La musica balcanica davvero rompe i …….. ? In Elio e le storie tese veritas :D !!!

Ringrazio Elio e le Storie Tese per avere finalmente detto la verita’ sulla orrenda musica balcanica che mi rompe i ……… da quando fui teenager nel millennio scorso e che mai mi piacque ma sempre soddisfo’ i gusti musical-rivoluzionari di persone a me vicine che spero leggano questo post

Non posso che dichiarare la mia suprema ammirazione per Elio dopo aver buttato nel calderone anche Van De Sfroos, 99 Posse e tutti gli altri rivoluzionari da concertone che fanno sta musica di… da decenni. Grazie, immenso Elio

11 first-hand tips for a 5-6 day trip in the wonderful (and tasty) Rome !

Being born in North Italy, my feelings for Rome were killed along the years. I only and always heard bad news about Rome: dirty,dangerous, violent, decadent and so on and so on. Some time ago I decided to risk my life and have a short holiday in Rome: possibly, I have been in the most beautiful city on Earth!

So, let me share with you a few tricks how to enjoy your Rome experience and come back home with a big smile:

1- Rome is always full of tourists queuing for any kind of attraction. We bought all tickets for museums and excursions on line and we were so glad of it. Jumping hundred meters of queues has a little price!

2- Rome is huge: don’t waste time on public services and book an hotel close to Castel Sant’Angelo. It is a very safe area and you are close to everything, if you dare to walk.

3- Rome is flooded with thieves waiting for the good opportunity to steal you everything. Don’t give them this opportunity and nothing will happen. This means, keep bags and belonging always close to you and properly “zipped”

4- Try to avoid public services and the areas around train stations: lock your bags otherwise

5- Rome parks by night are dangerous for what I heard: do not do what you wouldn’t in any big metropolitan area

6- In Rome everything works, but not at your pace. Don’t get crazy when tours are delayed or 4 star-hotel rooms are not ready when you arrive: enjoy the relaxed spirit, you are on holidays after all.

7- Food in Rome is excellent, but eating directly in Navona Square or Campo dei Fiori will be very expensive. Always spend some more time looking for restaurants in small streets out of the main tourist stream. Also in Trastevere there are good opportunities.

8- Rome is surrounded by excellent ancient Roman locations. We had wonderful time in Ostia Antica, but the choice is yours.

9- Don’t miss walking through Parco Borghese, a wonderful park in the middle of Rome: it’s pure relax

10- Whatever is your faith, don’t miss Vatican Museums and Cappella Sistina, possibly the most beautiful artistic exhibition on Earth (book the visits or you will have to wait from 2 to 4 hours queueing..)

11- Wear comfortable shoes: on maps everything looks close, but it is not at all!

To give you an idea of the beautiful environment we experienced, click on the post picture and follow our guide for our flickr.com picture set! But to taste the food in Rome, you have to pay it a visit! Buon appetito!

At the time of Exodus (Otto Preminger) we could talk about Jewish-terrorism and Nazi-Muslims …

Isn’t it odd that nowadays just writing the words “Jewish” and “terrorism” and “Muslim” and “Nazis” in the same title makes me feel uncertain for the future of this blog and ready to be accused of being antisionist and anti-Islam at the same time?

Once upon a time, in 1960, in a colossal movie called “Exodus”, with Paul Newman among the others, it was still possible to discuss about Jewish terrorism and Muslims allied to Nazis fighting for the control on Israel. Did you even know about Hitler and Mussolini supporting the Muslim religious chef of Palestine? I admit my ignorance, I didn’t, although it was even on wikipedia.

Nowadays we still have Jewish terrorists (do you rember the shame called Operation Cast Lead a couple of years ago?) and, although Nazis are not as cool allies as before, we still have Presidents of Islamic countries wishing to wipe Jewish off this planet.

