porcarorama picturescope

PORCARORAMA XII #CHRISTMAS_011

2011-12-19T09:14:00.001+01:00

Enjoy the sound of the winter!!!

http://soundcloud.com/giuseppeporcaro/porcarorama-xii

porcaroramaXI / summer2011

2011-07-04T09:28:00.006+02:00

Dance it now!

On the beach, on the mountains, in the deep seas, in the asphalt burning city, with your rucksack at a festival, with your friends or alone.

The sounds of this summer come from Naples, Melbourne, New York, Karachi, Bangkok, London, Los Angeles, Athens (Georgia, U.S.), Portland, Rome.

To download it go to: http://www.4shared.com/audio/WBpi1vvt/porcarorama_XI.html

Playlist:

#1 - Kalimba de luna / Tony Esposito (Napoli)

#2 - 'E fatte 'e sorde / Tullio de Piscopo (Napoli)

#3 - Contact High / Architecture in Helsinki (Melbourne)

#4 - Need you Now / Cut Copy (Malbourne)

#5 - Ice Cream / Battles (New York)

#6 - The khyber twist / Sohail Rana (Karachi)

#7 - Klug tum la / Jalwal, Anne 7 Geerasak (Bangkok)

#8 - Baa Baa Buam Buam / Sroeng Santi (Bangkok)

#9 - Stop the drums / Le London All Stars (London)

#10 - Jungee / The fore thoughts (Karachi)

#11 - Coming Home Babe / Le London All Stars (London)

#12 - Strawberry Letter 23 / Brothers Johnson (Los Angeles)

#13 - Holiday Call / Of Montreal (Athens/Georgia)

#14 - Light Emerges / Akron/Family (New York)

#15 - Legata a un granello di sabbia / Nico Fidenco (Roma)

PORCARORAMA X - CHRISTMAS 2010

2010-12-03T09:57:00.003+01:00

Groove your Christmas preparations with Porcarorama!

Porcarorama IX - the sound of the summer 2010

2010-07-16T12:30:00.002+02:00

The Summer is burning? Are you packing your stuffs for the beach? Are you going to climb the highest mountains? Are you biking over the Continent? Or Sailing the Oceans?

No matter where you are and what you are doing cool yourself with Porcarorama Compilation IX. The sound of the summer 2010 now is there. Plug your Headphones in and enjoy!

[Playlist: Surf in U.S.A. / Storia d'amore / Jaan pehechaan ho / Una zebra a pois / Most wanted / Eyesore / Someone's missing / King of the beach]

people of china

2010-05-25T22:29:00.004+02:00

C09 - P O R C A R ORAMA VIII

2009-12-16T16:58:00.006+01:00

The moment for the traditional Porcarorama Christmas Compilation has come again! This year enjoy the end of the decade with the Porcarorama Sound. Let's dance under a Christmas tree in the snow or in the beach depending on your latitude!

To enjoy the present click here

[1. Think for Yourself (the Beatles); 2. Rough Steez (Fuck Buttons) vs. Everything in its Right Place (Radiohead); 3. What Would I Want? Sky (Animal Collective; 4. Beast in Peace (Bear in Heaven); 5. Run Run Run (Beck/Velvet Underground); 6. From the Colonies (Penguin Cafe Orchestra); 7. Everyone is Guilty (Akron Family); 8. Vcr (The xx); 9. Norway (Beach House); 10. A new Chance (The Tough Alliance); 11. Take it in (Hot Chip); 12. Just can't get enough (Depeche Mode); 13. Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker (Girls); 14. Alright (Supergrass); 15. IRM (Charlotte Gainsbourg); Watching the Planets (Flaming Lips); In Violet (Health)]

Addis Abeba Bete

2009-11-03T23:12:00.004+01:00

The father of my grandmother was called Marino Quercia (Nonno Marino), he lived in Addis Abeba between 1937 and 1941.

I know very little about nonno Marino, my grandmother told me he managed a bakery baking bread for the Army and that he had quite some local workers for him. After the liberation of Addis Abeba and the end of italian occupation he was then war prisoner for some time. The other thing she told me is that he had a villa and that most probably as well quite some fun with local women (he was quite promiscuous for the times).

70 years later, I am in Addis Abeba, my first trip in Africa.Looking around I try to see familiar faces: cousins, uncles? After all, aren't we all coming from this highlands some millions years ago?

The information about Marino Quercia is too little.
But it is too intriguing not to try to imagine him walking around the busy streets of Mercato (the indigenous market established by the fascist occupants in 1938) or on the side of the Piazza (italian denomination of the Arada district) possibly passing by the Headquarter of the Fascist Party... where I am sitting now, 70 years later, eating excellent ravioli and tagliatelle in the best italian restaurant in town, "Castelli".

After his daily business finished, Nonno Marino surely used to relax in his villa which most probably was located in the area known today as Kazantchis, distortion of the italian name “Casa INCIS”.

This was the housing project of the Italian National Institute for Housing of State Employees where he might had the assigned villa with garden and separate service quarters for servants and auxiliary functions.

And the Bakery? the research goes on...

African Union (Addis Abeba_Brussels)

2009-11-03T22:29:00.001+01:00

M.me Agoussou receives us in her office at the African Union Commission. In three years of Africa-Europe cooperation in the youth field this is the first time the European Youth Forum and the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe manage to meet with her. In itself this is an event that reward the whole trip politically speaking.

The fact that Dr. Agoussou did not met us before or came to any of the meetings she has been invited is not bad will, rather overload, understaffing of an institution that after only 5 years of existence is now struggling to match implementation capacity with political achievement.

Walking around the African Union Headquarters you get the impression of this work in progress, in front of the old buildings there is a massive space with a big white compound with chinese characters.

The Government of the People's Republic of China is building for free a brand new, huge Headquarters for the African Union Commission.

Is this city going to be become the Brussels of Africa? And is China going to build it?

(more info on China in Addis: http://www.davidkilgour.ca/2007/Nov_26_2007_04.htm)

Pocari Sweat Advertisement (Beijing 22/07/09)

2009-08-02T11:58:00.005+02:00

Porcarorama enters the advertisment business with the chinese brand "Pocari Sweat".

Beijing, July 2009

After a visit to the Political School of the Communist Youth League of China (closer to an American Campus than a soviet establishment), I bump my head into the door of the bus and it is hurting a lot.

What I get from our Chinese hosts to relief the pain is an iced bottle of Pocari Sweat. A chinese ionic energy drink.

People start laughing at the name of the bottle and it is the opportunity to organise a photo set for its advertisement. Thanks to Abel Polese for taking the pictures. The photoshopping in mine.

If you are interested in engaging with Porcarorama for your brand advertising don't hesitate!

Tongli (28/07/09)

2009-08-02T11:51:00.002+02:00

Morning,

Traditional Chinese Music on the background.

The sound is amazingly similar to an american Banjo. If I close my eyes I could imagine to be on the delta of the Mississippi circa 1909.

The 2 land-ladies of the guest-house are discussing on the terrace downstairs.

(for touristic info on Tongli http://www.micktravels.com/china/tongli.html)

Suzhou-Shanghai (29/07/09)

2009-08-01T22:56:00.005+02:00

On a train to Shanghai.

All around Chinese people.
Overcrowded.

People eating all sort of food and looking at me, taking pictures of me, like I would be an alien.
Me standing in the corridor with a green t-shirt and red headphones. Cheesy music in the background. Poppish, Chinese, Bubblegumish.

There is a specific group of passengers who seems to be my core fans led by a woman who is taking photos together with a colored hair guy and another fat woman carrying a little baby who also laughs at me.

At the end the group of fans allows me to sit with them in exchange of pictures and another old smiling and nice lady ask me in Chinese where I am from. Obviously I don't understand but the shy guy in front of me translates and then everybody smiles and laugh (including me).

Outside endless work in Progress for the new high speed train between Shanghai and Beijing (1200 Km in 4 hours when ready).

Roads, Rails, Houses, Cities... all being built at an overwhelming speed!

The Tropical Sound of the Shandong Expressway (Porcarorama VII)

2009-08-01T22:38:00.004+02:00

4.22am, 23 July 2009.

In a bus direct from Beijing to Jinan, the Capital of the Shandong.

Work in progress, people sleeping, trucks and chinese expressways.

The tropical sound of the summer.

Enjoy!

(click here to download the compilation)

the yoUNg

2009-06-24T17:06:00.002+02:00

The YoUNg from Giuseppe Porcaro on Vimeo.

The first documentary produced by Porcarorama (and written, edited, directed, bla bla, by me)

Berna

2009-06-20T10:37:00.004+02:00

Bern, a European Capital that I was missing on my travel list. It remained an exotic destination among the capitals of Europe since i was a kid.

Mainly for two reasons.
1. The first one is obvious to most of the Italians that were kids in the 80s and in the early 90s: *Latte Berna!*

of course... a brand of milk called like the Swiss capital, with a nice Cow that was smiling at you from a tetra pack. If i remember correctly the Berna Milk was famous not just for the advertisement but as well because it was fresh milk in tetrapack. In the late 80s it was a hit!

2. Second reason why Bern had always a specific corner of my geographical imagination was a *book on European Capitals* that was collected through an italian magazine called “Oggi”.

“Oggi” (I don't even know if it still existing. Was a kind of people weekly not really yellow press but fair enough close to it. But at some point they decided to give as present a book on European Capitals. It was 1988. And it had all the capitals of Europe from the west and from the east.

My parents were not usually buying “Oggi” it was my grandma stuff, but for the occasion of the book on European Capital they were buying it...

...week after week I was diving in my first Pan-European Trip.
I was amazed by the colorful churches of the red square of Moscow, for me they were the closest building to a fairytale I ever saw in a photography – then “Russians” of Sting was being often played on the radio and now i still connect the song with those images (and the one of Laika, the first dog on space, Russian as well of course)
...and of course I had my preferences. For example I was going back to some of the cities, while others I was neglecting. I remember I was neglecting – for example Sofia for some unexplainable reason – and others that i just found boring, this was the case of Bonn, the Capital of West Germany. I loved East Berlin and the picture of the television tower on Alexanderplatz with the DDR flags.

Among those big capitals, with long explanations, maps that were not entering in three pages (like london... that was just simply too big in size for a 9 years old boy) Bern (or rather “Berna”) was squeezed, just close to Budapest and Chausescu's Bucharest. Only one picture. The Tower with the clock. An amazing clock, with moving statues, moons, stars and other planets. I always wanted a clock like that at my place. And I never though I would have seen this clock only in 2009.... more than 20 years later.

I came to Switzerland several times, but never in Bern. And it was a nice surprise to discover that there was more than the clock in this small little cute town.

Now I am in the middle of the clouds again, in the train, small station, Vauderens, already in the french canton.

Beautiful green under the storm.
But too rural for this urban blog.

