last moon

venerdì 1 agosto 2014

What life is for - IV and V




Scene IV
(Soon after a clock beats up five o’clock, someone knocks at the entrance door)
 
Francesco (detaching himself)
            - Someone has knocked at the door! May be  Max is back.

Brenda (going  to open the door)
-  He often forgets his own  keys when I’m at home, though I’m  waiting for someone at five o’clock!

Jonathan(Enters with a bag on his shoulder)
-Hello Brenda! Where’s old Max! I got a present for him in this bag!!!

Brenda (with surprise)
-It’s you, Jon?!? Welcome!! Max is coming back soon! Leave your present in your bag, please!  I want to introduce to you a good italian friend of ours…….

Scene V

After they hear knocking at the door, Brenda goes to open it

(Enter  Inspector Green and his two policemen)


Insp. Green (while entering, showing his badge)
-Everybody keep steady, please! That’s a legal search! (to Jonathan) And you Norman or Vincent or  whatever   you have been named in your fucking Jamaica,  give us that bag!!! 

Jonathan ( still with his hand in the bag)
-I don’t think there is nothing interesting a legal search in my bag!!!

Insp. Green ( with sarcastic smile)
-Don’t worry about that, maroon! It’s up to us  the valuation, isn’t it boys???

First PM
-Come on , young boy! Don’t make the Inspector been upset…

Second PM
            - And I’m also very nervous indeed!!!

Jonathan
-I’m telling you that there is only a present for my friend’s Max birthday!!!!

Insp. Green(still sarcastic)
-Well! Why not? A very good present from Jamaica…

First PM (getting closer and grabbing Jon’s bag)
-Let’s see your present…

Second PM (drawing the pack out )
-I’ll try a guess! It weighs  a pound…more and less

Insp. Green (tearing off the paper)
-Bloody Hell! Someone is kidding up!!! What does this book here mean  ?

Jonathan (catching the paper from the floor in a very nervous voice)
-I believe I’ve told you a few times before, haven’t I? I hope you have some good paper to wrap it up again!!!!

First PM (grabbing the book)
-The Trilogy of Don Juan!!

Second PM (sneering)
-Who is going to read such a boring thing?!?


Jonathan (grabbing violently the book from his hands)
-I doubt you would be  able to understand an only word of it!!!

Insp. Green (emptying the bag’s content on the floor)
-Well ! OK! Let’s stop messing around! You give us the stuff and we all be all right? Where is that pound of grass from Jamaica?

Jonathan (always  angrier collecting his things from the floor)
-Listen to me now! My name is Jonathan Close! J, o, n, ‘you know? Without any h! My father is Jew ‘ you know? Though I can reasonably suppose that my ancestor’s bones rest in the English ground much  before than yours’s! When in life they were famous for other pounds of different stuff….now  if you’re looking for any grass either you go in to my house’s lawn or you catch a plane right to your beloved Jamaica, all right???

Insp. Green

            - All right! You have well played your role, young boy! Just collect your things and let’s work out our business!! Who is the landlord here?

sabato 19 luglio 2014

What life is for -III




Scene III
(Max’s house living room; Francesco is reading a book sitting in an armchair ; Brenda comes from the central door who leads upstairs; from the open door they can ear sounds of feasting voices and rock music from late seventies;)

Brenda (entering)
-Here you are Francesco! I’m sorry you are not enjoying the party!!

Francesco (closing the book on his left hand)
-Don’t be sorry, Brenda! The party is all right. It’s me to be wrong!

Brenda (laughing)
-That’s exactly what Max says when he wants to leave a party! Do you know where has he  gone, by the way? You left together upstairs, didn’t you?

Francesco
-Well, I simply followed him downstairs! And he just told me here I would be in a quiet reading place , ‘you know? But after receiving  a phone call… he went out to make his own phone call…. I suppose that telephone must be broken for calling out I mean(shows a telephone apparatus on a table)…..

Brenda (pulling the telephone up with confidence)
-It could be….but I ‘m not so sure  …..

Francesco (with embarrassed voice)
-I see….May be he had to make a sort of private call…. I would have left him alone …..

Brenda (with  a reassuring tone of voice, sitting on the opposite armchair)
-Don’t be upset, please, Francesco! Max is such a claustrophobic subject from time to time…..he wanted to go out.. that’s all!!!May I stay with you for a while?

