Art is the new Neverland

When I forget or get distracted, my subconscious sets me on the right path again.

The other night I dreamt I was going to a new, marvellous universe, where I was to be taken because my pics had won an award for best composition.
All the animals on the island I lived on tried to stop me, biting me and hanging on my clothes and limbs. The cat and the fox jumped on the pumpkin coach that was to take me there, but I threw them out of it, in the snow.
And off we went, flying, until we reached a planet of words printed everywhere – on walls, gates, windows, furniture – and hanging from the sky, in Times New Roman, huge and small. Walls with ever-changing colours, and people floating in mid-air. I was to go there the following night too, and meet my mother, but small, practical things happened which hindered me.

I woke up full of wonderful feelings and jumped in the bed for half an hour. Then, I worked too hard all day and did nothing to justify the award I had given myself in my dream. As a result, the following night I dreamt that I was crossing Europe on a train with two or three other women, towards Poland and Russia, and that I was perfectly combed, made up with red lipstick and dressed in a fur coat, in a 40s’ fashion, and somebody had taken all my lenses and I couldn’t take a single pic of all the incredible things happening before my eyes. I woke up uncomfortable and frustrated and felt cold and tired the whole day.

I usually wouldn’t care to interpret my dreams for others, but in this case I’ll keep this as a memento for the future.

Art (you’ll forgive this lack of humility) resides in a textual universe. But I can access it only if I get my images straight. The right pic takes me to the place where I came from – where my mother waits for me in a fairy-tale world. But if I ignore this impulse, bad things happen. I dream about being deprived of my means of grasping reality (all masculine: my weapons, penises) and suffer deportation, become useless and completely feminine, on an Odyssey towards beautiful and strange things all out of my reach.

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À rebours

D. told me that, for a band project, the best thing is to set out planning stuff backwards, with the final goal as a starting point.

Naturally, this generated some fantastic reveries in a split second:
- of me, reading the title of my novel/script in the R2 section of La Repubblica, on a Saturday;
- of me, holding hands with a publisher in his best Durban’s smile;
- of me, editing thanks and dedications on page 3.

And then I thought (I was driving on the motorway with my mind roaming in circles) that 99% of the people who came to my mind when I thought of the words “all my love and thanks go to…” were exactly the ones who have actually prevented me from doing anything. Mother’s perfectionism (“Whatever you do, be always the best, my love”), father’s systematic pick-axing (“You’ve been drawing flowers on the margins of your exercise books…” – followed by a terrible 5-hour-long silence), friends’ secret malice, ex partners’ jealousy, and so on.

In this topsy-turvy universe where things done at the end come first, here are my thanks for something that doesn’t exist.

All my love and thanks go to: D. for his unending and unbending love and support; my stepfather and stepmother, for loving me for free and loving me always, for no reason whatsoever; my brother, for enduring my bad character all these years; to old and new friends; and to all those fundamental presences in my life who, for death or distance, are no longer here, like mother, who taught me to draw and to shun embarrassment, and father, who lives far away, and who prevented me from drawing flowers in my exercise books and tried to bend me so that I could be exactly what he wanted me to be, and to all the other people who’ve made my life miserable, and rich, and happy, and to whom I couldn’t help thinking about when the word “thanks” came into my mind. I should think that the best thing I’ve learnt is how to ignore you.

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Idle short random and fast, part III (Birth of the T-Shirt Philosophy)

I feel too verbose for a tweet, too brief for a post, too universal for a status update, too abstract for a pic. A lucky thing I’ve set up a category for that sort of thing.

Here’s some sweet wisdom from the past few weeks (some of it would look great on a t-shirt):

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1)      Each summer, kitchen sinks get irreparably clogged, folks more aggressive, drivers more absent-minded.

2)      A jerk can punch your tyre better than a nail.

3)      It’s financial statements time. Shit.