My presentation speech for the election of the new SG of European Youth Forum

2009-05-09T15:36:00.003+02:00

"Dear Friends, I decided to tell you a story, a real one, a story starting with “once upon a time....”. It is a story about the journey of a young person who throughout his personal development acquired the skills that the European Youth Forum needs from the next Secretary General, which are mainly three:

technical and managerial competences,
knowledge of Member Organisations and the Platform,
and understanding of European and International Processes.

well... the person is me... but the story is not just about me since we share some parts of this journey... Once upon a time, 30 years ago, I was born in the outskirts of Naples in the Southern Italy. After some decades and due to my choice to join a scout group when I was 6 years old, I found myself at 20 convinced I could make the difference with my community and that my community was not only my little town but, actually, Europe, well the World. That's why I left home, landed firstly for an Erasmus in Paris, started an intense formative period of few years as a volunteer around Europe and the Mediterranean with youth organisations for exchanges, training and Non-Formal Education projects. I emerged from this period as a confident trainer and team leader, knowing the structures of youth work in Europe, project management and a Masters in International Relations. I was excited and passionate, impatient to multiply what i learned, feeling that I was lucky and privileged enough to owe this to the youth movement and i needed to share it: ready to jump to the next step. In 2003 we still did not have a National Youth Council in Italy. It was one of the typical long and sad stories that sometimes make my Country famous. As a group of youth associations we decided that the time had come to make the change. Since I knew the functioning of the European Youth Forum and of National Youth Councils in other Countries, my expertise was key in building up the constitution of FNG. I also took care of its membership application to the YFJ. It was a very creative period: we developed solutions for the organisational sustainability of the platform, involved the Members in advocacy work, we built a professional secretariat, we experimented new ways for funding, to guarantee the independence of the platform while it was not yet recognised by the government. At the same time, I was bridging between Italy and Europe. In 2005 I was elected as Chairperson of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe. We consolidated together the decision-making between NGOs and governmental representatives, and we acted for the interests of all young people in Europe. At personal level it was a perfect learning experience to get to know from the inside International Institutions and the negotiation skills in the context of an inter-governmental organisation. Moreover, it was a challenging endeavour in Human Resources Management by leading a team of 30 volunteers from all over Europe. Looking back at that and what we did together, we can be proud of the results such as the All Different, All Equal Campaign, the Heads of State Summit or the Ministerial Conference on Youth. In parallel to those adventures, I gained my PhD in Political Geography studying the impact of globalisation on the governance of Mediterranean Cities. This was in itself a subject that fascinated me for the substantial links with organisational networks and institutional relations, which on another level, I was practising at the Council of Europe and at the Italian Youth Council. But more importantly, the PhD was the perfect complement to my non-formal education in project and organisational management. In fact it provided me with strong methodological basis for strategic analysis, planning, delivering results and evaluation. To resume, those years between 2003 and 2006, were definitely the ones were I matured the skills to be a highly qualified professional in the youth field, were project management, good governance, research and strategic analysis were multiplied for sustainable results. The next step was flying to the fields of Kosovo! Pristina was a life-time experience: supervising the management of the Post-conflict Grant of the World Bank on Youth Development. You can imagine all the practical challenges in starting up the grant implementation in the legal jungle of Kosovo and its UN administration at the time (2006). The main challenge was to ensure a transparent hiring process of the Project Implementation Unit regarding the different fields of expertise required: finances, procurement, outreach, monitoring and evaluation, office administration and field work, for a total of 8 people. Training and supervising the team, ensuring the smooth relations between the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport and the World Bank, working on the field to assess the needs of the youth centres in each municipality... It was definitely a big step. After I left the position I was happy to learn that the legacy of the management system i helped to put in place was actually working. With my bag full of those experiences, I landed in Brussels almost two years ago, to work at the secretariat of the youthforum, as UN and Global Co-ordinator. In this capacity, I participated in the technical drafting of the current work-plan before its adoption at the last GA. In this period I delivered by strengthening existing processes but also experimenting new ways to do things. The initiative of a Euro-Arab Co-ordination Meeting of Youth Organisations, is something we can be proud of because it sets a method for direct involvement of member organisations in YFJ regional co-operation. Another initiative with a methodological lesson is our involvement in the UN Alliance of Civilisation, where we managed to combine institutional recognition with tangible support to local but also international youth projects in the frame of the Youth Solidarity Fund. ...I started by telling you a story, my story, obviously and luckily it does not end yet, I wish to continue writing it with you in the coming years. So here I am now, 8 May 2009, standing in front of you to get appointed as the next SG of the YFJ. Standing with my passion and commitment, I am convinced that this long journey I have done with you and all the people I have learned from, provided me with the technical and managerial competences, the knowledge of the Platform and of Youth Organisations, especially YFJ Members and the understanding of the European and International Processes that we need for this position. Our president outlined that at this stage of its organisational development, the YFJ should “deliver, strengthen and consolidate its work by bringing the Member Organisations closer to the platform aiming to increase the impact of YFJ advocacy and achieve greater participation” As Secretary General, I will work to support the implementation of these goals together with a secretariat which is confident, efficient, motivated and professional, while the political leadership is in the hands of the elected President and Bureau. I am also convinced that the Secretary General needs to support the bureau by setting some clear priorities, for me, these will be: 1.Managing people to deliver results: Motivating the staff to stay committed to the organisation and making the best of the pool of excellence at our disposal 2.Innovative development: Building on our rich history and existing strengths while not being afraid to experiment. 3.Impact: Without impact we are useless. The Secretariat will facilitate monitoring and evaluation of our actions to ensure that we achieve change.

-----

None of this can be done in isolation by the SG, but following an inclusive, open and transparent method involving the Member Organisations, under the direction of the Bureau and the professional contribution of the rest of the secretariat. At the beginning of my story I told you that the Youth Forum needs a secretary general with:

Technical and managerial competences
Knowledge of member organisations and the platform
And understanding of European and international processes

I have shown you that I have these skills and I built them together with you. Together we should continue to write this story.

learning, growing, development, excellence is by definition from within!

Watching, listening and feeling the Europarama

2009-05-03T13:39:00.011+02:00

(Images and sounds from campaign days)
I watch outside the window of the plane bringing me back to Brussels from Lisbon.

I watch the Panorama of Europe on the little screen following the plane crossing the map and seeking its route.

It is the 1st of May 2009.

My headphones are plugged.

Below me condensed networks of lights and roads connecting cities, feelings, peoples, places, ideas, projects, flowing in and out.

This is the Europarama.

click here to download and enjoy it!

Geographical explorations in organisational Management: my application letter as Secretary General of the European Youth Forum

2009-04-16T11:03:00.003+02:00

Ten years ago, on a sailing trip off the Gaza Strip, I first learned about the European Youth Forum: I was a young sailor on the Peace Cruise, a project organised by the Scout Movement that changed the course of the life of many young people, including me. The European Youth Forum was a key partner in its realisation and it was a revelation to learn that a platform comprised of so many diverse organisations could drive innovative initiatives, advocates for youth at an institutional level and at the same time have a direct impact on the lives of so many young people in Europe and beyond.

The Peace Cruise served as inspiration and influenced the direction of my participation as a young European citizen. It motivated me to get involved in new projects: firstly in my town and my university, then at a national level, as one of the initiators of the Italian Youth Council, and at the European level, as Chair of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe. In these roles I acted as team leader, with the task of motivating and coordinating the work of others, often in complex and challenging situations, while developing and refining my leadership skills.

Years after having sailed in the boat off Gaza, at the age of 30, I am now working for the secretariat of the European Youth Forum (YFJ). I know the YFJ from an inside perspective and I have a holistic view into how the organisation functions. I believe applying for the position of Secretary General is a natural next step in my commitment to the YFJ. As my career has progressed through professional and volunteer work, my values have come to match those of the European Youth Forum.

Reliable Support for Policy Deliver

At this stage of its organisational development, the YFJ is aiming “to deliver, strengthen and consolidate YFJ work by bringing the Member Organisations closer to the platform with the ultimate goal to increase the impact of YFJ advocacy and achieve greater participation, youth autonomy and sustainability of youth organisations” – as outlined by the current President in the motivation letter for his recent election. As Secretary General, I will work to support the implementation of these goals with a confident, efficient, motivated and professional secretariat, while ensuring that the political leadership is in the hands of the elected President and Bureau.

The secretariat should be led by a competent professional, one who possesses the ability to combine a range of skills: managerial, strategic planning, diplomacy, communications, initiative and flexibility. Such a variety of skills goes beyond the boundaries of a traditional managerial profile due to the organisational complexity of the European Youth Forum. The YFJ is a major Membership-based Civil Society Platform in Europe: even if the secretariat is based in Brussels, through its Member Organisations, the YFJ is practically present in every Member State of the Council of Europe. Members participate in the organisational development through a participative internal democracy and by electing a bureau with the clear political mandate to implement the work-plan adopted by the General Assembly. Within this organisational framework, the secretariat has the task of supporting this process from a professional level.

How can the Secretary General practically contribute to the organisational development?

I believe that the following guiding ideas, and the necessary competencies to implement them, are particularly relevant in this regards: managing people, managing competence, managing innovation and monitoring the impact of the organisation.

Managing people to deliver results

With its 25 employees, the YFJ secretariat has already reached a solid level of sustainability. The first and main support of the Secretary General to the mission of the European Youth Forum is to take responsibility for the daily management of a professional team which is capable of delivering results based on the political input of the Bureau.

This endeavour needs solid human resources management skills such as:

Managing people in a multicultural environment: The staff of the YFJ is composed of professionals from all over Europe. This requires cultural sensitivity to handle team work. As a YFJ staff member I have proven myself to be a good team player in such an environment. Further, for the World Bank, I supervised the multi-ethnic Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of the Kosovo Youth Grant based in Pristina, including a project officer based in the Serbian Enclave of North Mitrovica.
Managing people with different professional profiles: The YFJ is also an organisation with a variety of profiles ranging from policy and advocacy, to finances and administration. The PIU I supervised in Kosovo included a project co-ordinator, financial and procurement officers, outreach coordinators, a monitoring and evaluation expert, and an administrative assistant, for a total of 8 people employed in three different offices. I think this management experience will be very useful if selected as Secretary General.
Managing people in a multi-actor environment: The YFJ secretariat works in-between the Institutions and the Member Organisations. The Secretary General needs to have the capacity to support this connection at various levels. I have extensive expertise in linking up Civil Society Actors to Institutions coupled with an in-depth knowledge of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the UN. This was, for example, one of the main results delivered as the Chair of the Advisory Council and in my academic work. Moreover, in my assignment in Kosovo, i ensured the links between the PIU and the youth organisations in each municipality from one side and between the PIU, the World Bank, and European Agencies on the other side.

Managing the competence in a knowledge-based organisation

The European Youth Forum is widely recognised as the “European youth interlocutor” in public policy. The success of this recognition stands from the magic combination of the unique experience of each of the Member Organisations (MOs), of the competencies of the volunteers (delegates, Bureau members, working groups and seminar participants) and the professionals of the Secretariat. It is thanks to this mix that over the past decades the YFJ has built an extensive body of knowledge epitomised by the numerous positions papers, policies, publications and verbal communication.

As a learning organisation, for and by young people, it is especially important that the Secretary General ensures that the knowledge and expertise produced by all the actors involved is not lost or dispersed.

This requires efforts in various areas of management, including but not limited to:

The sector of human resources, strategic for the wealth of knowledge constituted by the human capital of the YFJ secretariat. This human capital is there to serve the MOs and to serve present and future young people in Europe. Today there is too much turn-over and short stay of the staff. Motivating the staff to stay committed to the organisation thanks to their contribution to the implementation of the YFJ vision mixed with enhanced possibilities for personal and professional development would be a cornerstone of my tenure as Secretary General.
The area of communications, not simply a support for the visibility of the organisation. I would like to contribute in this area with the competencies I have developed in the external relation throughout my professional experiences and voluntary commitment. In fact, as a knowledge producer the YFJ needs to fully integrate this area in its lobby and advocacy work. Moreover, I believe that such an integrated approach to communication management will not affects only the production of knowledge but will also strengthen partnerships and increase resources.
The research field, needed to preserve the historical memory of the organisation. As Secretary General I would like to contribute to this area with the research skills I developed during my PhD and co-ordinate the efforts to make the past knowledge easily accessible to both volunteers and staff alike, not only through publications but also through other tools. For example, training modules that could be tailored to the needs of the Members, making use of history to learn and grow stronger.

