HABITAT

HABITAT

Aug 10, 2024 | BOOKS, ENVIRONMENT

Habitat: the natural environment in which an animal or plant usually lives.

Here, I was thinking that I would like to see a series like ‘animals in their habitat’ instead of The Animals in my zoo.

No doubt it is very important that children learn about animals, but why the zoo?

The advertisement says that the characters were developed by a team of pedagogues.

Now, I am nobody, but wouldn’t it be nice to teach the concept of habitat?

Besides, it would also be very useful for geography.
Do you think kids know geography properly?

Zoos are becoming facsimiles – or perhaps caricatures – of how animals once were in their natural habitat.
Michael J Fox

Going back to the series, have you ever collected editions in weekly or otherwise periodical issues?

Are you the patient type who likes to wait and see your collection grow slowly and progressively?

Or rather do you prefer to search independently from bookshop to bookshop for the volumes that interest you?

Precision or inspiration?

Talk about creative ability:
Evolution is so creative. That’s how we got giraffes.
Kurt Vonnegut

Photo by BiancaVanDijk

THE BOOKBINDER OF LOST STORIES

THE BOOKBINDER OF LOST STORIES

May 13, 2023 | BOOKS

The Bookbinder of Lost Stories is the book I read, again thanks to Monica.

 

Speaking of friendship, Sas Bellas Mariposas  and Mamaglia are skilled fan of the author: Cristina Caboni, so maybe they would like to tell us something about her.

In the meantime I would like to chat more about how I especially liked the parts that describe the binding process in the early 19th century.

Nowadays how long does it take to create a book?
There are several 24-hour delivery options on the web.

And each time we find ourselves with the usual question: have we gained or lost?

Recently with my husband we have been looking for someone who was still in a profession related to the traditions of the past, but here in the area unfortunately we do not have old style jobs anymore.

It is very sad to be aware that the precious chain of passing on knowledge and teaching patience and time needed to acquire skills has been interrupted.

By interrupting the oral tradition, we will deprive ourselves of the privilege of being able to know stories because there will be no one left to tell them.

So I would very much like to take up the concept of “binding” lost stories to unite them and to keep them living with us.

I spent a lot of time listening to one of my grandmothers telling about her childhood in a peasant family, talking to me about a seemingly distant era, about an essential lifestyle, about objects that we will never use.

My other grandmother, had less life to live but equally her tales remain indelible to me, as well as the memory her rice-fields worker  knees.

My great-grandfather, on the other hand, was a carter, and his traveling for work gave him the opportunity to meet and to marry my great-grandmother: German, in spite of the saying “wife and oxen in your own country …” jokes aside, theirs was a rather unconventional marriage considering historical period and social conditions.

But tell me please! I would love to “listen to you.”

If you have a craft to tell, if you want a story not to be lost, if you wish to pass on a tale, a thought, a concept, a proverb, an experience or even just a comment, I will be grateful and add it to the lost stories to be bound.

IL SOGNO DELLA MACCHINA DA CUCIRE Bianca Pitzorno THE DREAM OF THE SEWING MACHINE Bompiani novel

IL SOGNO DELLA MACCHINA DA CUCIRE Bianca Pitzorno THE DREAM OF THE SEWING MACHINE Bompiani novel

Aug 31, 2020 | BOOKS

If I think of the sewing machine, my grandmother’s one immediately comes to mind, and I see myself as a child observing the gestures, the big wheel I couldn’t stop touching, the pedal, the bobbin.

She made everything seem so easy, then, over time, I experienced that it is not at all, like a whole host of other things.

Even the protagonist of the book, whose name is never mentioned, perhaps to leave the reader the faculty of identifying themselves at a deeper level, as a child watches her grandmother, who is all her family, sew, and she teaches her, together with sewing, the life.

And the teachings of the grandmother, as well as the strong bond between them, will save her in various situations.

The only place mentioned in the book is Paris, all other places are indicated with only the initial. Paradoxically, instead of losing the references, I found a precise orientation, as if Paris represented a single fixed point while “it’s a small world”, precisely with the slightly negative meaning of the proverbial saying.

A world in which even dreams become a luxury that cannot be afforded.

And so the sewing machine becomes more precious than a jewel, transfiguring itself in the way to improve one’s condition more easily, more intensely, but always with commitment, with constancy, with one’s own strength, without discounts, working.

Once again I thank Monica for this reading: an embroidery of female figures that I admired.

Stories of Women of those we like, of those who stand out, of those who struggle not to be princesses.
Women who survive.
Women who teach.

And the negative figures, the ruthless women, consuming themselves in their wickedness do nothing but make those who deserve shine more.

 

THE NEW YORK TIMES MOVES HONG KONG EDITORIAL

THE NEW YORK TIMES MOVES HONG KONG EDITORIAL

Jul 21, 2020 | WORLD

The news given on the official website of The New York Times, was reported by all the press, and in particular also by Tom Grundy: blogger and founder of Hong Wrong  closed in 2015 for the new job of editor in chief by HONG KONG FREE PRESS (HKFP) 

The reason for the transfer of part of the NYT editorial staff from Hong Kong to Seoul lies in the new Chinese national security law in Hong Kong launched on July 1st: the twenty-third anniversary of the change of flag in Hong Kong.

Carrie Lam, chief executive of Hong Kong said that the new law is not doom and gloom , but rather mild, compared to the laws in China.

Meanwhile, this law will be based on the same principle of vagueness as Chinese law and has been announced as a real Sword of Damocles on the heads of those who threaten national security.

For this reason, the group of young pro-democracy activists originally part of Scholarism within the Umbrella Revolution, merged into Demosisto, name chosen by joining

the Greek word Demos = people

and the Latin word Sixtus understood as standing a little to say those whom resist

decided to dissolve “under the circumstances.”

The announcement was published with a tweet on behalf of the most famous and representative faces: Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, Jeffrey Ngo and Agnes Chow.

About a year ago an arrest with scare tactits had already started for them.

Amnesty International called their arrest an “outrageous assault on freedom of expression”.

I have already mentioned Evelyn Beatrice Hall, on the other hand Benjamin Franklin teaches us that “Anyone who wants to take away the freedom of a nation must start prohibiting freedom of speech.”

We should NEVER underestimate the importance of free expression, and let’s not forget these guys.

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