As I type this on my mobile phone, I’m sitting on a bench taking in some 🌞vitamin D🌞 and waiting for this month’s Creative Mornings Rome talk to start — I’m in Trastevere, at Tic - Libri e cose fantastiche, an independent bookshop, too close to my favourite boulangerie (we’re still in Lent, so no pain au chocolat for me…). And to my favourite bakery/cafè, too. And “creative morning” also translates as “free breakfast” (which, incidentally, is prepared by the aforementioned favourite bakery/cafè… it’s a conspiracy!).
[…a couple of hours later…]
Here's a few pics from this very enjoyable morning spent looking-at-but-not-eating cakes, and listening to Emanuele Kraushaar and Enrico Pantani talking about their “er cane” project:
While I was there, I bought a poster of a fantasy-underground/subway map, because I have that same dream, too:
…and also another one depicting the statue of philosopher Giordano Bruno (not to be confused with Bruno Giordano, former footballer — or “soccer player”, for those of you who still stick to imperial units despite having disenfranchised from an empire in 1776…), the one that's in Campo de’ fiori, but photoshopped along with abandoned boats and litter on a beach:
Tomorrow will be the last day of Libri come, a book & lit festival held at Auditorium Ennio Morricone.
is in town, and she’ll be there to present her latest book, Either/Or — its title has been translated as Aut-aut in Italian, or rather in Latin, because once we were ancient Romans, after all, and we’re still as annoying as our ancestors so we don’t miss a chance to remind that to the rest of the world… although that’s a bit confusing, because Aut-aut is also the title of Søren Kierkegaard’s first published work… Then again, Batuman’s first novel, The idiot, also has the same title as a novel by Dostoevsky, so I guess that’s done on purpose…But I'm digressing, and anyway I'm unsure I feel like going to Libri come, as it's been a quite tiring week. One of the occurrences that made it so tiring is a leakage coming from my upstairs neighbours’ plumbing, so that I ended up finding a huuuuge seepage in one of my living room’s walls… yes, you’ve wondered correctly, the very wall I was supposed to assemble my new bookshelves against.
(no, I won't post a photo of that, it looks too ugly!)
So now I have a wall that needs drying at first and then an intervention by builders sent by my neighbours’ insurance company, and an unpacked and unassembled series of bookshelves lying on the floor of my living room... It won't be a minute, I'm afraid.
(on the upside, at least the bookshelves didn't get ruined by the leakage…)
In other news, a new web-documentary series about “secret Baroque” (whatever that means) in Rome will be launched on Monday on Renovatio's website:
Given that Baroque is *my* thing, I’m looking forward to discovering those “secrets” the title claims will be revealed… The series is directed by Lorenzo Zeppa, with commentary supervised by Elisabetta Corsi, Candida Carella, and Dalma Frascarelli. I'm genuinely curious about it.
And there'll be so much else going on after Easter — at least for me.
Sometimes it feels like things fall into place all of a sudden. And these days seem to be one of those times… perhaps I'll write about it next time.
P.s.: if you're wondering about the title of this issue of puntarelle, they're verses from a poem by our Bard. And no,
, it's not Dante, it's Brunello Robertetti:
"Er gatto non si è iscritto a Pilates" mi ha fatto tanto ridere! Belle queste mattine creative (mannaggia a quelle torte tentatrici!)
I have that same dream too. (I think I have a tote bag with that map somewhere)