a trip to UK - Entropy

I've been to the UK to visit a friend. Very fancy trip! I've been to Nottingham and Birmingham. While the former gave me the right input to a true british city, with a story behind and a future ahead (represented by these nuclear plants I photographed? hope not!), the latter, a 2-millions citizens city, resembles very much an american city.

Birmingham impressed me, not completely in a good way. It has skyscrapers, but not very nice or tall, though very grey. The core of the city is not a church or a square, but a Mall, the Bullring. To reach the main night-entertainment street, Broad str., you have to pass through a shopping center instead of an arch or a loggia or an old palace and there's no other way to bypass it on foot.

What then? Ah, yep, weekend evenings: in broad street, there's a lot of discos, and disco-pubs, anyway a lot of places for in-people, for cool-people, for good-looking people, no way you can find a "sincere" pub and take a pint of ale in peace. Along that street, there are crowds of young people in fancy dresses, nearly naked, even with the worst weather ever (for which, they don't give a shit, never) screaming, laughing, waiting in long cues to get into their place to spend the night with loud music, several drinks and maybe a fuck. To control all that tide of human bodies and drunken people, tens of guards work there at night, at the entrance of the places, or along the street, or facilitating the cue for taxis. People are crazy there!

Another thing I must say about England is that you never feel secure along the streets, not only at night. I heard many episodes which happened recently, therefore you should always keep an eye around yourself. 

People from Asia, Africa and near-east are everywhere and they almost speak in a fluent british accent, meaning they're UK citizens since generations. They anyway live often in ghettos.

Let me take Small Heath as an example: Small Heath is a Birmingham district, populated by muslims, africans and asians. There you shouldn't dare making eye contact along the streets, people says.

This is strange to me, as England is a country that has experienced immigrations for centuries.

England is a very awkward country to my eyes. Much similar to the US, in fact, than I believed. A crazy country, whose sights and smells I'll never forget.

Gunpowder Treason

And again, another gunpowder plot brewed under secret passages beneath the House of Lords, among courtisans of ancient keeps, where spirits and rage survive...
The 5th of november is passed by now... Explosions, bonfires and fireworks filled with roars the cold and gloomy night of this land, England, which I am allowed to see now. Fires and bonfires, yes, but no government blew up.

British pals spent their night in celebration of this event, but I guess in this epoque nobody intends to give away his easy life for a handful of freedom. Nobody's going to plot treason against the Kingdom.

In Italy for the first time we assisted the big awakening of the youth generation. Shall it be the first and last time they party together against the government, fighting for their freedom? We'll see.

Linguistics and Rebellions.

Munin è un corvo che vola alto nel cielo, appartiene a questa terra. Per questo, non posso ignorare i fatti che sono successi in questi giorni in Italia, e a Macerata.

Giovedì 23: seconda assemblea generale. Riempiamo l'aula assegnataci e così ci spostiamo nel porticato. Molti discorsi, il mio primo discorso alla folla, scambio di contatti. Successo. ORganizziamo un sit-in di fronte al rettorato per martedì.

Martedì 28: sit-in di fronte al rettorato mentre il senato accademico si riunisce. E' uno stand-in perché siamo veramente tanti. Il senato è spaventato dalla nostra presenza ed attende. Entriamo nell'edificio e rempiamo la scalinata e le sale, appendiamo il nostro striscione "non paghiamo noi la vostra crisi".

Poi ce ne andiamo. Osservati da una manipolo di Azione Universitaria e Obiettivo studenti (ergo CL) marciamo in gran numero. Questo è il momento che gli organizzatori aspettavano: usando la forza dei numeri, la marcia ci porta a pochi metra di distanza verso una classe vuota che riempiamo. Sembra spontaneo anche se non lo è.

Altri discorsi, altre decisioni. Una mia amica, con la sua linea poco indulgente non è applaudita dal pubblico - a differenza di tutti gli altri interventi che sono accompagnati da scrosci di applausi e urla.

Una votazione molto demagogica sull'occupazione, fatta valutando il rumore degli applausi. Anche se siamo ben lontani dall'unanimità.

Il preside di scienze della formazione viene a convincerci di uscire dall'aula. Fallisce. Passo la nottata dentro. Il rettore ci denuncia ufficialmente alla polizia.

Mercoledì 29

10:00 - riunione con studenti, professori, ricercatori, tutti tranne il rettore.

15:00 - Lezione all'aria aperta: non ci sono fondi? impareremo nelle piazze! Una magnifica lezione sulla 133 e sulle basi della democrazia e la sua caduta.

17:00 - Assemblea a Palazzo Ugolini per Lettere e Filosofia. Ottimi discorsi da professori e studenti, buona partecipazione.

19:00 - per qualche ragione molti che erano a Palazzo Ugolini non ci seguono qua. Ancora discorsi, un gran cartellone con gli articoli della legge che stiamo combattendo, per opporci alla disinformazione. Tutto sembra egualitario, trasparente.

Tolta la parola ad un paio di persone. Crisi della democrazia interna. Si dichiara la "notte bianca contro la Gelmini. In breve una festa reggae con il DJ, le canne, e la finanza in incognito. Me ne vado deluso e solo.

Questa è solo un breve, troppo breve riassunto.

Come mai questo paese è caduto così in basso? Perché tagliamo i fondi alla cultura e li aumentiamo all'esercito? Perché squade neo-naziste (o neo-cretine, per quello che conta) possono picchiare gli studenti, mentre la polizia guarda e ride? Leggere per credere.

E perché non mi suona nuovo, visto la storia del nostro paese?

Sarebbe lungo discutere come tutto ciò è accaduto nel nostro paese, specialmente confrontandosi con persone ancora incastrate in etichette politiche.

Tuttavia il professore Mercoledì ha dato delle interessanti cause per la caduta della democrazia:

- Globalizzazione

- Complessità della società

- Crisi della Comunicazione

Globalizzazione è una parola molto generica e non mi piace. E' sbandierata in maniera negativa ma significa anche tante cose buone.

E' chiaro tuttavia che decadi fa, l'economia di un paese dipendeva dalle sue risorse naturali e come venivano usate.

Oggi dipende molto di più da quello che gli altri hanno. E quanto costa.

Chiaramente la politica interna ha meno potere di quanto ne aveva prima.

Società complessa: oggi più persone si ritengono parte di una minoranza di quelle che si ritengono parte della maggioranza.

Migrazioni, religioni, iddeali sono stati mescolati, senza però creare sempre tolleranza.

Se "Tanto tempo fa" eravamo tutti italiani - o qualcosiani, per quello che importa - e contadini, ora ci uccidiamo l'un l'altro perché siamo italiani, rumeni, emo, nazi, punk eccetera.

Nessuno rispetta le minoranze, come gli omosessuali, pochi sembrano capire come la società funziona, richiamandosi ad anacronistici ideali cristiani o di "legge del più forte".

Stiamo usando le minoranze come capri espiatori.

Ma le minoranze si posso arrabbiare, e possono imparare a costruire le bombe.

Crisi della comunicazione: come aspirante linguista, devo dare un'ampio spazio a questo argomento. Per questo il post si chiama "Linguistics and Rebellion".

Abbiamo la concezione errata che la gente nel passato fosse brutta e stupida. Non erano più stupidi di quanto lo siamo ora.

Quando studiavo l'antico anglosassone, ho scoperto parole che non potevano essere tradotte in inglese moderno - né in italiano.

Parole che parlavano delle sfumature di esistenza, che rappresentavano esseri che strisciano tra il piano reale e quello dei fantasmi.

Creature e sensazioni che possono essere difficilmente descritte. Come "dawn-sorrow".

La gente parlava così nei tempi andati. Alcune di quelle parole non potevo tradurre, ma le potevo sentire dentro di me. Alcune no, ed ho sentito di aver perso una parte di anima che i miei antenati avevano.

Con quelle parole forse riuscivano a capire gli animali (in senso metaforico) e parlare ai loro dei. Le nostre lingue hanno perso tutto ciò. Le nostre anime l'hanno perso.

Sarò un naturalista, ma non un "antiquario", che crede che tutti i problemi vengano dalla nostra società e che nel medioevo non ne avessero.

Non è vero. Oggi l'alfabetismo è più alto che nel passato. Punto.

Nondimeno, credo che le lingue siano collassate nel tempo.

In Italia ci crediamo al sicuro da ciò: siamo discendenti dei latini, della gente del "Sermo Maiorum" e dei "creatori della cultura" (dimenticandoci dei greci).

Ma siamo dentro a questo crollo come tutti gli altri.

