THE TASTERS

THE TASTERS

Apr 6, 2025 | MOVIES, MOVIES

The tasters Le assaggiatrici is the film directed by Silvio Soldini released in cinemas last week.

I went to the cinema with Monica and this is one of the times I see the film before reading the book.

Cristina Comencini and Ilaria Macchia, who I am always curious to discover, among others, collaborated on the screenplay.

The tasters Le assaggiatrici is based on the novel written by Rosella Pastorino, inspired by the story of Margot Wölk who only at the age of 95 revealed that she was the only survivor of a group of women selected to check that their food was not poisoned.

Tony’s blog published a list of ten distressing films, there and then I had no idea, but now I can definitely mention The tasters: an hour and I don’t know how many minutes of distress.

 

 

To emphasise even more the sense of ineluctability, at times the images are interspersed with cuts in black.

The soundtrack music looms just as effectively.

The director chose to work with German actors, precisely in order to remain as faithful as possible to every single detail.

But what emerges is that people, of whatever nationality, of whatever colour, of whatever origin, suffer during the war.

I know I have written a platitude, yet it seems that everything that happened in the Second World War, as well as in all the other wars in the history of mankind, has served no purpose.

We have learnt nothing.

And we feed on the venom of the powerful.

HAPPINESS

HAPPINESS

Mar 29, 2025 | BOOKS

Happiness is the title of the latest reading I owe Monica.

What is happiness for you? 

The answer to this question is always very subjective.

What if happiness was a widespread state of mind that involved everyone?

The author of the book: Will Ferguson outlines his hypothesis of what would happen if everyone was happy in a short time.

How? Through a manual: the happiness manual.

Do you think we would need it?

The protagonist of the book: an editor who receives the manuscript of this manual and immediately trashes it, but then …

Everything is told with an irony that distinguished this entertaining read while maintaining an important underlying reflection.

I would particularly like to point out the publishing house: Accènto. 

Founded by Alessandro Cattelan, this independent publishing house has among its projects, the objective of translating books that are missing from the Italian market, as in this case.

Besides the humour, this book gave me a small discovery, which with my love for words, and for words in different languages, I really appreciated:

May had recently edited a bizarre dictionary of obscure terms for Panderic. The title was The Untranslatables, and it was a playful survey of certain terms absent from the English language. Whole feelings, whole concepts that remained unexpressed for the simple reason that no word had ever been coined to define them. Words like ‘mono-no-awarè,’ ‘the sadness of things,’ a Japanese term that defined the eternal pathos that peeps just below the surface of life. Words like ‘mokita,’ which in the Kiriwina language of New Guinea means ‘the truth that no one talks about.’ It refers to the tacit agreement, between two or more people, to avoid explicit references to a well-known secret…

Do you also know any untranslatables?

BEAVERS

BEAVERS

Mar 24, 2025 | ENVIRONMENT, WORLD

Beavers live where there is enough water to dive, they build the entrance to their burrows underwater for greater safety, then if the water level is not sufficient, they build a dam.

We learnt the ‘beaver – dam’ association of thought from an early age, do you remember any cartoons in particular?

I mention cartoons because the beavers I want to talk about are definitely characters.

The beavers I want to talk about live in Brdy in the Czech Republic.

The name of this area: Brdy comes from brdo meaning hill, precisely because it is a hilly/mountainous and wooded area.

The presence of a military zone in this area meant that the area was not affected by any urbanisation, thus preserving the naturalistic aspect: flora and fauna.

Having become an environmentally protected landscape for Brdy, it had become necessary to repair a drainage canal built by the army and restore the wetlands.

Huge and extremely expensive works, the plans for which had run aground under the weight of bureaucracy and waiting for appropriations.

But the beavers magically solved the issue by building a dam!

Zero cost and a great lesson to be learned.

Nature teaches us about life in harmonious balance.