Managing the innovation in a creativity-driven organisation

The European Youth Forum is an organisation which has adapted and innovated throughout its thirty years of existence. Innovation has related to the policy areas, such as development co-operation or youth rights, as well as organisational development, such as the merging of the existing three European youth platforms into the current European Youth Forum (YFJ) or the last reform of the working structures, which aimed to more effectiveness in the participation of MOs to the work-plan implementation.

Constant innovation has been the success of this Platform and it must be cultivated for the future. For this reason, I truly believe that the next Secretary General should be a proven innovator in the youth field, able to understand a creativity-driven organisation, such as the European Youth Forum.

The future management will need to participate and contribute in order to maintain the creativity-driven trend which makes the European Youth Forum a place where people are happy and anxious to work: this includes providing the necessary professional support to solutions aimed at disclosing untapped resources within the membership and partners.

From past experience, I have learned that managing innovation is a complex process. In particular, setting up the Italian National Youth Council (FNG) was a unique opportunity to build a new organisation, since in Italy, the concept of National Youth Council had to be built from scratch. To give concrete example, lacking a strong institutional support in the start-up phase, we initiated a truly bottom-up process in organisational development starting from the membership and using the commitment of the volunteers. Moreover, we looked for partnerships other than the usual channels for policy development and fund-raising, for example we created alternative partnerships with think tanks and foundations. These seminal efforts built the basis for the current dynamism and recognition enabling FNG to better serve the needs of Italian youth organisations and young people.

As Secretary General of the European Youth Forum I will use the kind of competencies developed in this process to accompany the innovation of the organisation with the necessary managerial support.

Monitoring the impact for a result-oriented organisation

I believe that while the political direction of the organisation is in the Bureau's domain, the Secretariat must facilitate realistic options based on a balanced analysis of the planned actions and likely outcomes. This would keep the positive pathway between the Bureau and the Secretariat in order to best find realistic and workable solutions for the priorities outlined by Member Organisations.

To this end, the monitoring and evaluation system of the organisation would help in gathering both qualitative and quantitative data in order to better make informed decisions and set up benchmarks to further evaluate the impact of each of the actions of the Forum: As Secretary General I will strengthen such systems, thanks to the methodologies acquired in my academic and professional work. For example, in 2005 I coordinated, for the Confederation of Italian Industry, a research project that evaluated complex organisational and governance systems such as Mediterranean cities. During this research project I developed a tool for the benchmarking analysis which compared the performance of different cities in various public policy sectors. Applied to the European Youth Forum, a similar methodology could help compare the impact of the lobby and advocacy actions.

Impact-analysis would benefit not only the overall efficiency of the daily work of the Secretariat, but also give the opportunity to the membership better contribute and evaluate the tangible results of their commitment in the YFJ. Furthermore, it would enhance the credibility of the organisation towards the institutional partners and possibly increase the range and diversity of funding.

-----

These guiding ideas briefly outline some of the organisational challenges and implication of the secretariat support for the work of the Bureau and to the MOs. Delivering results in a knowledge-based and creativity-driven organisation cannot solely be the job of the Secretary General on their own. It must be planned and implemented by involving all stakeholders in the Secretariat.

If selected as Secretary General, I will consider it an endorsement to coordinate and execute against the vision of the European Youth Forum, having the professional competence and passion for the challenging and exciting endeavour that lies ahead. I do hope you feel the same.

Sincerely yours,

Giuseppe Porcaro

İstiklal Avenue, sunday afternoon, 5 April 2009

2009-04-12T20:27:00.007+02:00

Sunday afternoon I skipped the guided tour to Istanbul after the Pre-Youth event to the Alliance of Civilisations Annual Forum. I went to Istikal Avenue instead, in the Beyoğlu district to head to the Galatasaray Hammam to clear up my mind and my body.

The snapshot that you can see here probably cannot grasp the overwelming feeling I had walking in this street. Up to 3 millions people pass by here during the weekend!

Walking inside this human flow is one of the most impressive urban experience I have ever had. If the flow somehow resembled to the one that I experienced to some mass music festivals the disorientating thing was that everybody was there having their normal afternoon shopping walk. The other disorientating thing was the fact that the flow was going both ways. So at some points it was like salmon swimming against the stream.

Such a peculiar public urban space has also an amazing history. In fact the Beyoğlu district was known as Pera ('the other side' in Greek), in the Middle Ages, and this is where merchants from Genoa and Venice had their base, Marco Polo might have passed by on his way to China, Leonardo da Vinci as well had his period when the Sultan asked him to project a bridge over the golden horn (that was never achieved), and I like to immagine Corto Maltese walking on that street, before sailing off to some exotic adventures in Africa or in Asia.

Social Capital and Urban Networks of Trust

2009-03-04T12:36:00.005+01:00

Edited by Jouni Häkli, University of Tampere, Finland and Claudio Minca, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

This is the first book on social capital and trust informed by a critical geographical perspective. The authors examine the role of social capital in the constitution and reproduction of urban networks of trust in different places and contexts. They explore how social capital and trust are reflected in the capacity of these networks to achieve their goals and to deliver specific forms of urban development in a number of Finnish and Italian cities. Finland and Italy present, in many ways, two almost paradigmatic cases of how social capital and trust can work in extremely different and yet very effective ways in the production of the urban. They are two almost ideal laboratories for experimenting new definitions and new understandings of the concepts in question.

I have co-written, with prof. Minca, the chapter about Trieste, drawing from the results of one of the case studies of my PhD Thesis at the University of Naples "L'Orientale". click here to download a pdf version of the chapter.

Contents: Introduction, Jouni Häkli and Claudio Minca; Part 1 Re-Placing Social Capital: Geographies of trust, Jouni Häkli; Searching for social capital, Mauro Cannone; The 'magic and loss' of social capital and local development, Paolo Giaccaria. Part 2 Grounding Networks: Re-scaling Trieste: (not so) invisible networks, (dis)trust and the imaginary landscapes of the Expo 2008, Giuseppe Porcaro and Claudio Minca; Trust in translation: the role of place and vision in building the eTampere programme network, Timo Poutiainen and Joumi Häkli; Networks and trust in Venice: the port as social agent, Stefano Soriani. Part 3 Mobilising Trust: Speaking Triestino: language, practice and social capital in Trieste, Claudio Minca; Boundaries of trust: building a transnational space in Harparanda-Tornio, Jouni Häkli; All that is solid does not melt into air: (re-placing) social capital in Venice's urban development, Mauro Cannone; New and old associations as trusting networks: tracing social capital in Jyväskylä, Martti Siisiäinen; Index

Reviews:
'This critical analysis of trust and social capital in two countries – Finland, epitome of institutionalized formality, and Italy, paragon of the informal – demonstrates how deeply place matters in the formation of community. The scholarship is impeccable; and activists around the world will learn how to build more effective community networks.'
Michael Dear, University of Southern California, USA

'This edited collection on social capital and urban networks of trust opens new horizons in critical geographical research. Besides the useful conceptual introductions by the editors, each chapter includes a richly illustrated local case study that draws on empirical examples from Finland or Italy. This volume can be warmly recommended to social scientists interested in the geographies of social life.'
Anssi Paasi, University of Oulu, Finland

'Social Capital and Urban Networks of Trust provides a rich, detailed and conceptually sophisticated treatment of a vital issue for the future of Europe's cities. Through a series of carefully researched and critical case studies the contributors reveal the complex dynamics through which trust is generated and unevenly distributed in two strikingly different national contexts. This book challenges dominant accounts of social capital and sets out an imaginative alternative approach.'
Joe Painter, Durham University, UK

The city with the jungle inside

2009-02-28T01:23:00.003+01:00

two and half hours of heavy hiking to reach the top of the Corcovado it was definitely a trail worth to try, with monkeys, waterfalls and an amazing views... it is not a very touristic trail, few people knows about it, it starts in the botanical garden and it goes up with stiff to the summit of the mountain.

There is even a part where it is necessary to cross the rails of the small train going up to the Christ, which is somehow dangerous.

The funny part is that when i arrived on the top it was not possible to buy the ticket to go on the top of the mountain where the big statue of Christ is standing with a stunning view over Rio. We had to go down again with a mini bus to get a ticket... unbelievable.

Rio, Moonraker and me

2009-02-28T00:53:00.010+01:00

Being in Rio de Janeiro the week before carnival, and coming from a very winter part of the northern emisphere I have been kind of lazy in getting deep inside the urban structure...

i decided more to stay on the surface of the touristic cliche... it helped a lot the fact that Iolanda, my friend hosting me lives in Leblon, 200 metres from the beach. Nevertheless even if i did not make huge efforts to grasp the city and its contraddictions they came naturally to me...

...from the 27th floor of the skyscraper where i was living i could see clearly all the beach of ipanema and leblon as well as the Favela which is just juxtaposed to the beach on the southern corner.

On the other hand I have been recalling cinematic scenes that the city can offer (I think that from this point of view only New York stands similarly in the imaginary of people - for different reasons though). At the top of this cinematic imaginary, in my case, there is the chase of James Bond on the cable car going to the top of the Sugar Loaf. So that was the first place I have been visiting (after the beach of course) having the James Bond theme plugged in my ipod, taking those pictures posted here.

34° 24′ 0″ S, 53° 47′ 0″ W - The Desert of Colors

2009-02-16T01:08:00.004+01:00

(between Valizas and Cabo Polonio, Atlantic Coast, Uruguay)

There, I almost saw the shadow of Grograman, the Many Colored Death, the guardian and the lord of Goab, the Desert of Colors.

He is said to "bring the desert with him", turning all life around him into sand, thus his nickname "The Many Colored Death"

... and I felt like being Bastian Balthazar Bux... but I burned all over my face and my arms and my legs, because I was not proteted by AURYN.

This was the closest thing to being in the Neverending Story I have ever lived...
...Considering that i read that book for the first time when I was 8 years old this was quite a day!

Porcarorama V * Noel(les) Creoles *

2008-12-15T16:42:00.002+01:00

The moment for the traditional Porcarorama Christmas Compilation issue is come!
This year you can celebrate your season's holidays (being it Eid Sayyd, Hannuka, Christmas, Various New Years) in pure Creole style with Porcarorama.

To enjoy the present by click here

[1. Om Du Möter Varg (Detektivbyrån); 2. White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes); 3. Baby Please Don't Go (Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers); 4. Créole (Fabiano Orchestra); 5. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Vampire Weekend vs. Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit); 6. Paradiso (kokono no.1); 7. Too excited (Tilly & the wall); 8. Neverstops (Deerhunter); 9. Where do you run to (Vivian Girls); 10. the 15th (Wire); Blackout (The Whip); 11. Christmas (baby please come home) (Raveonettes); 12. Goodbye Stranger (Supertramp); 13. You Dot, Me Dot, T-Dot (Russian Futurists); 14. Santa Claus is coming to town (The Crystals)]

Amman - عمان

2008-12-15T13:11:00.003+01:00

End of November. After a charged meeting day for the Euro-Arab Coordination Meeting of Youth Organisation i finally see the a bit of the city on the daylight of the sunset (in this part of the year around 4.00pm already). They say that that originally it was built on 7 hills like Rome, I like so much the roman columns which stand still at the top of the citadel, they make the perfect contrast in this post-modern middle eastern city.

