Some time ago, while browsing the web, I happened to chat with a Californian guy. Due to my nickname, which is usually not andy sheppard, yet still indicates some interest in music, he asks me what I'm listening to. I reply Jannacci. And he types '?'.
And I drift off, thinking about how many times I've wondered what it's like to live in California, what people think, how they live, what they listen to. How much I've pondered over it. And I tell myself: why shouldn't this guy over there be interested in knowing how life is in Milan? And to tell him, there are few better people than Jannacci from Lecce, or Scerbanenco from Ukraine.
Today, Scerbanenco would be called Sherbanenko, thanks in part to his compatriot and regretted AC Milan striker. He was someone who wrote. Excellently. And profusely. One of his stories is about a woman. Well, not just one. Many. But the one I want to tell you about, yes. A beautiful and damned woman. Who is never satisfied. Who lives a reckless life. Who gets into trouble. Always. And in a predicament, as big as a house, she finds herself when the story begins (two pages in total, it's genius, I'll take a thousand lines to tell it, be patient). The police are looking for her. They are chasing her. And she has only one chance. Find a man who loved her to death. And whom she betrayed, left, abandoned. But who - she's sure - still loves her. To find him, to hide with him. Maybe try to give up the reckless life. Certainly to save herself from the cops, from prison. This woman arrives in Milan, gets into a taxi and looks for that man. Only she doesn't find him. She goes to the address where he used to live and nothing, they tell her no, he moved away from here, try somewhere else. And again, nothing. And so, all night, with the idea - among other things - that this man, madly in love with her, has fallen quite a bit on the social ladder. But nothing, she doesn't find him. End of story, nothing can be done, the only way out is closed, the taxi driver who patiently accompanied her all night receives the last order, which is to take her to the Central Station. She will try to catch a train, but she's sure she won't make it, there are surely cops waiting for her there.
That's it. I can't go on, it would be a spoiler. You can find the story in the beautiful little book Uccidere per amore by Sellerio.
I, on the other hand, wanted to tell you about m'han ciamaà. And you believe I haven't.
And about how beautiful, poignant, and unique the Milan of Jannacci from Lecce, and Sherbanenko from Ukraine was.
And who knows if that guy in California managed to grasp something. I only know for sure that I never chatted with him again...
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