No Need For A Melody

I guess you could say I have been known to watch a fair ammount of movies in my day. Popular culture teaches us that films are a great way to interpret and analize reality without even having to live those experiences in first person. Some may call this escapism. Blaise Pascal, XVII century philosopher, talked about "the vanity of divertisement", those out of consciousness activities we engage in in order to, as a matter of fact, avoid reality. It may sound harsh, but through out the years I have begun appreciating this theory. I always seem to relate specific times of my life to a song, a sound, a bit like as if I needed a soundtrack to my emotions, yes, like in a movie.
A couple fo days ago, my itunes random selection brought to my ears "Sometimes you can't make it on your own" by U2 - that song,man,it totally captured a specific time in my life and by simply hearing it I somehow re-lived the same emotions I felt back than...like in a flashback. All this brought me to think this may actually be the first time of my life when I feel lucid, when like a person who has been fasting for a long time you manage to see your self from the out side, like some sort of out of body experience and see yourself and you are exactly how you had always hoped you'd become. Imperfect, with a past filled with mistakes but true, honest, sharp, happy, with no need for a melody, maybe just a wee accompainment. Loving it.

Grace

I am beginning to embrace that it is a big part of the maturing process in one's life to be willing to admit the things we have always been too fearful or afraid to speak out loud before. Like my dream to become a paediatrician for fear of stepping into a clique.
When I was in my first year at uni I read a book that spoke to a book that spoke to me in a very profound way, "What's so amazing about grace?"by Philip Yancey. From that moment I dreamt that had I ever had a little girl I'd call her Grace,there I said it! "GRACE is receiving freely something we could have never done enough to earn". Over the past few months I have realized more than ever that I am at the receiving end of grace. I have so much,besides from the Grace of God alone who sent His son to die for me even though he knew I could have never repaid him. In the Sound of Music,Maria sings "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good". I am not sure I have,Maria, but God's grace has blessed me and I am grateful.

Crime and Punishment

I have been renown for opposing to death penalty as a method of crime punishment. Coming from a very long line of literary tradition, from Cesare Beccaria's "On Crimes and Punishments" to Alessandro Manzoni, Dostoevsky, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, I just cannot possibly bring myself to accepting that someone may ever take responsability to decide of somebody else's death, unless expressedly and informedly asked by that same person to do so. Even when it comes to horrific crimes such as paedophilia, I much rather impose life sentences, hard jail and chemical castration than death row. I have suffered over the years watching the executions in various so-called civil countries, but why is that that I often feel a satifying sigh of relief, the feeling one has at the end of an action movie when the good ones beat the evil. I have many reservations on the American war on terror, but I secretly rejoiced in seeing the footage of Saddham being executed. I feel ashamed of what the Nazi and the Fascists did in 1900, despised their brutal massacres and racist politics, yet stifled when I first came across the picture of Mussolini and his closest being hung upside down in a public square at the end of WW2. I cried when I saw Sudanese armies torturing women guilty of violating retrograde points of the Shia constitution. Knowing that Hitler had died in a house fire made me happy. So what is it that makes killing another right? What may be logical and just for me may not be for another and viceversa. All of a sudden it is like not being able to wish that the Joker may die at the end of "The Dark Night", because it is like, now, it is not only the evil Joker, but it is someone you have got to know and whose death you may not possibly wish any longer.

As You Really Are..

Typing on the notes of Giovanni Allevi, a young musical genious if you ask me, I am going through the emotions of the past few hours..of the past few days..the past few months..years even.. it all feels like a flow; an unstoppable, alternate flow which sometimes feels like a flood..at times like a dry river bank in the hottest season..sometimes its flow is nice,smooth,constant; others it is rough like a stormy sea..and I may feel like the boat that floats and sinks and sails and harbours..or feel like the river itself which, to people's not noticing, feels and sees and hears and cries and smiles and lives. Learning. Learning that even to the most righteous, intentions must be examined before expressing judgement on one's actions. Learning that the people we put the most expectations upon are the ones who, rather predictably, are most likely to fail those expectations and, viceversa, those we sometime overlook, may be the most suitable canditates to amaze us. There is a lovely analogy in the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" where a rather odd lady tells the story of her being a little girl desperately looking for a ladybird for hours and hours until she fell on the grass, started to despair and eventually fell asleep. To much of her surprise, by the time she got up she was covered in ladybirds. We are often too busy looking for something that is right under our noses. Another really good line is in the follow up from "Bruce Almighty" when the "Noah" of the situation talks to God and God tells him that He does not answer to our prayers by giving us something other than what he has already provided for us, but rather by offering us situations which will enable us to take what we have asked for. It's only movies, they are only words, but I am beginning to learn to embrace whatever beautiful surrounds me in this unlikely beautiful world of ours...thus embracing the life which was not so freely given to me.

