tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3591194243420253912024-03-23T12:40:19.860+00:00The real does not efface itselfObservations, stories and photographs by and of model, writer, dedicated sleeker, one time dancer of sort, Alex B.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger602125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-10645503264681537862024-03-23T12:25:00.005+00:002024-03-23T12:39:44.922+00:00Migrating to Substack<p> This blog will not be deleted but as I mentioned in an earlier post I have decided to migrate to Substack. You can find me <a href="https://alexb244.substack.com/ " target="_blank">here</a> </p><p><br /></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(227, 227, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px;"><br /><br />In the meantime, I'd like to share something exciting. My upcoming book, soon to be published by Bloomsbury, is nearing its release. Below is a glimpse of what to expect. I sincerely hope it receives the warm reception that my previous work, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/contemporary-indonesian-fashion-9781350237957/" target="_blank">Contemporary Indonesian Fashion</a>, enjoyed.<br /><br />I eagerly anticipate reconnecting with each of you!<span face="Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"" style="background-color: transparent; color: #ececec; font-size: 16px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdpyYm_zUzmDGPdG3rcM5i6_IOIQbRaBkJrEgF2d-DBAqKHez_4NhmlBa9yVuYhOGZhkaYpHKYY2_FYYSmlsYOkjmULu1Lx8rD0JS1xTYxPItbD_4v7GVHkZZIBPTBLLD27emC9rwzW4GKwIR_tp8CMCDHLqCUF7y43QinCG0LHsP0-bcgWyZsuWCmsQ/s4032/IMG_8639.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdpyYm_zUzmDGPdG3rcM5i6_IOIQbRaBkJrEgF2d-DBAqKHez_4NhmlBa9yVuYhOGZhkaYpHKYY2_FYYSmlsYOkjmULu1Lx8rD0JS1xTYxPItbD_4v7GVHkZZIBPTBLLD27emC9rwzW4GKwIR_tp8CMCDHLqCUF7y43QinCG0LHsP0-bcgWyZsuWCmsQ/w480-h640/IMG_8639.HEIC" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">One of Francesco Colucci's creations at V&A, Fashion in Motion, 15/03/2024</div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-41716490268232437032024-03-03T15:09:00.002+00:002024-03-04T09:36:49.874+00:00Swan Lake and ballet<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrm8hj2TwhaI067QpGrcVvpVb4Xcf46bpW3m_2i456lF5uEiJU0Y7Uw9v1oZ4W3Fpkllu2KAh9ceomE28X614Ij02AN1NnkT5ZN1_ptaWkfNM_QvRXH-36XFH25jXAhc8k_-ZjJobNAUbdHGHN7ntye_d79Jy67zPBspRzSD_IRicmEbnoANOp8F3ckE/s1569/IMG_8543.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1569" data-original-width="1179" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrm8hj2TwhaI067QpGrcVvpVb4Xcf46bpW3m_2i456lF5uEiJU0Y7Uw9v1oZ4W3Fpkllu2KAh9ceomE28X614Ij02AN1NnkT5ZN1_ptaWkfNM_QvRXH-36XFH25jXAhc8k_-ZjJobNAUbdHGHN7ntye_d79Jy67zPBspRzSD_IRicmEbnoANOp8F3ckE/w480-h640/IMG_8543.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /> I did not think I would come back to this blog so soon, but here I am.<p></p><p>Something has been on my mind for the past few days and posting about it on social media is not enough. As many of you who follow me probably know, I have a granddaughter aged four and like many little girls of her age she goes to 'ballet class'. It was my idea to take her and am glad her parents allowed me to enrol her for classes - her parents are neutral about ballet, though it transpires my daughter-in-law went to ballet class till the age of 12 and so did her mother. We have common ground here. </p><p>I want my granddaughter to understand that ballet is a complex and beautiful art form. I often recount to her the plots of famous ballets and we watch video clips so that she can see what ballet looks like when danced by the 'big girls' and 'big boys'. At her age ballet is a playful activity, which gives plenty of scope to develop the imagination. Yes, she is learning the basics as she goes along but this is not a time when she needs to worry about her extensions and developpés. It will come later - if she sticks to it. </p><p>She is not yet allowed to go and watch a ballet, in the UK the minimum age for children to be admitted to a performance is five and when you think about it, it is just about right, a child must be able to sit quietly and watch and that requires some preparation too ie full explanation of what they are going to see, the storyline, what to look for. I am planning to take her to see The Nutcracker as soon as she is five but also Swan Lake, about which we talked at length. She was interested in the dynamics of the narrative and being quite musical soon after watching a clip of the four cygnets dancing she decided to imitate them, singing 'tatata' and jumping around. After seeing Odile's thirty-two fouettés she commented the dancer must have been really tired after performing them - likely, but as an audience, you never see that - and then asked for a white tutu and a black one so that she could play being Odette/Odile at home. I think she is a budding ballet lover. Whether she will pursue ballet when she is older is a different matter, it is a decision that must come from her and her alone. Dance - and ballet in particular - is a vocation. Not only that. You need to have the right body for it - and by this, I definitely do not mean skin -colour because it is frankly irrelevant. I know, it sounds brutal to talk of body type but that's ballet for you.</p><p>Following this recent exchange, I decided to go and watch Swan Lake once again and luckily it has been programmed by the Royal Ballet for this season. I have tickets for a dress rehearsal - I have seen Swan Lake many times and I am very fussy about how it is danced. I will buy proper tickets only if the rehearsal inspires me. I am one of those audience members who expects Odile to perform the 32 fouttés and can count them. </p><p>From what I have told you so far two threads emerge. The first one is about the accessibility of ballet as an art form; the second is about Swan Lake as an iconic ballet. </p><p>Let's start with the issue of accessibility. Ballet is an elitist art form, there is no question of it, the elitism is part of its pedigree. But this does not mean it should be cancelled, it would be absurd. Efforts should be made to make it more accessible to people who would not normally go and watch ballet. Efforts should also be made to encourage young people with an aptitude for ballet to train - and the training is arduous and expensive. Much has been done, but perhaps not enough. As for the narrative content of classical ballets, we cannot expect 19th-century ballets to be politically correct. I was saddened to learn that a classic such as La Bayadere is virtually banned in the US and now the UK because it is Orientalist. Of course it is, it was devised in the 19th century. To take it literally is quite absurd. </p><p>As for Swan Lake it is one of those ballets that the more you watch the more you get out of it. Its symbolism may not be apparent but the story about Prince Sigfried and the Swan Queen Odette, who is also Odile, the twin created by the magician von Rothbart is full of nuances. </p><p>You can give it many different interpretations. There is a bit of Hamlet in it - what is the relationship between the Queen and von Rothbart? There is the idea that neither Odette nor Odile are real but they are both figments of Sigfried's imagination. And then there are the different endings - happy one, tragic one. </p><p>The music alone could be a concert piece - and I remember first encountering Swan Lake as a recording by Claudio Abbado. I thought it was a concert piece then I realised it was a ballet. </p><p>Anyway, these are my raw thoughts. I will be happy to discuss further. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-54251822151698443282024-02-16T11:31:00.005+00:002024-03-23T12:39:01.971+00:00This blog is 'semi-archived' on Blogger and moving to Substack<p> </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCivIX9rFjCUwSXx4iBKG4WrnMBDk1XL7ffpFOE1g1B-dNpoNOMSi6pBSSqX7Lve3LKHkib8oxD7x2xMBVFoPo8SLIdmKCUsjLpIMWgxlsoxWcAhgDJ4bcDyJ7usUDESoYtPMFCPX67nSPp8BoTPTVuqrId23Yxz8ZpcZ-5cBfm_VgbwpY3LCswEQIOp8/s2000/AlexBruniportraitwith%20tophat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCivIX9rFjCUwSXx4iBKG4WrnMBDk1XL7ffpFOE1g1B-dNpoNOMSi6pBSSqX7Lve3LKHkib8oxD7x2xMBVFoPo8SLIdmKCUsjLpIMWgxlsoxWcAhgDJ4bcDyJ7usUDESoYtPMFCPX67nSPp8BoTPTVuqrId23Yxz8ZpcZ-5cBfm_VgbwpY3LCswEQIOp8/w640-h426/AlexBruniportraitwith%20tophat.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Photo:Veronica Di Maggio</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(227, 227, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br />Hello and thank you for stopping by. This blog is no longer updated. In an age where social media reigns, the allure of blogging has definitely dimmed.<br /><br />My intent was never commercial; I didn't start this blog to earn money by endorsing products. It was the joy of connection and the chance to write about topics that fascinated me that drew me in. In its heyday, this space also served as an additional portfolio for my modelling work (which you can still find <a href="http://www.alexbmodel.co.uk" target="_blank">here</a>).<br /><br />Modelling is no longer a focal point for me, it has become an occasional endeavour rather than my main activity.<br /><br />My creative journey has taken a literary turn — from penning non-fiction to delving into the realms of fiction. Having stepped back from the academic world some years ago, the rigorous structure of research papers and monographs no longer appeals to me. Academic research thrives on collaboration, a chapter of my life I have since closed. Nevertheless a book on fashion, sustainability and the economy of solidarity - possibly my last - is about to be published by Bloomsbury. Nearer the time I shall share more details. <br /><br />This blog will not serve as a platform for my short stories. They are being crafted for the pages of magazines and, eventually, the shelves of bookstores under the stewardship of traditional publishers. I might use themes I have explored through my posts as an inspiration for my stories.<br /><br />In sum, I have chosen to step away from using this blog as a conduit for my personal commentaries and opinions.<br /><br />I considered fully archiving this blog permanently, but then it struck me — why not let it stand? It represents a significant body of work that I am not ready to erase. Perhaps someone will find pleasure in perusing my thoughts.<br /><br />Comments are still welcome, I am notified by email when someone writes, and I will make an effort to reply.<br /><br />Here’s to embracing the new and transforming the old.</span></p><div><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(227, 227, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--tw-prose-bold); font-weight: 600;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-32362064828480179902023-07-17T13:16:00.006+01:002023-07-17T16:02:29.484+01:00'Moi, vielle et jolie' by Sylviane Degunst and 'Young , female , black and French' by Black Current<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGSKxhvClSAlTX04hX-CBg8J7__zraf1FSINxIT_2X166OBIGessMkX_AGW_F5kI8mYJn0Gw3uPZbqAAncjnXYBv8p7RdI2BQUbBE9TSRiJBmTTKwDZ6eO32QJsVZXTL7M1GTWr4mcyKZZW4o0tIMgtdGJ-XSvpb9fzyLfmwNjDagDxau-QNf7QQY0iY/s790/Screenshot%202023-07-17%20at%2012.53.34.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="528" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGSKxhvClSAlTX04hX-CBg8J7__zraf1FSINxIT_2X166OBIGessMkX_AGW_F5kI8mYJn0Gw3uPZbqAAncjnXYBv8p7RdI2BQUbBE9TSRiJBmTTKwDZ6eO32QJsVZXTL7M1GTWr4mcyKZZW4o0tIMgtdGJ-XSvpb9fzyLfmwNjDagDxau-QNf7QQY0iY/w428-h640/Screenshot%202023-07-17%20at%2012.53.34.png" width="428" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>This post is more than a review of a book and of a documentary, linked by the notion of Frenchness, as will be seen. It is also an opportunity to highlight some of the issues they raise. The views I express are entirely personal, it goes without saying.</p><p><i>Moi, vielle et jolie</i> is Sylviane Degunst's autobiographical account, available only in French, of how she began modelling in London around 2014 when she was in her fifties. As she tells us, she had only recently arrived in London when she was scouted and was offered to be a model because of her silver hair and, I would add, her perceived French chic and her <i>gamine </i>appearance. She moved back to France in 2019, and continued to model, signing with <i><a href="https://www.agencesilver.com/" target="_blank">Agence Silver</a>,</i> one of the best-known French agencies for senior models, which opened its doors to both men and women with silver hair in 2012. </p><p>She also started writing again, her primary job having always been that of journalist, writer, and editor. Published by Cherche Midi in 2020, the book, a <i>récit</i> (work of fiction, but in this case it is autobiographical) is available from Amazon and several other booksellers - beware though that if you order it from the UK, you will have to pay hefty postage and possibly VAT. I only managed to get hold of Sylviane's book fairly recently, I got a second-hand copy from a UK bookshop.</p><p>I crossed paths with Sylviane more than once. We both started modelling late and initially, we shared agencies. The event which she identifies as what launched her modelling career as a silver-haired model was at Selfridges, and I too took part in it. She then signed with <a href="https://www.mrsrobinsonmanagement.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mrs Robinson Management</a> in London, a boutique agency for women over the age of 25, and I signed with Grey Models. Recently, I too signed with <i>Mrs Robinson</i> and <i>Agence Silver </i>- models do move around! Who knows, our paths may cross again.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-J89cQKzAvIGHOdKuO_UqK3cvye7SPRL8O--ZG34naA-cCC2UDkQejlci5ttzr8FsD_QtBXsV3HtLilUh7kAJYXtzz4sW5py2nMQyJluP7nCNufL_JBHf_iHuJ5neTxQ6W9ub6V3sPt4UAfothZ3AH2BL8C_zkED4X3B8ULOA-84ZtsRUuPGO8kvod4/s960/IMG_0293.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-J89cQKzAvIGHOdKuO_UqK3cvye7SPRL8O--ZG34naA-cCC2UDkQejlci5ttzr8FsD_QtBXsV3HtLilUh7kAJYXtzz4sW5py2nMQyJluP7nCNufL_JBHf_iHuJ5neTxQ6W9ub6V3sPt4UAfothZ3AH2BL8C_zkED4X3B8ULOA-84ZtsRUuPGO8kvod4/w640-h480/IMG_0293.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Sylviane Degunst, myself and a group of other models, including Joanna Chamberlain, at the Selfridges show, 2014</p><p><br /></p><p>Unlike Sylviane, I did not write a memoir based on my pre and post-menopausal modelling, even though I was tempted to do it. I wrote instead several articles about it in various publications eg <a href="http://vestoj.com/coming-of-age/" target="_blank">Vestoj</a> and, under my real name in <a href="https://tidsskrift.dk/ageculturehumanities/article/view/130718" target="_blank">AgeCultureHumanities</a>. Then in my book on contemporary <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/contemporary-indonesian-fashion-9781350237957/" target="_blank">Indonesian fashion</a> (Bloomsbury 2019) I have a chapter in which I recount my experience of modelling in Indonesia for designers Tri Handoko and Ghea Panggabean. I am mentioning this because most models feel they have to tell their story, especially if the circumstances that surround their modelling beginnings are somewhat unusual and I too felt the urge to discuss it. Recently, I also dipped into Canadian author Tara Moss's <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fictional-Woman-Tara-Moss/dp/1489019588" target="_blank">account </a>of her modelling and found it most refreshing and engrossing, as she is one of those models who have been doing it forever.</p><p>Sylviane's book is comparable to Anne Kraemer's <i>Going Gray, </i>which came out in 2007. The New York editor wrote about ditching the dye and ageing gracefully, in so doing becoming a spokeswoman of the 'going grey' movement, which soon went global. Sylviane talks with humour about her modelling experiences in the UK and reiterates the narrative of successful ageing and 'you can do everything you want at any age'. She also writes movingly about her father and mother, and a different experience of growing old. She ends by saying that in France she has not been as successful a model as in the UK, perhaps because the French have not yet embraced the notion of beauty in older age. I am not so sure about the latter. Had this been the case, <i>Agence Silver</i> (and other comparable French agencies) would have never started. In London, Sylviane embodies <i>le chic. </i>In France, she has other contenders. </p><p>I agree with Sylviane that London is more open than Paris, in terms of diversity - up to a point. The French have a major issue with race, as the recent riots have demonstrated, highlighting the problem the French have with egalitarianism, despite the <i>egalité </i>of their motto. A young French woman of colour reports in <i>Young, black and French</i> that while she lived in France she never identified as French, though she was born and brought up there. Only now that she is in Britain, she is perceived as French, principally because of her accent. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HZZUsLerkC8" width="320" youtube-src-id="HZZUsLerkC8"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Outside France and in the UK, the stereotype of a white chic French woman (of all ages) is widespread. Watch the beginning of the documentary. The imagination runs wild when Britons young and old describe their perception of a French woman. The French too have their own stereotypes about <i>les femmes anglaises. </i>Not for nothing, the late Jane Birkin, who had lived in France for well over 50 years and spoke excellent French, cultivated her English accent as part of her mystery. </p><p> Sylviane talks about her experience of British culture but does not dwell on the British perception of her as a French woman and of the French chic, which she embodied in British eyes. <i>Young, female, black and French </i>is fun to watch as those stereotypes are heard in all their glory, reiterated by those interviewed. Why do I insist on stereotypes? Because the world of advertising, which is the world models inhabit, is full of them and works on the basis of stereotypes. I remember taking part in the short video <i><a href="https://youtu.be/ngtO-efwLlw" target="_blank">The problem is not seeing the problem </a></i>which attempts to address the issue - some people however felt that it did not succeed. The only way to eliminate stereotypes is to talk openly about them.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF9PbfKSUr-iAlHaZNj4O6YfE0GhvUB6JY_o4p4icgO_C8cWpnHy4VLLdHh46Y33oNEPASiPOsksTYLrftAgF23un0OJ2N2KSev0pe1AU-JykmDgYYEEdbMqqPiL-9s7QVahxxL32FIwACU2OKllE78Xcuhn8FUkME9aiXpxYQNcukOonDhJ1ffZMRTZk/s1790/Screenshot%202023-07-17%20at%2012.10.30.