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Rating: I begin my beautiful dream journey (but with open eyes) with a declaration of love amidst notes of piano and an accordion that feels so much like Paris in the early 1900s. But this is just the appetizer, and, now soothed by a ragtime, now by a jazzy rhythm, now by a swing, now by a "mood" of a Parisian storyteller, now by a chanson à la Jacques Brel, now by a jazz-pop sound, now by a rumba, now by an exotic rhythm, now by a fandango, now by a boogie, now by a foxtrot, and almost always accompanied by a wonderful piano, I continue my journey just begun. And so I encounter: a monkey man walking or perhaps dancing and too many wrong ties under the jazz stars; some raincoats on which the rain falls just right (but not as much on the soul), just as it rains on the signs of the bygone nights of Mocambo with its shutters down; a gambling game to understand that in reality, "it was about love, and you don't know how much"!
Continuing my journey I also see: certain cats or certain men disappearing into a mist or a wallpaper, who seem more like scarves than people; caviar, pâté, and a fairytale champagne, but from a snobbish fairytale; a dizzy dance, a frin frun dance that takes off the stockings and shoes from women; a waitress who doesn't speak because she's foreign, a car that smells of paint, women, and speed, the shadows of a dream or perhaps of a photograph far from the sea with only a geranium and a balcony; a new jacket that needs to become old to be noticed by others; a small orchestra playing a tune to dance to, accompanying the performance of a naked odalisque who, once the show is over and dressed, must be taken for a stroll along the sea because she wants to see it at dawn despite her languor being exasperating, while meanwhile in the dark echoes a fart and the star Aldebaran laughs and goes "to be to be to be or not to be"; a face borrowed from another, but one would want their own to offer to that audience that looks at you like a mask is looked at during Carnival; two feet dancing any kind of known dance on the gramophone paths and, despite that, never hearing anyone who loved that kind of feet, capable of dancing anything; the slave of the Politeama who will never erase with turpentine that gold paint lingering on her ingenious body, who dances the dance of her seven veils to get the spectators to the seven heavens; a statue of the moon on shiny ice.
And still, going on: blue flowers, a gray time full of music and men who were liked; a beautiful world bay-colored crossed by the river of January, with eyes searching for each other, lips looking at each other, legs brushing and temptations speaking; a green milonga with its African origin and its zebra elegance and with its being a green frontier between playing and loving; Max with his clarity and ease which however doesn't simplify, while a secret approaches; a macaque with no history standing there with his smile watching the trams go by and an old elephant track laid over the macadam; the desert tattooed by lionesses and Zulu, large yawns and Bantu rattles with hanging gardens that have had their time and will never be seen again; Bastian Caboto and Vasco Da Gama going into the open sea, with a fan of American wonders and a Zulu morning-fresh dialect; a script made of Indian silence, of the dialect of distant mirrors and talking clouds; the Red Devil forgetting the road to go drink an orangeade, while backlit all the time drifts away; the ships in Argentina that say: "let's set off" in front of an enormous American sea; a flash of foolishness, un piezo de lana inglesa de fama portuguesa and la idiosincrasia de una metropoli, indeed of a danson metropoli; neglected colleagues locked in the toilet sprucing up, with itinerant cooks frying up music, ghibli blowing behind a closed door and a nice millionaire's talcum powder; pale women who over an old Singer sew dusters of percale and an old cook in the kitchen scolding the ghosts of gourmets; a strong and farting music written by the devil in clear disdain of civilization; le chic et le charme.
The journey can continue and so I observe: a too-blue afternoon with a bit of Africa in the garden, between oleander and baobab; Bartali with his nose sad as a climb and his eyes cheerful like an Italian on an outing, among French who get angry, newspapers fluttering, women sometimes surly or maybe just want to pee, while the countryside barks; an amaranth Topolino that seems like an Aprilia if you let it loose a bit on the rein, in the summer of '46; Genoa with its macaia monkey of light and madness, mist, fish, Africa, sleep, nausea, fantasy and red prawns; a shipwreck on a marvelous island with reeds and bamboo, rhythms, songs, dream women, bananas, and raspberries; Mexico and clouds, America's sad face, the wind playing its harmonica and smuggling situations; tanta pasion for una historia infinita, una illusion temeraria and an indiscreto final; last sambas of the 50s, the pale Nordic Europe: confidenzial, fregatura total, illusional, like gerovital; a dance in a dance hall, with restlessness in the step and a big bow to a faraway city, all of mother-of-pearl, silver, wind, iron, fire and with the incomplete conviction that the rumba is just a tango's joy; an orchestra deluded in Naples, scolded in Minneapoli and that falls into a fan at the Grand Hotel; happy feet with a Picasso in flames and the labyrinth of a bitter author; maracas in Cuba, half baroque, a bit malambra and very garage; a couple dancing a boogie and who knows by heart where they want to go, while the orchestra sways like a pamizio in front of a revered sea: it was an adult world, mistakes were made by professionals; the Mocambo all in bloom after a period of solitude and vicissitudes; eyes dragging torrents of clear water to drink, then forests and valleys with the hottest sun there is; a sandwich and a bit of indecency, a music, Turkish too, filling the room with magic, shots, and firecrackers; an old costly mistake, explaining what it means to love love without ever making even one mistake; Wanda who is serious with her face but laughs with her eyes, with caresses here, caresses there to scandalize people; a lemon ice cream and the intelligence of electricians to bring some light to the room in sad hotels, where the warm night will melt the two lovers; South America, where dancers wait on one leg for the last charity of another rumba.
All good things come to an end and unfortunately, my wonderful journey is also coming to a close. But not before having heartfelt thanks to Gong-oh, "far spirit", without whom none of this would have been possible: it is thanks to him that I could travel through space and back and forth in time, as well as listen to languages no longer existing, as if in a spell. Now I have really reached the end and return, with a bit of melancholy, to the routine of daily life, especially work, and its load of obligations, deadlines, commitments to meet, and so on. But I almost immediately long to set out again for another splendid mental and auditory journey, to escape even if just for a few hours from the daily grind without moving even a millimeter physically. Or even (why not?) to set out again on the very same journey just concluded to then exclaim, at the end: "All the best is already here". Or also: "It's wonderful".
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