L'italiano moderno ha tempi verbali complicati. Ma quanti, tra voi, li usano regolarmente?

La linguistica è descrittiva; non nascondiamoci dietro ai libri: la lingua è quello che diciamo, ed abbiamo perso il congiuntivo! Ed il passato remoto!

E perché devo sempre mettere una foto nei miei post per destare un minimo di interesse?

Abbiamo ancora tutte quelle parole dal latino che ci fanno sentire intelligienti: "fisiologico, transitorio, imperscrutabile, ineluttabile (**** perdonami, non mi riferisco a te!)".

Tutte queste parole sono sempre usate nel contesto sbagliato, per confondere le cose, senza significato ma di abbellimento a parole brutte, come "guerra".

Fate un'indagine seria sul linguaggio televisivo e ve ne renderete conto. Quando un linguaggio perde la sua capcità di trasmettere messaggio, La lingua è morta.

Essendo la lingua la più importante interazione tra esseri umani, se la perdiamo, torniamo alle caverne.

La lingua si sta comprimendo. Ancora una volta, guardate la TV. Interviste che una volta in radio duravano 5 minuti, oggi durano 30 secondi sul TG.

La lingua è più lenta della sua evoluzione, quindi con questa compressione, parte del messaggio viene distrutto. Perso.

Quello che poteva essere un discorso, ora è uno slogan. Uno slogan non richiede ragionamento. A uno slogan si può opporre solo un vaffanculo o la violenza.

Parliamo sopra gli altri, interrompiamo - se questa non è la prassi in Finlandia ancora, chiaramente lo è qua - perdendo quindi lo scambio, perdendo il significato.

La caduta della democrazia può solo essere accompagnata dalla caduta della libertà di parola, vero?

Qualcuno disse che urlare, interrompere, litigare è vitalità. Non lo è. Negare a qualcuno il suo tempo per parlare è dittatura. Dittatura è morte.

A tutti voi: Salvatevi, salvate le vostre lingue! Prendetevi tempo per parlare! Non usate etichette per riferirvi a cose, spiegatevi senza urlare slogan!

Linguistics and Rebellions

Munin may be a crow flying high in the sky, but he is still a creature of this earth. 

I cannot avoid to witness what happened these days in Italy, and describe how did I take part in these wordly matters.

I could write a brief summary of what happened.

Thursday 23rd: second general assembly. We overcrowd the classroom and so we move outside. Many speeches, my first speech, exchange of contacts, freedom of thought. Success. We organize a sit-in for tuesday.

Tuesday 28th: sit-in in front of the presidency while the Accademy Senate is reuniting. It is a stand-in for we are in great number. The senate is scared by our presence outside and waits to begin. We enter the building and overcrowd the stairs and halls, hanging our banners with the motto "We don't pay your crisis".*

Then we leave. Stared by a bunch of rightwings and catholics, we march in great numbers. This is the moment the organizers have been waiting for; using the strength of numbers, the march brings us a few meters later to an empty classroom that we fill. It looked spontaneous but it was not.

More speeches, more decisions. A friend of mine, with her not-self-indulgent line is not clapped by the audience - all the other speeches were usually accompanied by exaggerate applauses and banging on tables.

The most demagogic vote: "Do you want to squat this place?". The shouting and banging on the tables in taken as a unanimous agreement; though I saw that for every person shouting there was one smiling or clearly disapproving. 

A teacher is sent there to convince us to evacuate the room. He fails. I spend the night inside; the "rettore", the big chief of university, calls the police. They didn't come.

Wednesday 29th: Morning reunion, with teachers, researchers, students, everybody but the Rettore.

15:00 Open air lecture: we don't have funds? well, we'll learn on the squares! A wonderful lecture on the 133 law, the theory of democracy, the fall of democracy.

17:00 Assembly at Palazzo Ugolini with teachers and students of Filosofia, Lettere, Lingue, Storia. Good words from the teachers, who denounce how this society is trying to avoid falling using scapegoats. The positive assembly has to be cut short: a mass reunion comes!

19:00 For some reason, though we marched allthogether, many many people who were in Palazzo Ugolini get lost and won't come to Scienze della Comunicazione.

More speeches, a big panel with the articles of the law 133 that we are fighting against - to fight disinformation. Everything seems crystal clear, equal and free. We share drinks and food.

Then it happens. A tall man with a stylish hat, who has been to almost all the events, takes the mic. He proposes, instead of another squatting of the same space, that is illegal...

He is interrupted. Angry shouts from the "leaders" - the lads and lass that have been more or less leading the whole thing, without ever calling themselves leaders - shout at him, surround him, until he resings the mic and exits the assembly.

With my friends I leave the assembly to eat. There is another "vote". A party against the law is decreed by the leaders. Few people are there squatting, but many come from the streets - we occupied without even closing doors... - looking for "the party". A DJ comes, with speakers and vinyls and everything. Everybody smokes weed, everybody. But not even alltogether.

I know that feasting is important as politics, that after the battle soldiers need to meet and relax around the fire. But this was different. It wasn't for our students. It was like the nearest disco, with drinks, with pushers, people from outside, not students, friends using the classroom as a bar.

Angry and disappointed, I go back home, alone.

This is very briefly what happened. 

How come this country has fallen so down? How comes that extreme right-wing squads are allowed to beat up students on the streets, while the police watches and laughs?

And why this is nothing new, for those who studied italian history?

It would be long to discuss the fall of this country, especially for those who aren't keen on its history.

The teacher on Wednesday said that the fall of our democracy is dependant on these three main causes:

- Globalisation

- Crisis of communication

- Complexity of our society

Globalisation is a generic word and I don't like it much. But it is clear that, if decades ago, the economy of a country was about its natural resources and how they were used,

nowadays it is much more about what the others have. And how much does it cost. Clearly internal politics has less powere than before and little awareness.

Complex society: nowadays more people believe themselves to be minorities, than in the "mainstream". Migrations, religions, ideals mixed, without always bringing tolerance.

If "once upon a time" we were all italians - or somethingelsians, for what matters - and peasants, now we slaughter each other because we are italians, rumenians, emo, nazi, punk and soforth.

Nobody seems to respect minorities, such as homosexuals, few seems to understand how our society works, and notice that we are just using minorities as scapegoats.

But minorities get very angry, and they may know how to build bombs. 

Crisis of communication: as a wannabe-linguist, I have to give a major space to this subject. And this is why the name of this post is

Linguistics and Rebellion.

We have the misconception that people in old times were ugly and stupid. They were not more stupid than we are.

When studying old english, I came to know words, that couldn't be translated in modern english. Words that were different shades of existence, that represented beings

that crawl between reality and the realm of ghosts. Creatures and feelings that could be hardly described. Like "dawn-sorrow".

People used to speak like that in old times. Some of these words I could not translate, but feel inside myself. Some I couldn't, and I felt I had lost a part of my soul and heart that my ancestors had.

With those words perhaps they could understand animals and talk to their gods. Our languages have lost that. Our souls have lost that.

I may be a tree-hugger, but I am not one of those "relic-huggers", those who believe that all the problems come from our society, because in the middle ages they had none.

That is just nonsense. Nowadays literacy and culture is more widespread than in the middle ages. Period.

Nonetheless, I believe languages have been collapsing with time.

In italy we believe we are safe from this: we are the descendant of the latins, the people of "Sermo Maiorum"* and the "creators of culture" (and thus forgetting about the greeks).

But we are inside this collapse as everybody else. 

Modern italian still officially has complicated tenses. But how many, among you, actually uses them? Linguistics is descriptive.

Let's not hide behind books: our language is what we say, and we have lost the congiuntivo! And many past tenses. And why do I always need to put a picture in my posts to have people reading them?

But we still have all those latin-looking words that make us feel intelligient. Such as "fisiologico, transitorio, imperscrutabile, ineluttabile (forgive me ***, I am not accusing you!)".

And these words are always used in the wrong context to make things unclear, to confuse, with no real meaning but embellish other uglier words such as "war".

Make a serious research on TV speech and you will notice. when a language loses its capacity of giving a clear message, language is dead. Being language the most important interaction among men, when we lose it, we are back to the caves.

Language is being compressed. Again, check TV. Interviews that used to last for 5 minutes on the radio, now last 30 seconds on TV.

Language is slower than this change though, so in this compression, part of the message was destroyed. Lost.

What could have been a speech, is now a slogan. A slogan involves no thinking. A slogan can be opposed only by "fuck you" or violence.

We speak over each other, interrupting - if this may not be true in Finland yet, it clearly is here - thus losing contact, losing meaning.

The fall of democracy can only be accompanied by the fall of freedom of speech.