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="1790" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF9PbfKSUr-iAlHaZNj4O6YfE0GhvUB6JY_o4p4icgO_C8cWpnHy4VLLdHh46Y33oNEPASiPOsksTYLrftAgF23un0OJ2N2KSev0pe1AU-JykmDgYYEEdbMqqPiL-9s7QVahxxL32FIwACU2OKllE78Xcuhn8FUkME9aiXpxYQNcukOonDhJ1ffZMRTZk/w640-h326/Screenshot%202023-07-17%20at%2012.10.30.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Somehow, the otherwise <i>drôle </i>book by Sylviane does not do so, preferring to keep its tone light to avoid courting controversy, perhaps? </p><p>Anyway do get hold of the book, it is a lovely read - and it might help you with your French if you need to brush it up. As for the <i>Young female black and French</i> documentary, do please watch it (and subscribe to the channel). It's absolutely brilliant. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-72543617236828680712023-06-01T16:26:00.001+01:002023-06-07T11:58:23.787+01:00Successful ageing and free stock images<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHPg_poHQIPMevJKrKsVmU1DGhqodjZS9_FaLD4svpyPHX09SQQsMi9TelxlYYD98ffb4LD6qS1qEWgdiqBPUNkZAmUmH2s_lwE-4X0ZinvjTXmm-0o0z0d-qXu482zsDO_4KfTSG7DZlEWuZEMM2xfT7loivx1yqFtW8zZKgRozaG_LjtDkM-Vfj-/s560/Foto%20Daniel%20So%CC%88derberg%20www.greenpix.se-06472%20(1).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="560" height="548" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHPg_poHQIPMevJKrKsVmU1DGhqodjZS9_FaLD4svpyPHX09SQQsMi9TelxlYYD98ffb4LD6qS1qEWgdiqBPUNkZAmUmH2s_lwE-4X0ZinvjTXmm-0o0z0d-qXu482zsDO_4KfTSG7DZlEWuZEMM2xfT7loivx1yqFtW8zZKgRozaG_LjtDkM-Vfj-/w640-h548/Foto%20Daniel%20So%CC%88derberg%20www.greenpix.se-06472%20(1).jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Golden Age Models at Stockholm Beauty Week. Photo: Daniel Söderberg</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The recent cover for <a href="https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2023/05/15/martha-stewart-featured-2023-si-swimsuit-cover-model" target="_blank">Sports Illustrated</a> featuring Martha Stewart, aged 81, in a swimsuit and looking like a twenty-year-old has sparked a controversy. Whether she has had 'work' done - she says no, of course - whether it was the outcome of clever photoshopping, good lighting, or maybe an AI-generated image, the point is that the message was skewed. You are praised for ageing well if you manage to look young. You are a role model if you manage to look young. </p><p>It's called 'successful ageing'. The younger you manage to look, the more successful you are at ageing, that seems to be the conclusion one can draw from this and related incidents. Some people thought that the Martha Stewart cover was wonderful because someone older was being represented. I feel it was a kick in the teeth. 'Shape up' or else, was the message. We are only interested in older women if they do not look their age and act to prevent signs of ageing from being detected.</p><p>The fashion industry ignores older men and women, especially women. Whenever you see an older model at some runway show, or in a beauty campaign it is blatantly tokenistic. Having said that, I have just returned from Stockholm, where I took part in a runway show for <a href="http://stockholmbeautyweek.se/hem/" target="_blank">Stockholm Beauty Week,</a> a whole-day affair where we even modelled swimsuits. All the models were 50 +, all represented by <a href="https://www.goldenagemodels.com/" target="_blank">Golden Age Models</a>, an agency started a year ago by the very dynamic Shama Persson, who is also a model, in partnership with a few other women and men who felt they needed to change the conversation about ageing in Scandinavian countries. I am on their roster even though I am in London, also represented by <a href="https://www.greymodelagency.com/cultwomen" target="_blank">Grey Model Agency</a>, with whom I have been since it began. It was important that Golden Age Models should be at Beauty Week. Ours was a distinctive presence, all of us proud of our age, not attempting to look younger, but still looking aspirational. </p><p>As I said in an earlier post ageism is not taken very seriously. I even got a comment from one of my readers - unfortunately I deleted it by mistake - the gist of which was that frankly, with all the problems we are facing at the moment, a concern with ageism is quite trivial. I do not think it is. Ageism is a major issue in our society, we expect older folks to be productive, yet we treat them as invisible.</p><p>There are of course people who are really trying hard to change perceptions of age, advocating greater inclusivity. Some initiatives are, however, not so well thought out. Ageism is Never in Style is a campaign started by Jacynth Bassett, a young woman who also owns <a href="https://www.thebiascut.com/" target="_blank">The Bias-Cut</a> , an online boutique that caters for older customers. Bassett has been very vocal about ageism and has earned accolades as a trailblazer; no other clothing boutique, apparently, pays any attention to older women. Recently, she has partnered with the <a href="https://ageing-better.org.uk/" target="_blank">Centre for Ageing Better</a>, a non-profit set up to challenge ageism through varied initiatives. The Centre has started an age-positive library of images free to download for use by journalists, brands and anyone who needs an image of older people "in a bid to challenge negative and stereotypical views of older age". Bassett has been very proactive in setting up an editorial style photoshoot. It's all very well, but I cannot help being mildly concerned. The people who have posed for these editorial images have given away their rights over such images for life. Whenever their image is used, they will not receive any money at all. Brands will use such imagery for free instead of hiring and paying for models.</p><p> I do not think this is a very good way of fighting ageism, the people who have modelled for those images will be robbed of earnings. I have experienced it on my skin. When I first began modelling - I was already in my late forties - I posed for stock images. Those photos still turn up to haunt me. I was booking a flight, and there I was, all smiles, the airline had used one of my earlier photos to advertise some special offer. I was paid for a few hours of work when we did the shoot but I have absolutely no say on how the images are going to be used and by whom. When we model, the right to use the images is carefully negotiated, usually by our agents, there are buy-outs and images cannot be used for more than a certain number of years. Models are paid for the usage. This does not happen with stock images, clients pay the library eg Getty and others, to use images.</p><p>The library of the Centre for Ageing Better gives images away for free. There is nothing to stop a major brand from obtaining images and use them in a campaign. Who is empowered by that? There are other ways to achieve better representation of older women and men in the media. Free stock images are not the answer. At the very least, their usage should be regulated. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-87386183783880933992023-05-13T16:52:00.004+01:002023-05-22T20:54:53.441+01:00When ageism really hits you<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fbiB--Mvoak1ewLSdLVJsEnbX4-U-mIGztzZZ1pIca7GaAIqUsPsihMF_JJQ7wGZu0Xejs-X5IUuuFfxXW24AqclsGTOfBDNNJ8b4HI3GONMS5F7C12QQVpeaA6kkxxNNxvhDcaUhhbPSWY3MPvE2SdmS3zMJYHLlA__y2-T4OfDWjNfJaRLaGXR/s1364/Screenshot%202023-05-13%20at%2016.43.28.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1342" data-original-width="1364" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fbiB--Mvoak1ewLSdLVJsEnbX4-U-mIGztzZZ1pIca7GaAIqUsPsihMF_JJQ7wGZu0Xejs-X5IUuuFfxXW24AqclsGTOfBDNNJ8b4HI3GONMS5F7C12QQVpeaA6kkxxNNxvhDcaUhhbPSWY3MPvE2SdmS3zMJYHLlA__y2-T4OfDWjNfJaRLaGXR/s320/Screenshot%202023-05-13%20at%2016.43.28.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>I turned 66 last month, which in the UK, where I live, means I have reached State Pension Age (herewith SPA). You do not have to claim State Pension if you do not need it, as you may be financially well off, but SPA is a watershed, meaning that you get a series of discounts as an Old Age Pensioner (OAP) regardless of your income. OAP sounds pretty horrible as a way to refer to people over 66, but there you are, that is the current terminology. At least in the USA, you are called a Senior. But I would let it pass if it were only a matter of terminology. </p><p>I have suddenly found myself having to deal with a whole new set of problems. Got into a wrangle with my local council because they do not want to give me the council tax discount I am entitled to as an OAP; they lost my paperwork twice (duh), so much so that I am contemplating making a formal complaint. Not to mention my Freedom Pass, which allows me to travel for free on public transport and which has not yet been issued, again due to me apparently not ticking the right box - you made a mistake, dear, told me the TfL customer service assistant who answered my call - how I hate the condescension of the 'dear'. She thought I should have asked someone to help me fill the form in. Never mind I have a couple of postgraduate degrees. I have apparently reached the age when I can no longer fill out forms. Ok, these are temporary glitches - one hopes. But wait, there is more.</p><p>I have been modelling since my forties and felt empowered by the knowledge I could represent middle aged women in a positive way. I was deluded. Modelling work opportunities have decreased to zero, I have come to the conclusion that my agency keeps me on its books out of charity; I am not bringing them enough money, so they need to focus on others, obviously younger than me. When I asked why there was so little work, it was explained, tiredly, that my age and look were not interesting enough, I am not in the forties/fifties band, which is what goes for 'successful ageing' modelling and am not decrepit enough to appear in ads as an old dear, maybe very eccentric, maybe cantankerous and full of infirmities. These are the tropes of advertising. Forget about fashion and beauty; how could someone in my age group even think of being stylish? In fact, it would seem the women in my age group have the unfathomable gift of turning classy accessories into skip material, if we are to go by the <a href="https://www.allcitycanvas.com/en/aime-leon-dore-and-new-balance-launch-sneakers/" target="_blank">Life in the Balance 2019 campaign</a>, where the model is styled to look like a bag lady, even though each item of her wardrobe is very expensive. </p><p>Some years ago, when I was not even sixty, I posed for an editorial. There had been some miscommunication with the agency, and when I got there for the shoot, the art director thought my grey/white hair was a big no-no, so I was made to wear a wig and given a dreadful baggy coat, which I knew was expensive but was at least two sizes bigger than what I would normally wear. The director thought that since he already had a male grey-haired model, if the female model also had grey hair, the vibe would have been wrong. I never used those images in my portfolio; they just did not fit. But in fairness, I have to say they did not send me home, and they paid me anyway (in those days, editorials were paid; now you are expected to do them for free, but that's another story). It was not good for my self-esteem but I decided it was just a photoshoot I could forget about.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-40IneDwSwsaHbzTuQfJ_DJbGRrO98CHi5OhOL_puRuI2KylDbCNP4JrHHcgv5v9bSp57mIr4h6j-eHGIEO41M6t1qk_9913dyf1ZTxZuZMDaXDSH-r5t0t69rrxd0fTin72ZSYKni7qDBh6Myewji_K34EchNJG3gKkH4-8oVUcftw7UzYaPslq/s1024/from_man_about_town_by_alexandrab24_da24swk-fullview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="818" data-original-width="1024" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-40IneDwSwsaHbzTuQfJ_DJbGRrO98CHi5OhOL_puRuI2KylDbCNP4JrHHcgv5v9bSp57mIr4h6j-eHGIEO41M6t1qk_9913dyf1ZTxZuZMDaXDSH-r5t0t69rrxd0fTin72ZSYKni7qDBh6Myewji_K34EchNJG3gKkH4-8oVUcftw7UzYaPslq/w640-h512/from_man_about_town_by_alexandrab24_da24swk-fullview.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span> </span><span> </span>From <i>Man about town </i><br /><p><br /></p><p>This is not a rant, though it may sound like it. We are going through a difficult moment, economically. SPA will be raised to 68, according to our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/11/uk-will-have-to-raise-retirement-age-after-election-minister-says" target="_blank">Secretary of State</a>, I am lucky I got there at age 66 - I worked for years and deserve to take some time off. Of course, the British will not riot like the French, who were most unhappy that their pension age was raised to 62 and "went about burning things". That was a misrepresentation of the British press, as my French daughter-in-law tells me. The French rioted because the decision had not been democratically reached. But yes, the French are known for vehemently protesting when ticked off. After all, we had a French Revolution, which was a massive event with a lot of guillotining, perhaps in excess, but we never had a British or English Revolution on that scale and closer to our times, we had the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/may/02/protests-in-paris-may-1968-photographs-then-and-now" target="_blank">Paris May 1968</a>...there is much we can learn from our French neighbours, who do not suffer fools gladly.</p><p>Whatever the age set for SPA, we need to start rethinking our attitudes to age, especially if people are expected to go on working until they are 68 or (not unlikely) 70. If you are good enough to be productive till that age, then you deserve respect, not condescension. Scrap that. You deserve respect at all ages. But you cannot treat the older population as a nuisance and expect them to work their asses off. That is ageism. </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-49154710404164852582022-11-29T20:44:00.007+00:002022-11-29T20:46:23.793+00:00The Balenciaga debacle<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRww_fK_andfxroAK_xryLgo9HH3tnV_O7pun_V7Hon1262QYq6xdq1SrCdm-qAh9Tb08Pa69YnGL4ui15crPjenN_CHYHUqp_9Z8WFAbrD97asJR1J3npFdd-WDtL_PhBilKVNxms3TN5YJ8unkxV9N-RaZDc0Sqoa-szUkV7dDbBQ3fhOfOR5Ke/s890/Screenshot%202022-11-29%20at%2012.34.35.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="890" data-original-width="772" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRww_fK_andfxroAK_xryLgo9HH3tnV_O7pun_V7Hon1262QYq6xdq1SrCdm-qAh9Tb08Pa69YnGL4ui15crPjenN_CHYHUqp_9Z8WFAbrD97asJR1J3npFdd-WDtL_PhBilKVNxms3TN5YJ8unkxV9N-RaZDc0Sqoa-szUkV7dDbBQ3fhOfOR5Ke/w556-h640/Screenshot%202022-11-29%20at%2012.34.35.png" width="556" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>One of the handbags in the form of a teddy bear in bondage gear</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> from Balenciaga’s summer 2023 collection Photograph: Balenciaga.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Reposted from The Guardian 29/11/22</i></div><p>Over the past few days I have been quite perturbed by the Balenciaga debacle which I followed in disbelief, so much so that I feel the need to write a post about it.</p><p>Balenciaga's new festive campaign involved children photographed with teddy bear bags, where the teddies were dressed in BDSM gear and had 'panda eyes' - look it up if you do not know what that is, but it is part of pedo slang. This campaign was shot by Gabriele Galimberti referencing his well known 'Toy Stories' series which won him an award. Concomitantly, Balenciaga released other images for another campaign, not photographed by Galimberti, in collaboration with ADIDAS, with Isabelle Huppert and Bella Hadid with the same teddy bear bag but this time among the props there were papers relating a Supreme Court ruling on child pornography. Bizarre, to say the least, and profoundly disturbing.</p><p>There was an immediate backlash. Galimberti was quick to exonerate himself saying the concept was not his - he simply clicked a button. As if he had no understanding of what went on! Balenciaga issued an apology and removed the images from circulation - but the bag can still be bought - and then sued the production company for $25 million. The parents of the children who modelled said they had been treated well on set - and, between you and me, paid equally well to appear in the global campaign, an offer that the parents could not refuse! Everyone acts as if everything was wholly unintentional. Let's face it, no one imagined that there would be such a reaction, they all thought it was very edgy and avantgarde, Demna (artistic director of Balenciaga) is such a genius!</p><p>Celebrities associated with Balenciaga are now quickly 're-evaluating' their relationship with the brand eg Kim Kadarshian. We can predict that in a few weeks time the 're-evaluation' will translate into them appearing with other Balenciaga gear, this time Balenciaga will be fully forgiven for the earlier 'oversight' and reinstated as a fashion giant. Balenciaga is owned by Kering by the way who also own Gucci - the recent departure from Gucci by Alessandro Michele spells some trouble of sort.</p><p>I think the whole story reveals how out of touch with reality the fashion industry is and how all pervasive is the idea that advertising is high art - at the service of consumption, however.</p><p>All the actions taken by Balenciaga to get out of this tangle - they thought they were creating an edgy campaign, why they are 'commenting' on social issues - sound rather like blame-shifting. They should stop selling those bags which were, in their imagination, good enough for children! Imagine your child saying 'Mummy I want the bag with the panda eyed bear '. If you can afford to buy it, that is. </p><p>But the law suit, the apology, do not cut any ice. The celebrities taking their time to speak up, the photographer saying he was only obeying orders - really? Please.</p><p>Then of course there is the political right using this episode for its own agenda and accusing everyone of perversion. </p><p>I cannot help feeling really uncomfortable with the whole thing. A line should be drawn when it comes to children, who do not have a say. There is always the issue of power imbalance and exploitation by adults. This is a case in point.