I’ve watched Christiane F…

.. and I cannot take David Bowie out of my mind tonight. Bonner Loch, Köln HB, Bahnhof Zoo … a  (past?) reality wonderfully analysed in this 1981 film directed by Ulrich Edel. Don’t miss it here in youtube (if you know Italian!)

 

 

 

Ma che bello finire la giornata con Papa Francesco

Lavoro, stress, donne e motori gioie e dolori … e poi Teleconclave per finire la giornata. Che bello sentire e vedere Papa Francesco dire buongiorno e buonasera e buon pranzo, passare in mezzo alla folla senza vetri antiproiettile , abbracciare bambini e disabili, benedire persone e animali, parlare di custodia del creato e di tenerezza…

Io non sono ironico. Io amo quest’uomo.

Intelligent beings other than humans are highly embarrassing for them …

… because we remind them their inadequacy and stupidity. Look at the movie of that dolphin rescued by that diver in Hawaii, for example.

It is common sense, also among us mostly evolved beings, to consider stupid, ignorant or even evil anybody else not able to communicate with us. Rightly enough we consider communication ability a sign of intelligence, a necessary condition for legacy and further development.

Nevertheless, when we get in touch with beings we are not able to communicate with, we always suppose it is because of their deficiency. Sadly, in that exact moment we show everybody our deep ignorance and infinite arrogance.

We should not forget there is a common language among all living beings, not based on rules or chemicals or pitches or vibration amplitudes: this is the language of compassion. Do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself, and help the ones suffering. This language will be hopefully one day the universal language of every earthling.

Therefore, let’s go on giving them the good example and be happy when they come to pick your fruits: they need them for surviving and next year you will bud new ones anyway, until the sun will shine and carbon dioxide will cycle.

May the wind bring you good news,yours sincerely Mr. Tree

Breakfast with F.I. Chaliapin, M. Gorky, H.G. Wells – was your grandfather invited too?

Memories can be black and white or sepia, like in this case. My wife got this picture from her family. You can see her grandfather organizing cultural events in Russia at the beginning of the last century, before the October Revolution. Somebody wrote on the back of the card a few names, like F.I. Chaliapin, M. Gorky, H.G. Wells. A “x”, now removed with Photoshop, was on the head of the grandpa.

Do you know by chance who are the others? It would be nice to know it: click on the picture to get a hi-res sample. Thanks for your help.

What is our society development based on?

Market? No. On Science, Technology and Oil. The latter soon going to finish, don’t you think it is time to enroll yourself in science and do inspire next generation?

Enjoy.

A cabrio to fly up to Stanserhorn: world novelty made in Switzerland!

Bored of cropped panorama in windowed cable-cars? Claustrophobic? Looking for new sensations? Then, the new cabrio cable-car from Stans up to Stanserhorn, close to Lucern, is what you need to test. We did it this weekend and here are some pictures to share with you this joyful new way to fly mountains up. To climb down we used our feet on the easy 5 hour-long track number 4: you find the GPS tracking here. Enjoy!

We live dark times as we forget what human beings are for

It is not by underlying the dark side of humanity that we promote its development. It is not by highlighting human mistakes that we avoid to repeat these mistakes in the future. It is not by ignorantly criticizing the slow pace of human research and advance that we help us to find a faster path.

We, humans, made marvelous things on this Planet and slightly outside of it, more than any other being we know.

Do not hide your sloppiness or laziness in religion, as no God intervention is proven to exist. Do not wait for an afterlife, there is so much to do here. Do not put in other hands what you could personally do to evolve and to let humans evolve. It is not only a question of staying hungry and foolish: our energy has to be focused on the research and preservation of knowledge, its value being, as far as we know, very, very unique in the whole Universe.

Fatti non fummo a viver come bruti, somebody said.

I find the Sagan series from NASA and Carl Sagan “A Personal Voyage” (the post movie is the first episode) extremely moving and inspiring. Thank you, Carl Sagan, for letting us lift our eyes to the infinite ocean surrounding our limited shores.

PS I admit it, I wrote this post after seeing how much energy human beings put in… UEFA 2012.