LinFante at Trastevere in Unplugged

LinFante is back breathing, in Rome, and I made a poster for him once again.

 

And we're about to shake you further, again and again, s o o n.

LinFante on Facebook

LinFante's website

★ And I'm Not Against It ★

Something happened on the day he died.

So many of my dear ones grown with a specific devoted love for Bowie. I open my heart to a collective virtual hug for all of their pain. A special thought goes to my friend Caterana Tonnē Fleur, as in the last years she fell into a giant obsession which surely changed her spirit and taught her many things. I believe that, for her, this loss is actually the departure of a spirit master. I need to tell her that he gave to her one of the most precious things: the opportunity to prepare herself to any bigger loss ahead, or any kind of approach to the death. His parting gift is to help facing the death and our days' carnage – hi, Cancer. He recorded his own death while happening. I believe that that's one of the most beautiful Death in Rock, Art, and maybe History.

"I'm A Blackstar" / And I'm Not Against It

Holy Thanks, Blackstar.

Death is beautiful. Embrace Death.

Rib, gather yourself, start the trip and hold the treasure in your heart for ever. That's the way. Do not fear.

Warming Up at Wembley, in Budapest

I was used to say that we have to train the wonder – and while saying that, somewhere in myself I always had this whisper laughing at my prudence, «you'll never stop to wonder, stupid Eta», instead my prudence was wiser, because I found myself in the position of getting used to the most spectacular things and needing to actively call for my attention and my ability to still see the beauty.
That's not why I started to yak on that, but Queen certainly can light my most sacred fire even when I feel empty. Lately I weirdly feel a bit lost about what to listen, which is extremely strange, for me, and I only feel like going to my oldest and most classical musics, like the themes of my childhood or the first discs that I bought myself. So Jethro Tull, Angelo Branduardi, Lucio Battisti, Gentle Giant, Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin and definitely Queen are being my great supporters while working in (look-at-how-I-say-this-like-nothing-happened-and-this-is-not-at-all-like-just-the-fuckin'-first-step-towards-one-of-my-personal-biggest-dreams-possibly-coming-true) an animation studio in Budapest, where I moved a few weeks ago.

I don't know yet what can be told about this project I'm working on, so I'll keep silent, for now. Anyway, the  sweet, shiny fact is: I'm spending my days animating, animating, animating.

Today I had my very first chance to draw on a Cintiq graphic tablet and, oh, well, how, how, how feels good!

While animating, sometimes I wanted to warm up a bit, or to break doing something completely different and spontaneous; on another monitor I was letting myself being pleased by Queen's Live at Wembley, so Brian May conquered my fingers. I drawn it quickly and I worked a bit on the colours afterwards; maybe his eyes aren't alike, but it was ages that I wanted to satisfy my lines with his face, so I just went with the frenzy.

Ah, emh, if someone wants now to make up a conspiracy between Brian May being Marge Simpson, because of the yellow and the blue, feel free – or just remember that the live at Wembley happened in very 1986.

Hope you drooled on his lips and destroyed your device,

Eta

And the fish flies ♓ I got a website

“ I want to be the best I can be to render myself useful for existence. ”

 

The fish flies, I have a website:

andtheflying.fish

There's a page with my portfolio. There's my About. There's also a shop page, it's still to be filled, but the intention is all there. There's a section all dedicated to my project Felice, for the book, the performance, the paintings and illustrations, and more (it will keep growing, there's much that not here nor on the Facebook page I have posted yet).

I'm so much in love with my website!

I made it with WordPress.org and installing an Organic Theme, which turned out as a very smooth choice; I like their style and I appreciated their kind helpfulness on the forum. If you're thinking about building your website and you're up to spend some money on a theme, personally my thumb is up for them.

The .gif above was done with the rotoscope technique, which always gives me a terrible pleasure of freedom. (And since .gif are finally getting more supported by websites and are fun, well, consider sharing my messy banner, if you like it. Smuack!)

Much more freedom is also what I'll feel now for my blog, because in the last years I was treating it a bit too much like a portfolio instead of enjoying it more spontaneously as a narrative tool. Now that I got a more proper platform to organize my art, I will finally get back to the lighter stream that this place was till some years ago. It will be a little more like a journal, let's say. Probably I will also use it to express more explicitly some opinions non strictly related to my projects or to art, but most of all, I will be probably posting more sketches, work in progress, divertissement and any kind of small thing.

