won't go down

Just got back from seeing Sabina Guzzanti in Cervignano. The ticket would've costed 15euros, but was free for us. My brother and i, that is, just walked around the park, found a construction site next to it, found a hole in its fence, found a hole in the fence between the construction site and the park, and got in for free. Worth it.
The show was okay, although i expected something a bit better, since 80% of it was just her pointing out what's wrong in italy and the world these days. I already know those things, i read the papers you know. I found her even patronizing in some moments, explaining the obvious to the audience. But on the other hand, she still does some of the best impressions in the trade, kicking off with her almost perfect impersonation of Berlusconi and going on with D'alema and more. Still, i guess i'm too well accustomed to Luttazzi's shows, where he considers the public to be at his same intellectual level, quite a flattering thing considering who we're talking about.
But hey, it was for free. i can't complain.

On the way back we stopped by a sagra, one of those typical countryside summer feasts, in a very small town called Pieris. Almost the whole town was there, too concentrated on playing bingo to notice the two bizarre characters making fun of them while eating their potato chips, holding back their temptation of carrying away some of the non-locked bicycles outside, not to mention the one of burglaring some houses.

Oh, and earlier today i found the dogfaced courage of bugging one of my idols. I usually never, ever do this, but just this once...well, see for yourself:


Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 09:28:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Robin Luis Fernandez"
Subject: Beefheart/Magritte/Schenkel
To: calvin@RALF.com




Dear mr. Schenkel,

I am an art student who is currently preparing his
thesis on the recently deceased chilean surrealist
Roberto Matta.
I'm doing my best not to start telling you how much i
love your work, because i would probably sound like
some deranged fan. And i would also have thousands of
questions to ask, but i'm keeping it down to one.
Here it is.

Today i was researching on Magritte while listening to
Trout Mask Replica. Suddenly, i realized an obvious
link between the cover of my book(L'Homme au Chapeau
Melon, 1962, visible here) and
the one of the album. Of course, while on the former a
bird is passing in front of the character's face while
Magritte is painting the picture, in the latter a fish
is being held in front of The Captain's face while
Schenkel takes the picture.
Immediately i wondered if such a link is intentional,
and if so, whether the inspiration comes from a
particular work of magritte, from his collective
ouvre, or more generically from the way of thinking of
the artists of that period.

I know this may seem far-fetched, but after all there
are musical links so obvious between Zappa and
Stravinsky or Boulez, who were both part of the
pre-WWII avant-garde, and i also remember Zappa
himself pointing out his appreciation of the dada
movement in his autobiography.

Ok, that's all i had to ask. I would also have asked
about mu-mesons or about the importance of goofy-style
dog/rat nosed characters in twentieth century popular
iconography(i noticed Art Spiegelman has started using
those recently) and about god only knows what else,
but i'll hold myself back for once.

Thank you so much for your attention,
greetings from Duino, Italy!

-Robin Luis Fernandez
P.S. if you ever want to visit italy, feel free to
crash on my floor.


For more information on the great calvin Schenkel, visit his wonderful website, best through this link.