“I edit my posts for a while after they’re posted”

– Jago Noja

Who said that Milano was a nice place? Once again, the middle class has won and we all got five more years with a new reactionary phony mayor, the slimy former Berlusconi’s Minister of Education Letizia Moratti.
Another mayor who will have no problem in cutting down trees, I guess, or financing more ugly housing projects, encouraging the fashion & design mafia as long as it is not concerned with the ugly city itself, but just with the money, and so on. One mayor that will, for five more years, encourage her citizens to just keep on working hard, head down, be a little greedy, be a little racist, be a little acquiescent, and coward for the rest. Most important, another mayor that will encourage every social category, of every creed, color, political idea, to be even more sealed within its own borders and to look conspicuously to everyone else from there. Good.

Good ol’ Milano. Sometimes I wonder why its citizens want it this way. I guess it is because of the extreme prgamatism of the milanese tradition, where money and houses and cars and the like are the only solid stuff we all can think of.
Well, amen. Not that I thought there were actual alternatives to this picture, I’d only love to see some new approach at it, just for the boredom it causes me.

— In picture: the new mayor cheers us from her pit

I am quite happy to learn that Peter Handke has been awarded the new Düsseldorf ‘s Heinrich Heine Prize. Not that I think prizes are really representative of someone’s art or greatness: but this can so much piss off all the creepy attackers of Handke’s work and it’s very welcomed.

Yes I am quite happy for it, regardless the opinions of a once-great-novelist Salman Rushdie, who called years ago Handke ‘moron of the year’ for his opinions about the Yugoslavian war, starting the whole pillory against him, and regardless the so called ‘philosopher’ Bernard-Henri Levy, who recently stated that Handke’s plays should be banned from all theaters of France; for the Comedie Francaise too, that cowardly and accordingly removed Handke’s plays from the scenes, and for the many others who insulted or neglected him and his work without even reading it, because he (while accomplishing new great results with it, particularly with the splendid recent novel ‘Der Bildverlust’) asked for a country and its people, the Serbian people, room for listening and understanding.

I don’t know if the Heinrich Heine Prize is meant to be a political one, since many European literary prizes unfortunately tend to be political (the Nobel Prize for Literature, for example, it’s shamefully, stupidly political). The point is that Heine himself suffered criticism and censorship during his life, in his quest for an outspoken truth, but he managed anyway to be first of all a poet. I think that this is the best award Handke could receive, if only to accent this, that he remained first of all a storyteller and a poet, and his politcal opinions have not reduced his talents.
Heine was a poet, a satirist, an endless traveler just like Handke proved to be. And just like Handke do, he always kept his eyes wide, to see, understand, and live to tell. (I must have said already that Handke is my favorite living writer so I’ll leave it at that. End of the post.)

— in picture: Peter Handke in Kragujevac, 1999

There are many who suffer for the fate of the animals, but most of the people either do not care, or they think it’s something not important compared to the fate of humans (of course, there’s also the small minority who hates animals or think they are there only to be hunted and annihilated, but they’re just too incomprehensible for me so I’ll leave them out of the picture).
Now, among those who do not care that much about animals are those who think that the fate of humans in term of justice, freedom, fights against all sorts of exploitations and so on is the most important thing in the world, in front of which the point of view of animals disappears. They’re particularly disappointing to me, because while they pretend to be very caring about the destiny of those who suffers, they just fail completely to see the suffering inflicted to all the animals. What are they sensitive for?

They just don’t get the point, if you listen to me. Humans are everywhere, the world is filled with them. It is obviously a successful species. It doesn’t need that much help to get to be even more successful. But it has left only the crumbs for the animals. Those animals that are not bred in captivity by humans to be eaten or used for food in different ways, are forced into degrading and shrinking environments without much hope to make it after this century as a species.
I can’t help it. When first I read the story of the bear from Trentino few days ago I just hated this world because it is so less and less meant for animals, and I am too sorry for them. I know life is generally meaningless as Nature conceived it, and cruel to everything that is alive, but I feel sorry for the animals because they keep trying to be successful but it’s sort of too late for them.