Basically, my website is now the showcase –– genuinely mine, but all well dusted and organized. And this blog, instead, is my home, folks, and in my home I do not remove the spider webs…

…Speaking of which, and speaking of spontaneity and little, little things, there is a video I've been almost hiding for months, here to you, out of the blue. Please, steal six minutes of silence from your daily roar, if you want to join my trance.

*

Now, as thanking is one of my favourite activity, some of the big thanks for my website (trying not to thank each bee and leaf, so that perhaps I won't loose ALL my readers, nor my night…).

Thanks to all my dear freaks who I bothered while I was struggling to find the perfect url. (Including that critique that I skipped.)

Thanks to Natalja Mara Heybroek, who brilliantly helped my Statement for the About page.

That manifesto makes me feel terribly good and her gentle and wise touch was mind blowing.

And thanks to Rib., who deserved a thanking page only for that; what she did is too much to explain. Even after several months, I didn't make it yet to let her understand.

She's a tiny, tender mystery.

*

(   …Oh, ohhh man, it feels so good to be back here!

I hope you enjoyed the spiderwebs and that you don't mind the dust.

Welcome in my haven.

Relax, and laugh.  (:   )

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…)

"Go to Stay" - Heidi and the 9 Feathers

So, how does sound to you

"alternative / experimental / freak / folk / new weird america / folk pop / psych folk"?

That's the tags jam for Go to Stay, now in streaming and download on bandcamp; it's the first album from Heidi and the 9 Feathers (fb, soundcloud), a project in which I had the pleasure to be involved by Heidi Harris, with whom I had already done several different and lovely collaborations in these last years, growing a sweet and sweeter understanding.

Here's my front cover for them!

In these months, sometimes on the top right of my monitor I was visualizing some messages from my Dropbox and then I knew that almost always that was some magic from my dear Feathers, sharing their work in progress in those folders where I also could have the joy to spy how their music was growing. They were rehearsing in New York and then putting there a lot. I love how I could somehow join their process from Europe. Often I was receiving whole traces full of their dialogues, random, technical, sometimes it was really fun! It was really a bit like being in their room. At a certain point I told Heidi how much I was liking that and, oh well, that was brilliant, haha, 'cause actually she had forgot that I was in the Dropbox too! Honestly, it made it even funnier and more special!

For the back cover we used an amazing portrait of Heidi made by the photographer Micheal Cooper.

 

The more the time passes by, the more I love collaborating with Heidi, appreciating her kindness and discovering how, probably, our artistic processes are very similar, in pace and needs.

I fantasize more than a bit about what more we may do together and I'd love very much to meet in person all the Feathers. And, well, ideas are always too many, here around, but perhaps this year will bring some little news… Anyway… Shhhh now! Listen to this little treasure!

♥

PS. Don’t touch the Teddy Ruxpin!!!
…That title is something, ah!!!

I want Sydrojé back. (But meanwhile we got 'em on streaming!)

That's back in 2009. This album, Duende. The music you can play here below in this post. Their birth is some year before, 2005. It's since then that I bring around on my servers their files, since I've been so lucky to even witness the origin of many of their songs, but it was a long time I was waiting for this day: their production online, better, on streaming, easier to catch for me and much, much easier to share. Now everyone can listen to them:

…finally, Sydrojé are on bandcamp!

(And already they were on facebook.)

That's how I started to make stuff to please the eyes while others were pleasing the ears, by the way; they are my longer collaboration and, technically, it never stopped. Lately they are not doing much as band, but they never closed the project. And, actually, as historical fan as well, I fuckin' wish they'll do something again.

However, there are other interesting reasons behind all this. After the high school, their front-man, Stefano Scrima, started to study and to live in other places and especially when he left for Spain he couldn't anymore work much inside a band. So he started his way as singer writer. That's a name you may remember also from some more recent post: he's LinFante (here on fb), who's now more active then ever and with whom I enjoy collaborating as well.

Ok, enough of this recap. I hope you can enjoy the music, you'll find more on their links. That's only one album. If I had a little more energies I was bothering you also talking about the title, but my eyelids beg some sweet darkness. So consider asking your browser, about that.

Enjoy Duende, this old good work coming back to rock your blood.

And see you soon with much fresher babies.

More December Sketches

Playing with colour for new artworks, random sketching, random writing out of my mind and memories… Or not so random perhaps…

Here some other sketches from my current carnet, they all from December.

