Dislocation

I wanted to write a couple of lines, but I was preceded by Commander @[Carlos], who practically took the words right out of my mouth (don't worry, Carlitos, I had just brushed my teeth...). I also think that the descriptive emphasis got a bit out of hand, and usually, that doesn’t happen to you... Of course, it speaks to the contradictions that @[proggen_ait94] describes so well. It’s true that life in uniform is not an ordinary life, in every sense, but let’s say first of all that if someone who has always lived in a fallout shelter watches this film, they might believe it to be truthful and sincere, pure in intent and raw and harsh in outcomes... but if it’s seen by someone like me, who has been seeing the cops in the square since the mid-seventies, has witnessed many dispersal charges, almost all gratuitous, has seen, almost twenty years ago, the G8 in Genoa with almost every disgrace perpetrated by the uniforms acting unpunished under the auspices of the State—whatever that term means, or, by chance, from the same uniforms, let’s say 38/40 years ago, who took a severe beating simply for being at a protest—then you see things from a different perspective, a bit more interested, so to speak...

The armed cop with a baton (have you ever taken one on your legs or in the head?...) might have all sorts of family or personal problems, psychological or otherwise, but they wear a uniform and represent the state, for better or worse, it seems, so, given that we can't subject them all, every single day, to psychological aptitude tests, I distrust them, and keeping that in mind, I keep my distance... Then we can spin tales about the thankless job, about how the children of proletarian Italy either became workers or joined the police. We can argue about whatever we want, but a man in uniform ceases to be a man and becomes the uniform, and they have the tacit permission, or not, to even abdicate the law they should defend or represent to behave like a man in uniform, armed and therefore on the side of reason.

Then, to return to the film, the fact that nothing is explored regarding the subjects' personal experiences or the typical aspects of the job left me with a bitter aftertaste that, in addition to the negative judgment of the foundations on which the film is based, leads me to suspect that such ignorance and superficiality were intentional from the outset of the script. Evidence of this is when the newcomer asks the "old hands" what happened in Genoa during the G8, and he receives a laconic response that yes, there they had let themselves get out of hand a bit... Nothing else, voilà, let’s not talk about it anymore, enemies as before...

I loved them so much, especially at a time when listening to what we now call prog was not an easy task. In the second half of the seventies, the punk invasion first and the wave later ruled our innocent little hearts, and those who listened to prog at my age, let's say 14, did so by shaping their tastes with the listens and opinions of the older generation, who were scornful of both wave and disco.

I was utterly infatuated with the first EL&P, Trilogy, and Brain Salad Surgery, listening to them almost simultaneously, along with the KC available until then, Gentle Giant, and the first Gabrielian transformation of Genesis. But also concurrently with Ramones, Talking Heads, Modern Lovers, Ultravox. And I wasn’t alone. Yet many don't admit it, and loving prog and wave at the same time seems like an unnatural act. Such things.

Then I put them aside for most of the '80s and '90s, only to rediscover them until Works, no more, and to reacquire the remastered works by the great Steven Wilson in 5.1... And the magic was reignited; how many virtually unheard turns, how many little-discussed details, and what completeness.

Ah, but how grandiloquent, arrogant, what chaos to remake the classics... Jealousy, huh? If we talk about their works, we must sweep away every other term of comparison that does not pertain to prog; it’s useless, as I occasionally hear, to say that it’s good that such grandiosity, such pyrotechnics is rightly opposed to the dryness and simplicity of wave; those comparisons don’t hold, let’s not joke.

And if we're talking about comparisons between the bands that made prog, EL&P leave everyone miles behind, not just on a technical level. They can only compete with KC—there’s no contest. I agree with you when you get annoyed with Emerson's showboating, his exaggerations and stabbing at the Hammond; we laughed at that even back then. He came from the Nice but sought something else—refined and difficult compositions in every sense; try transcribing something of Emerson while listening to it, and then don’t come crying back... But don’t even attempt to start any minimal discussion on the preparation and superior technique of Keith; you’d fall into ridicule, and in your effort to make a bold statement, you'd say things that cannot be repeated, at times shameful.

Shall we talk about Greg Lake’s versatility, already at the court of the Crimson King? I mean, what are we discussing? His vocal style could combine extremely low tones with rock & roll howls from another era, plus uncommon compositional skills, especially in the field of soft, finger-picked ballads… and his bass technique, entirely based on plectrum use, not exactly virtuosic but certainly capable of holding its own against Carl Palmer—hats off, villagers—who expressed the very best of drumming in rock, with solid jazz foundations and experience (before turning twenty!!!) no less than with the Atomic Rooster, not just any old band.

For me, and I doubt you care, speaking as a drummer, he belongs to the sacred Triad with Bill Bruford and Stewart Copeland. Indisputable talent, borderline endurance, inventiveness, jazz lightness and hard rock heaviness simultaneously, all at the fingertips of the same drummer.