Facticious

I have always considered Robin Williams to be a versatile and very talented actor. From Peter Pan to Patch Adams to Good Will Hunting, he has never failed my expectations. Tonight I am feeling a little sleepless, so I thought I'd kick in the good old blogging habit after watching yet another Robin William's movie, The Night Listener (2006). To be fair, I found it a rather predictable psychological thriller..yet another one based upon a successful American novel
( Armistead Maupin, "The Night Listener", 2000), a roman à clef as they call it. Robin Williams was intriguing in his I believe first role as an older gay writer. Gray intellectual beard, a bit of a belly, cord trousers and reading glasses look. Very intriguing,charming. The focal surprising twist towards the end is,however, not about the protagonist, but the undermining and unfathomable dualism of mental illness. Fascinating. I have always found the issue of mental illness interesting. Knowing how complex and perfect machines the human bodies are is one thing, but the ability of the mind it's quite a stunning concept. The issues highlighted by the movie can be related to a series of syndromes known as Factitious Disorders, when a person's mind is able to recreate the pathology of the illness they believe to be affected by or even arrive to the point of making illness up of their keens or even make up the people in their care. At first sight,these disorders could be assessed as blatant lies of unbalanced, shameless subjects. However, on a closer analysis it is easier to noticed that this is often the subconscious work of unhealthy people who, out of feeling unworthy of attention, recreate desperate situations, personages, "lies" which they believe will gain them more popularity. As many of you probably already know, I wrote my BA dissertation on the possible contribution of psychiatry and religion to the cure of mentally ill patients, with particular regard to schizophrenia. Despite the fact I was on the point of giving up on a number of occasions (here it's a recomandation to anyone undertaking an undergrad degree not to complicate your life with a difficoult topic for your first dissertation!!!), I thoroughly enjoyed the research and I was pleased with the end result. What stunned me the most is how mental disorders are nothing much more than the exasperation of human emotions which should make us all more symphatetic to those issues. Maybe none of us would have result to similar solutions as those highlighted by the movie (am trying real hard not to spoil the movie for you!) but who has never,not once felt unworthy of love to the point of being willing even to lie in order to feel better included? To undergo compromises. To lie. To exaggerate a story. To laugh at a rude joke. To cheat. Just for that priceless feeling of acceptance,belonging. If we think hard enough we are never too far from those we are judging and condemning.

Only one hundred steps away...

I recently re-watched a beautiful movie called "I Cento Passi" (One Hundred Steps). It reached international acclaim a few years back together with more popular movies about organized crime, a denunciation of Mafia and its effects on the lives of many people who coexist with it. "I cento passi" (one hundred steps) was the distance between the Impastatos' house and the house of Tano Badalamenti, an important Mafia boss, in the small Sicilian town of Cinisi. The movie is the story of Peppino Impastato, a young left-wing activist that in the late seventies (when almost nobody dared to speak about Mafia, and several politicians maintained that Mafia did not even exist) repeatedly denounced Badalamenti crimes and the whole Mafia system using a small local radio station, with the arm of irony. In 1978 Peppino (30 years old) was killed by an explosion. The police archived the case as an accident or a suicide, but his friends never accepted this thesis. Note: This is a true story. More than wenty years after Peppino's death, the case has been re-opened. Tano Badalamenti, meanwhile, has been convicted in USA for drug traffic. I thought again about it this morning, whilst stuck in a traffic-jam caused by an abandoned vehicle on the side of a narrow city road. The car hadn't properly been abandoned by its owners. The car had previously been stolen and, under the owner's refusal to pay money to get it back, the robbers burnt it and left it on the side of the road, a so called unpaid "cavallo di ritorno" (return horse). You see I often wonder what you think about this. As a southern Italian, even if from a rather privileged background, I am aware and accustomed to all these idiosyncrasies. Weird. Weired that one can live so close to injustice, those physical hundred steps that suddenly become conceptual, ideological, moral and back and be accustomed to it.


"I Cento Passi" - Modena City Ramblers

How To Save a Life

I am a former theology student - now embarked upon a long journey of medical studies. In theory, I should know all there is to know about saving lives. This theme, concept, has been meaningful to me for a number of years. I wrote my first BA dissertation on the possible intersession between medicine and theology and I long to be living out those ideals in first person. When I wrote that paper, I quoted a simple, yet explicit, line from the movie "Patch Adams"; that movie and the real life character of Dr Adams have been a source of inspiration for me over the years. The protest against unfounded accepted stereotypes, not merely for argument's sake, but for the reinstatement and affirmation of sacrosanct humane and godly values such as compassion, unconditional love, kindness, overall justice. The quote is that when Patch Adams reminds his friend who is afraid someone may eventually die, even after receiving the necessary medical aid, to which he replies that a doctor's job is not to prevent death, but to improve the over-all quality of people's lives. Just today I have been pondering on the subject of suffering, death. Unfortunately or actually not that unfortunately after all, we cannot prevent death; death is part of life and I guess life would not be equally as valuable, precious, worth fighting for if we were immortal in this skin of ours. Nonetheless, we must strive to make it better, to make the most of what has been given to us not just as individuals, but as a whole of people associated by a common humanity. Saving lives is what doctors try to do day in day out, but ultimately I believe only God can truly save one's soul, hence their eternal life.

