Caffè 115

OK, Siena was my city and I really miss it… arty and gothic city where I have been educated. This amazing place hides an amazing secret, an apparently small American Bar. It’s name is Caffè 115. The name refers to its address no., thus 115. It is located in Via dei Rossi, next to San Francesco and the Faculty of Economics. It is “apparently small” because it is divided in three semi-floors. When you walk you suddenly find yourself walking on old enlighted wells covered by a thick glass which allows you to appreciate the Italian wine collection. Surrounded by artistic pictures and cool paintings, bricks and suffused lights, you will enjoy his precious selection of everything. Food is not pre-cooked, means it takes time to make anyhing and the ingredients are supreme. But the most amazing thing is drinks and music….

Jazz is usually the rule, in any case you will listen to sophisticated works of art. Regular customers are academic staff and cool people.
It is a MUST if you go to Siena.
Enjoy

Mariarita Martino : 13 Nov 2006 20:59 |  Tags: Review | Comments (2) | Close comments |  Report a problem

The Night is Like a Lovely Tune …Beware…My Foolish Heart..

Writing about web page http://www.kurtelling.com/touring

The title refers to the very first words he sang that night, namely the bossa-like version of “My Foolish Heart” (V. Young & N. Washington). It was the 21st of October, a lovely Saturday night in London, when people meet as in a “Turtle Town” (B. Mehldau), and slowly enjoy the little secrets of this lush city. We were there, and Kurt sang for us. But what about his voice? His style? His inspirations?
Kurt Elling is one of the best jazz singers of our time (Bobby McFerrin and Cassandra Wilson are part of the same category). But, he is more than that. With his quartet he revisits contemporary works of art…not only songs or standards. He intersemiotically translates paintings into music, reinterprets the by-now traditional solos which made the history of Jazz (e.g. Coltrane’s, Gordon’s, etc.). BUt, more than that, Kurt Elling sings notes, no, not like a solo….I mean not only that…Specifically, when he sings his words are completely subsumed to the single note…and vice versa…you need to ””experience”” that…
MOreover, that night Kurt Elling (voice), Laurence Hobgood (piano), Robert Amster (bass) and Willie Jones III (drums) enchanted their audience – which included the amazing Kenny Wheeler as well – with “Close Your Eyes”, “Stairway to the Stars”, Body and Soul” – under the influence of Mr Dexter Gordon – Vincent Mendoza’s “Esperanto” and, in the end, they reached the climaz with an amazing version of Coltrane’s “Resolution”....(OH MY GOD!!!! :- O). The next CD is coming soon…I will queue for it.
Enjoy!!!

Mariarita Martino : 26 Oct 2006 10:09 |  Tags: Music | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

The Old Woe of Literature

INCESTO: the embodyment of insanity and immoral desease, unresolved lust, filthy, incredulous, obscene, concubine of evil and Abraxas eating worms. Not even the Hell would let you go in, you incestuous animal, you don't deserve the lowest invertebrate classification. But, still powerful, negative power of rendering things horrid, power of impressing with your terrific eyes, red like the unknown sky, undreamable incubus, nightmare untold. In any case, this movie is genial in it's editing and manipulation of frame + mise-en-scene + plighting plot (they have the same german root), and a soundtrack which conveys a tragic Pirandellian slow move ending style ("va bene, va bene così – Beatrice Cenci did the same when she killed her father who raped her).

Mariarita Martino : 02 Apr 2006 14:15 |  Tags: DVD Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

TIME DESTROYS EVERYTHING

Wow, I am not gonna tell the end…you will see after 15 minutes.
The story in itself is very simple: a happy couple, a normal life in a contemporary vintage-style Paris, a rape and the sudden revenge. The ethical brutality of the act is not a case in point but the mental, physical and – the last but not the least – realistic embodyment of terror and fear. The whole is the result of a peculiar use of kinetic and cinematic syntax.
A dizzy camera, a diegetic viewer which interprets the whole tragedy of the moral of the fable: "Time destroys everything!!". Gaspar Noè dramatically destroys the time in dream-like single shot tecnique. No pauses, no hesitations….but full-time backward narration – less complex than Tarantino and more effective.
It is simply terrific and huge in its terror, violent and passional, the movie reveals romantic symbolism in the narration subdued to the realistic geniality showed in the exploitation of the camera gaze (internal) which becomes the external spectator, and thus the real becomes perception and vice versa.
DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE TOO SENSITIVE

Mariarita Martino : 25 Mar 2006 01:16 |  Tags: DVD Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

Jean– "Victor Von" Grenouille

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a virtuoso. Grown up in the "rubbishly" vapour of a filthy Paris, he has a meticolous sense of nose as Victor Von Frankestein had a meticolous sense of …..human science and philosophy. Don't you think that the ideological transposition between the two can be made? Both went beyond the human limits, both creators of no-ethical products but both creative and magnificent in the horror of the god-like ideas. Maybe Jean-Baptiste is more refined…abstract in his substance (it is not a contradiction….believe me) but terrific and intentional, yes he is intentionally terrific.
READ IT.

