Category: life

Delinquent Writer

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I’ve been delinquent in my writings on here lately.It’s because i’ve been in thought, thinking, getting a bit angry, thinking some more and trying to realize how things plan out in my head, considering how those thoughts sound on paper, in word form, and realizing that they sound terrible.  Well, sometimes you have to speak your mind — and my mind is full.  I feel like things are churning, like I told V last night, it is like a big ball of mashed potatoes.

One of the thoughts I’ve had lately, revolving around ideas of capitalism, society, money, success, failure, and the lives that we lead.  This thought is that the older I get, the more socialist I become.  Maybe it’s the time in Europe, maybe it is the complete disregard for hype but I am becoming a true socialist.

This, combined with artisan food (stay with me here) has created a huge amount of ideas and streams of thought that are currently resting in my head, in my notebook and waiting to be released when I’m not feel so angry about these things.  Here is a small part of what I’ve been thinking lately:

Artisan products, especially food, are the result of local knowledge being transmitted to a new generation by the product itself as well as the process.  Authentic is an oxymoron, it’s authentic because it is true to history, place, producer and from extension, culture.

Modern ideas of sustainability, local, etc. are by products of a free market that encourages over-consumption. A return to the true price of a product, seasonality, and value in tradition are necessary to restore artisan products to a more valid form for our now-day society.

Italy

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It’s not everyone’s ideal, but sometimes it is mine.  To think of these things reminds me of Bra first of all, and how, after you’ve spent your life in other parts of the world going back to a place where this type of living is offered is a comforting thought.  I might add a good local market.

“In a small town, we don’t just want a congenial barber and a well stocked news stand.  We want professionally made coffee and a proper pizza.  We want a couple of streets to stroll down, an avenue to jog along, a pool to swim in and a cinema for a bit of entertainment.  We want a functioning courthouse, a reassuring hospital, a consoling church and an unintimidating cemetery.  We want a new university and an old theatre house.  We want football fields and town councillors we can pester in the bar.  We want to see the mountains beyond the level crossing when the weather’s good and the air is clear.  We want footsteps on cobbled streets in the night, yellow lights to tinge the mist and bell towers we can recognize from a distance.  We want doctors and lawyers who can translate abstract concepts into our dialect — my father can — and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone…We want all these things and in Crema we have them.”

By: Beppe Severgnini

Thoughts of the Past

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I’ve been going through a lot of things from the past, bits and pieces, thoughts, memories and recollections.  Notes written, surprisingly, on a lot of napkins from various cafes and restaurants, or on ones found in my pocket.  I’ve been really, very lucky in my life and the experiences I’ve had in far off places.  I used to take much more pictures on film, and since I’ve got a new digital camera, those have fallen to the wayside.  But I’m rediscovering a huge backlog of photographs of old work that I’m working on scanning and uploading.  Mostly from overseas destinations — Mexico in particular is a place that not only hold my attention, but the amount of beautiful food, places and people — well I had just forgot until I went through some old pictures from a couple of trips there several years ago.
Otherwise, Africa.  Mozambique and South Africa was a study trip for 6 months in 2003.  Collecting as many thoughts as I could there, I saved a lot of nice little pieces of that place, specifically Beira.  So after thinking about them a bit more, I’ll upload a few of those because they are, if nothing else, a small snapshot of a places that was held in time for awhile.  At the moment, I’m sure that many changes have come in the past 9 years, good and bad.  I’m very glad to have these bits and pieces of my time there that I can still look at and remember.