The first three are from a very cool musical gig at ACU, on the 12th. The definition from the website of the artist, from Poland, does fit:

Bajzel [meaning: mess] is the purest definition of "one man show" and "one man band". He is a band. He is a musical chameleon tap dancing on pedals, live-looping guitar, bass and beats into virtuosic alternative art-rock exhilaration.

 

The followings are stolen from a very warm and free party in Den Haag (The Hague) at my sweet friend Dorotea's new place.

Dorotea taking a picture

Dorotea, Johannes, Marilù, Stefano (who incredibly resembles a schoolmate I had in my art academy and who now lives in Australia (oh ciao Peter!))

Dimitris

On my way to portrait Dorotea, for some reasons something very challenging to me: I gotta do it with colours, she's too shining to add a black unreal outline to her skin…

Random, from my fantasy

Lovely Lynn

Random strip coming back home on the train…

And again…

And then a portrait made during a video call with my dear friend John, Gianvito, or however you want to call him. I'm very glad of this one. He said "Eta, by now you see everything in your way, did you realize that?"
He's usually very right about me. :)

There is also a digital variation of the colours…

Enough for now.

Much to do, here – I want to keep updated my post by showing some glimpses of what's going on around my nails, but not much time to tell and write. Soon I'll scan also my sketches from the Cremonapalloza Rock Fest, the X edition!

Little Eta's musical gift if you made it till the end of the post: check out this band, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, related to Jefferson Airplane.

Stay positive, folks. Even this January. Especially this January.

"You must do beautiful dreams, Grandma!"

Even more than usual deeply antifascistly yours,

Eta

#EmilioResisti!

[E se siete in Italia e per caso leggete il mio post, considerate di unirvi al corteo nazionale, sabato! O di crearne uno nella vostra città, ci sono vari presidi contemporanei già in altri luoghi. Mai come ora vorrei essere in Italia. Mando tonnellate di sostegno virtuale. Trasformiamo le lacrime in nuova energia.]

3voor12/Utrecht presenteert ||| [On]zichtbaar in Utrecht ||| Fotoboek met 10 jaar Utrechtse popmuziek

I had almost forgotten to tell it!
[On]zichtbaar in Utrecht made it and, after the successful crowdfunding, it has been published and presented on the 30th of November, at Tivoli Vredenburg.

This is a little fast double sketch I've done during the presentation (from this lucky carnet).

It's really an awesome book, collecting a wonderful selection of the photographs made by 3voor12/Utrecht in ten years of music reports of the pop scene from this lovely town.

I volunteered in the team a few times but it has been always very interesting and, unexpectedly, one of my photographs has always been selected for this book. It's really really tiny and it's on the last page, but I must say that it's a pleasure to watch it together with all these other beautiful pictures. When I finally had the chance to browse this book, I was really impressed. 3voor12/Utrecht made a very remarkable work, making all this book and, of course, during all its history of reports.

My photograph, the third one from left to right on the left page, is from a Kodiaks concert at dB's.

Thanks to 3voor12/Utrecht, to who joined the crowdfunding and congratulations to all the ones who run this project!


CheeriO

"Not Flamingos"

Heidi and the 9 Feathers  – no, wait.

I meant, we! Ah!

So, wait, let's start all over again.

Thing is that today, 13th or 14th of January 2015 (depending if you count the New York City time or the Dutch time zone), today more than ever I feel I'm "a Feather" too: I'm really a member of this amazing band and it's really a big joy! And this year I feel that somehow I'll manage to meet Heidi Harris, after some years of collaboration, and perhaps, who knows, all the Feathers. I'm so glad!

So, let's start again… We picked up the Flowerism from Felice that I've shown here some days ago as illustration for Not Flamingos, a song to let you taste a bit in advance how their coming album will sound!

Plus! Later today (14th) there will be a gig from them! I won't be there in New York, but I hope to hear them on streaming! I think it will be very special!

Enjoy!

Much love to all the Feathers over there in New York. Feeling you so much from here!

Fishagall flies over the Flowerasms

Turning 25, I had told myself that I would had embraced myself as woman, and therefore as mother.

So I did. In the sense of being a "universal mother", not in the sense of becoming the biological mother of someone specifically – I don't want to, first of all because of the current world situation.

I found feelings I had pictured on my-grown-up-self, like the serenity that calmed down that newborn on the train as I touched his/her foot, on the train, a day in May, with my friend Shivesh, who first was shocked and then told me that touching the feet is his mother's wisdom tip to cheer babies.