Somebody said once, that shouting, speaking, interrupting, arguing, is vital. It is not. Denying somebody his time to speak is dictatorship. Dictatorship is death.

Our languages are collapsing, some slower, some faster. English is so deep in this collapse that some varietes and dialects of english barely make any distinction between past, present and future.

All the adverbs became "Totally", awesome became awful.

To all of you: Save yourself, save your language! Take your time to speak! Do not use labels to refer to things, explain yourself without shouting slogans!

English and Italian versions of this post are not exact translations.

* Sermo Maiorum= language of the ancients/masters

Memoirs

22-6-08 Weather: Rain

Midsummer went by. We missed the kokko (bonfire), we came too late, but we had great fun.

We played kroketti (croquet) on a "very heavy metal track" designed by Jaakko, and later on, an epic game of Carcassonne. We ate more meat than socially acceptable. 

We failed our bets on how many people would drown (see previous post) since the bad weather discouraged people from boating and so only one man actually drowned

There was no complete darkness during the night. Only a dark dark light and a blue sky. The moon was so big I thought it was a big balloon.

This morning we left for Lappeenranta, where we'll sleep at Henna's godmother's.

We watched "number 23" with Ville; it's rather creepy.

26-6-08 Weather: crazy

Lappeenranta is much nicer than the other finnish cities, which are usually functional but ugly as hell.

Lappeenranta has three nice churces, especially the orthodox one: tiny but filled with gold and treasures.

This country is completely queer. Bunnies frolic freely even in the capital and squirrels are all around. People collect used cans and bottles from the street and recycle them, so they get some cash. The sun shines at night during the summer, while in the winter it's rarely seen.

Lakes are everywhere; I would like to have a boat.

28-6-08 weather: "hot", 22+

Qua in Finlandia sono tornato in quel mondo fatto di incomprensione, comunicazione interrotta, parole spezzate e larghi sorrisi come unico medium interculturale. E' un mondo diverso e difficile.

In Irlanda potevo avere lunghe discussioni con chiunque. Il problema erano ogni tanto le parole troppo difficili; qua il gergo di ogni giorno è una sfida. Le persone vivono nel falso credo che la lingua sia il più semplice tramite di comunicazione, ed essa sia solo un modo per trasmettere fatti, informazioni. Invece, l'atto comunicativo stesso è un fatto, talvolta potente, talvolta creatore di fatti.

There are three keys to enter a society; language is one of them.

2-7-08 weather: warm

Se per sopravvivere è necessario muoversi, allora io vivrò a lungo.

Dopo una settimana a Lappeenranta ho passato una notte a Lahti. La giornata dopo -ieri- a sbronzarsi a casa dei genitori di Mikko. Lì ho passato la notte ed ora sono ad Helsinki. Lo zaino è sempre più vuoto, si svuota di tutto il superfluo, mentre la mente si riempie di novità. Se volevo girare il mondo, ci sto riuscendo. Non passo due giorni nello stesso luogo. Nulla è facile come lo era in Irlanda. Ma quella nazione è passata, la storia scritta. Passerà ancora molto tempo prima che io vi ritorni ancora.

L'estate finlandese regala emozioni forti, a differenza dell'inverno spento. 

Many days after: about Finland

Here we go with more written memories from months ago:

Few days before 14-06-08 - Weather:COLD!

Ireland today voted NO to Lisbon treaty. They changed history. Barely a million of votig Irishmen.

Now EU is on a crisis they say. Europe, where shall you go? Incapable yet of taking decisive action, strong decisions that we may need. Politics is nasty.

Yesterday I've been to Näsijärvi, which is a local lake surrounded by a forest (tottakai!).

 We went there between 10-11PM and it was bright. This finnish summer is incredible; and cold, right now. It has been raining every day since my arrival, after a "hot spell". It was awesome. The lake is very wide, the forest looks pretty much a Alpine forest, though with taller birches and wider landscape. This country is still weird though. With Ireland it was a matter of days and people. After I explored Dublin a bit everything became familiar. I could understand people speaking. Now everything is so foreign it looks like another planet. Time goes by. If the warm weather comes back...

14-6-08 | Weather: Warm

Most of Finns live in unattractive block of flats, usually grey; from the inside though, the houses are of the highest comfort.

Finnish breakfast is weird. The custom often mixes typical products - cheese, smoked ham... - with more exotic stuff such as tropical fruit, youghurt, cucumbers.

There is no way to stop the night sun to enter the room, so I had to get used to sleep with light outside and inside. Nonetheless, I love the never-ending days, in which the time of the day almost doesn't matter. Take a walk at 9AM or 10PM, it's the same.

20-6-08 Weather: warm/rain

Today I biked to the Vesijärvi lake. It means "waterlake" for no other word could reflect its brightness and clean water... in past times. Now it's black.

It's a nice spot though. Biking here is easier than in Italy, and nicer. Yesterday it was "normaali suomen kesä" (I beg your pardon if I made grammar mistakes) i.e. rain all day. We went to the shop to pile a few goods for Juhannus. Tomorrow happens to be midsummer: the longest day of the year. I find it a funny day to celebrate and be happy: after tomorrow, every day will be shorter. Besides, many people's Juhannus ends with little happiness: a bulk of guys die throughout Dinland for drowning, often by boating right after drinking.

Two milions kgs of sausages are bought by Finns only for midsummer, and there are only 5.4 millions people in the whole country. Make your own "average pro-capite meat" calculations. 

Tomorrow is a special day.

To be continued.

Now I hope somebody notice the nice "envelope pattern" in my latest posts

Munin says Hi.

The meaning of life - gaming part II

Me and gaming - top 5 boring stories

Being cynical, I must say, the first impression I got when I entered the world of gaming was that of an immense desert.

Very early in my childhood, I had people to play with: my parents, my brother, some friends, maybe at school. Soon after though, at lightspeed, I found myself alone. My parents had more important things to do, my brother grew up - and being an elder brother... - and friends... well, I didn't have many friends at school, and all of them spent their time by:

A - running after girls

B - harassing girls

C - beating up somebody

D - playing football

Me, I don't like football, nor any other team sports. And table games require a long time; very unfit to our modern time, fast time. Therefore, I concentrated myself on reading, computer games, and other stuff.

I embraced again the world gaming with other people only when I had already fourteen years and more on my back....

To be continued

Parentesi

I love mushrooms. Mushrooms are fun. They are a meme, they are deeply rooted in our imagination. Super Mario in mushroomland; the Peyote; Germanic Berserkr using Amanita Muscaria; the saying "to grow up as mushrooms"; and the smurfs live inside mushrooms!
Mushrooms aren't even a plant, no, not a vegetable. They are not in the animal nor plant kingdom. They are just mushrooms . They are mostly water, but still something living, something which is not water. And indeed they can be very good to eat, or very nasty and deadly. They are soft, have funny shape, with those big hats.
That's it. This post is completely pointless, nonetheless i wanted to write it.

The meaning of life - Gaming

Gaming has probably nothing to do with the meaning of life, or perhaps it's its real kernel. By the way, today I will not publish more of my finnish diaries, but write about... well, gaming, I guess you understood by now.





HOW, WHEN AND WHY DID I START GAMING

I am not a veteran, but I've been gaming for... 20 years?
I guess I figured out the concept of "playing" at, perhaps, 10-12 months after my birth, and I never stopped thereafter.
As a kid, I played with parents, with my brother and occasionally (rarely) with friends. But playing and gaming are different things. When have I started gaming? I cannot be sure what came first, wether the "adventures" with my brother, "Space Quest I", or Monopoly, but indeed very early. And why? I am strong and healthy (sort of) and I like hiking, climbing, swimming... no sports, but the normal stuff. Nonetheless, I admit that the mind gives me more pleasure than the body, and what better than games to stir the mind?
Backgammon is said to be 5000 years old, and therefore gaming goes along with civilization. Gaming is filling your afternoons with something different than hunting or mating or sleeping. Perhaps gaming is the most human thing.
In my 20 years of gaming, many things have changed. I did not notice at the time, but they happened indeed.

BAD POINTLESS SUMMARY ON THE HISTORY OF GAMING

Before the great war gaming was chess, cards, gambling, Go, Backgammon. Good stuff indeed, but games of chance and randomness, games for gambling, games for spare time.
After the war, we created the nerd. And nerds are the creators of many things we now have: Wizard of the Coast, Lord of the Rings, Microsoft, Linux, File Sharing, Google. But not only: nerds created gaming as "lifestyle".
Now it's 1974 and Gary Gygax (hope you are in a heavenly dimension, buddy) and Dave Arneson (the other one everybody always forgets) created Dungeons&Dragons. They created the Roleplaygame. And the world... didn't change, but geeks did.




