Marchionne’s auto-critique

Busy week in Rome this week. Many celebrities in town. All the bosses from the big corporates were in town for the industrialists’ meeting, and for the seismic waves emanated from it, conferences and the like.

So today at 5pm Mr Marchionne appeared magically (from Detroit? from Berlin? from some Ministero?) in steamy hot hot-house Rome, wearing his Linus-style blue jumper in an appropriately sub-zero air conditioned conference room. He sipped an espresso in religious silence at the speakers’ table in front of a couple of hundreds of eyes. I thought the moment was very Louis XIV.

Bits and pieces. He explained platforms and said that an Opel today has a 80% Fiat Punto skeleton. So the operation should make a lot of sense to the German government, if you know that I mean. (But we’ll see how that turns up over the weekend).

He also said that in the car industry top management either comes from the back  – the kitchen, ie the factory -  of from the glitzy front, the Geneva Car Show. But the car industry cannot look pretty and sassy in the front if it does not clean up its ugly kitchen. (For sure there were some greasy c(r)ooks at the helm, in those kitchens…)

He said that the car industry has been destroying value for too many decades. (That  makes a lot of sense. If the car industry were the IT one, we would still be running Lotus 123 and playing Pac Man, with advertising on TV boasting “green figures on a black background: cool!”).

He explained the negative Net Working Capital mechanism. You get paid for the sale of the car before you pay the metal that goes in it. Sort of magic. That magic stops  when you stop producing.

He said that the car industry did all sorts of monkey corporate behavior. Buy financial services. Sell them. Buy components manufacturers. Sell them. They tried all the tricks. Now it’s over. (Good auto-critique…or car-critique).

the long night of the museums: de-light…

Also a Berlin favorite, Die lange nacht der Museen, moored to Rome’s cultural shores yesterday night. “I’ll wait for you until late at night” was the tag line for this event.

Mein Mann and I picked our local, the Macro museum in via Reggio Emilia, the museum for Contemporary Art,  the closest museum to our neighborhood, and it proved to be a good bet.

First, a giant hangover of faux-jasmine perfume to start with…a nice walk along the gardens from home to the museum with our friends, to see the building site of the new Odile Decq project for the new Macro wings.

The ambiance was groovy – pity there was no music, some techno would have done the trick – hectic green laser installations by Arthur Duff and rounds of ruby-red campari soda.

I snatched the last ticket to the building site and surprise surprise here are the pictures by the official “documentary-maker” of the party.

The programme called for concertoes in the most famous museums and archeological sites, but rumor had it that queues were very long almost everywhere.

So we decided to stay local and ventured in our local park, Villa Torlonia, for a nocturne exploration. Mein Mann and our friends grew up as a kids nearby this park, yet it was a premiere for them as well.

As we approached the Villa (once home to the Torlonia princes, then to the italian dictator, threafter to the american GIs, now finally available to the citizens) we found ourselves in the middle of a piece promenade…

It was gorgeous to lay on the grass by night, under the tall palms and the obelisk, while listening to Rossini…

Sublime conclusion of the evening, we spotted in the woods two lightning bugs flying one towards each other…beautiful.

intensive car

In the press they talk about The Great Deal (Fiat-Chrysler), talks are underway today in Berlin on the future of Opel.

But only on Beppe Grillo’s blog I can read today some news on the price increases applied by the italian motorway companies. Oil is cheap, and it won’t last long. So toll rentiers seize the opportunity today to levy more taxes on the italian public.

Alitalia and Air One are lame ducks, public transport does not get the necessary investments, people who need to be on the move are forced into using the car.

In the meantime our real unemployment and our real inflation are figures never published in the press…not only the politicians but also the journalists indulge in abundant Schadenfreude, about the 6% GDP fall estimate for Germany, the 20% unemployment rate in Spain but…what about us? No real figures on our own inflation and unemployment, Keine Weltanschauung for the way forward.

Listen to the Sage from Omaha. He says that the only certainty about our future is inflation…(or read “Weimar, utopia and tragedy”).

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)

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!

the rebirth of Necci…and not only

The Bar Necci will reopen tomorrow night in the quartiere Pigneto, only 14 days after the arson attack. The same builders and carpenters who refurbished it have re-created the caffé, apparently only the original wallpaper was impossible to source but all the rest should be there!

Check out La Repubblica’s article…the Bar not only was the stage of Pasolini’s “Accattone”, but also for the movie “Questioni di cuore” with Antonio Albanese (the fabulous “Minister of Terror” on tv, “Tage und Wolke” on screen) and Kim Rossi Stuart (photo).

