedding, he is running from his own life. And while running he takes a picture of the world, arrogant model in a artsy naked photo-shoot, confused. eyes blinded by flashing lights, thongs muted by spanish wine.

Moving

Today I moved some friends from A to B. Of course we first had to go to C, the middle point between A and B, before we could reach B. But in order to get to C, we first had to pass D, the middle point between A and C. Still we managed! Sure we did: I drove a big Mercedes, and I even engaged with a Carrera at the traffic light.

To move is to live, 
we gotta move it.

We stuffed B’s attic and garage with stuff from A’s repository: objects anxious to support layers of dust, before ending up into Z’s cellar at the next transfer.

To move is to live, 
we gotta move it.

Kings Of Convenience - Boat Behind

So we meet again after several years
Several years of separation
Moving on, moving around
Did we spend this time chasing the other's tail?

Ohohohoh, I could never belong to you

Il Gattopardo

Everything changes so that nothing changes.

The most important Italian novel from the XX century. It’s a representation of what it is to be Sicilian, philosophically, literarily and sexually. A must. This book ran the risk never to be published, but luckily it’s there, and nowadays translated in most languages, including yours.

My kingdom for a _____ !!!!

Fill in the empty space and find out how worth your kingdom is!

Bach: Endlessly Rising Modulation Canon

Example of Motuum Perpetuum in Music. Like a neverending coitus in Sex.

J. S. Bach - Ricercare a 6 from "Musikalisches Opfer" BWV 1079 - Piano Version

Bach composed this Canon on a theme proposed by an emperor. The theme is highly chromatic. The resolution is absolute.

Mental experiment

Rest your right thumb on a smooth surface. Set your left thumb next to the right thumb, so that both thumbs touch each other side by side for their whole length. Both thumbs are facing down, softly but firmly touching the smooth surface. Now, without loosing contact with the surface, move the thumbs top to the outside, for about 2-3 cm. The first image that comes to your mind tells everything about who you are.

Friends

“I don’t know who you are. But I know a guy that looks exactly like you; he’s an asshole”
”What do you know about my face?”
”Why aren’t you dancing?”
”You still got it! Only you are a bit older…”
”You might listen to your asynchronous band, or swallow your bottle, just stop denying your desperation”
”Nobody knows what’s going on in my head. I have no friends”

Dance

 

When did it go wrong?

Alexander the Great used to have great dinners, with exotic food, music, poets, dancers and final orgy! Nowadays, our party dinners sound more like: “What about the kids?”, “Have you seen the last episode of Star Trek?”, “May I have the salt, please?”.

Truth or dare?

Don’t you dare to mix-up Truth with Reality

I love sisters

I saw your sister in the cornerstone
on the phone to the middle man
When I saw that she was on her own
I thought she might understand
She was close,
Hell you couldn't get much closer,
She said i'm really not supposed to but yes,
You can call me anything you want.

Why Men Chase Women?

Because they are afraid to die.

 

La verdad sobré el caso Savolta

I never read a book like this before.

At first glance, this book looks like hundreds a-like: a cover, pages full of words. But no matter how long you compare, how deep you search for similarities, no other book is like this. You can find some of this book words in other works, like for instance “run”, “detail” and “guests”. But the order in which the words are put together is absolutely original, and the result is absolutely unique.

Il quinto giorno

Interesting novel, a very different kind of lecture this summer. Characters are portrayed superficially, there is no real psychological study, no erotic tension. This book is not about thoughts, or doubts. It is not the trip within our own spiritual abyss. It’s a hypothesis, and an interesting one. Based on solid scientific knowledge, a scenario is made that shakes the fundaments of religion, ethics, and the role of the human being in the universe. What is intelligence? What is consciousness? Does a mono-cellular organism think? Uncommon answers are given in this book, answers that helped me think, and confirmed the correctness of my own philosophical system.

Life is about having fun

Enjoy this “Last Lecture”.

For the academics, the full version here.

Towelhead

Cultural clash: how to be Lebanese in Bush’s America? Who should date your 13 years old daughter? A nigger, or the white reservist next door? The solution unravels in Jazira’s life. It’s just a story, but a beautiful one.

The Concretes

horrible band, simple melodies, amateurish orchestration and execution. Don’t listen to them. Don’t even download them.

