A splendid time is guaranteed for all...

Here's that announcement i'd mentioned... All readers are invited, of course. We'll make up an excuse for celebration on the way up. Over forty people are already expected, so feel free to pop by.
Tnx to Chuk@Tea for creating the flyer!

Bizarre out-of-context comic book panel of the day.

Art by Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema, colors by Christie Scheele, words by Roy Thomas.
Original source: The Incredible Hulk N°135, 1971.

These have been making my days.

Some blogs i've been avidly reading and feeling inspired by lately. Before adding them to the sidebar(or not), i thought it would be nice to point them out to readers in their own bona fide blogpost.

I once declared i would never agree with whatever Momus says. Nowadays i find myself disagreeing with myself rather often, and perhaps consequentially Momus' Blog has been one of my favourite sources of brain food. It's currently in reruns (until september) and highlighting old posts, but still compelling. He also wrote some of my favourite Kahimi Karie songs, so when he writes, i read.

Did you know Adrian Belew is blogging? Well, he is. And he's delivering some fantastic anecdotes from playing in some of the greatest bands ever, if you'll forgive me using the superlative for the second time this month. Well, he was in King Crimson, Talking Heads, Zappa's and Bowie's bands, so i guess my opinion has some sort of foundation.

Warren Ellis is the writer of Transmetropolitan, one of my favourite comics ever. he's a very very nasty person and his blog is simply great. Don't expect much on the went-here-did-this side, it's mainly short poignant reflections and links to things done by equally deranged human beings. I'm admittedly a latecomer to this one.

I've also started reading Neil Gaiman's Journal again lately. Complete opposite, character-wise and blog-wise, from Ellis' approach but always a great read. Plus both have occasionally shared their opinions on this year's season of Doctor Who, as if i needed more reasons to read them.

A nice one to pop into from time to time:
Cozy Lummox - a designer working for Criterion Collection DVDs, with strong links to (you guessed it) the comics world. Good job.

A webcomic:
Dresden Codak - hilarious and beautifully illustrated(which justifies the slow updates), its characters include Werner Heisenberg and Tiny Carl Jung and i hope other people love it as much as i do because it deserves to become famous and its author deserves to be covered with gold coins for his efforts like Edifis in Asterix and Cleopatra.

An eye should be kept on:
nyctaper - promises to have some pretty interesting concerts available for download (i'm looking forward to the Richard Thompson gig myself), some is already online although he seems to have given quite a lot of space to that Roger Waters person i never really could get a hang of.

On the Winamp: Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians (Coldcut Remix)

Old and familiar faces 4 - Derf

Time: late january
Place: Here.

Her: Robin, can i ask you a question?
Me: (sensing danger) Sure.
Her: You always used to hang out with Fred, didn't you?
Me: Yes, that's true.
Her: (shyly) Well...why don't you hang out with him anymore?
Me: I think that would have something to do with him studying and bartending in Oxford now.
Her: Oh.

Coincidentally at the exact same time, in Oxford:
Time: Morning
Location: A pub where Derf is bartending.

Customer: I have a terrible hangover, give me a double whisky.
Derf: Are you sure that's a good idea?
Customer: No, but if i add this aspirin...

(Both are true stories. Aren't they all? Derf will, however, be returning to these lands later today -and had already been here in spring- and an interesting announcement from both of us is forthcoming.)

The webmaster loves his mother

Living room, about a month ago.

Me: What're you watching?
Her: One of those Lord Of The Rings movies.
Me: Cool, which one?
Her: I don't know, but they just killed a poor dwarf.

When Great Bands Suck

I was going to post my ultra-rare edition of Sgt. Pepper, but far be it from me to succumb to all this tacky celebration-ing. Instead, we have something fascinating in its own right, thanks to badness.

As you very well should know if you're carbon-based, one of The Greatest Bands Of All Times recently reformed, reuniting all three original members and are currently touring. You may think this is a rather common circumstance nowadays, but finding a band with all three characteristics (reunited, original members, touring) is, i assure, extremely rare. And keeping high in quality, no less. So of course it's Police we're talking about here.

Indeed, some days ago i came across a link to an Mp3 of their second live gig of 2007, in Vancouver, and promptly procured myself it in the manner that is typical of this kind of ethereal artifact.

