Monte Falco. Nuvole e luce.

Buon 2015, appoggiato a una "S" / Happy 2015, based on a "S"

 ---> Italiano in apertura / English follows <-- b=""> 

--> Italiano

Carissimi,

vi mando gli auguri per il nuovo anno. Ve li mando appoggiandoli a una lettera, la “S”. E' la lettera giusta per salutare il 2014 e dare il benvenuto al 2015. E' una storia “personale”, ma con tanti grazie vicini e lontani a chi direttamente e indirettamente ha reso possibile la mia avventura, talvolta sobbarcandosi noie personali aggiuntive.

Il 2014 è stato un anno Super. Lo potrei raccontare sotto molti punti di vista. Il più simpatico di questi mi sembra l'elenco dei luoghi toccati per conferenze, articoli, camminate. Grandi e piccoli sapientemente mixati.
New York, Stazzema, Montréal, Nicosia, Riga, Hoogezand, Bergen, Galati Mamertino, Amsterdam, Taormina, Flam, Dordrecht, San Bartolo, Anversa, l'Aia, Roma, Salsomaggiore, Oslo, Mazzin, Milano, Delft, Pesaro, Eindhoven, Firenze, Utrecht, Goteborg, Breda, Harlem e Aci Trezza. E poi tutti i quartieri di Rotterdam e i paesi e i sentieri di Romagna e Toscana, ma qui dovrei elencare vie, case e rovine. Troppo lungo. Meglio puntare gli occhi al futuro.

La “S” va bene anche per il 2015. “S” è l'iniziale della simpatica attività che contribuirò a far nascere ad Amsterdam tra 22 giorni esatti. Sarà un modo per contaminare maggiormente il mio impegno nella cultura con una maggiore impronta internazionale, così da seguire il mio fascino per il mondo e la sua diversità. Come compagna di avventura avrò una ragazza che arriva dalla Spagna. Ecco allora che la “S” ritorna una volta ancora.

Per il resto, fate voi, scegliete la vostra “S”. “S” può stare per serietà e sobrietà, ma non mi sembra che queste parole diano i risultati attesi. Dunque, vi auguro che nel 2015 “S” stia per un po' di “sorriso” e una ventata di “stranezza”. Divertitevi e po' e, come direbbe Verdone, fatelo strano ;-)

Un abbraccio e buon anno,
Silvio

---> English

Hello everybody,

here my greetings for the new year. They will join you through the story of a letter, the “S”. Indeed, the “S” is the right letter to say bye to 2014 and welcome 2015. It is a personal story, but it is addressed to all the people that directly or indirectly made my adventure possible, sometime suffering extra personal troubles.

2014 was a Super year. I could talk about 2014 from many perspectives. The funniest one, I believe, is the list of the places that I came to visit for conferences, news making, long walks. Large cities and remote villages are perfectly balances.
New York, Stazzema, Montréal, Nicosia, Riga, Hoogezand, Bergen, Galati Mamertino, Amsterdam, Taormina, Flam, Dordrecht, San Bartolo, Anversa, l'Aia, Roma, Salsomaggiore, Oslo, Mazzin, Milano, Delft, Pesaro, Eindhoven, Firenze, Utrecht, Goteborg, Breda, Harlem and Aci Trezza. I should then list all the Rotterdam suburbs and towns and pathways of regions Italy and Tuscany, but  I should include streets, homes and ruins. Too much. Better move on to the next year.

The “S” suits 2015 as well. “S” is the first letter of the little company I am contributing to start up in Amsterdam. The company will be officially established in 22 days from now. It will be a way to add to my engagement with arts an culture a stronger international focus, therefore following my charm for the world and its diversity. As a business partner, I will have a Spanish friend from Bilbao. As you see, “S” matters once again.

That's it. Beyond this, feel free to make your own “S”. “S” could stand for sobriety and seriousness, but this attitude does not seem to bring too many positive impacts on people. Therefore, I wish you that in 2015 “S” will mean “smile” and “strangeness”. Have fun and, as the Italian movie director Carlo Verdone would say, “fatelo strano”, “make it weird”!

Happy new year and hugs everybody!

Silvio

Mare di inverno. Riccione in bianco e nero

Shadows, trees and clouds

A professional life. Chapter 2 – The Black Hole

(An introduction )
I want to follow the advice of a CEO. Pull in your professional history, reflect on it several times and come up with a captivating report, overtaking a little the boring summaries of a CV. I will take this challenge splitting the story in different chapters. This is the first release of chpter number two. It tells about the troubles of my first academic research.
Follow the tag “professional bio” to get all the chapters. 

By the end of the university, I had become a top student. The top results had become my standard result over the last two years of my Mass Communication program. If that had not been enough to enhance my self confidence, the top results came together with my first job assignments. I was therefore very confident about my final research. Let's say I was ambitious about it. Unfortunately, my confidence was based on wrong assumptions.

