Tool
10,000 Days

THE REVIEW

Giorgio Caproni must have been a delightful person. He was an elementary school teacher and is one of the greatest Italian poets of the Twentieth century. His photos portray him with a small, wrinkled face, but with an ever-latent smile. Despite having narrated the death of God. But I carry Caproni in my heart for his collection entirely dedicated to his mother, Annina. The book is called Il seme del piangere, and from my university readings, what remains etched in my memory are especially the fresh rhymed couplets with which this man celebrated his recently deceased mother.

How gracefully
did young Annina descend the stairs!
Biting her gold
chain, she slipped away
leaving a trail
of powder in the darkness.

The hour was early
morning, still pale.
But how the street lit up
where she used to pass!

Now that Tool is on Spotify, while waiting for the new Fear Inoculum, I am properly listening to the album I haven't worn out like Lateralus and Ænima. It's beautiful, not like the others. But I don't want to talk about this. I'm interested in Judith Marie and the journey "ad portam inferi" narrated by her son James.

I don't want to conduct a textual analysis; I just want to express my thoughts. I like juxtaposing these two men, Caproni and Keenan, so far apart, who in different forms tell one of the most beautiful mysteries, one of the forces that hold humanity and the world together. The maternal embrace is returned by these two sons even beyond the threshold of death. Both follow their mother to the gates of paradise, unable to detach from that angel on a bicycle (Annina) and from the motionless, paralyzed one, waiting for wings (Mary).

The rest is embellishment. The music, the metaphysical images, the lights guiding to the gates of Heaven, the solos, the rhythms, the 17-minute suite. The essential is encapsulated in a few words, the rest is a detour to avoid confronting a loss too great. Two proud men but not too proud to deny themselves the last ideal maternal embrace, unfolding before the public all their childish fragility. And all this technique, this art, this creative talent takes a back seat in the face of the simple despair of a (grown-up) child who has lost his mother.

The recriminations (blasphemous in Mer de Noms) for Judith Marie's painful living conditions (Annina too did not have an easy life in Livorno...) give way to the hope of an Afterlife, to the resignation that that love can continue to live only in the hope of a Halleluja, only with a nice pair of wings Mary and Anna can continue to exist and pursue the gigantic mystery of the love between a mother and her child.

In truth, the paradise of these two women lies in their sons' songs, destined for artistic eternity. Does the blasphemous Maynard believe in paradise? Does the skeptical Caproni find faith? No, nothing of the sort. These are songs of love, but of an immense and visceral love, genetically engraved in blood. And this love is more important than beliefs, philosophies, religions. It is all-encompassing, and a son can only sing the eternity of his mother, with more or less subtexts depending on the depth of the writing. But the essential is this. Mom, never leave.