</p><p>When my grandaughter was little I wanted to put her forward for a casting for a commercial where we would be grandmother and granddaughter - we had already appeared in a Mother's Day photoshoot, and I remember that my daughter in law was not super happy about it. The commercial I was being considered for was nothing to do with such extreme themes for which Balenciaga is now known - earlier Balenciaga showed models as refugees, in a fashion show, which in my view was a mockery, even though it was greeted as 'capturing a world in crisis'. </p><p>I asked at the time my son and daughter-in-law for permission to appear in the commercial with my granddaughter. They politely refused, saying that even though they knew she would be well looked after, as a toddler she was too little to understand what she was meant to do on set and it might be traumatic for her. In the UK the copyright of images is with the photographer and the commissioning client. Models have no say on what images of themselves are put out there. This is not the case in other countries, by the way.</p><p>These days parents often post images of their children online but in fact this might upset the children, who later when they are able to make their views heard can take the parents to court, as it has been reported some have done. There was also a ruling in Rome in 2018 where a woman faced a fine of € 10,000 if she posted images of her son on social media without his consent, as reported by the <i><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/facebook-fines-woman-son-photos-post-social-media-court-italy-rome-a8155361.html" target="_blank">Independent</a></i>. </p><p>In the case of the children in the Balenciaga campaign, I think it is totally irresponsible of their parents to say that they were treated well, so we should not condemn anyone. Sure the children - the parents for them - were paid handsomely but when they grow a bit older they may not like having their likeness associated with this disturbing campaign. Images on the internet are there forever and can resurface. The children are the ones who should sue Balenciaga, not Balenciaga suing the production company.</p><p>The fashion industry is quite broken. As the wonderful Marina Hyde so perceptively comments in her opinion piece in today's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/29/kardashian-teddy-bears-bondage-gear-balenciaga" target="_blank">Guardian</a> :</p>'Once again, we find ourselves in the position of wondering how people in fashion are the only ones yet to see <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2007/may/02/zoolanderisthefinestfilma">Zoolander</a>...".<div><br /></div><div>Indeed.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-14511536615111813122022-11-16T01:13:00.007+00:002022-11-16T01:13:53.484+00:00Visiting Northern California #1<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUV_ulHpnxjvptwrUEDle3KLx71PxIufXakDhXqw0AIU3fbH1RsartxhMOPW1dKPdWN8gZEOm7t6uBe38SFWkKRBR8UWyVGGTlLwfCgmcLH8YIFYVBN6taaxM-N5NyjhvSWLw_sQL-2krMbHhDqAuD1X1Cx14nm5HHYxMxX59c26K-cuuKEidn3kRQ/s1800/5AFE2F89-E481-43BD-A8C3-BDBA3DFF893B.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUV_ulHpnxjvptwrUEDle3KLx71PxIufXakDhXqw0AIU3fbH1RsartxhMOPW1dKPdWN8gZEOm7t6uBe38SFWkKRBR8UWyVGGTlLwfCgmcLH8YIFYVBN6taaxM-N5NyjhvSWLw_sQL-2krMbHhDqAuD1X1Cx14nm5HHYxMxX59c26K-cuuKEidn3kRQ/w512-h640/5AFE2F89-E481-43BD-A8C3-BDBA3DFF893B.jpeg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">The Golden Gate</p><p><br /></p><p>I never imagined I would return to this part of the world, the last time I was here was in 2004. But life is unpredictable so here I am, hosted by Stanford University, on campus. I am staying until 6th December, back home in London on 7th.</p><p>I arrived at an odd time, with lots of delays, cancellations and changes of personnel. Also many people are going away because of Thanksgiving next week, so I have very little to do, apart from sightseeing and doing TF shoots, which I began arranging out of boredom, reactivating my MM profile. My talk on my recent research on fashion, sustainability, migration and the solidarity economy will happen after Thanksgiving, when my host returns from his ten-day visit to Europe. It's a good thing; I have plenty of time to prepare it.</p><p>California is an interesting place, it goes without saying. I am in Silicon Valley, which has one of the highest concentration of wealth in the entire country. So far I have explored San Francisco and Palo Alto. I have arranged to do some photoshoots with local photographers and am looking forward to the one tomorrow when we will be doing street photography in San Francisco - can't have enough of this gorgeous city.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzQXcj3H-1XjFTao3YVmUJuPAO2miqPtqi-QubNOJi-9Syq2vY7ly2opSuB-aGEgqz63Ix1F67gikgFgbxfhlbwnPV4osmRCis_lLcjQQb72dPJa-PbrZiqMaAOAXsDbFzLxOyKo4tVVK_jpl6TbSscU0eSIMdw8xi9XLMojzOH8znzlDRzGcx8pUd/s1800/C6B4E9AD-729F-4CC3-A66E-08193185451A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzQXcj3H-1XjFTao3YVmUJuPAO2miqPtqi-QubNOJi-9Syq2vY7ly2opSuB-aGEgqz63Ix1F67gikgFgbxfhlbwnPV4osmRCis_lLcjQQb72dPJa-PbrZiqMaAOAXsDbFzLxOyKo4tVVK_jpl6TbSscU0eSIMdw8xi9XLMojzOH8znzlDRzGcx8pUd/w512-h640/C6B4E9AD-729F-4CC3-A66E-08193185451A.jpeg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">The Temple of Fine Arts, SF</p><p>On my first day in SF - I took the Caltrain from Palo Alto it rained and it was windy - Northern California is not all that warm and San Francisco is notoriously colder than Palo Alto. In Palo Alto and on Stanford Campus it is very warm during the day, but then at night, it is quite chilly.</p><p>I do not drive but this is not such a major drawback, as I feared. Public transportation works well and the Caltrain connects all the Bay cities. Indeed driving in San Francisco is folly. My local friends, all with cars, never drive to San Francisco preferring to hop on the Caltrain. It took me a while to familiarise myself with the system of Clipper cards but I think I got the hang of it. You cannot live without the phone here. I would not know where to go if it were not for Google Maps. I even get alerts as to when the next bus is coming. And all payments are done through the phone. </p><p>Four weeks is a long time to be in one place. I occasionally miss London, especially when I am on campus. It is very quiet here and I am used to the buzz of the city. </p><p>I have taken to visiting thrift shops, just to compare notes with the ones in London, where they are known as charity shops. I am not going to do any shopping yet. Everything is pricey here in California and even thrift shops are not all that cheap. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUZVn46_K8yZlM3JRZANCgbCrhJ_yb5L4GlaAM50lzXA4w8crrzztaqF8icbq1O83VL6aYvGBlZRjq0d5ZGjONePfwW2jq7DU_t2eWvzx3pwVpJ6UbJtyeUGdKU38RVH8esWw8WcaAfxytDbahEYQaOSwVICzwWKb2dFBNz0sNa_V6YREvkkZYD64/s4032/IMG_4179.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUZVn46_K8yZlM3JRZANCgbCrhJ_yb5L4GlaAM50lzXA4w8crrzztaqF8icbq1O83VL6aYvGBlZRjq0d5ZGjONePfwW2jq7DU_t2eWvzx3pwVpJ6UbJtyeUGdKU38RVH8esWw8WcaAfxytDbahEYQaOSwVICzwWKb2dFBNz0sNa_V6YREvkkZYD64/w480-h640/IMG_4179.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Many people now buy online, it is a post-Covid development. Downtown Palo Alto has lots of restaurants and very few shops, mostly furniture, jewellery and rugs. There is of course a mall, rather small in fact, and open air. I do not like malls, they look exactly the same everywhere, I mean they have the same shops - the Stanford Shopping Center is a much smaller version of Westfield, basically. But some malls in the Bay are huge and spectacular. You can do a lot of people-watching in them. </p><p>I am going to revive this blog while I am here, recording my impressions. The thrift and vintage shops are a research interest of mine, so I will pursue that. </p><p><i>A la prochaine.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-4905859355732977722022-09-25T18:51:00.005+01:002022-09-25T18:55:08.633+01:00For Mahsa Amini<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8GmsYZkz2a9wUD0Z9lxuCpEh6OuB9Te5wLXJsq_pAQG-912W6cwXgNJzLWzrcB3pWcOEAfoAFpvhmgvIrOSeAnq6I9GXJD30C-pGOOVUmE6n7-1VKJq47BJkZsgsfjUXFqqq2AN2ik66IerN6HHpDbA3IMdS8Mul0JF92mq1N8ELzybL8B5OaLsA/s1814/Screenshot%202022-09-25%20at%2018.48.10.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1058" data-original-width="1814" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8GmsYZkz2a9wUD0Z9lxuCpEh6OuB9Te5wLXJsq_pAQG-912W6cwXgNJzLWzrcB3pWcOEAfoAFpvhmgvIrOSeAnq6I9GXJD30C-pGOOVUmE6n7-1VKJq47BJkZsgsfjUXFqqq2AN2ik66IerN6HHpDbA3IMdS8Mul0JF92mq1N8ELzybL8B5OaLsA/w640-h374/Screenshot%202022-09-25%20at%2018.48.10.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/25/observer-view-backlash-iran-death-mahsa-amini" target="_blank">Mahsa Amini</a>, 22 , died in police custody in Iran, on 16th September, beaten up for wearing her <i>hijab</i> loosely. Protests in Iran are mounting and many women have taken to the street to demonstrate, cutting their hair as an act of defiance.</p><p>I visited Iran in 2019. It's a beautiful country and Iranian women are indeed very brave. When I returned, I wrote a piece for the online magazine <i>Vestoj, </i>"Drop it low" based on my observations of how Iranian women relate to the compulsory <i>hijab. </i>You will find it if you navigate to the <i>Vestoj</i> site by clicking this <a href="http://vestoj.com/drop-it-low/" target="_blank">link</a> . I support the fight of Iranian women.</p><p> Wearing a <i>hijab</i> should be a choice, not a compulsion. I too had to wear one while visiting Iran, even though I am not Muslim, it was the only way I could walk around, it was a requirement upon entering the country.</p><p>"Most Iranians reject the mandatory nature of religious regulations, saying hijab-wearing is a woman’s choice. An independent <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf">survey</a> in 2020 found that 72% opposed compulsory hijab. Following Amini’s death, civil society organisations and celebrities have called for reform. Some religious leaders admit the law discredits Islam" (<i>The Observer</i>).</p><p>I dedicate my post to the very brave Mahsa Amini.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-47343383792527780082022-09-19T12:02:00.003+01:002022-09-19T17:26:38.299+01:00What I learnt from watching 489 episodes of the series 'Seis Hermanas'<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgXqdUVA8ZHPAVfrqD-taCWyQN1BMmUEToqqNpG_oBPijztZ1eiK_upkG0Zv8GLIcnE-5VAd6GxqskMHIS0JldeUwg88YoXpmR6vtT1h4h807DuvTbWCf1jWOvkmMiJKa_iu33tJGl0F5DrRC260d29lzu4kF6bbwoYYa_LbUiNzMmQDVMWgATAWm/s1336/Screenshot%202022-09-19%20at%2011.55.04.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="1336" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgXqdUVA8ZHPAVfrqD-taCWyQN1BMmUEToqqNpG_oBPijztZ1eiK_upkG0Zv8GLIcnE-5VAd6GxqskMHIS0JldeUwg88YoXpmR6vtT1h4h807DuvTbWCf1jWOvkmMiJKa_iu33tJGl0F5DrRC260d29lzu4kF6bbwoYYa_LbUiNzMmQDVMWgATAWm/w640-h436/Screenshot%202022-09-19%20at%2011.55.04.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Diana and Salvador<p></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Seis Hermanas </i>or <i>Six Sisters</i> is an RTVE series which ran from 2015 to 2017, made up of 489 episodes or chapters, of about 50-55 minutes duration. They are in fact 490 if one includes chapter 0, the prologue. It is about six sisters belonging to the upper class and living in Madrid, in the years before and during the First World War. They are beautiful, elegant, sophisticated, refined, friendly, and well-educated. A terrible event shakes their lives and changes them forever. The Silvas will have to face different problems and defy social conventions, at a time when women totally depended on men. The series also portrays the relationship between the upper and working classes.</p><p>I began watching the series out of curiosity, having stumbled on it while I was in Italy, where it's currently showing in a (badly) dubbed version, every day except weekends. I could not wait for the next episode so I looked for the original Spanish, with no subtitles, and after watching a few more <i>capitulos</i> I was hooked. I spent the whole summer with it, every time I had to wait for something, out came my phone and AirPods, I connected to a VPN to have a Spanish IP and immersed myself in the Madrid of the early twentieth century, in the home of the six Silva sisters.</p><p>I am not usually too keen on long TV series. <i>Poldark, Downton Abbey, Outlander </i>not to mention the regular soaps such as <i>East Enders </i>have more or less passed me by, I lost interest in them after a while. Yet this series totally absorbed me, perhaps because I too come from a large family, with lots of <i>medio hermanas </i>(half-sisters) and a history of fights and "betrayals" in connection with inheritance. But, of course, the similarities end there. The six sisters' adventures encompass betrayals, murders, infidelity, espionage, lottery wins, cancer, venereal diseases, more betrayals, more murders, mental illness... My own and my family's realities are much less exciting; also as sisters, we never achieved the unity exemplified by the <i>seis.</i></p><p>Watching 489 episodes over a period of three months - I began in June and ended last weekend - has been an interesting experience. I have learnt a lot about a number of things.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5UwpTiRZbZz9TVHv-vVJDa87k5SKKdUy_JzzUAMXTC_6R2Vc6ApC7ZEjeK3u0O6UGWcswc-o7_lCPXGwK6691JXaBaj9sZL-so5cGKprmXDZal3-LSH49UlfgCKuWtc5im5cFRZUhmxHMxTV0Bnluwtj1tnThjNgPMaaVzCnPudv0lLbJQTR-1h1W/s1316/Screenshot%202022-09-19%20at%2011.55.40.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1316" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5UwpTiRZbZz9TVHv-vVJDa87k5SKKdUy_JzzUAMXTC_6R2Vc6ApC7ZEjeK3u0O6UGWcswc-o7_lCPXGwK6691JXaBaj9sZL-so5cGKprmXDZal3-LSH49UlfgCKuWtc5im5cFRZUhmxHMxTV0Bnluwtj1tnThjNgPMaaVzCnPudv0lLbJQTR-1h1W/w640-h486/Screenshot%202022-09-19%20at%2011.55.40.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Francisca and Luis</p><p>First and foremost (and this alone was worth it) my Spanish has improved by leaps and bounds to the point I often find myself using Spanish expressions, whilst thinking aloud. <i>Vaya, Madre mia, estamos, tengo prisa, no se falta </i>are now part of my everyday vocabulary. It seems that watching TV programmes in the original language helps with language acquisition. Many people around the world learn/improve their English by watching English language movies in the original - this is why I deeply dislike dubbing, it makes you totally mono-lingual!</p><p><i>Seis Hermanas </i> has also given me an insight into how to build up tension in a narrative. I noticed how the characters began to become more nuanced and real as the narrative unfolded. I also appreciated the feminist underpinnings. The makers of the series have said that it was their intention to focus on issues concerning the discrimination of women in the society of the time. Women's rights, that is, working, running businesses, voting, and their sexual behaviour are all scrutinised and presented as major themes. The treatment of homosexuality is done with an emphasis on acceptance of diversity, although it is surrounded by pessimistic views. One of the sisters is lesbian; you can imagine how abhorrent that might have seemed back then and indeed the horror of her time at a hospital, receiving electroshock therapy is well represented. Yet she comes out a winner, even though she loses the love of her life, Aurora, to cholera. Her second girlfriend, Cata, is too terrified of being found out, and she opts for marriage to a man she does not love. Celia, however, continues to be herself and eventually achieves success as a writer.</p><p>Male homosexuality is also well represented through the character of police inspector Vasco, who has to go through a sham marriage in order to distance himself from damaging rumours concerning his sexuality but eventually finds love with a poet.</p><p>You really have to ask yourself why period drama can be so appealing. The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there, as LP Hartley said. Octavio Paz asked us that we should understand the past, not judge it. A well-made, well-conceived period drama allows us to do so. Add to it the aesthetic pleasure of beautiful, well-tailored costumes, add intrigue to the plot and there you have it, it's a recipe for success. It is escapism and yet it is also an attempt to come to terms with our own prejudices by projecting them onto a different canvas, that of the past. Love, betrayal, redemption, innocence, justice, sacrifice and transformation are also universal themes; they are ultimately what binds us to view such series. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hGfrRr3ISTw" width="320" youtube-src-id="hGfrRr3ISTw"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">The best moments of the series</p><p>Over the past three months I lived with the <i>hermanas, </i>suffered with them, smiled and laughed when things turned out well, cried with them; at times I wanted to slap unpleasant characters - for example, I never liked Ursula, as a character she had tremendous faults and Luis tested my patience several times. I also enjoyed the way the series was structured, with comic elements side by side more tragic ones and appreciated the self-mocking humour of the scriptwriters. Celia becomes the author of a <i>feuilleton</i>; the series itself could be likened to a <i>feuilleton </i>of sorts, even though it aspires to be more.</p><p>I am now looking for a new long series to watch. Who knows, I might try <i>Outlander </i>once more.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-67292265726324209112022-06-19T16:45:00.003+01:002022-06-19T16:51:07.652+01:00Silente<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgYXuIfou0wk2MVBPWqzjJPqauhjB9cFvJGvUECBYElUb0V2GO6Td_qvURK3K54PmnHYJxcADRld11eo2K3m6MWnpbpUPTpc03wY0nV4m0LVMAP8i-IHkvZplQd_ek25nrssXswuUpHFxPB3EbuN6KwJWpq0Bxg-XhesgJ27hNA0t_F_C6IcveeD0R/s1142/Screenshot%202022-06-19%20at%2014.43.19.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1142" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgYXuIfou0wk2MVBPWqzjJPqauhjB9cFvJGvUECBYElUb0V2GO6Td_qvURK3K54PmnHYJxcADRld11eo2K3m6MWnpbpUPTpc03wY0nV4m0LVMAP8i-IHkvZplQd_ek25nrssXswuUpHFxPB3EbuN6KwJWpq0Bxg-XhesgJ27hNA0t_F_C6IcveeD0R/w640-h390/Screenshot%202022-06-19%20at%2014.43.19.png" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>I do not write a sponsored blog. If I discuss a brand or a product it is because I personally like it and I am happy to introduce it to my readers, who continue to follow me, even though social media has eclipsed blogging. There is only so much you can post on social media and wordy posts are promptly skipped.