‘Beavers always know what is best. The places where they build dams are always chosen in the right way, better than when we design them on paper,’ these words are from Jaroslav Obermajer, head of the Central Bohemia office of the Czech Agency for the Protection of Nature and Landscape (AOPK). 

What can I say?

I would use the words of Jules Verne:
Nature’s creative power is far beyond man’s instinct of destruction.

Do you know another similar case?

ECHOES FROM THE UNKNOWN

ECHOES FROM THE UNKNOWN

Mar 16, 2025 | BOOKS

Echoes from the Unknown is the book I received as part of the Mari’s Manual online book fair.

I would like to thank the author: Cristiano Venturelli for the courtesy.

The anthology Echoes from the Unknown is his third publishing work.

What is the unknown?

Cristiano asks this question, emphasising a quote by H.Philip Lovecraft:
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

How do you deal with courage?

If you were confronted with something that could generally be called a paranormal phenomenon, how would you react?

Would you want to find out what it really was or would you run for your life?

With respect to the concept of the unknown, does your first immediately instinctive reaction lead you to consider something dark and negative?

Do you believe that everything must have a logical explanation?

Or, on the contrary, do you think the line that can lead you to intersect everyday situations with supernatural realms can also be thin?

Each of the protagonists faces the unknown in a different way, but even before that, each represents human weaknesses and fallibility.

Yet very important values emerge from each tale, offering food for thought on aspects that should be echoed.

Reading the author’s notes, the love for his daughter, to whom the book is dedicated, shines through.

As it will soon be 19 March, I take this opportunity to express my gratitude for all loving fathers.

SHOUT SONGS

SHOUT SONGS

Mar 9, 2025 | MUSIC, ROCK

Basically, the definition of shout songs refers to the Gospel genre: a strongly rhythmic religious song in the African-American folk tradition, characterised by chants or shouts of response between the leader and the congregation.

Shouts of invocation, we can say of a joyful kind.

However, when I think of shout songs, completely different songs immediately materialise in my mind.

Songs that are irresistible to me, in the sense that when I listen to them, I feel strongly involved and find myself singing with an unequivocally liberating emphasis.

Shouts that drag out a load of emotions.

What is the quintessential shout song in your opinion?

Wandering around the web in search of answers, the song mentioned the most left me somewhat perplexed.

It is actually one of the songs in the index of my Heron Formula, so it has a special meaning for me, but for my vision it does not exactly correspond to the idea of a shout song: Won’t Get Fooled Again – Roger Daltrey – The Who.

What do you think?

Going on a sort of statistics of the most quoted songs, I realised that a high percentage of them are in my index. 

A fluke? Definitely not: obviously it all comes down to my vision of music.

What do you prefer to sing instead?

I know, I should use the verb to listen, but shout songs provides an additional level of involvement.

Speaking of involvement, I also take this opportunity to talk about Emily Armstrong.

shout songs

Her singing screamed a huge responsibility: to get on stage with Linkin Park.

Surely no one considered the thought of a replacement: impossible, but still a huge perplexity remained.

That’s why I appreciated Mike Shinoda’s sentence: the voice of Chester Bennington is you.

We are the voice of those who have left us.

In contrast to the shouting, there are those who have chosen silence, no less than a thousand artists: 1,000 UK Artists. 

shout songs

These 1,000 UK Artists have released a 12-track album entitled Is that what we want?

Here are the titles:
1. The
2. British
3. Government
4. Must
5. Not
6. Legalise
7. Music
8. Theft
9. To
10. Benefit
11. AI
12. Companies

These tracks do not contain any of the thousands of entries among which we can mention Annie Lennox and Kate Bush and represent the artists’ protest against the proposed change in copyright law.

The amendment would allow artificial intelligence companies to create their own products using rights-protected work: music, lyrics, etc., without a licence, effectively favouring the so-called training of algorithms without providing any remuneration for authors.

Silence to communicate.

Shall we also add our voice?

Or perhaps I should say let us also add our shout …

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