Sphinx’s wings

This book has changed my life. If I hadn’t read it, I would be a different person; I might have lost money in the market, or made a new friend; I might have seen a place I didn’t see. I might have spoken great words enflaming the heart of the crowds. I might have done millions of other things; I read this book instead.

Dinner

Marco came over, but you already know it because you tweet. We spent our time waiting, and we visited St.Caterina’s Church in Eindhoven in the quest of some religious obscenity as in the “Giudizio Universale” di Michelangelo, which we both recently admired.

We had dinner with Nanni, Enith, Loes, Rosaria and Peter who was trying to celebrate his birthday unsuccessfully: no presents, no kisses, no cake. Despite all my attempts, conversation centered mainly on sex. However, as individual who successfully went beyond his own mid-life crisis, I could scientifically observe my friends in their quest-for-happiness. Nanni, for instance, declared that happiness is an effortless overpaid job; even though still quite far from his ideal, he is convinced that he is on the right track. Rosaria agreed, and added:
“The essence is not to do, do, do, but to be, be, be”
”So, what do you want to be?”
”I want to have a lot of money and spend my days shopping”
That sounded to Marco like “to have, have, have” but he did not care that much: he had spent his last months concentrating on his own life and could not fine the key to happiness until recently – it was hidden beneath a good night of sex.
For Enith happiness is the ability of writing, reading and painting a lot, but the success of her strategy can be measured only when you are 80 years old. Loes did not want to wait that long, but she is already very happy, and how could it be otherwise? Peter is far too young for a quest on happiness, and bought a huge TV. And I could not care less about happiness, since Marco came over.

Vampire

“Are you a vampire?”
“I live of blood.”

Dance (3)

 

Avishai Cohen (Aurora)

Avishai Cohen is one of the most talented contemporary double-bass players. His albums have a fine construction, powerful rhythms, intelligent melodies and a very long breath. His last work, Aurora, is not contradicting the expectations set with Gently Disturbed. Besides Avishai now explores influences from his Levant's heritage, giving this work a wonderful Mediterranean atmosphere. But this time he chooses the song as central musical entity, and songs needs lyrics. Cohen is a great musician, but a mediocre poet; his lyrics are terrible, and devastate his songs.

“You shouldn’t write things in a different language than your mother-tongue”, as Enith once told me after reading the lyrics of River Man in this blog.

That’s a shame, and I must discourage you from listening to this album.

Salsa dura

Put 100ml of water, added with the juice of one lime, 3 mint leaves, a glass of champagne (brut) and 10 mixed strawberries on a very low flame. Add 250g of gelling sugar while mixing, and slowly let it boil for max 1.5 minutes. Let it slowly cool down until it forms a Salsa Dura. Ideally in summer nights to garnish necks, earlobes, navels, fingertips and other parts of young human bodies.

 

 

Yuri Buenaventura – Salsa dura

Dance (2)

 

Strike!

against new italian internet legislation

Dance

Dance, baby, dance

Religion

Flying back from Rome I found this book waiting for me at the airport. “The book your Church would never let you read”. Apparently a best seller in Italy, selling more than 100.000 copies, this book is a collection of articles and theories about the origin of islam, jew religion and christianism.

Here links are made between those religions and the Mitra cults, as well as the zarathustra cult. The bible myths are examined one by one. I found the astrological explanations very charming, it would give an explanation of the new testament that fits. However, what stroke me the most is that all those myths can be explained in thousands different ways. Religion is the suspension of critical reasoning, and therefore its explanation are always fallacious. It’s a shame, or better it’s a pity that our sexual inhibitions have so much to do with religion.

Or better saying: the only difference between fairy tales and religion is that fairy tales are for children.

Silvio Berlusconi Gay (Sabina Guzzanti - English subtitle)

Welcome message from Berlusconi to all the first ladies visiting Italy during the G8 summit. For the russians among you, there are even some references to Putin.

enjoy!

Il Contesto

A simple plot, a parody of a detective story. A policeman is investigating a very simple case. As soon as he feels close to the solution, some extra complication appears, making the case more obscure; again and again, the policeman gets closer to the killer, and every time a new party enters the game: mafia, secret services, political parties, church, you name it.

This small book has been written in 1972, but only published much later. Sciascia started writing it with a lot of fun, and ended in frustration.

Italy’s situation today is even worse. We have a masonic prime minister, accused of bonds with mafia, convicted for a large set of crimes, unconvictable thanks to a self-written and promulgated law, owning the italian media system. Italy has consistently shown the lowest scores on economic growth, information and freedom of speech, as well as law enforcing among the western civilization.