I have been wondering a bit recently over the gigantic internal changes that have been happening to me. In as much as I have tried to deny it for so long, I have grown harder, more cynical, less loving. I have loved someone so much that I guess all of the love I was capable of feeling has now combusted and now dedicating my life to other people's problems seems like a much more viable option. Caring for other people's children in order to avoid committing wholly to someone again and choosing to have children together; choosing to live in a tent not to pay a mortgage; saving lives in order to avoid facing my own.

"How to Save a Life" (The Fray)

Cultural Full Immersion

They often ask me if I ever missed home, felt homesick during the time I was abroad. Strangely enough, I doubt I ever did. Inevitably, there were times when I missed my origins, 'what it's good about the land of my nativity', our unique way of 'doing things', 'living life'; times of slight frustration over occasional lack of cross-cultural-communication abilities. Other than that, maybe due to both my flexibility and the British tolerance to coexisting realities, I have always comfortably felt like a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world. My return to Italy it's a big surprise for everyone - me included. Nonetheless, it is a rather comfortable surprise, fluid, 'flat as a pancake'. Currently, it feels like when an exchange student goes abroad and experiences the culture and folklore of a different country. That's a very similar experience to my 'Italian Full Immersion', with the added value that this time it is not a holiday, it is lasting and it is mine. I like that. The always filled with busyness life of the Wee Italian Chick, has not chased to be so. As a result, the past few weeks have been oozing with Italian-ness.. Based on a 2003 novel by Antonio Pennacchi, Il Fasciocomunista, "Mio Fratello E' Figlio Unico" (literally "My Brother is an Only Child"), it's a fresh and refreshing product of contemporary Italian cinematography I had the pleasure of watching on Monday night. Directed by Daniele Luchetti, starring the now super-acclaimed, by both public and critics, Riccardo Scamarcio (the hottie off generational movies such as "Tre Metri Sopra il Cielo" and"Ho Voglia di Te"), tells the story of two brothers growing up in the immediate post WW2 and, in doing so, with incredible irony,acumen,lightheartedness, narrates the story of a changing country from a political, cultural and social point of view. Another movie I recently watched about a changing Italy it's leftwing genious director, Nanni Moretti, latest work: Il Caimano.Il Caimano is an open accusation of Berlusconi's politics, corruption and popularity.Nevertheless, in Moretti's words, 'Il Caimano ' is not only a political film. He stated that the film deals mainly with the cultural vices of Italian people, and also the story about the dissolution of a common family. Is this the sign of change?

Stereotypes (part I)

On one of my last flights from England to Northern Ireland, I came across an article in the Easyjet magazine about the stereotypical differences amongst European men and women. After all, it is a 35 minute flight and at 6 am I am rarely in the mood for profoundly intellectual thinking - so trashy magazines normally do the trick. The writer presented a blatantly over-simplistic description of moody-ever-super-slim Parisian women, never-failing-punctual German men and overly stylish Italian ladies wearing big sunglasses even after sunset. When it came to Italian men, they were described as impeccably stylish, perfectly groomed and possessing the irresistible charm of a thousand Casanovas. I inevitably giggled. I am often amused when people abroad have these mental images, stereotypes, fantasies, dare I say, about foreign citizens. In E.M. Forster's novel, "A Room With A View", the gentle ladies of England are warned against the brute, passionate nature of the Italian males. I just love that book. It is like the much cheekier, more raw, even kinkier version of Jane Austen! What causes me hilarity is that, from personal experience, I am not entirely sure on whether the Italian male is raw passionate, incurably romantic or merely arrogant and sleazy. Even though I have always known it to be in my nature to be an observer of people around me, how they behave and interact with each other, I have noticed this inclination has increased ever since I made a return to the Homeland. In Notting Hill, Anna Scott recites the lines "Rita Hayworth used to say: ' They go to bed with Gilda and wake up with me'." To which William replies: "Who is Gilda?" and Anna Scott says: "Her most famous part. Men went to bed with the dream; they didn't like it when they would wake up with the reality." I wonder if often it is the same with stereotypes. Many people dream, fantasize about others in the hope they will be better than what they have, often forgetting that it is what we are intrinsically that makes us unique, not or national identity...right?

