Interlude 5 - Nicola

Nicola is my nephew. When he turned 18 I took him with me to a short trip to Chicago with a quick stop to New York. When we arrived in Chicago, his baggage didn't show up. I had to go to a business meeting and he had to take care of the lost baggage. It was basically the first time he was away from home and I was a bit worried. He told me not to worry and disappeared. He went alone back to the hotel crossing half of the city on foot, solved the problem, came back walking without getting lost, with the confidence of a local, I was impressed. He is a smart guy. All my friends and clients loved him - they still ask me about him after many years. We didn't have too much time, and I was busy and a bit nervous, now we would enjoy more the trip. But now Nicola is a father and a big man, here he is: 

Let's say that he is 40 kilos smarter than when he was 18. And perhaps we will never have another chance to travel together. When we do something, we should always pretend that it is the last time that we do it: we would enjoy it more deeply. We don't see each other much, neither we talk much together for a number of reasons that it would take too long to explain here. But I love him and his brother Lorenzo and all my brother's family and I hope that he still has some memories of that trip. In the meantime I enjoy my grand-nephew (no, maybe that's incorrect but how do you say the son of your nephew?) Francesco the very few times that I have a chance to see him, like the one down here, Christmas 2007. Just hope he won't look too much like the father....

 

0508 Step Five - Chicago

Chicago was the first city that I visited in America, and maybe because of that imprinting I consider it the quintessential American city - New York, even for the Americans, is a world apart. The architecture and the skyline in Chicago are impressive. And then also Chicago, like almost all the other cities that I am visiting during this trip, has a suggestion ready for me:

I'll try not to forget it. And also Chicago, like Montreal before, honors Ettore Sottsass and I like that. An exhibition at the Merchandise Mart consider Michael Graves e Ettore Sottsass the two most influential architects of the '80's

Philippe Starck and Frank Geary of the '90's

and Jonathan Ive with his iPod, iPhone and Mac the most influential designer of this decade, and Shanghai a symbol of the future

I also like Chicago because it hosts some very interesting work of the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa, at the Millennium Park and also this amazing sculpture just in front of the Merchandise Mart

Plus there is the biggest music shop in the world dedicated to jazz (the Jazz Record Mart at 27 E Illinois Street, www.jazzmart.com) where I even found a CD from Anthony Braxton recorded in Pisa in the '80's (and I was probably among the public of that concert... at that time Pisa was a little mecca for experimental jazz, lots of interesting concerts wintertime at the Verdi Theatre and summertime oudoor at the Giardino Scotto... Steve Lacy, Braxton, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry they were all coming almost every year) so here I am after an intense day in Chicago happily waiting for a table at a Chinese/Asian restaurant

But Chicago is also blues and music on the street, so here is a street version (including passers-by) of You are the sunshine of my life, dedicated to the sunshine of my life - and that's all for Chicago.

Interlude 4 - The Abandoned Chair

Some years ago I made a book called ¨Lost¨. It was a book of black and white pictures of old chairs left on the street. It was a way to say that there is beauty everywhere around us, even in what appears unattractive at first sight, and that every object - as well as every person - has a story to tell us if are ready to listen. I still see abandoned chairs on the streets that I walk, but now I just whisper to them a quick goodbye and don't take pictures. For this one in Toronto I made an exception.  

0508 Step Four - Toronto

Montreal at the end of the previous step left me with an existentialist question. Toronto welcomed me with another one. They really want me to think about my life. Why they don't let me sit on this train, look outside the window and enjoy the ride? 

To prevail on Montreal, Toronto even add a little suggestion.

Now, if I had to draw the shape of a human being, I'd draw a tree. We believe that we have two legs, two arms and a torso, so when we draw a human being we draw an implant between a I and a X. In reality, we have a lot of roots and a lot of branches, each one of them going into different directions - and maybe this is why we always hear inner voices that tell us to do this and to do that and in most cases this and that are incompatible and we never know what to do. Too many branches we have? I won't say so: that's the beauty of life. But if we are like trees, there are asymmetrical trees (the branches go all in the same direction, no contradictions: these are the human beings that believe they are always right). I found an example in Toronto:  

And then there are trees that don't know where they are and don't care about it, and just want to be themselves. Who says that in springtime your leaves must be green and fresh and happy? In Toronto I found a tree that wants to be an autumn tree even if it's springtime. Its leaves are all red, brown and dry. But then if you feel blue, why you have to smile? Who cares what the others think? I liked this melancholic, honest and out-of-time tree from Toronto.

And then there are also happy trees in Toronto. This one for instance is a happy tree because there is always a star above him.

 

And that star has a roof above her, so when it rains she doesn't get wet. And if I know that she doesn't get wet when it rains, that's all I need to know about Toronto.

Interlude 3 - Ettore Sottsass

At the Milan design show this year, not a single sign of remembrance or gratitude for him (at least, not that I saw). The Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal, instead, remembers Ettore Sottsass a few months after his death, calling him "a legend of postwar Italian Design" and proudly informing its public that the Museum has already acquired for its permanent collection a good number of pieces designed by him. The Industry - whose wealth he greatly helped to consolidate - forgets him now that he can't design anymore, the people who loved his work don't. We live in times where business affects in one way or the other almost every single aspect of our lives. Perhaps the only way to be left in peace by the business machine is to die.