The bear I am talking about is a two years old male bear of a monitored kind, Slovenian origin, who trespassed the Italian border from the Adamello National Park, in the region of Trentino in Italy, to Baviera in Germany, few days ago. Out of his relatively human-less environment, probably looking for a female bear on heat, the bear found himself in a much more developed area, with lots of farms and villages. So he killed chickens, pigs and other animals to support himself. In the region of Baviera it is not allowed to hunt bears, particularly of this protected species. Nonetheless, the authorities decided to allow the hunting of the bear, and the regional minister for the environment, Werner Schnappauf (Csu), said the bear was getting ‘too dangerous’ and had to be killed.

Today it’s on the news, the bear has probably been killed by some poacher encouraged by the authorities, who’s probably stuffing his fucking trophy right now.

It’s a fact that the bear killed eleven sheep, and plundered many hives. In spite of that, a bear it’s not really dangerous in this situation if for one thing: it is economically dangerous. It is not a Grizzly bear we are talking about, but a young brown bear scared by humans who doesn’t know fowls are there for humans only. Farmers are pissed off because they lose their living properties, and politicians are scared to lose farmers’ support. But let’s consider the recent unfortunate extermination of thousands of chickens and other birds because of the avian influenza scare: the region of Baviera compensates financially the losses caused by the bear just like it does with those caused by the avian influenza, so where is the fucking problem? They should have taken their time and captured the bear with soporific bullets or something like that, sending it back to Trentino. Although I admit the whole scheme must be too complicated and expansive for the lazy mind of a politician, when it’s so easy to simply suggest to all animal killers at large to just feel free to go on and take the problem away, having some fun.

Poor bastard bear who didn’t know shit, of our borders and our crazy attitudes, and our staggering fast way to communicate each other something silly he did, walking into Baviera.

*** update: apparently, the bear has not really been killed. It has been spotted alive again. This post does not make much sense then.

While hundreds of residents flee Somali capital, it is clear now that Talibans are taking over in Somalia. It’s kind of sad to think that Somalia will turn into one of those islamic fascist states. Good luck to talibans to impose to Somali to grow their beards, anyway. Not that I think it’s nobody’s business but of Somali people.

When I was a kid (from ten years old, for years I used to periodically spend months in Somalia), I walked the streets of Mogadishu many times, by myself or with my brother and sister, even at night, maybe to go to buy sambusi (a tasty variation of indian’s samosa) at a shop near the Arabian neighborhood, or with my family to the Casa d’Italia, or to watch a movie at the French consulate.
Mogadishu was a reasonably peaceful and tolerant city back in the eighties, even if evidently split among rich people and awfully poor people. Somali people was the most welcoming, and among the most generous and united people you could happen to deal with, although their lack of organization in public affairs was legendary. Corruption was everywhere, not only because Italians had brought it, and Siad Barre, the president/dictator of Somalia, was in charge thanks to it.

We used to take the toyotas to move around in the city back then, white pick-up trucks used as collective taxis, with the back load area covered by white or blue or green sheets tied to a metal arched frame colorfully cut-worked, and usually filled with people beyond any imagination. Once aboard the toyota, I would usually watch the young boy, approximately my age, hanging outside the back of the truck to make sure everyone was safe aboard, then banging his fist against the side of the truck to signal the driver to pull away. Now (as in picture above) the same vehicles are used to bring soldiers around in the city. Last year my father worked in Somalia, 1990, we had to go around escorted and only by car, and it was – righlty or wrongly – clearly the end of an era.

(…) there’s a sporting shop after the other
and those mighty gloomy middle-class buildings
could be staying in Milan.
This place is
a perfect model of the everywhere.
— Peter Handke, Song for the Duration

(consider reading part one too)

My mother sounds bewildered. Is this my son? she asks.
“Yeah, that’s me mom” (I don’t call her “mom”, actually).
“I was calling Giuliano, I must have dialed the wrong number or something.” Giuliano is her ex-boyfriend. They have a relationship by the blurred edges.

