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Showing posts from December, 2016

The man with the floral handkerchief

It is around 5 am and I am getting ready to leave London. Christmas is fast approaching. The usual routine for this time of the year: getting up at the crack of dawn. Catching the early bus while it’s still dark outside. At 7 in the morning the pale lights of the aurora haven’t kissed the London’s sky yet. I am now standing on the tube, already crowded and full of people, trying to balance my trolley with my handbag which contains my computer, a tablet, kindle and two phones plus cables and chargers. The day before I had a chat with David, my neighbour, and he convinced me that even a safe area like the one we live in it’s not safe at all, and we should replace the glass on the front door with reinforced glass panels. For this reason I decided to take all valuable electronic possessions (and the only valuables) with me. ‘Are you sure we need to?’ I asked, ‘They are ugly’ ‘What’s better’ he replied ‘ beautiful or safe?’ ‘Beautiful’ I said without any hesitation. He gave me a look
TI E' PASSATA LA VOGLIA DI SCRIVERE? leggi questo articolo e ti ritornerĂ   https://scribacchiniinfuga.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/ti-e-passata-la-voglia-di-scrivere-leggi-questo-articolo-e-ti-ritornera/

FEMININE IDENTITY & THE NEW WOMAN

If you are a young girl or a young woman there has never been a more confusing time in terms of forging your own identity. We are light years away from the old-fashioned dichotomy feminist versus enslaved woman (waiting to be liberated by her sisters), or career woman versus bimbo first, and ladettes later. In whatever way women try to live their lives they get labelled and pigeonholed. Division is media’s best weapons when it comes to women. The first division, and the more blatantly obvious, is old women against young women. Both fighting for the right to wear, say and do, or, not wear, say, and do whatever they like. Is Madonna being too childish for her age? Of course she is, but don’t men misbehave too without being crucified for it? The good news is that young women and grannies (and anyone in between) are trying to forge a new identity. It might look tiring and undignified to some, but gone are the days when at forty you knew who you were, and all the res

LIFE MAP - (follow up)

My map of grass and trees was rolling down the paper easy and smooth. It sounded like Chet Baker playing the trumpet and looked florescent green. I was rolling down myself, remembering and living it at the same time. All my trees have always been tall and strong and beautiful. The first one was dark green and had no end to it. It joined directly the blue sky of my childhood: a long ladder to climb up to the clouds, sit there and have tea with my friends. The sun was beating up the tortoise's shell, hot like iron. There was nowhere for 'Pierina' to escape, except a hole in the ground or one in between the brick walls. Pierina liked lettuce and tomatoes but also peaches. She disliked apples and dry bread but was fond of pizzas. Pierina had a nice napkin around her neck so that from the top of the tree I could still see her. She got lost once, in our understanding that is; or she disappeared, in her understanding that is. If she did that on purpose

LIFE MAP

I n 2013 I won a literary price  ("La Lanterna Bianca")  with a text, called  "Life Map" .   The original version was in English.  I've translated it into Italian.  Translating your own work is not always easy and usually I tend to rewrite it by adding and changing parts of it. I hope you'll like it, if you do let me know which version you prefer.  Thanks.  LIFE MAP We all live by a map, a personal map; let's call it 'life map'. On this imaginary map everything stands, precariously positioned and carefully maneuvered at times. In my life map I stand right in the middle surrounded by beige paper that resembles the desert in winter (if there is such a thing, and may be there is); not far from me (a little red flag), joined by a winding road full of unforeseen bends and slopes, there is my job and at that precise point a black flag waves when the wind blows. Close to me (the red flag) there is a house, my house, crammed with t