unter den linden, in rome

Lime trees in Rome, close to Piazza del Popolo…my favourite trees. A youth on the border with Slovenia means that the lime – or linden – flowers perfume is for me like a madeleine proustienne…it’s a beautiful tree and I want to paste here a bit of tree mythology from the generous Wikipedia.

After all, Swann’s madeleine came with tea, linden tea.

Two days ago Edward B.Gordon painted this view of Berlin…No wonder why this morning I was amazed by this view of Rome when the bus doors opened!

“Lime is an altered form of Middle English lind, in the 16th century also line, from Old English feminine lind or linde, Proto-Germanic *lendā, cognate to Latin lentus “flexible” and Sanskrit latā “liana“. Within Germanic, English lithe, German lind “lenient, yielding” are from the same root”

The lime tree is a national emblem of Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and the Sorbs,^{[citation needed]} where it is called lipa (in Slovak, Polish, Sorbian, Bulgarian (липа), and Slovenian) and lípa (in Czech). The tree also has cultural and spiritual significance in Hungary, where it is called hars(fa).The Croatian currency, kuna, consists of 100 lipa, also meaning “linden”. The lime tree is also the tree of legend of the Slavs. In the Slavic Orthodox Christian world, limewood was the preferred wood for panel icon painting. The famous icons by the hand of Andrei Rublev, including the Holy Trinity (Hospitality of Abraham), and The Savior, now in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, are painted on limewood. Limewood was chosen for its ability to be sanded very smooth, and for its resistance to warping once seasoned.

The national poet of Romania, Mihai Eminescu, was known to receive poetic inspiration from a linden tree in the Copou Gardens under which he would compose.

The most famous street in Berlin, Germany is called Unter den Linden or Under the lindens, named after the linden trees lining the boulevard. In German folklore, the linden tree is the “tree of lovers.” (Wikipedia)

words matter! le parole sono importanti!

A scene from Nanni Moretti’s film “Palombella rossa”, where Nanni shouts “Le parole sono importanti! I don’t talk like that! Who speaks badly, thinks badly. Lives badly. Words are important! Words matter!”.

Words matter. In february in Italy we assisted once more to the bad usage of the word Memoria. Giornata della Memoria. Memory of what? I was in Germany that day, and what was celebrated there was the “Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus”. Just to be clear for the future generations, you know.

Words matter. Indeed I was expecting another mashed-potatoization for April 25th, the day of the Liberation from the nazifascism. And it arrived on time. The prime minister suggested that this day should be called from now on “Freedom Day” – Festa della Liberta’ instead of Festa della Liberazione. And let’s face it, a shortcut had been already done so far, with the media stopping at the liberation from the nazism and curiously leaving out the liberation from fascism.

So after having mashed everything in the Giornata della Memoria (memory of WHAT?), now an equally mashed, pre-cooked and pre-digested Freedom Day. It is not by chance that his own private party has the same name.

As per the peculiar definition of Freedom used by the people leading this country, Corrado Guzzanti and Neri Marcore’ provide in my opinion the best applicable definition of  this particular brand of Liberta’ to date. Liberta’ as in Casa delle liberta‘, Partito delle liberta’, Popolo delle Liberta’ or Giornata della liberta’ – something which has nothing to share with the Freedom as in Liberte’, Egalite’, Fraternite’ but a petit-bougeois but not liberal, spieβig and vulgar, ultimately mean and free-riding attitude culminating in “Let’s do what the …. we like”.

hungry as a wolf

Two posts ago, we were the 1980s, the Cold War and the Iron Curtain were there and I was in love with both John Taylor and Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. Geez…I could not make up my mind! In Cold War attire, Le Bon had a bon enfant sovietique spy attitude.

So it seems quite appropriate, after last week’s full immersion on STASI’s Eric Mielke, to get to know more about Markus Wolf.

Listen to the whole story on Radio2′s “The STASI over Berlin”

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Thank you Mik for  the heads up!

And well done to Radio 2 for the “View to a kill” cameo. After all, “a fatal kiss – is all we need”.

ethics, c’est chic

The referendum in Berlin didn’t change the status quo. Ethics for everybody at school, as a common ground, and religion(s) on the side, only if you are interested. BerlinRomExpress celebrates with a post!

(source: Morgenpost)

Anna in Stasiland

Stasiland, an incredible book by Anna Funder. The italian translation is very good, pity only for the title “C’era una volta la DDR”, which sounds a bit silly, actually.

Funder starts in a casual way to ask people how things were during the DDR years, and she ends up conducting a very intriguing reportage.