***To Be Continued***

The Realm of Possibility

"The Realm of Possibility" is the kingdom where I dwell.
It is a place where injustice and discouragement do not exist. A place where people are honest and genuinely wish each other's best. I am a day dreamer, an eternal optimist and nothing seems to have stopped me from being so. When my mother was first diagnosed with cancer, I sat in the oncologist's study with her, my father and a doctor friend of ours. The oncologist was somehow brutal in his diagnosis of the case: two months of life expectancy if not cured, chemotherapy, nauseous states, invalidity, bone marrow transplant, more therapy, hair loss. Any sane person would have been disconcerted, to say the least. My dad grabbed my mother's hand and held it tight, mother had tears in her eyes, our friend asked loads of worrying questions. I sat in the corner, in my green coat; I smiled a reassuring smile. I smiled a reassuring smile knowing in my heart it was all going to be alright. The issue is that I smile all the time. I am no idiot, right? It is just that it feels like, in extreme situations especially, I am overwhelmed with an exceptional steadfastness and inner strength which enable me to react promptly and efficiently to the problem. When we were in Kenya last summer a friend of mine badly hurt his hand. Though a grown man, he got scared he may not be able to move his hand again… I got a little scared too. In a second reached him, pulled off the cloth that was over my shorts and rapped it around his bleeding hand. Held his hand and reassured him that ‘everything was going to be alright’. Eventually he was; so was my mother. And I wonder whether my great sense of Hope comes exactly from that sense of confidence in a divine providence whereby, even when the outcome of a given situation is not that we would have hoped for, I know there is a much bigger plan in a much wider spectrum of Grace. And on this warm summer night, I am well and truly into my anatomy textbook, carried by dreams of Hope, inspired by Grace, surrounded by Love in an unending realm of possibility where dreams, reality, impossibility, surrealism and, why not, a wee touch of madness create a unique mystic fragrance that makes me smile…even in a stormy day.

Adventurous

"If you tell life what it has to be, you limit it; but if you let it show you what it wants to be it will open doors you never knew existed."

Nice quote, isn't it? This is actually a line from a bit of a girlie movie called "Tortilla Soup". Back home we often say "never say never", which, when you are young and it is your grandmother telling you that you will end up marrying the spotty, greasy hair son of her next door neighbour, makes you wanna cringe, stump your feet and scream: "never, never, never"...Having said that, there are things in life that I have deliberately chosen to say 'never' to, like doing drugs, tolerate injustice, watch Titanic again..but then again, what makes those never so permanent. When I was in senior high, my classmates would have openly accused me of being retrograde, presumptuous and stuck-in-my-ways, brainwashed, even. I was an opinionated young girl; only problem is that I had no idea what my opinions were really based on. Now nearly 24 (two weeks yesterday to the final count-down) I am an opinionated young woman. The difference, however stands in the fact that I have rolled up my sleeves over the past five years, dug deep down, lived for real, sought to see from a 360 degrees angle, questioned everything I even believed in, dismantled it, shaped it, tried to make sense of it, built it up all over again - with sense, this time, from the foundations. Unwrapping life: some times like an eager child on Christmas day; others, more like an archaeologist carefully and painfully retrieving a precious treasure. "Don't tell life what it should be, let it show you what it wants". I have dismantled, reconstructed, settled. Now I am packing it all up. Figuratively and practically. The picture of the "treehouse" at the top of the page is one of my favourite. It reminds me of me. Isn't it wonderful to have intellectual freedom? The paradox of Free Will: we are free to choose; but we are truly free when we are in tune with the will of God which cries out for all mankind to be freed up from the bondage of slavery to death and sin. Paradoxical, but so liberating. I have dismantled, examined, explored, then built again. I believe: and I now know the reasons why.

Ho Voglia di Te - The Update You Have All Been Waiting For

A brief phone call, the sound of what used to be a familiar voice and it's like as if time had never passed. Ten years, whatever stage in life you may be at, it's a long time. When we were last together, his little sister was only three. She is now a teen-ager. When we last were together, we used to think the Spice Girls were the next big thing. At the age of thirteen, everything seems like a major struggle, a drama. You think that your greatest achievement will be to get out of high school, yet you dream big: senselessly and fearlessly. You think that you know what real love is. I think you do; I think that when you are thirteen you know a lot more about emotions than most people would give you credit for - it's just that that wonderful little butterfly is bottled up in a glass jar by hormonal tempests, inexperience, youthfulness. Ah, to be free like a thirteen year old again, but with the experience of a 24 year old! I think this is just what happened to me yesterday. A brief phone call, the sound of an all too familiar voice made me feel emotions I did not think I could feel ever again. We talked for quite a while and I felt happier than I have been in quite sometime. In my previous relationship, I was always trying too hard to impress this un-impressible man, thus forgetting myself, the real me, the things I love, the person I want to be; I was on the phone to this wonderful person from my past and I suddenly felt like a re-invigorated, spring butterfly who is no longer afraid to show her true colours, her true self. It was a wonderful symphony. It was easy and beautiful to be me. I even wrote a small poem about the revitalizing emotions of the past few days. I felt like poetry, beauty, sunshine, laughter, wonder. At the sole thought of this wonderful young man. To the point: I only managed to get through to him the day before I left - he was all and beyond I thought he would have become, well on his way to making his childhood dreams come true. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet, but we parted with a lot of joy and the prospect of seeing each other again next time I am home in a few weeks time..."Ho voglia di Te", is the title of an iconic teen-age novel and homonymous Italian movie by Federico Moccia. It literally means "I feel like you", "I have a desire of you" sort of. Self explanatory?!

