The art of living or surviving

In an area in the city centre, the historical side of the town where the people, working for the Norman King living in the Royal Palace, had settled, there is a square in the socalled "Albergheria"where cars can be parked thanks to Marcello's help. Who's it? It's the square car parker boy. Who does he work for? He's a freelance. Ten years ago he created his job. The square is always full of cars because there is a school nearby and there is the famous market "Ballarò"and the food trucks have to deliver the goods to the many market stands along the streets. He has been working there for 15 years and he can gain money each month for himself and his family composed of wife and four children thanks to the change people parking there give him.

It is very strange in our capitalistic society to live or survive in that manner. But it is very creative to find a job just observing the needs around and trying to answer them.

Thank Marcello, the Palermo working people need you.

What was the first EXPO like?

2015 is the date for the international event happening in Italy, this time in Milan. The exposition will last 180 days and it is a great oppurtunity for the Italian people hosting thousand of visitors and meeting a futuristic point of view regarding the planet life and its energy. The event will affect the next years and next generations. All the world is looking at us, at our ability to do everything well.

The first world exposition was in Paris in 1844, followed by London in 1851 with the name Great Exhibition at Hyde Park where it was built the Christal Palace

When I was a child...

The film Fireflies in the garden (2007) is about family relationships and the conflict between father and mother and father and son (Michael), who is his father's male counterpart in his mother's favour (Oedipus complex). One of the most beautiful scenes of the film is about Michael's catching firelies in the garden. It reminded my summery childhood when I with other children used to run through the fields to grasp the fireflies.

Charles Darwin & Evolution

The new Darwin centre in the Natural History Museum in London (see the picture) will be opened next Autumn to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the scientist's birth. It contains the two big birds from the Galapagos islands, set on a velvet pillow in a glass showcase, that gave Darwin the first idea of evolution because he could see the difference of their common ancestors living in different isles.

This theory is the most important of the modern biology and essential for our scientists' research and work. we can say Darwin has changed the natural history of a science

Enter the British world

London: Buckingham Palace Gate and Victoria Memorial

English is the official language in Europe and in twenty years you are speaking English everywhere, although, as you know well, the spoken English is far away from the standard British language you have learnt at school or you should speak. Nonetheless what the European Community wants from you is the ability to communicate : speak to be understood, listen to understand and, finally, interact with people is the most important aim to achieve in the countries where more and more different people coming from different sides of the world can share their lives in the same piece of land. The website in this post will offer the possibility to know the land of the language we have to learn for better communicating each other. Surf the net on the following site and have a nice visit

Crazy London: Camden town

Just for listening

Fairytale by Alex Rybak

Who wrote the song?
What is the song about?
What's the singer's name?
Who's the winner?
Do you like his music and the video?

About reality, art, life

" The instant when you think you understand what you see, you're clobbered by the unexpected as in his 1933 painting, The Human Condition. " Jim Lane

"In front of a window seen from inside a room, I placed a painting representing exactly that portion of the landscape covered by the painting. Thus, the tree in the picture hid the tree behind it, outside the room. For the spectator, it was both inside the room within the painting and outside in the real landscape. This is how we see the world, we see it outside ourselves, and at the same time we only have a representation of it in ourselves. In the same way, we sometimes situate in the past that which is happening in the present. Time and space thus lose the vulgar meaning that only daily experience takes into account"

La Ligne de Vie II, February 1940

In a letter to André Breton, R.Magritte wrote of The Human Condition (1928) that it was irrelevant if the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, "but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room."The windows in some of these pictures are framed with heavy drapes, suggesting a theatrical motif. (from Wikipedia)

These paintings let us know better about us and the surrounding world and help us to reflect about art and life, life and reality, about what is and how it could appear.

R. Magritte, Golconde,1953

The mirror of the soul

It is said eyes are able to communicate what is inside you: your emotions, thoughts, feelings, fears and so on.
R. Magritte painted The false mirror in 1928 .
It is like a camera shot : in the middle there is a black iris, instead of the sun in a cloudy blue sky.
What is the truth? Is the eye reflecting what is outside or is it the mirror of the soul?
The truth is not just one, it has always two or many faces.

Explosion or Implosion ?

The September 11 attacks (often referred to as 9/11, pronounced nine-eleven) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.^[1][2] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying at least two nearby buildings and damaging others.(from Wikipedia)
Many witnesses affirm it was not an explosion from outside but an implotion from inside as you can see from the Live video.
What is the truth? We see something different from what was said officially?

The point of view

One of the most intriguing ideas about what is real and how it appears was painted by Diego Velasquez in 1656. It is surprising to find such a subject those times but I think and not just me it was the first time someone began to speak about that visually, anticipating what is normal now by using a camera. The painting appears to centre around La Infanta Margarita, aged 5, who is surrounded by her ladies in waiting (or meninas), the family dog and two dwarves. Whilst most people's attention seems to be on her, Velázquez has once again proved that those people normally kept 'behind the scenes' (like the princess' maids of honour), are also worthy of being painted. The fact that the picture is entitled 'Las Meninas' reinforces this. The Italian translation of the painting is "La famiglia reale"and we can note how different is from the other ones painting a royal family. To the left of Margarita we find Velázquez himself, paintbrush and easel in hand, poised in front of an enormous canvas. By including himself in the main part of the painting Velázquez is asserting his own position as an artist.
However, the scene does not stop there. The most intriguing part of the painting is the fact that Velázquez has chosen to include the King and Queen only by their hazy reflections in the mirror which hangs on the back wall. Velázquez cleverly plays with perspective here and hence blurs the clarity and obviousness in his painting. His purposeful elusiveness cannot fail to raise many questions. Primarily, who is he painting on the huge canvas which almost touches the ceiling?and who is the man next to the mirror looking at the scene? Michel Foucault wrote a book The Order of Things published in 1966 in French in which we can find the answers to the many questions about the painting and the reality as it appears.

Hi world!

This is my first visit here. I hope to see you again.
In this reflecting ball, sitting on the sofa, you can see the world around you and watch the sleeping babies on the floor and relax yourself. In a glimpse you can observe everything from your point of view and breath. But pay attention there is another one watching you while looking around. Who is it?
Think: things are not so as they look like. They seem as you think they can appear and the best for you is to know the truth.
But what is the truth? It never lies beyond the reality. It is inside it.
Guess. Imagine. Reflect like the ball in the picture. You can see beyond and you don't know any more where you are now.
Are you here or there? Tha's the question.