(From Wikipedia)

Throughout history, Amman has been inhabited by several civilizations. The first civilization on record is during the Neolithic period, around 8500 BC, when archaeological discoveries in 'Ain Ghazal, located in eastern Amman, showed evidence of not only a settled life but also the growth of artistic work, which suggests that a well-developed civilization inhabited the city at that time. In the 13th century BC Amman was called Rabbath Ammon or Rabat Amon by the Ammonites (רַבַּת עַמומּוֹן, Standard Hebrew Rabbat ʿAmmon, Tiberian Hebrew Rabbaṯ ʿAmmôn). It was later conquered by the Assyrians, followed by the Persians, and then the Greeks. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Hellenic ruler of Egypt, renamed it Philadelphia. The city became part of the Nabataean kingdom until 106 AD when Philadelphia came under Roman control and joined the Decapolis.

In 326 AD, Christianity became the religion of the empire and Philadelphia became the seat of a bishopric during the beginning of the Byzantine era. One of the churches of this period can be seen on the city's Citadel.

Philadelphia was renamed Amman during the Ghassanian era, and flourished under the Caliphates (with nearby capital) of the Umayyads (in Damascus) and the Abbasids (in Baghdad). It was then destroyed by several earthquakes and natural disasters and remained a small village and a pile of ruins until the Circassians Ottoman Sultan decided to build the Hejaz railway, linking Damascus and Medina, facilitating both the annual hajj settlement in 1887. The tide changed when the pilgrimage and permanent trade, putting Amman, a major station, back on the commercial map.

In 1921, Abdullah I chose Amman as seat of government for his newly-created state, the Emirate of Transjordan, and later as the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. As there was no palatial building, he started his reign from the station, with his office in a train car. Amman remained a small city until 1948, when the population expanded considerably due to an influx of Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel. Amman has experienced exceptionally rapid development since 1952 under the leadership of two Hashemite Kings, Hussein of Jordan and Abdullah II of Jordan.

In 1970, Amman was the site of major clashes between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian army. Everything around the Royal Palace sustained heavy damage from shelling. Most of Amman suffered great damage from PLO rockets and the Jordanian army's shells.

The city's population continues to expand at a dizzying pace (fueled by refugees escaping the wartime events in the occupied territories and Iraq). The city received refugees from these countries on a number of occasions. The first wave of Palestinian refugees arrived from what is now Israel in 1948. A second wave after the Six-Day War in 1967. A third wave of Palestinian and Jordanian and Southeast Asians, working as domestic workers, refugees arrived in Amman from Kuwait after the Gulf War of 1991. The first wave of Iraqi refugees settled in the city after the first Gulf War, with a second wave also arriving after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During the last 10 years the amount of new buildings within the city has increased dramatically with new districts of the city being founded at a very rapid pace (particularly so in West Amman), straining the very scarce water supplies of Jordan as a whole, and exposing Amman to the hazards of rapid expansion in the absence of careful municipal planning.

Rotterdam (or anywhere)

2008-12-14T19:41:00.004+01:00

Walking in Rotterdam I had the strange feeling of being lost in urbanity. This city has a lot of architectural highlights, from the modernist houses to the postmodern Kubicks, but something is lacking. Maybe it's the overall sense of the place. It would be very easy from functionalist urbanist perspective to point out the lack of coherent planning, but I am not sure that that's what is missing. Maybe it's the history.

It's the simple thought that Rotterdam has more in common with Beirut than Amsterdam that mark this mixed feeling that something is missing. I guess that for the time-traveller, ¾ of the city is missing because it has been bombed during the second world war, and that's probably the invisible sign that somehow is highlighted by the contemporary postmodern architecture.

Rotterdam, European Youth Capital 2009! How the city will celebrate that recognition we will discover soon. But i wanted here to reflect upon the concept of th eyouth capital, and how this will be developed in the next two year, first in the Netherlands, and then in Torino in 2010.

What should be a European Youth Capital?
I hope it is not going to be just the junior version (or the cool/funky/trendy version) of one of any other titles or special events that Cities are bidding to get in order to increase their visibility and their international profile. It would be nice if, together with cultural events, cooperation projects, city-twining, etc. the new concept of the European Youth Capital would develop into a unique opportunity to launch new urban laboratories where experiment new form of urban governance and planning. Involving young people not only as city-users and consumers. Participatory planning strategies have been already involving citizens and neighbours with few successful examples in the past (let's remember the renewal of Barcelona before the Olimpic Games in 1992 – after things got much worse for citizens, but that's another story).

Let's try to resume few ideas:

- Bidding: Involving youth organisations in the bidding phase and in the promoting/organising committee;
- Planning: Link the youth capital project with the strategic development plan of the city Implementation: Create opportunities for new practices of participatory planning to public spaces;

- European dimension: the programme of the activities and of the impact of the activities (legac

- Local legacy: follow-up plan involving local youth and community-based organisations in urban governance and urban planning inspired on the model of co-management developed in the youth sector of the Council of Europe;
- European legacy: the practices and the activities should impact at the european level and set standards for the following editions.

Rotterdam
(by beautiful south)

And the women tug their hair
Like theyre trying to prove it wont fall out
And all the men are gargoyles
Dipped long in irish stout

The whole place is pickled
The people are pickles for sure
And no-one knows if they've done more here
Than they ever would do in a jar

This could be rotterdam or anywhere
Liverpool or rome
cause rotterdam is anywhere
Anywhere alone
Anywhere alone

And everyone is blonde
And everyone is beautiful
And when blondes and beautiful are multiple
They become so dull and dutiful

And when faced with dull and dutiful
They fire red warning flares
Battle-khaki personality
With red underwear

This could be rotterdam or anywhere
Liverpool or rome
cause rotterdam is anywhere
Anywhere alone
Anywhere alone

The whole place is pickled
The people are pickles for sure
And no-one knows if theyve done more here
Than they ever would do in a jar

This could be rotterdam or anywhere
Liverpool or rome
cause rotterdam is anywhere
Anywhere alone

This could be rotterdam or anywhere
Liverpool or rome
cause rotterdam is anywhere
Anywhere alone

A new hope? (Williamsbourgh/Brooklyn/NYC/USA_oct2008)

2008-10-26T23:57:00.006+01:00

good luck America...

Baltimore

2008-10-26T23:38:00.007+01:00

The post-industrial american city.
I studied Baltimore because of one of the first interventions of renovation of the urban waterfront in the 70s at the inner-harbour, which has been transformed in a sort of theme park, with shopping malls, an aquarium and a walking district. The innovative idea spread all around the world in the past 30 years and from Barcelona to Genova, from Sydney to Buenos Aires (see my post on the argentinian capital from last february) this become a widespread model of urban regeneration. What I have not studied in the books was so much the context of Baltimore. After spending some time in New York and Washington I was very surprised by the fact that this was reputed as a violent city. I was amazed by the amount of nice old buildings which are simply shut down and by the peculiar juxtaposition of the various neighbours and ghettos. I got the impression that this was a real snapshot of deep urban USA. Such a different atmosphere compared to the bureocracy of Washington D.C. and the Hipster life of New York City.

(from wikipedia)
According to crime statistics there were 276 homicides in Baltimore in 2006, the second-highest homicide rate per 100,000 of all U.S. cities of 250,000 or more population. Though this is significantly lower than the record-high 353 homicides in 1993, the homicide rate in Baltimore is nearly seven times the national rate, six times the rate of New York City, and three times the rate of Los Angeles. In addition, other categories of crime in Baltimore have also been declining, although overall crime rates are still high compared to the national average. The rate of forcible rapes has fallen below the national average in recent years; however, Baltimore still has much higher-than-average rates of aggravated assault, burglary, robbery, and theft.

Capitol_city/Lobby_city (washington d.c. october 2008)

2008-10-26T23:05:00.002+01:00

Lobby_city #1
I was walking by the white house and a young man approaches me asking if I knew about the derivatives. Of course i didn't. And he was pleased to hear that in order to be able to explain me this theory about this huge amount of cash which supposedly is kept in the banks from all over the world and that will probably create the real financial crash, the final crash of all the monetary and economic system as we know it. Is that true or false, does not really matter. What it does matter is the fact that he was believing in it, and sometimes in the financial world what you believe it is going to happen is more important than what it is really happening. This kind of virtual reality which materialise on the sidewalks and the offices of the Federal Capital of the United States of America. It is impressive that just few square kilometers contain the main economic and political institutions of the USA and of the entire world. And is impressive to see how this machine works as a daily routine, in a very calm and almost relaxed atmosphere, where people uses one of the few efficient metro systems of the urban north america, enter anonymous buildings which are normal office spaces which no one would pay attention to their architecture if there would not be signs at the entrance indicating that that is actually the "World Bank Group" or the "International Monetary Fund" Headquarters.

Capitol_city #1
The presidential mall. Apotheosis of the nation-building of the United States of America. The National Memory here is not only represented (mise-en-scene), but it is basically created through a series of monuments recalling the greatness of past Presidents. Washington is at the centre of the (American) Universe. The father of the Nation has been translated into an Obelisk. Someone from a feminist background would add that this add a phallic representation and a men ruled approach to history, and it might actually be true. Two sides of the mall are like the wings of a big bird that sustain the nation. On one side the Lincoln Memorial is particularly touching to see, especially because it gives the breadth of the whole nation building exercise after a civil war which was almost destroying the whole concept of the United States. It is both the celebration of a great man, and celebration of the contradictions of the USA themselves. Which I found extremely high in its intent to display that the strength of the State is to overcome the differences. This become just a huge metaphor of the history of the States in a warm evening of mid-october, when the first potential black president of the Union is completing a successful campaign. On the other side of the mall there is the Congress, on the Capitol Hill. That's where in a laid back sunny afternoon i managed to crash into a Jesus Band and a Christian Preacher. A handful crowd of followers where listening to the preacher, and dancing at the music. If I wouldn't hear that the speech was about life and against abortion I could have easily taken the scene directly from the sixities. The young people around, being in trance just like hippies smoking pots and having LSD. Are them the new hippies (conservative version)? I don't have an answer for that. But surely the mall is the big stage where not only the institutional discourse of the nation has been celebrated and displayed but also where the people have been contesting it... think about the protests against the war in Vietnam... another way of looking at the lobby_city.

Lobby_city #2
In Brussels there is a peculiar place called "place luxembourg" where you can find all the assistants and the interns of the European Parliament having their "happy hour" after work. Big place for encounters and networking, and again lobbying. Washington D.C. is a big "Place Luxembourg", and Du Pont Roundabout is the centre that emanates this big bang of relatively cheap beers and drinks after working hours. That's where most of the young diplomats and burocrats get their time off after having climbed the "stairway to heaven", which is the escalator of one of the deepest metro station of the city. The other side of the lobby_city is there.

Capitol_city #2
Adams-Morgan is now a place for going out. A bit like Du Pont but more racially mixed. the name comes from the one of the first racially mixed schools in the USA which resulted from the merging of a white school and a black school. I like to think that today the historical meaning of this merging is celebrated through the melting pot of the bars there.

Helsinki

2008-09-05T15:34:00.002+02:00

Helsinki, The city in which rabbits and foxes might cross your way

The bright side of the summer

2008-08-18T02:10:00.005+02:00

I have been quite silent lately on the blog because one of the most exciting mission of the summer has been canceled at the last minute. I did not travel to Korea and I have spent quite some time in Belgium instead.

Nevertheless, those weeks have been quite rich in geographical imaginations. The Nova cinema (http://www.nova-cinema.org/) organised the pleinopenair in various places of Brussels mainly touched by the International Development Plan (PDI) which is going theoretically to transform dramatically some parts of the town (Molembeek, Midi, Tour&Taxis, etc.) with a gentrification process quite difficult to predict. On the shores of the canal there was Bruxelles-le-bain, which created the Belgium version of an urban beach. Festivals around the Country transformed for few days empty fields in temporary micro-cities full of (young) people and music.
I am just back from one of them - Pukkelpop (www.pukkelpop.be) - which started the bright side of my summer with three days of good music, sun and holiday!