Even if she wasn’t calling me, my mother starts talking fast about the recent problems her laptop is suffering, particularly with the “bloody antivirus program” which is “expiring”, intimidating her out of nothing considered she doesn’t even surf the internet and uses the e-mail once a year (Oh, I hate so much all these norton bastards and their accomplices, the fanatic spammers, frightening and pestering people to make money out of it, turning an apparently peaceful thing like writing a miserable experience!)

Her mood seems good, anyway, a little too much maybe. Now she’s talking about the speech the president of the Region of Puglia just gave in town.
“It was a wonderful speech, a brave, honest, convincing one and not at all poetic and unrealistic like the others I heard from him on TV.”
Then she tells about the moment when she got out of the town hall, “and the most beautiful sunset was in the grassland. Incredibly beautiful colors. It was very refreshing. I took it as a good sign”, she says.
“Yeah, well. It’s nice”, I say.
As we speak, I am trying to see the moment from a certain distance. My 64 old mother talking with me about a pugliese sunset on the phone. It strikes me.
“Here the weather is sort of gloomy”, I say. I look around in the dark house, getting darker toward twilight.

“But aren’t you happy that Prodi won?” she asks then. That’s the biggest news since our last phone call and it’s good to talk about it.
“Oh yes. Everyone is better than Berlusconi,” I say. “Although, Prodi’s kind of weak.”
“Who cares, even if he will be in charge for one minute it will be one minute of relief for this country. I can’t stand these folks who voted him and now go around telling he will fall for sure, he’s weak, his ministries are lousy and so on…”
“They don’t want to hope too hard and be disappointed again,” I argue. “It’s embarrassing.”
“All right, but one must let it out sometimes, be positive. Not being so closed up, cowardly incapable to cooperate with his hopes,” and now it seems like she’s talking about me, and she knows it, and I feel a weird weight on my stomach. I need to change route, to dress the caring son’s clothes.
“How are you doing anyway?” I ask. I took care of her needs when she needed it. I, the loving son.

“I am not okay,” she says.
“I mean,” she says, “my head is not working well. I feel dizzy, tired, confused. I’ll wait for the new exams in June. After that, if it’s not going to be better at all, I’ll take decisions.”
I know about these decisions. I know what she means, because she told me a zillion times. It’s all about the dogs and the horse and who’s gonna take care of them, and about how she firmly doesn’t want to be kept alive demented, like it happened with her mother. She goes on about her animals’ needs for a while.
“You know I can be around to help” I say at a certain moment, because I don’t know what else to say. But this reminds her to update me about N.
N. was her dog-sitter back when she lived in Milan. He now lives in Rome, and he’s the one who will be in charge of everything after her death, that’s written in her will. He will live in the house in Puglia and take care of the animals until they will be around. He’s around my age, and my mother worships him. During the years when I was not being able to be near anyone of my relatives anymore, including her, he was around everyday and helping. He’s the typical substitute son, and that’s settled once and for all. There’s nothing I could do now to change this, but ,well, okay.
“N. said,” my mother explains thrilled, “that even if he’s happy and in love somewhere in the world and I die, he will come back at once!”
“Oh that’s nice of him”, I say. The weight on my stomach is heavier now, and I badly need to end the conversation.
“Anyway I feel better today,” she says. “I don’t know if I told you that I have been to a speech in town…”

Oh, mother. Now my feelings are so paralyzed and confused at the same time.

I listen to her voice for another while before pushing a goodbye against it. I know that’s probably the voice I recognize and love more than any other, for no reason, totally against my will, because it was the voice that didn’t scare me, or because it used to read me Topolino when I was a kid, although it was also the drunken voice that later said those things, absurdly weird things to me that I don’t manage to remember.
Ironic and beautiful, the voice tells me once again about the sunset, and the speech of the President, about the dogs. She makes other considerations about her possible dementia or death, very calmly. I used to make jokes in the past whenever she talked about her possible death or arteriosclerosis or whatever, even after the accident. I wonder if she notices that I am not capable of doing them anymore. I hope she doesn’t.