Francesco
-Of course you can! I’ll be pleased!

Brenda
-Will you really?

Francesco (Putting the book down on the table and sitting with crossing legs and folded arms)
-Sure ! Why should I not?

Brenda (sitting on the edge of the armchair and lowing her voice)
-May be you can be my confessor….

Francesco (laughing)
-I’m sorry but I’m not enable to confess you! Not yet, at least….

Brenda (as above)
-But you could however  advice me…would you?

Francesco
-Well, it depends from the matter, ‘ you know?

Brenda (with sensual voice)
-It’s a matter of love!!!”

Francesco (showing indifference)
-What kind of love does it deal with?

Brenda (surprised)
-Love is just love, isn’t it?

Francesco
-Sure it is! But it also takes so many forms….

Brenda
-Let’s talk about sex and love!!!

Francesco
-Not always sex and love march together, do they?

Brenda (sinking into the armchair)
-Don’t be such a sophisticate prayer please!!! I’m just a mere student from art’s school!!!

Francesco
-I know you are! Max has shown me some paints of yours…

Brenda
-Has he? How have you liked them?

Francesco
-They show a sort of….How would I say?  I mean a sort of universal  desire of love….But I’m  only a student from theological ‘s  school, ‘ you know?

Brenda (laughing)
-‘You mean desire to get love or just to give it?

Francesco
-I don’t really know….may be both of them…

Brenda (closing back)
-Do you think a woman can love two men at the same time?

Francesco (showing a little embarrassed)
-What do you exactly mean by that?

Brenda
-That   I make sex with Max and George… I mean, all three together, at the same time, in the same bed, playing the same erotic performance,  do you understand me now?


Francesco
-Yes, yes, I do!  You don’t need to say more….

Brenda (closing weakly her eyes)
-We take pleasure each other: I love them and they love me…..

Francesco
-And you would like to know my personal point of view or you prefer the theological rule for such a matter?

Brenda
-I’m just interested on your own personal point of view!

Francesco
-May be you might be thinking of loving them but they, for sure, are in love one each other!!!

Brenda (with surprise)
-What are you trying to say to me?

Francesco
-I say that Max and George pretend to love you but actually  they realize their reciprocal love through your body…

Brenda (feeling upset)
            ….in other words you’re telling me that  they hide themselves behind my body?

Francesco
-That’s right!

Brenda
-Though difficult to believe it sounds quiet unpleasant to me!

Francesco
-I’m sorry, Brenda! I didn’t really want to hurt you! That’s just what I have seen inside your words!!

Brenda (sinking again in the armchair with a sigh, firstly like in trance )
            - There are so many stale and unprofitable uses in this world…….Nevertheless when they lie with me   I feel  that my body is  granting their desires, ‘you             know? And afterwards they keep satisfied….

Francesco
-But my question is: are you satisfied yourself???

Brenda (like above, after a short pause )
            - Sometimes I feel there is something unfinished in all that… as if I searched for something       else…..may be a son to be mine above all… above conventions… above his own         father…whoever he might be……


Francesco
            - ‘You mean like in a matriarchal society?

Brenda
            - …. It might be so…

Francesco
-But human  kind have already passed through that stadium. I think the world must go ahead……

Brenda (like following her intimate thoughts)

            -  Sometimes  I feel so astonished.. so confused…so ungratified…

Francesco (standing up)
-When I told you  before, that there are so many kinds of love, I meant that sexual love is an ever rising need: the more you make it, the more you need it…As matter of fact there is a superior level of love which is able to extinguish for ever our thirst of love….

Brenda (standing up and embracing him)

-Please, Francesco, show me that kind of love! Please, I really want it!!!
... to be continued...

sabato 5 luglio 2014

The soul's comedy - 2


Third Scene
( While the cries slow down, Dante and Virgil reappear in the scene; a mute  video keeps on showing the bargains in the stock exchange’s hall)
Virgil
-          Have you got them?
Dante (in an embarrassed tone of voice)
                - I can’t really understand what’s  going on over there, master???

Virgil (sighing)
                - They are making money...