But I also found one unexpected feeling: discovering a new joy, more maturely understanding what really is being, at very biological first, a daughter – a huge fortune I can fully enjoy (despite the distances and with a Very Special Thanks to the technology and the love).

This portrait is the smile I feel for my parents – it's the smile that they mostly see now over videocalls.

I had the urge of it and it's really out of my thankfulness for them – to thank them, both in once.

It may look weird to portray me instead of who I'm thanking, for example, but I know that more than everything else they're letting me feel their pure and true wish for me. And I know that, since I'm geographically far away from both of them, my presence totally meant for them is exactly what can sweetly please them the most.

Portrait Of A Daughter – Young Nora

We can be one world
We will be one world
In the Jungles of the Mountain Young Nora loves the mountain
And the Mountain feeds the people and the Wheel keeps on turnin'
REVOLUTION!

Jefferson Airplane, The Wheel
1989 (my birthyear)

This drawing came out of my nails the first night I drawn this year, light licked by the Chagall's retrospective that I've seen in Milan with my friend Andrea and my mom, one of the last December days.

Before to do this illustration, I really had to tribute Marc Chagall. Not that this can be vaguely enough: I have no way to express my love for his art. The simple idea of his sensitivity totally devastates me if I think about what he had seen happening in the 20th Century. To me he's a flower into the dust and the drop of his existence rocks the branches of my highest waves.

Furthermore, fish widely flew through Chagall's lands (and, of course, I'm slowly gathering them on my tumblr Piscem).

But before the Chagall's portrait, the first drawing of the three I made that night has been a jump of colours roll between my fingers, as it happens when I understand I only have to give room to my inspiration and to shut up.

This drawing is my 10th Flowerasm.

The Flowerasms are a series of artworks I started in October, after my trip in Italy to read my book Felice; only in these days I understood how to title them and I'll start soon to show them. They are the main reason of all the time I'm needing to elaborate the memory of my street performance summer and to start to translate my book in English: a new generation of art, total consequence of my book, is asking for my attention. Soon I'll publish the rest of the series.

Flowerasm 10 – Chagallian

Something else happened this fall. I'm learning much more deeply my creative process; as my old followers may recall, this has been a terrible struggle for me: now, I'm experiencing one of the most satisfying season of all my life.

Apparently, rituals insist on showing their power into all this and I'm keeping happening in painting my forehead with the colours I'm going to dive into, time by time.
This night, I involved Fishagall too (originally Fish Chagall).
Fishagall is a wooden fish I found in my favorite Utrecht shop, De Oude Pijpenlade, and that I'll probably repaint every time I'll feel like, according with my craziness and moods.

Now Fishagall is playing hide-and-seek, I think – but I can't tell for sure, my little desk is covered by a maze of layers of oil pastels, wax pastels, waterable pastels, brushes, towels, ecoline, pencils, markers, pens and even the eraser (hooray, that's always so hard not to loose it!). If I find Fishagall again or if he decides to come out, hopefully he will send me some good vibes for my illustration for the cover of The Grand Tour, the first novel of the trilogy from The Red Universe by Victor Lorandi (yes, this is also taking more then unexpected, but we're appreciating and finding a sense for this creative process too).

Much love,
from this flower-shaped volcano and its stream of flying fish coming out!

The Feathers are getting ready

Yesterday I woke up in front of the most brightening windows I could imagine for my 1st day of this so hopeful 2015, in Amsterdam, and the first thing I've done, after my very healthy, beloved and regular checking tour at the toilette, has been, back under the blankets, grabbing my current sketchbook and my colours from the backpack next to me and starting to sketch my grandfather Carmine as surrealistic symbolic cosmic tower tree, as note for a painting I pictured today and that I want to make on a big canvas, soon. It has been a sudden inspiration after my first 2015 phantasying after the sleep.

Later in the evening, while I was waiting for the bus to go in the center of Amsterdam and then back to Utrecht, enjoying my time walking, I realized better this little sweet thing: the first thing I made after my first 2015 awakening has been: drawing, working.

:)

I think that's one of the nicest wish I could give to myself, considering the little big goals I set for this year (you'll notice about that, I hope).

In the Amsterdam Central Station then I found this big piano up to be played by any person (there was a viral video I've seen months ago with such a piano in another train station somewhere else). Two people were playing and singing, quite nice, and a lonesome wild fellow was dancing with his red red red umbrella!