When i first heard this recording, however, i could tell something was wrong. I didn't pay too much attention to the feeling and went on doing my stuff, thinging my things. Then i read Stewart Copeland's fascinating, hilarious and utterly sincere post - on his own forum, of all places!
(Tnx to Pelodia for pointing me there)

We crash through MESSAGE and then go strait[sic] into SYNCHRONICITY. But there is just something wrong. We just can’t get on the good foot. We shamble through the song and hit the big ending. Last night Sting did a big leap for the cut-off hit, and he makes the same move tonight, but he gets the footwork just a little bit wrong and doesn’t quite achieve lift-off. The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock.

-S. Copeland, on the 27 May 2007 Police concert in Vancouver.

Since it's out there anyway, this is one of the many places you may find said recording of said show. 173 Megabytes of poorly recorded rock music, played rather badly by three of the greatest musicians of the genre. Perhaps the most fascinating thing you'll hear this month. (Link courtesy of some guy in a mailing list i still tolerate receiving on an email account i hardly ever check, anyway. It probably won't last so grab it while you still can.)

You will enjoy this.
And as for that hyper-rare Sgt. Pepper version which anybody who's known me for more than a day has heard me at least mention, just wait and it'll eventually make it to these pages. As if today's offering wasn't enough.


Pictured above: first Google Images result for "police+vancouver"

Disclaimer: The webmaster is not responsible for the unauthorized recording, digitalization or uploading of this concert. I am not hosting it on my server and don't even have one as a matter of fact. It is not being used for commercial purposes nor should it be, it is merely being shared for study and analysis. It is freely available all over the internet anyway and is actually quite bad in the first place.

A life in emoticons

Place: Trieste, kebab stall
Time: October/November 2006
Players: Webmaster, stall owner

Me: Do you go home often?
Him: To Siria? :-)
Me: Yeah.
Him: Sure! :-)
Me: When was the last time?
Him: I go there every year! :-)
Me: Isn't it expensive?
Him: Business has been good. I came to Italy five years ago, found a job, went back in the summer to get some documents. :-)
The following year business was good, I went home in the summer. :-)
The year after that I opened this stall, and I've been able to go every summer. :-)
Last year there was the war, so I couldn't go home... :-(
Me: Oh...
Him: ...so I went to Spain instead! :-)

Miranda July

i found these from Neil Gaiman.

she wrote a book, this is the website:
No one belongs here more than you

i'd first gotten to know her through her movie. It is called
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Gnapppo had told me it had good music (he was right).
all the staff at WGD loved it when we saw it last year.
we really really did.

she has other websites too.
this one is a project about people missing people.
How will I know her?
(the webmaster also misses people)

she has a main website.
This is her website.
there are many other nice things on it.

(David Byrne gives consent)

She will be reading parts of her book in Milan on June 11th.
i'm afraid i won't be able to go because i have important stuff to do here on the tenth.

(p.s. dear mister blogspot, your services haven't been working so well on firefox lately especially when i try to use the preview function. It doesn't bother me really and i shouldn't complain because i'm not being a very good blogger lately but perhaps other people who are more consistent may be getting bothered by this but are still too shy to say anything about it, not on the internet at least, so see if you can di something about it)

(p.p.s. i also would have linked to something on mentioning Gnapppo's name but he does not seem to have any of those wonderful blogs of his anymore, and i didn't feel like uploading those pictures of him struggling with a Rubik's cube outside Pieffe again. He's not online right now so i had no way of asking him about this.)

intermission

Old and familiar faces 3 - Mitko

Location: somewhere between Duino and Turin (or vice versa).
Time: sometime between 1am Tuesday morning and 6pm Wednesday evening.

Him: Now I understand why you don't update your blog so often. Every time you try to do it some wierd bulgarian shows up and kidnaps you away in his car.
Me: It's funny because it's true.

Later, or earlier that night/morning/evening. Oh whatever, SUMMER.

Me: I really needed this, i haven't had a road trip in ages.
Him: When was the last time?
Me: On my birthday, a friend of mine was playing with his band in some place 5 hours away from home, and the night before we just decided to surprise them, filled two cars up with people and drinks and drove over.
Him: That's strange.
Me: Not really...
Him: No, i mean it's strange i don't remember you writing about it on your blog.

