help: i need the right one

what do you listen to, sing, play, shout when you are angry and frustrated and you would like not to implode? which song? which lyrics? what?!

thanks in advance for the help!

visual memories are private matters

this Easter my parents came to Utrecht.
these are some of my mum's impressions of what Holland is like, or at least of what she thought was meaningful enough to be photographed.

























if you want more click here

vitamin D anyone?

***** Attention: Educational Advertisement *****

I found out I lack vitamin D... that's because I don't spend enough time outside.
I found out I have a problem with 'prestatie', that is, I have a difficulty in handling the feeling and the fact of having to perform well even if I don't care about it, or better, I have a difficulty in fulfilling all the requests of performances that are expected from me.
I also found out my general balance (PL) is messed up 'cos I often have to do things I don't really want to do.

Guess what is to blame for all this?

Writing a PhD is dangerous, being in University can damage your health.
"if you know it, you avoid it"
"take appropriate precautions"
"keep away from children"
"don't start.. gives addiction"

Piled Higher and Deeper comics

***** End of Educational Advertisement *****

glam rock has never been my thing

I came across Velvet Goldmine again. The glorious 1998 movie by Todd Haynes [the director of I'm Not Here]. Well, not a perfect film if you ask me, the plot is at times confused or predictable, some scenes remain a bit unclear and some characters a bit too shallow. But it's great in its dreamlike atmosphere, and I love the idea it creates these fictional rockstars and music scene using actual songs and quotes of real concerts, bands and singers. Apparently in his films the director always likes to play around with situations, people and imaginaries we are familiar with, blurring them into a fictional history and stories and using all too believable actors.
But maybe each and every film is precisely about this...
So.. uhm... well, the soundtrack of Velvet Goldmine is also an added bonus of the film... uhm.. but probably, at the end of the day, I liked the film only 'cos of the guys with make-up, androgynous bodies and tight trousers. e.g:

whose science and for whom?!

One of the risks when you don't live in your "home-country" anymore, is that you might feel the urge of watching tv shows online that you would have never even considered when you were living there. Say, for example that you're italian, and that you've always hated RAI1 (TV channel) and totally disliked "Quark", a proto-scientific format that pretends to tell you the Real Truth about everything, from the lives of animals, to the human body, from recent medical discoveries, to ancient civilizations, from why you should eat something, to why you shouldn't use alternative therapies. Now, 2 and a half year that you're not living in Italy and *zak* you find yourself watching a whole episode of this Quark thing online!
As a result, you hate the program again and you remember why you didn't like it in the first place. BUT, you also learn a whole bunch of new stuff.

The episode was about LOVE. So well, that's a catchy theme and I thought "you never know I'll find there the answers to all the meaningful life questions". That's what i found out:
- talking about love means talking about entering in relations to others (clear) and raising children (!)
- love is between a man and a woman, period.
- you can completely find out how love works if you do experiments in labs about the biological and psychological aspects of it ( cartoon animations are crucial for the task)
- consequently you can find exactly how a love starts and ends (wow!)
- you can discover unequivocally which elements strikes when a woman and a man meet. Namely, men are impressed and they like in a woman: sweetness, femininity, kindness, non-aggressiveness, education, sweetness (again) and "a bit of intelligence". Women like in men: intelligence, kindness, decision, their eyes, their smell, their hands, their attitude, their eyes (again), humour, that they make them laugh. (the fair of banality, stereotypes and commonplaces!!)
- love is between a man and a woman, period.
- you fall in love when you are ready to change, and you fall in love with someone who somehow symbolises future possible lives you wish for. (this I liked and I think I agree)
- to create future we need to fuse with each other. (sorry single people, you have no future)
- you fall in love to achieve a biochemical stability (I'll use this as my next pick up line: "ehi you, wanna fuse? I think you can stabilise my biochemical system")
- when you're in love it's like you have an obsessive-compulsive disorder: same amount of serotonin in the blood.
- love is between a man and a woman, period.
- man and woman establish a strong relationship because they aim at making children (sorry, no children = no point in having a strong relationship)
- the woman is a traffic-light and the man is the one who takes the initiative and has to pay attention to the traffic-light.. nowadays women take initiative too.. but that's kinda weird, 'cos men like women to be sweet.
- men like porno, women like romantic novels
- love is between a man and a woman, period.
- people "betray" their partner because they don't love him/her (!!)
- well, many many other incredibly interesting things about the smell of sweat, hormones, jealousy, aggressions, cheating statistics, private investigators, dating agencies, etc...

so:

Dear Quark/Piero Angela,
thank you very much for your enlightening information; however I would like to take this opportunity, if I may, to ask you just a small question: why why WHY!!!?!?!??

