insure (against) your future

i have the feeling my insurance company is trying to tell me something through their letters carefully adorned with this sort of pictures... subliminal messages not very subliminal?

here's the game, interpret these images and answer this question:
is it me being paranoid and definitively corrupted by feminist idea(l)s or do you also notice some kind of eteronormative/ classist/ sexist/ racist/ gender stereotypes?!

work out?

study math even if it's hard?
go skating?!
be a guy?
be cool?
be white?
be young?

[Ohra's original artworks/copyrights]

be sexy and be pregnant?
or, do i need to get insured when i go out dancing/picking up girls/being picked up???
and this two pics together are just of very bad taste!
[notice also how it is gently stresses that she's pregnant but not alone, there's the caring guy just behind her.. ]

be clean and healthy + get a sensitive guy who will brush teeth with the kids?
and do i also need to play golf??!

yes yes, we got the point! didn't we?

... what the fuck?!
and i have spared you a whole series of pictures portraying a young (white) couple (as in man and woman) getting older and older (thanks to cheap photoshop effects) always happy together and smiling in the camera (i guess 'cos they are happily paying at least 200 euros a month to be safely insured)..

menu > shuffle songs

some nights ago i was in bed listening to my green ipod hoping that it could help me falling asleep. which is something i almost never do because i always think i will wake up stuck in the wire of the headphones or that i will choke with it in the night. it was ages i wasn't playing my ipod and actually paying attention to what is in it. tons of songs i just put in it randomly in the last 2 years, usually quickly before leaving home to go to the airport to catch a flight.
that night i didn't fall asleep listening to these songs, they woke me up more 'cos they are almost all so horribly pop and i thought "what the hell is this?!" or "cool, i had forgotten this song" or "oh god, how much trash there is in here?! but i love it!"..
so here is a random compendium of some nice stuff in my ipod at the moment (+ some favorite lyrics):

* Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams "..and the city sleeps and I'm the only one and I walk alone.."
* Canned Head - On the road again
* Jefferson Airplane - Crown Of Creation
* Pulp - Common People "I brought her to the supermarket, I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere"
* John Coltrane - Resolution & Acknowledgement [couldn't chose one.. the doublebass here is amazing!]
* Franz Ferdinand - You're The Reason I'm Leaving
* Sergio Cammariere - Sorella Mia "..perchè se amore è amore è quello che non chiede, perchè se amore è amore non pretendendo ottiene, però se amore è amore non cerca ma è trovato.."
* Iggy Pop - Lust for life
* The Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now "..You can't take me anywhere, I can take you anywhere/I'll take you anywhere you wanna go.."
* Arab Strap - The first big weekend
* John Cage - Third Construction
* Natasha Atlas - Mon amie la rose
* Noir Desire - Le Vent Nous Portera
* Doris Day - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
* Grant Lee Buffalo - The Whole Shebang
* Hole - Celebrity Skin
* Placebo - Every You Every Me
* Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River [I love his voice! one of the best voice ever..]
* Avril Lavigne - Skater Boy [I know..!!]
* Gogol Bordello - Illumination "..of course there is no us and them, but them they do not think the same.."
* Beck - Loser
* Venus In Furs - Tumbling Down
* Grateful Dead - Ship of Fools
* NOFX - Lori Meyers
* Junior Kelly - Love So Nice "..tell me if love's so nice, why it hurts so bad.."
* Blur - Girls and boys
plus some Smiths, Clash, Dresden Dolls, Patti Smith, Housemartins, Muslimgauze, Michelle Shocked, Rem, Stone Roses, Pixies, Chicks on Speed,Paolo Conte, Vive la Fete, etc.. etc.. etc..

Seasonal rant

Maybe i’m moody, maybe just often tired in this period; maybe too susceptible in changing what I think according to external events, songs, the weather..