4)      For almost a month, every morning I used to wake up in a state of emotional emergency. As if each day I was placing a bet with the rest of my life at stake.

5)      A friend told me a month ago “Making a scene is not like imposing a limit. A scene is acceptable, even gratifying. A limit is bound to be crushed, and this is unavoidable”.

6)      Your bad dreams can be even more scary for people around you.

7)      You can dream episodically.  It can last for years. In my dreams, there’ve been wolves and Alsatians and old and new cars, in a curious evolution of happier endings.

8)      Uno, Nessuno e Centomila: on the same day, you can hear yourself described in as many ways as there are people around you, without the slightest responsibility about it on your part. “You look pale and shabby today, are you sick?” asks the kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy. “You’re radiant, are you pregnant?” asks the neo-mom. “High heels destroy your spinal bone” declares a spiteful hobbit. “She’s either stupid, or vile” explains some envious bitch. “You’re bizarre” says your father when you say things he doesn’t agree with. “You’re a real artist” declares that chap that’s been trying to screw you for ages. “She’s a narcissistic amateur”, says the same blockhead when he first gets the clue that there’s no way he can catch a glimpse of your underwear except for when you hang it to dry out of the bathroom window.

9)      At 30, you should still climb the staircase two steps at a time.

10)   Unrequited love is for chumps.

11)   You can wish to be important for somebody, but there’s absolutely no point in pleading for it.

12)   Intimacy doesn’t scale.

13)   People should be taught courses about expressing care (if they can feel it): this could save us from a massive amount of energy wasted because of misunderstandings, misdirected feelings or activities, or wrong guesses. It should also spare us tons of bad literature and music.

14)   Approximation and generalization can save your life.

15)   If you’re excessively grateful, you’re screwed.

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Weaving the cloth

Waiting is a powerless agony. I study anguish in its progress, in a panicky, offended manner. A queue for a bureaucratic matter, the renewal of papers, a late train, a date or appointment, a traveller home late, practical matters keeping me away from what I cherish, are able to rekindle this nervous agitated worry. I wait for presence (the end of absence) or for news about a disaster (the only other possible outcome).

At times, presence gets confused with absence – I mistake ordinary carelessness for fading, or a meaningless gesture for willful or unconscious neglect or rejection, and this is the source of the greatest of fears. The primal, clinical fear of a collapse. If only I could understand that this is fear of a crash I’ve already experienced. If only I could remind myself that the loss I anticipate is a damage that has already come to pass, that cannot subsist again, a departure towards Night that has already occurred. Then I’d be peaceful and light-hearted. I’d see it as the chalk outline of a dead monster.

But I wait, like unsold stock. In apnoea. An evil spirit comes and takes everything from me, and when there’s an end to absence, this “everything” must be recreated afresh. Like a child or a dog, unable to understand that there’s an end to departure, that eventually there’ll be a Return to fill the gaping Nothing.

Absence carries on and I have to endure it. I try to control it, turn it into action. I rush around. I pretend. I sing and weave the cloth I’ll destroy at night, with all my senses alert. I take pictures. I write.

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Obey your parents

Get up don’t waste your day sit down stand up have you done your homework don’t study that much go out stay home wear some make-up you look like a Christmas tree be elegant stand straight don’t put your elbows on the table don’t dig too deep don’t fail never fail don’t be too smart or you’ll see lifelong loneliness don’t let anybody ever get too close to you you’re always so lonely can’t you do anything about it don’t think too much don’t quit your job don’t work too much why aren’t you at school don’t waste time don’t smoke give me a cigarette eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat you’re getting fat don’t read so much don’t spend so much time at the computer do something productive study economics study architecture study law honour your family call your grandmother call your grandfather you have to visit your cousin you have to spend some time with your relatives don’t spend so much money buy something nice help your brother help me help me help me help me help me if you do that you’ll have everything at your feet don’t trust anyone don’t speak with anyone keep your secrets you have to accept advice you have a peculiar character you’re unbending you’re always angry can’t you take things less seriously be more tidy people looking at this will think you’re a mess the cowl makes the monk be more organized be more controlled don’t ever lose your temper don’t let others bully you where’s the point in arguing fighting is never the solution don’t wash your dirty linen in public I told you it would happen haven’t I why don’t you ever listen to me listen to me listen to me listen to me

