666

My dear, dear readers,

I deeply apologize for the long wait you had to get through, during all these months.

I know your lives depends on my blog and that, after my last announcement for this post, you couldn't breathe one moment without thinking about my next move. I didn't mean to be mean, nor to torture you, although torture and many other creepy things belong to the theme –– which is, ladies and gentleman, as some of you remember, our beloved Satan.

That's, indeed, my post number 666.

It is.

I had to celebrate this –– properly. I'm sure you can understand that.

I had to do some more than merely celebrate, actually.

I had to follow my call to discover the Truth.

What I always knew but couldn't tell without proofs.

So that's what I've done: I went looking for proofs.

That's what a serious lady does, you know? And I am that. I'm a serious lady, I mean.

So I went desperately looking for proofs. For the traces of my own destiny.

And it couldn't be any harder (but don't ask me why, 'cause that's just too painful to tell).

I don't really know where to start, however, meanwhile, let's highlight that this my post number 666 came together with another post number 666 from myself: I arrived at the post number 665 also on the forum on Cremonapalloza, which is a website and association dedicated to any interesting activity happening in my little hometown, Cremona. Hence, both there and here I had to make something big and deep for this uniquely-double occasion. I'm active on that forum since my teenage, even before starting this blog (almost seven years old) and I love to mess up with the folks on there. Leaving my hometown never meant to stop to write on that forum –– possibly, meant the opposite. Anyway, the person who drawn me there was a particularly active user that…

Ok, well, I really get broken in pieces trying to explain this story, but try to follow me.

There is probably a big connection, in all this chaos, that I need to show you.

So.

The person who drawn me into this forum is called, is popularly called… "McA". That's his name, not his official name, you know, that's just his nickname, his friends call him this way, other people call him this way. However, McA. I call him otherwise most of the times, 'cause I know him from way before the birth of this name or anything like that. Because McA is my cousin. He's my cousin. But here, for God's sake, here I'll keep to call him McA. I have no idea why they call him this way, by the way, he doesn't want to tell me. I feel very bad about that, because it's like he doesn't care a fuck about me, but ok. You know, I'm the little younger cousin, why shall he share his secrets with me? Why?

I can handle that.

But ok, let's keep explaining the big thing to you.

You still remember that this post is to talk about Satan, right?

(In these months once I happened to explain what I can eat as "soft vegan" saying that I eat "satan" instead of "seitan", by the way. That was a mistake, by the way, or rather a Freudian lapsus, or whatever you like to call it. What a coincidence, you know?)

However, Satan, right? Satan. And now I'm talking about my cousin.

So I shall say: Satan, my cousin, and the Rock'n'roll.

My cousin, McA, this guy, this guy is the very guy who introduced me to Rock'n'roll when I was a kid, and by doing that he determined my whole life. It determined most of the people I fell for and all my crazy life choices and so on, you know? Rock'n'roll. I still think it's a great thing, maybe some of you think otherwise, I don't know, but for me it is a big thing. It's Rock'n'roll, you know?

However, my cousin, Satan, and the Rock'n'roll, my post 666 here and on "his" forum of Cremonapalloza, all coming together and then, and then you know, and then you know I had to check out my suspect for good. I had to.

So I did and I started this research that I'm struggling to explain since the beginning of this post, my god.

 If you think that Indiana Jones' adventures were something, well, make up your mind again, please, his adventures were nothing compared to what I went through personally in these months –– to check out the truth.

I traveled in Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and now I'm heading Hungary, just to discover this.

Only to discover this.

I didn't know how, but I followed my instinct.

Till that moment

that very moment

in which I finally saw it

I found the proof:

My cousin McA is Satan.

My cousin McA as Satan.

☆

Ok, folks, Eta is back on her blog.

Thanks for reading till here and thanks for reading itself, since the hype for long-blogging is a bit old-fashioned, I guess.

I'll be posting again with my regular non regularity but much more frequently than these last four months. I have a freakin' huge spicy lot to share!

Anyway, really: it's almost seven years that I run and love this blog and that's for real my post number 666: w-o-a-h. And my cousin McA is for real the dude who introduced me to rock'n'roll, which changed my life for real, and he's surely my main reader –– maybe mostly 'cause he has some psychological disorders that command him to do certain things with a maniac approach, still I know that there's some lovely-inaffectivity sweetly mixed with some truly-diabetic-esteem too, therefore I appreciate his constancy, for real.
I could make justice to my love for him only making something genuinely stupid. 'Cause, you know, he was also the one who introduced me to The Ministry of Silly Walks –– which, for real, changed my life making me weirdly walk every time I can, wherever I am. Not a little thing either.

