telespallabob

And who knew them? Thank you very much.

I love you.

To be a singer-songwriter, you have to feel it inside, you need to be direct and have a good gut. No teetotalers allowed, poets are not to be disturbed. Narrate what is there, laugh little. Always spontaneous.

With what courage do you give a 5 to a review that doesn't address the key questions? Where one describes but then shrinks back in the face of awareness? For heaven's sake, it's a film of Nazi propaganda but it represents something unprecedented. These aren't the "white phones," this is the real deal. It's meticulously crafted, it's the comeback of a medium that, in just 20 years, will produce monumental masterpieces worldwide. It's cinema, it's astonishing cinema. It's aesthetics in power, much higher than Hitler's delirium. Is it possible to separate creative avant-garde from mental recession? I believe we must! Watching this film (but especially "Olympia") is a challenge, it's the courage to admit that behind propaganda lies the resurgence of visual art. We cannot turn away; we would do history and Leni Riefenstahl's work a disservice. Her techniques, her image. We would do a disservice to Cinema, to Italian neorealism. To Charlie Chaplin, to a great era. "Cinematography is the strongest weapon," it has been so for years, and we owe it to this woman. Now the courage to make cinema is lacking; it has become sociology, and that doesn't help us at all. We need visionaries.

And I live this wait thinking that this crazy curve will never be straight... it's not just a love song (My Life with a Goddess, 1992): it's a manifesto, a bit like Boxe was (album, song, everything). It's Fiumani, it's not for everyone. A new book has come out, who will buy it? Who will even know that Fiumani has written others? We will tell around what they are missing, we will try to make women fall in love by improvising poetry (or singing his). In the end, it will always be the same ones who buy his stuff, going to concerts, and we’ll go alone because we are not honest with women. There is no problem or as he would say... Who cares if life is like this, if it doesn't even respect us who are here watching this half moon. Who cares if life is like this, if we try but always stay here, dreaming of a great reality (Who cares, 1996). And then they say that "Sex and Violence" is a bad album.

Gaber was NOT a communist, and he probably wasn't even an anarchist. It would be fair to say that Gaber was simply Gaber. It’s not a praise of communism, it’s a praise of communists. Because he saw a different conviction in their eyes, when he says that “Someone was communist because they believed they could be alive and happy only if others were too,” he wants to teach us that people deserve respect. Especially when they seek a fairer world, for themselves and for others. The real problem is not the end (or return) of communism but the death of values like solidarity, respect, or altruism. It’s the world we live in today, where we wage wars among the poor for the crumbs (even if few) of the wedding cake. I prefer to choose someone with a crazy idea (like communism might be) who shares the struggles of workers, the pain of the evicted or the precarious, and defends their rights, rather than a moderate, clean-faced person in a designer jacket, who comes to tell me, “I’m up here, and you’re down there. That’s how the world works; deal with it!” I don’t think we need communism (I'm not a communist) but I'm sure we need humanity, to hope in the human race.

And why do you need to apologize? You wrote a good review (I would have approached it differently), and it’s always good to talk about him. He had everything, but he gained very little from his career. It’s a shame that you hear practically in any nonsense "Everybody's talkin' at me. I don't hear a word they're sayin'..." and then no one can tell you who wrote it or who sings it. Ignoring the fact that we’re talking about two greats, it’s truly a shame. It’s stuff for a few; you just have to come to terms with it.

When you make a wonderful album (not the only one), a respectable career with exceptional praise, and the only song known to the public is a cover of someone else's (the GREAT Fred Neil), it means you were born unlucky, no two ways about it. A little gem: Nilsson was a reference for the very early Bennato, in 1970 he released a 45 RPM with a cover of "1941". The review? I was supposed to do it, you did it, and I thank you.

With "Up," they ride the (well-deserved) success of "Wall-E," offering us a story that can be viewed from multiple angles (depending on the age of the viewer). It's beautiful; however, some superlatives in the review leave me baffled... It’s confirmation (theoretically, there shouldn't be a need, but it’s not so obvious) that animated films, when done well, can surpass live-action movies in the emotions conveyed and the ability to engage larger segments of the audience.