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Brief Is The Breath

10/31/2014

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Larkin is a master of metaphor.

In Cut Grass, the poem below, the grass is a breathing creature sacrificed to the Gods of a new season.

Nature is a town criss-crossed by streets of flowers.

And the cloud is a tall mammal moving at a leisurely rhythm to take it all in.

From above.


Alberico Collina




Cut Grass by Philip Larkin

Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death

It dies in the white hours
Of young-leafed June
With chestnut flowers,
With hedges snowlike strewn,

White lilac bowed,
Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace,
And that high-builded cloud
Moving at summer's pace.
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Between Two Lovers

10/30/2014

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Silent Room by Langston Hughes employs metaphor to transform a few simple words by adding multiple layers of meaning.

It's a finely cut diamond of many faces.



Alberico Collina


Sick Room by Langston Hughes

How quiet
It is in this sick room
Where on the bed
A silent woman lies between two lovers-
Life and Death,
And all three covered with a sheet of pain.



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Learn How To Smile As You Kill

10/30/2014

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Like everything else John Lennon wrote or did, the song Working Class Hero is controversial.

Not so much for the cursing, which was obscured when the lyrics were published, but because Lennon was seen as anything but working class, having mostly grown up with a middle class aunt.

However, beyond the cursing and the dodgy proletarian credibility, this is a powerful song.

The words are raw and direct.

And they speak for themselves.



Alberico Collina



Working Class Hero by John Lennon

As soon as your born they make you feel small
by giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and despise a fool
Till you're so fu**ing crazy you can't follow their rules
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion, sex and T.V.
and you think you're so clever and classless and free
but you're still fu**ing peasants as far as I can see
Working Class Hero is something to be
Working Class Hero is something to be

There's room at the top I'm telling you still
but first you must learn how to smile as you kill
if you want to be like the folks on the hill
Working Class Hero is something to be

Yes , A Working Class Hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
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Sometimes Pigeon, Sometimes Statue

10/27/2014

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Picture
"You have to accept the fact that sometimes you are the pigeon, and sometimes you are the statue" Claude Chabrol

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Happiness Is To Desire What You Have

10/21/2014

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Ennio Flaiano uses humour and language to catch us off guard, and to poke fun at our pretensiousness.


He's the master of the backhanded compliment. Few people are so versatile at disguising an insult as praise, as the two following phrases show:


"He is afflicted by a parity complex, he doesn’t feel inferior to anyone." Ennio Flaiano

"Italians always rush to the aid of the victor." Ennio Flaiano

But he doesn't limit himself to insulting others, since he's also an expert in self-deprecation:
"My motto is: few ideas, but confused." Ennio Flaiano (apparently stolen from his friend Mino Maccari)

And every now and again, he makes us smile by forging such gems as this eloquent chiasmus:
"Success is to have what you desire. Happiness is to desire what you have." Ennio Flaiano




Alberico Collina

Note: the quotations above are my translations of the Italian original. I hope I did them justice :-)
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There Is But One Season

10/18/2014

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Ennio Flaiano was so talented that he could write plays, filmscripts, novels, newspaper articles, art reviews, you name it.

To him the word is sacred. In his own words:

"I believe only in words. Words can wound us, words can convince us, words can placate us. This, for me, is the meaning of writing." Ennio Flaiano (my translation).

Although Flaiano wrote for various media, and employed different forms of communication, his style is evident in all of them.

In this quote about Summer, Flaiano personifies seasons, lending new meaning to each of them.

And after reading it, it's diffcult to think of seasons in quite the same way again.


"There is but one season, and that is Summer. It's so beautiful that the others rotate around her. Autumn remembers her, Winter invokes her, while Spring envies her, and childishly attempts to spoil her." Ennio Flaiano (my translation)



Alberico Collina
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His Words Take No Prisoners

10/17/2014

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By popular request, here are a few more quotes from Ennio Flaiano (my translation).

His views are never diplomatic, and the criticism he makes, mostly of his own country, is humorous and full of insight.

Above all, he has a sharp pen.

And his words take no prisoners.


Alberico Collina



"The political situation in Italy is critical...but it's not serious." Ennio Flaiano

"The worst that can happen to a genius is to be understood." Ennio Flaiano

"Art is a capital investment, culture is an alibi." Ennio Flaiano

"Italian is a language spoken by dubbers." Ennio Flaiano
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Arabesque

10/14/2014

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Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972) was an Italian writer and journalist, who is famous for having written, together with filmmaker Fellini, the script to many of the director's best known movies. Unfortunately, he is not well-known abroad, and I've never seen a collection of his aphorisms or quotes in English. Here are just a few I translated myself:


"In Italy, the shortest line between two points is an arabesque." Ennio Flaiano


"Stupidity fascinates me, but I prefer my own." Ennio Flaiano


"A book dreams. It is the only inanimate object that can do so." Ennio Flaiano


"A dreamer is someone whose feet are firmly grounded into clouds." Ennio Flaiano



"In thirty years' time, Italy will not have been shaped by government, but by TV." Ennio Flaiano


"We only have five or six unforgettable days in our lives, the others just take up space." Ennio Flaiano


"Today, the cretin is full of ideas." Ennio Flaiano


Flaiano is not politically correct, but there is an honesty to his words that is refreshing and often even prophetic.

And when I read him, I can't help but smile at his educated insolence.






Alberico Collina
1 Comment

The Last Pool

10/13/2014

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Sometimes, as Ovid reminds us in the quote below, it pays to look for opportunities in the most unlikely places.

Sometimes, what we define as luck is nothing more than looking for opportunities where we least expect them.

And finding them.


Alberico Collina


"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."
Ovid

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Art Is Not What You See

10/7/2014

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Art has been defined in a thousand ways.

And each definition has its merits.

But one has always stuck in my mind.

Because only an artist could define Art this way.

And get away with it.



Alberico Collina





“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
Edgar Degas




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