(Actually, the second conversation might have occurred immediately before the first one. My memory, as always, is not in any way helpful in reconstructing the events.)

Two books i bought yesterday

(in that order)

Small anecdote. Upon seeing my fresh purchase, L. remarked:
"Eclectic, very eclectic. I like that, eclectic taste is a thing of true geniuses."
I was about to thank her for the compliment when she started to snicker uncontrollably while muttering the word "genius". I guess this is one of the reasons i hardly ever talk to her.

realizations

I just realized something. I was translating a press release for Vinicio Capossela's upcoming US tour, and had just produced this phrase:

"(...)generating great interest and enthusiasm among audiences and record industry insiders"

when it dawned on me. Two things dawned on me, actually.
The first, and most immediate, is that a very, very very tiny part of Capossela's chances of success in the United States depends on the quality of my translation. Of course ninetynine point periodical nine percent depends on the Artist, the success of his concerts, the audience, the organization and management and touring conditions etcetera. But there's still that oh point periodical one percent which lies completely on my shoulders in this moment, which is made even more relevant if i think of how important his music was for me in certain moments of my life (before the existence of this blog), of the crazy, drunk version of Besame Mucho he performed at Teatro Miela in Trieste back in '97 or '98 with the Kocani Orkestar, of how the Live In Volvo cd was present in every italian musical aficionado's household at the end of the nineties, of how we used to whisper his songs in each other's ears with a person who would probably prefer to remain unmentioned in this context. (Oh, and i hardly listen to his stuff nowadays, two or three songs from his latest studio album were quite pleasant and i enjoy him playing with Marc Ribot but that's about it.)
In short, a part of Capossela's future was/is depending on me for a short period. No matter how small that part. A strange sensation, definitely.

Even stranger was the sensation i got immediately afterwards, when i realized i'm no longer part of the musical audience, but have slowly and perhaps even unintentionally become a record industry insider.

This i really can't describe. I can't but i will, at this conference i'll be giving at WaveCamp in July.
Oh, but we'll get to that in due time. Now i'll just dwell on these strange feelings for another while.
And hopefully finish the bloody translation, too.

(The webmaster believes he is a rather good translator from english to italian, but occasionally mediocre in the opposite direction. He hopes this not to be one of such cases.)

A cautious and rather minimal return to reviews

Yes, Facebook is indeed a drug.

Update: Warren Ellis agrees, albeit with much better words than I could ever have come up with.

Old and familiar faces 2 - Vega

On the Websphere, Sometime in March/April 2007
Her: Ok, so when i come and visit we can meet in Trieste and get some pizza...
Me: Pizza? Come on, we're in Trieste! It would be a crime not to eat something typical!
Her: Ok, what do you suggest?
Me: I think we should go out for a Kebab.
Her: Cool!

Some YoYo Stuff

Yes, I'm telling everyone i know. Slowly.

An excerpt

Me: So, what do you think I should do?
Him: I think the solution is that you should stop behaving like an asshole. Also, I think i should take you out to get smashed now.
Me: But you don't drink anymore.
Him: I don't. You're the one who's getting smashed, not me.
Me: Who's paying for the drinks?
Him: You are.
Me: Oh. (Long Pause) Ok.

Old and familiar faces 1 - T.

Florence, December 2006
Her: So are you planning anything for your birthday?
Me: Nothing special, you know i never celebrate. Probably just going out with some friends, having some drinks. What are you doing for yours?
Her: Oh, same as last year. I'm going bungee jumping.

Where i spent the past couple of months

The Blues Busters live with Byron Lee & The Dragonairs at The Sombrero Club, 1962. (via)

(spoiler: chicken and potatoes)

The players: My Father, The Webmaster.
The time: two days ago, lunchtime.
Him: We're running off to the lawyer, but i left something to eat in the fridge. Don't know what it is though.
Me: You don't? Who made it?
Him: Oh, I did.

Final quote of the night

Him: I slept too much, i need to go to drink.
Me: ...
Him: No wait, it was the other way around.