1 March 2023

To fly as fast as thought

From "Illusions" by Richard Bach


We are in a bird-named canal boat: a place that I have known 6yrs ago and is again crossing my path now.
Thomas shows me his bag full of lps. His favourites are jazz. He was tying up roses into a structure just the other day, while listening to Coltrane and Miles Davis. He says it felt like the rose has its own spirit and wanted to grow free, so he hopes it forgives him for constraining it to our ideas. I honestly think roses already appreciate such an empathy from a human, and listening to his music must have soothed them too.
Jazz goes well with sunrises, sunsets, any spare moment of tranquillity... which here, next to the river, seems as an always.


"My favourite is this song" he says, pointing at: "To fly as fast as thought". The title seems familiar, but he doesn't have a record player in the boat at the moment, so we opt for the classic FM radio instead.

Today my mind goes back to that lp's cover. "What's the name of the lp you have shown me last time?" I get a link to his favourite song as a reply:

As I am listening, I realise why it sounded familiar to me. 

Its verses are a quote from Richard Bach's book "Jonathan Livingston the seagull":

 "To fly as fast as thought, 

you must begin by knowing

 that you have already arrived."


I didn't know there was a piece of music quoting Richard Bach's book, neither my friend knew the book. As I have taken this book again only recently, after years, I feel surprised and spaced out: this is one among the few synchronicities already happened with Thomas (and books, and music...).

I am familiar with the feeling of "me going towards the reality outside" to make things happen, but in these days I feel it is the outer world (if there's such a bold separation between the two...) coming towards me in many ways. It happens in that form of "arrived", or fast flight, or thought...synchronicities, that I really enjoy.

I agree with Richard Bach when he says that there must be a part of us, which doesn't finish with the body and is able to see/listen to everything, also able to be seen/be listened to. This includes maybe roses as other people, when we feel someone is thinking to us. This part of us must be moving very fast (when we are without attachments, frictions, mind limits, selfishness, emotional obstacles...) in order to be there, now. (Isn't this after all the subtitle of my own blog? "Here. Now")

I find inspiring R. Bach's way to investigate imagination, fiction, reality

I understand how much, from an early age, he has influenced my way to see life, people, myself. It makes me think to the power of writing. He call his readers "family". I agree when he says that people who are alike will eventually find each other. So with those books in my hands, I am somehow visiting family again...


Jazz notes:
-------------- Midnight Blue 
-- Robert Cray (well that's actually blues)



27 February 2023

Time has told me



 You're a rare, rare find
 A troubled cure
 For a troubled mind

 And time has told me
 Not to ask for more
 Someday our ocean
 Will find its shore

 So I'll leave the ways that are making me be
 What I really don't want to be
 Leave the ways that are making me love
 What I really don't want to love

 Time has told me
 You came with the dawn
 A soul with no footprint
 A rose with no thorn

 Your tears they tell me
 There's really no way
 Of ending your troubles
 With things you can say

 And time will tell you
 To stay by my side
 To keep on trying
 'Til there's no more to hide

 So leave the ways that are making you be
 What you really don't want to be
 Leave the ways that are making you love
 What you really don't want to love

 Time has told me
 You're a rare, rare find
 A troubled cure
 For a troubled mind

 And time has told me
 Not to ask for more
 So someday our ocean
 Will find its shore"

20 February 2023

"Fiori del Caos" - Flowers of Chaos

----- ENGLISH BELOW

Controllo le email dal treno.
In un attimo sono emozionata, e come sollevata dalla materialita' di questa quotidianita' fatta di impegni e scadenze.

Come un soffio di vento che non si preannuncia, ma viene senza sforzo a rinfrescare il viso, mi ha scritto il mio amico poeta Ettore Fobo per annunciare che oggi 20 Febbraio e' uscita l'antologia che ha curato, mettendo insieme le nostre poesie. 

Si chiama Fiori del Caos, per Kipple Officina Libraria e include i poemi di: 
Ksenja Laginja,  Paolo Spaziani, Sandro Battisti, Carlo Gregorio Bellinvia, Mattia Canovaro, Massimo Fantuzzi,  Lukha B. Kremo, Alex Tonelli, Maria Cardamone, Matteo Gennari, Silvio Straneo, 
e lo stesso estensore del Manifesto poetico denominato "Mitorealismo del Sottosuolo", Ettore Fobo. 

Mi emozionano piu' cose. La prima e' che in questi anni Ettore mi abbia trovata, che io abbia trovato i suoi scritti, e che adesso alcuni di essi coesistano in uno spazio comune.
Ho sempre pensato a questo blog come a dei messaggi in bottiglia (di sentimenti, pensieri, impressioni rubate al mondo) che sarebbero andati da qualche parte e qualcuno magari un giorno li avrebbe raccolti. 
Non mi sono mai esposta troppo. Come ho scritto una volta: sono rimasta nascosta, ma non troppo da non farmi trovare.