Carlton bookcase, designed by Ettore Sottsass for Memphis in the '80's, on display at Spazio, Austin.

0508 Step Three - Montreal

In Montreal is Monday every day. It is a melancholic city that hides its beauty under coats and umbrellas, a piece of Europe transplanted in the New World that, as a long-time expat, doesn't remember anymore to where it belongs - and perhaps this is why in Montreal every day looks like the day after Christmas.

But then it's the hidden beauty, the secret passions, the understated sensuality. Then it's finding by chance (if anything ever happens by chance) what it was possibly the most extensive and impressive exhibition of contemporary Cuban art ever seen outside the island, 400 amazing pieces from the end of the XIX century to today at the Fine Art Museum - my Cuban mates Giorgio and Deny would have been very proud of it (see www.mmfa.qc.ca/micro_sites/cuba/expo_en.html).

Of that exhibition they don't allow to take pictures but they allow to take pictures of a small permanent exhibition they have on African Art. There was this one piece that says something that we all understand because we all had or have at least once in our life a moment when we felt like this:

Things in Montreal that made me temporarily forget about that nail in my chest:

   

the lounge of the W Hotel

this duck that was looking at me while having lunch at Le Marché de la Villette in Old Montreal (simple, great atmosphere, great people, great food, inexpensive, what else do you want?)

the road, the rain and the secrets of the night. And also a beautiful, very pleasant dinner but of that there are no images.

But you know, Montreal is Montreal, a city of Mondays. So when you start to be too happy it attacks you from inside, planting excruciating, existentialist questions in your brain:

  

(Are you sure you chose the right bank?). And it was with that question in my mind that I jumped on the next plane.

Interlude 2: Hiroshi

I found Hiroshi by chance, which I believe is the best way to meet interesting people. Hiroshi is gentle, always smiling and loves his job. And he is talented and makes the best sushi in the world. His restaurant is down in a basement, small and not glamorous at all so stay away if you look for a trendy place. But if you are in New York and want to have very good sushi in a quiet, cozy little place then look for Sushi You on 51st street between 2nd and 3rd. I go there all the times when I am in NYC, I sit at the sushi bar and say hello to Hiroshi. No need to order: Hiroshi knows that I want him to prepare pieces of his choice, he knows that I trust him. And every time his sushi and kindness and passion make me feel happy. I believe that if there were more people like Hiroshi the world would be a better place.

0805 Step Two - New York City

New York is a city of signs.

 

They know that you can get lost, so they give you an idea of where you are

or make warm invitations

There are gentle signs that express feelings

Jazz lovers feelings

Jazz lovers spots 

Sometimes you walk and see windows on the sidewalk

apples in the sky

enlightened flying ships

and transparent fishes crossing the lounge of a hotel of dreams:

And in this city of signs and dreams, I started to think of being in Bangkok so I went to a Thai restaurant on 9th street. This is me waiting for yellow curry chicken with rice:

 

One hour later I was out of there.

Interlude 1: Kurt Vonnegut

There is a good news and a bad news. The good news is that a new book from Kurt Vonnegut has been recently published. The bad news, as many of you already know, is that Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11th, 2007. But the funny thing with writers is that they never stop talking:even when you put a couple of meters of dust on top of them their books keep talking on their behalf. A lot of people is happy that Vonnegut keeps talking; others, like those guys at Fox News who broadcasted a shameful obituary the day he died would prefer to put an additional twenty thousand meters of dust on top of him - so it goes. 

The book is a collection of twelve of his writings which subjects are war and peace and includes a beautiful introduction written by his son Mark. I understand that Fox News, which was and still is the media that most supported the war in Iraq may find slightly annoying that someone could say - and from the very beginning - the simple truth about it, which is that it was a terrible mistake; nevertheless (ops! I used a semicolon.... Vonnegut wouldn't be happy about it) and unfortunately, there is still a big need to say it and Vonnegut knew how to say it in a brilliant way. With this book he keeps on saying it from below those two meters of dust, probably while smoking a Pall Mall.

The day he died, on his website there was this drawing of an open cage - the bird gone, free at last. The cage is empty, which is a good news. But without Vonnegut we feel a bit empty too, which is a bad news instead. And so it goes. 

0508 Step One - Washington D.C.

I was happy to go to Washington for the first time after fifteen years that I regularly visit the US, not that much because of Washington, maybe just because it was a new place and I am a curious guy. And then perhaps because I didn't know how expensive the hotels are in Washington and how crazy is traffic at peak hours - everybody goes to work and then back home at the same time in Washington, they all obey the official government time and sit  with sad faces in their mainly Japanese cars and if you go to Washington take my advise: don't find yourself in a cab for any reason between 7:30 and 9:00 a.m. or 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. or you too will have a sad face. So at the end my first night in Washington was actually a night in Oxon Hill, Maryland which was, exactly like Washington, a new place - just slightly less expensive. But they too have a lot of flags there and they are patriotic nevertheless I suppose they (or most of them) too now understand that they elected and even re-elected the worst President in American History. I don't know what else to say about Oxon Hill now, but if I have a second thought I'll update the blog.