Dante (a bit perplexed)
                - Do you mean, they are sort of landlords bankers???
Virgil
                - I didn't say that my son! They are actually mostly inventing money than producing it. They produce nothingness as matter of fact… I mean: not material stuffs…

Dante
                - I beg your pardon, sir, but I'm afraid I can't get the meaning of it!
Virgil
                - Of course you can't, my son!! It's not easy for anybody to understand. Listen to me, I'll try to explain to you the difference between production and speculation, real creation and virtual richness!  If you write a good book, for instance, and you sell it to a firm to be published and then the book is  sold in the shops: the buyers have a book in their hands; you, the editors ,the book sellers and all the people involved in the business share the profits; is that clear up to now?
Dante
                - Very clear indeed, master!
Virgil
                - That's right! Let's suppose  now  that your publisher hasn't got the  money  to publish your book!
How can he get it?

Dante
                - He goes to a Bank, I might suppose!

Virgil
                -And so do I, my son! But what happens if the banker hasn't got enough money himself?
Dante
                - I suppose my book won't see the light yet!!
Virgil
                - It might be right, my son! Unless you don't consider the role played by those guys up there (he shows the stocks exchangers)
Dante (perplexed)
                - I'm sorry, master, but I'm still blind...
Virgil
                - Never mind it! Just follow me for a little more! The banker goes to those guys (he points out the stocks exchangers again) and asks them to sell the idea of publishing your book to the savers! 'You know what savers are, don't you my son?
Dante (readily)
                - Well, they are people who have more money than they need to live through!
Virgil
                - Correct, my son!
Dante
                - And of course they want their money to be safe for future needs!!
Virgil
                - That's still correct, my son!!! Put it like that: the savers trust the bankers and the stocks exchangers;  they even trust you and  your writing's skills! But this would not be a problem: financial investors have more instruments to convince savers in order to reach their targets! I'll show you later how a magic box  can wash people's brains just staying at home!!!
Dante (trying to understand)
                - So the banker asks the stocks exchanger to ask the savers to buy the idea of publishing my books...
Virgil
                - Yes, that's it!!! There are plenty of instruments: the publisher might have emitted some titles to guarantee the credits and the savers will buy those titles; or they can buy the future profits which are expected from the selling  of your books; they can even just lend their money on the promise of an interest to be paid...
Dante
                - And this money is given to the banker and borrowed by my publisher...
Virgil
                ... who publishes and distributes your books all over the world!!!
Dante
                - All over the world,  master?
Virgil
                - Of course! Can't you write a latin book to be sold all over the world?
Dante
                - Well, I suppose I can do it, master!!
Virgil
                - Well! And that's your first book, is n't it?
Dante
                - Yes, master! Though I don't see nothing wrong on it...
Virgil
                - But this is only the beginning, my son!!!
Dante
                - What do you mean , master?
Virgil
                - I mean that now, those guys (indicates the stokes exchangers like before) can ask the savers to buy your next book...
Dante
                - But I have just written my first one!!!


Virgil
                - It doesn't really matter my son!!! They will sell all the goods not yet produced like the wheat just seeded and all the events on the future to come!!!
Dante (very surprised)
                - Will they?
Virgil
                - And that's still nothing! If a firm is worth one million they can increase its value, just up there (shows the busy guys in the stocks exchange once again) up to ten or to  hundred  millions, though its real value is still just one thousand!! And that's thanks to the trust of people, 'till the game goes on!!!
Dante
                - Now I know master, what you meant, when you told me the guys over there make money from nothing!!!
Virgil
                - I'm glad you did it, my son!!! Come on, now, let's leave these incontinent people and go to the lower states!!!
Dante
-          Where shall we go master?
Virgil
-          Well, I think you know, my son, that human heart is basically affected by two evil tendencies: the incontinence and the mischief…
Dante
-          I believe it upon your word master!!!
Virgil
-          And you surely know too, that mischief people can be divided into violent and fraudulent mischief, don’t you?
Dante
-          Of course I do master!
Virgil

-          Very well!!! Then I’ll tell you that were are going to complete the visit of first five circles where are convicted stingey,  lustfuls,  greedies,  irascible, slothful, prodigals and so on… You have already had a fore view, aint you?
... to be continued...

