Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The Egyptian museum

Believe it or not Torino has the 2nd largest museum of Egypt history and artifacts in the world. From what I know the Savoy dynasty have been quite fond of Egyptian culture and collected all sorts of artifacts and manuscripts during the colonial days of Italy. I was quite surprised when a friend told me that for a very long time Torino has been a centre of ocult sciences and dark magic - come to think of it, it doesn't really look like a coincidence me coming here :)
The museum was truly enjoyable - quite amazing to know that people had such an advanced civilization 4 000 years ago - anciant Egyptians were terrific at such things as architecture, building monument and pyramids, agriculture, cosmectics and ripping your intestines while you are still alive as well as many other wonders of modern civilization. AMAZING!
Feel free to look at the pictures

The Macchiaioli













One of the most important galleries and exhibition spaces in Torino is Palazzo Bricherazio where I went to see an exhibition of the Macchiaioli. The Macchiaioli are the Italian impressionists (not as famous as their French colleauges). If you truly want to educate yourself about them, feel free to do it here. I myself have never been fond of Impressionistic style - I find it too light and too sentimental (for some reason I am fond of dark, intellectual art - but hey, that's me :P ) but I have to admit some of those painting catch an eye.
I was quite surpised to find out that the Macchiaioli precede the French Impressionists (probably it's the overwhelming French desire to be the first in everything) and that their art stretches from natural landscapes and rural scenes (I hope you are fond of cows) to urban places and exploration of social issues.
When I left the exhibitions I realized how much history of art likes to repeart itself - an artist starts his life full of ideals and visions in opposition of the existing academic standards and ends up disappointed and disillusioned of life and people. In a a way we are all so lucky because if so many artists hadn't fucked up their lives(some quite successfully - thank you Vincent!) we wouldn't be able to admire so many great masterprieces.

Back again

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there are actually living people that read my blog - thanks guys, I really appreciate it and I am especially happy when you leave comments. Apologies for not posting anything for such a long time but I have really been busy working for global capitalism.
For the last several weeks I have enjoyed cultural events mostly ( lots of them in Torino) - above you will find 2 of the exhibitions I visited - you can also see the pictures here.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

C'est moi :)


LOST on an island

Well, I honestly love this joke. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

"There is a beautiful deserted island in the middle of nowhere and the following people are stranded:
2 men and 1 woman for each of the following nations: Italy, France, Germany, Greece, England, Poland, Japan, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Russia.

The first Italian man has killed the other Italian man for the woman.
The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a "menage a trois".
The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of when they alternatewith the German woman.
The two Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cooking and cleaning for them.
The two Englishmen are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman.
The Polish men took a long look at the endless ocean, one look at the Polish woman, and started swimming.
The two Japanese men have faxed Tokyo and are waiting for instructions.
The two American men are contemplating the virtues of suicide, whilethe American woman keeps on bitching about her body being her own, the true nature of feminism, how she can do everything that they can do,about the necessity of fulfilment, the equal division of householdchores, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated hermuch nicer and how her relationship with her mother is improving. But at least the taxes here are low and it is not raining.
The two Australian men beat each other senseless fighting over theAustralian woman, who is checking out all the other men, after calling them both "bloody wankers".
Both New Zealand men are searching the island for sheep.
The two Irishmen began by dividing their island Northside-Southside andsetting up a distillery. They don't remember if sex is in the picture because it gets sort of foggy after the first few litres of coconut-whiskey, but at least they know the English aren't getting any.
The first Russian man married the Russian woman and divorced her. He is the best customer of the Irish distillery.
The other Russian man made money by killing the Italian and arranging exit visas for the Poles. With that money he acquired a controlling 33.4% stake in the Irish distillery including the worldwide distribution rights to the English and he hired the Greeks as salesagents. He employs both Germans as bodyguards (for himself and his Russian girlfriend) and has promised the Polish woman that she canbecome the maid of their first child. He regularly sees the American woman "to learn English".
In the meantime, the French still think they're alone on the island."

Monday, June 4, 2007

A dog's life!

A little apology about the previous post - the Sunday was quite sunny and I actually managed to spend a good day outside. I went to the Torino exhibition centre Lingotto to see a canine exhibition (most of you are aware of my passionate fondness for dogs). Believe it or not the International Fair in Plovdiv looks better than Lingotto. The exhibition was really fantastic but I got a bit sad because I realized how much I miss my beloved Uma (about Uma, some other time...) Anyway, I am posting some photos of some of the sweetest, funniest and most impressive dogs. Enjoy!!!










Saturday, June 2, 2007

Raining in Italy

This weekend seems to raining again which probably means that my 2 days-off are going to be screwed again (for it rained the previous weekend too). This whole thing brought up the environemental issue which seems to be a big media hit for the last year. I have always been a concerned environmentalist (though not a fanatic) and at least I am happy to see when something is being done. It seems that the European Union is the only world power concerned with global warming right now. I don't want to turn my blog into a pro-EU propaganda machine (lots of things about the EU I don't like) but point is someone should really try to kick the ass of USA, China and India (which seem to be the biggest pollutors today). This planet is in big trouble and at least fucked up weekends can wake up the civil sosiety and make change happen.
What is left for me is to use less electricty, to print less paper in the office and keep hoping that I can spend my weekend at least reading in the park near the Olympic stadium in Torino( see picture below).

P.S. Go Angela, go! Don't let that asshole surprise you from behind!