What to say about Washington instead? I had interesting business meetings with interesting people but this is completely uninteresting for anybody else. So here is the good thing about Washington: the third floor of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in particular the Lincoln Gallery. First, it's free. Then there is an impressive collection of modern art, not too big - which is maybe a plus - and you can even take pictures so I took some:

Nam June Park, Electronic Superhighway: Continental US, Alaska, Haway (1995). 

Alexander Calder, Nenuphar (1968). 

Harry Bertoia, Sculpture Group Symbolizing World's Communication In the Atomic Age (1959)

Joan Brown, Nude, Dog, Clouds (1963). This one would make a fantastic cover page for my book of short stories.

Adolph Gottlieb, Blues (1962)

George Segal, The Curtain (1974)

And finally this one:

Robert Rauschenberg, Reservoir (1961). Reservoir is one of his most famous "Combines", pieces of art he made combining different materials and objects, most of them picked from the trash on the New York City streets. At that time Rauschenberg was so poor he didn't have money to buy materials from art shops so he used what he found, and went so far as to paint his own bed sheets as he didn't have white canvas. Three years after making Reservoir he won the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale and I believe from them on he could afford to buy canvas. He died last Monday in Florida at 82. Let's put here one of his sentences, which I believe is stimulating even if you are not an artist: " People ask me: don't you ever run out of ideas? In the first place, I don't use ideas. Every time I have an idea it's too limiting, and usually turns out to be a disappointment. But I haven't run out of curiosity". May all of us be able to follow his example.

Visiting the museum was so interesting that I forgot I had to go at the airport and almost missed my flight. I found myself sitting in a taxi at 5:00 p.m. with a sad face, which is another prove that we all give good suggestions and bad personal examples.

And then ok, I didn't want to say it but yes, I confess: I went to see the White House. The tenant wasn't home, which doesn't help me not to feel that I did something bad. So here I am, next to the main center of power in this planet. I hope I got some vibration from it. I would't really want to have that much power. I'd be content already with having enough power to follow my heart and be true to myself.

 

On the Road...

...so I am on the road again. And maybe we are all on the road all the time even if we don't know it... Now, last year I bought a copy of this wonderful book which is On the Road and it was the copy published for the 50th anniversary of the book and I was very happy, for various reasons very happy to buy that book that day which was a beautiful day. This blog is about traveling - so that book it's sort of its bible. But more than traveling in a physical sense, here is the matter of traveling through life, searching for a meaning, and take life in your hands, whatever it means for you, and live it your way. Not to follow the rules. Not to do what you are expected to do. To do what you feel. With all the mistakes and surprises and delusions and with all the impossibilities - because even if you run fast you never get too far from yourself.

There is this expression that Dean Moriarty uses quite often in the book when he sees someone he likes: "he knows time!". I liked that expression but I was just following my instinct, because I couldn't fully understand the literal meaning of it. I got a better explanation from Peter Miller,  who was an English major in college and then went to Harvard and now has a beautiful architectural bookstore in Seattle. Here is what he says:

"Dean Moriarty was Neal Cassidy, an aquarius it turns out, and constant talker and later prankster with Kesey, but always in motion, always, and the praise he knows time is the beat way of crediting someone with having stretched and tormented and stoned themselves into a zen enough position to, finally, never be able to be middle class or settled, strung out to time strung out, enlightened in an exhausted, constant motion way, best achieved by never sleeping, talking a few drugs, staying out, and never getting married, never holding a regular job, nothing square, a kind of hobo as metaphysic king, and the coincidence to music is that the jazz musicians were the only ones who could stay afloat in this limbo and make a day of it. Hemingway had a phrase, the true gen, meaning the actual, the genuine, and knowing time was a prasie of condition of having gotten outside time, at least the constrictions of it. Every drug, in a sense, is the lure of knowing time."

Thank you Peter. And let's hope that we all manage to escape from the constrictions of time (with no need to get help from drugs though...) and to be ourselves and most important of all never forget to search and learn and try to be in peace with ourselves.

Rainbow(s)

An old legend says that if you follow a rainbow and get to the point where it starts you will find a treasure. That's an interesting information for a traveler: when you are on the road you need to have something to follow, a destination, a goal, a dream. But having a destination, a goal, a dream is not enough: you also need to believe. You need to believe that you can reach your destination and make your dream become true.

If you are alone on the road that's the most difficult part. There are so many moments when you tell yourself that you can't make it, that your destination is too far away, that dreams are just dreams and never become reality.

But if someone else walks the road next to you and holds your hand then you feel stronger, you feel powerful, in peace with yourself and with the universe, and you follow the path with faith.

So, what about when you see two rainbows in the sky? Does it means that you are not alone on the road, that someone else is looking for the same treasure, maybe a treasure to share? 

An Angel, perhaps?