N° 4 May, 2013 - Irresponsible Tourism

Irresponsible Tourism

Today, I decided to write in my way. An informal one. I decided to stop one second and think. For this reason, I please you all, to do the same and to observe the world. Just one second, maybe two. Maybe just the time you need to see how beautiful is this planet. Your planet. My planet. Our planet. I know, this is just a picture. One of the thousands. Here’s why, I please you to imagine. I ask you to be there, outside of the blue. Outside of our limits, of our borders. I please you to see, that the only borders are just green veins we usually call mountains. I ask you to see, that the only obstacles are charismatic pool of water we know with the name of seas.

Everything out there is connected by the shade of mighty colors. Everything out there is linked by the silent mystery of perfection. A perfection we believe to not be real, in front of a religion, in front of a flag, in front of a culture, in front of a science.

In this number, we have decided to be informal and to be united in our feelings and in our numbers. We have being so through the shape of a trip. One of those, which constraints humans under the social issue of being immigrants. One of those, which forges us with the lucky label of being travelers. One of those, we could use to integrate our knowledges and instead we waste through the social meaning of a border. 

Torschlusspanik

A friend of mine has lately showed a video in which some statistics are proposed. You know,  those served on the empty tables of millions of families: the globe wealthy is owned by just the 1% of the world population. Darrell Huff would probably critic the clip arousing public concern about ‘How to lie with statistics’. However, is the clip really lying? Does the 1% represent the reality? Well, this may be wrong and still may not. The disparity between richness and poverty is tragically increasing. Poor people do not have any key to access some richness. Poverty doesn’t know how to open the gate to the ‘Land of Plenty’.

Bulgaria, Colombia, Greece, Italy and Poland are just some examples we have pointed out in this number. These are some of those ‘villages’ were the economical regression is on the stage performing a free tragicomedy show, while around the world Qatar can buy six Greek islands for £ 7.3 millions, a 28 years old kid can decide that nuclear is like playing with Lego, or an Hungarian President can mimic some of the evil deeds already proposed by Berlusconi in Italy.

In all this mess, the average world unemployment rate does only know the meaning of the word ‘increment’, which is synonymous of ‘new forms of poverty’, the same predicted by Saint Francis to our anthropological environment of ‘humans & animals’.

The unstable political situation of the world, perfectly fittable with the economic and financial worldwide status, is slave of an annoying human attitude towards power and globalized individualism. It is from here, that some humans got tangled up in something known as ‘crisis’ from the ancient Greek ‘krinein’, which means to separate, like ‘Torschlusspanik’ a German term which literally stands for ‘shut door panic’ and indicates ‘fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate’.

Spending Review

They believe people cannot change the world: power goes in one direction, the one of money, ‘Ubi abundatia, ibi incuria’. They show off their smiles sustaining that science cannot survive: ‘evolution is equal to no future as in-vitro is not equal to bible. They trust corruption, they feed it and because of the crisis they can fire or they can offer you a job, a no paid one.

So, what you do? You can go to school to improve your position or you can migrate to other countries. In other words, you may end up a week at home because you are a woman, because you live in Uganda, and because is not your time of the month. Differently, you may gain a new identity, which may go from ‘alien’ to ‘immigrant’ or from ‘Bulgarian’ to ‘Rumanian’. Sometimes, you do know what to say. You then write an article to tell your story. This is what we have done, hoping a bit that among a spiritual election and a political one, ‘they’ may stop their wrong spending review(s).

It Was a Year Ago

It was a year ago. It was during a moment of craziness. It took all of us, our breathing, our moments, our ideas. Those ideas were full of tones, hopes, and written images. You know guys, those images that we do romantically define ‘words’. They are like an intrinsic movement of sounds in your brain and with a particular taste in your mouth, because they resound otherwise in your ears. It is like a game. The one you would say ‘let’s rock together’.

So, what you do? You take a pen, you think, you feel, you organize and then you let those words out. You lie down thoughts, opinions, and facts. You are trying being objective, and you do even though the fullness and creativity of those words. You are objective feeling that this world, the one we live, cannot be changed, but surely improved, enriched, reinforced! This is the intensity that brings all of us in front of that piece of paper, in front of that piece of power. Your mind then travels, flies and bends down at the true meaning of discourse and dialogue, for us synonymous of respect, legality and equality.

It was a year ago and this adventure started. We travelled between Bologna and Palermo, between Milan and Naples, between Italy and Italians and sometimes, we ended up in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam. Travelers were there, replying back to us. They were excited. Their responses increased as their desire of following us. For all that, tickets were free, shaped as journalistic articles, as journalistic ideas, and finally, as pieces of regular people, who live for the meaning of meritocracy, who works for the meaning of democracy, who fights for the meaning of an opportunity. Our words were read and they were enriched back within people’s opinion. The rhythm became intense, alive. The rhythm became the same which is today, concrete, present and ambitious in its knowing humility.