Coming back home I had to struggle to do not sing and jump and dance all alone in the street, with this too-big smile for my little cheeks.

Yesterday I kept thinking of all the beautiful people I met in my life and wishing them the best, despite I sent a very few texts or so. I had a big smile also thinking of my dear Heidi Harris. Back home, I found her request to use an illustration I made this fall for the new album she's working at with her band Heidi and the 9 Feathers. I made this illustration a little after my trip in Italy for Felice and the consequence of two-three months backpacking and performing has been this extremely hot need of research into my style, I started to do stuff totally different, feeling completely amazingly free. Most of these works are still illustrations that I didn't show. Daring this way, I also happened to do something that I wasn't sure if I like or not. That's the case of this drawing I had made for Heidi and the 9 Feathers. After a while, we agreed together that it was not the one we wanted for the cover of the album. But the album is now coming soon, on the 27th of February, hopefully with the art we want for it, and in the meanwhile this strange weird freak picture can anyway visit your eyes to make you a little more curious… (So it's now the profile picture of Heidi and the 9 Feathers and their way to wish you Happy New Year!)

 …The way I mix media is getting more and more insane, by the way, so no surprise if I end up sticking things on paper. You recognize those leaves, right? (Mediterranean friends, I know you do!)

A lot of feathered rainbow brightening wishes from me too

PS. Love you, Feathers! So cool to play with you! Big big hug from The Netherlands to New York!

EDDA + LinFante ||| (Aspetta non puoi bruciare il pesce di fuoco ci salverà)

Io ti amo aspetta non puoi bruciare il pesce di fuoco ci salverà

I love you wait you can't burn the fire fish will save us

 

​19/12/2014​

22:00​

EDDA

Opening act:

LinFante

​Le Mura

Via di Porta Labicana 24,

Roma

[ ITALIANO più in basso ]

Folks, I can't make it anymore, I can't follow every thing LinFante does, he never stops, makes a bunch of concerts, especially in Rome, receives a bunch of interviews and reviews (and he gathers 'em all on his website (some articles also mention how pretty and refined is the surreal art on the cover of his album Non mi piace niente: yay, thank you!!!, that's meeeeee!, hooray!)), steps on the stage dressed by Angelo Cruciani, being a model for him, he plays on air, cranks out billions of philosophy articles with his beautiful actual name Stefano Scrima, he keeps publishing books and receiving reviews for those too. Just following all his activity (trying) would be a whole job apart, I'll never understand how he makes it in being so productive himself and I, in my small way, quietly gave up to the decision took about seven or eight years ago of making a drawing for every single of his gigs or whatsoever, but certainly I don't give up to the whole thing, this lord is already setting a new release for an EP in the springtime and I'm having fun fantasying on it – in the meanwhile I gloat when, while I work at other drawings, it happens again that thing, I can't do anything, my hands take the power and eat pastels and sheets doing their business while the sacred duende dances all over my guts and makes come out a drawing. Two nights ago, indeed, my hands come out with a couple of non requested illustrations, one will join Felice's vortex, while the other, this one, with this damned and child attitude, I pictured it immediately hugging the Folk Bizarre singer writing atmosphere from our dear LinFante. I sent him the artwork immediately and –timing– he had one of the most sparkling gig just in the coming days, opening for EDDA, so we used it for this event.

Signori, io non ci sto più dietro. Oramai LinFante non se ne sta fermo un secondo, fa un sacco di concerti, soprattutto a Roma, riceve un sacco di interviste e recensioni (e le raduna tutte sul suo sito (alcuni articoli menzionano anche quanto sia carina e raffinata la surreale copertina del suo album Non mi piace niente: yay, sì, grazie!, quella sono io, yeeeee!), va in scena con gli abiti di Angelo Cruciani per il quale posa, va in radio, sforna trilioni di articoli di filosofia col suo bel nome anagrafico Stefano Scrima, continua a pubblicare libri e a ricevere recensioni pure per quelli. Solo seguire tutto quello che fa (provarci) costituirebbe un'attività lavorativa a parte, non capirò mai come riesce a essere così produttivo lui stesso e io, nel mio piccolo, ho serenamente rinunciato alla decisione di sette od otto anni fa per cui avrei fatto un disegno per ogni suo singolo concerto o quant'altro, ma certamente non vi rinuncio in assoluto, già in cantiere il signorino ora ha un altro EP per la primavera e io mi sto dilettando a fantasticarvi – e, intanto, gioisco assai quando, tra un disegno e l'altro, capita quella roba lì per cui non posso dire nè ah nè bah e le mie mani si mangiano fogli e pastelli e si fanno i fattacci loro mentre il sacro duende mi balla nelle viscere e fa uscire un disegno. L'altra notte, per l'appunto, le mie mani se ne sono uscite con un paio di illustrazioni non richieste, una convertirà nel turbinio di Felice, mentre quest'altra, con quest'aria dannata e bambina, l'ho vista subito meglio abbracciarsi con il cantautorato Folk Bizarre del nostro caro LinFantuzzo. Gliel'ho girata al volo e, tempismo, lui a giorni aveva una delle date più luccicose del suo tour, opening per EDDA, per cui l'abbiamo usata per quest'evento.