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If you installed your blog in your root directory and don’t want to move it…

… you’ll find that upon updating WordPress to the latest releases it will automatically redirect your index.php file to the home page of your site (usually, index.html) and therefore you’ll feel you’ve been shut out of your blog. I’ve had a hard time fixing this the first time, so I thought it would be kind to share the solution and give thanks where it’s due.

I found it here:

http://ilikewordpress.com/274/loading-wordpress-from-index-php/

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Annus mirabilis, or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, part II

Here’s part two of the script I started last week: Annus mirabilis.

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AUGUST

While having breakfast at a bar, D witnesses the death of a 30 year old woman sitting right behind her, who has a sudden heart attack. Moment of being for D. She is linked directly to God. She agrees with Marjane Satrapi that God looks a bit like Marx. She gathers the following conclusions: that life can change, but it won’t change by itself. The utilitarian vision of the invisible hand guiding you towards what’s good for you is actually a fraud, and you have to reach out for what you think is best and claim it for yourself. And the other half of this truth is immediately transparent: that you have to stay away from what is harmful for you. That being good isn’t enough, that it won’t change things you dislike around you; it can only give you access to cloud nine, eventually (a fact she seriously doubts, and God doesn’t give the slightest hint about it, either), but won’t have any impact on your present life. As a result, she leaves her home and goes to stay at a couple of friends’ house for a month, and then at her step-father’s, while her flat is being cleared up at her request. Admitting these truths makes her seriously wish to be buried alive, or deep-frozen.

Brian Eno – By This River ♫ ♪

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SEPTEMBER

After a few days spent freely floating around the known universe in Major Tom fashion, D receives the taxes she’s to pay for the remainder of the year and is sharply pulled back to earth: they’re just short of 15.000 Euros, to be paid in 5 easy monthly installments. How do they look? Like a plain PDF sitting in her mailbox. All her inheritance is gone. However, the strange correspondence between the amount of taxes and the sum of money she’s just come to own makes her start to believe in luck coming her way. During this time, she carries on on her routine of horse doses of chamomile tea and valerian at 4 o’clock each morning and a ritual of self-inflicted punishment and utter psychic torture at 4 o’clock each afternoon. By the end of the month, she goes back living in her own flat, alone.

Antony and The Johnsons – Hitler in My Heart ♫ ♪

OCTOBER

D quits her job. Her company (God bless them) accepts to work with her as a freelancer again. She spends the rest of the month calculating how many days, hours, minutes, seconds, coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, lunch breaks, emails she has to send, how many steps of the stair she has to walk up and down, and so on, ‘til the last day in her office, which is also her birthday. She lives in a routine made of parting from and welcoming back her ex once a week, which can be condensed in the phases: “Go away” / “But I love you now” / “Stay then” / “Oh well, I’m not sure”.

[Note for me: look for appropriate onomatopoeia for sounds of slaughter, struggles, and shattered pottery. Also keep an updated record of all the weapons that have flown around the house.]

Fiona Apple – Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song) ♪ ♫

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Completely dejected and worn out, in

NOVEMBER

after a warm embrace, good wishes and a necessary goodbye, we find D at home, alone with the dog.
She doesn’t remember the precise outline of what happened to her in that month, so everything must be depicted as some sort of blurry holing up.

[Cartoon of D rambling around the house wrapped in her duvet in a constant slumber, working and repeating every action or sentence tons of times.]

Balance of the month: she issues the highest invoice of her entire working life; she buys a camera; she spends all her nights on pathetic chats/phone calls with friends, strangers, anyone; she draws a fantastic tree growing hearts.

