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Showing posts from July, 2019

The Young Idealist: Red Shirts

Quando finisce una guerra le bugie degli sconfitti vengono smascherate, le bugie dei vincitori diventano Storia (Arrigo Petacco) Palerm, March 4, 1861. Monday. The sun shines on Palermo. It is 12:20pm when the old steamer Ercole releases its moorings. It is headed to Naples. On that steamship the last members of the expedition of the Thousand Red Shirts, the last ones left in Sicily, have embarked - the arrival is scheduled for the following morning. Three hours later also the Pompei left the port of Palermo, a steamship by far faster than the Ercole. On the same route, there are also two rickety tartanes with high-sounding names, the Angel Raffaele and La Madonna dell'Arco, and also an English war vessel is on the same route. It wouldn't be solitary navigation. But after turning a few degrees north-east and disappearing on the horizon the Ercole vanished, without any trace of ever existing. Can the bad be more abundant than the good? Red Shirts   Once...

Italian cognitive dissonance (apie vieną gurmanų klubą Vilniuje)

Est ardalionum quaedam Vilniuje natio, trepide concursans, occupata in otio, gratis anhelans, multa agendo nil agens (Phaedrus) Užupis, a district of Vilnius - the so-called Republic of Artists. There is a restaurant right there, in the centre of the little central square – a magnificent place, very close to the bridge that you incontrovertibly must cross arriving from Onos Bažnyčia. This restaurant is well known in the Italian community of Vilnius, famous for illustrious gourmands. Big bellies, bad breath, satisfied faces, bright and vivid eyes yearning for food. They have the most elaborated possible philosophies regarding their stand with regard to traditional recipes, each of one consisting in a different universe: pasta alla puttanesca, carbonara, spaghetti alla amatriciana (one of the most vexed question: which is the original way to prepare the real pasta alla amatriciana? Eternally unsolved question, since are many heretical positions about it). Which wine with which cou...

Viaggio in Toscana, per presentare "Amore, šaltibarščiai e pomodori rossi"

Mishima and Hagakure

Mishima was obsessed for his entire life (or almost) by the re-gaining the values (ideologies) of a valuable life that has to be lived under the tension of art reinforced by the erotism of death. The vision of his contemporary Japan was devastating to him. A land deserted by real values, whose DEATH undoubtedly was the highest (and probably unique) value (ideology) for Male-kind. an age in which everything is based on the premise that it is best to live as long as possible. The average life span has become the longest in history, and a monotonous plan for humanity unfolds before us. He cannot shun art as he cannot shun death since the life of an artist is subdued to death. The occupation of the Samurai is death...death is the Samurai’s supreme motivation, and if a Samurai should fear or shun death, in that instant he would cease to be a Samurai. Life doesn't allow to be caught off-guard. It doesn't allow laxity, because this would mean to resign his claim ...