Here you have a present which you can get by clikking on the link below:
porcarorama IV (the bright side of the summer)

I hope you will enjoy it!
(comments are welcome)

cheers!

un euromediterraneen en marseille

2008-07-10T11:51:00.004+02:00

The room was full and only few people where still hanging at the translation equipment table in order to get the headphones. It's always like that, they enter, they take a seat and they think that everybody will speak only in English. Then they get disappointed with all the French which is spoken and they finally realise that the translation equipment is made for this reason (...) so the room was full and the speech on intercultural dialogue in the Euro-Med region started with the usual mixture of common senses, stereotypes created to fight stereotypes but still with a some serious scientific construction of the speech and obvious references to the city of Marseille.

Then Al Idrissi was screened into the room... or rather his map, the one that he made for Ruggero il Normanno (king of Sicily). The Arab geographer would have laughed though if he would have been standing on the stage below the power point screen, because (obviously?) the technicians of the event reversed the orientation of his map, they put the north on the top, as they were used to do it. This would have been a total scandal or a strange innovation in the cartography of the XII century...

...it was just a mistake of the technicians, but actually what was happening, or already happened, outside the conference room, in the streets and in the port of Marseille was exactly the same thing: many actors already turned the map of the city upside-down.

In rue de la Republique, in the Panier, on the old docks of the Jolliette and now almost touching the market of noailles, the North replaced the South: Paris instead of Algiers. Not only a simple gentrification of the old city but a real revolution, st. charles station and the TGV vs the traffics of the harbour (most of them transferred to Fos). Marseille, candidate for the European Cultural Capital 2013 and transforming itself thanks to the Euro-Mediterranée project sponsored by the central state.

What stayed? A fantastic city, beautifully mediterranean, sunny, pastis, pagnol. Fabio Montale, petanque.... le 13 coins still serves a pastis for 1 euro 50 but until when?

Khan al-khalil (another egyptian adventure)

2008-06-17T00:39:00.007+02:00

...or how i felt like Passepartout (around the world in 80 days) and tried to fight the bad luck of my national football team.

Inside of Sayyidna al-Hussein Mosque. Lonely Planet said non-Muslims are not allowed in, but i don't read Lonely Planet and for this reason me and Arturo had no trouble to enter in the mosque. We took off the shoes at the entrance and had a little chat with the shoe-keeper who was very nice with us.Proud of my little Arabic, the old man at the entrance addressed to me very happily, and the best i could do was replying him “Al'h'amdulillah” all the time and he appreciated very much my gesture of respect.

Inside, we sit down on the carpet and had some relaxation, suddenly the time of the pray arrived and everybody standed towards the quibla (the sign on the wall which shows the direction to Mecca). We did the same. and troubles started. A man came to us and said something in Arabic something which sounded like “please go away, tourist no admitted”. We pointed him our feet which were without the shoes, and we pointed the door which we entered (where our shoes were) which was closed because hundreds of prayers were standing there. Moment of panic. We go at the other entrance and we are forced to leave the mosque without shoes, just like Passepartout did in Bombay when he entered in the temple and left his shoes behind running bare feet to catch the train where Mr. Fogg was waiting. Just imagine the scene of an italian and an argentinian guy walking in the suk of al-khalil without the shoes for at least 300 meters to reach the other entrance of the mosque where our shoes (eventually) were still kept! And yes we eventually found the shoes at the end.

Back on the streets where on 7 April 2005 there was a bomb, in the middle of the magnificent market built in 1383 by Garkas al-khalil. No traces of the bombing anymore, but still strange to think that here in the middle of the same kind of touristy and local crowd... and the sellers trying to stop us at every corner, trying to bargain for every piece of spices, taky Chinese reproductions of the pyramids and the Tutankamon, or simply scarfs or very original Egyptian version of whatever souvenir has been produced on planet earth between 3000 BC and 2008 AD. I got stoned by all this. when a familiar sound came from one of the oldest shop, selling antiques and displaying a television from 1983, color. Italy playing against Romania, loosing 0-1, I enter and Panucci...GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLL!

I never though my "italian" pride would have surfaced in the middle of the Khan. Suddenly my walk in the bazar became like a hunting for a cable TV turned on to the sport channel. No more deals or bargains, I was friendly with all the sellers watching the match and supporting the Italian team, with the vague hope to repeat the same situation i had in the first shop when I entered and the team scored... no luck. My hunting was only partially successful, lost in the middle of raw cotton in the tissue market or smelling fried liver in the meat market... Italy-Romania 1-1 in Cairo.

Univer-City

2008-06-09T22:50:00.008+02:00

A city and a university, a bridge, a river and a hill.

Univer-city #1 - erasmus
My friend Marta had some years ago the incredible experience of living in Coimbra, Portugal, for more than 6 months for her Erasmus. Back then I was taken a lot with my final graduation exams and thesis and i could never had the chance of visiting her to prove she was right when sending me long emails about the coolness of the University life over there, the crazyness of student's traditions and the multicultural environments fostered by the lively community from Cape Vert. Legends came to my hears, most of the time, I admit, I was not taking totally seriously what Marta said, thinking that at least half of her tales where the product of the enthusiasm of the erasmus life.

Univer-city #2 – graduation party

So here I am staring at this crazy crowd chasing a naked guy who tries to escape and climbs on the gate of the Law faculty...would you believe it or not this is actually a crazy city. it's not even a city but a Univer-city, with more than half of its population constituted by students and the oldest academy of Portugal (and one of the oldest in Europe). And the guy climbing the gate is actually one of the law students who just graduated and got the famous ritual of the breaking of its traditional university suit (the “traj”) by his fellows. Now he will stay only with his coat until the end of the night, partying around the city after a big dinner with friends and family.

Univer-city #3 – republics
Up on the hill there are several independent republics. The Raj-Ta-Parte is one of the oldest, 1943 when was first created, then re-founded in 1949 in its actual location after that the Regime destroyed some of the old building surrounding the University to enlarge and build new faculties in the massive functionalist style which reminds quite closely the one of “La Sapienza” in Rome from Mussolini time. The Republic of Raj-Ta-Parte is totally free and independent (it's motto is “the burp is free”). It's a community of 9-10 students sharing everything like in a commune. Everybody can enter in the Republic, the door is never locked and you can go and eat with the republicans. Nevertheless, to be a member, ones need to be accepted officially by the community after a trial period in which the person before is allowed to regularly be there and then to sleep as well. All decisions are made by unanimity among the members. Raj-Ta-Parte is a piece of history of Portugal. People passing and living there became eventually important members of the government, famous engaged singers (i.e. Adriano, who died in 1984) and the community of members is extended over the time and space.

Univer-city #4 – saudade
Coimbra fado is different from Lisbon fado. I am not such an expert to say on what differs much, but from my friends i understand that in Coimbra fado has been influenced quite a lot from student life and intellectualism. What i am listening in Diligentia, tasting a glass of Porto wine with the interpreters of the Training Course, is just a wonderful voice bringing me far away.

The Sky of Vilnius (lunch on the Milky Way)

2008-04-20T23:29:00.006+02:00

I am on the "Milky Way", turning over the city, 160 meters up in the sky, this restaurant on the top of the television tower still looks very much like it should have been in 1981, when it was inaugurated, with a rotating platform that allows me to see all the city while sitting at the dining table. In 1981 this should have been the symbol of future and prosperity for the Soviet Republic of Lithuania. Futuristic dream, like the cosmonauts.

Below the city as a whole. The communist blocs also should not have looked differently in 1981 (perhaps a bit cleaner). Then the green. Vilnius is a city full of green... And then the old town, with the many beautiful churches, the hill where apparently Gediminas the Gran Duke dream (back in 1320 c.a.) about an iron wolf, built a castle, almost failed to sacrifice a young beautiful virgin and eventually married her.

A bit further, i can see the self-proclaimed Independent Republic of Uzupio, which sits on the banks of the Vilnia River, was the pre-war home of Russians and Jews and the post-war haunt of petty criminals and prostitutes. In the past few years, Uzupio has cultivated a reputation for bohemian free-spiritedness that inevitably inspired the overly generous tag "the Montmartre of Vilnius". While developers and (among which the former mayor of Vilnius) and tour groups have clearly discovered the neighborhood, with clear signs of advanced gentrification, there are still plenty of roof-less, wall-less pre-war brick buildings that give a taste of the Soviet approach to urban development.

On the other side of the river, the post-modern town is booming. I am not sure, from the milky way perspective, if the new architectural style is much better of the grey modernism of the Soviet time, in terms of facilities for sure the new building are outstanding, but they seem equally standardised on the format of the glass and steel towers.

The turnable platform comes back at the same panoramic spot, 45 minutes later after a soup and a tartare of salmon. The music system is also playing again to the same song I was listening when I arrived (the Lithuanian version of "Un'estate al Mare" di Giuni Russo - funnily the Italian release is from 1982, just a year after the Milky Way was inaugurated) and with that music in my hears I leave the sky of Vilnius, and end this trip in time and space, full of mixed feelings, a bit confused and faster than I expected (back to the ground in 40 seconds with the speedy elevator).

(from Wikipedia)

The Vilnius TV Tower (Lithuanian: Vilniaus televizijos bokštas) is a 326.5 metre-high (1071 ft) building in the Karoliniškės microdistrict of Vilnius, Lithuania. It is the tallest building in Lithuania, and is occupied by the SC Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre (Lithuanian: AB Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos centras)

The building was designed by V. Obydovas, the engineering section was designed by K. Balėnas. The construction of the tower started on May 31, 1974, and the tower was completed on December 30, 1980. The weight of the whole structure is estimated at 25,000--30,000 tonnes. The structure is composed of a concrete base, a 190 m long hollow reinforced concrete pipe, a reinforced concrete saucer, and a 136 m long steel spike. Radio transmitters are housed in the lower part of the concrete tower with antennas attached to the steel spike. The TV tower played a major role in the events of January 13, 1991, when 14 unarmed civilians lost their lives and 700 were injured opposing the Soviet military seizure of the tower.

Arts et Metiers, Paris, 4 April 2008

2008-04-06T23:33:00.006+02:00

The transport took me at the place where the subterranean machine was placed, nowadays it is known as “Arts et Metiers”, marked in the transport system as a stop in the brown line. It came out from the mind of a Belgian artist, who materialised the story I am trapped in and that he never wrote. I was supposed to get all the information over there to continue the journey. Above me the mechanisms which should enable to sail up to the open sky. But I couldn't see any informer and here I stopped on the bronze platform. The transport system consisted of mechanic vehicles, foot passages, stairs, miles and miles under the city. Labyrinth of urbanity. When I got in I lost my way. First the blue line, then the red, then the orange and finally the yellow was found to be the link to the brown, and my instructions kit (otherwise called “map”) clearly indicated this as the last stop. Was the “map” re-producing/re-ducing the physical space or the other way around? I didn't asked myself that question, and I continued simply standing and waiting. Two or three other vehicles passed again. Then the mechanisms on the roof started to move, without explanation and slowly we all sailed up, not just myself, but the whole subterranean machine sailed up, and it was blue and yellow again.

Walking in Madrid, 27 March 2008

2008-04-04T12:26:00.004+02:00

I was walking in Madrid in this cold evening at the end of march, and suddenly I found myself on the shores of the Nile, in the middle of a park, where a typical pharaonic temple was standing in front of me... this was at the same time a quite a strange time-space experience, an urban curiosity and the discove of a not-well known political affair between Spain and the Republic of Egypt (see below).

