Monday, November 30, 2009

Lappis, where the world ends

When people live abroad they need to share something with someone else to feel integrated.

This need to belong to something is fulfilled in Stockholm by Lappis. Lappis is a student campus where people have their own room with their own bathroom and a shared kitchen. Lappis is where students, especially foreign students feel at home, where they return from downtown or from long distance trips.

There’s a curious syndrome which is contagious, “The Lappis Syndrome”, being this campus a place you don’t want to leave because there’s everything in there: food (Ika), friends, parties, gym, laundry, even a beach to suntan during summer time.

It’s a trauma to leave Lappis and everyone who is still alive inside tries to stay there as long as possible. Those who don’t like it, those who escapes it are people who are already old, old in the inside.

Lappis, where the world ends



Tuesday, November 24, 2009

CRITICISM IS TO BE ACCEPTED

Criticism is not condemning someone, it is just underlining what is not perfect about something and if it leads to reflections and new solutions is extremely useful.

People should understand the difference between destructive and constructive criticism.

There’s really no need to feel annoyed or irritated or offended by constructive criticism even about your own country, it could lead to new perspectives and ideas which could generate new solutions and improvements.

Provided that people are open minded enough

Monday, November 23, 2009

IL DIAVOLO

My thought about films is that too often they show mechanisms that in real life do not exist.

Sometimes, however, they can be useful to understand how a Reality was perceived in a given historical period. It’s the case of "To bed... or not to bed" ("Il Diavolo") Italian film made in Stockholm in 1963.
The filmmakers have taken the character of Alberto Sordi and transported it in Sweden, working closely with reality, changing the canvas according to what the environment suggested. The theme is always the play boy attempt, almost de rigueur in speaking of Italians abroad. The director is Gian Luigi Polidoro, who already had directed “Swedish Girls”, an intelligent comedy about the relationship between the male Latin and the female Scandinavian.

This time the protagonist is not an Evil Woman, but an absolutely common person. On this occasion Sordi waived harsher tones of his palette, he composed a kind of Italian less sinister than usual: with moral and religious concerns, with small complex. In the movie nothing so special happens.

The merchant Amedeo arrives in Sweden, stations in a small town to get a tooth pulled out, is surprised by the open minded mentality of the girls in Stockholm, participates in the evening of the Nobel Prize, has an innocent flirtation with a beautiful married woman, faints after having a sauna together with a girl, attends a party car on a frozen lake and other small adventures.

Obviously it always ends with no sex, as a certain convention wants, but he is filled with a sweet amazement for what happens around him. In a country where women do not know the shame, he feels he is the Devil, a kind of good guy-husband, who could not sin without pulling out the picture of his wife, who faces a frank and spontaneous approach by a woman like something that erases everything which gives taste to love relationships in the Latin countries. So in the end, aside from a smiling and good-natured film, we see a successful, objective comparison of mentalities.

What emerges watching the film 46 years after its implementation is that Sweden is always the same, beyond the bullshit about globalization and changes in socio-cultural characteristics of peoples and countries.

The story could take place in 2009 and there would be nothing to say about it. The same types of events happen to the same types of people when they are in the same territory, at the expense of the time factor


Friday, November 13, 2009

SE QUESTO E’ UN UOMO

Parlare di Berlusconi non significa parlare di politica in senso stretto, chi lo sostiene o e’ un gonzo o e’ in malafede. Parlare di Berlusconi significa dissertare della persona che decide i destini dell’Italia per via del suo ruolo che gli permette di manipolare il paese politicamente, mediaticamente ed economicamente. Berlusconi e’ appena stato definito dal Forbes la dodicesima persona piu influente nel mondo.

Berlusconi non ha nulla a che fare con il pensiero politico della destra, ne della sinistra, ne del centro. Non ha nulla a che fare con alcun pensiero politico. Sono patetici coloro i quali lo votano sostenendo di essere di destra. Proprio le piu grandi personalita’ della destra liberal-conservatrice italiana lo hanno disperezzato come nessun altro (basti pensare a Montanelli o Sartori) perche’ loro sì erano e sono in buona fede e sanno che Berlusconi ha sempre calpestato ogni valore e idea della destra.

Ora la domanda, perche’ le persone di destra e quelle cattoliche votano in genere per lui? Berlusca non solo non ha a che fare con il pensiero tradizionale della destra che va da Adam Smith a Milton Friedman (lui a chiacchiere e’ liberista, a fatti e’ il piu grande monopolista e oligopolista della storia) ma non ha nulla a che fare con i valori cattolici. Che centra col cattolicesimo chi va a mignotte? Chi divorzia piu volte e che si vanta di essere un playboy? Che c’entra coi valori della Chiesa chi promuove la televisione di showgirl che si prostituiscono per arrivare in alto e che promuovono idee ridicole e false su cosa sia il successo? Chi sostiene che le ragazze si debbano preparare al futuro scegliendo partners benestanti come suo figlio con il messaggio “tu donna non conterai mai un cazzo, ma se scopi quelli coi soldi allora potrai avere una bella vita”?