When we say goodbye, I am outside, on the terrace, where a later western sunset is also ending. Behind the big clouds the light is turning into a sooty grey blue, and the hour of the swallows and the bats is almost over.
I hardly felt so alone or desperate at this beautiful hour, particularly because I can’t focus on what the exact reason is. I can only be ashamed of my supposed complexity, and picture this gloomy weird ball of reasons all entangled together in my head.
I should try to find something useful in it, I think, to begin disentangling it.
At least, whatever this anguish is, it has a duration, unlike death, or dementia for what it matters, which — I imagine — gradually removes the feeling of duration from our lives.
At this thought, the lights in the house across the courtyard are turned on. I see the plants plunged into orange light, they look odd and unreal. I get back in the house – it’s not my house. I am shivering, arms pushed against my stomach, tired of myself.

I wish we wouldn’t have to write about Berlusconi anymore, but it’s impossible… Politically wise, Berlusconi is the equivalent of someone who crashes a party, ruining everyone’s business but his own, and who his therefore forever talked about in all the subsequent parties.

This will probably be commented by many Italian bloggers, but, anyway: Apparently, the day before being kicked out of office Berlusconi wrote a letter to all the Heads of State of Europe, to undermine his successor’s credibility as his last official act in public office. By doing this, he also undermined the remains of Italian credibility, although that’s obviously none of his concerns.
According to L’Espresso, Berlusconi wrote to Blair, Zapatero and co. something like this: “I am going away, but I will be back when the votes will be recounted. I am the one who won the elections, and if I’m going away it’s only because of the faulty Italian electoral system.”

It must be noted that Berlusconi’s government “corrected” the italian electoral system few weeks before the vote, so he can’t blame anyone but himself. Also, in the meantime votes have been recounted finding nothing, no Florida case. But that’s not the point.
The point is, if Italy was a Democracy, such a thing would not be possible. There would be enough respect for the rules and for the vote to keep one’s personal resentment out of the question. But Italy is not a democracy, it is a oligarchy¹, and in the oligarchic mode of rule the going down families are always allowed some little dishonest see-you-later trick.

_{1. I know, I’ve said that before, what do you want. Everyone has his own obsessions.}

Because I am “too hard on myself” — someone says — too moaning and self-deprecating probably, today I will start by saying that I am quite happy of the drawing I just did. Well the raised arm is completely wrong and the head too small, but still.

This sort of question-marked statue of liberty fuelled with faces (like the other one), needed a pencil, a large white piece of paper, eraser, camera, a cracked copy of photoshop to “burn” the pencil strokes– and a couple of hours.
Okay, I don’t know or care what it represents. I worked with the headache, awfully tired (20 hours awake today), splay on the floor, eyes sore, following my hand and the two or three tricks it masters and can perform nicely.
No music in the background– I listen to music rarely ’cause it suck up all my consciousness– but there was the annoying engine noise from the trucks at work down in the avenue, at full throttle to remind everyone in the city that the city itself is decaying and needs a lot of make up and constantly. It was all below the usual sparrows, below crows and blackbird calls, city birds who are brave enough, impudent, opportunist enough, and all below these European gray clouds, loaded with acid waters, moving about and beautiful. And it was all, I liked my drawing.

Anything sorts itself out,
except the difficulty to be, which never does.
      — Jean Cocteau

Every now and then during the day I call myself stupid for something that crosses my mind. Memories of past scenes from the story of my life pop up unexpected in my head and drive me into a concealed embarrassments that can be shaken away only by calling myself “stupid” briefly, unheard. Of course the embarrassing events of the past are not really embarrassing for any sane person but me, but that’s how it works. Petty stupid things dominate me in that moment, like a wrong word, a trivial mistake, someone I disappointed for something. I mean, years ago, even.
It’s stuff nobody probably remembers, not even me until bits of it come to surface again. When they do, I am cutting a tomato for lunch, or browsing a website, or reading, or htmlzing a website, or pruning the woodbine, it doesn’t matter. The memory unfolds, and I regret it.
I don’t seem to be able to control at all the embarrassment that follows, so useless and neurotic, all by myself, if not by blaming my weakness, my oddity, my confidence or lack of confidence. There must be some pleasure in it, but I don’t really know which is.