ROLEPLAY I.E. MENTAL HOSPITAL

Many people ask me what a Role Play game actually is. I believe it is the highest accomplishment of humam mind abstraction. Abstract art or poetry are bullshit, compared to RPGs; Philosophy... you don't want me to talk about philosophy now, do you?
RPGs are about imagining that you are a character that you are not, and imagining this character in a world that does not exist, not painted, nor filmed, and in this lands, he fights creatures that do no exist and talks to people that do not exist, to save the world that does not exist, with clearly unreal weapons or spells. And this makes you happy. Now, is this mental? sure it is.
You might think that afterwards, gaming got even better, evolved, or just stayed as it is. I think it moved backwards. I realized it when, yesterday, I've seen D&D accessories named "D&D - miniature game"
Miniature game? What the fuck? Yes, miniatures and cards nowadays sell more than "imaginary worlds" and therefore, back we go.
What do gamers have today more than yesterday? More stuff, but not more spirit.
Yesterday there was Monopoly and Risk, today there is Monopoly, Risk, Carcassonne, Agricola, War of the ring.... etc.
And this is great. There is an entire world for gamers, for geeks. Board games, RPGs, Computer Games. All kind of games. And this is great. But I cannot stop thinking, that geeks have been transformed, from "socially different" to a commercial target. They analized geeks, understoof how they work and created something they can buy. Like Emos, Punks, Rappers etc.
And are they wrong? Geeks used to read books, to think more than act, to speak like Oxford teachers and such. Nowadays in geek stores I see only school kids and pre-adolescents with Magic cards.

ME AND GAMING = A 100% BORING STORY
Now, me and gaming. As I said, I've been in gaming for a while. What can I tell?
First of all, lack of gamers. When my parents became too busy for board games, I had only my brother. Then he became too old and I had to drop board gaming. I had been computer gaming since I was very little. Am I a very good gamer now? Indeed, I am not. I quite suck at games usually. I like the feeling they give me, I don't like the winning per se. I like the stories. Yes, for me computer games are essentialy movies.

And computer games were, at the beginning, activity oriented: they were based on doing something, i.e. driving a car or shooting monster. They were hard, but fun.
Then PC games evolved, and the trivial arcade, almost abstract ideas (is pong a simulation of tennis or an abstract game?) became, with the help of sound and image, simulations.
I don't have memory enough to describe the history of computer games, but when the internet came, I got randomly involved in RPG by Forums. That changed quite a couple of things....

See you in the next episode!

In the pictures: chess, D&D logo, Carcassonne board game

Memories from the repository

Hi again, after a long time!
After Finland, I "enjoyed" Italy with my beloved foreigner. I may describe Italy to you all, but this is not my task. I may tell you the feelings of such foreigner, as far as I know, but that is not my tasks. I may express my own feelings, but this is not your business.

As I said in other posts, when I don't post I'm not being lazy: I just prepare bigger posts! And so I'm going to "publish" the memories, i.e. publish here what I wrote on paper during my stay in Finland. Now plug you headphones and play Korpiklaani full volume, we're going back to the first day I left for the land of lakes....

10-06-08
Leaving is always the same. A restless night, an early morning, and with the most casual attitude, you say farewell. The day before is a singular one also. It's such a random day. Usually with good weather, a nice afternoon, a wonderful dinner. A "goodnight", something you forgot to do, and, as an everyday "bye" you say farewell; be it for a week, a month or forever.
That's leaving. Leaving is mystic, it's a religion. [...]
I had a weird dream. I left my old house in Dublin, and I brought with me everything: pieces of my closet, tables...
But something (as my Lego collection :| ) I couldn't bring with me. Back to Italy though I discovered that a weird warp portal was in the room upstairs, so that objects could be transferred from Osimo to Dublin effortlessly. [...] I can find nothing to feed the sense of loss, nothing to replace the Emerald. [...] Leaving is forgiving.

11-6-08
Qualche volta ti viene voglia di non fermarti, di prendere aereo su aereo e continuare a viaggiare.
[translation] Sometimes you want to go on, not stopping, to take the next airplane and keep on travelling.

14-6
I've been in Finland fro three days now. The world is so small sometimes. I've run into a small italian food shop. Inside it, nobody but a chubby, bald italian with rough, generous hands. He's been living in finland for 6 years now, with his finnish wife...
He made me nice discounts, offered us a coffee. It's hard to make a living here, he says. Well, no wonder. Italians can't really stand the cold, the silence... finns have bidet though.
And then I even saw Joni, the finn from UCD. I couldn't believe it. Dublin is the entire world, isn't it?
Sometimes in the evening I think I'll go out with Christian, or early in the morning I think about meeting Alice and Giorgia smoking in the courtyard. I still imagine to see kate waving at me through windows. That world is no more. Is it so difficult to settle down in this country, so hard to change homeland? Andrea did. He was alone, but smart and with a clear aim. Maß und Ziel.


20-6-08
In this long time abroad I've stopped writing and playing. Producing. I've been dull to the world but not to myself. I've produced myself. I'm increased, not in size but in capacity. My own world expanded.


There is much more! It will come, with time...

Journey

I made a journey, a most wonderful one, lasted one week.
But for me it was a lifetime, a life within life.
I was surprised from Frankfurt, I love that city!
I was again in Ulm and I loved it.
I was in Augsburg and Innsbruck and... well, not sure I loved them completely.
Then I was near Trento, in the dolomites, at the Taramelli hut.
Then I was back home, and I was so happy and content, that it gave me an energy pump for the life to come next.
That will be really boring, non-exciting. Especially compared to what I've seen and what I've done in the last year. Not to mention the fact that in other projection I could have been abroad.
Well, that's life and my decision. I belong to a place and I belong to people. No place belongs to me nor people do. Besides that, life is a continuous challenge even if you play at home. Working on ourselves is important. If we just focus on the outer world we miss the delights of our soul, we miss to fix the troubles of our soul.

Note: Innsbruck was very inspiring at night, in the inner city, but the rest of the city is a bit grey. Besides, people are really kind!
Ah yeah, I didn't mention, I traveled on my own. I met people, special people, but I traveled on my own. And I was looking for that, I love it. Me and myself...
I love to travel by train: you see the landscapes mutating, you understand the distances, and you can dig into history, imagining to live in fast forward the great migrations. Airplanes are maybe cheap, but they only bring you to a specific place, to the crowded places. With the train you can reach nearly everywhere. You can really say you're travelling.
I traveled for 2100kilometers which only 700km were made by airplane.

I discovered a lot during this trip. I learned about myself, and about life. Traveling is the occasion to put yourself into challenge, or observe yourself from a different point of view. That way you improve yourself, your life. You understand things that are not visible when you live in the everyday life. That's the important part of traveling, besides the fun. Exploring new places and meeting new people is partially true: we can do that always. Just we don't when we are at home, and that's a great flaw, especially if we declare ourselves "international people".

Paris

I've been for a workweek in Paris, for - easy to say - work.
Work was great but tough, especially phisically, I came back home sick, but now I'm feeling better.
I had some time to sightsee the city and as I did already 4 years ago I was puzzled by its romance. I love that city. The architecture is great everywhere in the innercity, there's no palace or building which is not tuned to the overall atmosphere.
The suburbs are times worse. I've been in Saint Denis and Neully-Plaisance, two outer areas, served by metro. Two aspecta I have to outline about them is the uglyness of the streets and the multicultural component.
The street are quite ugly as what concerns architecture and urban care. Some positive spotlights of course are churches.
Paris is really multicultural, and I think the racial integration is better than any other places I've been to... I'm wondering if it's even better than american metropolis like New York, where there are still "niggers" ghettos as far as I know. There in Paris arabs, asian and africans live together with european frenchs, without - apparently - problems.

I think I would never move to Paris even tho I liked the cosmopolitan way of living, the easy trekking with the metro, the events and occasions. I think I would likely move to a satellite town of Paris, a nice and good looking one, like I saw passing by by car.

Now I would like to discover more about smaller cities and towns of France. I've been once in Avignon and the nearby cities, but I can't recall many things. I should see them again under a different light.

