ten things, for now.

1.it’s a sunny one, this thirteenth of february. the ground is scattered with coloured flakes from chubby children hands, they skip, post school, sporting the first costumes of carnevale.

2.this room is covered in blue squared wallpaper and the feeble light of a large orange and green lamp. there is an old wooden merry-go-round toy sitting on the wardrobe, red. it makes a crooked lullaby when it spins slowly on its axis.

3.we travel to Siena, where we discover, from a man who must be at least 1500 years old, the various intricacies of medieval tuscan families and the origin of the oldest bank in italy, monte dei paschi di siena (monte dei pascoli). The story is explained in a lengthy fashion, but worth inquiring about only for the joy of observing this ancient man, so keen to inform us on the ever so minute detail of the point in question, dates and all. In an ever so tuscan manner he tells his tales, occasionally turning to his wife, who sits by his side, white like a chinadoll, feet a few inches from the ground, smiling and patient, to touch her cold face, to see if she is ok. In Siena there is a wonky oval shaped square where horses run, once a year is all, but where today people are basking in the sun and children are throwing the aforementioned paper flakes dressed in clown and princess and cowboy suits. There are many banks and well dressed peeps. There is a church which is like an intricate nativity set, blown up to great heights, covered by arching vaults made of stars and ultramarine blue, pillars like alice in wonderland’s stockings, black and white. In Siena the streets are red, the houses are red, my friend’s eyes are red also, teary-tired.

4.i find my feet again in that trastevere i like to call home, in the dust of the cobblestone, in the embraces of the broken lives of the street, in that eternal sameness of rome.

5.Sunday morning calls for portaportese wonderings. Now, it is common knowledge that this infamous roman market is best tackled between the hours of seven and nine am. but it is common knowledge also that waking up earlier than eleven on said morning is a task of colossal proportions. hence, i resign to the letting myself be carried through the stalls by the slow but steady force of the mingling masses. dangling candelabras and vintage toy cars, gypsies selling pieces of plastic and humid rags on the sidewalk to god knows who. gypsy boys laughing hysterically, gypsy women with tattooed hands bearing hidden bundles of baby, chewing sunflower seeds. accordeon man, grubby black fingers, wrinkled.

6.anti vatican rally overwhelms the streets behind campo de’fiori where i am calmly sorting through second hand shops one day, disillusioned left wing middle aged man on a megaphone, close all the churches, he says. behind him a banner against fascism. they hoard past, a colourful mass of stereotypes and dancing dreadlocks, and the message is lost, rendered incoherent and unspecific by the mediatic plasticity of the image that is ‘the rally’. oh i don’t want to sound like baudrillard, but. even live, this phenomenon cant help but remain attached to its proper aesthetic. there is nothing worse than misconstrued philosophy.

7.my hair is matted beyond salvation. option one: fix the half-arsed dreads that have accumulated whilst sleeping in this beehive of a head I find myself with. option two: chop em off, leaving the possibility of holes exposing skull. option three: shave the whole thing off, sport a beanie until march.

8.the missing of certain faces is an arduous task, but kind of nice also.

9.jimi quinton has a blog. he’s an interesting one, our jimi, with interesting stories to tell.

10.vivement la fraîcheur des hautes eaux
que les algues se remettent à danser
et moi je veux bien nager
dans ces constructions enthousiastes et complexes
ces dentelles molles et caoutchoutesques
si les lourds savaient comme ici
tout est léger

(if the heavy ones knew
how here everything is light)

ah, Françoiz. you do it for me today.