Sapevo che una volta in mare aperto i miei messaggi sarebbero potuti andare alla deriva, ma anche finire in buone mani. Io comunque non ne avrei avuto il controllo, poiche' scrivere e' sempre affidarsi al futuro e a ignoti.
L'incontro con Ettore mi ha insegnato che sensibilita' affini si trovano e si custodiscono, si approfondiscono, e si espandono, come avviene ora con questo gruppo di poeti che lui ha messo insieme e spero di conoscere sempre meglio. 
Mi emoziona ripensare al livello di profondita' e empatia intellettuale della nostra conversazione sul Manifesto del movimento poetico, su come egli abbia compreso il mio approccio alla cristianita', irrinunciabile.

Appena letta la sua prefazione (che non conoscevo e per me e' stata una sorpresa) mi ha toccato l'essere compresa in maniera cosi precisa per quello che volevo comunicare, e riconosco che questa e' per me una gratitudine rara. Di certo non mi aspettavo di essere paragonata a William Blake (e' una recensione generosa) per alcune radici comuni.

Tra le varie note dolci e nostalgiche, il titolo stesso Fiori del caos, mi ricorda le prime poesie che lessi e rilessi piu' volte da ragazzina: Les Fleurs du Mal di Charles Baudelaire. Era un tempo in cui pensavo che scrivere e' tracciare fili di parole dentro l'animo di sconosciuti, e sbrogliare emozioni che non sapevamo di avere.

Qui i fiori siamo noi, dodici umani, nel caos si, ma tessitori di un ordine poetico del mondo. 
Un verso alla volta.

Il sito in allestimento è www.mitorealismo.it

Preview della prefazione / from the preface:




-----
I am checking my emails on the train.
All of a sudden I am excited, also relieved from the materiality of this everyday life made up of commitments and deadlines.

Like a gentle freeze that does not announce itself, but comes effortlessly to refresh the face, my poet friend Ettore Fobo  wrote to me to announce that the anthology he edited with our poems, today has been published.

It is called Flowers of Chaos, for Kipple Officina Libraria and includes the poems of:
Ksenja Laginja, Paolo Spaziani, Sandro Battisti, Carlo Gregorio Bellinvia, Mattia Canovaro, Massimo Fantuzzi, Lukha B. Kremo, Alex Tonelli, Maria Cardamone, Matteo Gennari, Silvio Straneo,
and the drafter of the poetic Manifesto called "Mitorealismo del Sottosuolo", Ettore Fobo.

More things excite me. The first is that in recent years Ettore has found me, that I have found his writings, and that now some of them coexist in a common space.
I've always thought of this blog as messages in a bottle (of feelings, thoughts, impressions stolen from the world) that would go somewhere and maybe one day someone would collect them.
I've never exposed myself too much. As I once wrote: I stayed hidden, but not too far that I couldn't be found.

I knew that once offshore, my messages in a bottle could drift, but also end up in good hands. I wouldn't have had control of it anyway, since writing is always relying on the future and unknown people.
The meeting with Ettore taught me that similar sensibilities can be found, protected, deepened and expanded, as it happens now with this group of poets that he has put together, which I hope to get to know better.
It excites me to think back to the level of depth and intellectual empathy of our conversation on the Manifesto of the Poetic Movement, on how he understood my approach to Christianity, which cannot be renounced.

As soon as I read his preface (it was a surprise for me) I was touched by being understood in such a precise way for what I wanted to communicate, and I recognize that this is a rare gratitude for me. I certainly didn't expect to be compared to William Blake (that's a generous review) for some common roots.

Among the various sweet and nostalgic notes, the very title Flowers of Chaos reminds me of the first poems I read and reread several times as a little girl: Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. It was a time when I thought that writing is sewing threads of words inside the soul of strangers, and untie knots of emotions we didn't know we had.

Here we are, the flowers, twelve humans, among chaos yes, but weavers of a poetic order of the world.
One verse at a time.


19 February 2023

"Maria's Hunt"

A while ago, I read a few good reviews on the Level Crossing cafe in Mortlake, which is a records shop too... People say they make the best coffee in the area and, being a small place, their selection of records is a quality one.

I don't know much of music, I just recognise immediately if I like it or not. No matter if the artist is not famous. I regret I have never spent much time on learning about albums and music genres in general, as London with its record shops seems the best sea where to dive in and find good music fishes.

Anyway, I am there today, drinking my coffee while browsing around, among hanging plants and records. The owners Louise and Mark, very kindly gift me with a large cookie as they are about to close soon anyway...

I take note of a few albums as they capture my visual attention. Some of them are really attractive



I wonder how they sound like...? will check them out later at home, apart one.

I ask to listen to a record, as the fact that there's a tiger on it (2022 has been my "tiger year", I should write about this some day...), it has my name on it too, it has this psychedelic graphic (black and pink are also Palermo's colours)... seems shouting at me: BUY ME. 

As I listen to a few tracks, I discover a country-psychedelic-rock'n roll, just released in January 2023 by a band from Chicago.

 I am pleased to say, it's at home with me now, as this Sunday's soundtrack.

"High Time"

"Maria's Hunt"

"Shoreline"

As I leave the cafe, with still Louise's surprised face in my mind, I cannot stop thinking I must have looked a bit mad in my rushed decision making....