I learnt french for 3 years at middle schools (that's to say: 11 to 14 years old) and I loved it, I was motivated and I was good in it. After so much time I didn't forget much and I was still able to conversate with french people. I'm fucking upset with my high school studied: I wasted 5 years with inadequate and unprepared teachers. I didn't learn a word of english (while I could have been a mothertongue speaker by now under different conditions), I wasn't taught math and phisics (like, instead, it was intended to be), and I had to relearn on my own at university (I learnt in a couple of years tons more than I didn't in 5 years), I learnt an unuseful latin, while I could be a good french speaker or even a german speaker (hate to say, things would have been different if I knew german). I don't remember anything of the literature and history studies which were just sticked to my mind for a few days after exams, the only thing I benefit from these fuckin'horrible 5 years is philosophy.
Ok I'm going too far with this topic.

So back to Paris: it's a pretty good place to spend some time, surely more than a tourist week...

The of Finland - The worst of Finland

First of all, a piece of news: Henna isn't able to join Tampere University and will be back to Dublin. I have the feeling I'll se the eccentric Irish capital again soon.

Then, the few international readers may forgive me, I'll give my temporary evaluation of Finland - but in

 Italian. The few non-english speakers who read this blog are anyways probably finnish.

Il meglio della Finlandia

L'estate:

I fiori sbocciano, il vento diventa tiepido ma non troppo caldo - come in italia. Le giornate sono cosí lunghe che si fondono l'una con l'altra: luce, luce! La notte é annientata, il cielo non é mai nero e cupo. Ogni ora é buona per uscire, mangiare, festeggiare, mai per dormire!

L'estate é una poesia tiepida e accogliente, luminosa. D'estate una fresca birra Finlandese é il meglio, accompagnata da un festival musicale o dal semplice svago, il giaciere in una foresta o su un lago. Condurre una barca sulla sua morbida e splendere supeficie, camminare sotto antichi e magnifici alberi, sul grasso muschio. Guidar

e una bicicletta nelle sue pianure. I finlandesi, finalmente liberi del winter blues (ma non del grugno) si fiondano nei loro mökki e nelle saune a legna, in mezzo alle foreste.

Bacche:

D'estate vengono i grandiosi "marjat": le bacche. Fragole e lamponi ma anche i piú esotici lakkat, i lamponi artici, o lindonberries, cranberries, fragole selvatiche, more, mirtilli, ribes... in quantitá enormi, liberi per tutti da essere raccolti sul suolo pubblico e congelati, per essere gustati durante l'inverno.

Non dimenticheró mai la dolcezza dell'estate finlandese. Un capolavoro per coloro che hanno un cuore soffice.

 

Laghi:

Il lago é una delle principali caratteristiche fisiche della Finlandia e un po' un centro spirituale della nazione. Sul lago si passeggia d'inverno, sul lago si va con le barche e si annega durante Juhannus, attorno al lago si fa il "kokko" (faló) e si mangia makkara. Dal lago si pesca e attorno al lago si fanno passeggiate. Non c'é nulla di meglio di una foresta riflessa sulla superficie di un lago.

Foreste:

La Finlandia non é che un

 grumo di piccole cittá e villaggi sparsi tra foreste e laghi. Certo, in Italia possiamo vantare tanti piccoli paesini sparsi, ma la struttura é diversa. In Italia abbiamo le grandi repubbliche marinare, le cittá industriali, i paesi di montagna. Anche i piú piccoli centri sono aggregati di origini medievali, sul picco di una collina per difendersi.

I villaggi finlandesi sono uniti solo dal nome. Sono solo case di legno sparse casualmente pre una foresta. Non fatevi ingannare dagli enormi palazzi di Helsinki o Turku: al di fuori della cittá c'é sempre foresta.

Le foreste non sono distese di pini piantati dopo la deforestazione, o bassi, cattivi e impenetrabili fratte di arbusti e serpenti, ma nella maggior parte vecchie foreste, ampie e incredibili di abeti e betulle; atte

nzione perchè ci sono ancora alci, orsi, scoiattoli ed ogni animale! Ma anche funghi e frutti di bosco (vedi alla voce:bacche)

La neve:

L'inverno sará pure buio e freddo, ma che gioia andare con lo slittino! E la luce riflessa sulla neve, camminare SUL lago, bianca freschezza ovunque, dove correre, sciare o solo stare in casa a guardare i bianchi fiocchi...

Politica, welfare, riciclaggio:

Tutti riciclano; se p

orti a riciclare lattine e bottiglie prendi soldi indietro; l'ambiente é protetto; lo stato da case a coloro che non ne hanno, e soldi ai disoccupato (24€ al giorno, mi dicono). C'é molta energia alternativa, i politici non sono corrotti fino all'osso. Molte cittá forniscono connessione Wireless gratis. Le strade sono sicure, le persone vivono tranquille; anche troppo.

La Musica:

I chitarristi finlandesi sono veloci, molto veloci. Ma non solo. Non c'é bisogno di essere mafiosi come gigi d'alessio o raccomandati come i gazzosa per suonare. Le band hanno i loro spazi, e nessuno ti dirá che sei un

 cretino perché dopo i 20 anni invece di mettere su famiglia suoni.

Il Traffico:

Se vi piace guidare rilassati la Finlandia é il posto per voi. Su le cinture, frecce attivate e luci accese. Si rispettano i limiti e i semafori, nessuno ha troppa fretta, e comunque le strade non sono mai affollate. Un sogno per i viaggiatori.

La libertá:

In Finlandia la chiesa conta nulla, anzi, ci si puó anche "disiscrivere". Puoi avere figli senza essere sposato, andartene di casa a 18 anni, convivere, sopravvivere, con persone di qualsiasi sesso ed é tutto abbastanza normale. Ma il natale con i tuoi!

Puoi ascoltare "la musica del diavolo" e va bene, girare vestito male, non importa. 

Il Peggio della Finlandia:

Architettura:

Le cittá finlandesi sono brutte. Ad eccezzione di qualche bella chiesa ed antico edificio a Lappeenranta, o il castello di Turku e Hämenlinna, la cittá é fatte di larghe strade e alti blocchi di cemento grigi. Sará perchè sono italiano, ma per me edifici storti, antichi, pieni di storia, diroccati, tondi, ovali, a casaccio e colorati sono la norma.

Alcohol:

"Alko", i negozi monopolio dello stato per la vendita dell'alcool é il centro della vita finlandese. Senza una bottiglia di Kossu (38%) nell'armadio non si vive. Ci vuole almeno una birra dopo la sauna. Ai matrimoni si beve piú di quanto si mangia. Non sará come l'irlanda, ma la Finlandia é una nazione che ama la bottiglia: l'incubo di ogni donna finnica é il marito alcolizzato.

Metodo:

In Finlandia c'é un modo giusto per fare ogni cosa. Qui ogni cosa é efficace, grandi lavori fatti con il minimo sforzo e massimo rendimento, ogni cosa pulita e pronta all'uso. Ma quanto é divertente fare le cose a modo proprio, sprecando tempo ed energia?

Timidezza:

Sará il winter blues, sará fisiologico, ma i Finlandesi troppo spesso nascondono il proprio mondo interiore, nel silenzio che caratterizza la nazione. Molti sono gioielli nascosti.

Considerate questa come una bozza. Ci sono tante altre cose in finlandia, belle e brutte, che mi verrano in mente solo con il tempo o che forse non sapró mai.

Hail, Munin.

the meaning of life - don't overdo

I planned and indeed started writing this post as quite philosophical, claiming that traveling for real - no turism -  is a good way to understand that what we take as eternal truths are nothing but a faded image of the world seen by a blind man from a tiny hole in a wall. This was going too far away though, and I'll keep it on paper, as I'm doing with much of the stuff. I may publish it all later on this blog.

 A CALL TO ARMS

Being an ex-erasmus in not only about erasmus: I shall now answer to my call to arms, or two actually:

-I believe I'm going to subscribe as an "erasmus buddy"; what does this mean? I'll be in charge of a drunkard asshole foreign student coming to Macerata, and help him finding his way -to the pub- in this completely weird country.

- There's a contest for ex-erasmus students, which involves using movie, photos, text and basically anything to explain their experience. My photos have been sucky and I have no recording (or 'footage') therefore I'll try to join with my diary.

the meaning of life - hometown, homeland.

The whole modern human society is based on one single basic mistake: that a man shall have only one home that he owns.

Therefore he shall protect his home, use and abuse it, and no one can enter it; thus he has to endure it if the winter is chilly or the summer too hot; thus comes that he shall expand it further; thus he shall buy, conquer, steal and hoard items and treasures, and keep them for himself; thus comes that upon his death his sons must bring forth this task.

Are swallows so foolish, after all?

Hail, Munin

100th post! - Kate Havnevik

The title was meant to be just "kate havnevik" but then I saw it was the 100th.