Beck – Chemtrails ♫ ♪

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DECEMBER

D decides to pick up all the pieces of herself. Time for some serious suffering mixed with anticipation and new projects. Which, now that I think of it, is a good description for the first step toward happiness: happiness being something else from the absence of pain (an aponia only achieved by a life under self-imposed anesthesia and which eventually leads to emptiness and staleness), but a balance and an acceptance of joy and sadness, two things that can’t go alone. She receives daily calls from people reminding her to eat and sleep, as she spends most of her time drawing and taking pictures and writing. She is hallucinating and is seriously convinced of being devoid of all skin. When asking around, she finds out that this is what they call “to feel”. She cries out loud watching Disney movies. She laughs heartily at merry things. She starts to go through extraordinary epiphanies (completely drug-free), processing all the year’s events, and expressing them. And, just before the year’s over, like a Lady Lazarus, she comes back to life by letting everything go and welcoming annihilating emotions and frequent losses of control, a herald of the infinite pleasures to come.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly – Once More With Feeling ♪ ♫

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All the obvious “feminist-Cinderella” implications, all the retribution and compensation involved are just perfect for my purpose, don’t you think? The happy-ever-after is just implied, even doubtful, which is also great, a bit like the ending of “Portrait of a Lady”. It could be made into a movie, maybe, and all the hints at happiness could be ideal from an emotional point of view, and would eventually lead to a fantastic sequel. Speaking of which, I have my own theory: that joy is difficult to tell. One usually tries to give away pain and sadness and keeps bliss to oneself. It’s a feeling we wish to contain and not to let go. That’s why most of the time people speak in wonderful detail about their hard times, and skip their present joy with a very convenient fade out.

Feist – Mushaboom ♫ ♪

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Toddler

Sitting absent-mindedly on the terrace, trying to gather the last three rays of light with the untannable skin on my legs, before a huge cloud hides the sun, after having picked up a random book from the unread shelf of my bookcase. It’s As I Lay Dying. Started reading inattentively, the mind busy with flash-guns and reflectors, with my tenses (present, past, future) all messed up. Got caught by words. Reached without breathing page two, then ran quickly into the flat again with the strong urge to write something. Anything. About my Asian neighbour’s colourful laundry I was watching earlier. About the earsplitting scent of oleander coming from below. About the dog sitting with his head on my right foot.

It is a strange day, made of a relaxed solitude. I must have felt like this the day after the one I started walking for the first time. Toddling without somebody else’s hand to keep me standing on my feet. Let’s not forget it.

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Annus mirabilis, or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, part I

I’m planning a graphic novel – here’s the outline of the script. It’s set in 2008 and covers a year of the main character’s life. By the way, any reference to real people and facts is purely and completely deliberate.

Being an online draft, the good part is that I can tweak it and spice it up. Oh, ah… I guess it should be pretty obvious, but to listen to the soundtrack, you just need to click on the name of the track.

JANUARY

A glimpse in D’s life: her hopes, her history, her friends. She has a job, has another job, has a third job, has a dog, has a partner, has a home in a huge rented and untidy flat, has a degree and an ongoing specialization, has a car, has a bank loan, has friends.

[Note for me: OK, I know this is hard, but try and make it look different from Sliding Doors]

Björk – Hyperballad ♫ ♪

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FEBRUARY

D signs an agreement as permanent employee at the company for which she used to work as freelancer earlier. She has to drive from 2 to 4 hours every day, obtains a wonderful room in the attic, writes an average of 52 emails a day and is always the last to leave at night. Her office is near the sea, at the very end of Eur in Rome, and at times, at 8 o’clock in the evening, the breeze is salty and her car covered in sand.

[Note for me: insert a retrospective hint about how she may be unconsciously striving to stay away from home.]