sabato 19 aprile 2014

The Baroque Century

Wrongly the seventeenth century is generally perceived by common people as an epoch of low instances and scarce achievements. As matter of fact, in the history of humanity  it lies mashed between the sparkling sixteenth century of Renaissance and the eighteenth age of Enlightenment.
But if we seriously focus only some of   the great thinkers who lived in the sixteenth century then it will be easy for us to realize the big mistake which is to misevaluate the baroque century.
In this very century, I set the first part of my novel “Ten days which never happened”, where fourteen main writers and their friends of the Academia of Celati (Academy of Hidden Writers) in Lamole - Tuscany, are compelled to hide away from Holy Inquisition because they have decided to translate in to vulgar language the Sacred Scripture against the 1596 Pope Clemente VII’s Decree, who wanted the Holy Bible still to be published only in Latin ancient language (incomprehensible to most  people).
Still remains a great question: up to where can manhood  push his thirst of knowledge? Is it right to go beyond anyway? Is it correct to restraint the longing of manhood to break all the frontiers of knowledge? And who is titled to check scientist, poets and all the men who feel free to research the truth anyway and anywhere? Such questions are still of topical actuality and is not in the intentions of our magazine to dare to give any answers to them. I can personally only say that when I was much younger than today, my answer would be simply aimed to deny any chance of control or censorship.
But now I’m not so sure anymore.
Between the  Most Influential People of the 17th Century we must number Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and  Isaac Newton (1643-1727). Without them  we would still be one hundred years behind where we are now.
Angelo Ruggeri shows in his analysis of Milton’s masterpiece “The lost Paradise” how the English author (another great mind of the seventeenth century) has been influenced by Galilei’s theory that earth is not the center of the universe but in fact it revolves around the sun. Copernicus had laid out this theory almost a century before Galileo came around, but Galileo was the man who was able to prove this using his telescope and observations of the planetary movements.
He also shows in a selection of works, how Milton, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Torquato Tasso and other great minds of this century, have handle and dealt with such a sensitive subject and  why the established power counteracted their thoughts.
He finally gives evidence of how Giordano Bruno, Torquato Tasso  and Galileo Galilei influenced Milton’s masterpiece “The lost Paradise”.
Galileo was even convicted by the Church because he thought  we did not need a higher authority to provide us with knowledge, but in fact, we could seek knowledge for ourselves.
And what about  Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650)? Kepler was one of the most important scientists of his age. Kepler was able to describe how planets moved around specific orbits. His ideas were  fundamental in putting together the puzzle of what our universe actually is while Descartes was a mover and shaker on two fronts, one being his great advancements in mathematics and  in Philosophy too.
Also  John Locke (1632-1704)  and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) belong to this great gallery of geniuses; and I don’t need, I’m sure, to talk you about  William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) and William Harvey (1578-1657) two  of the most great minds of any time, one in the field  of   Literature, the second in Medicine subject.
And we could follow numbering Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) Hugo Grotius (1583 -1645) Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679 Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) and many others I don’t have the time and the space to remember here now.
by Ignazio Salvatore Basile

martedì 1 aprile 2014

The ten days which never happened


The ten days which never happened

by ignazio salvatore basile


Foreword


This is the reconstruction of the biography of a man called Jesus, sent to earth by God for the salvation of humanity, made in ten days by four poets at the end of the seventeenth century, perhaps from October 5 to October 14, 1690 and is based on the canonical sources of new Testament (and not only ) to tell the story of the earthly Son of God, by His Origins until his Resurrection.


 Wanting to write and disseminate their work in the Italian language, the original authors, although their intentions were honest and pious, because of the absolute prohibition of vulgarization of the Bible that the Roman Catholic Church  introduced by Pope Clement VIII in 1596 (who had commissioned the Holy Office to crack down harshly any related violation ), they decided not only to remain anonymous, but also to change the dates of their meetings and replace them with those that go from 5 October to 14 October 1582.


They had in fact studied the issue from a legal point of view and had come to the conclusion that if they were discovered, the charge against them would have to fall before the infamous Inquisition Tribunal ( the armed wing of the Holy Office ) for the fact that following the decree by Pope Gregory XIII,  which had reformed the Julian calendar,  from October 4, 1582 all the events in the Catholic States had to  pass directly to 15 October 1582. So that no public office of the Papal States, much less his Court, could convict someone of a crime committed in a period never existed.


The authors furthermore thought  to hide themselves behind the names of the four canonical evangelists, attributing to their occasional guests and employees the fictitious identity of the closest disciples of Jesus  to detect their true identity only after the printing of the book.