Kate Havnevik is a norwegian female singer. She had been in a lot of different styles and genres, but up to now I only had the chance to listen to two tracks from her (back then) recent album, "unlike me" and "timeless". I didn't want to talk about the music in itself but about what that music means to me.

I discovered her just for instance during random surfing (despite the shroddy internet connection) when I was in Ulm, and downloaded for free these two songs...

I was astonished how dreamy and enchanted these atmosphere were. Ulm, my first city, the snow, my small room, at the top of a typical german house (i'm not sure about a precise definition for the kind of building in this case), in sight of the münster and a nice view over the inner city roofs, the cold breeze, the nights and the walks along the city, the food, the smells, the small discoveries, the straßenbahn stop in the early morning and the nice tune of my morning alarm, the unknown language which made everything harder but more miserious, and Havnevik with her wonderful music. I felt happy for every step I made in the cold. I felt in a wonderland which in Huggin and Muninn's phantasies is called Norway or Scandinavia, even though I think it's probably nowhere but our spirits.

Everything was perfect and I had a life on my own, deciding for every step, the room was my nest, even tho somebody else could have seen it as a dark lair. Everything was delicate cause it was deeply me. My room and that music, my room and the snow, myself and the streets. I was sorrounded by and of myself. After some time, which was incredibly short - just a month or so, but felt like a life - I started to lack something: a guitar in my hands, a hug every now and then, a person to take care for. Yes, that's loneliness, but a very feeble one. I didn't look for my italian friends for a few weekends just for coincidence, which eventually I did. And then I met her. And everything changed.

The world which was still and silent like in a snow bowl started spinning fast and fast and my frozen heart respawned and the music changed: it was time for chikinki.

But now I'm going too further.

Everything was too short, the time for myself and the time for chikinki. 

Only 5 fucking months. Never doing it again, too short time.

The travels of Munniver

I' sorry for all the (imaginary) readers of this blog, for not having time - or means - to share my extreme experiences in the country that recently won the "most eccentric country" award: Finland.

I've been here for... several weeks, lots of time and yet not enough. My knowledge of finnish advances very slowly, partly for lack of time, but mostly for the characteristic of the language itself. Every time I learn a new word, or grammar feature, I find out later that I was mistaken, or the word is right, but it has 7 other more often used synonyms. Learning a language has seldom been more frustrating.

The other habits still surprise me, or I surprise them; for example, Jaakko was amazed, impressed and disgusted when he saw me putting salt on salad.

Salt and oil, is there anything more basic for a salad?

And there is a lot more. What about, for example, the silence? It seems to be a law in here, that I actually don't dislike - and as every rule is often broken by teenagers. I could spend hours describing the perfectly hygenic lack of hygene; no matter what they do, finns are always healthy - except for lactose allergies.

I should post a few pictures, but, well, they are on the other account now. I suggest to everybody who has a facebook account to check them there.

All the time I've been moving. After Lappeenranta I came back to lahti for one single day to leave again for Helsinki. There, after 2 days I departed for Turku, where the Ferry to Mariehamn, Åland, was. Together with Jaakko we went on a short trip with the motto "Knights & Dragons". Don't ask me why.

After enjoying tax free shopping, wonderful scenery from the sundeck, terrible wind on the sundeck, we reached the glorious capital of... Åland.

The city is tiny but quite pretty, a weird little island, in which finns can fell "half-foreigners".

There's not too much in Åland, but beaches, bird poo, ships and tiny forests should keep you busy for some time.

Then we faced another too early departure, this time towards the capital of... Sweden!

I have to say - finns, forgive me -  I loved Stockholm. There is so much to see and to do; the capital seems massive, its city centre comfortable and huge: looking from the channel, you can see a wide wide city, or so it seems. Don't think of New York, that's way to  big, but in Stockholm, there's free air - except in the small tourist venues of the Old city - everywhere. There is room for people. And toilets are expensive.

There is an entire small island for museums and a park, a Tourist could spend weeks in it. We only had tim to visit the Vasa museum and it was great.

By chance, we had the two sunniest day of the summer... so that the city looked even happier and warmer - Helsinki feels quite the opposite.

So, long story short, I ran out of time. I'll try to write again soon....

BWOOOOOUU - INAPPROPRIATE!!!!

Birmingham by surf

A friend of mine is going to Birmingham in a couple of months. He's going there with an international mobility project within university and a company. Lucky he is!

Not that I'm fond of Britain but must be a great experience. After all is exactly the same experience as I did, just coordinates change: the country, the person, the company.

Another friend of mine just ended up the bachelor degree and I'm doing that in a couple of months too hopefully, so an idea rose to my mind: why don't we all go there?

That's exactly the kind of sudden ideas that fade in a couple of minutes. Anyway I surfed to Birmingham and exactly to the local university site. I roamed an hour maybe on internet to seek infos, images and tastes. 

When I was a bit younger I was used to just take a map and fly to that region with my imagination. I usually chose dolomites or other mountain regions among Italy. Now I look a bit further the italian borders, but I'm still doing the same, and I soak the same juice. I think I like to travel that way as much as I do really travelling and organizing real travels...

For the whole morning I felt in Birmingham, between the thick red bricks of the campus and the typical british spring air. The hot summer was not there anymore for a short time.

Living abroad is a different thing than travelling. I'm still willing to do both.

Die zeit, the time that kills

After this huge expierence (never huge enough, never long enough, never enough), there's a lesson among the others that I had to draw: Time wipes, with every little drop that flows away, places, emotions, moments, feelings, people, loves.
I can be pretty sure I'll never see some special someones, but not necessarily cause of premature death: because mutually banished and ostracized by time.
Leaving home first, and Ulm afterwards, I discovered that there's a horrible truth that I already knew, slightly, but I can feel burdening and omnipresent: time kills, passing by.
When you live the same place for years you run into the illusion that things are changeless and still, because the hills never move, nor they'll do.
But we walk in time, not only on earth, and the hills fade away, people fade away, we fade away. We'll never reach the same place even crossing a square called during the centuries under the same name. As Eraclitus said: "You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you"

World stands there, people don't, expierences don't.

We all have to face that, cause what scares us most of this truth is: death. Death is the natural consequence of all this. And as a natural thing we shouldn't be scared but allow it to be.
If we couldn't die I think we would barely care about things going away forever. Time would be but a two penny coin if we would be timeless. Hopefully we are not.
But we are scared to lose things as the time passes away: it gives us no control on the events, on our lives, nothing to hold on to.

In my taoistic point of view I feel this lesson as the most important one as it is the key to live peacefully whatever happens outside, whatever we have to face.
There's no race, nor no place, that can avoid the rule of time, that's why Huginn is speaking that way: to tell you what he saw so far, wherever he went.
Cheers.

History loves to get stuck in linguistic facts

"Real history loves to get stuck in linguistic facts"

Munin hails you from the far north... "so near to the north pole" as grandma said.

Actually I'm still far far away from the northpole. I can't surprise you with 'Vönderful pictürs vrom Vinlant' because I don't have the cable to download them on this laptop. They'll come soon.

I'm in Lappeenranta - which is NOT in Lapland, and it is NOT snowing - suffering from early awakenings caused by the "midnight sun" which happens to be at 4AM and there's no curtain to stop it. It's true: finnish houses are great to bear the cold dark winter but completely unfit to the summer - which is, as you may not believe, just wonderful.

Finnish summer is not just warmer but the antithesis of the winter. The days are warm (not lately... but in general they are) but not too hot, which allows you to stay in, out, wherever you want. Sometimes in Italy it's so hot that you can't really go out or at least not enjoy it.

If the day is not warm enough for you, you can just stay in sauna, which hot temperatures and incredible moist would please the pickiest tropical reptile.

The sun shines almost all the time, giving you freedom of performing any activity at any time of the day - except sleeping.

Lappeenrant (Willmannstrand) happens to be on the biggest lake of Finland - or so they say - which continues, through an artificial channel, straight to Russia. The border is only at 30 km from here; for this reasons, the city, even though very small, is packed with russians, and pretty much everything is written both in finnish and russian - no swedish. The buildings and the city are small but prettier than most of the finnish cities. It's a nice place.

Lakes are very pretty and always accompanied by tiny foresty islands. The weather is completely crazy, alternating thunderstorms with sunshine, but I heard that it's the same in all europe. And what about the food crisis? It is giving me the creeps, aren't they exaggerating? First it was a bad year for agriculture and now all the prices - even dairy, meat, chocolate, drinks - is overpriced.

Well anyway, I came to think about houses.

What are our houses really for? Are they a place for fitting human beings, feed them and make them sleep in warm beds or something else, a temple to some pagan deity?