Sincerely yours,
d. (which has apparently almost never loved and maybe never will)

a big fucking intellectual

I used to like Robert Crumb's comics and illustrations since when I was like 15 or so because of all the psychedelic stuff he used to do (flyers, album covers, etc..); particularly I fell in love with the cover of Janis Joplin's Cheap Thrills album.
I used to like his "Fritz the Cat" too, even though I knew it was just a story of a sexist, lazy, aroused cat.. But well, I still find it sharp and enjoyable and a genial comics if you think it was made in the late 60s-early 70s and it is still applicable to contemporary situations and people; plus, it's one of the punkest stuff in the world of illustration and comics even though is was made well before 'proper' historical punk was born.

I found this very clip that I consider wonderful, not to mention it talks about books and studying and reading and being a "big fucking intellectual" which is something I find pretty close to my own life right now.. :)

So, even though Robert Crumb himself hated the film made on Fritz and killed his character precisely because it had already been killed by the "violence in the media".. here is the clip.. enjoy it:

Poetic diversions

I should probably write something about the italian elections.. but that's too depressing, too banal and I'm already sick so I don't feel like it.
Instead today i found again this beautiful poem and I read it and I thought "that's it"! So here it is part of my favourite piece of the poem (a small piece for space reasons).
It's in italian.. sorry for the non-italian speaker.. it would be really worth it to understand.. Tiz, do you have an english translation/do you know where can I find it?!?!

(...)
dissipa l'orrore, sposta l'orrore al bene. Dissipa
tu se tu vuoi questa debole vita che si lagna,
ma io non ti trovo, e non oso dissiparmi. Dissipa
tu, se tu puoi, se tu sai, se ne hai il tempo
e la voglia, se è il caso, se è possibile, se
non debolmente ti lagni, questa mia vita che
non si lagna. Dissipa tu la montagna che m'impedisce
di vederti o di avanzare;nulla si può dissipare
che già non si sia sfiaccato. Dissipa tu se tu
vuoi questa mia debole vita che s'incanta ad
ogni passaggio di debole bellezza dissipa tu
se tu vuoi questo mio incantarsi, dissipa tu
se tu vuoi la mia eterna ricerca del bello e
del buono e dei parassiti. Dissipa tu se tu puoi
la mia fanciullaggine;dissipa tu se tu vuoi,
o puoi, il mio incanto di te, che non è finito:
il mio sogno di te che tu devi per forza assecondare,
per diminuire. Dissipa se tu puoi la forza che
mi congiunge a te: dissipa l'orrore che mi ritorna
a te. Lascia che l'ardore si faccia misericordia,
lascia che il coraggio si smonti in minuscole
parti, lascia l'inverno stirarsi importante nelle
sue celle, lascia la primavera portare via il
seme dell'indolenza, lascia l'estate bruciare
violenta e incauta;lascia l'inverno tornare
disfatto e squillante, lascia tutto ritorna
a me;lascia l'inverno riposare sul suo letto
di fiume secco;lascia tutto, e ritorna alla
notte delicata delle mie mani. Lascia il sapore
della gloria ad altri, lascia l'uragano sfogarsi.
Lascia l'innocenza e ritorna al buio, lascia
l'incontro e ritorna alla luce. Lascia le maniglie
che coprono il sacramento, lascia il ritardo
che rovina il pomeriggio. Lascia, ritorna, paga,
disfa la luce, disfa la notte e l'incontro, lascia
nidi di speranze, e ritorna al buio, lascia credere
che la luce sia un eterno paragone.
(...)
da ‘La libellula’ Amelia Rosselli

[This is implicitly an homage to Tiz i guess :) who introduced me to and made me appreciate Amelia Rosselli, reading her poems to me and letting me understand her poetry..]