It’s like that thing that keeps happening when I’m in bed alone, about to fall asleep.
— No not masturbation, another one —
When I’m in bed alone, and I get drowsy over the book I’m reading, and I know I am about to fall asleep, suddenly, in the wrong moment so to speak, I realize that undoubtedly I will die, sooner or later, maybe in a short while– I will cease to exist and there will be absolutely no place left for me, for my mind, my personality, my body, my feelings, my voice. All blacked out. Nothing left.
I mean, it’s not something that will happen if I am not careful. It will just happen, for sure, one hundred fucking percent. Me no more. And all the rest of the planet going on.
At the unbeatable plainness of this vision my heart start banging in my chest fast, and I have to move about in the bed to push the whole thing away. Insane person! of course it’s no use to worry about dying, I repeat to myself, since it has to happen anyway. I think about genes, and about all those rules of Nature I like so much to read about, and I wonder why I don’t seem to be able to get along with it. Should I take drugs? I wonder.

It’s all because you have too much spare time, says a voice. For your wanderings, it says. Because you lead an absurd life, it says. It’s because, says the voice, you are closed up into yourself, cowardly worried to be deluded, unwilling to cooperate with your future, your destiny –all that sort of crap, says the voice.
I wonder about the voice, then I stop — maybe I am opening the fridge, or jumping onto the tram, or washing dishes — and I have a sudden revelation.

Sudden Revelation: to do nothing is the only way to understand how everything is vain.

That’s when my mother calls. The cell phone vibrates in my hand, showing her name. I haven’t heard from her for weeks. I haven’t called, neither she has. For a moment I have the vision of her face, her figure walking down across the grassland to the ulives behind the stone wall, followed by dogs. She wears a captain hat, and looks away.

(to be continued. Second part is ready but it all came out too long)

Italy had its new government today. Prodi is always so fast to make up his teams, I must give him that. Now in control of schools will be a physician, infrastructures will be ruled by a former magistrate and policeman, a very-important-nobody without ideas will take care of culture heritage while his right-hand man takes care of televisions, the creepy lay nun will have her ministry for the family, an ignorant fat-ass chair-lover will be directing sporting activities, and, most wildly, in charge of justice will be a weak yelling meddler, Mastella, formerly on Berlusconi’s side and now powerful only because his senators can undermine Prodi’s majority. Mastella, as new Minister of Justice, will enjoy the help of some of the members of his small party, already condemned for corruption, disturbance of property, embezzlement, forgery and etc. Thus, everyone will be competent for something. I am very reassured.

— in picture: faces of the new government. Courtesy of Repubblica.it

Milano is hot and summery today. Warm wind is coming in to dry the clothes hanged outside on blue wires, or dropped on the flayed metal frames of the tenders beneath the dark windows. Someone, fanatic, turned on a cooler, and the hot whir swirls out of the white box hooked outside, its familiar noise filling the gaps of silence in the city ferment. A telephone rings repeatedly from one of prostitutes’ apartments, and from the other side of the court echoes the dull cracking of an oval carpet wildly shook against the yellowish plaster walls. All around are fainted voices of indoor conversations and televisions, shotguns, fights, laughters, tricks.
The sky is blue, white with remnants of frayed clouds and chemtrails that swiftly are shifting westward. Again I have this strange feeling inside, like something growing. Gatherings of strength to liberate me from the falling country and its souls, maybe? Or the energy to decide about Libi instead of letting her down or giving her hopes? I don’t know.
Jawa texts me a triple message about little Piero who’s discovering the grass of the lawn at Parco Nord, and learning to roll himself always on the same side. I don’t know what to answer, later I can’t find the cellphone.
Finally the tram in the avenue rattles by, urging to leave the stop in front of the building where I hide. I sham normalcy down the streets and my shames follows me at a certain distance, looking as if going its own way.