Non c’entra nulla ma la Chiesa se lo deve tenere buono perche’ lui prende molti voti cattolici, come meccanismo clientelare fa si che i clericali non siano toccati da nesuno legislativamente ed economicamente.

Questo uomo piccolo piccolo e’ l’antitesi dell’uomo, rappresenta la parte di Italia malata che lo vota, lo imita e lo sogna. Molti italiani si lamentano di cosa sia l’Italia ma la verita’ e’ che sono dei piccoli borghesi invidiosi di non essere dall’altra parte della barricata, di poter essere loro a godere dei privilegi dei lacche’ ed amici del cialtrone supremo.

Posso capire che i suoi amici e collaboratori lo difendano, lui paga (fisicamente parlando s’intende) per tutti e loro ne traggono un utile. Ma gli altri no. Quelli che lo difendono senza avere interessi personali sono molto piu pericolosi perche’ sono degli invasati integralisti. Il loro cervello fa poche sinapsi e tutte sbagliate che funzionano piu o meno cosi’: lui e’ contro i comunisti allora e’ di destra, quelli che lo attaccano devono essere di sinistra altrimenti non si spiega, quindi io lo devo difendere sempre e comunque, qualsiasi cosa faccia prendero’ le sue parti.

Non si fermano a pensare, non si pongono il dubbio, partono con il loro software in automatico, fanno sempre le stesse sinapsi e dicono sempre le stesse cose.

Io dico a queste persone che voi siete conniventi dello sfascio dell’Italia e ve ne dovete assumere le responsabilita’

Lo sfascio della giustizia, le connivenze con Mafia e Camorra, la prostituzione istituzionalizzata, lo spingere le donne a fare le marchette per sopravvivere in un contesto impossibile.

SIETE CONNIVENTI DI TUTTO QUESTO!

Io sono cresciuto con un altra Italia in testa, l’Italia di Dante, di Michelangelo, di Galileo, di Leopardi, financo di Calvino e soprattutto di Saviano. L’Italia che non ruba, non paga le mignotte, che ha valori veri, che crea, che si ribella alle ingiustizie e alla malavita. L’Italia che stanno cercando di schiacciare definitivamente

Io aspettero’ il giorno che lui esca di scena augurandomi che Gianfranco Fini possa rimettere a posto i cocci della destra che Berlusconi ha distrutto. Sperando che non sia troppo tardi



Thursday, November 5, 2009

Television and coffee

When I was a half grown up (around 16 and 17 years old) I was rather sceptical when I heard some of my class mates point out "I never watch TV". The same thing happened when some friend of my sister, just a bit older than me claimed without any doubt "sugaless coffee is much better".

My typical reaction was "this guy is boasting around, he is just showing off. Television is very useful and bitter coffee is disgusting. They are liars and they prefer to suffer a little bit to prove that they are cool, macho and bla bla bla".

For a long time I was convinced of that.

Then suddenly something happened: I was alone and I was making a coffee, when it was ready I was about to add loads of sugar as usual but there was no sugar anywhere.
My instinctive reaction was to throw the coffe in the sink but just before doing that I thought "why not trying? I mean, let's see if those guys are just full of shit or they have a point".


At first it tasted very bad but then a little bit better.

So the days after I tried again and then again and what tasted bad started to taste good and it became possible to recognize the taste of different brands which was impossible when I used a lot of sugar

These days I get disgusted when somebody gives me coffee with sugar inside, it tastes fake.

I have never been dependent on TV but I used to watch it at least 2 hours a day.
Nowadays I don't even own a TV and when someone gives me one of them as a present I don't say anything, I thank that person but then I hide it in a storage!

How did that happen?

Three years ago I was sharing a flat with a retired man who was TV dependent. Unfortunately the internet connection worked only in the living room where he used to watch TV 12 hours a day which means I had to listen to TV programs every time I used the internet

I started to hate TV because watching or even hearing it felt like a violence perpetrated against me

I found out I didn't miss it at all! Besides I noticed that real life is very different from what they show on TV, extremely different.

If people start observing what happens in the real life they will notice as certain mechanisms are completely different from what TV wants us to believe

Everything shown on TV has the objective to convince us of something which does not exist and that is in the interest of those who show those things, not in ours.

If we paid more attention on what happens in the real life (streets, offices, courses) we could understand why what we would expect to happen (according to TV shows) don't happen and why other things happen

As simple as that!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Social Networks and Losers

Over the last few years many social networks have been created , no need to mention them since everybody knows Facebok, Myspace and Twitter.

What people ignore is who uses the most these tools: Losers

People who are on these networks most of the time (and have loads of "friends" there) are usually people that don't exist in real life, when they walk on the streets they are called NOBODY

But then they have their Social Networks where they have their "virtual friends", their pictures, their "life"

Many people will never understand that what masses usually do is pointless and very sad. That's why I never used Myspace, Twitter and I stopped using Fake Book (Face Book) a long time ago even though I admit FB to be very useful to get quickly in touch with those you need to contact

But real life is based on phisical presence on a territory, who you really are in that environment

There will never be a virtual life that can take over this matter of fact

Vey few people exist for real