Tiziano Ferro, "Ti Scattero' una Foto"(Nessuno e' Solo) from the movie "Ho Voglia di Te"

Is This England, or Not?

~Cultural Learnings of an Italian in Salford~

It is rather strange when people count as history the time and events of your life time. July 1983 is the opening title of last night's movie, "This is England".. paradoxically, this is also the month and year I was born in. If you liked movies in the likes of Trainspotting and Kes, you are most definitively going to enjoy this little gem of British cinematography. Set in a bleak East Midlands town in 1983, it focuses on the life of twelve-year-old Shaun to then kaleidoscopically expand to the Thatcher's government, deprivation, greasy spoons, dislocation, nationalism, skinheads, substances abuse, extremism, racism, violence, the Falklands, England in a compelling showcase of raw realistic acting talent. A side to England not all of us may want to align ourselves with that, crudely, is not the mere shadow of a forgotten past, long removed from us. On the contrary, the parallels with today's England are striking. Unemployment, deprivation and dislocation; loss of identity and an often ignorant, violent and abusive search for national values; a shady government and a country fighting a senseless war which does not belong to us. From the eye of a mere observer, drown into an active personage of a history that is not my own. This is part of the England of my next door British-Bulldog tattooed neighbours who call me 'Miss Bolognese' and ask me to cook for them every time they see me, of the British-Pakistani convenience store round the corner from my house, of my half Maltese florist; this is the England of the paper-round kid who puts through my door a BNP leaflet stating what the party stands for and with an invitation for me and my household (an Italian and a Spaniard at the time) to join them, of the teen-agers I work with and I still struggle to understand at times, of the PMT Chinese lady at the local fish 'n' chips, of those who have curry for tea and leave it all behind for a place in the sun. So, is this England or not? I often discuss with a particular friend of mine what defines Britishness. Like Italian-ness is not defined by loud, football fanatic, poetry-reading, sunglasses-wearing, hairy tanned voracious pasta devourers, I doubt Britishness is described by white ass, tattooed, drunken hooligans, 'stif-upper-lip' fish 'n' chips with mushy peas two bed-roomed red-brick terrace house dwellers ... so, then, what defines Britishness, what makes us who we are?

The Lives of Others

In the context of recuperating some of my Italian-ness, recently I have been attending a number of cultural (and less cultural) events with a group of Italian cinema enthusiasts. On Sunday we finally got a goodden! (you see, the issue with independent/cultural movies is that you have little or no assurance at all on how good a film will be). The Lives of Others , Das Leben der Anderen,is a wonderful German movie about the Socialist regime in East Germany covering the five years prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is gripping, philosophical, ironic and very thoughtful. If you get a chance, do watch it. It tells the story of Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, a keenly idealistic supporter of the communist regime, is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, who, Wiesler is told, is suspected of Western leanings. The movie portrays a strong contrast between Dreyman's idealism, talent, attractiveness and fullness of life and the dull, methodical and lacking depth life of the officer. By investing most of his time in spying and observing Dreyman and his entourage's every move, the emptiness of Wiesler is exposed and throughout a process of identification, profound personal transformation is brought about. I was drown into change together with Wiesler and reminded of the blogspere where we peep into other people's lives, through a similar process of identification, are drown to empathise, criticise, reflect, join in, comment. I am reminded of Alain, who I only met the once and mainly know about from friends of his and within the blogsphere - yet who's pain at this time of incommensurable grief, reaches even to me, a stranger, and makes it hard for me to think that anything else would be respectful enough or worth writing at the moment. I am also reminded of what it is like to be part of a Christian community where one's joy is everyone's joy; however, if one member suffers, regardless of who they are or where they are, the whole body suffers with them and are been transformed in the process. Like Wiesler, tranformed into kinder, more compassionate, more loving people, inspired by the lives of others we observe.

