tomorrow night, tuesday, the program italia’s next top model will start. here i declare, i will also take part. in line with the saying that television is like shit, one has to do it and not watch it, i will not be able to watch myself. in fact i will be on the olbia-genova ferry, coming back from a job. how did i go?

i have to admit i like small things. everyday behaviour. i would say, in a courtly way, i’m more interested in the microscopic rather than the macroscopic. there are those who in their own right are occupied and worried about world famine, the problem of the extinction of the seals of papagiunea and the dwarf macacos of the borneo jungle… perfect. i would like to contribute to other problems, much smaller, but lets admit far easier to solve. i have a proposal to solve a tiny/huge problem. this: we all speak through the cell phone, nowadays almost nobody uses the landline. very well. the problem is that very often the line falls. it happens if we are discussing something important, when your friends was telling you about details about a big night out, so you phone each other immediately. and here is the problem. i call, he call, and the lines are engaged. then he calls and i call. and the lines are engaged. so we both think ”i wait for a while, and then i call again. and the lines are engaged. so we both think ”i wait longer, then i call again”. so we both think “i call immediately”. and the lines are engaged. a real hell! didn’t it happen to you also? therefore here is a rule to solve the problem: simple, the one who phoned first, calls again. the other waits. ok? let’s start a gigantic word of mouth, and this rule unfortunately will not save the seals but will it surely save our phone calls? the small photo here above is not about this post, but it has to do a lot: i took it here in milan in a place where the stop sign has not been repainted after retarring. here too someone has thought how to solve a small big problem by himself…..

but what will happen with my millemiglia miles?

there is a young priest that goes to the bishop and asks if he can smoke while praying. the indignant bishop answers him he absolutely can’t, one can’t smoke while doing something so important like praying. the young priest in low spirit goes back to the convent where he finds an old priest smoking peacefully while praying. “i’m sorry brother, but you can’t smoke while praying, i just asked the bishop, and he prohibited me!” “dear brother, i also asked the bishop and he allowed me” “he allowed you!?! how come he allowed you and not me?” “i don’t know, i only know that i went to the bishop and asked him if i could pray while smoking. and he told me that praying could be done and has to be done in every moment!”

Men without fault, half god living in silver castles you touched the apogees with glory, us who call for pity we are the drugged ones. Trespassing the boundaries of the inhuman we learnt in advance the skunk that ends every desired dream: may pity not be a shame for you. Bankers, grocers, notaries, with obese bellies and sweaty hands with hearts in the shape of money-box us who call for pity were corrupted. We sailed on fragile vessels to face the storm of the world and we had eyes too beautiful: may pity not be left in your pocket. Elected judges, men of law us who dance in your dreams we still are the human distressed flock of those who died with a lump in the throat. How many innocent you bounded to the horrendous agony deciding their fate and how just you think is a sentence commanding death? Men whose pity is inconvenient always unaccepting common destiny, during the nights of november, you go at the feeble light of the stars to spy the death and the wind, inside the cemeteries, move the graves placing them close as if it were a never ending domino. Men, that the already belated regret of never having had any pity doesn’t strike at the last minute and the breathing doesn’t become a wheeze: know that death keeps an eye while you rejoice in the meadows or in between lime walls, like a peasant watches the wheat grow until is ripe for the sickle. Fabrizio De Andrè