(That's all, McA, I hope that the Stupidity Level of the post was worthy the wait, since you fittingly noticed that, if I was postponing some more time, the concept itself of Satan+666 could get outdated…)

★ CREMONAPALLOZA ★ ROCK ★ FEST ★ 2014 ★

…And here's the poster with the winner panther, based on a tattoo of the singer writer Cara, who'll perform at this edition of the Rock Fest. Concept and graphic design are by McA, as usual for our collaborations.

So glad once again to draw for him.

 

 Cremonapalloza Alternative Fansite

★ CREMONAPALLOZA ★
★ ROCK ★ FEST ★ 2014 ★

✘
DECIMA
EDIZIONE

▓▓▓ Cara ▓▓▓
★★★★★★★
▓▓▓ Alley ▓▓▓

SABATO 27 DICEMBRE 2014
ore 22:00 • LUOGOCOMUNE
Centro Sociale Culturale Arci
Via Speciano, 4 • Cremona
ingresso con tessera Arci 2014

These two panthers didn't make it

The one who made it will be in my next post, with the flyer for the 10th Cremonapalloza Rock Fest.

These following two have been some of my sketches.

All was based on another drawing I had to use as reference. The first drawing is closer, while the second is more influenced by an actual photograph of a panther, which I needed to use anyway to better understand the panther's face before elaborating it.

I can't wait to see the final poster, with the graphic designed by McA, as in our traditional collaboration for the Rock Fest. It will arrive probably tomorrow!

Dreamlike and Lucid Cold Cold Dialogues

Instrumental Romance; Dreamlike (The Chiloe Cold Cold Dialogue)

Instrumental Romance; Lucid (The Ancud Cold Cold Dialogue)

Have you ever run on the snow, really fast?

The grey-blue-lilac on the left in second picture is the "Cremonapalloza blue", and that's why that beautiful colour now dropped on my palette: these illustrations started just to warm up my hands for the next poster for the Cremonapalloza Rock Fest (coming very soon!).

(I'll heal by that drawing the diabetes I may being causing with this post. It's gonna be a Very Violent Roaring Panther! ROAAAAR!!! (Does that sound roaring enough?))

The Louder Laughter

As I entered the theatre, in the last row I saw two empty seats next to Nik. One was for sure for Nancy, who was probably going to arrive in a little. So I went to Nik and asked him if I could seat next to them.

I had my first winks with Nancy and Nik that afternoon, while I was standing in the entrance as lovely cotton candy girl for the KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival, which I joined as volunteer (having really a lot of fun). Ironically, when I was a child I never tasted any cotton candy, they didn't appeal me at all, and my first time was only a pair of months before the festival, by chance (grazie a Lady Nocina!). But, apparently, cotton candy recalls sweet early memories to most of the people: giving cotton candy for free as I had to do was indeed a very pleasant task, because everyone was infinitely grateful for that unexpected flashback with that hypnotic machine. So it was for Nancy, who indeed was enthusiastic just like a child.

And again she was that enthusiastic when the cartoon Gay Purr-ee* started, because it was a film she watched many times and she loved since her childhood.

She was not just enthusiastic, she was having some very serious fun, actually.

I mean, she was laughing much louder than me.

 – If you know me, you know that's a serious matter. –

Her laughter was absolutely the louder in the theatre and probably the louder I've ever heard.

I'm a total fan of laughters, so I just joined her pleasure with all my heart.

At a certain point, she held my hand authentically happy and she thanked me for sharing the laughs; then I couldn't avoid to proudly tell her how much the laugh is actually meaningful to me and that it has even been the topic of my little thesis, leaving the high school.

The feeling was totally like that satisfaction of finally meeting someone who understands, for both of us.

«The point is that I laugh of absurdity. I just see the absurdity everywhere – and I laugh of it.»

«Indeed!»

We completed our sentences each other.

«It is like… Waiting…»

«…for Godot!»

And so it was that she mentioned me Norman Cousins, who healed himself by laughing (thanks above all to Marx Brothers filmography!).

You also have the Internet, so I won't steal you the joy of  eventually researching more by yourself, since my current informations are not very deep yet. Here I just want to specify that, of course, it's hard to know how actually Cousins survived 26 years more than his doctor prediction, but, after all, I'm not so surprised by the power of the laughter.