Thelma & Louise, Cambridge and Hairy Green Men

Dodgy title, alright! It was chosen to make you smile. I am painfully aware of having been a little low recently and 'boring' - as one of my mates said to me last night (thanks, pal). This post, however, would like to celebrate life and all those small sparkles of joy, the little epiphanies which make life interesting. Saturday morning me and Ruth (aka Bolton Fan) ventured on a short "Thelma & Louise" - style adventure to Cambridge. Despite having to get up at 7 am (a ridiculous time for a week-end day), we had a lovely road-trip down south, the sun was shining and our fave music playing in the background (blasting more like it, when any song we really liked came on!) We truly had a great time laughing, eating, drinking, walking and chatting until we dropped (no surprise there really). Ruth is an incredible person and a great friend: people like this and days like this are never to be given for granted. Unfortunately, we didn't pick up any hunky-Brad Pitt-type hitch-hiker on the way. Instead, we had a lovely dinner at a pub by the river called 'The Green Man'. Following a conversation we had been having during the day about the features which make a man attractive to us, Ruth confessed her 'fetish' for corpulent hairy men ("de gustibus non disputandi est", the ancient Romans used to say meaning 'to each their own' - very loosely translated). Coincidentally, I noticed that Hairibo's gummy bears have big hairy bellies (see the effects of e-numbers' overdose on my silly head!) - photographic evidence to follow! - Cut long story short, we had a laugh..all topped off by chocolate and wine in front of the telly. Thanks, Ruthy!

Cambridge, The Mathematical Bridge

The Green Man Pub

Hairy Belly Gummy Bear

The Last Kiss

On Sunday morning I managed to go for a jog in a park nearby my parents' house. 'La Villa Floridiana' is a park that is very dear to me. It is a beautiful woodland of mythological beauty, full of neoclassical statues and overlooking the stunning Neapolitan gulf. When I was growing up we used to dream we lived in the refined Baroqueske villa (now housing a prestigious museum of ceramics), played football, lied on the warm grass on the spring days, gazed at the breathtaking panorama as muses, poets and artists inspired our young minds. It was always my gateway (often my 'runaway') place. It was often our gateway from school too! Whenever we used to bunk off school, 'fare filone' as we say, it is mostly the Floridiana we would be hiding in.. As I was running around on Sunday morning I was constantly distracted by a flood of memories. My first 'proper' boyfriend, Stefano, a real teen-age gentleman, who kissed my fingers better when I cut myself picking hollies for the Christmas play when we were 11. My first kiss; my first date. Holding hands walking around the park, sitting on the bench under the shadow of the big oak tree as he, looking into my eyes, pays me complements carry in my heart to this day..As I was trying to run, I was drown to think of a time when things were good, life was easy, the sun was shining most days. My childhood and early teens have been very happy and I never knew how to be thankful enough for it back then. I was talking to a friend yesterday, ironically walking around a park,and we jokingly reminisced about how sure we used to be of things when we were teenagers. Like stubbornly believing we were the ones who had the answers, who knew what love, I mean "real Love", is. Then we grow up, take responsibility, become less cocky and less confident. We laugh about teenage strops and moods, yet secretly wish we could go back in time, knew then what we know now and still have that waist line! I first watched "L'Ultimo Bacio", The Last Kiss, by Gabriele Muccino (The Persuit of Happyness) when I was 15. Somehow it became an instant iconic movie for my generation and its soundtrack was immediately adopted as the soundtrack of our lives. It is bizarre, however, how it was only years later that those concepts, images and words became truly relevant to our lives. In the movie Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is a twenty-nine-year-old man who works in an advertisement business and has been living with his girlfriend Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) for three years. When she gets pregnant and he meets the stunning eighteen-year-old Francesca (Martina Stella), his relationship with Giulia moves into a crisis, since he is not ready to reach adulthood. Francesca has a crush on Carlo and dreams of him. His three best friends also have problems with their partners: Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) has just had a son and has problems with taking the responsibilities of fatherhood, while his wife Livia (Sabrina Impacciatore) becomes very connected to the baby, neglecting their marriage; Alberto (Marco Cocci) has no ties with any woman, limiting to use them sexually; and Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) has a obsession for his former lover. Meanwhile, Giulia's mother, Anna, (Stefania Sandrelli) has a middle-age crisis, jeopardizing her marriage..living in the shadow of times long gone. Eventually their turmoils are quietened down by an unexpected sense of contentment. Growing up is part of life and accepting the passing of time can reserve for us wonderful surprises related to our new age besides arthritis, wobbly knees and wrinkles! So, here is to GROWING OLD!
L'ultimo Bacio, Carmen Consoli

I Want to Change the World!

"Throughout history great change has only been made by those hungriest for truth and those not content to simply follow the beliefs of others, but who instead demand the genuine revelation of coming to know God personally. Those who will accept no less that that are the ones who become world changers."