(text from wikipedia, photos are mine)

The Temple of Debod is an ancient Egyptian temple which has been rebuilt in Madrid, Spain. The temple was built in southern Egypt very close to the first cataract of the Nile and to the great religious center dedicated to the goddess Isis, in Philae. In the early 2nd century BC, Adikhalamani (Tabriqo), king of the country of Meroë, started its construction by building a small chapel dedicated to the gods Amon and Isis. Afterwards, different kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty added new chambers around the original nucleus. The Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and perhaps Hadrian, completed its construction.

In 1960, due to the construction of the Great Dam of Aswan and the consequent threat posed to several monuments and archeological sites, UNESCO made an international call to save this rich historical patrimony. As a sign of gratitude for the help provided by Spain in saving the temples of Abu Simbel, the Egyptian state donated the temple to Spain in 1968. The temple was rebuilt in one of the most beautiful parks in Madrid, the site of a former army barracks near Madrid's Campo del Moro and Parque del Oeste, and opened to the public in 1972. It constitutes one of the few works of ancient Egyptian architecture which can be seen outside Egypt and the only one of its kind in Spain.

Av. Libertad, Buenos Aires (Italian Senators in Argentina)

2008-03-24T12:58:00.009+01:00

Av, Libertad, a rainy day in Buenos Aires. Walking accross the street it feels the italian electoral campaign it's there! It seems to be in italy, and somehow I feel at home.

On 13-14 April Italy will renew its Parliament after only 2 years, following the sad tradition of governmental crisis which marks my Country as one of its worse political tradition.

Argentina proved to be a very interesting "battle field" since they introduce the right to vote for italians who live abroad. The percentage of italian migrants of 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation is very high there, for this reason it is one of the world region best placed for "exporting" italian politics. Back in 2006, the election of Luigi Pallaro as Senator, brought all this to the attention of the wider public, because of the choice of Pallaro - as the leader of the Italian Associations of Latin Maerica, who used to sympathise more with the right wing to negotiate its support to the Prodi Government, back then in need of a couple of Senator to ensure the Majority to its government.

This year Pallaro is still there "Tu voz en Italia" - your voice in Italy - but presents himself independent from the two main contenders (the "newly" established "People of Freedom Party" of Berlusconi and the "Democratic Party" of Veltroni). Where will he go if elected? People guess he will go where the winner is, like he did last time. For the moment I saw his electoral posters symbolically standing in the garden in front of the Italian Embassy, crossing, even more symbolically the Libertad "freedom" avenue... is that a sign of where the Senator whises to position himself?

A couple of houndreds of meters further away, still crossing the Av. Libertad, in the monumental square entitled to one of the most famous Argentinian heros of the Latin America Independence, Juan Galo de Lavalle, stands another familiar face, the one of Silvio Berlosconi accompanied by its Argentinian Candidate for the Senat, Juan Esteban Caselli better known as "Cacho". Apparently a controversial figure which has not been so much politically active among the italians in argentina, but well known in the finacial and political circles, since he was for three years (under Menem presidency) the ambassador of Vatican State in Argentina. An interesting article few days ago (14 march) on the italian newspaper "La Stampa" highlighted the powerful connections of el "Cacho" and its peculiar character (the article is copied here at the end of this post for your reference).

Where are the others? The Democratic Party is running a campaign under the slogan V.I.P. (Very Italian People) for the italians abroad, and they choose for the Senat a Brazilian (Edoardo Pollastri) and only as in the second place there is an Argentinian (Maria Rosa Arona) but I did not found any trace of her face in the streets of Buenos Aires. Also the "Raimbow Left" choose a Brazilian as first candidate for the Senat, and only the second - they only have two - is Argentinian.

---------------

LA STAMPA 14 marzo 2008
L'amico dei Generali: Da Buenos Aires a Silvio
Esteban Cacho Caselli: vicino al Vaticano e al potere politico argentino di Menem

FRANCESCO LA LICATA

ROMA

Il tam-tam dei blog lo hanno tartassato appena è divenuta ufficiale la notizia della sua candidatura nel Pdl per gli italiani all’estero. Un fitto lancio di messaggi, nei quali Esteban Juan Caselli, detto “Cacho” o meglio “El obispo” (il vescovo) per via del suo stretto legame con la Santa Sede, è stato immediatamente accostato a Ciarrapico “il fascista” fino ad essere etichettato come il “Charrapico argentino”. Esteban Caselli, infatti, vive tra Roma e Buenos Aires ed ha una storia tutt’altro che banale.

Personaggio di primo piano del potere clericale e imprenditoriale, saldi legami col vertice del Vaticano (cardinal Sodano specialmente) e altrettanto saldi agganci col potere politico argentino di Menem e dei militari che si sono alternati al vertice: questo è Caselli, per tre anni ambasciatore presso la Santa Sede dal 1997 al ‘99, sotto la presidenza di Menem. Il resto, tutto quello che rimbalza dai blog di mezza europa “indignati” per la scelta di Berlusconi caduta su un altro personaggio di estrema destra, tutte le accuse a proposito di coinvolgimenti poco edificanti in vicende che hanno riguardato inchieste giudiziarie su traffico d’armi e sinergie con la “mafia” di Alfredo Yabram, tutto ciò deve essere sospeso. Perchè? A rispondere è lo stesso ambasciatore, dalla sua residenza di Buenos Aires. Voce decisa e accattivante nello stesso tempo, “Cacho” premette che tutto quanto è stato scritto dai blog e da «periodisti comunisti» (l’allusione è all’articolo del Manifesto di ieri) «è falso, totalmente falso», come può essere dimostrato «dal mandato che è stato già dato agli avvocati a tutela della mia onorabilità». E il megapatrimonio sospetto? L’omicidio del fotografo del settimanale argentino Noticias? Le accuse a suo tempo formulate dal ministro Domingo Cavallo? «Tutte falsità e bugie», risponde in spagnolo l’ex ambasciatore. Già, perchè Caselli parla poco l’italiano, quasi niente. E allora come farà in Parlamento? «Parliamo in spagnolo perchè si tratta di argomenti delicati e dobbiamo essere precisi, poi vedremo». Resterà un mistero, come si destreggerà una volta eletto. A lui preme smentire, per ora. «Quanto scritto - insiste ancora in spagnolo - è frutto di fantasie dei soliti comunisti che fanno politica con l’ingiuria e le calunnie». Anche il ministro Cavallo calunniò? E qui l’ex ambasciatore tira fuori l’asso: «Le mando per fax la lettera con cui il ministro ritratta le accuse rivoltemi. E’ un documento del 2001 che i miei detrattori continuano a ignorare». Ma cosa penserebbe se le dessero del fascista? «In Sud America il fascismo non è mai esistito e non esiste, per questo posso tranquillamente affermare di non esserlo». E allora come si definirebbe, uno con la sua storia? «Io sono un esponente del partito del presidente Berlusconi e sono onorato di esserlo». Ma è vero che lo ha chiamato il Cavaliere in persona? «Non ho detto che mi ha chiamato, ho sempre detto che mi ha offerto l’incarico e che ho accettato». E che dice della vicinanza con la Santa Sede? Di lei si parla come di emanazione del Vaticano. «Cosa significa emanazione»? Insomma che sui temi dell’etica, dell’aborto, della famiglia.... «Sarò chiaro: noi siamo per la vita e contro l’aborto. Claro». E già, qui viene fuori il «gentiluomo di Sua Santità», privilegio raro concesso a pochi, potenti laici del livello di Gianni Letta. Gentiluomo e Cavaliere dell’Ordine di Malta, consigliere d’amministrazione della fondazione vaticana «San Matteo», presieduta dal cardinale Renato Martino. Lo ricordano, l’ex ambasciatore in frac con gilet nero e collare metallico, che svolge il servizio di rappresentanza accompagnando capi di Stato e di governi durante le visite ufficiali in Vaticano. L’essere “gentiluomo” può essere considerata la “prova” della sua influenza nelle alte sfere vaticane: un onore ottenuto addirittura scavalcando l’episcopato argentino a lui ostile.

Tango (a night in Buenos Aires) 7 March 2008

2008-03-21T15:51:00.003+01:00

I stand astonished and dizzled in front of tango dancers... Buenos Aires, 7 march 2008

from wikipedia

The dance form derives from the Spanish habanera, the Uruguayan milonga and candombe, and is said to contain elements from the African community in Buenos Aires, influenced by ancient African dance forms. The dance originated in Buenos Aires and Montevideo during the late 19th century. The music derived from the fusion of music from Europe. The word Tango seems to have first been used in Argentina in connection with the dance in the 1890s. Initially it was just one of the many available local dances, but it soon became popular throughout society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands of European immigrants. At the beggining the dance was practiced among men, only later the couple became mixed. The development of the Tango had influences from the cultures of several peoples that came together in these melting pots of ethnicities. For this reason Tango is often referred to as the music of the immigrants to Argentina.

In 1910 the bandoneon was introduced to Buenos Aires from Germany and it become linked inextricably with tango music from then on. In 1912, Juan "Pacho" Maglio was very popular with his recorded tangos featuring the bandoneon accompanied by flute, violin and guitar.

By 1912, dancers and musicians from Buenos Aires and Montevideo travelled to Europe and the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals. Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland. These exported versions of Tango were modified to have less body contact ("Ballroom Tango"); however, the dance was still thought shocking by many, as had earlier been the case with dances such as the Waltz. In 1922 guidelines were first set for the "English" (international) style of ballroom tango, but it lost popularity in Europe to new dances including the Foxtrot and Samba, and as dancing as a whole declined due to the growth of cinema.

As the dance form became wildly popular with upper and middle classes around the world, Argentine high society adopted the previously low-class dance form as their own. In 1913, tango began to move from the dark side of town to elegant dance palaces. In 1916, Roberto Firpo, an extremely successful bandleader of the period, cemented the arrangements for standard tango sextet: two bandoneons, two violins, piano and double bass. Firpo heard a march by Uruguayan Gerardo Mattos Rodriguez and adapted it for tango, creating the popular and iconic La Cumparsita.

In 1917, folk singer Carlos Gardel recorded his first tango song Mi Noche Triste, forever associating tango with the feeling of tragic love as revealed in the lyric.

Classically-trained musicians weren't associated with tango music until Julio De Caro, violinist, formed an orchestra in 1920 and made the tango more elegant, complex and refined, as well as slowing the tempo somewhat. With Pedro Laurenz on bandoneon, De Caro's orchestra was famous for over a decade.^[8]

In Argentina, the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, and restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930 caused Tango to decline. Its fortunes were reversed as tango again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under the government of Juan Perón. Tango declined again in the 1950s with economic depression dictatorships banned public gatherings, followed by the popularity of Rock and Roll. The dance lived on in smaller venues until its revival in the 1980s following the opening in Paris of the show Tango Argentino and the Broadway musical Forever Tango.

On the Shore of Rio de la Plata (Uruguay side) - 1-6 March 2008

2008-03-21T15:07:00.006+01:00

In the middle of nowhere, between Colonia del Sacramento and Montevideo, on the shores of the Rio de la Plata, this brown huge river which looks like the sea. Here there is the "Artigas" camping owned by the YMCA of Montevideo since 1941. It's an incredible place where I enjoyed myself working and feeling part of the powerful nature which was around.

For more information on the Camping go to the website of the YMCA Montevideo:
http://www.acj-ymca.org/campa.htm

A postcard from Colonia del Sacramento

2008-03-06T00:13:00.005+01:00

this is a small city in front of Buenos Aires... relic of the portuguese and spanish colons who shared this beautiful piece of land for some centuries and now Unesco world heritage.
I am happy to be here!