When it is like today, rainy, coldish, and I feel a bit lost, just taken by the events, not choosing, just blown by stuff.. it feels like winter. And somehow winter makes me wanting to stay at home, to stay safe, to have a regular life, without too much external excitement. Just me, my loved one, in a warm house, reading, studying, being seriously creative and “looking inwards” into me. And that’s not what I do/what I can do now. Winter for me is: fireplace and some warm liquor. Not that I’ve actually spent much time in front of a fireplace in winter.. I have one, in Rome, but I hardly use it. Here, in Holland, it would be great instead.

Only 2 days ago I felt like spring, which to me is the very opposite of winter. And they say it is spring now (I challenge an alien to come to Utrecht now and guess it is spring!.. anyway..)! Spring to me is novelty, desire to connect with people, to have fun, to change, to be open and get new challenges. Spring is creating something great without thinking about it too much. It is going out, being stupid, getting drunk with friends..
I mean, I like both seasons, I like these two moods, but not when they keep changing so continuously and suddenly!

Also today I was thinking about *being alone*, as in: living alone, going around alone, etc.. I love the contradictions it has for me: the feeling of freedom (whatever that might means), the need for someone to share stuff with, the great possibilities it beholds and the absolute emptiness it can end up being.. Well, that’s a bit of a long story ‘cos I’ve a long-running relationship with the idea of *being alone*, and now I’m really too tired to write...

00:07: going to bed, maybe watching a film, maybe not.

Memories from another planet

These days I was listening to Italian songs, again. Regularly, every couple of months, I have this need to listen to known classic/cool Italian stuff; this time I was listening to fiorella mannoia, vinicio capossela e paolo conte..

As always, with every song I hear, there is a whole set of images, memories and connections that starts spinning around my head together with the sound of the songs.. this time my memories seemed to come from very far away...

So, I was listening to Capossela, “L’Indispensabile” and, together with images of Tiz’s old room, I suddenly remembered that I saw him live once. It was like 6 years ago or so, in this horrible place in Rome, at the borders of the city, where they do big-enough open-air concerts in summer, where actually the concert is an excuse for making you enter in this kinda fair-like space where you are supposed to spend as much money as possible buying food and gadgets and stuff and enroll to salsa courses, go to do fitness and I don’t know what else. Not to mention that the beer is not exactly cheap and the atmosphere generally unfriendly. Anyway, we decided to go because the concert was supposed to be good. I was with some friends, in a couple of cars, maybe some dogs but I’m not sure; because in that period we were always going out with a minimum of 2 dogs and a maximum of 5 or 6, so I guess some of them were there, but maybe not.

I almost don’t remember anything of the concert, i remember that the stage was far and that there were many people and that he (the singer) seemed drunk (which wouldn’t be a very surprising thing knowing him). Anyway, what I remember is that after the concert, like at midnight or so, we left that place as quick as we could and someone said that someone’s friend was having a party somewhere not far, in a place were there was a swimming pool. Somehow we agreed it was cool to go to a kind of cocktail party in a kind of private club with a swimming pool. So we did. The place was pretty deserted, the music pretty dead and none there seemed to have fun ‘cos they were too concerned of being elegant and appropriate to that place. But most importantly, none was in the swimming pool! and, if you know how warm Rome can get in summer, you must agree that it is a very stupid thing not to get in a pool when you have the occasion.

At this point there were for sure no dogs. We met someone someone knew so we could stay, have a drink, etc.. Suddenly, I don’t know why and how, we decided to refresh ourselves in the pool and, not having swim costumes with us, we needed to get in half naked and in underwear. That would be kinda awkward anyway, even more if you are the only people doing it, and even more because for me the all evening was a bit awkward given that I was there with a girl I was going out with in that period and with us there was also a guy with whom she was going out in that same period. Anyway, we undressed (in the changing rooms..! As if there is a shame issue in undressing when you are anyway going to jump naked in the pool!) and had our good time swimming, drinking beer and smoking whilst being in the water. Strangely enough none kicked us out, even though the people working there were looking at us with a mix of disgust, amusement and pity. After few minutes, some of the stiff people around, who before were looking at us as if we were monsters, just followed our example and jumped in the pool as well. The party became decent and we had our good time.

