"l'arte è neutra"

ieri al Premio Campiello 2008, un abbronzatissimo Bruno Vespa ha più volte sollecitato i membri della giuria sul fatto che quattro dei cinque finalisti fossero donne, per poi affermare con convinzione che "l'arte è neutra". Mah, ometto commento.

Per info sul Premio letterario, si veda qui

living among the shadows

She lived among the shadows, in a flat with 7 rooms and a large garage. Specifically, she lived with two main shadows, the Lady of the Lake with Still Waters and Amilcare, her wingless guardian angel. She had come to their house in search of truths and found she could only barely see them at dawn, when life seemed more crystalline and clear. Her chore was to feed the two shadows three times a day and be sure they did not leave the flat. She was under a temporary contract, but she did not know when it expired. She had her own room, which was filled with towers of books, her sole companions. The two shadows, in fact, would not speak to her, they only communicated through writing. In the past, the Lady of the Lake with Still Waters had been a great mistress of the shadows, but now her power had consistently diminished, leaving her almost motionless in her liquid bed. She wrote in the water and Luna had to be very quick in reading her messages. At the beginning it had been very hard and Amilcare had often reproached her. Little by little, Luna had become faster and the initial tension between her and Amilcare had disappeared. Amilcare was a strange figure. He had lost his wings the very moment the Lady of the Lake with Still Waters had lost her power. What kind of spell was there in that flat? Luna sometimes asked herself.

deaths

there are several deaths in our lives...one occurres when we stop living in our mum's womb and come out into the world...another takes place when we start speaking, we leave forever that speechless world we were in before...death is a movement, a movement into something...I died the other day, I died a small but significant death when I found out that my computer was infested with viruses...I risked losing all my work (which in part had been long before saved somewhere else, but still...), it was a petit trauma, but a trauma after all...now I am born again, with a 'clean' computer and a sibylline screen smiling at me...

ink series n. 5

gomorra

camorra, potere, ferocia, violenza...
ho da poco terminato di leggere il libro di Roberto Saviano, orribile e bellissimo, scritto in un italiano sopraffino...a metà strada fra il romanzo e il saggio...cliccare qui per il sito ufficiale

this is the title of Roberto Saviano's book on Camorra, a criminal organisation in Campania . It has been translated into English, it is a horrible and beautiful book, which makes you understand how powerful is Camorra not just in the south of Italy but all over Europe and worldwide...Because of what he has written, Saviano now lives hidden under state protection because Camorra wants him dead...clik here for more info

ink series n. 3

This is inspired by Martha Graham's Lamentation.

freedom writers

Ho di recente visto questo film, con Hillary Swank nel ruolo di Erin Gurwel. E' tratto da una storia vera che è stata trasformata in libro. Non è il solito film sull'insegnante che ha problemi con una classe difficile, in quanto pone riflessioni forse più complesse. Centrale è l'accostamento fra la violenza delle gang americane e quella del nazismo, che fa pian piano capire agli studenti quanto sia importante la conoscenza di eventi come l'Olocausto e le strategie di denigrazione naziste di ebrei e neri, per reagire e spezzare la spirale della violenza. Qui alcuni indirizzi per maggiori info:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Writers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lejN7Ulh10s