From Wikipedia:
Founded in 1680 by Portugal as Colônia do Sacramento, the colony was later disputed by the Spanish who settled on the opposite bank of the river at Buenos Aires. The colony was conquered by José de Garro in 1680, but returned to Portugal the next year. It was conquered again by the Spanish in March 1705 after a siege of five months, but given back in the Treaty of Utrecht. Another attack during the Spanish-Portuguese War, 1735-1737, failed.
It kept changing hands from crown to crown due to treaties such as the Treaty of Madrid in 1750 and the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1777, until it remained with the Spanish. It then transferred to Portuguese control again, and later to the Brazilians after 1816, when the entire Banda Oriental (Uruguay) was seized by the Rio de Janeiro government and renamed the Cisplatina province.
Now part of the independent country of Uruguay, Colonia del Sacramento has expanded to the north and east, but the original Barrio Histórico (historic quarter) retains its irregular, terrain-fitting street plan built by the Portuguese, contrasting with the wider, orthogonal calles in the newer Spanish area.

Montevideo, Republica Oriental de l'Uruguay

2008-03-02T23:40:00.003+01:00

Tangueria Fun-Fun, in Montevideo (one of the oldest of the city - since 1895), February, 29.
Drinking wine, listening the Tango, discussing about Borges and other demons...

Buenos Aires, 9.00 am, 29 February 2008

2008-03-01T21:20:00.005+01:00

...I
I am leaving the port of Buenos Aires, now, 9.00am, 29 February 2008. The skyline of the city imposes itself, with the new skyscrapers and the old warehouses of the port which have been renovated and gentrified into the new “marina” space of the town, with good and expensive resturants, fancy bars, corporate offices and high standing apartment buildings. Renovation of the waterfront, Argentinian way, which is not so different from the European way (Barcelona, Genova, Marseille) just add more skyscrapers to the recipe and the peculiar structure of the “canal-port” which was build between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX Century. Similarly to the Trieste port in Italy the “new port” soon became obsolete with the change of the marine transport system and the Containers revolution. So basically it was run-down for 50 years and then the renovation started in 1989...

...II
I am leaving the port of Buenos Aires, now, 9.00am, 29 February 2008. The skyline of the city imposes itself, even though the old city is now overshadow by the new skyscrapers from Microsoft and other corporations, I guess that the my grand-grand father had a similar view when he was quitting Argentina for coming back in Naples and start the family which contributed to the basic fact that I am alive and writing those notes now. It's kind of amazing if I think about it. Pietro Rouge left Marigliano for Buenos Aires and stayed there for something like 6 months, working at the “Retiro” Station for the Argentinian Railways. Apparently somebody from the family found him the job and proposed him to come there. Unfortunately I don't have so much details on his Argentinian adventure, but what I have been told by my grand-mother is that one day he was passing near the harbour (which is close to the station and basically is where i just left) and saw a boat preparing to leave the next day to Naples. He felt nostalgic, he prepared his bag and came back...

...III
I am leaving the port of Buenos Aires, now, 9.00am, 29 February 2008. The skyline of the city imposes itself, similar to a labyrinth, with the traces of the colonial foundation still evident in the orthogonal structure of the street plan. A place to get lost. Which makes the stories of Borges more understandable, more clear. I also picture very well the adventures of Pepe Carvalho described by Manuel Vasquez Montalban, chasing desaparecidos, political activists and trying to figure out the macabre mysteries of a city which still today has the traces of a dramatic past, where there are squares dedicated to the memory of the dead bodies found on the same site (desaparecidos from the Military Government years)...

...IV
I am leaving the port of Buenos Aires, now, 9.00am, 29 February 2008. The skyline of the city imposes itself, but I can already recognise the shape and structure of the centre. I arrived there only yesterday and I had only few hours to look around, but I have been quite lucky to walk around, enjoy St. Martin Square, the Florida Avenue, the Plaza de Mayo, the Porto Madero (the old port which has been renewed in the 90s), Palermo. I eat good meet, I met good people. Now heading to Montevideo and then Colonia for the University on Youth and Participation...

PPS (Porcarorama Paparazzi Service) in Brussels

2008-02-20T22:51:00.007+01:00

Brussels, night, cold grey wednesday.

Exclusive for Porcarorama, we catch Gerard Depardieu filming a movie in the middle of the city centre, the scene was him in a car parking and somebody (a woman) giving him a gun and then he walking through the street... though if i did not knew it was a movie i could easily think that some bad action was going on in such a central place.

Strange to see a street which you pass every other day completely transformed in a movie set, with the lights and a lot of rubbish on the ground, I guess this was to create some kind of atmosphere.

Urime Kosova in Brussels

2008-02-17T23:24:00.005+01:00

jjimjilbang

2008-02-01T15:26:00.000+01:00

Korea has a wonderful thing in common with Finland: the Sauna Culture!
Here it's not imported, it's called jjimjilbang and it's an endogenous tradition... which makes me think once again that Finnish people are those in Europe more closely related to the populations who live in the far East of the Euro-Asia Continent... after all they were all coming Centuries ago from Central Asia, isn'it?

By the way, sticking on the korean sauna culture, i have experienced it a couple of times during my stay here, at least before I was sick. and it's quite remarkable.
You arrive in the place, at the entrance you put your shoes in a locker, then you give the keys to the keeper and he or she will ask you to pay (between 5000 and 10000 won i.e. 5 to 10 USD) and he or she will give you a key for another locker in the sauna and a sauna uniform which is a sort of pijama that you need to wear in the mixed areas. Now, the lockers are separated between men and women and they give you access to the bathtubs, steam baths etc... which has more in common with the Arab-Turkish Hammam rather than the Finnish Sauna, there you also can scrub yourself with a special glove which you can buy there for very cheap. Once you are fresh and clean, you can wear your pijama and go to the mix area... here you can sleep, you can eat, surf the internet, watch tv, pay for a massage and use the sweat room. The sweat room is more closely similar to a finnish sauna as a concept, but you are sweating in your pijama.
Overall it's a very relaxing atmosphere, they are open 24h a day and the cool thing is that people here spend so much time doing millions things which you would not immagine doing in a sauna (even karaoke). I have been answering the email from the office during one night, being internet there much cheaper than the hotel room which I am staying (which is only few floors up on the same building).
Definitely something you should not be missing in your korean experience, there are plenty of saunas in Seoul but it's not easy to spot them for a non-korean reader, watch out at the sign in the picture, this identifies the jjimjilbang and is easier to recognise rather than the korean writing. Enjoy!

Jungbu

2008-02-01T15:11:00.001+01:00

(dried fish market in downtown Seoul)
Bon appetit!

In the metro

2008-02-01T14:53:00.001+01:00

What Seoulites do in the Metro?
They listen to the music on their Ipod, they watch movies on technological devices, they watch tv on their mobile phones, they randomly read newspapers, they sometimes read mangas, they mostly sleep, they sleep in all kind of positions, they sleep standing, they sleep listening the music, they sleep and they watch tv on their mobile phones... they developed special features which we should learn more about.
By the way they are too busy doing all these things so they don't speak so much.

Seoul Blues

2008-02-01T02:15:00.000+01:00

... and they eat belgium waffels, have oxygen masks in the metro, start to work at 10 in the morning, they avoid conflicts, they have good department stores and they know how to take care of their hosts, they have churches everywhere...

... They don't speak so much english and it's not possible to have a doctor to visit you directly, but you need to go to the hospital, it's very difficult to get a thermometer if you have fever and even more difficult to let yourself understand into a pharmacy.

Most of this impressions I got in the few days I spent around Seoul (or in the bed of the hotel because of my flu) confirmed me that this is an atypical world-city, like other sisters in Asia, like Tokyo. It is still a very "national" place even though the skyline would rather suggest the contrary, confirming the fact the importance of public actors in shaping the spaces in developmental states. Still it is a city I have not been able to "grasp" yet as I would have liked. I feel a stranger here, but not really "lost in translation".

Porcarorama Christmas Compilation 2007 - Out Now!

2007-12-16T15:03:00.000+01:00

Dear friends,
Also this year the time has come and today I release the Christmas Compilation 2007!
Some of you already used to experience this delightful soundtracks to cheer up Christmas time. this year, with the establishment of porcarorama I will innovate this tradition by giving you the opportunity to download the mp3 version in order to enjoy it at any time, in any place you might end up during these busy days.

In this compilation i tried to hint at how 50 years of popular music fed 2007 musical tastes. Recent tunes are mixed with old stuffs, and the amazing thing is that it seems to me they all sound great together with no wrinkles.
In the first part I payed special attention to the recent trend to recall today the music produced between the end of the 1970s and the begginning of the 1980s linking a new song (The Brunettes) with tracks recalling these years (Tubeway Army) which were at their turn influenced by earlier stuffs (listen for example the pre-dark performance of Screamin' Jay Hawinkins back in 1956 after Siousxie and the Banshees!).
In the second part I amused myself to mix even more styles and years put together a groovy soundtrack for your cold post-christmas shopping evening, the whole flavoured with Christmas spices from Sufjan Stevens.
Enjoy... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Click there:
Christmas 2007 (porcarorama compilation)

Playlist
1. Brunettes against Bubblegum Youth (The Brunettes - 2007)
2. Are friends electric?
(Tubeway Army - 1979)
3. Into the light
(Siousxie and the Banshee - 1981)
4. I put a spell on you
(Screamin' Jay Hawkins - 1956)
5. Hurdy Gurdy Man
(Donovan - 1968)
6. Funky Kingston
(Toots & Maytals - 1973)
7. Hearth it races
(Architecture in Helsinki - 2007)
8. The party
(Justice - 2007)
9. The magic position
(Patrick Wolf - 2007)
10. Post soothing out
(Art Brut - 2007)
11. Secondo intermezzino pop
(Ennio Morricone - 1970)
12. Mon amour Tokyo
(Pizzicato Five - 1997)
13. La javanaise
(Serge Gainsbourg - 1962)
14. Cutting out
(Donovan - 1966)
15. Come on! Let's Boogey on the Elf's dance!
(Sufjan Stevens - 2006)
16. The rhinohead
(Von Sudenfed - 2007)
17. Silent night
(Sufjan Stevens - 2006)

Stockholm 2nd hand

2007-11-28T22:35:00.000+01:00

The most Hype city in Europe!

Everything is "cool", people on the street are ALL beautiful and looks like just out of an MTV video. Style it's a must!

Beyond Ikea in Stockholm you can really experience the best of the interior design and it's such miles away from the stereotyopes which we use to have about the "cold" Scandinavia. It's very interesting to observe the pattern of consuption of this city, which looks both devoted to consumerism and edonism but at the same time with some responsability, fair trade and environmental awareness.

For example, during my stay last weekend, the scandal of H&M using cotton coming from Uzbekistan which has been hand-picked by children without any working rights has been striking the first pages of the newspapers and the headlines of the TV News. Something which happens in many different Countries but it does not touch public opinion in such a massive way. Same goes for the news coming from the IPCC (Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change of the UN) which was happening in Bali and that was raising the percentage of the green party of 1% every day.

Coming to responsible patterns of consuption, second hand shopping (which is one of my personal passions) is also a must in Stockholm. I will try a short comprehensive review of some of the best vintage shops in Sodermalm, which is the island south of the Centre of stockholm, which is actually the most laid back and alternative zone of the city.

Let's start with my favourite shop: "Judit" (Hornsgatan, 55 - Metro Mariatorget, tel. 086583037) - The owner is a guy from Napoli, so we became friend since I was first time there one year ago and I bought a green leather jaket. You can find really classy stuffs in best condition. It's not so cheap, especially if you are used to shopping in Brussels, but it's definitely worth a visit and a buy. They have also the girls shop just few metres from the boys one.

