FARAWAY

FARAWAY

Feb 8, 2025 | BOOKS, BOOKS

I would like to thank Jessica Pini and Mari’s Manual for Faraway.

Faraway. 

We often repeat that reading takes us far away, in this case, the journey already starts with the title.

You know I never anticipate what one will discover when reading, so I ask you: what does your ‘far away’ correspond to?

A place?

Or a concept, perhaps: something far away from you.

You can create distance in space, in time, in the heart, in the mind.

Johann Wolfang Goethe left us this reflection:
One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.

Do you agree?

I often remind of Shrek and the Kingdom of Far Far Away.

Faraway

Jessica also mentions Shrek but for a different reason, I still took it as a sign, a kind of affinity.

In particular, I appreciated the passages where the book dwells on the description of the environment with the attention of someone who cares about it.

Jessica then keeps the focus on female strength, declined in the variations in which it can make a difference.

She herself describes a good book as a bridge to other worlds and a way to live more than one life at the same time.

I will leave you one of her introductions by subscribing to it:

Jessica, on the other hand, has left me waiting to find out how the story will continue: her Faraway is meant to be the first chapter of a saga.

So let’s not stray too far, let’s keep in touch 😉
#FarawaySaga

ITALY SLOW TOUR

ITALY SLOW TOUR

Feb 1, 2025 | A COFFEE WITH, JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG

Italy Slow Tour is a website, Italy Slow Tour is a YouTube channel, Italy Slow Tour is much more.

How can you encapsulate two people like Syusy Blady and Patrizio Roversi in a single description?

Syusy describes herself as an eclectic artist, journalist, actress, TV presenter and whatever else pops into her head.

Let’s say that a lot of interesting things have popped into that mind so far.

Patrizio‘s bio is a narcissistic double-edged carping exhibitionist complex.

So it seems quite natural how Patrizio could have been thunderstruck by Maurizia while literally ruling a group of kids on the beach in that Stop Model splendour that we would all later discover.

The union of two diametrically opposed yet inextricably complementary personalities.

Together they gave us programmes like Lone Wolf or The Arab Phoenix that made history, and became The Travellers par excellence.

Tourists by chance.

Before Beijing Express, before the Travel Bloggers, before the Digital Nomads, Patrizio and Syusy taught us the true spirit of Travel. 

Thanks to them, we saw distant and unseen places, discovered real life, observed food, learned customs and traditions.

Experiences based on two unfailing ingredients: respect and irony. 

Syusy and Patrizio’s irony is something I have always loved, which is why I recommend you follow their Syusy and Patrizio News. 

A condensation of useful and interesting information told with their way of being themselves: Tourists by chance but Artists by merit.

THE HOUSE OF SILENCES

THE HOUSE OF SILENCES

Jan 25, 2025 | BOOKS

Have you ever read Donato Carrisi? As usual, I work in reverse and started with the last book that came out: The House of Silences.

This book was a gift, and it was also the ‘container’ for a further gift, so you can imagine how happy I was to receive it.

The House of Silences is the fourth volume in what is so far a quadrilogy and comes to bookshops after the previous books The House of Voices, The House without Memories and The House of Lights.

Do you know any of these books?

Pietro Gerber, the protagonist, is a hypnotist specialising in paediatric therapy.

On the subject of hypnosis, I would love to know Quarc‘s opinion:  in his All true Alessandro Depegi recounts his own direct experiences.

Regarding silence instead, would you like to tell me something?

In the meantime, I would like to quote two sentences from the book that struck me:

Sad people cannot hurt anyone precisely because they know pain well.

Every person has an indelible dream. A dream of which he keeps the memory for the rest of his life. Often there is not even a particular reason for this, often they are not memorable dreams at all.

By now you know that I have a particular weakness for dreams but as I am not normal, I cannot remember an indelible dream unfortunately.

I can, however, speak of a recurring element: water. 

What about you?

DECEPTIVE BEAUTY

DECEPTIVE BEAUTY

Jan 19, 2025 | ENVIRONMENT

Deceptive and dangerous is the beauty of the intense pink-orange and red sunsets that close the short winter days.

If you often witness these visual ‘spectacles’ it may be that you live in a wretchedly polluted area like mine. 

You must think I’m obsessed if I even associate sunsets with my periodic returns on the subject. 

Actually, these sunsets conceal a massive presence of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere.

ISPRA Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e Ricerca Ambientale  explains nitrogen dioxide (NO2):
a reddish-brown gas, poorly soluble in water, toxic, with a strong, pungent odour and strong irritating power. It is a pollutant with a predominantly secondary component, as it is the product of the oxidation of nitrogen monoxide (NO).

Nitrogen dioxide is a widespread pollutant that has negative effects on human health and, together with nitrogen monoxide, contributes to photochemical smog.

Photochemical smog i.e. the formation of secondary pollutants is conditioned by the presence of light radiation in the ultraviolet region.

We grow up learning that the sky is blue, did you as a child ever have the ‘why?’ period?

Why the sky is blue is explained to us by Rayleigh’s Scattering. 

To summarise the concept in a small format, a bit like espresso 🙂 the scattering of light reflecting off small particles.

I would also point you to an interesting publication reporting on a study of sunsets in paintings, and at this point I cannot fail to mention William Turner. 

Title of the article published by EGU European Geoscinces Union:
Further evidence of the important environmental information content in the relationships between red and green depicted in the paintings of the great masters.

Assumption: We examine sunsets painted by famous artists as information for the optical depth of particles after large volcanic eruptions. Images derived from precision colour protocols applied to the paintings were compared with online images and found to provide accurate information.

We can imagine what changed in the atmosphere after volcanic eruptions, but there are no volcanoes here, so what happens?

When nitrogen dioxide particles are present in the air, it is as if a kind of geometry is created that obstructs the sun’s rays.

In these cases the red light through an interplay of different frequencies and wavelengths somehow manages to prevail.

Deceptive beauty.

That is why we see sunsets of intense, bewitching colours and allow ourselves to be enchanted by what is invisible to the eyes …

THREE by Valérie Perrin

THREE by Valérie Perrin

Jan 11, 2025 | BOOKS, MUSIC

We had already chatted about Valérie Perrin about her previous book Fresh Water for Flowers. 

I have also read Three thanks to Valeria and her Mum.

As you know, I have a bit of a fixation on three, not by chance on the idea of three sides I imagined my Heron’s formula. 

And on the concept of three this book builds a real apotheosis.

You know I don’t like to reveal too much, but I want to tell you that there was a moment while reading when I felt terribly dumb for not having understood beforehand, so much so that I would have even gone back to look for the exact point where I was so blind.

However, it is no secret that Three by Valérie Perrin tells the story of three friends.

Friendship, the kind that survives suffering, the kind that heals disappointments, the kind that bridges loneliness, but above all Friendship of the kind that comes about quite naturally, because it cannot be otherwise.

Friendship almost as predestination and deeply felt choice at the same time.

Friendship as destiny and Friendship as salvation.

Friendship that lasts a lifetime.

Do you have friends who fit this description?

Or maybe you can describe your idea of Friendship even better.

The three protagonists get to know each other and grow up going through years that I experienced at about the same age myself.

Do your childhood friendships endure stoically under the blows of life or have the paths taken inexorably different directions?

Valérie Perrin very often quotes songs and song lyrics, which as you know I particularly love.

And so I discovered Indochine, which I did not know.

Here you can find a playlist with the songs mentioned in the book.

Another key element in the book is water. 

Even with reference to water, we can find Valérie Perrin’s ‘three’: pool, sea, lake.

A further metaphor for evolution: birth, life, death.

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