No, this is ain't some dodgy line out of out of "Pinky and the Brain" for world domination... 'I want to change the world' is the cry of my heart. It starts with a deep realization that the world is pretty much shit at the best of times, that human selfishness and strive for greed have turned a perfectly formed universe into a lousy junk yard of polluted air and unsafe streets where, as the ancients used to say, the rich get fatter whilst the poorer starve to death. I look around myself and I see desolation, despair, hopelessness. Then I look at God and I see skies of blue, craftly constructed spiderwebs, and Hope. Tonight, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, I went to watch "Amazing Grace",in my opinion, an outstanding movie about William Wilberforce's endeavours and struggles to obtain the approval of the slave trade abolitionist bill in 1807. Can't believe I ever lacked interest in my Church History lectures at university - I am now embarrassed and ashamed of ignoring the remarkable efforts of a man who single-handedly, and as part of a conscientious Christian Faith and Community, had a dream and invested his whole life in the achievement of the acquisition of rights for the poorer, the defenceless, for a sense of Justice in a corrupt and gluttonous for egoistical cravings society. He indeed acknowledged, like many of us, that the world is wrong. But he did not, unlike most of us, sit back on his sofa and ate popcorn, watching the world go by... He wholeheartedly committed himself to desiring to change the world. Whatever the cost. I want to change the world and I believe that you and I can do it.

Classy Lassy! - The Arcane Secrets of Human Psychosis

You must know the feeling yourselves, when you have got a stinking cold and breathing is enough of an effort (let alone trying to look lady like..) That's me this morning at the office:still fighting against a silly influenza which is making me sniffle, sneeze and blow my nose to much of my personal and my colleagues' annoyance! This morning on the bus there was a guy that was so lacking any manners that was pretty minging..He had extra fuzzy grey curly hair (nothing wrong with that!) and a full grown Victorian mustache. One may say, 'nothing wrong with wearing a mustache either...', but following Brian's all-inspiring post on people's annoying habits that get on your nerves, I'll confess: I have a real issue with people's..hairiness!!! I don't get it - the mustache guy on the bus who amongst many things kept on scratching his privates, vigorously picking his nose whilst 'eating the harvest' which got entangled in his facial hair..revolting or what? Anyway, even under more decent and composed circumstances, I struggle to understand facial hairs. Like how does a man with a tash lick his ice-cream? (I always make a mess of myself even without one) What would it feel like to kiss a guy with a full grown beard? (obviously never tried that before..) Guess men feel more...manly with their facial hair unshaven as they have waited years to hit puberty and gain this most explicit sign of manlihood..and I can totally understand the sex appeal of a little stubble in a guy..but women, what's that all about? During the last and most controversial British Big Brother show, Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty, was often caught happily bleaching her facial hairs on camera - classy, lassy! On the contrary, as displayed in her self portray above, Frida Kahlo, one of the most charismatic, provocative and psychotic 20th century female artists, never seemed to have any problems with priding herself in her masculine upper-lip hairiness and voluminous mono-brow.. nice. I have a recurrent joke with a friend of mine who has a ridiculous obsession with female hairy armpits (yep,tells you a lot about a guy..) - which I quite obviously don't agree with. As one of Almodovar's characters in "All About My Mother" would say, 'A woman is more autentic the closer she gets to her ideal of beauty' - ok, this is no condonation for extreme make-overs and plastic surgery (well, whatever floats your boat, really), but I still believe that, despite gender equality on intellectual grounds, a woman is still a woman and should seek to portray a wispy,ethereal image of beauty, grace, class and...HAIRLESSNESS! (whatever it takes) and that TOILET habits should be exclusively left to the privacy of the little girls' room..Like my image conscious beautiful mother would say, "Even after 25 years of marriage!, there is no excuse not to make an effort both for yourself and the one you love" .. Guess I don't really need to make up a list of things that annoy me...'coz there's your answer!!!
Love, from an attempting to be lady-like poorly little lady and feminist in disguise!(",)

'Like My Mama Used to Make It!'

For my British readers, you will have surely recognised by now where the inspiration for this post's title comes from, put on a fony Italo-American accent, drown your four fingers towards your thumb,reached your lips and blown noisy kisses in the air, vigorously begun to gesticulate in uncoordinated patterns and read the sentence again, out loud this time,(possibly even stroke your fake black mustache..) and hopefully chuckled to yourself.. For those overseas, however, 'Like Mama Used to Make It' is the catch-phrase from a series of tv ads for "Dolmio", producers of 'allegedly' Italian style pasta sauces made in Holland and tasting as Italian as sushi is a vegan Moroccan dish! Last night I watched a little bit of "The Goodfellas"with Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta. To much of my amusement, this movie portrayed a lot of, paradoxically realistic idiosyncrasies about the Mafia culture and Italians abroad in general. My friend's dad calls me "the Irish Mob" -'coz I am Italian, bossy, and have a funny distinctive Northern Irish twang in my miscellaneous English accent - go figure! Often people ask me if the mafia is a fictionary concept invented by Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, but it is so not! In as ridiculous as it may sound that one of the G8 nations, world leader for culture and arts (not to mention football) who's forefathers conceived the foundations for most international jiuridical systems, Italy is a country ruled by three legal entities: the Constitution, the Papacy and the Mafia.