Mein Mann and I are already looking forward to those fabulous lemon-scented cream croissants…

PS

Sunday 19th, today we saw the movie by Francesca Archibugi, not to be missed. The idea of rebirth after a traumatic episode. An unconventional scenery of Rome, an old Fiat 500 and great actors.

The storyboard comes from a novel by Umberto Contarello, listen to the interview with the author by clicking on the links. The transition between eternal teenage, maturity and old age and the risk of jumping the middle step, or missing it altogether. A late Bildungsroman.

There is also aninteresting interview which goes beyond the autobiographic plot of the novel/film…

l’empire des lumières

…lumières as in a freshly-baked Magritte…6pm, Spanish Steps

Yesterday morning MeinMann and I went to Villa Torlonia, our local park. The Two Aunties – two hieratic cats who are masters of this small universe – were sunbathing on the balcony of the Casina delle Civette. The restoration of the Moorish Tower and of “The Theatre” has posted some progress during the winter. Daisies were everywhere, and extremely visible in the emerald green grass (yes you know already we got plenty of rain in Rome recently), very pop-art indeeed.

So it’s sort of spring. Last weekend we had our first lunch al fresco – or rather, al sole - at a restaurant right above the Spanish Steps, our eyes still unaccustomed to such strong zenith light.

And this week we had gorgeous spring sunsets. The Tiepolo sunsets. With all the possible pastel hues. First the acid green-yellow shades diluted in the pastel blue, and then the superposed pink-violet clouds stirring the still cold air of the night.

…..7pm, from via del Corso to Ara Pacis

here it is forbidden to talk

If my eyes belong to Rome, in today’s crystalline light, maybe my ears listen to Berlin, cuddled up in the green silence embracing the town. But I breath in Triest, where the wind carries the perfume of the sea, and where a mimetic Karst  squats between sea and wind, like a lynx cub, nostrils tense and alert.

This morning the light in Rome was precious. My mind voltiges swift to next sunday, when I will be in Berlin with my brother. But now I’ve read my first ever pages by Boris Pahor. So I am still. I am in Triest, my inner core. My madeleine and my cub imprinting.

And that language, which I could not speak nor understand, the hymns during the mass, is there as well.  A language never used but always present, with clear spots like a leopard skin, sharpening feline intuition in a child.

Slovenian is for me the perfume of pinze fresh from the oven. Of ripe sticky grapes of terran, vintaged in a hurry before the bora comes. It’s Karlo’s bachelor onion omelette, when Milka would visit her family and he would rather stay home. My only language with a perfume.

Boris Pahor – “Qui e’ proibito parlare” (Here it is forbidden to talk) – “Parnik trobi nji”

almond trees in blossom today

It’s raining again…since last May we’ve been humming away this Supertramp hit of the 80s when looking out of the window in the morning.

Well, I recall 2 really nice sunny days since the beginnig of the year and today was one of them…cold but with that blue sky and metallic sunlight, turning to vibrant gold and ricocheting on the Tiber around 4 pm…

Lupin lll at KaDeWe?

At the beginning of the week I was in Berlin, and the big news was the theft at KaDeWe. Television troupes with cameras interviewed the clients in front of the beautiful department store.

The building is one of the best examples of the Historicism style. Each time I go to Berlin I try to reserve one lunch time break for visiting the food hall and trying out one of the fabulous counters. And pick up something at the newsagent, so far my favorite in Berlin, because of the wide choice available!

Well, it looks like the theft technique was particularly clever…the biggest heist in the more than 100-year-old department store history.

Than reminded me of an interesting theft attempt done in Rome a few years ago. Via Condotti, Bulgari flagship store, 9 am in the morning. A fabulous unique piece had just been put in the window-display, when an Abschleppwagen – what’s its name – a tow truck crashed into the window.

Unsuccessful but spectacular. And worth of the Darwin Awards Selection Speciale…the thieves got presumably inspiration by the 1997 film “Face” with Robert Carlyle.

The dramatic plot of the movie turned to commedia all’italiana. The thieves hadn’t calculated well that there would not be enough space in the carillon-style via Condotti, to gain sufficient accelaration in order to successfully break in!

The german truck-proof window bent inwards a bit, but didn’t break…Vorsprung durch Technik!

The thieves escaped in motorino but were soon riacciuffati (nice italian expression, uh? literally, catched by a tuft, rockabilly thieves!)….

PS

one week later, still no clues on thee KaDeWe heist!

photo Omniroma Franceschi Repubblica