I'm thinking of all the rooms locked, left there "for some special event" or "so that I don't have to clean them everyday". Are our houses some temple of self-worship, of esteem-wanking, to show ourselves our little amount of glory and wealth, not to show or to use? Are they some complex political instrument to promote our image? Are they a den of vanity, furniture and appearance, or a safe place for people, steady or traveling, a shelter for friends, to offer them a bed and a warm soup in the time of need?

Take care, Munin.

A day to the seaside

Life is like a trip to the seaside on a sunday...
You wake up in the morning and walk to the seaside, and all you think about is reaching it, cause you think it's the place you want to go at the moment. You have to walk for a hundred yards and you have to stop frequently to let the cars go by and cross the street. Like at school: exams are a sort of barrier to cross to reach the last goal: reaching the sea, ending the education and get to the adult age. You have a bag with you: with a paddle and a bucket to build up your own sand castle, and loads of other toys.
Eventually you get to the sea.
And there you go: it's already 12 and the sun is freakin'burning...
You've never been to the sea before: you wouldn't imagine it to be so huge: everything's blue in front of you. It's nearly scary... And now? What should you do?
It's a bad moment when you reach the adult age, you get your degree and kicked out in the world of work. The sea's so huge. You've always been sorrounded by houses and walls, with small steps to do one after the other, one at time. Now everything's free and there's a lot of space, but your eyes refuse to see: what should I do with all that space?
Some people now are laying down at the sun: they're lucky, they can live their day without doing anything. But you're a honest guy and you're going to call the people that are coming to the shore with a boat. They are fishers and they'll give you some hard work for today and some money too.
They come closer, you hail loud them to get the attention, and after a few words they'll get you: you're on for today.
You throw your bag: the toys, the bucket, the sand castle: there's no time for it anymore. Bye bye toys. You jump on the boat.
From now on you have to face the infinities of the seas. From now on you can decide. You can keep on fishing with these guys or trying to get to a bigger one and sea another sea.
What will happen next?
Probably they'll get you to the shore, you'll be old and your face wrinkled, your hands marked by fatigue and the salt of the sea. They'll get you to the shore and they'll give you a few of the food you fished together with them: will be enough for today, cause the day is nearly gone, sun's setting and you'll have some time to rest on the seaside.
Maybe you'll even find your toys. But you forgot how to build a sand castle.
Sun's down, it's getting cold, too cold.
And that's how your life ended, that's how your day to the seaside went.

Vinlant!

I'm in Finland right now and I've been here for 4 days now. I wish to speak a bit about it, but i'm given no time at the right moment. I'll surprise you with a few pictures though...

Wonderful sunset on lake Näsijärvi. 11PM approx.

Hedgehog (Siili) in Tampere.

Briefly

Have you thought it was the end? That with that last post, "Hugin and Munin" or "Fratelli oltr'Alpe" was archived, finished, just a piece of garbage left in Google's memory? Did you hope for it? It's not!















Eventually, Erasmus is just about getting drunk with foreign people.

Farewell

And thus it happened. Quickly, without time for remorse, the end came.
All my flatmates left very soon. I hated them, but leaving is forgiving. May they have peace.
Luca left quite soon. We gathered there, in the courtyard, after a long terrible night in "the Church". It was a very windy and sunny morning, time for farewell. That was the last time I saw him. We kept tears for ourselves. Remy brought him to the airport on his car. The two flatmates travelled together once more.
Many memories came to my mind, things to remember, thing seen together. All gone.
We had but a last hug to tell each other everything. Goodbye.
Thus he left. The wind brought clouds. We went back home.
Then it was time to say hello to everybody else, the same night.
I spent the day cleaning and trashing everything I couldn't bring with me. One shall not have more than he can carry on his shoulders, if he's willing to have any adventure.
Things own us, they are an anchor that keep us down, at the harbour.
Evening came. We ate our last dinner, full of sorrow, of remorse, and carelessness. Then all the "survivors" met there, at Alice's place (was it?). Me, Henna, Remy, Alice, Arielle, Giorgia, Federica. We spent a wonderful night, talking, throwing a ball, throwing wax on Remy's laptop (ooops), drinking vinegar (yuck!), beer.... One of those usual wonderful Erasmus night. So bad it was the last one. Then me and Henna had to leave, our flight was in the night. We hugged everybody and said bye a thousand times. It was so hard. Then we wanted to say farewell to the Californians, Christian, Federico, Kevin. They were having a party at Trevor's and every single of them was drunk as fuck. They barely notice we where in. We managed to say bye to Federico though. It was better maybe. I felt sick of farewells. We saw them in the best of their lives, laughing and having fun, not minding about the future. The moment itself was reality. Jumping and spanking each other was the thing. I like to imagine that they are partying even now, there in Belgrove; I am too melancholic to party on the edge of the end.
Farewell boys, I will not forget you.

Away we went. They were playing Stairway to Heaven....
Packages done, away we go, to the airport. At the first light of dawn we get to say goodbye, we are able to say "farewell or see you" to all the buildings and fields, dyed by the pink morning light. The early bus catches me and Henna. He drives us north, to the airport. We are given the chance for a last look to the city. Seagulls walk in Grafton Street. The radio is on a Gaelic channel. The speaker says us "Slàn". Here we go, the journey with the bus ends, we are in the airport.
The thousand things I didn't have time to do come to my mind. It's too late to mourn.
Farewell Ireland.
Me and Henna take different planes. For us it is just a "see you soon".
I am tired. I did not sleep all night. But I have some energy left to feel sad other than sleepy.
The airplane accelerates, more and more; the wheels leave the soil, and as they are tear away from the soil, my heart is teared apart. Farewell Ireland. This time is no joke. This time may be forever. Farewell Ireland. Farewell to the green fields and the muddy beaches, to the crows and the people, to the Guinness and Inis Mòr, to the incredible rocks of Giants' Causeway and wonderful lakes of Killarney.
Farewell Kathleen ni Houlihan, my love, Farewell.

O'Donoghues

This world famous pub was worth a good pint before leaving the Island. So we stopped there one afternoon, a not crowded day, to have some black stuff.
The pub is very small, the toilets almost medieval, the walls scratched and covered with hundreds of pictures. Al this, in the rest of the world, means a low-prestige, dirty filthy place. In Ireland it means quality.
High quality is the people, a company of old-middle aged Irish women. Incredibly good was the pint. Nice was the day. A good place, go there when it's not crowded and enjoy. You'll never forget.

The Church

Do you know the pub called "The Church" because it's actually built inside what was a place of cult?
Don't go there.
It sucks and it's expensive.

national gallery

I've some tips for those who are still in Dublin, or will be there soon.

National Gallery:
This place is worth visiting, since it's free. And free museums are what I love about Ireland.
The gallery is a weird one. It is place in the old barracks, a huge courtyard with an old nice building around it. In the courtyard was (and now is no more) the "Sea Stallion", a faithful reproduction of a Viking ship built in Glendalough. Which makes me quite suspicious, since Glendalough is not on the sea. But... the ship has been used! It sailed, with a crew of volounteers, from Denmark to Dublin. It's a small shell apparently, with no motor but sail and oars. It shows how tough were Vikings and theirs ships.
The museum itself closes way too early (at 5PM they kick you out) and it's a terrible, random placement of good material. I enjoyed the historical museum, in Kildare street, but the national gallery is just a mess. There are small, well constructed sections, like the one on war - excellent indeed - and on 1916 and civil war. Personally, I'm sick with 1916 Revolution. I mean, it's everywhere, even on Lisbon treaty posters. Ok, it was a good attempt, but could we pleeeeease, move on? 1916 is over! And it wasn't even really succesful!
Anyway, the section is very well constructed, since it's the kind of gallery which does not need any guide.
Then there are the "selected objects", a small room with almost 20 (i don't remember the exact number) of objects selected by the leaders of the museum. Nice. And then.... it comes the thing...
THE RANDOM GALLERY. All the stuff that they could fit is placed in a few rooms, on glass shelves or even drawers, without any explanation or date. Just completely random stuff.
Then a nice but quite meaningless section about furniture.
I would say it's a 7.5 out of ten, good but needs improvements.