Are you?

…All this disconnected post, by the way, it's because I realised I didn't publish yet my humble Nancy's portrait, nor the other few sketches I made at KLIK!, and since I just noticed her birthday was the 10th of February, well, that's perhaps a nice chance to fix that, isn't it?

Here's Nancy, folks!

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A cellist at the lobby…

…and the drummer

Mr. Paul Rudish
(dedicated to my beloved Elisa Cristantielli)

* I had never watched Gay Purr-ee (1962, Abe Levitow) before, but I sometimes had a familiar sensation… But for sure that's not because I instead know The Aristocats (1970)… it must be a mere coincidence…

CREMONAPALLOZA ROCK FEST 2013 - THE STRAIN + MY DINOSAUR LIFE /// (Plus the pink, the gender identity and how I'll die from an heart attack of satisfaction)

•••intro muy dedicata a Kremona•••

L'anno scorso la festona del 25/XII al Dordoni mi ha quasi ammazzata (anche se ne valse la pena >>> art_art_art). Ieri a inizio serata ero quasi spaventata che si ripetesse il rischio di perdere la vita. Ora che sono sopravvissuta di nuovo e con molta gioia (quest'anno senza sangue, a parte quello che ho visto nei miei sogni, poi), posso serenamente annunciare la mia presenza, sabato sera, all'evento dell'ultima locandina con cui mi sono divertita. Chi lo deve sapere lo sa già e magari non passa di qua sul mio blog (brutti orrendi figuri, ve ne state quasi tutti rinchiusi sul sito bianco e blu, eh), però lo ribadisco: sabato sera è un'opportunità per insultarmi dal vivo di nuovo prima che riparta per i Paesi Bassi fino à la prochaine foix (ma, devo dire, oramai la sensazione di rimbalzare indifferentemente tra più luoghi si fa familiare). Ah, e, a tal proposito, sabato pomeriggio invece mi faccio iioografare anche io, e ne approfitto per fare pubblicità al progetto: BAM!: iioo project! Dateci un occhio, se già non sapete, e se vi piglia bene contattate il caro Enda (e preparatevi a prendervi malissimo se avete problemi con l'asimmetria).

Dicevo.

SABATO 28 DICEMBRE - ore 22:00

LUOGOCOMUNE

Centro Sociale Culturale Arci

Via Speciano, 4 - Cremona

ingresso con tessera Arci 2013

dalle 16:00

F.I.C.A. 2013

Fubalino International Cremonapalloza Award

Cremonapalloza Rock Fest

The Strain

My Dinosaur Life!

+ 100% rock'n'roll dj set

Once again the flyer for the annual rock festival organised by Cremonapalloza

is a collaboration which makes me addicted: my cousin McA and I.

Ogni anno siamo più incasinati tutti e due,

ma non sono/siamo molto capaci di rinunciare alla tradizione.

After all, I think the posters we made for the Cremonapalloza Rock Fest

have always been among my most enjoyed drawing, probably because with McA and this festival I always tune myself on "fun", I don't think too much about something else and I mostly just follow instructions that I like (which this time were "folk-pin-up-not-vulgar-like-the-past-year, blouse-with-checks-braces-boots-PaulMcCartney's-bass-guitar-thanks").

The 2010 edition with Il Teatro Degli Orrori is probably still one of my best poster ever, for exemplae, indeed, one of those drawing which made me fear I couldn't anymore go beyond myself…

(After three years, by the way, my answer to this useless but still interesting doubt is:

perhaps that illustration was the top of that wave, of that style I had so much back in the time,

now I'm just elsewhere with my colours and I play in another championship. And that's just how life is: it changes in a way you simply couldn't predict, so you better only predict there is always a change.

And I'm going to try to tell here below one of my change…)

The little creative process behind this illustration has definitely been a lot of fun.

An evening I played a bit with the elements McA told me.

And the day later I started to draw in the afternoon. Ok, I know it's very weird to read, but to me drawing in the afternoon has been really a moving experience. I was used to draw, to work, to live in the night, in the darkness, for years, and in the last months I was totally in the other way around, waking up around 5 pm and going to sleep around 9 am. Not kidding. For some reasons, that was my way. Perhaps I'll have again this type of rhythm, easily because, if I can, I just want to welcome the inspiration in its random beginning, whenever it is, and sometimes it arrives in very absurd moments, but it's now about one month I'm finally became a "normal day person". I love the sunshine (and still the moon as well, though, of course). And the sunshine is fuckin' important to actually understand the colours you're painting with, that's something any visual artist know very well.