Today there are bloggers that censor comments in fear of political or even criminal prosecution; there are twitters that deride commentators, and some others that even declare that they do not tweet while they are, in the astonishing silence of public opinion. Only Berlusconi’s death might save Italy from his misery.

 

A review in Italian of this book here.

Paraphasia

What a great dream: an orgy!!!

What a great orgy: a dream!!

Award

Il Premio. I.e. what is literature? What distinguish a real writer from a pathetic amateur? Maybe the opinion of a related journalist, or the award ceremony, or the commercial success of a book? Montalbán does not know, and does not care. He prefers to kill a literary mecenate, and let Pepe Carvalho investigate on the delict while floating on exclusive whiskey, sharp irony and the delusion of who loves humanity too much for hiding behind art.

Deep thoughts

Surfing the net I came across this website. It looks like the delirium of someone who is twitting while denying she is, but I believe it is much more than that. Deep Thoughts is the mental journey in the mind of a blogger, who reports about her internal world as opposite to the banality of twitter.

But why call it Deep Thoughts? Are superficial thoughts not good enough? I guess deep thoughts are more difficult to express, more difficult to reach, require more effort to elaborate, some special concentration exercise, like putting your own finger in some special pressure point of your body. What strikes me of Deep Thoughts is that sex is basically absent; again another evidence against the urban legend that wants people thinking very often about sex.

Rome

Rome, from Lonely Planet. A great book, ideally to read when visiting Rome; it is also a very pleasant lecture when visiting other cities; however the included map will generally give you the wrong indication in that case.

With closed eyes

Ad occhi chiusi, e.g. with closed eyes; it indicates the best way to read this book.

All the truth on Berlusconi's gate

Click on this

Shared via AddThis

Boccamurata (sealed mouth)

Why talking?

No place to fall

No Place To Fall


Well if I had no place to fall
And I needed to
Could I count on you
To lay me down

Steve Earle

Sculpture

In S.Peter, in the dome, I found this great statue from Michelangelo. S.Veronica, in the act of setting the table. You can almost hear her saying:

“Everybody…supper is ready!”

The tablecloth seems to wrap Veronica’s body, who’s nakedness is disguised by her semi-transparent dress. Neverthless, the picture is far from erotic. In those ancient times, sex and food were not supposed to be associated. 

S.Veronica is procuress of restaurants and cafés.

Summer

Always we wait for a better summer to do what we never did.

 

Manuel Vasquez Montalban – Il Premio / Recursive quote

Still Life in Rome

On the floor of the Vatican Museum, you can find a fantastic mosaic. Two birds, a duck and a pawn, are standing next to a basket full of fresh fruit. This is the first example of Still Life in history, a milestone of Art History. No matter how long you stare at it, the image is absolutely still. It does not move. Frozen. Unbelievable what those Romains could do.

 

 

-----------------------------------------------

Here a 2nd Still Life on Mosaic.

Mosaic in Rome

Amazing mosaic in Rome. In the Vatican Museum, hanging on a wall, you can admire this marvelous mosaic that probably was covering one of the pavements of the Caracalla’s Baths.

A herd is offering a lamb to the priest, probably to be offered to a god in a pagan ritual ending in a huge dinner and an orgy. Scenes of the ritual were nowhere to found in the Museum.

Report F#32W

 

McKenzie and Cobra have been signaled in Rome recently. McKenzie was in his way back from Korea, where he supposedly killed some agents with his own hands. Cobra was returning from his mission in the Vatican. OTF finds Vatican’s propaganda in line with the secret agreements, but it is furious on the rumors of opposition on the OLYMPIA mission.

Part of the conversation has been taped at the OIO restaurant. Here’s the most important extract, which we were not able to decrypt yet:

“Per me pasta co la Pajaja”

“Io me accontento de ‘npo de puntarelle”

The meeting ended in McKenzie’s phantom-mobile, equipped with Air-Land and Air-to-Air missiles; the OTF-mobile responds submissively to all the vocal commands John gives her. Cobra commented:

“A mia non si scugna mancu su ma ‘mbaiu ‘n caccararu!!” (*)

 

(*) My mobile will not move even if I would speak to her in English

Via dei Condotti

Heart of Mode in Rome.


You can have a drink on the high terrace, with a great view of Rome's roofs,



but don't forget to come properly dressed.

