Sea – The right mood

Old style beach resorts

April 5, 2014The right moodLeave a comment

Italy, Adriatic Sea – beach resorts and old bathing establishment.

Shots by me

Just besides the famous and well-equipped beach resorts of Romagna, there’s an area that was once a cheap public holiday destination for children. This kind of holiday was government-funded and children were sent here for 1 or 2 months a year, depending on the economic conditions of their families. Unofficially it was known as “colony”. I also spent a couple of summers here, when I was 7, maybe 8. I keep a few tolerable memories of me playing on the beach, a certain chaos, my small white cap with ties, the labels with my name on stitched in each piece of clothing, the smell of the soup at midday, the sand in the flip-flops…

Now, it’s mostly in disuse, but some establishments have been renovated and keep on living under a religious management.

Line, light and color

March 23, 2014The right mood1 Comment

Italy, Adriatic Sea – line, light and colors.

Shots by GGRuff

The comets

December 9, 2013The right moodLeave a comment

Skies get smaller when the comets devour them. It’s what kites were called where he was from. He used to make comets and play with them down the beach. He spent half of his life handling the long kite string against the wind to feel its strength, the rest trying to fix thin papers to dried swamp reeds with homemade glue.

When the invitation to the first international exhibition came, he showed up with a brand new piece: a yellow paper biplane with a red-painted flower on the top wings that recalled the brand of a supermarket.

Simple and with a reduced visual impact if compared to the rival architectures, that suburban kite was the only one that day to take off and duel against the riotous winds blowing across the competition field.

Witnesses, experts and jury ventured guesses about the complicated implications of the elements when simultaneously act in a particular situation. Other theories stayed unexplored.

The ask for sharing the project left him bewildered. In a blank page of the journal, he drew a few lines which summed up his personal concept of aerodynamics.

A few minutes later, he tapped trice the tip of the pen on the page and said “I still have doubts about this point”. With no other hesitation, he left the room. They had been waiting for him for ten years.

MICROfiction #24

A boat in Camogli

October 10, 2013The right mood2 Comments

He was expected in Wien, but never got there. He crossed the border at night, the jacket in tears, the blood-soaked save-conduct in the pocket and a wound in the belly.

When the feeble lights of the village blinked in the dark, he realized how ridiculous that entire story was and leaned against a wall before passing out. It was a bizarre sensation, something like being caught by strong hands and thrown abruptly through a hole in the ground. The liquid torpor he was floating on was animated by jelly like voices which exhorted him not to give up. “Only slivers” they said, “can sew up the interstices between life and death and blood” they went on, “is the essential condition to pass through the two-dimensional door”.

He woke up and stared for a while at the colorless filament of the dawn across the room.

Instinctively, he lifted the blanket and looked at his belly. It was untouched. The head fell back on the pillow while the last nocturnal frame faded definitively away. The sea came to his mind along with the stillness of the wrecks after great, terrible storms.

He stood up and went to the window. A line of houses which looked alike were drying in the sun. The parking lot was empty.

“Oh God, give me a fresh start” he thought and looked the other way”I’d like to be a fisherman, with a yellow and pale blue boat in the water off the port of Camogli”.