The illustration I made that afternoon has been the first one with the daylight after ages.

I honestly think a video of me during that afternoon would be hilarious, for each colour I was picking up and dropping on the sheet I was having extreme emotional different reactions. Simply because of the colours themselves, much before to consider any quality or critique to my work, I mean.

You can't see that in the flyer, but above the knees, where there is that light blue green, I was actually scratching the sheet, basically "sculpting".

When I decided to don't fill the external side of the skirt but to only turn in yellow* the "emptiness" under it, well, I was almost crying.

I wish I could share at least a minimum part of all these extreme feelings I have, fuck.

Often I have experience like this (well, everyday) and then maybe I meet someone who says is bored.

I can understand the struggle from some very big troubles, of course, but how people can be bored?

Anyway, my bigger surprise arrived when I realised I used so much actual  p i n k .

I still remember when, years ago, I was telling a friend about how I would need to sincerely physically puke each time I see the colour pink, especially if it's on a ribbon or anything girly.

I mean, what's going on? Am I becoming really SO "girly"?

It's already a couple of years or so I feel I'm not anymore a hoyden as I always felt very much, but such a use of the colour pink is about to be disrespectful of anything I was, or so, holy hell!

(Furthermore, this drawing was with/for my cousin, like I said, and when we were little he was changing the TV channel every time there was a too-girly-advertisement, poor man, what a terrible girly drawing was I sending him?!)

The only use I could tolerate of the pink was the one clearly far from any gender implication, as in my growth has often be recalled by Pink Floyd. Wait, I know that "Pink" stays for Pink Anderson, of course. But I also think they probably noticed "Pink" still sounds vaguely "pink", don't you think? Anyway, I'm referring more about the actual visual use of the colour, a part of their name. If you browse their pictures from the 60s, so still the ones from the very psychedelic time with Syd Barrett, you'll bump into an endless flow of pink silk and velvet. And that's not anymore "girly", that's far way from our stupid modern/old gender question, that's the kingdom of psychedelia, where anything can turn in anything else and it's only up to you phantasy, which I wish you is not too caged by those issues.

Also, later on, all the animated parts of The Wall by Gerald Scarfe have a bunch of pink, but it never sounds as something "girly". Rather, to me is a creepy reminder of the mere flesh so suffering in that movie.

I'm sorry for such a focus only on Pink Floyd, but they really got a role into my growth, I can now consider myself disconnected by them, somehow, but not if I have to tell my past.

Anyway, this time is not really the first one I use the pink, of course.

I confess I notice only now again that right my banner has a lot of pink. Also, my memory immediately goes to this .gif I made. Probably I'm forgetting something else, but anyway I think, in its totality, never looked so girly.

So, what's the point?

Maybe it's the desire to still study and contemplate symbols and histories behind the colours, on one hand, and on the other to remember that they are free from any human iconology. A sort of double awareness which never ends.

I think I'll stop my rambling with a couple of articles better explained which, of course, I found right after this illustration. Qui c'è in italiano, here in English: pink wasn't always girly.

(Ah, yes, now I remember: this was the point: why pink is girly, so, after all?

And men could were skirts more often, by the way.)

Ma ok, questo disegno è comunque troppo da femminuccia, scusa, cugggino!

* If you want more delirious about colours, another was just about the yellow, a few weeks ago, here.

Venerdì. Cremona. Ore 19. Psichedelia. Rock.

Buonanotte a tutti.

1) Venerdì mio cugggino McA invecchia;

2) Venerdì si festeggia l'inaugurazione della sede di Cremonapalloza;

3) Venerdì mio cugggino McA invecchia;

4) Venerdì ci saranno esposte anche tre opere pescate dalla mia psichedelia dell'alba del nuovo anno;

5) Venerdì mio cugggino McA invecchia;

6) Venerdì ci sono pure io in capelli e naso;

7) Venerdì mio cugggino McA invecchia;

8) Venerdì il dj set è di mio cugggino McA!

Buongiorno a tutti!

Un gonzo report solo per McA

Regola numero uno del dover passare una notte a zonzo da sola:
non dare l’idea di essere una che deve passare una notte a zonzo da sola.