The reconstruction work was carried out on fragments of the original writings that have allowed,  with obvious difficulty , this publication . The original idea was therefore to tell the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man on the earth, in the vernacular, converging into a single literary context, all of the events narrated by eyewitnesses. For their greater protection, at any rate, as mentioned above, the authors concealed their identities behind the pseudonyms of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, attributing  to their friends and associates, willing to make a personal contribution to the history of Jesus, the identity of Peter, Andrew, James the Greater, James the Younger, Jude Thaddeus, Nathanael, Bartholomew, Simon the Zealot, Philip, Thomas and Judas Iscariot.


Even the place where the four got together and hosted their occasional collaborators remained a secret, though it is believed that they were housed in an isolated house in Lamole, now under the administration of the Tuscan territories but at the time  subject to the sovereignty of the Pope.


 In the drafting of their literary work the authors seem to have favored the terza rima classical form, although there are adaptations of Petrarch's Lyric, Ballad of the Great, and many quatrains of Sonnet septenaries interspersed with octosyllabic .



First Day - October the 5th, 1582

morning


[Luke , Matthew and John , waiting for Mark, who will join them in the afternoon with two much unexpected  guests, laying the foundations of their history , presenting their character both in its divine origin ( In the beginning was the Word ), and in the earthly ( Ancestors of Jesus) , continuing with the Annunciation, the conception and Birth of Jesus ]


Luke : - Well, friends , do we agree ?


John - Yes, I do! It seems to me the wisest thing . You, Matthew, what do you think ?


Matthew : - It might be all right for me ! Although we'll miss a good increasing  reputation   ‘You know?.... Think about whether this book , which in practice will be the first gospel in the vernacular, were spread all around! After all, today , with the press , it could also happen .....


Luke : - Well, but our opus is a story , a novel, as they say today , not a theological Bible ....


Matthew : - Though we vowed to be faithful in bringing the authentic words and the real events of the life of Jesus! And then, just the characters of originality are correct reason for the attribution of authorship that I claim, even if , on the other hand , I'd be afraid of the consequences. The glory and fame would attract the attention of the Inquisition .....


Luke : - If you put it on this way I agree with you, but I have an idea that can save the wine and the barrel .....


Matthew : - An idea ? What an idea ?


Luke : - Listen, we could fill a testamentary paper , claiming authorship of the work with it but we can  instruct the notary  not to publish our paper before the last of us has left this vale of tears .....


Matthew - I think it’s a nice idea , is not it John ?


John - Yes, of course ! But  will Mark agree ?


Luke : - Just ask him  the afternoon , when he arrives ! But I bet that he will agree !


John: - On the other hand it would be prudent to fill out the card at the end of the story .......


Matthew : - Yeah! You never know what a spy of the Inquisition ...... If they  discover that we are translating excerpts of the New Testament in the vernacular, poor of us .......


Luke - Better safe than sorry , even if here in Lamole, the judges of the Papal States are certainly not close!


Matthew : - Well, never mind then: how does our story begin ! ?


Luke : - From the beginning , of course!


John: - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God .....


Matthew : - Beautiful ! How does it sound good! So this will be first  page of our book ?


Luke. - I think so ! But this will be up to the printer to be decided! Do not forget that you are using prefix the title and then the preface ... We try to number our scrolls according to the established order .


Matthew : - It 's true ! You're right! I'm sorry , but I tremble with emotion : this should be my first book to be printed !


Luke : - Even for me. But it does not appear with our name ! Funny is not it?


Matthew : Yeah! The name will appear after our deaths !


Luke : We do not think. Come on John, read us your first whole song !


- "In the beginning was the Word

And the Word was with God,

Who held  in His mind

To redeem the sin


and the corruption of humanity

By sending His Son

Who descended  from pure lily

It is His revelation


In one with the Spirit

But you can list three !

How the Law to Moses

Was given , the grace Christ


Brought for us and the Truth.

Nevertheless Manhood

Didn’t recognize Him

And He was treated with cowardice .


But to those who have recognized Him

He has made them brothers

Giving them the most beautiful gifts

Without receiving so much in exchange.


The Word became flesh and history

Coming to live here !

We saw His glory

On the only begotten Truth!


There was a man sent

By God , on behalf of John ;

was in the same years ,

he testified the Light !


He was not the Light,

but he was  a witness ,

the True Lord came afterward   !


All things were made by Him,

but  nothing is created !

He was not accepted ,

Star shining among dark skies !

No one has never seen God

But He has revealed Himself  in Christ !
...to be continued...