</p><p>Anyway, allow me to introduce <b>Silente</b>, an ethical clothing brand from Lecce, Italy. I came across <b>Silente</b> when I visited Lecce in 2020. I saw the boutique in via Palmieri, in the historic centre, and went in. The two sisters founders of the brand were there and we began chatting. I loved their clothes and their commitment to ethical fashion strongly resonated. I am disinclined to wear cheap, fast fashion, knowing that it is not ethical.</p><p>When I met the Iaconisi sisters, I had just begun my research on circular economy, social enterprises and ateliers with a social agenda - you can read all about it in my forthcoming book for Bloomsbury, though it will be a few months till it is out. </p><p>Meeting Paola and Francesca was like finding two long-lost friends, even though we had never seen each other till that moment. There is so much we share in terms of values. Their clothes definitely speak to me, the way they are conceived, with respect and care for the female body as a form-in-movement, and the way they are cut and sewn, also with due regard for fabrics and materials and great attention to detail. The sisters' grasp of the global fashion discourse, awareness of the wealth of interventions to which they are able to respond intelligently and critically, their commitment to enhancing local artisanal traditions, marrying them to a 21st-century sensibility and their pledge to valorise the hand-made, makes them stand out. Their clothes are for the thinking women of today, women who love dressing but want to do so ethically and in the knowledge that their clothes can be altered to last - work in progress, matching the trajectories of our bodies, from adolescence to older age. </p><p>I am translating here from the Italian what Francesca said about the brand a few years ago, at a time when slow fashion was not known as a term: </p><p>'The dress silently whispers who you are. Making clothes lovingly means choosing to work on a small scale, following every phase of the creative process, from conception to packaging, from research to communication. <b>Silente </b> inhabits a feminine, fairytale-like, romantic universe. Fabrics and details of decorative features lead you to an imaginary realm in which volumes and colours, always soft and enveloping, draw silhouettes of unconventional and timeless femininity".</p><p>Far from solely engaging in traditional production patterns, which have nevertheless inspired her creativity, Francesca, aided by her sister, conceives her collections as the spaces of a large house: small worlds to explore. Each collection spreads over time, always remaining open to subsequent experimentation. In this small creative sartorial reality, the <b>Silente </b>woman finds beauty, authenticity and uniqueness.</p><p>Without fanfare, but focussing on the doing, the <b>Silente </b>duo have engaged in educational and socially relevant activities and are always open to possibilities. Collaboration is key. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgprjcuPMlGGIGxZneyw6VwG9Bt9_2-a_2DeqP09HTO7L0Cq6cMMU7o5Pw05rEbPvsKKIaQN5SkNXsppfqv7_-_VwJMo2cughJ3aMa-EvEifpovdjp-LI0UxEW4Q8s60guroMOkIXtugFpsX1PxsPHem4jb8TXKIV0-UXc779_wBJEvI7AS5EhHH0ry/s2054/Screenshot%202022-06-19%20at%2016.41.36.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="2054" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgprjcuPMlGGIGxZneyw6VwG9Bt9_2-a_2DeqP09HTO7L0Cq6cMMU7o5Pw05rEbPvsKKIaQN5SkNXsppfqv7_-_VwJMo2cughJ3aMa-EvEifpovdjp-LI0UxEW4Q8s60guroMOkIXtugFpsX1PxsPHem4jb8TXKIV0-UXc779_wBJEvI7AS5EhHH0ry/w640-h298/Screenshot%202022-06-19%20at%2016.41.36.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>The new collection <b>Mediterranea</b> is out now. </p><p><br /></p><p>Visit the <b><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.silentedesign.it/contatti/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Silente</span></a> </span></b>website and <b><a href="https://www.instagram.com/silentedesign/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Instagram</span></a> </b>page here. Or if you happen to be visiting Lecce, do drop by in Via Palmieri 30.</p><p><br /></p><p>Images copyright of <b>Silente</b></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-34357092002437291872022-03-27T12:16:00.000+01:002022-03-27T12:16:01.391+01:00If her name had been Natalie...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzP76Qu-owCQNQZLSVfpyqewfXxpC_JRmBtU9Ef3Tiac6wfJng1p-R5vno5UusCxLkQDefbXn-pNNUh60szkqmaM_QSRVvQ-cwesmEbJsxvPL3GqCWYkVHuvv6oxg1w1-kfKH3OyQKfBJkM0fTqshbvDYk2nnbQNHA3ETz3xvLpM_mL_Qc9Fx9O05w/s4032/IMG_4624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzP76Qu-owCQNQZLSVfpyqewfXxpC_JRmBtU9Ef3Tiac6wfJng1p-R5vno5UusCxLkQDefbXn-pNNUh60szkqmaM_QSRVvQ-cwesmEbJsxvPL3GqCWYkVHuvv6oxg1w1-kfKH3OyQKfBJkM0fTqshbvDYk2nnbQNHA3ETz3xvLpM_mL_Qc9Fx9O05w/w640-h480/IMG_4624.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Tehran , on way to the airport (photo mine, taken in 2019)</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote></blockquote><p>Nazanin Zaghari -Ratcliffe was finally released last week, after six long years in an Iranian jail for crimes she never committed. She had been held hostage by the Iran government together with a sizable number of other dual nationals such as Anoosheh Ashoori, because of an outstanding debt of £400 million, dating to the 1970s, which the UK had never paid back. When the debt was finally settled a few weeks ago, Nazanin was allowed to return home to her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella. Anoosheh also returned to the UK, but several more prisoners have not yet been released.</p><p>Soon after her return, at a press conference, Nazanin rightly questioned why it took so long for the UK government to pay its debt and why she was kept languishing in jail for six long years. There was an immediate outcry and the despicable hashtags #sendherback and #ungratefulcow began trending on Twitter.</p><p>I am appalled. As someone else pointed out, if her name had been Natalie these hashtags would have never been seen. Nazanin is a naturalised British national. The money paid was not something that had been raised through donations to free her, it was a debt that Britain never settled until it was forced to. To question the right Nazanin had to be released and return home to her husband and daughter is tantamount to saying that non-Caucasian dual nationals are less British than white British nationals. </p><p>Nazanin was held in solitary confinement, she was in poor health. Her husband Richard put up a tremendous fight for her, to have her released, campaigning relentlessly. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vW51AUQ-nE0" width="320" youtube-src-id="vW51AUQ-nE0"></iframe></div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">"I should have been freed six years ago" BBC News</p></blockquote><p></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">(the comments under the video are absolutely disgusting) </p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>It took several Foreign Secretaries to finally decide to pay off the debt and obtain her release. It should not have been so.</p><p>These disgusting hashtags, especially the #ungratefulcow (not grateful for what? This woman was held captive, she was not accommodated in a luxury hotel but in a filthy prison) goes to show how Brexit has unleashed hate, division, xenophobia and racism in our society, thanks to Johnson, Patel and Farage. In the case of Nazanin, there is also a great deal of misogyny. </p><p>It might well be that the debt was repaid because now that Russia will no longer supply oil, our government has thought it would be wise to have a better relationship with Iran, which is rich in oil. So one could speculate that Nazanin's release was a wholly political move. It makes it even less necessary for her to be grateful, knowing she was left rotting in jail until it was deemed to be politically opportune to free her. </p><p>Today in the UK we celebrate Mother's Day. I wish Nazanin a very sweet one, now that she is with her beloved daughter Gabriella and with her husband.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-80307389245933258502022-02-15T17:43:00.007+00:002022-02-16T10:55:19.209+00:00Valentine's Day Post: in love with Anna<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpWSfrKnkKW9phuXvux7KIsHBp-8KBhmhZVpBI205odnhpFD5MnxUaVtSH88_G2o4_P_1OPsJAzKEzg4yaQCxQU-6XPns5emE3kNIVSGAKsjrABeEMjMjWuIXrwww4P4ELXo4fMlACe0c9TYg4dIjmWmMe_cDZtl8o9wTr6FvsXGoWvAB2tjzYB2PK=s3980" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3980" data-original-width="2451" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpWSfrKnkKW9phuXvux7KIsHBp-8KBhmhZVpBI205odnhpFD5MnxUaVtSH88_G2o4_P_1OPsJAzKEzg4yaQCxQU-6XPns5emE3kNIVSGAKsjrABeEMjMjWuIXrwww4P4ELXo4fMlACe0c9TYg4dIjmWmMe_cDZtl8o9wTr6FvsXGoWvAB2tjzYB2PK=w394-h640" width="394" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p>I am writing this on 15th February, though I started the post last night, the 14th. The Anna I am in love with is <i>Anna Karenina</i>, the wonderful novel by Lev Tolstoy. It is fitting to write about <i>Anna Karenina </i>on Valentine's Day, when we are meant to celebrate love, because love is a central theme of the book. Anna's love for Vronsky is not quite of the romantic kind; it is a love that is a curse and renders us powerless and deeply unhappy, a love that is akin to damnation. It is a dark kind of love. It is contrasted by the 'family' love of Levin and Kitty and Levin's desire to come to terms with the meaning of life.</p><p>I have several translations of <i>Anna Karenina</i>, I am not able to read it in the original Russian. I have the Maude, which is laborious, the Garnett which sounds very much like Constance Garnett and not so much like Tolstoy; even without knowing Russian you can tell, Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky and Chekhov sound quite similar to her translations of Tolstoy. And then I have the Bartlett, which is the very best of them all, and which at the moment I cannot find among my books, though I definitely own a copy. I will end up buying a new one, as I often do when I cannot find a book in my home library, that's why I have duplicates...</p><p>But let's not get involved in a discussion of which translation is better, it is all rather relative. My first encounter with <i>Anna Karenina</i> was in its Italian translation by Ginzburg, if I am not mistaken. I read it while lying in bed unable to move following a fall that nearly, but not quite, broke my back. I was 17 and in a hospital, all I could do was read books. </p><p>I was captivated by Anna and her passion and identified with her. I fell in love with Vronsky and longed to meet a man like him, to experience the passion Anna felt . How I disliked her stuffy husband Karenin, so self-righteous. Anna's suicide seemed the right way to end her predicament - I wept as I read about her final moments. But as a teenager, I was unable to appreciate fully the beauty and depth of Tolstoy's novel, the lyricism of his descriptions of nature, thus I skipped chapters. I did however read, avidly, the chapter in which Vronsky races and breaks the horse's back and then kills the beautiful animal, as it is customary to do with badly wounded horses. There was a resonance. I too was wounded and in pain.</p><p>I read again <i>Anna Karenina</i> in my late twenties, this time in English and I think it was the Maude translation. I was travelling in India at the time; on long train journeys, <i>Anna Karenina </i>kept me company. I realised that the Maude translation was clumsy but the novel remained outstanding. This time I fell in love with Levin, also a passionate man, with a deeply philosophical bent. </p><p>Fast forward a few years. My son was studying Russian for his A levels and I borrowed his copy of <i>Anna Karenina, </i>I think it was the Peaver-Volokhonsky translation. This time I paid greater attention to the secondary characters and really loved the episode of Varenka and Sergey Ivanovitch Kozhnishev and the marriage proposal that never materialised because he is unable to express his feelings, filtered by his intellect: "But instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that occurred to him made him ask: "What is the difference between the 'birch ' mushroom and the 'white ' mushroom'? Varenka's lips quivered with emotion as she answered: "in the top part there is scarcely any difference, it's in the stalk" And as soon as these words were uttered both he and she felt that it was over, that what would have been said would not be said" (Garnett translation).</p><p></p><p>During the first lockdown in 2020 I started watching film renditions of <i>Anna Karenina </i>and really enjoyed its modern-day adaptation <i>The Beautiful Lie </i>(2015) set in Australia, with Anna and Karenin (now called Xander), both tennis stars, and Vronsky, here called Skeet, a musician. You'd think that Anna is too 19th century to be convincingly contemporary, but no, it works. In the Australian series her affair with Skeet ends up in the tabloids and the reaction to it is similar to that of 19th century Russian high society, to which Tolstoy's Anna belonged. She continues to be tragically relevant. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5kiMyfV6yUg" width="320" youtube-src-id="5kiMyfV6yUg"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>My favourite moment in the book is the stream-of-consciousness monologue by Anna on that fateful afternoon when she throws herself under the train. The train is an important motif in the novel, as we see it at the beginning, when Anna and Vronsky witness the tragic suicide of a stranger at Moscow station. </p><p style="text-align: left;">We are used to stream-of-consciousness, it is a very modern literary device. Tolstoy had recourse to it before it was even known as stream-of-consciousness and it was entirely novel in his days. Novelty aside, it is so wonderful to get into Anna's head, the thoughts that cross her mind without any particular order, as they rise and fall. And then her final moments:</p><p style="text-align: left;">"The candle, by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief, and evil, flared up with a brighter light, lit up for her all that had before been dark, cracked, began to flicker, and went out forever" (Maude translation)</p><p style="text-align: left;">Reading<i> Anna Karenina </i>has always been for me better than any anti-depressant. That's why I could totally relate to Maura Kelly's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/well/mind/what-anna-karenina-taught-me-about-living-with-depression.html" target="_blank">piece</a> "What Anna Karenina taught me about living with depression". As she says, "though Anna’s tunnel vision killed her, it helped me stand back from my own narrow view for a more expansive look at my life". I could not agree more.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-68685724599094576462022-01-18T15:21:00.010+00:002022-02-16T11:13:15.708+00:00'Senso': revenge is a dish best served cold<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgW7oZjWZMiJoWgSN0COfV-TnDb86uaX4ThdAdwvV0lIoSyPGU50rd424jRrQponPEHgrPUZtAgnUB-X6_y5GgN7dxSGoxA0a2frr2tAllllCml8ECGBMxD4t1bPkfj9X9HypDLG2D11JkNPLISVOZc4szyk5EUkngApGAjvwHrIrbeBAFTGwD66MRZ=s970" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="970" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgW7oZjWZMiJoWgSN0COfV-TnDb86uaX4ThdAdwvV0lIoSyPGU50rd424jRrQponPEHgrPUZtAgnUB-X6_y5GgN7dxSGoxA0a2frr2tAllllCml8ECGBMxD4t1bPkfj9X9HypDLG2D11JkNPLISVOZc4szyk5EUkngApGAjvwHrIrbeBAFTGwD66MRZ=w640-h418" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p> (I thought no one read this blog - someone whom I sent a link to a post of mine told me with a sneer that blogs are <i>passé </i>so he would not read it. Amen. But it turns out some people do still read my blog, so I feel encouraged to post. I am not talking to a wall, clearly).</p><p>When I was last in Morocco I stayed in a Riad in Rabat Medina. It was called Riad 'Senso'. </p><p>I blissfully had the Riad entirely to myself almost up to the end of my stay, until another guest had to be put up there, to my immense chagrin, as I really enjoyed being the only one there, and this unwelcome intrusion (it felt like that to me, initially; I then changed my mind) deprived me of the use of the best bathroom, not to mention the freedom to explore the Riad as I wished, in a state of semi undress - I was alone, so it did not matter what I wore. </p><p>The name of the Riad was 'Senso' which everyone pronounced with a stress on the final o, in a French fashion. Why 'Senso'? It sounded bizarre, very un-Moroccan.</p><p>I realised the connection with Luchino Visconti's masterful movie <i>Senso </i>when I explored the Riad on my first morning there, which happened to be a Sunday - oh the bliss of those Sundays when I could just go up to every room, try out any bed, go up to the terrace and enjoy views of Rabat with no one around me! - and saw a huge poster of Visconti's movie, hanging on a wall on the first floor, by the lounge. I recalled that the owner of the Riad had an Italian connection. Clearly, she was an admirer of Visconti's work. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="299" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nPUXybdZ0fQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="nPUXybdZ0fQ"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Senso 1954</p><p>I too love <i>Senso. </i>Visconti is a master, and everything in the movie is well thought out, with his usual penchant for detail. It is not as good as <i>The Leopard</i>, which remains, IMO, one of the best movies ever made, but Alida Valli is very good in the role of the Countess who falls in love with an Austrian officer, way younger than her, and betrays the Risorgimento revolutionaries, to whom she was linked - it is set at the time of the Third War of Independence - by giving their money to him so that he could bribe a doctor to be exempted from fighting. He then discards her and humiliates her and she exacts her revenge by denouncing him for desertion to the Austrian authorities, as the fool had written to her to explain what he had done with her money. As he is executed, she roams around Venice's <i>calle</i> calling out his name, presumably repenting for her actions. </p><p>The original novella which Visconti embellished upon, by Boito, is much more interesting. There is no Risorgimento<i> </i>cause, the countess is a thirty-nine year old Italian woman (old by 19th century standards) who falls in love with a young Austrian officer, who is very handsome but a coward, a man who lives off expedients. She gets him executed for desertion once she discovers his betrayal, but she does not roam around Venice calling out her dead lover's name. Instead, she returns home to her old, boring but very wealthy husband and resumes her life as a high-class society lady. She has exacted her revenge and in this case yes, it is a dish served cold, because the countess no longer feels love for the man, once he dares to insult her and mock her. She had kept his letter in which he foolishly described his bribe (with her husband's money) and decided to teach him a lesson.