Suddenly, I realized that I was a devoted student, but I had no idea – really, not one bloody idea – to write about. I had become a master in reporting someone else idea, but none of these ideas were mine, none belonged to my world. I had never read a book beyond the ones recommended, I had never dared to talk to someone on the field, I had never collected an original statistics about on-going trends.

I had the feelings that I would have never have written any thing worthwhile. I had no positive vibrations about doing research; only negative sensations about a book I was supposed to give birth to. I felt so little in front of the magnitude of the task that the depression took over. A deep, dark depression. Literally, I saw everything black. I was so discomforting that no one, not even my best friends, could stand me longer than five minutes. Horrible.

Luckily enough, as a supervisor I had a professor who did not mind about over charging his students. In the initial short meetings, he was insensitive enough to ignore my depression, kick off my stupid proposals and throw in a massive empirical research about the communication of science on the Italian mass media. “Do you feel like inquiring into science communication? - he said – Well, first let's have a look at what is going on. Get the five main Italian newspapers, select the copies of the last six months and scan how and where genetics and biotechnology are reported on the national media”.

The initial task was massive but easy. So easy that even a fully depressed teenager could accomplish it. I took my mind to the library, on average ten hours a day, and I kept my mind so busy that it forgot about the depression. I was exhausted but I was able again to stop by my sister to get a coffee early in the morning and step out for a beer late in the evening. I was not simply able to talk. I was able to talk about my topic. Slowly, reading over and over again my news, I realized that I actually knew more about them than most of the people around, including my professor to a certain extent. If I were Joyce, I could call it “Epifania” :-)

Well, I have never become Joyce since then, but I am still proud of the story that I worked out. The narrative parallel that I traced to connect the news-making on genetics and biotechnology with some literary archetype was original. No on had ever figured it out before. It was a moment of full joy and total happiness.

I can still remember the first day off I took after a never ending rush of several months among libraries and video archives.  I wen to the Cinque Terre in Liguria. I felt the happiest man of the world. I stared at the fishermen harbor in Rio Maggiore and began to reflect on my time off right after the graduation. I came up with a plan. Of course, the plan did not come to work. My plans often work indeed, but hardly ever the way I originally conceived them. While I was thinking about a fluid word ahead, my first serious job interview was scheduled.

Apuane: Pania della Croce

Apuane: mufloni alla Foce di Musceta

Apuane: i borghi della Pania della Croce

Col di Favilla

Fornovolasco

Parco di San Bartolo: l'Adriatico a Castel di Mezzo

A professional life. Chapter 1 – Landing in the first job: from zero to bees

(An introduction )
I want to follow the advice of a CEO. Pull in your professional history, reflect on it several times and come up with a captivating report, overtaking a little the boring summaries of a CV. I will take this challenge splitting the story in different chapters. This is the first release of chpter number one. It concern the first step into the professional environment. 

Follow the tag “professional bio” to get all the chapters.

Chapter One
The first job dates back to 2002. By the time, I was attending the fourth academic year in mass communication at the university of Bologna and, staring at my fellow students, I slowly realized that I had a professional network close to zero. Literally, while many friends of mine were already applying for their future jobs, I had no clue about the world out there. No surprise. Till then, I had entirely failed to grab the relevance of the topics I was studying.
I guess two main reasons had brought me to that stage. On the one hand, I had to get used to the fact of living on a city. It may sound amazing, but in those days to me it was new and I had to get used to an unknown world. On the other hand, I had grown up in a craftsman environment in the country side. I used almost to feel guilty about my subject: communication. What was the point of it in the end, why should have people paid me for that? For what, for writing? I took quite some time to get over that stage and sometime I am still revolving around it.

However, I finally moved on. I followed the footsteps of o a friend of mine, Alessandra, and I joined a small team working on the new web world. The team, called “Chiocciola”, was updating two websites: one for Coop Adriatica – Buonpernoi.it -, the second for the Marino Golinelli Foundation – Ticaebio.it -.
I remember my first introduction to the boss, Paola: “Professionally, I am zero. I distributed phone books and I worked in a printing factory. Never done anything before in the communication sphere”. I wonder if it makes sense to be so honest in a job interview. Nonetheless, in that occasion, honesty paid back. I was appointed an internship.

My job was to redesign a civic journalism website – ProfessioneCittadino.it – and moderate the forum. I took it so seriously, as if it had been the dream job of my life. The effort was rewarded. The internship was converted into my first temporary contract. Commonly enough, I believe, the temporary contract implied writing about two topics I knew nothing about: short stories about biology for kids and pieces of news about how to take care of pets.
Pets were the first topic offered to me. I was so surprised by the offer that at first sight I thought it was not for me. “I have a friend of mine studying to become a veterinary” I said. Thanks god, the poor answer did not ruin down the opportunity. “I need someone good at writing”, Paola said to me. A couple of months later, I was writing a full dossier about bee breeding and honey production.

