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

I NEVER FORGET TO CALL YOU LOVE

I NEVER FORGET TO CALL YOU LOVE

Feb 3, 2024 | BOOKS

Non mi dimentico mai di chiamarti amore (I never forget to call you love) is the sylloge published by Parallelo45 for which I surely “won’t forget” to thank Carmelo Cossa and Manuale di Mari. 

February has arrived, the month of Valentine’s Day, the most famous romantic occasion, just as romantic is the author’s soul.

Carmelo Cossa is immediately striking in the way he declares his love: love for poetry.

So Poetry becomes the way for expressing the idealisation of love as a totally harmonising expression of feeling.

The author is like a knight of the dolce stil novo, even though life has taken him far from his roots.

Reading the poems in Non dimentico mai di chiamarti amore (I never forget to call you love) I had a strong sense of how the journey from his homeland to the place that would offer him fulfilment was a key element for Carmelo.

Among my favourite poems:

Con il cuore appeso (With the Hanging Heart) because I found myself in the concept of a night grip and also in the comparison of a shredded cloth stretched out in the sun.

Natura e vita (Nature and Life) because I found the personification of nature in the first person a metaphor capable of giving a powerful sense of flow, vitality and harmony.

Magia di vita (Magic of life) for the concept of the ‘beginning again’ of the cycle of the seasons that repeat, but even more so, relive.

Speaking of his Poetry, Carmelo Cossa also quotes Rita Levi Montalcini:

it is better to add life to days than days to life

thus capturing the mark of what I would dare to call a life mission for him: he lives for poetry and makes poetry alive.

So I invite you to pause on Non mi dimentico mai di chiamarti amore (I never forget to call you love) and to think about to which ‘love’ your life is dedicated.

MY SOUL IS WHEREVER YOU ARE

MY SOUL IS WHEREVER YOU ARE

Dec 24, 2023 | BOOKS

My soul is wherever you are is a striking phrase.

These words, uttered by a character in the story told, give the title to the book written by Aldo Cazzullo published by Mondadori.

More precisely, the full title is: My soul is wherever you are. A crime, a treasure, a war, a love.

A crime … as you know very well by now, I love reading books about crimes and once again I thank Monica for this read.

But if at the beginning the chapters chase each other along two parallel lines: time and investigation, soon the murder itself loses relevance compared to the story which, from a blurred background position, page after page becomes the protagonist.

A crime, a treasure, a war, a love.

War, as we know, is total destruction, and even in this case it annihilates humanity by provoking behaviour that nothing and no one will ever be able to erase.

So can my soul is wherever you are become a damnation?

While waiting for you to tell me your interpretation, I want to add that although the setting is Piedmont, I found myself reading a story that is the same story I heard as a child and that has always stuck with me: greed has the power to bring together people with completely different ideals.

Here then is the purpose of the treasure. 

Can you tell me of a treasure that has enriched you in a positive sense instead?

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

THERE IS STILL TOMORROW.

Nov 4, 2023 | MOVIES, WOMEN, MOVIES, WOMEN

There is still tomorrow which sees the directorial debut of Paola Cortellesi is the film that won the Audience Award, Special Jury Prize and Mention as Best First Work at the Rome Film Festival. 

Paola Cortellesi doesn’t need to be introduced, I always remember one of her gags in which she ironically listed all the things she has done, which are really so many and very different from each other, but which have the same feature in common: they are all done well.

I thank Elisa and her proposal: we went to the movies together fearing that we would have to use tissues to wipe tears and instead we mostly surprised ourselves.

The Friends.
In the movie: Delia and Marisa.

Emotion, however, was not lacking.

I, for one, was moved by the portrayal of a mother’s love for her daughter, who is played by Romana Maggiora Vergano in the film.

A love above all things, a love for which nothing is impossible, a pure and unwavering love.

Fragility and strength in a maelstrom of endurance and determination in which the ability to carry the crushing weight of a long interminable series of verbal and physical injustices and bullying, is catalyzed in the resolute will to seek a better destiny for Marcella.

