MY LOVE DOES NOT DIE

MY LOVE DOES NOT DIE

Aug 10, 2025 | BOOKS, PENDING COFFEE FOR, WOMEN

My love does not die is a book written by Roberto Saviano about the story of Rossella Casini, which I read thanks to Monica.

The origin of the title My love does not die is explained in the book, but it is surely the story of a love that is both disruptive and unavoidable.

Rossella Casini is a name that in itself inspires sympathy. Rossella is Tuscan, from Florence, a city of art where the struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines belong to ancient history.

It is the end of the 1970s, when heroin begins to take the lives of young people. Years of political struggles and cultural ferment.

1977: the year the first Star Wars is released, the Pompidou Centre is inaugurated in Paris, Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland form The Police, and David Bowie records Heroes in Berlin.

Rossella and Francesco are university students but do not attend the same faculty: fate brings Francesco right in front of Rossella’s house.

As in fairy tales, everything seems perfect, and at this point it remains to understand whether love really makes you blind and deaf, but love surely makes you strong.

With this strength, but alone against a sick world, Rossella follows Francesco to Calabria, despite his family turning out to be a ‘ndrina.

With this strength, Rossella even manages to convince Francesco to collaborate with the justice system, together with her.

But Francesco ends up in prison and his imprisonment somehow breaks their union, allowing the affiliation to prevail.

On 22 February 1981, Rossella is in Palmi, planning to return to Florence, but she disappears into thin air.

A nothingness that lasted 13 years. A nothingness during which her mother dies. A nothingness that swallows everything about her, literally.

Look closely at the photo on the cover of the book: that is the only image of Rossella.

The only image.

In an age when we fill our mobile phones with photographs, it took the intuition of a group of journalists to find Rossella’s face, which they recovered through her enrolment in the faculty of psychology.

I am grateful to them, to the Libera association, which works to keep Rossella’s voice alive, and I am grateful to everything that honours her memory, such as the school: Istituto Comprensivo Rossella Casini. 

Rossella’s love does not die, and neither should her legacy.

 

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.

NIRVANA UNPLUGGED

NIRVANA UNPLUGGED

Nov 2, 2024 | BOOKS, MOVIES, BOOKS, MOVIES, MUSIC, MUSIC, ROCK, ROCK

Nirvana unplugged in New York, often known as MTV unplugged is first and foremost a high moment in music history to me.

For our very first chat here on the blog, almost five years ago now, I told you about the cardigan Kurt Cobain wore during the recording of this live show.

Then over time we talked a lot about music but never came back to what is really one of the most important memories for me.

First of all it is the memory of an emotion: the first time I listened to Come as you are without even getting to the end I was convinced that I would never like another song again.

Come as you are is perhaps the only one of Nirvana’s most popular songs, performed even during unplugged, I think precisely because of its characteristic intense intimacy.

But every single song performed during MTV unplugged is beautiful.

The cover of The Man Who Sold the World in my opinion beats even the White Duke.

Where did you sleep last night is poignant to the point of almost materialising Kurt’s suffering.

And then Dumb, About a Girl, Pennyroyal Tea … which is your favourite?

Sadly released posthumously Unplugged in New York with every listen reminds us of the pain and loss of an artist who would now be a grandfather, as his Frances Bean became mother to Ronin at the end of September.

Many tales and anecdotes about 18 November 1993 chase each other all over the place, but what we can all still see is Kurt arriving, and after a simple ‘Good evening’ he introduces About a girl by attacking his guitar ride.

The rest is magic, atmosphere, white flowers, candles, drapes and soft lights, like metaphorical arms that welcome us into an immersion of music and sensations, simplicity and depth at the same time, where everything else is stripped away, the whole world is outside, where all that counts is the lightness of a faint breath destined to fade away but which in reality can only remain engraved in the memory forever.

Extreme vulnerability yet disruptive power.

Nirvana Unplugged is one of the gifts I cherish, it is 30 years old today and yet I’m never tired of listening to it again.

I treasure it along with Kurt Cobain Diaries

Nirvana unplugged

and Montage of Heck, which I saw at the cinema earlier anyway.

Nirvana unplugged

On the off chance that you’ve missed something, I recommend catching up: I find it indispensable to understand the deep torment of a Soul torn between the love of music and the pain of life.