We won't see another band like that again, much to my dismay and that of others, and with joy and relief from yet others; it's normal and natural. Let’s see if, discussing music and musicians, we can limit ourselves to the discussion without, so to speak, resorting to blows; you surely don’t think you can convince the other, anyone else, by throwing insults, right?

These are beautiful things, especially when Tata lingers, momentarily closing her earlobes and widening her eyes on the turned ebony skin of the charismatic saxophonist. They deserve further listens, and the Sulcis hinterland of repeated visits.
On the other hand and moreover, as my cousins say, encore and encore, "Iglesias rulez."

What do we want to do, discuss about Bach?
Also regarding Our author, there’s nothing to say. You will see that the young man will become something.
Always provided that he doesn’t already make something of himself now.

Ugh.

On Mechanical Animals there's no joking around, right, but on almost all of his discography, both before and after, we can, in my humble opinion, lay a sweet veil of eternal oblivion. The character sucks as much as his communicative power; old Moody is right, he communicates poorly, filling it all with vacuum-sealed concepts that lack understanding and impact, generic enough. But he has managed to raise a couple of hairs on my neck here and there over the years. The single is nice, but quite yawny, just up to his standards. Thanks, Moody, you unearthed a pppcharacter, but now put him back where you found him. The two stars for the work go to the feeling I got from the single; if I change my mind, I’ll rewrite later. Ugh, I said.

Well, the fact that Battisti wanted greater, let's say, international diffusion of his work had already led him to an evolution, above all in sound (for some, the majority of that time, it was a regression...) since the days of "La batteria, il contrabbasso ecc.", not to mention the shift towards a more American sound with "Io tu noi tutti", sublimated and completed by the episode being discussed here. The subsequent phases, let’s say from "Una giornata uggiosa" onward, denote the ever-increasing interest of the reatino in electronics and synthesizers in general, and we aren't even talking about the white quadrilogy, a true apotheosis of this new sonic exposure, I would say, even before it became lyrical, from a Battisti who, whether with Panella or not, would have probably given us great satisfaction once more... Or maybe, who knows, he would have been troubled by the demon of live performances, which personally never tormented him, and we would have witnessed tours of Battisti surrounded by swarms of keyboards, synths, computers, and so on. Or perhaps we would have enjoyed a return to unplugged and acoustic... Or he would have produced one or more albums with entirely his own lyrics, perhaps angry, or nonsensical, who knows... And @[Martello] writes and prepares the croissants. Let him do both. Especially if he kindly shares some croissants with us. As for the pathetic attempt by @[Falloppio] to take Martellino on vacation, only to definitely take advantage of him on a sexual level and who knows what else, well, what a horrible person you are, Fallo!

A review as useless as an ass without a hole, and equally pointless to comment on now, eons after its publication. Dense with inaccuracies and observations typical of someone who either wants to provoke, for self-serving reasons, or argue about things they don’t know or understand, a typical attitude of this era. Even after years, it is sad to see that not much has changed. But the hope remains that this guy, @[Viva Lì], or Marco Poletti, the name by which some identify him, has gone through a life journey filled with events and experiences that have, first and foremost, enlightened him a little more, and then enriched him spiritually as well. Not knowing our subject in question, I refrain, also due to the 14 years that separate us from the review, from showering him with insults and coprolalia, not so much because I appreciate this work by Ivan d'Abruzzo, which is not among his best, but rather for the definition he imposes on us of Maestro Giovanni Tommaso, about whom he must certainly have informed himself further, likely regretting his previous and reckless remarks about him.

I quote @[macmaranza] and, for the record, I miss Valis too, damn it. And I also prefer, in the Complete Works of the Maestro, The Man in the High Castle... Am I perhaps the Mac? Or is he me? A question worthy of Dick...
For me, it was a coming-of-age novel, and some might find it out of place, as it is, for some, considered B-movie literature, and I assure you that back in the late '70s, science fiction WAS considered B-movie, even C... today we use much "nobler" terms like "dystopian tale" or others, but the substance, for me, is the same: PKD has abundant reasons to be listed among the greats of last century's literature, and I hope the detractors of the genre won't mind.
I wasn't disappointed by the famous movie that was adapted from it, for once, even though, for cinematic reasons, it tended to indulge a bit more in action (I know, but back then there was action...) rather than in introspection and self-exploration that the paper work proposed. In short, it wasn't the triumphant adaptation that "2001: A Space Odyssey" enjoyed years earlier; it was something else, but I enjoyed it quite a lot, even at the level of image/photography. Unforgettable was Los Angeles under an eternal rain, packed with Chinese....
Well done, Doctor, few words, the ones that are needed, there's no point in rambling too much. Or even in rambling little. It’s pointless to ramble.

Nachos in Bolzano sauce, just the thought makes my head spin. But so far, I’ve only been able to read this far; I’m busy trying to get to the A22, skipping, in fact, Bolzano, the god Adige is against me.
But I’ll review and finish reading; I won’t miss the chance to comment @[G].