Beyond stereotypes and beyond Ostalgie, “between Kafka and Monty Python” Funder contacts victims of the regime and former Stasi officers, Mitarbeiters and talking heads. She visits the places were citizens were detained and subject to police interrogations. She smells the stale air of these rooms, where the odour of terrified people, dossiers, senile power and outright paranoia still lingers.

For 10 years the letters that my DDR penpals and I were writing each other were intercepted, opened with special W-shaped steam devices, read, copied and filed.

My friend Michael went up to the Archive and got the letters, just after the fall of the Wall. Just like those people you see in the film “The lives of others”. Just like the protagonists of Anna Funder’s reportage.

We were teenagers and loved Duran Duran. We were discovering Madonna. I worshipped Radio Caroline, we met over Radio Free Europe.

My friends in Brandenburg and Saxony were longing for freedom. They travelled a lot across the Socialist countries. We had freedom in Triest, but I had never travelled. Freedom meant different things for us.

I wonder if I can go there, and feel the blow, of seeing my letters in a file, imagine them through the eyes of a Stasi zealous Mitarbeiter, filed and numbered, in a box. I have the sinister impression that somewhere, someone knew a lot about me.

the paranoia of power

Sophie Scholl – The last days. This is one of those movies that I could see over and over, as if I were at the theatre, and discover every time a sentence, an expression that I didn’t notice before.

I had missed this film on Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement at the cinema when it was released in 2005 and it was on my movie ‘to do list’ since a while. I found the DVD on my desk in the office yesterday, after a friend had told me that the film was impressive.

The first thing you notice in the film is the detail. The brown flowers on the wall paper. The clothes. Not “oh so 40s!” but normal. The locations, enormous buildings, resonating with echo. Offices and buildings, not “standard nazi” but still imperial, with a smattering of nazi decoration (portraits, geographical maps of Third Reich Germany) scattered about the rests of three layers of systems of power.

When you exit from your reality, your living room, and start to dive into the plot, the theater comes out. The actors have long takes and they act in front of you as if they were on stage. Julia Jentsch is grossartig and really magnetic.

The beauty of the DVD is the special content, and in the interviews you can understand the great deal of preparation that both the director and the actors put in the film. Preparation is the most recurring word. The story is well-known in Germany, and they wanted to convey all the new material emerged from the archives in order to bring new angles to this important episode of German history.

Conscience versus an illegal legal system. The paranoia of power. These are the elements which stand out from the police interrogations.

Yesterday I finished reading an incredible book, where the paranoia of power, the conscience of a woman against the aberrations of an illegal legal system stand out. But I will talk about that in another post.

Tomorrow is April 25th, the Liberation anniversary in Italy. And the scrap of paper left by Sophie Scholl on her bed before going to trial had one word scribbled on it: “Freiheit”.

Tomorrow I will be disgusted, once more, by those who will tarnish once more the meaning of liberty and the memory of those who died for it, be them partisans, military or civilians, just like Sophie Scholl. Because in Italy the paranoia of power is back. In a cushioned, muted, sometimes obscenely farcical way, it is here. And also in a brutal way, let’s not forget about it.

slow down rome

Metapolis dedicates a beautiful post to the Slow Down London initiative. Let’s try to do the same in Rome…the dolce vita is a myth, and also in Rome the rat race is on. We should look more around us, and less in our text message screen of our phones.

Rome’s 2762th spring

A few months ago we were all longing for winter in Winterfeldplatz in the middle of Fall’s colourful vegetables….now it’s the turn of Rome, and her 2762th spring!

alessandro mendini’s paradise map

At the Ara Pacis there is not only the altar, but also an exhibition on Alessandro Mendini, the italian designer famous for his Alessi kitchen objects, and not only.

I am not particularly fond of the 1980s design, but I have a bit of fondness for the early objects by Philip Starck, Mendini, Michael Graves, Memphis+Sottsass because these products materialized themselves during my teenage years.

As a teenager you become design-aware, not only fashion conscious. To me, Mendini shares the same mental drawer with L’Oréal Studio Line, spiky hair, fluo pants etc. Something I would never wear again, but which resonates with an epoque in which I started noticing design.

Hiromi Uehara at A-trane, Berlin

One thing I love about Tokyo Omotesando is to discover new jazz performers (new for me, I mean!) in those little record stores, offering fantastic selections, attentive and informal service and very professional advice.

Talking about great jazz, Berlin jazzradio says that Hiromi Uehara plays tonight at the A-trane in Charlottenburg…I wish I was there!

In the meantime, some videos of smiling Hiromi will cheer up this rainy sunday in Rome – hey it’s Rome’s birthday in 2 days, let’s hope the weather improves.

Have a nice Sunday with Hiromi’s fabulous performances – such as The Tom  & Jerry Show!