The evening continued but that doesn’t matter here, also because my memories get definitely too clouded.
Rho, if you read this and you can understand my English, please confirm if I remember correctly.. ‘cos sometimes it feels like all that happened centuries ago in a parallel dimension.

This is the guy who was doing the concert. Song "Che cos'è l'amor" (what is love):

Before starting his song he goes: "god is love, love is blind, Ray Charles is blind, therefore Ray Charles is god".. :)

pearl of wisdom/the anti-brusketta theory

Going through old stuff, in my memory and in my ‘computer archive’ (!?), I found this pearl of wisdom.

Originally written in Italian by the evergreen, never-forgotten, enlightened feminist-punk-trash band Fucking Barbies [yes, they are friends of mine.. but they were genius anyway!!], I thought it really needed to be translated in English… so, it is with humble respect that I offer it to you...

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Important note: bruschetta (o brusketta if you want to be ‘alternative’) is an Italian food, usually a starter, consisting of a slice of bread, toasted, with something on top, such as: garlic salt and olive oil, or olives pate’, or chopped tomatoes.. etc.. In this specific case, in my reading of its etymological origin, the term is used in its symbolic meaning of something/someone sticking or spreading itself on something/someone else..
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The ‘anti-brusketta’ is a highly revolutionary theory which can dismantle the central nucleus of our society: the monogamous couple, closed in itself, particularly heterosexual.

How to diagnosticate a ‘brusketta’?

The main points:
1. sudden lack of interest towards those various social activities previously enjoyed with friends,
2. annihilation of yourself ‘in’ the other person,
3. complete habituation to the daily routine that the ‘brusketta’ imposes (the tunnel) and consequent illusion of the self-sufficiency of the couple,
4. total disinterest in your activities, oblivion of your inclinations and aspirations with consequent psychophysical decay,
5. shameless face in reappearing to your friends, previously forgotten, as soon as the relationship is dramatically finished.

The ‘brusketta’ is therefore responsible for the failure of each and every antagonist or revolutionary theory conceptualised so far; accordingly, it is responsible for the existing sexist, patriarchal and capitalistic system.

Fuckin’ Barbies

self-reflective moment or "why!?"

Some days ago, a friend of mine asked me “why do you write a blog?”, I didn’t reply to her yet, ‘cos I was busy and/or I forgot about it.. so now:

I have never consciously thought about it, so I cannot but sketch down some possible reasons for my partaking in such a banal, consumeristic, overexposed, meaningless activity (= blogging) which commercialises individual desires of identity-construction, fake (?) communication, self-affirmation and finally of a certain virtual exhibitionism.. :P

So... I write a blog because I enjoy it; because I can let my friends know what goes through my head and in my days without having to write 100 emails [it is left to be checked whether my friends actually read it though..]; I write it probably because I am an exhibitionist/egocentric bitch; because at least I exercise my writing in a non-academic dimension; because friends asked me to write it; because it is like writing a diary but at least you have witness to that, and someone said that having witness is/can be empowering; because I like the idea that someone far away can know what I’m thinking/doing; because I have never been able to keep a diary for more than a week in a row; because I can do it alone without feeling alone; because I enjoy reading other people’s blogs; because maybe one day I will write something really good and interesting; because I like telling stories and at the end of the day there is nothing false or fake in writing in a virtual space; because anyway “Trust me, I'm telling you stories” [J. Winterson] :)

The only thing I blame myself for is that I could use a free/no-profit/politically active/non-commercial/independent server to guest my blog, instead of contributing to the growth of some rich guy/multinational’s income.. [note: blogger was bought by google which is partially owned by time-warner, one of the top web properties corporations.. you know, international information control, foucalian power, big brother, etc..]… but ja! here I am... guilty and sentient.. blame on me!

Amen