I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault

I’ll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame

WIKIPEDIA When the Internet is a matter of life and death

WIKIPEDIA When the Internet is a matter of life and death

Jul 20, 2024 | BOOKS, INTERNET

WIKIPEDIA When the Internet is a matter of life and death.

The Power of Knowledge kills the Knowledge of Power.

A sentence, a play on words, the key to a dream.

Aaron Swarzt’s dream, the dream of those who believe in freedom.

Pietro Ratto in his book Wikipedia When the Internet is a matter of life and death meticulously reconstructs the birth, history and evolution of the online encyclopaedia we all know.

Wikipedia content is added by voluntary users who contribute information that is shared as creative commons.

The idea was born from a dream, and is fuelled by a strong need for freedom.

Wikipedia’s aim is to spread knowledge and make it available to everyone, free of charge and universally.

The Power of Knowledge.

Can the Power of Knowledge really kill the Knowledge of Power?

Power is influence, power is domination.

How far can a dream be magnified?

Pietro Ratto’s valuable investigation reports on all the stages and, above all, all the stories of those who have been dreamers, those who have been creators and those who have been powerful …

The bibliography, or rather the sitography is extensive and very detailed.

In addition, every single link published in the book is available for consultation from the site of Pietro Ratto BoscoCeduo. 

I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to hear Aaron Swartz’s story, which should be shared out of a sense of justice but also of freedom. 

Here is a video from 2007 in which Aaron talks about network communication.

Are you in the habit of consulting Wikipedia?

Have you ever contributed to the writing and publishing of information?

ABANDONED DISCOS

ABANDONED DISCOS

Apr 20, 2024 | MUSIC, MUSIC, VIDEO, VIDEO

Abandoned Discos is Max Pezzali’s new song for Warner Music. 

The title makes no secret of the subject, but what struck me was the video: a sequence of images depicting the crumbling remains of what were once places full of life and joyful moments, now inexorably abandoned.

The suggestion is made even more incisive by the succession of phrases by the Gotha of disc jockeys, see for yourself:

Have you ever been to one of these discos?

I used to like Friday nights at Celebrity: a discotheque near Novara that actually still exists, where my friend Daniela and I would literally spend the whole time dancing, and at the same time managing to chat 🙂

But it was at Vanità where I went to meet the man who later became my husband <3

The Vanità, the disco in Vigevano portrayed in the picture below the title, no longer exists: a mansion complex was built in its place.

This is also why I find that Max Pezzali succeeds in narrating by giving us the sensation of listening to words coming straight out of our own mouths.

It is definitely his trademark, as well as the secret of his success: simply being one of us.

I’ll never forget a summer evening before social media, before even mobile phones: the TV broadcasts the Castrocaro new voices competition and a Jovanotti introduced a duo.

They come in and sing Don’t bother me, I don’t understand what you want, you knew I wasn’t like you...

For me it was immediate and natural to stay in tune.

Soon the songs from the album Hanno ucciso l’uomo ragno (They Killed Spider-Man ) would be the soundtrack of holidays in Sardinia, Daniela was there too 🙂

1993: the following summer. Life has one of those difficult trials in store for my family: having to face destiny that bursts in to make it clear how from one moment to the next everything can collapse.

While I am in hospital watching my father struggle to live again after a haemorrhage, I receive a gift: the North South West East music tape.

Yes: the ‘cassette’ … Who remembers it?

The guy I went to look for at Vanità 🙂 gave me North South West East and North South West East gave us our song to sing embracing each other at the concert in the Pavia arena.

The days of the San Siro stadium were still far away, and the 883 sang at their home: Pavia, exactly, which is also a province in the broadest sense.

Their home, our home.

The days when the dream of the 883 would come true were also far away.

The characters of the Harley Davidson Pavia  staff are known to all those who followed the series Le strade di Max (Max roads), do you know it?

In case you missed it, you can have a good ride here. 

To get ‘on route’ let’s go back to 1994: when Mauro’s dream takes a different path …

On stage with Max are Paola and Chiara but also Michele Monestiroli and Daniele Moretto.

Thirty years ago.

And then?

And then life goes by and today we find ourselves in abandoned discotheques.

What did we miss?

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