</p><p>I don't know why Visconti felt the need to change the original novella and create a character almost reminiscent of Anna Karenina.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRIhTea5pfbHlZul5TqiucdTyzgn_kcrC00uRIwY5RhzLvc39ZiOMdokvQ-xCx7RiA5ED8vm8o7SozZ40C4xHNne-NmY9cwVNIlTqtPWAJNjDGm659R1E3RdBYwBLIJrhuGBSEEvfoRImDikVCpPLMMPKfOuUiHyKZrGT-amKKAsXHegq2VGBgYwR2=s1424" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1424" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRIhTea5pfbHlZul5TqiucdTyzgn_kcrC00uRIwY5RhzLvc39ZiOMdokvQ-xCx7RiA5ED8vm8o7SozZ40C4xHNne-NmY9cwVNIlTqtPWAJNjDGm659R1E3RdBYwBLIJrhuGBSEEvfoRImDikVCpPLMMPKfOuUiHyKZrGT-amKKAsXHegq2VGBgYwR2=w640-h340" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Visconti's </td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;">The Leopard, 1963, Ballroom scene</div><p><br /></p><p>I think Boito did a much better job. His Countess speaks in the first person recounting her misadventure, many years later. Somehow, Boito's Countess is closer to me than Visconti's. I would not go as far as getting someone who betrayed me killed - I am no Lady Gucci - but the idea of cold revenge is most appealing. Getting someone killed is extreme and not advisable, for obvious reasons. The best course of action is to cut your losses and move on, karma does the job for you!</p><p>'Hell has no fury etc. '</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-56648474878805191432022-01-07T22:49:00.004+00:002022-01-08T10:34:23.936+00:00Inner and outer beauty: hammams<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjs5Y5Pg9nWk6uVRySKIYKglKcOkobj6rxBv2ZPyL2unVTDoGu5aEvyKIdGiDkjdkSI4w9EUFQtF1XNI4BYVW54m1EaFa2EVGDqx36Yo66HARIFY2zXPj_cORY4k-fNKbGuhdUekSb9f_HZqvcgi2L9pOodjRqiVcwJogfRiRLbPeLJv7taizXc-T3r=s1148" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="1148" height="578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjs5Y5Pg9nWk6uVRySKIYKglKcOkobj6rxBv2ZPyL2unVTDoGu5aEvyKIdGiDkjdkSI4w9EUFQtF1XNI4BYVW54m1EaFa2EVGDqx36Yo66HARIFY2zXPj_cORY4k-fNKbGuhdUekSb9f_HZqvcgi2L9pOodjRqiVcwJogfRiRLbPeLJv7taizXc-T3r=w640-h578" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Hammam Al Andalus in Granada, Andalusia</p><p><br /></p><p> I have been reading about beauty. A former student of mine, Guy Baum, has just published a novel entitled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59848770-the-beauty-pageant" target="_blank">The Beauty Pageant</a>, available through Amazon. He texted me about it and I felt I had to read it if only to acknowledge our former tutor/student bond. </p><p>I have enjoyed it, and I thought that his idea of a contest about inner rather than outer beauty was quite compelling. Unfortunately, the tie-up with a Beatles reunion concert, meant to be the prize, really did not do it for me. I must be one of the few people in this world who is highly weary of Beatles songs. But the beauty (no pun intended) of fiction is that authors can vent their imagination unrestrainedly.</p><p>The other book I read is ostensibly about looks and the performance of beauty in salons located in three different cities, Cairo, Casablanca and Paris. <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/three-faces-of-beauty" target="_blank">Three Faces of Beauty</a> is an ethnography by Susan Ossman, which I found by chance in a library. </p><p>In a very nuanced account she examines how fashion images, from a variety of media, are reproduced and enacted in beauty salons. "By observing salons as scenes of instructions, Ossman reveals that beautiful bodies evolve within the intertwining contexts of media, modernity, location, time, postcolonialism and male expectation". Though written two decades ago, Ossman's study still resonates. </p><p>What really interested me were the sections on the hammam in Paris, as well as in Casablanca (Casa) and Cairo. I am familiar with hammams in Rabat and in London, as well as in Turin and in Seville. The ones outside Morocco are not exactly 'traditional' hammams such as the ones you may still find in the Rabat Medina - but, be careful here, 'traditional' hammams too have evolved. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMIeVVDR_E7efF-ZtoWP9AQVLjwwvTF9mvK6f-zaZKhnFut5GyJYrv7FXh053U48sH1AvPh5f0ptdvFNExnYPiQ2y3H8o-yrwQJ9JNSUOk3xF-S4cV9kMvJTZeQx2ylZy2Wvo2AJBG8XyOQkXmWz3QnIXCXzdzq5CpVVxaslDo0n8wm7qJr9CbUi0F=s1180" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1180" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMIeVVDR_E7efF-ZtoWP9AQVLjwwvTF9mvK6f-zaZKhnFut5GyJYrv7FXh053U48sH1AvPh5f0ptdvFNExnYPiQ2y3H8o-yrwQJ9JNSUOk3xF-S4cV9kMvJTZeQx2ylZy2Wvo2AJBG8XyOQkXmWz3QnIXCXzdzq5CpVVxaslDo0n8wm7qJr9CbUi0F=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Casa Spa, London</div><p><br /></p><p>The one in London I like going to is called <a href="https://casaspa.co.uk/" target="_blank">Casa Spa</a>, and it offers a variety of packages. It is not a place you go to for bathing if you cannot do it at home (which more or less everyone can, over here), but then from what I saw in Rabat, many hammams there are structured like a Parisian or London hammam, also with packages. I remember the one I went to in Rabat last October, where the package included massage and the assistance of a washer, whom I tipped handsomely for her services throughout the whole session (the tip was expected). I provided my own shampoo and conditioner (I use special ones, my hair needs extra care). There were plastic buckets and I was given two for my exclusive use while in the hammam, my own Kessa glove, which I still have here in London and my own black soap, and oil. </p><p>At Casa Spa, you begin by waiting for at least 20 minutes in the hot room, then pretty much as in Rabat the washer (here called therapist) comes to get you and scrubs you, exfoliating your skin. You can add massage to this, as an extra. You finish by cooling down in the relaxation area, sipping mint tea. Going to the hammam is a ritual which, according to Ossman, was earlier linked to sharing news and companionship, whereas now, even in the Middle East, and certainly so in its displaced version in European cities, the hammam is linked with the therapeutic effects of cleansing and relaxation. </p><p>I am not Moroccan nor am I indeed from the Middle East. But ever since I encountered the 'steam baths' in Istanbul, aged 17, I have always sought them, wherever I was - mostly in London, as it happens. Initially, I only went there for deep cleansing. I never had problems about being naked among other women, but I always sought some privacy. In some hammams, you have to keep your knickers on, anyway. Men and women have separate sessions, though some European hammams have 'mixed' or 'couples' sessions on specific days.</p><p>(If you read accounts of European women travelling to the Middle East in the 19th century or even the early 20th century they all seem to be shocked by the nudity eg <a href="https://www.exploretravelandcruises.com/19th-century-women-travellers-in-egypt/" target="_blank">Sophia Poole</a>, who wrote about her travels in Egypt). </p><p> Then I increasingly began going to the hammam - Turkish baths in London, Stoke Newington, as used by the Turkish community, till I discovered Casa Spa - for deep internal cleansing, a symbolic clean to purge myself of my thoughts and bad habits. This is why I often go to the hammam at the start of a new year, or when I feel I need to renew myself. In Rabat last October I went there at the end of my stay to leave something behind, it was highly personal, I had encountered setbacks and wanted to remove them all from my psyche. I will be going to Casa Spa pretty soon, as the new year has started and I need to feel renewed. I am standing at a crossroads at the moment, I need to make decisions (but that's another story for another post)</p><p>In the hammam, I celebrate the encounter between my body and water, in ways I could not do in the home environment, where I do not have the space. I love splashing hot water all over me.</p><p>I have gone to the hammam with a female friend (in London) and with my sister (in Turin). In Seville, I was in a mixed session, which I actually found a bit awkward, though I had my own space. </p><p> For me the best experience is when I can be there alone, with my thoughts. When I was in the Rabat hammam, surrounded by mostly local women - I had chosen a hammam halfway between a 'traditional' (ie poorer) one where I had to go with my own buckets and soap, and a hammam attached to a Riad or a luxury hotel where you would be entirely cut off from anyone else. In the hammam I chose, the women there, were not socialising. I had gone on a weekday. Some women did not even ask for the services of a washer, they would scrub themselves. Some shaved their legs and armpits, which meant one had to navigate the space carefully and choose where to sit. There was little chattering, except perhaps in the dressing room, when we all came out of the last wash. </p><p>There is a whole literature on the hammam, to which Ossman refers, but it really seems to be discussing a hammam of the past. I am not even sure one should be thinking of the hammam as a quintessentially Arab tradition. The Romans had baths and they were preserved by the Arabs, when they fell into disuse in Western Europe, since the idea of preening the body contrasted with Christian religious views of the body as a source of sin. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBiA1na922RhdagDJwzS-PRMEoF1vBqBHEH4ouVTLblUNP6nBuN-OnVRG9T5M95hK5t0v7Rg9DF57WuS0oBkjxuPiBnWcg00v_ic5QQP73LBg3fieebIyi4d850iQz5D5bmMag6z6uhORR0hLQ1suXlIcmfbe6gebNeFhiZqFbV_gIBEm7gh0LQX2S=s1814" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="1814" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBiA1na922RhdagDJwzS-PRMEoF1vBqBHEH4ouVTLblUNP6nBuN-OnVRG9T5M95hK5t0v7Rg9DF57WuS0oBkjxuPiBnWcg00v_ic5QQP73LBg3fieebIyi4d850iQz5D5bmMag6z6uhORR0hLQ1suXlIcmfbe6gebNeFhiZqFbV_gIBEm7gh0LQX2S=w640-h394" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Thermae Bath Spa</p><p>(The Roman baths in the city of Bath are a case in point. Today a Thermal Spa, which I have visited, offers visitors a Roman bath-inspired experience in the 21st century with<i> calidarium, tepidarium </i>and <i>frigidarium. </i>The Ironmonger Row baths in Old Street, London, offer that too. They are another haunt of mine.)</p><p>Ossman discusses hammams contrasting them to beauty salons and thinks of them as transitional places in the construction of beauty. You don't perform fashion in a hammam but you do so in a beauty salon. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xb62Ejx5aEQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="Xb62Ejx5aEQ"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Roman baths, Bath (I am one of the Roman ladies in the film made by the Roman Bath Museum) </p><p>I think that in many ways the ethnography done by Ossman needs updating. I know hammams have a strong link with orientalist views of middle eastern women, that conservative Muslim men were most anxious about regulating what went on in the female hammam, that there were male fantasies of lesbianism taking place in the hammam... But the hammam in the 21st century has evolved. It is a postcolonial and postorientalist hammam. It is still an all-women space and this takes on different nuances depending on the location. </p><p> In its displaced version, the hammam is where inner beauty is sought and cultivated. It is also a space no longer confined to women of any particular community, even though the first hammams in European cities were linked with Middle Eastern and Arab migrants. </p><p>For me, going to the hammam is a ritual. If I feel troubled, if I feel weighed down, I know I need to visit a hammam. I have all the paraphernalia at home, I could scrub myself, soak in water, shower profusely, drink mint tea after I get out of my bath experience, at any time of day or night - I am a night owl anyway. But it's not the same. I need the hammam environment for my peace of mind.</p><p>What is inner beauty? Well, even inner beauty, like the outer, physical one, is underpinned by diversity. I guess, however, it is predicated on feeling some kind of harmony within oneself. </p><p>I wish that ethnographers would reconsider hammam culture. The hammam of orientalist paintings, in which male voyeuristic fantasies of female sexuality dominated never existed. The hammam has transformed itself but rather than just seeing it as the threshold to the beauty salon, as Ossman does, perhaps it should be reenvisioned as part of an intercultural grooming culture that focuses on inner, rather than outer, beauty. </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-46233322875516275492021-12-25T17:48:00.000+00:002021-12-25T17:48:54.364+00:00Waiting<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiT8Sz9_may1VqYM-zyvo6TR3wqEqzKMT-5Req8qWihbeeTQRs3uJK-ySIB1crHV_HSaRmxwsjJo3JNKFP-Rjrf3LXC1Wmz9bzBnDm0mpWwVoNsiOV1ehnjTbpS-JXlx7Yu37XPj4sdgk11ahao-JWp1HHsuwVSkoRBg-G-UQ3sCZWnLGdBSc13xwJ_=s366" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="356" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiT8Sz9_may1VqYM-zyvo6TR3wqEqzKMT-5Req8qWihbeeTQRs3uJK-ySIB1crHV_HSaRmxwsjJo3JNKFP-Rjrf3LXC1Wmz9bzBnDm0mpWwVoNsiOV1ehnjTbpS-JXlx7Yu37XPj4sdgk11ahao-JWp1HHsuwVSkoRBg-G-UQ3sCZWnLGdBSc13xwJ_=w622-h640" width="622" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>What does waiting mean to you? We wait constantly, right now for the new year, for the pandemic to end, for that job we have been optioned for to be confirmed, for relationships to end, for relationships to be rekindled, for the passport we have applied for to be issued without delays, for the PCR test we took and posted to the lab to be delivered on time, for the train to arrive at destination , for the end of travel restrictions etc. etc.</p><p>Life begins in earnest the moment we are born and then it proceeds in one direction only, a series of present moments soon turning into past and leading into the future, always unknown and unpredictable, till we finally die. Our lives, long or short though they may be, are filled with activities, encounters, movement, always propelled forward, but also punctuated with endless waiting, till that moment of reckoning, when death comes. I always imagine death to be as it appears in <i>The Seventh Seal</i>, a stern gentleman who plays chess and comes to fetch you and then leads you into a wild dance. Sometimes, tired of waiting, we take our own life, inviting death to come sooner but society does not allow suicide and thus it is always a messy affair. </p><p>Raymond Tallis, in an essay for <i>Philosophy Now </i>wrote the following:</p><p>"The narrative of our lives sometimes seems like a densely woven network of ‘not yets’. ‘Now’ is simultaneously fattened and hollowed out by the future to which it points, and which, along with the past, makes sense of it. Indeed, it is only because the present is both impregnated and eaten away by a past that makes you someone who waits, and also shapes the future for which you wait, that now is more than an uninhabitable instant". </p><p>The antidote to the ennui of waiting is living in the present, in the now. But waiting and the anxiety that accompanies it sucks you in and the now becomes filled with questions about the elusive future which we would like to know before it happens. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOEgU1QFl838-5ERUe9r6H8NdKnJ_-BMh_LQG8UbhmlgHZihwjfV1bDa2sabuZkSGcVsFga6VNHK-oxC7q2QE9-uptr0zOYM0YIli3-HV-XzL4LmFJv_8N9jpmNQD4hki62Rp1Fhzu4-0EMaM2GvhZq0I2Li3VYVTWaY2pkl8v6ZSRM9Ju2lw7arfw=s3669" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3669" data-original-width="2479" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOEgU1QFl838-5ERUe9r6H8NdKnJ_-BMh_LQG8UbhmlgHZihwjfV1bDa2sabuZkSGcVsFga6VNHK-oxC7q2QE9-uptr0zOYM0YIli3-HV-XzL4LmFJv_8N9jpmNQD4hki62Rp1Fhzu4-0EMaM2GvhZq0I2Li3VYVTWaY2pkl8v6ZSRM9Ju2lw7arfw=w432-h640" width="432" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>A new book edited by Shahram Khosravi explores waiting through essays, poetry , art and fiction. Waiting is linked with the senses, for sensing it is what gives substance to waiting and the political dimension of waiting is not neglected, intersected by gender, citizenship, class and race. I particularly enjoyed the piece by Omar Mehrgan, 'A tenuous case of trust' . The link with waiting is not immediately obvious but one can easily unearth it. It's the connection Mehrgan makes between trust and love that resonated: 'one must fall in love as if for the first time ever, for one must have trust in love or have trust in trust itself' concludes Mehrgan. </p><p>I leave you to ponder over it. </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-77867073088755723362021-12-15T15:48:00.000+00:002021-12-15T15:48:08.638+00:00Facing the camera: a reflection on fashion and its images<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxrKvblykSk" width="320" youtube-src-id="oxrKvblykSk"></iframe></div><br /><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>The Disappearance of My Mother</i> (2019) by Barrese is a documentary about Benedetta Barzini, model, actress, lecturer and political activist, best known as a supermodel – or top model, as they used to say back then - of the 1960s. Barrese's film has been given mixed reviews, but it has also received special mentions and prizes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Barzini was the first Italian model on the cover of American <i>Vogue</i> and began her modelling career when the legendary editor Diana Vreeland saw one of her pictures and decided to fly the teenager from Rome to New York for a photoshoot. Barzini ended up staying several years in the States, photographed by Richard Avedon and Irving Penn and mingling with the likes of Andy Warhol. From the outside, it looks like a fairy tale life. </div><div><br /></div><div>However, it was not how Barzini perceived it; she talks of being alienated from her image and has hinted at exploitation. She was a vulnerable young woman with a history of complex family relationships, recovering from anorexia. The stress of modelling when the industry was most exploitative and not accountable to anyone for its excesses added to her anxieties and insecurities. Modelling can be punitive on the body and soul of a young woman. Barzini perceived being photographed as violence to her inner self. Now, at age 78, she bears the scars and has developed an antipathy to images, not only of herself, that at times is hard to fathom. </div><div><br /></div><div>It begs the question of why she has continued to model, albeit from time to time. I am personally not convinced it is only for money, as she claims; modelling is not all that lucrative at the end of the day. </div><div>Barzini's top model friend Lauren Hutton, whom we also see in the movie, reiterates that she too only continues to model for money. Statements such as this, unchecked, perpetuate the myth of modelling as a ticket to fame and riches. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KvD8l12X9pA" width="320" youtube-src-id="KvD8l12X9pA"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>At the other end of the spectrum, <i>Franca: Chaos and Creation </i>(2016), by Francesco Carrozzini, is also about a formidable mother, his own, Franca Sozzani, the former editor of Italian <i>Vogue</i>, who died of lung cancer in 2016, three months before the movie's final cut. All have described Sozzani as a true force of nature and an editor whose vision was years ahead of everyone else. "Dream big, you cannot be stingy on dreams" was what she taught her son. She was tough and fully committed and had an uncanny ability to choose what worked best. <i>Vogue</i> Italia was always more than a fashion magazine. Under Sozzani's careful eye, its editorials were meant to stimulate and reflect on important issues; the clothes were always almost incidental. Carrozzini's film is a moving tribute to an extraordinary woman, for whom fashion images were intended as a form of communication, conveying a range of emotions. As she said in an interview, "I found myself at the helm of <i>Vogue</i> Italia and wanted everyone to read it. Nobody speaks Italian outside Italy, so I had to rely on the visuals to put my point and my commentaries across".</div><div><br /></div><div>Barrese and Carrozzini are somewhat dissimilar as directors. Nevertheless, in both movies, the tenderness and the turbulent side of the relationship the two men have with their mother are very palpable. It is what connects the two efforts, which are otherwise quite distinct. As some critics have pointed out, both movies are a son's love letter to his mother. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAXu-3AWpAEruvusS5HDSmifD6kej1lHa8sK1FqzYGDjPOl15jVnASx7qnt2hxdvht_lD0NgERRJyJvOoty3-ThZF7usuBejxsTBSC2bdnmN1IIcWc_A0cMSv5EIzjJIbBEcD2nQBIO_YeXfJgQZ7REfS27oiCm6zJ-JOnb_8DjQcYiSVOEA4BatVE=s1154" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="766" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAXu-3AWpAEruvusS5HDSmifD6kej1lHa8sK1FqzYGDjPOl15jVnASx7qnt2hxdvht_lD0NgERRJyJvOoty3-ThZF7usuBejxsTBSC2bdnmN1IIcWc_A0cMSv5EIzjJIbBEcD2nQBIO_YeXfJgQZ7REfS27oiCm6zJ-JOnb_8DjQcYiSVOEA4BatVE=w424-h640" width="424" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barzini for Simone Rocha 2017</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In Barrese's movie, mother and son have their roles immediately defined from the outset. Barzini is intransigent, her condemnation of images as a violation of the self is uncompromising, and repeatedly, she asserts her refusal to be seen and her desire to disappear - not a suicide as such, even though there are undercurrents of death and decay. Barrese is the somewhat peevish little boy that follows her and constantly points the camera at her: she chastises him for it all the time but then lets him, out of her motherly love. </div><div><br /></div><div>There is much swearing - Barzini never fails to reiterate her unwillingness to be the movie's subject. There are moments when she truly shines as we see her as a tutor, explaining fashion imagery to her students. She sometimes makes sweeping statements – physical beauty is not a virtue, she claims. Wait…what does she mean by beauty? We know that beauty is a construct and fashion images bear this out. Every time a model is on a shoot, everyone will say, 'Oh my god, you look amazing, you are so beautiful’ after she is all made up and styled. It's not the model they are admiring, but the work they have done on her as a team, the transformation they have achieved. It will be as far removed from the model's authentic self as possible. Modelling is silent acting. One gets into a character, then steps out of it when putting on one's clothes, and removes the makeup. </div><div><br /></div><div>Barzini, the model, was never Barzini, the woman. Perhaps in the 1960s, the construct was not evident; perhaps Barzini, back then, naïvely believed modelling was equal to a true representation of the self, only to be disappointed when she realised it was not. </div><div><br /></div><div>I enjoyed Barrese's movie, though it is not easy to watch because Barzini takes her iconoclasm to an extreme, something that feels too much like a heavy-handed construct. Barrese manages to insert extraordinary lyrical moments when one can feel the love and admiration he has for his mother. The movie is worth watching just for this unadulterated sense of beauty and good. I just wish Barrese had decided not to take such a back seat and confronted Barzini on the significance and power of images. As a filmmaker, he ought to have done it. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMORq5Gda-Ecxl8yyfkLvQU7shOvnXMK1qYHH_1ChryQ7DkuJeIPp4bP8Ojl79LIWyQeuQA_sJ6mobkYL1_RiKlUFTCsA_jvNK1LM-NGd0mRf5DwUZqg-2cUqWIhSq9X4cu8KBK7GtC0ssuGc_KFbmxWgx29F0jrkoueMKly3zEWxGCJ0HrO_INxb8=s1235" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1235" height="574" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMORq5Gda-Ecxl8yyfkLvQU7shOvnXMK1qYHH_1ChryQ7DkuJeIPp4bP8Ojl79LIWyQeuQA_sJ6mobkYL1_RiKlUFTCsA_jvNK1LM-NGd0mRf5DwUZqg-2cUqWIhSq9X4cu8KBK7GtC0ssuGc_KFbmxWgx29F0jrkoueMKly3zEWxGCJ0HrO_INxb8=w640-h574" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sozzani and Carrozzini, photo: Bruce Weber</div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Carrozzini's movie is wildly different and captivating from the get-go. Sozzani is portrayed in a very nuanced way. There are images in the film that are very disturbing, but they represent Sozzani's talent and charismatic editing. There are moments when Sozzani tells Carrozzini to stop filming; he is invading her privacy. But the movie brings out her sense of humour, wit, ability to think quickly, and decisiveness. It also does an excellent job highlighting Sozzani's ideas about images and their power to reach out to people. </div><div><br /></div><div> Images do matter, even though we may be, as Barzini points out, saturated with them. They have the power to transcend language barriers, as Sozzani was quick to note and act as an aid to historical and personal memory. I am reminded here of the poignant words by C. S. Lewis in his A Grief Observed, a book about the pain of losing his beloved wife H. </div><div><br /></div><div>"I have no photograph of her that's any good. I cannot even see her face distinctly in my imagination…We have seen the faces of those we know best so variously, from so many angles, in so many lights, with so many expressions — waking, sleeping, laughing, crying, eating, talking, thinking — that all the impressions crowd into our memory together and cancel out into a mere blur…".</div><div><br /></div><div>It is what photography excels at: out of a relationship between photographer and subject, some incisive portraits are born, in which photographs appear to address the future viewer. It is precisely what both Barrese and Carrozzini achieve as filmmakers, by portraying, with sincerity and integrity, these two women who share a similarly intense relationship with the images they have created, albeit in differing roles. Their appreciation of fashion imagery, and more generally, of images in society does not coincide. But their sons, both of whom work professionally with images, invite us to reconsider, and do so persuasively, the role of fashion images in our contemporary world. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-11407139122819803472021-09-26T12:01:00.003+01:002021-09-26T13:02:42.447+01:00The world has changed. What about fashion?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZ_1fuwaz1xz7DR8j51_U_pWHy5OrNq_cxCIU7vWZdnhd6fnnFoIMSkePA9DKJ0Se1iik9nAC_yFgBE6yM_Dt-U0ej9NyIp660I9t6ZFx7CSZMJGwzDSkeXP9xUXzj9AmHagpNMjABzI/s1165/IMG_4181.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1165" data-original-width="1158" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZ_1fuwaz1xz7DR8j51_U_pWHy5OrNq_cxCIU7vWZdnhd6fnnFoIMSkePA9DKJ0Se1iik9nAC_yFgBE6yM_Dt-U0ej9NyIp660I9t6ZFx7CSZMJGwzDSkeXP9xUXzj9AmHagpNMjABzI/w636-h640/IMG_4181.jpg" width="636" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Sabrina at MFW2022</div><p><br /></p><p>I was delighted to see that my model friend <a href="https://www.greymodelagency.com/sabrina" target="_blank">Sabrina S.</a> was invited to walk at Milan Fashion Week by American designer <a href="https://www.michaellombard.com/" target="_blank">Michael Lombard</a>, whose leather outfits are some of the most innovative and luxurious ever, worn by many celebrities from the world of entertainment.</p><p>Sabrina lives near Milan and is one of a handful of Italian models, carefully selected for representation by <a href="https://www.greymodelagency.com/" target="_blank">Grey Model Agency</a> (whose remit is international). She has a great look that defies any common understanding of who can or cannot be a model, an older woman comfortable in her own skin, neither tall nor short, neither thin nor curvy, very strong and elegantly unconventional. She wears her tattoos with great panache and her grey hair is close-cropped. I love her edgy look. Bodywise we are chalk and cheese, and I totally appreciate our difference.</p><p>I worked with Sabrina during LFW2020, just before all the lockdowns, it was quite surreal. I still remember the casting we attended the week before we walked, where some designers were positively rude to us when we went round to see them and hand our cards. One looked at us horrified and said 'no, no, you are not right for my clothes', and even refused to take the comp card out of courtesy, she just waved us away. Were we so nightmarish?</p><p>This fashion week has seen the return of the very tall, emaciated, androgynous model - in London, as also in Milan and maybe Paris? The latter is about to happen, so I do not yet know, but I am not hopeful.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI-HPltHcog6Yr1lDyusSHiZ1szDgATboMggFvSnfjOfkI97_sbhjaSmM14ainAN54xDGeWJd8QNDTnqYj69QXtrtam1tmNWy4VO0FXE-DSYJvc0cIz8ejoVWKHuVvNujqu_aRB0kGATQ/s1569/IMG_4180.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1569" data-original-width="1034" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI-HPltHcog6Yr1lDyusSHiZ1szDgATboMggFvSnfjOfkI97_sbhjaSmM14ainAN54xDGeWJd8QNDTnqYj69QXtrtam1tmNWy4VO0FXE-DSYJvc0cIz8ejoVWKHuVvNujqu_aRB0kGATQ/w422-h640/IMG_4180.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">A model at the D&G show, MFW. Photo: Filippo Fior</p><p>I find this quite upsetting, we are stepping back in time. Even more disheartening is to hear those very same designers making claims about sustainability and saying they are "community-driven, hoping to have a major impact on fashion and society" and, consequently, the way clothes are consumed. Is that so?</p><p>You cannot present yourself as a champion of sustainability if you do not take into account body positivity and make sure your clothes can be worn by a range of bodies. Many fashion designers fetishise their work, believing deep down that the body must suit the clothes, rather than the other way round. </p><p>Writing for Vanity Fair, Simone Marchetti, European Editorial Director and Editor-in-Chief of Vanity Fair Italia points out that on the Milan runways one sees only models of the same size and similar physiques, with just a few exceptions. Yet the outside world has changed. When will fashion catch up? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8d2NRno3uaAfO8HqJvvNqSxq0KmpCCelzDGYJ-IIFXxaiEN9dXO9_YqhDyNvYcmwFjD1GpPp8tOjkMMn2AiP6xv9AKlsQ4hiW8192w2qSW2U7FEMuvs4Hh1km-zGNZYnhFN1T_TQPvc/s1482/IMG_4179.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1482" data-original-width="1135" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8d2NRno3uaAfO8HqJvvNqSxq0KmpCCelzDGYJ-IIFXxaiEN9dXO9_YqhDyNvYcmwFjD1GpPp8tOjkMMn2AiP6xv9AKlsQ4hiW8192w2qSW2U7FEMuvs4Hh1km-zGNZYnhFN1T_TQPvc/w490-h640/IMG_4179.jpg" width="490" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Simone Marchetti (wearing Etro) , MFW (from his Instagram feed) </p><p>It is not a matter of political correctness, states Marchetti. Many, for example, have criticized women's quotas, or rather the forced presence of women in contexts in which it has historically been denied. Yet pink quotas, he goes on, like the inclusion of different and non-compliant beauty, are a necessary step to reach a world where the problem of female presence in society will no longer be a problem. Inclusive beauty has to happen.</p><p>(And if you believe that men and women are equal, you are mistaken. Violence against women, for example, is still rife, see the recent gratuitous murder of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/26/man-arrested-over-killing-of-teacher-sabina-nessa" target="_blank">Sabina Nessa</a> - but this is a topic to be reprised in a different post)</p><p>Marchetti makes the point that fashion should radically change its point of view on the beauty of bodies, because it is one of the most powerful and pervasive tools of communication and learning. Clothes accompany us in life, he says, and define us (for roles, choices, sexuality, identity and individuality) as very few other goods are able to do. Fashion and its system of images and values, as he points out, are one of the means that can help us most in the process of emancipation from an idea of canonical and exclusive beauty to one that is more universal, broad and more human.</p><p>The problem, says Marchetti, is one of method. It is to do with the way clothes are designed, in a single size that is the one we see on the runway (or in fashion films). When a designer tells you 'You are great looking but you are not right for my collection' (as a "sustainable" designer, yet again, told me following a fitting for LWF this September) it is a most dehumanizing statement. </p><p>Fashion should be instigating change, but it really needs to start from within, it needs to change itself.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HP6up9_zwsxbzu64vQYtgAjlRewEdLmId03ZwhegUHje2gISvjwIqA5EbKJsnsceR_yiRYkiF23WIlNzeNrB3CoKUMlG3OVXqV3-HEJL7Z-uZEQt0mzm1QyS2y9EHR7jXEOE8m6BCVo/s1569/IMG_4183.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1569" data-original-width="1170" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HP6up9_zwsxbzu64vQYtgAjlRewEdLmId03ZwhegUHje2gISvjwIqA5EbKJsnsceR_yiRYkiF23WIlNzeNrB3CoKUMlG3OVXqV3-HEJL7Z-uZEQt0mzm1QyS2y9EHR7jXEOE8m6BCVo/w478-h640/IMG_4183.jpg" width="478" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Michael Lombard</p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, when we see designers such as Michael Lombard not being afraid to put their clothes on a different body, we should applaud them and hope that others will follow suit. Well done Sabrina, for walking at MFW and well done Michael Lombard, for choosing her. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-43768760584593280822021-09-22T19:05:00.001+01:002021-09-23T07:05:16.821+01:00The Migration Museum In Lewisham<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2ZBBqOWbFD8VQoXZzYBhyphenhyphenuhly2pUXGcNNlKFtREfO5ynf_Pt0MYXA5qhheSGC1cLjSFeq5Toz0MTsoAicpl8lpADDccCEoVEBhkjd8cjdLJkb_PVaD7fJ_LwLUUaqaBpYxZlPZOYARk/s2048/IMG_4147.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2ZBBqOWbFD8VQoXZzYBhyphenhyphenuhly2pUXGcNNlKFtREfO5ynf_Pt0MYXA5qhheSGC1cLjSFeq5Toz0MTsoAicpl8lpADDccCEoVEBhkjd8cjdLJkb_PVaD7fJ_LwLUUaqaBpYxZlPZOYARk/w480-h640/IMG_4147.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>When I found out there was a new <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#">Migration Museum </a>in London, I got rather excited and decided I had to go and have a look. I still remember the exhibition <i>Suitcases and Sanctuaries</i> at <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#">19 Princelet Street</a>, in Spitalfields, the first museum in Europe dedicated to immigration and diversity - now closed - and the questions by which it was driven " Is Britain truly a country of settlement? Why, for centuries, have people come here? Why leave their homes? What did they leave behind - what did they bring?" Several years on, the questions have not lost relevance. <div>A museum focussed on educating the UK general public on the significance of migration in our past and recent history, and in our present times is definitely timely. Almost every day we are bombarded with alarmist cries concerning the arrival of refugees on our shores, whom our esteemed Home Secretary Priti Patel would like to send to some camp specially created for them to languish and die, in Botswana, or perhaps St Helena, in other words, as far as possible from the UK. <br />People have strange views about migration. Yet most of us are migrants or descended from migrants and British people have done quite a lot of migrating themselves. <br />I had some time to spare today so I went to Lewisham on the DLR and visited the Museum. It's housed in Lewisham Shopping Centre, between TKMaxx and Starbucks. The Museum does not have a permanent collection of artefacts, it is not part of its mission. It has instead a programme of events, educational workshops and temporary exhibitions, where often the objects on display are given on loan by members of the community. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwfPbgRomxQLIqduS4kNpuWFpV7VDDh8U2KftORR0715AbNuhfKG5QD9SgmxLP3ljZew55SflNs-r_TbpGQ0-SwiiQBLsvgehyGCDoURMAyv4uNEqyz3b9eT35-fdeyLxD6T4GAigK1wE/s2048/IMG_4159.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwfPbgRomxQLIqduS4kNpuWFpV7VDDh8U2KftORR0715AbNuhfKG5QD9SgmxLP3ljZew55SflNs-r_TbpGQ0-SwiiQBLsvgehyGCDoURMAyv4uNEqyz3b9eT35-fdeyLxD6T4GAigK1wE/w480-h640/IMG_4159.jpeg" /></a><br /><br /><br />Lewisham Shopping Centre is a temporary home for the Museum, the idea is to create a national Migration Museum which will explore 'how the movement of people across the ages has shaped who we are - as individuals, as communities and as a nation'. <br />I have enjoyed viewing <i>Departures</i>, a new immersive exhibition that tells the story of 400 years of migration from Britain, beginning with the Mayflower. Mimicking an airport experience, visitors travel, starting in a ‘Departures Lounge’ with guidebooks for emigrants and an animated timeline, moving through ‘Passport Control’ to a series of themed ‘Departure Gates’ exploring different reasons and motivations for leaving, and finishing in an interactive ‘Baggage Reclaim’ hall in which visitors are invited to share their thoughts on the complex legacies of British emigration.