Mariarita Martino : 19 Mar 2006 23:15 |  Tags: Book Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

And then there Were None

It seems a very simple story: a woman in Old New York society, a victim of patriarchal puritanism and conventions, a failed "new woman" searching for wordly pleasures whose only peculiarity is being written by a master of letters….Edith Wharton. In very elegant and perferct literary syntax, the interpretation of the novel goes beyond the simple cultural perspective, but is gives many occasions of psychoanalytical, deconstructive and semiotic insights. The plot is like a plight, full of surprises and double-meanings, and enriched by ambiguous statements. And what about the end? what happens in the end? do you really can understand what Lily Bart has done or will you be perpetually investigating – as I am – on the real cause and effect of the last 4 lines?
Keep on enjoying!

Mariarita Martino : 19 Mar 2006 23:03 |  Tags: Book Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

Intersemiotic Verisimilitude

Brilliant, simply brilliant.
Apart from the Johnny Fontane and Lucy Mancini parenthesis – which are absent from the movie (respectively the singer – Al Martino – and the young Santino's lover – Jeannie Linero) Francis Ford Coppola decided to use the original as a screenplay. The dialogical language is our Italian-English, our fabulous mingled language with our same southern accent (I come from the south…..we also write like that!!! :-)) and the portrayal of the characters is simply sublime….everything fits. I would like to quote one passage which confirms the official "padrino" baptism to show the magnificence of languages and ideas:
" 'Don Michael,' Clemenza said.
Kay could see how Michael stood to receive their homage. He reminded her of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity, who, by divine right, held the power of life and death over their fellow men. one hand one on his hip, the profile of his face showed a cold proud power, his body was carelessly, arrogantly at ease, weight resting on one foot slightly behind the other. The caporegimes stood before him. in hat moment Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true. She went back into the kitchen and wept" (Puzo, 584).

Mariarita Martino : 17 Mar 2006 20:16 |  Tags: Book Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

Modernism MODERNISTIC Modernity

Writing about web page http://www.jasonmoran.com

He plays alone, starting with a classic pseudo-ragtime style and following his undefined sweet&sour style. Of course it cannot be compared to Facing Left: Jason Moran Trio(2000), in which, with Murder of Don Fanucci, his leitmotif continues the chain started with Gangsterism on Canvas (Soundtrack to Human Motion-1999) followed by Murder of Don Fanucci (Facing Left-2000) a song taken from Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. In all his production the mafia theme is always present, old style mafia…..don Dillinger style. Peculiar are the Gagsterisms in any place: on a River (Black Stars-2001), on a Lunchtable (Modernistc-2002)- which really reminds Michael Corleone's Thrilling when he pragmatically becomens the Godfather….the restaurant sequence/chapter, on Stage (The Bandwagon-2003) and finally on the Set (Jason Moran-2005).
Apart from the beauty of the mental sound he conceives and performs, please focus on Planet Rock Postscript (Modernistc-2002)...just 2 minutes of brain clustering sweetness and sublime and silent understanding between piano and hands.
Enjoy.

Mariarita Martino : 17 Mar 2006 19:58 |  Tags: Music Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem

Freezing Time

Unfortunately, my critical idea is related to just two extracts of this masterpiece.In any case, it is a masterpiece. First, when Brad plays – I hope you have seen him – loses himself in his instrument….(this characteristic was pointed out by my father), he sets up a "collision" with his piano that fights with his predator in an antagonistic dance in which the man prevails…..oh god!!
Second, "Turtle Town" and "Knives Out" (Radiohead) – it opens the CD - are full of dramatic dynamics contrasting with a bloody human kinetism (human in mind and artificial in body). Brad goes on and the others follow ….rushing him, hurring him up.The first, reminds a turtle struggling for finding Her/his way in the midst of traffic lights in a crowded sinful city (London?). The latter, is emphatic and weepingly enthusiastic, a fight against the will, the sensational thought, the forgotten past of a crying lover…..Gosh…that why is so sadly delirious.
Enjoy

Mariarita Martino : 11 Mar 2006 01:11 |  Tags: Music Review | Comments (2) | Close comments |  Report a problem

Noisy Silence

The title of the review refers to the sensation you feel in reading this amazing historical (?) novel. Settled in Sicily, in the Eighteenth Century, portrays…..I can't tell you that. Mainly, it is the feeling of "feeling" the sound of silence (no, please, don't think about Simon&Garfunkel…!!!). the main characterd is a deaf-mute aristocratic woman who – through the a "onniscent" narrator – expresses a voice with no sound. But she let us feel the sounds surrounding her and her long life.
Please, if you read, focus on this stylistic feature….and on what brought her to this actual condition.)
Enjoy

Mariarita Martino : 11 Mar 2006 00:54 |  Tags: Book Review | Comments (0) | Close comments |  Report a problem