The end

Come si poteva chiedere al tempo di fermarsi?
Come si poteva sperare che il destino non desse fine a ciò che era nato per terminare presto?
Eppure ho sperato.
Ho sperato che si potesse trasformare, che potesse finire una fase di questa esperienza per tramutarsi in qualcosa di diverso che potesse ancora far parte della mia vita.
E invece no.
Con l'arrivo degli scatoloni a casa tutta la mia vita di Ulm riconfluisce nella mia stanza, che trabocca di oggetti, ricordi. Lacrime anche. Forse fa parte del gioco.
Ora c'è solo una compagnia che può sopperire a quella mancanza di giochi, gioie e scoperte: la mia finestra. Sempre lei. Dalla mia finestra tutto prende forma in una razionalità che va oltre la logica, perché da pace. Va oltre gli schemi perché è in forma di colline.
Ho imparato tanto, troppo. E sono stanco. Vorrei ripartire, ma non riesco neanche a riallacciare la cintura. Vorrei scoprire ancora il mondo fuori, ma ora è il momento di collezionare le memorie.
Riflettere e assorbire. Assorbire le memorie, gli errori, i tentativi, le lacrime.
Assorbire per ritrovare un po' di energia e ripartire da zero con una vita che pensavo finita.
Kathrin non fa più parte della mia vita. La distanza e gli eventi hanno ucciso un sogno.

Muoio oggi per rinascere domani. Come un rampicante mi aggrappavo ad un muro cadente, e per non venir strappato taglio quel vizzo, che seccherà sul muro e cadrà con esso.
La fine. La fine.
Ed un nuovo inizio.

Pictures

Finally I have some pictures of Waylander's gig, and many others!

news "ations

I'm at the end of my Erasmus. I've said farewell to my flatmates, farewell to UCD, farewell to many things.
I still have a few days to spend in Dublin and I'll try to make them great.
My Erasmus life has ended, this I know. I should write how do I feel about it, what have I learnt, but it's not quite the right moment; I am already writing and storing my thoughts, but I'll post them only when they'll be fully translated. So when I'll be back in Italy I will still write about Dublin. I'm going to review a few things and places, like O'Donoghues, the National Museum, and so on.
Sincerely, when we started this blog, I (and probably Hugin too) was scared and thrilled by the idea of such an experience and I had no time to think about coming back. If I were to realize how leaving Ireland feels, I probably would have never applied for the exchange. But here I am, in one of the few Europe's corner which has never been conquered by the Romans.
The quest is not finished though. The Aldafaðr would be quite narrow-minded if he thought to use my sight only to explore the small and remote Ireland. I'll be back to Bananitaly on the 26th, but another plane will bring me to Finland on the 11th of june. My wanderings continue, and what I see shall be written down for all (well... for a few...) to read and perhaps remember.

Quotation time:
"You should do it on baily dasis!" myself.
"People in the north are ignorant!" Alex aus Napoli. It should be read as "Peepol in de nord ar ee-nj-or-aant"

May the north wind be a bit warmer this summer!
Munin

The Kings of Irish Folk Metal

I promised some picture, but since Henna didn't send them to me yet, I'll replace them with some taken from the bands' Myspaces.

We pay the ticket and enter the lair underneath the surface of Temple Bar. In such occasions, the club suddenly transforms: you come from the terrible streets of temple bar on saturday night, packed with italians, spanish and french people (Henna would say "but mostly germans"), drunk or going to get drunk, and enter this underworld with tall (!!!) long haired stout Irish headbangers, with T-shirts of every possible metal band, from Iron Maiden to Korpiklaani and even Apocalyptica and Moonsorrow.
Runecaster had already started playing and a hammering 1/16 bass drum beat welcomes us. The band features 4 members, whose leader sings, plays guitar and the tin whistle when appropriate. Ok, the band does not show great excellence in arrangements or complicate riffs and structure, but good will and cheerful metallic power. The leader is actually the whistle-bodhrann-mandolin player of Waylander, and Runecaster may be just a side project in which he is the leader.
We arrived a bit late, so I listened only to a few songs from this band, anyway the feeling was good even with all the sound problems, mics, etc. Folk metal bands must have some problems when playing live: they usually have more instruments than musicians and switching is difficult: acoustic guitar are replaced with clean electric guitars; Bodhrann and flutes are difficult to amplify.
The face-body painting was funny but very in tema. At first I thought the drummer had huge blue nipples!
Then the band stops playing and leaves the stage. The "filling" music starts playing: Whiskey in the jar! But the song stops: Runecaster are given time for another song!
Good performance, but finally, after some Flogging Molly, the unofficial protagonists of the night
: Waylander!!!!

Their entrance is a bit weird since the guitarist-singer of Runecaster is still there... with his tin whistle! The bands enter, they have body painiting of the same colour as Runecaster and they look cool.
Check them on Myspace!
They start with a song with a silly name: "Walk with honour" (or actually "wok wid onow") but quite cool. The singer is not that good with clean vocal but has a good growl, the groove is fast and chaotic, the band shows complete carelessness for mistakes - but this is the unifying theme of the night - just as I would imagine celtic music; Irish lads, you know.
Their part on the stage is short but impressive. Without too much seriousness they sweat on the stage - hell, everything was hot and wet that night and no oxigen for anybody!
I liked the MANLY and AGGRESSIVE attitude of the band, but their overall cheerfulness. They even let a crazy men in the audience sing a few lines. All Eamon Doran's was on fire when they played their last song "Born to the fight", which they played slightly longer than the original, for, like, 8-10 minutes? Whatever, it was great.



It is time now to introduce the main band of the night, and the main delusion: Cruachan.

This is from their Myspace:
"Cruachan combine modern rock /metal with traditional Irish music, but there is a lot more to them than just that: elaborate classical pieces, ancient medieval tunes etc. They also use real instruments rather than relying solely on a keyboard or sampler. The use of these instruments also adds an element of curiosity in live shows due to each member's ability to play a variety of instruments. Some of the traditional instruments they use are: Tin whistle, Irish Flute, Bódhran (an ancient hand-held goatskin drum), Uilleann pipes (or elbow pipes, like the traditional bag pipes, but instead of blowing, a bellows is used to pump air into the bag), Harp, Bouzouki (originally a Greek guitar, it has been adopted into Irish and Scottish music) Cruachan's original metal style could have been classed as Black metal, but the band have now opened up to other styles of metal and rock, although the black influences are still evident and the whole ethos is still there. Cruachan consider themselves as modern day bards or storytellers. They tell the old Celtic myths and legends of their proud past like the ancient Fili did before them, or the tales of hardship and rebellion that Ireland endured, through the medium of music "


Indeed they have many pros: they really use all those instruments widely and not just en passant for intros like most of folk metal bands. They started in '93 to play black-folk metal, which is quite early: Bathory released their first real Viking metal album, Hammerheart, only in 1990, and in '93 Varg Vikernes was imprisoned, closing a stage of black metal.
But for some reasons, the gig just wasn't right.
John O'Fathaigh's mic (Tin Whistle player) did not work at all and he was clearly pissed off/embarassed. I didn't almost hear the bozouki too. The Bodhrann was neglected most of the night, but Cruachan didn't use it at all if I remember correctly. Keith Fay is not a "guitar hero", but his growl is strong and dark. I think his guitar was out of tune, or he was using minor chords, which do not blend that well with happy Irish fiddles. The overall effect was grotesque.
The first impact was very negative, but with the following songs the band gets better: Karen Gilligan pops on the stage, and the band plays what seems to be a famous masterpiece: "Ride On". The melody is now milder, the female voice is well alternated with Keith's vocals; good song, the audience loved it.
The last song(s?) gave more credibility to the band, that unleashed all its Black power and rage, without Karen and Irish stuff and I really enjoyed this part. Just pure evil chaos, for the extreme headbangers. Then, without even say "bye" (did they? I didn't notice) they left the stage.
In conclusion, I think the band sounds good in studio, but didn't live.
Keith wore a quite ugly/funny leather armour, and all the members looked more pissed than amused (unlike Runecaster and Waylander!); technical problems made their gig less enjoyable; their extreme nationalism was a bit annoying. I mean, it's ok, they play Folk Metal with Irish roots, so you expect them to sing about Brian Boru, Cuchulinn, Irish legends etc. But the Irish flag on the stage, dedicating the first song only to Irish headbangers (and there were several foreigners that night), saying that Ireland was the only western country to ever have a famine... I mean, it was just a bit excessive.


But I don't want to be over-criticising: the overall feeling of the night was very relaxed, careless and pagan. The place was packed, especially since such bands which would be called "weird" in Ireland; the bands were very sensitive toward the audience.
All in all I think Irish folk metal is still rawer than, say, the Scandinavian one. I never saw them live, but bands like Lumsk, Korpiklaani, Fejd, show much more attention to details and arrangement; I appreciated the harsh look and sound though, and I think it is very appropriate to Irish music.
So, Irish Metal, see you soon!

Munin says hi.