<br /><i>Room to breathe</i>, another exhibition, is still on, co-running with <i>Departures</i>. It tells the story of new arrivals to Britain, in their new homes. It is about fragments of daily life, with a narrative that does not specifically refer to any individual, but can be taken to be representative of the life of migrants in their new community and the hardships they have suffered. <br />Other London museums have focussed on migration through temporary exhibitions during 'Refugee Week' eg the Imperial War Museum as also the Museum of London. 'Refugee Week' has been running since 1998 and is held every year in June, in connection with World Refugee Day. Usually, during this time, there are various events and exhibitions designed to encourage an understanding of why people are displaced. <br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp2f5GWWLyCNAf6SX8tLveo_JLQVfiRZCpqyA1Krh1wRZhViNaaNoLaTkJN1P6UcC6SZ4oTIKbJnBe6KHMwgOfOz07mC2Qpp-5T7rDddDGahI6I5H_mJvdyXZv9ly_v8KXzCfxNgeitSE/s2048/IMG_4160.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp2f5GWWLyCNAf6SX8tLveo_JLQVfiRZCpqyA1Krh1wRZhViNaaNoLaTkJN1P6UcC6SZ4oTIKbJnBe6KHMwgOfOz07mC2Qpp-5T7rDddDGahI6I5H_mJvdyXZv9ly_v8KXzCfxNgeitSE/w640-h480/IMG_4160.jpeg" /></a><br /><br /><br /> The Migration Museum builds on the work commenced at 19 Princelet Street and is meant to be a dedicated space to explore the experience of migration in all its hues. It reminds me, in some ways, of the <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#">Museum of Homelessness</a> founded in 2015 by Jess and Matt Turtle, a community-driven social justice museum, which does not yet have a permanent home but works on the basis of temporary exhibitions, whose aim is to educate people about homelessness and empower those who have experienced it. <br /><br /><br /><b>Migration Museum <br />Unit II, Lewisham Shopping Centre London SE13 7EP<br /><br /><br />Wednesday-Sunday, guided tours on Saturdays and Sundays</b><br /> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-86999329987355487392021-08-10T09:42:00.013+01:002021-08-10T12:45:24.941+01:00Travelling and Covid19: expensive PCR tests<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKGg24GFq7Omfzwhs6oOtGyyv8OcSPEn_EtpS23LEmVpH3PaMbfIvrp4c-I112b_7wTw7iWnP82sBHOLTUHMF7hcdNqpsgACPx_St0k4c0L2KFO4YkQqFFbj9VF6buYpfOgMNWSAsO0FM/s2048/IMG_3694.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKGg24GFq7Omfzwhs6oOtGyyv8OcSPEn_EtpS23LEmVpH3PaMbfIvrp4c-I112b_7wTw7iWnP82sBHOLTUHMF7hcdNqpsgACPx_St0k4c0L2KFO4YkQqFFbj9VF6buYpfOgMNWSAsO0FM/w640-h480/IMG_3694.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>An Armani billboard at Malpensa</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>I am not going to say anything that has not already been discussed at length in newspapers and magazines, not to mention social media, but I do want to share my experience of travelling during summer 2021 and having to deal with health authorities purportedly protecting people from Covid19. </p><p>I took a break from blogging whilst travelling, though I vented my irritation and occasional disappointment several times through social media. There is not a single country that is doing things right. However, I will refrain from commenting on those countries I have not visited and will limit my observations to the UK and Italy, since I only travelled there.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDwsJjsNRyz6t9ftWXdEQtZVMIcXTk2l00hYJ3144RGyys5_KsMqZV9Rj8KVtRC26ZooxyO_dle2POq-7nDw2UvBl7MvTIS2ykhXSTA1NqqiIPQnIjvKmj3lVHcV0FKbtwukyO8-cxOw/s2048/IMG_3043.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDwsJjsNRyz6t9ftWXdEQtZVMIcXTk2l00hYJ3144RGyys5_KsMqZV9Rj8KVtRC26ZooxyO_dle2POq-7nDw2UvBl7MvTIS2ykhXSTA1NqqiIPQnIjvKmj3lVHcV0FKbtwukyO8-cxOw/w640-h480/IMG_3043.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The obligatory pool</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I left for Italy on 13th July. Forty -eight hours before boarding my flight - on the day of that momentous football match between Italy and England which took place at Wembley stadium and ended with England's defeat, I went to Heathrow to get my swab. I was stunned to see the proliferation of clinics where earlier there had been shops. My swab cost me less than £30. On the way home, I saw many football fans who had obviously travelled and wondered why they had not had to submit any proof of negative Covid test in order to attend the match. Perhaps the virus is a football fan and guaranteed immunity to other fans.</p><p>Before boarding my flight I had to show proof of my negative Covid test and had to fill in an EU passenger locator form, as also an Italian one. All my paperwork was in order, so off I went. Once in Italy, I was picked up at Brindisi airport by a (vaccinated) friend (who was my host for the first half of my trip). We went straight home where I began my five-day quarantine. Someone from the local ASL (Health Authority) called me giving me a long list of dos and don'ts, some of which were quite ridiculous but never mind. At the end of day five someone came from ASL and gave me a PCR test on the landing, for which I did not have to pay. It was negative (I will spare you the details of how time-consuming and difficult it was to obtain the results, I had to go and get myself a SPID and so on and so forth). Then my holiday (it was also work for me, more about it in another post) began in earnest. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpM_p9AvMwjANGAbeAITh7UKVmuJ1ILTS-h3kDSasJFziPGoEJzdfY0SgoOG4AnmndfyXm1S9MEc7hmRjEFqT0nlYIBtVeb66c8JmmipvAZ4TeLO-HbzvxxAd3lnP0cVIr6Rup5b-l98g/s709/c443c76c-b030-4821-b29b-5ce3c5e93db2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="709" height="530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpM_p9AvMwjANGAbeAITh7UKVmuJ1ILTS-h3kDSasJFziPGoEJzdfY0SgoOG4AnmndfyXm1S9MEc7hmRjEFqT0nlYIBtVeb66c8JmmipvAZ4TeLO-HbzvxxAd3lnP0cVIr6Rup5b-l98g/w640-h530/c443c76c-b030-4821-b29b-5ce3c5e93db2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>In Varazze</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Italy is on the UK amber list. I waited with some anxiety for the update by the UK government on 19th July and on august 5th fearing that Italy might be put on the amber plus list, as was the case with France (now again on the plain amber list). No changes of note were announced. Italy remained on the amber list.</p><p>Whilst in Italy I travelled around using a mask whenever required. I went by train from Bari to Turin, an overnight journey over which it is best to draw a veil, as it reached its destination with 75 mins delay - I applied for a 25% refund of the fare, as this is what customers were encouraged to do given the severe delay but the email I received conveyed the news that due to Covid, I would probably hear about the refund in 90 days. Amen. </p><p>Fast forward to my return to London. I checked all requirements once again and since I was returning to the UK from an amber list country and yet I was fully vaccinated (in the UK), all I had to do was take a swab (rapid test) up to 72 hours prior to boarding the flight, book and pay for in advance a PCR test on day 2 of my arrival in the UK from a recognised clinic and then fill in a passenger locator form for which the test provider duly forwarded a reference number at the time of payment. I did all that. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZEBAGswOY1i2Rve6M8cL-Uoe87eMBB_GG2DdVYZ7MsrSl9kBxuNSVe9KEh9iVfGO43mWFt9j8_Rvd23bGDxf5ZM6_PfieZa7xvkzkZwDHQZDKpkwm8_l4XyV1qf4PbkEjikWklrlBPE/s2048/IMG_3315.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZEBAGswOY1i2Rve6M8cL-Uoe87eMBB_GG2DdVYZ7MsrSl9kBxuNSVe9KEh9iVfGO43mWFt9j8_Rvd23bGDxf5ZM6_PfieZa7xvkzkZwDHQZDKpkwm8_l4XyV1qf4PbkEjikWklrlBPE/w640-h480/IMG_3315.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Torre dell'Orso</i></span></blockquote><p>At Malpensa airport, in Milan, all they wanted to see was my passport and the result of my rapid test (which was negative and had cost me 25 euros). At Heathrow, where I landed, no one wanted to see anything except my passport - incidentally, UK Border Agency staff are getting impatient by the second, using their voices at their loudest, marching people in and out of queues. Perhaps they believe that everyone who arrives from an overseas trip is deaf.</p><p>Back home I expected to find the kit for the PCR test waiting for me - I had to pay for postage on top of the ridiculous fee. There was no test. I asked my lovely neighbour who usually takes in parcels etc - she is an absolute darling. No, she had not seen anything. </p><p>This morning I read that the competition watchdog is finally investigating the profiteering going on among firms offering tests. Many such authorised providers charge exorbitant prices but kits go amiss, results are not communicated, it is basically what in plain English is referred to as a huge scam.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbh_psoWIqqvflRO0YDvGSoogYOxOIvjumpEq3QtYnpLuHk4i19_rAii-WF2WV1yloHFmtzgmgR8823J4OkH9t7OpGhjfSnXccdh4FD8O6Au6LqGukAv4hx5mAHhqaajBjdNUIBbdnjWk/s1440/C7E6BA09-EBA7-442E-B412-EF3982D2CE79.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbh_psoWIqqvflRO0YDvGSoogYOxOIvjumpEq3QtYnpLuHk4i19_rAii-WF2WV1yloHFmtzgmgR8823J4OkH9t7OpGhjfSnXccdh4FD8O6Au6LqGukAv4hx5mAHhqaajBjdNUIBbdnjWk/w640-h640/C7E6BA09-EBA7-442E-B412-EF3982D2CE79.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Bauxite lake, near Otranto</i></span></div><p><br /></p><p>Oh, I forgot to add that while waiting at Malpensa for my gate to be announced I decided to eat something, as I was positively starving, so I went to an airport café, only to be told that if I wanted to sit down I would have to show them my green pass (which I did not have since the NHS proof of vaccination does not count in Italy), but I could 'take away' the food and eat it standing up, using one of the small tables with no chairs placed at the entrance of the café space. </p><p>Welcome to the idiosyncratic travel rules implemented by UK and EU at the time of the pandemic. Not to worry, it does not put me off, I shall continue to travel, regardless. Next destination: Morocco, around October. Let's hope there is no new Covid 19 wave to ruin my plans.</p><p>(I have chosen random images from my trip showing it was indeed fun, despite the hassle of PCR tests)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-14352462779845035462021-06-13T12:56:00.003+01:002021-06-13T12:56:52.112+01:00The Tarot, Dior and Maria Grazia Chiuri<p> Christian Dior, the great French couturier, was immensely superstitious and consulted fortune-tellers all the time. He loved the Tarot and was totally mesmerised by it. Me too, I am a 'devotee' of the Tarot, I have two packs, two versions of Rider Waite and love the Marseille Tarot, in its bareness and simplicity.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBw_GD0KE6d57z41mGgMFQ6wfDMno6ciUIGcwnXoIuJHXDNgeEY791PhkQ4ParyGbM5l6eYedut_Dz6A-AeIkcJa9F0lu8NZMwDhNseSfEgyxLEtnYwhOAsV-W7uBKY62GOWGdR4hym64/s774/Screenshot+2021-06-13+at+12.33.53.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="416" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBw_GD0KE6d57z41mGgMFQ6wfDMno6ciUIGcwnXoIuJHXDNgeEY791PhkQ4ParyGbM5l6eYedut_Dz6A-AeIkcJa9F0lu8NZMwDhNseSfEgyxLEtnYwhOAsV-W7uBKY62GOWGdR4hym64/w344-h640/Screenshot+2021-06-13+at+12.33.53.png" width="344" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Temperance, Marseille Tarot</p><p>A few years after Maria Grazia Chiuri became creative director of Maison Dior, she thought it appropriate to design a Tarot inspired collection, which she unveiled in January 2021, though nods to the Tarot were present in her work of 2017 and 2018. Does she believe the Tarot predicts the future? That is not the right question , she says, because the Tarot is not about fortune telling, but about exploring archetypes and the hidden dynamics of a given situation. </p><p>Chiuri immersed herself in Renaissance culture and was inspired, when designing her new collection, by the Visconti-Sforza deck, created by Bonifacio Bembo.</p>“Tarot cards are among the keys to accessing the magical realm, to explore the unknown while fearlessly looking deep inside oneself,” explained Maison Dior in the press release. “Maria Grazia Chiuri immediately felt a connection with these imaginary worlds and this visual language whose symbolic lexicon is rich in complex and fascinating characters.”<p>In her designs Chiuri privileges the artisanal component. It is part of her concept of couture, which embraces the craftmanship of for example, Salentine embroidery, as it did in the cruise collection of July 2020, presented in Lecce, Apulia. On that occasion she had Piazza Duomo adorned with <i>luminaria</i>, a homage to the Salentine culture of the 'festa patronale' in honour of patron Saints. The messages of the <i>luminaria </i>were feminist and empowering. Chiuri has Salentine ancestry and she often tries to reference it. </p><p>The people of Lecce watched in bewilderment, not quite sure of what they should be making of all this. A designer friend, originally from Lecce, said that Chiuri's gift to the city was invaluable, it was just unfortunate that so many, locally, were not able to grasp its significance. But that's another story, to be explored in a different post, underpinned by the tension between the global and the local. </p><p>The Tarot inspired collection presented by Dior was exquisite. Because of Covid19 restrictions, it was not a live runway show, it was a film, directed by Matteo Garrone. The camera follows a young woman who is having a Tarot reading, as she moves through a castle filled with the major Arcana, such as Temperance, High Priestess, Justice and the Fool. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jYOrGvVh7mk" width="320" youtube-src-id="jYOrGvVh7mk"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Violetta Lazé has given a full write up on the meaning of the Arcana in <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/fashion-week/g35312699/dior-haute-couture-tarot-cards/" target="_blank">Harper's Bazaar,</a> thus I will not attempt to duplicate her interpretation. </p><p>I am intrigued by the way Chiuri has translated the card's meanings into the medium of clothes. It required imagination and a deep understanding of the essence of the Tarot. </p><p>As for the latter, like I said, I am quite obsessed with it. I consult it almost daily and I like drawing just an Arcana card and reflect on its meaning. Sometimes the Tarot speaks clearly to me, sometimes it withholds its message. I can only return to it after things have occurred and always find that the Tarot was speaking to me about the heart of the matter all along, only I was not able to understand. </p><p>My card today was The World. which indicates completion, integration, accomplishment and travel.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVT69fR-FMy4Q-ePe_mV-kUGh0tQWOCT8bfyXX2A_GvRNlG47EtvirF8Bnc188aQM8J9wTxi5CQjaG0W-JVZ-mRankAGmBoCWnJEUhFrMAkKAvUAUmvMJEKKVdeYSdqRP-cykKfFuQvjY/s890/Screenshot+2021-06-13+at+12.55.20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="890" data-original-width="544" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVT69fR-FMy4Q-ePe_mV-kUGh0tQWOCT8bfyXX2A_GvRNlG47EtvirF8Bnc188aQM8J9wTxi5CQjaG0W-JVZ-mRankAGmBoCWnJEUhFrMAkKAvUAUmvMJEKKVdeYSdqRP-cykKfFuQvjY/w392-h640/Screenshot+2021-06-13+at+12.55.20.png" width="392" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>I look forward to seeing how it unfolds...</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-52563190529204362122021-05-11T13:16:00.003+01:002021-05-11T13:31:07.777+01:00Rose Island: a feat of creativity and a freedom statement <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKVX_nOLZ3s1uH7OvBF97rudNwV2VnJoG3CY2cCOYTgb4d46MZVu6Y8oPmnsw2F7goSBG9RMFEBSS1i-Lngcb8cwmD5tJiWNoNb9JTYD2ENPjmyH8Vwu0NWaIF0_D_y3OREQGoSFnTMM/s800/Roses_Island.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKVX_nOLZ3s1uH7OvBF97rudNwV2VnJoG3CY2cCOYTgb4d46MZVu6Y8oPmnsw2F7goSBG9RMFEBSS1i-Lngcb8cwmD5tJiWNoNb9JTYD2ENPjmyH8Vwu0NWaIF0_D_y3OREQGoSFnTMM/w640-h426/Roses_Island.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">The island</p><p>I am embarrassed to admit I never knew about Rose Island, the micronation built by Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa off the Italian coast. Positioned about half a km from Rimini, in international waters and thus outside Italian jurisdiction, like the San Marino Republic, it was to all effects a separate state, which Rosa formally declared independent from Italy on 1st May 1968. </p><p>I only found out about it by watching the movie made by Sydney Sibilia for Netflix (2020), <i>Rose Island</i>. I thought the movie was good, a lighthearted comedy, and I disagree with those critics that found it lacking in depth in its treatment of the events of that era, May 1968, and the student-initiated rebellion which from Paris swept across Europe. Footage from those years is ably inserted in the movie, so one can get a sense of the socio-political background.</p><p>Giorgio Rosa was a very talented engineer and built the island through a feat of creative engineering, with little money - it seems that recreating it for the movie cost a huge amount and involved a large team of people, resources that Rosa definitely did not have. He did not intend it from the start as an anarchist statement, but he was a freedom-loving individual and resented the interference and crass ignorance of the authorities. Rose Island was a freedom statement.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZN42ta8AMlviarFr4w1s3OQddfAGIDLeHIgxYqieFu2o3YSVdi9WLbi7_xnOGgmJlwGEQFM6XyKMEBIRfMGfp4rKMnDDeNkxsS9D1lgWx_poJXfjsixLEINeH5KE4M661gFUTCOQd7Mk/s800/Giorgio_Rosa_e_moglie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="800" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZN42ta8AMlviarFr4w1s3OQddfAGIDLeHIgxYqieFu2o3YSVdi9WLbi7_xnOGgmJlwGEQFM6XyKMEBIRfMGfp4rKMnDDeNkxsS9D1lgWx_poJXfjsixLEINeH5KE4M661gFUTCOQd7Mk/w640-h472/Giorgio_Rosa_e_moglie.