Driving my sister's Panda to the interview sites, I must say I felt a young promising reporter. In a few months I had moved from zero to bees, forging a bright perspective to my professional development. I was so happy and proud that I did not notice the clouds of my final academic essay approaching. Dark times were just ahead. 

(to be continued...)

Nebrodi. Alberi in processione sul crinale

Monastero di San Filippo di Fragalà a Frazzanò

Sentiero degli Alpini: geometrie di colore tra Rabbi e Bidente

Per saperne di più:

il Sentiero degli Alpini (Cai 301)

(Meldola - Monte Falco)

Valico dei Tre Faggi: tramonto autunnale

Dalla Nieuwe Binnenweg alla Via Emilia

"Taci! L'insegnante ti ascolta"

Un'aula della scuola elementare per diventare malati di mente in cui si rinforzano sbagli, confusioni e esitazioni.

(Paolo Albani - Dizionario degli istituti anomali del mondo)

Parlai con Simon per la prima volta al Cafè Engels di Rotterdam. Ci conoscevamo già da qualche settimana, ma quel giorno fu il primo in cui prendemmo il tempo di raccontarci le nostre storie. La sua vita nomade da attore, le mie tappe tra Bologna, Australia, Romagna e Olanda. Insieme, ci incamminammo verso la parte ovest del centro, passeggiamo lungo i locali della Nieuwe Binnenweg fino a raggiungere il Danseatelier. Simon suonò il campanello, la porta si aprì e salimmo al secondo piano dove la danza stava per avere inizio. L’uomo e la donna inscenarono uno dei duetti di Lovism nella palestra di allenamento, di fronte a un pubblico ristretto. Forse venti persone, tra cui il regista israeliano. Prendemmo un bicchiere di vino assieme alla fine dello spettacolo. Ricordo che come la nuvoletta di un fumetto il mio Io saltò fuori un attimo, mi guardò e mi fece l’occhiolino.

Dieci mesi dopo ho passeggiato con Simon lungo il centro di Reggio Emilia. Lo spettacolo era finito tardi e la via Emilia era calma, vetrine abbassate, alcuni capannelli di ragazzi a bere una birra appoggiati alle colonne. A passeggiare, eravamo soli: io, Simon e Silvia. Quando ormai l’auto era vicina, sono rimasto zitto per un momento e li ho osservati parlare di Bologna, Cesena e dello spettacolo. Due persone lontane, lontane, erano l’una a fianco all’altra, sorridenti, curiose. L’Io con la sua nuvoletta è tornato a guardarmi. Un sorriso e ho ricambiato il suo occhiolino.

Via Emilia: tramonto a Reggio

Il mascarpone intangibile

Il mio letto è un materasso vicino a un baule. Sul divano scorrono i fili della luce. Lungo il corridoio sono disposte le valige, mie e degli altri due compagni d'avventura con cui condivido la stanza. Quando telefoniamo a casa, spagnolo, greco e italiano si mischiano nell'aria, convergendo nell'inglese.

L'appartamento poggia all'angolo della strada. Da una parte il ristorante tailandese, dall'altro il negozio di capelli brasiliani. Oltre i binari del tram, il supermercato cinese. Ha quasi tutto, tranne pane, olio e latte.

Ieri sera, ho passeggiato in una galleria con una mostra sul valore del niente. E ogni giorno, passo ore con i compagni d'avventura sulle rive della Mosa, all'Aia o ad Amsterdam per individuare e gestire il valore del capitale intangibile.

Diciamocelo. Le cose troppo solide che durano a lungo e vanno mantenute un po' di spaventano. E così, su due piedi, sono sempre più convinto di una cosa. La logica ti accompagna ogni giorno per raccogliere le informazioni sul mondo che ci circonda. Ma è solo in un attimo di follia ed emozione che puoi decidere di prendere in mano quelle informazioni e cambiare il mondo, in piccolo, a modo tuo, una parola dopo l'altra.

Domani mi preparo a quel momento con un buon mascarpone. Mezzo chilo di formaggio, tre uova, sei cucchiaie di zucchero e un po' di cioccolato per decorare il tutto.

Norvegia: sfumature

Bakka: Naeroyfjord

Odda: Trolltunga

Norvegia: fiordi e luce

Bergen: Lyderhorn

Sognafjord: Flam

Lustrajord: Skjolden

Bakka: Naeroyfjorden

Bergen

Norvegia: strade

Strada 55 verso Skjolden

Strada da Aurland to Laerdal

Hardangerjokulen