Mother and daughter.

A crushed mother and a model daughter who does not understand Delia’s submission.

Succumbing and resisting at the same time, in a dance that is broken melody, is rock, is hip hop rap, is retro.

Marcella does not understand, but she will.

Marcella will look at her mother Delia and see the affirmation of a seemingly simple but extremely important gesture as a right, as a beginning.

Every change has a beginning.

There is still tomorrow represents “the music that changes” in a literal sense: I cannot fail to mention the repertoire songs from the soundtrack:
Aprite le finestre Fiorella Bini
Nessuno Naked Music
Perdoniamoci Achille Togliani
A bocca chiusa Daniele Silvestri
M’innamoro davvero Fabio Concato
La notte dei miracoli Lucio Dalla
Calvin The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
B.O.B. – Bombs Over Baghdad Outkast
The little things Big Gigantic featuring Angela McCluskey
Swinging on the right side Lorenzo Maffia and Alessandro La Corte
Tu sei il mio grande amor Lorenzo Maffia, Alessandro La Corte and Enrico Rispoli.

Surprising, isn’t it?

Surprising as what you don’t expect from There is still tomorrow: the ending.

Indeed, in my heart I hoped that Delia’s project would not be the obvious one, but at the same time I would not have guessed an epilogue like the one with which Paola Cortellesi invites everyone to a beautiful reflection.

Light yet explosive, simple yet disruptive, just like Delia, just like Paola.

Yes because Delia is Paola, she is Marcella, and she is our grandmother.

Delia is so many lives of giving up, Delia is so many years of suffering.

Like nothing at all.

THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS

THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS

Jun 3, 2023 | BOOKS, BOOKS

The Eight Mountains is both a literary and cinematic success.

Again I owe the reading to Monica and I hope that the movie will not disappoint me as it often happens when I watch movies based on books.

I heard a lot about The Eight Mountains with reference to male friendship or more precisely manly friendship.

Of course The Eight Mountains tells about mountains, as well as it tells about a Friendship of the kind we should all be privileged to experience in life.

However, the prevailing reflection that I retain after reading this book is another.

Beyond the powerful and unrelenting beauty of the mountain, I was impressed by its role within the story in the father-son relationship.

The mountain is typically silence; instead, I read it in this book as the only dialogue to patch up a deep generational and emotional incommunicability.

Sometimes we love totally, we love with a love written even in our DNA, yet we do not know how to show it.

This kind of love is blatantly obvious to those who can observe it as uninvolved spectators and yet it is hidden from the eyes of those with too close a perspective that paradoxically creates a distance.

Am I wrong?
Perhaps this view is entirely personal.

Have you read the book?
Written by Paolo Cognetti and published by Einaudi in 2016.
Strega Prize 2017.

Or have you seen the movie?
Directed by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix Van groeningen in 2021.
Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2022. 
David di Donatello for best film 2023. 

An old Nepalese man told me about the eight mountains …

The man picked up a stick with which he drew a circle in the ground. It came out perfect; you could tell he was used to drawing them. Then, within the circle, he drew a diameter, and then a second perpendicular to the first, and then a third and fourth along the bisectors, resulting in a wheel with eight spokes. I thought that, having to arrive at that figure, I would start from a cross, but it was typical for an Asian to start from the circle

– Have you ever seen a drawing like that? – he asked me.

– Yes, – I answered. – In the mandala.

– Right, – he said. – We say that at the center of the world is a very high mountain, Sumeru. Around Sumeru there are eight mountains and eight seas. This is the world for us.

In saying this he drew, out of the wheel, a small point for each ray, and then a small wave between each point. Eight mountains and eight seas. Finally he made a crown around the center of the wheel, which could be, I thought, the snowy summit of Sumeru. He pointed the stick at the center and concluded, -And let’s say: will the person who went around the eight mountains have learned more, or the person who made it to the top of Mount Sumeru?

In your opinion?

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