Naples takes on Mafia to clean streets, China bans plastic bags & the RC church to exhume Padre Pio

by answer desk Thu Feb 07, 2008 09:33

Cecchini is described varyingly as a clown, simplistic futurist (by people who don't know what either word means in an art context), crypto-post-situationalist & in his own words as "in-urban land art".
http://rota.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/a-palle-ferme-graz...ista/

by Gallery visitor Thu Feb 07, 2008 09:06

Would art critics regard Cecchini's launch of the coloured balls at the Spanish Steps as a novel example of Installation Art?

The Rome corpo cleaners probably had a problematic time rounding up the rolling art materials. Did their trade union issue a statement?

by staring @ rats & cholera & typhus & bugs - & germs in general.., and the uranium of course Thu Feb 07, 2008 00:23

The Italians are going to have an election so as to choose a prime minister on April 13th & 14th. There are many who if pushed for a reaction might think Italy's habit of two day polling is a jolly good thing for democratic participation. They obviously don't know how difficult & time consuming it can be to rig votes without getting caught. Sure I did it once & the mere thought of doing it again puts cramps in my tummy. The starter slogans have been described by the Italian centre, centre-left, liberal & literate leftie press as "kennedyesque" or "obamaesque", understandable given two rally calls of the parties opposed to a Berlusconi re-election have chosen english language slogans. To vote these days you need to speak English.
http://www.unita.it/view.asp?IDcontent=72704
http://www.repubblica.it/interstitial/interstitial10930....html

The first bit of graft is coming out of filthy Naples with kickback sweeteners to the Mafia (who formed a part of this article's title) varying from 800,000euros to one and half million euros per year. It's a figure which is hardly newsworthy in a municipal government corruption or budget shrinkage terms. But I wanted you to think someone was being blamed & false conviction wasn't looming for a city of 975,000 plus registered souls. But all the same it's been squandered & talked about.
http://www.italiaestera.net/modules.php?name=News&file=...=4416

A Padre Pio movie "'Padre Pio Tra cielo e terra'" will be shown in the Chinese Theatre of Hollywood on the 23rd of February as part of the 'Los Angeles, Italia - Film, Fashion and Art Fest'. The made for telly movie directed by Giulio Base & written by Franco Bernini will be introduced by popular actor & director Michele Placido. It shall be the first time the movie shall be shown in the den of the sinister cult of scientology that is Hollywood. Mr Placido of course played the title role of the movie & grew a special beard for the purpose he is noted for his 1978 the Golden Bear award for the best actor in Berlin for his role of a homosexual worker in the ironical melodrama "Ernesto". He had a beard in that too.
http://www.iltempo.it/spettacoli/2008/02/05/836184-mito...shtml
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/regioni/campania/news/2....html

by + Sat Jan 26, 2008 16:27

Speaking at the annual "Italians in the world" conference which tis year was held in manky filthy Naples , Mr Silvio Berlusconi declared the general election open. Of course under articles 92 and 84 of the Italian constitution there is now a brief pause between Prodi's resignation at the discretion of the President & an election. It will probably be held after a brief interim "technical" government filled with Italians nobody can name. This is their way. As I've said many a time there are basically only a few options open to organised states; multiparty democracy, dictatorship, one party state or being Italian. For verily with only one small example we have gone beyond absolute rule by divine right. http://www.rainews24.it/notizia.asp?newsid=77976
http://www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/notizie/rubriche....html

which brings me neatly to the Padre Pio update you've been waiting on. The Archibishop of Manfredonia has been authorised by the Holy See to explain to readers of "The Christian Family" what exactly they're going to do to Padre Pio once he's exhumed & how there are no _repeat no_ plans to do a cosmetic embalmbing job. If Padre Pio is no longer acceptably aesthetic there will be no visual confirmation that his relic & object of devotion but not _repeat not_ direct worship is in fact his bones.
You'll just have to trust them on that. & why shouldn't you? Padre Pio isn't Jimmy Hoffa.
Meanwhile the whole Padre Pio story is really showing how modern iconists of the very traditional RomanCatholic kind are keeping up to date with modern technology. This week also saw a "aparition of Padre Pio" in a video tape story.
http://www.stpauls.it/fc/0803fc/0803fc50.htm
http://www.portadimare.it/index.php?option=com_content&...id=28

by iosaf Thu Jan 17, 2008 09:49

He's 54 years of age, an unemployed painter who brought quite exaggerated attention to himself in Italy last October 19th for dying the Trevi fountain red. Thing is, he got the colour mix right. I've tried to dye fountains in my time and have never got the mix of pigments you need to colour the water red & not just pink. Anyway, yesterday he got back into the news & arrested for disorder when he and two mates went to the Piazza di Spagni (big square in Rome - where the pope did a nice fascist mass for the guardia civil) and emptied bags filled with 500,000 multi-coloured plastic balls down the steps.
He had of course told the press he'd do it before hand & then turned it into a political act by reading a little manifesto about garbage. It's Italy's youtube feature & students of that language or culture can follow the links on the embedded video to hear interviews, local reaction & blaa blaa.

Most people seemed quite charmed by it.

Anyway, he's still in custody & will be up in court tomorrow. He's still largely unemployed, not on hunger strike, and without a wikipedia entry.

______________________________

Meanwhile fans of embedded video (& I must admit I'm getting into) will enjoy this article from the Italian left wing daily on the Rubbish crises which is chockablock with youtube links. http://www.unita.it/view.asp?IDcontent=72071 Which of course explains the expansion of the rubbish protests of Naples which have been aimed by people at both state & Camorra mafia to the islands of Sardinia & Sicilly. Yes indeed, the people of the mafia dominions are linking up their issues. I've still no news update on Padre Pio.

by + Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:47

You should remember that in case you're going on holidays there. report from the BBC which ends with the rather lame factoid that in Ireland everyone pays for a plastic shopping bag by law. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7180365.stm Meanwhile for those of you with no interest in waste of any kind but are holding out online 24/7 for a Padre Pio update : alas, all I can do is stir your thoughts a bit by hoping you ask what are they going to do to him once he's exhumed? Maintaining my secular side means of course linking to an old back article on Lenin's preservation/burial issues. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72340 Because though exhumation of saints is a traditional catholic thing, it is normally done much longer than 40 years after burial by which stage you're really only talking bones & a bit of shroud & there are issues of "religious tourism" to all this (i'm tempted to remind you of the "terror of holy water" article too http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84003 which alas didn't lead to a relax on the liquid bans on European flights. Anyway, if you want to see Padre Pio - he'll be on display for four months this year from April onwards in San Giovanni Rotondo a little town in the south. Nearest airport served by Ryanair is in Naples & the RC church which persecuted & sidelined him back in the "liberal 60's" hopes this such a trip would inspire you to emulate him - for verily the world needs stigmatics.

by staring @ rats & cholera & typhus & bugs - & germs in general.., Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:05

& so in addition to the now nightly burning of rubbish (household, restaurant garbage, bulky items like tellies, old washing machines & unwanted Xmas prezzies like puppies) some of the more excitably types burnt buses too.
What can the government do?
Well they're talking very nicely to the mafia consortium about lowering the rent on the deep pit they (the mafia) suggest as a land-fill.

wow.

central Naples January 9th afternoon

central Naples January 9th night