Regola numero due:
infilarsi gli occhialini narrativi e, tornata a casa, scrivere un gonzo report per McA.

Poi capita che a McA piaccia un bel po' e mi proponga di condividerlo di più; se volete leggere anche voi dove sono finita lunedì notte, dopo aver dato un bacino di saluto a Dorotea, andate su Cremonapalloza.

Rock'n'roll! Cremonapalloza! Narrazione! Esclamitività! Maletismo!

A pair of cool musical gigs (with my lines between too)

In the next days, in Cremona there are a pair of concerts with the flyer made by McA, that asked me an illustration to both of them.

The first one was drawn one year ago (it's a long story…) and it's a portrait of Bob Corn, the singerwriter that will play at Arci the 17th of February e, dato che magari il mio blog lo legge anche gente che è nei paraggi: andatelo a vedere, figlioli, specie te, Sonica, che ci metti un attimo e ti piacerà assai.

I have to say that I really like the graphic design of the flyer, but I'm not satisfied at all of my portrait. Too bad…

The second concert is a Cremonapalloza Supports night, the 30th of March at C.S.A. Dordoni, with Jonathan Grass, Koen and Vulcano; my illustration was made some years ago (indeed you could recognize it, maybe) and instead I fuckin' love this simply drawing, so I'm glad that it can take a new life.

Ah, just to defend myself from the reasonable critique of laziness: McA in himself asked me to find something ready, last minute, I'm not shameless starting to recycle my artworks. Emhhh… but talking about old works, actually, going through my folders for that purpose, I stumbled in a sketch of one year ago that I never had published and it's a weird double self-portait that tells a lot about the changement of my last seasons. It was mainly from me to me, without taking care about the general usability of the sketch; indeed, almost nobody can understand that I was the girl to the left but the other one too, in my version 12 years old. It's about the crisis that brought me far from my responsability on ethic questions: a kind of curious story, because, instead, when I was younger I was really involved in these topics.

But now I feel so lighter if I look to this drawing and back to those months, because I feel this gorgeous sensation that every piece of me is now in harmony in one complete creature, with hopes again, even  more then before.

Enjoy (music, people and multiverse)

And thanks again, McA, I always love collaborate with y♥u!

Cremonapalloza Rock Fest 2012! (Aka: My Date with Immorality)

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very honoured to publish the new poster for the 8th Cremonapalloza Rock Fest, the last event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Cremonapalloza!

If you want to check out the bands, voilà: Smokey Fingers and Eddy'S.

When I tell about it also out of Italy, the reaction is always positively surprised because, in way or another, Cremonapalloza teachs that a little place as my hometown is boring just if you set your brain on "boredom" and don't try to create. Insted, they do and they rock. Since 2002!

This is the 4th edition with a poster made by him and me. He thinks the concept and then he creates his graphic design on my illustration.

His request was again a triumph of fun for me, 'cause he wanted a southern-rock pin-up with those classic accessories, very p    o, he said! (I'm not gonna write that obvious word or my mail box will become a spam-party…, but it's right that obvious word!)

Anyway… maybe… after some sketches and my own final version… the result was even toooo much extreme… So the official version is pretty different. But for who has not good sense like me, there's still the option to spy the old steps here on my blog.

Nel 1989 si sono scordati di distribuire la cognizione.

McA (svariati anni fa, quando eravamo già cugini)

Home.

My first home will for ever be the one of my childhood. Maybe it's better say it in Italian: Casa. But, at the same time, I know that there are many homes for us all, hidden in the world, and you only have to start your discovery.

Moving to Nederland, I had prepared myself to adapt in every acceptable corner. Instead I was infinitely lucky: I've found a place that feels like home more than what I can imagine ― and, above all, something feels like home in the creatures that live here too.

These creatures are three: Itchy and Eek are the furry ones, Natalja is the one that cures the guitar.

Did you want to know why Natalja was blowing bubbles? *

Welcome Outside!

 * Natalja was blowing bubbles for our little shortmovie to partecipate to D.E. S.I.C.A., a fuckin' cool video contest organized by Cremonapalloza, in which you had to create a story in only 24 hours. Here you can watch all the videos of this last edition (do it!). In the end we were out of the competition 'cause we were a bit in delay. Our shortmovie was really simple and perhaps too much conceptual, but it was however a magic experience for us and we are however happy of our little treasure. The title is the same of the theme of the competition: Spazi comunicanti.

PS. Grazie fatina! :3