Villa Borghese

I did not understand whether the wall at the edge of Villa Borghese was keeping the City outside the Villa or the Villa outside the City.

Is Everything too much?

‘Cause I want it

" L'amore che"

L’amore che parla di sé in un bello sguardo.
La percezione in cui mi perdo
e l’oltre mare di un assurdo
sì…
L amore che arriva con movenze lente
qui sotto gli occhi della gente,
mi parla con voce tremante…
sì.
Illudendo, lusingando
Incantando e come danzando
afferra le mani,
sì.
Affrettando, ansimando, provocando
e tutto abbreviando, come adorando,
sì.
Sì…
Ti amo tanto e ti sento arrossendo e impallidendo
quasi morendo, sì.
L’amore che trafigge me lascia che dica
“Non so cos’è.
Non lo so mica..
Ma credo in te dolce nemica….
sì."

Dedicated

If you are reading this post, be aware these words are not meant for you.

Labour Party

Carissimi,

is there a better occasion than my own birthday to throw a party?

Join us and participate to the LABOUR PARTY 2009, and bring your

friends with you!

May 1st 2009, not earlier than 21:00 'till dawn

Entrée: Free (21+ from midnight on)

Dress code: Elegant / Glamour

Music, Dance, Games, Booze and much more.

Special guests: M.A.T.

St. Catherina hospital will offer a service for treatment of alcohol poisoning or undesired pregnancy to all participants

genova per noi

Genova per noi
che stiamo in fondo alla campagna
e abbiamo il sole in piazza rare volte
e il resto pioggia che ci bagna.
Genova, dicevo, unidea come unaltra
Ah la la la la

Sunday met Paolo Conte in Eindhoven. He played, I listened.

Herbie Hancock Feat Corinne Bailey Rae - River

away....

And that's it!!

Skip to 15:30 for the real show!

Live Video streaming by Ustream

Arousal and Sadness (II)

Concert starts at 20:30 sharp. Kraaij en Balder.
No cameras allowed. Better bring your handcuffs.

Arousal and Sadness

Music. Good Music. Real Good Music should convey these two fundamental feelings: Arousal and Sadness. Great music conveys them simultaneously, like in Melody Gardot's CD Worrysome Heart.

Love me like a river does
Cross the sea
Love me like a river does
Endlessly
Love me like a river does
Baby don’t rush you’re no waterfall
Love me that is all

Love me like a roaring sea
Swirls about
Love me like a roaring sea
Wash me out
Love me like a roaring sea
Baby don’t rush you’re no waterfall
Love me that is all

Love me like the earth itself
Spins around
Love me like the earth itself
Sky above below the ground
Love me like the earth itself
Baby don’t rush you’re no waterfall
Love me that is all

On February 12th, Melina and I will have a mini-concert.
Location is secret.

Be there.

L'etá del dubbio

Can you still fall in love? Can you still let your heartbeat break your brains? Are you ready to forget your history and dive into a precarious future? Can her hair let you forget your life delusions? And the rage that burns you after her refusal, is that really love or is it just your proud? Montalbano is 58, and he keeps asking this questions to himself. The detective is questioning himself. In the meanwhile life goes on like melting snow; only the cold remains, when everything is useless.

Andrea Camilleri - L'etá del dubbio

Success

Christmas is a period of 2 weeks, made of parents and family, long dinners and loads of words. In the interstices I read a book Melina gave me (*).

Bas Haring: Voor-een-echt-succesvol-leven (read: For a truly successful life). The thesis is etymological: succeeding means: that has a succession, and according to the philosopher there are concepts that are "built" to stay on for a long period, and others which are destined to estinguish. For instance, the idea "it is important to communicate your ideas to others" has more chance of surviving then it's opposite. People that believe that communication is not important do not communicate their ideas, including the idea "it is NOT important to communicate". The ones who believe in communication, have more chances that their beliefs are spread around, including their faith in communication. But they also break their heads in finding something intersting to say, spend energy looking for their audience, fill internet pages with words; to succeed is to make sure it continues after you! The philosopher argues that the only one that gets advantage of success is the idea of success. The "hero", who sacrifices himself for it has a miserable life.
Therefore, during these holidays, I did not want to succeed any more - actually better, I decided to be like Louis XIV: Aprés moi, le rien. All my deeds of the last two weeks have contributed to nothing, have added nothing, won't last even in my own memory.




(*) Thank you Melina