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">Giorgio Rosa</p><p>The island soon became a symbol and attracted hordes of visitors. It had its own language, Esperanto, and its own stamps. From the start, it made the Italian government livid and accusations of prostitution, gambling, immorality and even of being at the service of communist powers began to heap. The obsequiousness to the Vatican of Italian politicians who were in charge - the Christian Democrats - is well depicted in the movie, which also hints at deeply embedded racism, apparent through the derogatory terms unashamedly used to refer to the Italian workers coming from the South - the Calabresi and which in our contemporary times is observed in the way refugees and asylum seekers are treated. </p><p>Eventually, Rose Island was destroyed through the use of dynamite by military forces sent to take back control, the only act of aggression ever performed by the Italian government post-1945. The micronation had lasted only 55 days. </p><p>The website <a href="https://www.engineering.com/story/rose-island-the-building-of-a-utopia" target="_blank">engineering.com </a> provides all the technical details of how the island was built, thus I will not expand on this. </p><p>The movie makes a few departures from reality - Giorgio and Gabriella were already married when he built the island and the construction took a good ten years, starting in 1958-59.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoMg-PcfsR4eyFHnr8ctFZPNnvwryiZ9zq_4aDxqvX6LKd5u_rcNibFdFpvnPGdIAS0_1fBN9k7wMuDpsqFEA-u-3RV_a5Mj73GjHYV4s3PDdlkblVS39gtI55A5rKXSIm5NZmEv0h6ow/s800/Cast_Isola_delle_Rose.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoMg-PcfsR4eyFHnr8ctFZPNnvwryiZ9zq_4aDxqvX6LKd5u_rcNibFdFpvnPGdIAS0_1fBN9k7wMuDpsqFEA-u-3RV_a5Mj73GjHYV4s3PDdlkblVS39gtI55A5rKXSIm5NZmEv0h6ow/w640-h360/Cast_Isola_delle_Rose.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">But the point of the movie is to tell the extraordinary story of an exceptional man who was not afraid to defy the authorities in order to pursue his dream. Soon after Rose Island was destroyed changes were made to the laws concerning the physical boundaries of Italian authority, making it impossible for a repetition of the experiment. Today it would be impossible to do what Rosa did.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qS2NtbEoIc8" width="320" youtube-src-id="qS2NtbEoIc8"></iframe></div><br /><p>Giorgio Rosa continued to be an engineer and became a university professor. He passed away in 2017 aged 92, before seeing the completed movie, but he gave several interviews about the island experiment, many of which can be viewed on youtube. </p><p><i>Rose Island </i>(2020) is available on Netflix in Italian, French and German, with English subtitles. </p><p>(All images in this post are from the movie)</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-77967252452856155322021-04-26T13:42:00.003+01:002021-12-19T15:55:20.658+00:00Cemeteries and 'correspondence of deep affection'<p>I have been visiting some of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries, all of them dating from the Victorian period. I have already been to Highgate and to Abney in Stoke Newington. Next on my list is Brompton, where my 'spiritual mother' - I call her so - the <i>Divina Marchesa</i> about whom I wrote in an earlier <a href="https://alex-therealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.com/2016/12/quaintrelle.html" target="_blank">post</a>, is buried. Most fashion designers hail her as their muse, and recently Indonesian fashion duo Sebastian Gunawan and Cristina Panarese conceived a whole show inspired by and dedicated to her. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CeplAvTarjA" width="320" youtube-src-id="CeplAvTarjA"></iframe></div><br /><p>I am fascinated by Victorian cemeteries and am revisiting them all, taking in everything afresh. </p><p>Cemeteries were what Graveyard poets of the late 18th century sang of and their influence on the Romantics was massive, the common thread being a reflection on emotional states - think of Coleridge and Keats. And of course Gothic literature has its roots in Graveyard poetry. </p><p>The fascination with cemeteries and old graves is known as taphophilia and visiting cemeteries is also referred to as necro-tourism. Please do not be put off by this term and imagine anything sinister. It simply means visiting cemeteries 'with the aim of discovering their artistic, architectonic, historic and landscape heritage, apart from knowing legends of death' and it is none other than a form of cultural tourism. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBcaeuPNC-NcPjFdMRsyD9pusn1NQXdwr7SCR7idXKCRC9Z-6-rlGeORo-hw7YYCeuAiFufMw1kVxBU4cR4uRHLmddhFT_wS1j1eTYvwYBlgDaP_4SZVVxheEOguNFytHy3e9-nKQApg/s2048/IMG_1636.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBcaeuPNC-NcPjFdMRsyD9pusn1NQXdwr7SCR7idXKCRC9Z-6-rlGeORo-hw7YYCeuAiFufMw1kVxBU4cR4uRHLmddhFT_wS1j1eTYvwYBlgDaP_4SZVVxheEOguNFytHy3e9-nKQApg/w480-h640/IMG_1636.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abney</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Archaeologists deal with death all the time. They study death and memory, they investigate the material culture of burials, trying to understand how past communities and individuals remembered their past through social and ritual practices and how important mortuary practices were in such processes of remembering, and also forgetting, the past. </p><p>The Italian poet Ugo Foscolo, who lived in exile in London from 1816 till his death in 1827 wrote a celebrated poem entitled <i>Sepulchres </i>intending it to be a protest against Napoleon's decree which forbade tomb inscriptions in an attempt to erase social distinctions. In the poem, Foscolo talks of a 'correspondence of deep affection' (<i>corrispondenza di amorosi sensi) </i>between the living and the dead which is facilitated by marked burials as opposed to common graves. </p><p> Hannah Malone (2017) believes that the feelings of the Italian elites towards cemeteries were influenced by British Graveyard poetry, which "sensitised" European aristocracy to the notion of burial within the landscape "paving the way for the eighteenth century Elysium or the idea of a garden with tombs and cenotaphs that emerged in England as the precursor to the modern landscaped cemetery". However the Italian variant of Graveyard poetry, such as the poem by Foscolo, had a distinctly civic and social value which would be directly linked to the <i>Risorgimento</i> movement, whereas British poetry was more focussed on private feelings, introversion and nostalgia. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1nI89OagHSt30vWapCnodUElocNheTNRZpIw9L0dBro1mzmHBCil39OOLHEJVgS33KP7ktEHGgZKsFsctDWqD5Mpi2TxH67tafFOd7vWwa9E4JKqpLCdJSIvnTf_rv8IjAoOcQYRWrQ/s2048/IMG_1638.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1nI89OagHSt30vWapCnodUElocNheTNRZpIw9L0dBro1mzmHBCil39OOLHEJVgS33KP7ktEHGgZKsFsctDWqD5Mpi2TxH67tafFOd7vWwa9E4JKqpLCdJSIvnTf_rv8IjAoOcQYRWrQ/w480-h640/IMG_1638.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abney</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p>When I visited Abney, on the day of Prince Philip's funeral I wrote the following on Fb :</p>"Abney is not far from where I live...Today I strolled around and took photos with my phone. It is smaller than Highgate and the main difference is that it is a proper park, with no entry fee. People come in and sit by the tombs or on the benches, eating sandwiches, or they do a bit of jogging. Some people look at the tombs and statues with interest, there was a small impromptu tour today and I joined from a distance, and there were a few toddlers playing hide and seek with their parents. Various signs remind people that Abney Park's wildlife is exceptional and care should be taken to observe specific insects/birds/plants. And everywhere there are tombs, some with fresh flowers on them because it is a living cemetery. I love the fact that it is so alive, a place for the living to enjoy, not just to visit when in mourning. Respectfully, of course, just like we do when we visit churches, without necessarily wanting to worship, but only to admire the artwork. I really enjoyed visiting Abney Park. Highgate overawed me, Abney Park made me wonder at how the living and the dead are intertwined, life and death are a continuum. Apt thoughts, on a day when the nation is in mourning".<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2VeKAlqgHpNn0p5Zy3yeL45-DVOsV5Yy3VwZphhlArKRS84bzEOA_5LOQav21gCsv8zdmgTl0ldud9jTrvN6DjhguRevQfBvDHXtjiV1sxHRSXLwDnGaEoPkxdHBllcD3qnnEgNnla8/s2048/IMG_1650.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2VeKAlqgHpNn0p5Zy3yeL45-DVOsV5Yy3VwZphhlArKRS84bzEOA_5LOQav21gCsv8zdmgTl0ldud9jTrvN6DjhguRevQfBvDHXtjiV1sxHRSXLwDnGaEoPkxdHBllcD3qnnEgNnla8/w480-h640/IMG_1650.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Abney</div><div><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1154049001684139&set=pcb.1154049588350747&__cft__[0]=AZU-cOlMzFBtesZLp8otEXIZPT6dGpWIurjPdOw0okyWaYc6fEPNH5WiIusjFEAckMTKlrReAlLIJUcWJ3ra9KZybk1Jw-UfkcWjzLjepU7zSAY3KEn0cTQz4i9gPiA95yQ&__tn__=*bH-R"><br /><br /><br /></a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1154049095017463&set=pcb.1154049588350747&__cft__[0]=AZU-cOlMzFBtesZLp8otEXIZPT6dGpWIurjPdOw0okyWaYc6fEPNH5WiIusjFEAckMTKlrReAlLIJUcWJ3ra9KZybk1Jw-UfkcWjzLjepU7zSAY3KEn0cTQz4i9gPiA95yQ&__tn__=*bH-R"><br /><br /><br /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-76502953913075982942021-03-28T15:39:00.001+01:002021-04-01T10:10:10.149+01:00Empowering not exploiting<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXY7K3pBWpR-jjlFjLhPiZEg9cCdqP3AE6-_kncPHyMIZiFeLhiE-Vj6Ck8t-sjeqS7OTYv_L5EY-BwV99dLTLSYeCkeceRSWPiAz0We5Z3wL6Zop8a3AektR_vnuOoIT3duBVVZB0KGY/s1024/c1be916e-f267-48ce-a5be-a40fa0702a76.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXY7K3pBWpR-jjlFjLhPiZEg9cCdqP3AE6-_kncPHyMIZiFeLhiE-Vj6Ck8t-sjeqS7OTYv_L5EY-BwV99dLTLSYeCkeceRSWPiAz0We5Z3wL6Zop8a3AektR_vnuOoIT3duBVVZB0KGY/w480-h640/c1be916e-f267-48ce-a5be-a40fa0702a76.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Migrants du Monde, Lecce</p><p><br /></p><p>It has been in the news: fast fashion brands have been using <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56519411" target="_blank">cotton picked </a>under slavery conditions by the Uighur minority in China, who are deprived of their human rights. I always find it very hypocritical when brands issue statements to the effect that they knew nothing about exploitation, that they actually condemn such practices and will now make sure their (whatever) is sourced ethically. </p><p>These arguments about not being aware of what is going on were also put forward when there was the Rana Plaza fire in which so many women and children, crammed in a physically unsafe sweatshop, died. Brands were quick to dissociate themselves, blaming local contractors, but we know that they were involved or at the very least, they turned a blind eye, pocketing huge profits. It's a pass the buck mindset. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3tf6qc51Kbw" width="320" youtube-src-id="3tf6qc51Kbw"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>The fashion industry does not hesitate to exploit the labour of the most vulnerable people in society. A good example is how fashion brands treat refugees. The Panorama investigation of 2016 showed us Syrian children working in garment factories in Turkey making clothes for M&S and ASOS in the UK. Since then there has been some improvement, but there is still much to do. The website of the <a href="https://cleanclothes.org/fashions-problems/exploitation-of-migrants" target="_blank">Clean Clothes Campaign</a> has much to report and it is important that we begin to ask questions about who is making our clothes and whether the garment makers are being exploited. <a href="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/manifesto/" target="_blank">Fashion Revolution</a>, an initiative that came about soon after the Rana Plaza tragedy, has also launched the campaign #whomademyclothes to highlight the condition of garment workers.</p><p>Everywhere in the world voices of protest are being heard, we all know we cannot go on the way we have done for so many years, that a change is needed, but not enough is being done. </p><p>Thus when we hear of projects which are empowering for the people who make the clothes we wear it is definitely very uplifting. There are a few brands operating in the UK that work with vulnerable women, for example, <a href="https://www.beulahlondon.com/" target="_blank">Beulah London</a> who support trafficked women.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOtU9FX9HYwK6F2Fu9yq-2Esf98bsdrwWk8Mrb-jz32wzQjkkbW3LHkXK1gnON_43RxB0xp79vNTMs0s3cJgKLNnxD7IzCu1c_xE8S1fHCPAwN9rdxAl5-De3Zhy5sZDUe7BMYi7xKhg/s2048/64ed9b02-dd0f-42a9-b95b-bae7d70b9513.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1420" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOtU9FX9HYwK6F2Fu9yq-2Esf98bsdrwWk8Mrb-jz32wzQjkkbW3LHkXK1gnON_43RxB0xp79vNTMs0s3cJgKLNnxD7IzCu1c_xE8S1fHCPAwN9rdxAl5-De3Zhy5sZDUe7BMYi7xKhg/w444-h640/64ed9b02-dd0f-42a9-b95b-bae7d70b9513.jpeg" width="444" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Model: Giuse C.</div><p><br /></p><p>In Italy, there is <a href="http://www.orient-occident.org/mdm-castromediano/" target="_blank">Migrants du Monde</a>, an offshoot of Migrants du Monde Rabat, which uses a South/South approach to the whole issue of refugee resettlement. </p><p>Covid19 has slowed things down but it has also shown that exploitative fashion has to end, for the survival of the industry. </p><p>It's important that we should know how the clothes we wear are produced and that we should take some steps towards eradicating exploitation. </p><p>Please also see my blog post for Fashion Revolution <a href="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/fashions-role-in-the-refugee-crisis-designing-for-social-change/" target="_blank">here</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359119424342025391.post-7710150204269801142021-03-21T21:46:00.005+00:002021-03-21T22:58:56.565+00:00The apocalypse of Salento<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LYesumUu1Hc" width="320" youtube-src-id="LYesumUu1Hc"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Xylella fastidiosa. The Apocalypse of Slento </i></p><p>I am pretty sure not so many people have been aware of the devastation caused by <i>xylella fastidiosa, </i>a<br />bacterium from Latin America, transmitted through insects, that has been destroying the olive trees of Apulia since 2013, with irreversible damage to the ecosystem of the region and to its economy. <br /><br />I came to know about it when I went to the Salento on holiday last summer. An acquaintance who owns some farmland in the region told me of it, sounding pretty glum, but I really did not grasp the gravity of the situation until I saw with my own eyes the decimated olive trees on my way from the airport in Brindisi to the city of Lecce. <br /><br />I must confess that even then I did not realise the extreme consequences of the onslaught, not until I started doing some reading. I came across the brilliant documentary film by <a href=" https://www.paolaghislieri.com" target="_blank">Paola Ghisleri</a>, a filmmaker trained in the UK who currently lives in Geneva. Her father owns a farm in the Salento region and was desperate about the <i>xylella</i> hitting his olive trees. Paola decided to make a film documenting the impact of this bacterium and the significance of the death of the olive trees in a region that has been defined by their presence.</p><p>Olive trees are very important in the landscape of southern Italy. They go back millennia. As <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36813237/From_Emergenza_Xylella_to_Benedetta_Xylella_Towards_a_Hopeful_Mode_of_Anthropocene_Resurgence_from_the_Margins" target="_blank">Autorino</a> writes: </p><p>" traditionally the olive tree has been deemed as the pillar of the Salentinian agrarian culture and landscape; thus upheld with pride by many. Olive groves are often inhabited and retained like actual eco-museums; photos of the most twisted and embroidered exemplars are exposed in people's shops and private homes; whilst tours and walks are often organised for tourists around the oldest exemplars. The passion for this plant is most commonly exemplified in the celebration of its aesthetics and forms". </p><p>At the moment two practices are followed in an attempt to eradicate x<i>ylella</i>. They are 1) eradication of the olive trees and 2) the abundant use of pesticides. But these are not regarded, locally, as viable solutions. </p><p>According to <i><a href="https://xylellareport.it/sos-salviamo-ora-il-salento/" target="_blank">Comitato SOS – Salviamo Ora il Salento</a></i> (Save Salento Now Committee), the best course of action is to implement ecological resilience, understood as 'the ability of an element to self-repair after damage and to return to the initial state after being subjected to a disturbance that has removed it from that state' by adopting less exploitative agricultural practices.</p><p>In his <a href="http://www.postphotography.eu/longform/xylella-musaf-haaretz/" target="_blank">photoblog</a> that documents the impact of <i>xylella, </i>János Chialá, wrote in 2019 of the horror felt by the local people at the idea of eradicating ancient olive trees and the number of conspiracy theories that have begun to circulate, fuelled by social media, which seem to deny the existence of the bacterium -one can see here a parallel with Covid-19, which is decimating human beings and which a number of people deny the existence of, only today I met someone that vowed there was no Covid 19 and vaccine is intended for genetic control.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfunJxyGxJIfGtCu6MAAn08qfWS421vlMjxHR8VR0Kgaa9i1aRO0xt6FMhOXMFtkxXB-we03wDqCGqtfbLnyxCJLfStoI2Tf96gkEjMkwLjNrxw0S-padhyYx5r6DbxntQzi3Rem2R42c/s2048/IMG_0057.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfunJxyGxJIfGtCu6MAAn08qfWS421vlMjxHR8VR0Kgaa9i1aRO0xt6FMhOXMFtkxXB-we03wDqCGqtfbLnyxCJLfStoI2Tf96gkEjMkwLjNrxw0S-padhyYx5r6DbxntQzi3Rem2R42c/w640-h426/IMG_0057.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Dead olive trees. Photo: Chialá, 2017</p><p><br /></p><p>Yet <i>xylella fastidiosa </i>is a real threat and it is likely to spread to other countries, such as Spain and Greece, where too olive groves are found in significant numbers. But the <i>xylella </i>problem is compounded by other issues relating to our current intensive agriculture practices and our overall relationship with the eco-system. </p><p>"We do not know whether the scientists will ever find a cure to x<i>ylella fastidiosa</i>" reports Chialá "what we do know is that we will continue to eat a lot of olive oil, and that our relationship to olive trees will continue, as it has done for thousands of years. What form it will take in the future is up to us to decide, and in doing so we should not repeat the mistakes of the past, ignoring the social and environmental aspects of the relationship between people and olive trees"<br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1