That's NOT all, as usual.

If you're in Rome and will attend the gig, pay attention to the flying fish: I won't be there, but they will, always.

Questo NON è tutto, come sempre.

E, se siete a Roma e andrete all'evento, fate caso ai pesci volanti: io non ci sarò, ma loro sì, siempre.

FOR THE COLOUR RED (a post feeling 4 years old)

many things going on STOP

love for the colour red keeps growing  STOP

i got a song for this STOP

the past summer i made a lovely naive ugly sketch for this STOP

working or rituals now STOP

you'll see more soon STOP

i don't know why i'm pretending to read a telegraph, since I have no idea about how to STOP

but i know i'm 4 and in my world i'm running on a meadow with a-Karin-Dreijer-Andersson-4-years-old too.

DANCE!

PS. Eta bought a xylophone with the colour of the rainbow. Eta is tremendously happy. Eta is going to paint your face.
(What?!)

LinFante raschia

Con la pubblicazione di Non mi piace niente, LinFante sta raschiando le sue corde in giro per l'Italia in tanti posticini, tra i quali diversi sono a Roma, dove rischiate davvero di incontrarlo, LinFante, perché la città eterna è diventato il suo ultimo indirizzo, dopo una valanga di spostamenti tra Francia, Spagna e Italia. Per la serata del 10 maggio al Black Market, le care vecchie Officine (che siamo io e la mia squadra di pastelli, pesci volanti e altre robe del genere tanto carine) abbiamo recuperato una locandinuccia extra scarabocchiando le scritte a mano.

The illustration for this poster is a phase of the picture from the back of LinFante's album Non mi piace niente. While I was painting it, I decided to scan it in progress because I had the feeling I wanted to use it in such a variation, afterwords.

 >>> Listen to Non mi piace niente in streaming on Rockit

>>> Or on YouTube

Tell Me We Can Make It ,;, (a prayer to myself)

"Si adagia, distratto e colpevole, il peso inerte delle
occasioni già venute […]"

Federico Fronterrè*

So I said, fake it till you make it.

"Your body language shapes who you are", Amy Cuddy on TED

I got this special power of wasting my opportunities and the skill of stumbling way too much on the way. So I had to stare at myself for a while, telling straight to myself that now is different and, c'mon, we can make it.


I wanted to update more my blog with all my new stuff, but this period I have been working a bunch. I hope to find the time to share more soon.


(And if by any chance some of you, likely among the Italian readers, are finding some influences of Gipi in this my self portrait, well, that's the consequence of yesterday night, finally reading his last graphic novel, unastoria. His art totally changed my artistic path when I was about 17; now I feel different calls and my inspiration has other ways; still, going through his work impresses my attitude and my moods. Of course.)



* Misterismo ritrovato rileggendo la mia tesi, Altrove, roba che capita quando mi suona il postino con il regalo di compleanno che mi ha mandato mia mamma e scoppio a piangere come se fossero morti tutti e mi faccio di nuovo piovere addosso Il cantico dei drogati di De André che è il brano più drammatico che un figlio o una madre possano ascoltare, ma voglio finire ascoltando Altrove (quello di Morgan) e decidere di perdermi di nuovo -- ma per bene.

Sfogare fino in fondo rapida, op op op, e non perdere tempo, op op op!
Op op op!
Facciamoci un caffè.
Su, eh! Dai. DAI!
'Caputtana…
Tutta questa emotività è proprio necessaria? Una fettina di meno? Eh, mi sa che a gentaccia tipo, che ne so, me e Calzino, o quell'altra sciagurata di Dorotea, ce tocca. Maledette fimmene.