"Coffee and Cigarettes, 2003"

In last night's movie, a Jewish American young lady marries a top Irish gang member of the mob (Ray Liotta). She often repeated over the course of the film that even things which should have appalled her, or at least raised her suspicion over her husband's whereabouts, suddenly became 'normal'. Likewise, most Italians stopped raising questions a long time ago and comfortably cohabit with this entangled concoction of legal systems, illegality and chaos..little nothing ever happened. We are just like 'the three wise monkeys': Don't hear, don't speak, don't see! I, on the contrary, could tell you a million and one stories about it. Like when they stole my dad's motorbike and,instead of calling the cops, we called my uncle who called a friend of his who has a friend who knows somebody...long story short: we got the bike back in less than an hour for the modest price of £100. Convenient,ah? Or do you need a ticket for a sold out concert? There is always a friend. Really don't fancy wearing that seatbelt that creases your freshly ironed fake Valentino's? Wear a t-shirt with a seatbelt drawn over it (available in most shops)...and the list could go on and on and on. Mysteriously, it all becomes 'normal' like sipping coffee sitting at the table outside a family run cafe in the piazza, or shopping at the market. I don't condone any of this, but I can see why people find it funny... Here is to the Italians' inventiveness, humor and 'gift of the gab'!

'A Woman Especially, If She Have the Misfortune of Knowing Anything, Should Conceal It As Well As She Can'

Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey" (1817)
Identification seems to be a recurrent theme in my life at the moment. Due to a newly found sensitivity, I appear to have developed a greater sense of empathy not only with given circumstances and people I know, but also with historical characters, movie protagonists and intellectual personalities.I am a girl, right? And, as every educated Western young lady, I have been brought up to love Jane Austen's writings,to be besotted with the perfectionist ideal of a prospective Mr Darcy and to be contineously inspired by the fictional characters and groundbreaking life of miss Austen. All this gives me the irresistable impulse to read up about her, watch movies about her, identify with Jane Austin. Last night I went to see "Becoming Jane" which, as an allegedly stereotypical female rom-com, substancially exceded all of my expectations. Casting the incredibly talented James McAvoy. The 28 year old Scotsman is winning me over time and again: after playing the quarkie faun in "The Chronicles of Narnia" and the idealistic doctor in "The Last King of Scotland", his performance as Tom Lefroy, the Irish bohemian city bachellor who is willing to forsake it all for love's sake, was an intense exploit of passion,pathos and raw talent. On the other hand, Anne Hathaway was beautiful and adequately impressive in the clothes of a witty and intelligent young Jane Austin. Cherry on the cake was a rather "quiet" hunky brother Henry, Joe Anderson. The film is based on the early life of author Jane Austen and her possible flirtations with Thomas Langlois Lefroy.I wouldn't want to spoil the story line for you, but the alleged romance between this two is portrayed to go way beyond mere youthful infatuation, but is a real exchange of passionate besottment and livid desire which widens the spectrum of the author's scriptorial inspiration and shapes her views and characterization of her fictionary entourage (all,remarkably,with no explecit sex scenes!!!). My sister often teases me to be a lesser-postmodern version of miss Austin. Who knows, maybe if Jane was born in 1983, she would have been a blogger!!! I can only dream of being like her; however, I can yet again identify with another young woman's struggles. 200 years later I still often fear that a well educated woman is surreptitiously regarded as a threat to masculine pride and male dominance. I am convinced that even confident,erudite,enterprising knights in shiny armour fear, deep within, to be confronted by a woman who 'knows what she's talking about'..(I am dying to hear your views on this one!)Jane Austin eventually ended up never to marry - regardless of her pleasant apparence,wit,sensitivity and potential persuiters. I am not saying that her singleness was exclusively motivated by male perceived inadequacy; Jane fought the self-distructive battle between her undying romanticism and idealism contrasting with unclement rules and regualtions of a money-driven society.
And there was me thinking I had something new to say....
Lying on the sofa on a cold Sunday afternoon reading "Pride and Prejudice" for the fourth time over and waiting that one day unyelding love may be able to look beyond fear of inadequacy, tollerate virtual insanity and be willing to do anything for love's sake. Sweet, ah?!