Jamiroquai – Black Capricorn Day ♪ ♫

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MARCH

D’s alcoholic, personality disordered, ballet dancing grandmother K kicks the bucket after they hadn’t spoken to each other for 7 years.
Retrospective, back in 2001: K’s last words to D – “you lousy slut”. K’s last words to D’s younger brother C, who was 11 at the time: “I thought you were dead, just like your mother”, K’s only daughter.
Back in 2008: K’s partner, knowing that C and D are her only heirs, thinks it best not to tell a word about her death until they find it out a month or so later. It turns out K’s house in Italy had been sold the day before she died.

[Note for me: series of cartoons illustrating the events around K’s death, for example: 1) K’s partner is given an Oscar for the category “Best Luck in 2008”; 2) K’s partner is secretly trying out the solidity of the biggest frying pan in the house; 3) we catch a furtive ray of light secretly glimmering in the eye of the appointed notary.]

D spends entire months at banks and municipalities and lawyers and has to cope with constant nausea.

Radiohead – Knives Out ♪ ♫

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APRIL

D’s step-grand-mother (I’ll leave you a minute to resolve this equation…) dies. D’s brother and D herself are, again, among her heirs, and their aunt N thinks it best not to tell them: who knows? They might think of relieving her of her toilet or of some other useful part of her 50 sqm flat in the dingy fringes of Sofia. D’s so sick of all these things that lets N get away with just a single burst of explosive anger on D’s part. N ends her call saying she loves D and C tenderly and cares deeply about them. They never hear from her again.

Thom Yorke – Analyse ♫ ♪

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MAY

[It’s time for some Psychological Peek in D’s character].

No missed funerals in May. D’s last exam at University: Latin Literature. It’s worth noting that the worst or hardest moments of D’s life all coincide with the brightest highlights of her academic performance – which is a wonderful insight into her way of functioning: when the shit hits the air conditioning, she switches off and works as an automaton. She gets the highest mark of the whole session, without having ever studied Latin her whole life, from the most resentful gang of constipated scholars the learning world has ever known, all determined to ruin her ego from the very onset.

[Note for me: intertextual hints to the Judges in the final part of The Wall].

Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine ♫ ♪

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JUNE

[Note for me: tread carefully.]

D’s beloved half has very important things to do about his future. So why should D bother about her own problems, when his are so significant? D goes on working like before, while having a hard time to make her own, private company called family work as best as she can, which means she’s helping out financially and practically, with all the time and skills and patience and money she has. She starts having very bad dreams.

The Dø – On My Shoulders ♪ ♫

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JULY

D has to settle some financial matters in Sofia, so she leaves – all alone, for the first time. Everything goes completely wrong, from the Lost-like turbulence on the plane, to some terrible toothaches which eventually lead to her wisdom tooth being pulled out. Fully disfigured, she goes back home to a strange silent universe. Even though on her way back she’s taken a few free days from work, she finds herself constantly alone at home, or relatively alone at the seaside or at weddings or at cocktail parties. There’s a reason, as she’ll soon discover. And the reason has a fascinating Mediterranean look, olive skin, dark long hair and captivating manners, with an atrocious penchant for baby-talk. D reaches a higher level of self awareness through her newly discovered killer instincts [Note for me: Uma Thurman in Kill Bill], as well as some innate detective abilities [Note for me: Lara Croft or other videogame female character].

[Final note for me: use the Shakespearean insulter for new ideas; for example "Would thou were clean enough to spit on", etc.]

Aimee Mann – Amateur ♪ ♫

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To be continued…

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Things to do on Sunday

1. Go to bed at the first rays of the new rising sun
2. Get up at noon and have a rich, snug breakfast, with soft talks and yawning
3. Have something light for lunch at 2 pm
4. Plan outdoor activities for the afternoon (a couple of tennis sets)
5. See them shattered by sudden rain
6. Chase your beloved one around the house and force him/her into posing for you

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