We slowly walked towards our goals. Therefore, it sometimes happened to take the side of an independent television in Sicily, funded to face the Italian mafia. It happened to be there, fighting for the right of a public Education, against corruption and bad politics. Finally, our goal just happened to be in the essence of knowing, saying, and listening. Well, not much time ago, Diecieventicinque was created. A new chance for fighting mafias, illegality, and wrong politics was born.

In memory of the victims of mafia, we use we also believe that ‘All the world is a village’. Our magazine will be then enriched of the writing of other people, who from the world will tell us issues, facts, stories, ideas of their countries with the biggest goal of sharing knowledge, because agreeing with Socrates “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge”.

Nostalgia you are funny

di Diego Ottaviano
 da “Siamo tutti Maniaci” (scarica) Febbraio 2012

Non sentirsi attore. Non sentirsi cantante. Non correre alla maratona di New York. Non sparare a brucia pelo. Non sentirsi politico. Non esser in grado di cucinare. Non esser pittore. Non esser fotografo. Non essere meteora. Non consumarsi in borsa. Non consumare in borsa. Non portare la camicia. Non investire in trepidazioni. Non lasciarsi andare. Non cadere.

Esser scrittore. Scrivere di racconti, di esperienze, di balconi, di colli, di lune piene e sigarette che si spengono nell’abbraccio dell’aria. Sentirsi umano. Ricco di sbagli, ricco di parole. Vivere la propria moralità. Sfogliare le pagine di un libro. Pretendere che nelle sue pagine vi sia il saggio momento del proprio masticare. Giocare con le proprie emozioni. Incartare quelle degli altri. Scavalcare specchi.  Ritrovarsi davanti ad un titolo e non sapere da dove iniziare. Il mio titolo si chiama Bologna. Il vostro titolo si chiamerà con il nome immaginato dai vostri occhi.

Bologna, dove l’anonimo danzare delle Torri degli Asinelli sposa un puzzle fatto di ombre e di portici. Dove il tempo sembra essersi fermato al ritmo di Bregovich, al vociare del Professore ed al poetare di Fabrizio, unico modello di chi con napoletano ‘festeggiava’ la dura realtà di camorra e omertà italiana. L’unico che voltando una carta riempiva il cielo e le nuvole dei sogni di chi nella “Rossa Fetale” ha mosso i primi passi.

Bologna. Amica di persuasioni e di pioggia. Una paese ombrello. Un paese infossato nell’estremo amore di politiche latenti. Un giro di osterie e di mistici rulli di tamburi da Par Tot. Un punto croce di culture e violenze intellettuali.

Il tempo è volato, e mentre giro le spalle, mentre osservo una comitiva di studenti su ponti e canali, mentre palpeggio il suono dello spoglio di sentimenti e pensieri, il cuore si apre, si distende. Il mio ‘ego’ sorride. E’ credendo nel mito di Ray Charles scaldando il proliferare di archeologie che si ricordano pizze. Oggi è l’ingrassare di una valigia che ti riporta al soprano rumore di cani che abbaiano, di odori da circo e di sguardi aperti alla ricchezza. Bologna, dove la musica ha meritato il maturo teatro in un museo dell’opera d’arte, è vita a San Lazzaro, è silenzio di neve a Pianoro. Bologna è cuore.

Il vino rosso ancora riscalda il caffè alle scuderie dopo quell’esame passato con la lacrima tra le mani che dipinge il sapere di un prossimo lasciare. Bologna colei che mi ha reso studente di curiosità, mi ha regalato Amsterdam. Bologna, mai dimenticata, è oggi come un paio di scarpette appese al chiodo.

Ebano d’Aprile senza bicicletta. Bologna ricorda un acquario affollato di pressioni, affollato di labirinti, affollato di gente che va, gente che viene, gente che alle 10 e 25 ancora osserva l’orologio con la probabilità negli occhi.

I treni in constante ritardo. I capelli da punk. I graffiti da cinema in lingua originale. Bologna è il respiro di chi ha imparato che vita e morte non sono la stessa cosa. Bologna è stato il mio walzer per quattro lunghi anni.

Lei mi ha reso l’attore principale della mia vita; mi ha trasformato in cantante d’ideologie; mi ha regalato maratone di portici e politica.

Bologna mi ha servito il coraggio per fotografare ricordi. Per incorniciare momenti. Questa vecchia signora mi ha portato una battuta olandese che da tre anni vive al mio fianco.

“Bologna ombelico di tutto, mi spingi a un singhiozzo e ad un rutto, rimorso per quel che m’ hai dato, che è quasi ricordo, e in odor di passato…”

Bologna vita d’amore e killer di maschere, perchè in fondo come disse Mr. Mystery quando devi uccidere un uomo non ti costa nulla farlo educatamente. Qualcuno aveva ragione: nostalgia you are funny.

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