Other places worth a visit are the Stockholms Stadmission shops, which are in several places (Hagagatan, 3; Hantverkargatan, 78; Hornsgatan, 58; Lovholmsvagen 16-18; Skanegatan, 75; Stortorget, 5) the special thing about this place is that all the money you spend there to buy either clothes, forniture, plates, glasses, etc. goes to the homeless people of Stockholm. So definitely a responsible shopping and i found some nice stuffs for christmas there.

Then the list of the nice second hand shops is quite long, it is definitely worth a visit "Beyond Retro" (Söder, Åsögatan 144, T: +46 (0) 8 641 3642; Souk, Drottninggatan 53, M: +46 (0) 8 5591 3643; Souk, Mäster Samuelsgatan 56, M: +46 (0) 8 5591 3642, www.beyondretro.com) and "Modern Retro" (wollmar yxkullsgatan, 9, Metro Mariatorget, tel. 086407292; www.modernretro.net) and I also liked a lot the small shop of Pakladeriet in Södermannagatan, 19, tel. 084629190).

Well now you know where to go.
Enjoy Stockholm!

Orientalism

2007-11-24T18:15:00.000+01:00

Ain Soukhna - Red Sea - Stella di Mare Resort

The Orientalist experience in the Egyptian Touristic geographical imagination. This could be the title of an essay which, inspired by the works of prof. Claudio Minca (in particular Claudio Minca, Spazi effimeri,CEDAM, Padova, 1999) could be written after me attending a Youth Conference Organised by the League of Arab States in this Resort a few hours from Cairo.

I will not write the essay for the moment, perhaps an updated version of this post will be written at a later stage. What it needs to be said is that this place is the perfect example of the ephemeral landscape of tourist attractions. A perfect view, palm trees, grass, sandy beaches, perfect sun, and some recalls to the pharaos and "Oriental" style in fornitures of the Hotel. Beyond the paper scenes there is a place (Ain Soukhna) in the middle of the desert, with some industrial landsacpes all around and the Suez Canal just 50 kilometres far away (meaning big cargo ships passing by every now and then) basically the antithesis of the tourist landscape which one actually sees if he lands in Cairo, jump in the hotel buses and spends most of the time in the hotel without looking around.

The amazing thing is that speaking with the italian staff of the hotel, who lives there between 6 to 12 months before shifting to another resor in some other part of the world, is that they actually stay in this "little paradise" without going out and staying there for months and months... amazing!

Tintin au pyramides (how i was kidnapped and released in Egypt)

2007-11-24T16:51:00.001+01:00

Another major adventure screened on Porcarorama picturescope!

This time I was not resisting to the temptation of the Faraon and I left the sparkling shopping malls of Cairo to head to the big pyramids in Gizah. I was there back in 1999 when I was travelling for my first time outside Europe with the Peace Cruise (www.peacecruise.com) but back then i missed all the experience to enter in the site and fully enjoy not only the breathtaking view but also the other minor "attractions" for the tourists.

Small parenthesis needs to be done here. I have always associated the pyramids in my effervescent childhood fantasies with Extra-terrestrials, Indiana Jones, the Sphinx, Mummies, Camels and Beduins. Later on, I added some musical comments to these images, in particular the "Dark Side of the Moon" (with the special imagery coming from its cover sleeve), the "Aida" from Giuseppe Verdi.

Very recently I have started to be excited about the tourists which goes there every year, and I started to think that that the pyramids have been really turned on into a special reserve zoo where packages of people where being transported in ugly buses coming from the most absolutely unrelated places in the world, with the most absolutely unrelated dressing codes, all seeking (like me) the charm of the extra-terrestrials, Indiana Jones, the Sphinx, Mummies, effervescent camels, Beduins, "The Dark Side of the Moon", etc....

So I was at the pyramids with Yohanna and Jovana, which are not the same people. The first is a man from the World Students Christian Federation who helped a lot during the mission in Egypt, thanks to him there were "no problems" on the way and actually he brought us to the pyramids. The second character of the story is my colleague and friens Jovana Bazerkovska, bureau member of the European Youth Forum which which I shared the adventure pictured in the photo on the left.

What do you see in the picture?
A smiling western couple who wants to portray in a genuine "local" way at the pyramids.... W R O N G

This is the image which proves that I was kidnapped in Egypt.

I was walking on the edge of a small pyramids where my curiosity (which as explained before included the "camels") was trapped by a lonely camel which was resting on the sand.

Which better opportunity to take a "genuine" and "original" picture to post on porcarorama blog?

Suddenly the kidnapping happened. The beduine slowly trapped me on the Camel and the Camel started to ride high in the middle of the pyramids. Jovana's kidnapping followed steadily, documented by several pictures like the one which is uploaded here. When I attempted to go down from the Camel I was forbidden by the Beduin. Without money I would not have been allowed to go down from the Camel - Dollars, Euro, anything but Egyptian Pounds.... which was the only currency I had on me. Followed minutes of panic which seemed hours and days. But at the end, like in Tin Tin Stories I won the battle, and as a good negotiator I managed to be released... 15 Egyptian Pounds (1,5 Euro).

... Beware of Camels!

Cairo Rocks (top of the pops)

2007-11-24T15:23:00.000+01:00

Forget the Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum, the Nile and the Souk... if you are really looking for the latest groove in Cairo, still not "attacked" by Japanese tourists then you should definitely enjoy the shopping malls in downtown.
Porcarorama has the unique proviledge to bring you in this amazing and unique journey along the sparkling streets of the XXI Century Cairo. The images are self-explanatory.

Healing Power (Wilco in concert, Cirque Royal, Brussels, 06/11/07)

2007-11-06T23:57:00.000+01:00

Jeff Tweddy this evening was wearing a cow-boy hat and a denim jacket like a real country-blues man... the Cirque Royal was travelling in space, in the woods of the great lakes in USA or downtown Chicago (on the way home). Wilco tonight proved what I was thinking about them since some time already: they are one of the few truly "classic" american musical thing of the moment (together with White Stripes - or rather their "Raconteurs" version -, Sufjian Stevens, Animal Collective and few others). Those have something in common, which is to re-invent the american musical tradition and give it a new life.
In the case of Wilco, we can probably well consider them "The" Country Band of the XXI Century, impressively mixing this stream with everything they have found on their way, from the Beatles to Pink Floyd, from Can to Beck, even passing through the old '70s Santana ("Impossible Germany" from Sky Blue Sky - 2007 - definitely has some reminders).
The visual impact of this contamination in Cirque Royal tonight was the following: Country-Tweddy accompained by an 80s heavy-metal band look-alike drummer, an hippy guitarist/keyboard player, a kraut-rock look alike second guitarist, a school-boy 90s Pop Band look alike keyboard player and a classic rock bass player. The whole looked absolutely normal, harmonic and good!
On the top of that, the show started with an open declaration about the healing power of the music, which in the case of Tweddy, as everyone knows, is not just the rethoric of an edulcorated love song but the truth about his life - and you can feel it from his tone of voice that he really mean what he says ("music saved my life") - same biographical note came again later in a more ironic way when everybody was shaking and dancing with the vibes of "handshaking drugs" (from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel - 2002).
Last but not least, like in any respectful classic rock concert I saw the Groupies. Yes, this is not a yellow-press joke to add some gossip to sell more copies - otherwise I would have put this at the beggining of the review;-) but indeed at the end of the concert there was a girl in a red dress and blond hairs which was shaking her head like mad just few metres from me and her brunette friend who just went up on the stage at the end of the concert and quickly head in the backstage with the Band (amazing!).

Rudas fürdő, Budapest

2007-10-30T14:36:00.000+01:00

Enjoy this place, enjoy this language

1566-ban készült el a mai fürdő központja: a törökfürdőben 10 méter átmérőjű, áttört kupola alatt, amelyet 8 oszlop tart, egy nyolcszögletű medence foglal helyet.

A nyolcszögletű fürdőt két budai basa, Ali és Szokoli Musztafa építtette - az egyik elkezdte, a másik befejezte. A törökkupolás csarnok kívülről, a hegy felőli oldalról is tanulmányozható.

Az uszodarész 1896-ban épült. Az elmúlt években a törökfürdőt korhűen felújították.

Tarzan in New York: a compendium of the urban 20th Century

2007-10-16T18:55:00.000+02:00

Sunday, 7 November 2007, out of the elevator of Grand Station Subway from JFK airport, passing the main concourse of the station, few seconds enough for gifting me the still image of the Untouchables, with the guns and the baby car which goes down the stairs. I am in the 1920s.

Going out, 42 Street... New York, New York in-between the real skyscrapers founding myself in a movie again. King Kong is climbing on the Empire State Building. I am in the 1930s.

Few blocks and Le Courbousier gives me the chance of working in another time machine for a whole week. In the United Nation Building, outside the conference room nr. 1, where the 3rd commission on Social Development is taking place, discussing youth issues. I am definitely in 1946.

I go upper east, for some tourism, which is always a good thing to do in order to be part of the rest of the crowds. The Salomon Guggenheim Museum stands still on the 88 St. & 5 Av. I am in 1955, as well as in 1965 with Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground for their Light and Sound Show.

Go down, I am in a Bruce Lee movie in Chinatown, in Little Italy and I am in a Mario Merola “sceneggiata” and in Orchand Street there is Salvatore (Pizza da Rosiario) there i am timeless listening to the hearth of New York beating. Overall I could easily be in the 1960s there.

I am in 1977 in the punky area of East Village (St. Mark Place).

I go West, Greenwhich Village, the gentrification of the area spread during the 1980s all around the area, now it includes already NoHo, SoHo, NoLita (North of Little Italy), with the Lower East Side just on the edge (being the cool, alternative place which was greenwhich few decades ago).

I am definitely in the 1990s in Midtown Times Square, Nasdaq screens reminds of the financial bubbles of those roaring years. Then down, down.... Getting lost, getting lost in the urban 20th Century.... until the end of that Century, Ground Zero, 11 September 2001.

This is definitely an archeological city nowadays.

Irma la Douce reloaded: La Fantasmaghorie de Paris au debut du XXI Siècle

2007-07-26T23:02:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I was late again. My meeting was at 7.00 pm in 78, Rue Faubourg Saint Denis, Paris I didn't made until 7.45, but you know... I am italian and sometimes this helps.

In reality I had a good excuse, because, after having been around the streets of Marais and spending some time in few second hand stores with interesting deals, I found myself walking all along the Rue Saint Denis and I was distracted by the multiple cinematic and literary references of this part of the city which, close to the big food market of Les Halles, was up to the late '60s of the past Century, the commercial soul of Paris.

An old fake-blond prostitute trapped me in the time-space machine. I am sure she was already there when the beautiful market was closed to build an ugly shopping mall on the top of one of the biggest metro stations of the world. Irma La Douce was surely her luckier Holliwoodian colleague, but many of her old colleagues are still accompanying her on the same street, Central Business District of the Paris Prostitution since centuries.At the time the clients where genuine workers coming to deliver meat, fish and fresh vegetables from everywhere in France. They passed by Irma's colleaugues after long nights of intense workload. Now the place lost most of its fascination, it's a quite depressing segment of the street with shabby porno-video shops and ugly clothes retailers. Nevertheless, there are some signs of changes. trendy shops are popping up, waiting for the announced renaissance of Les Halls, which by 2012 should be renovated with the removal of the kitch post-modern structures built in 1979 and the accomplishment of a new project from the french architect David Mangin who won the international architectural contest sponsored by Paris Municipality.

After few houndreds meters i was definitely lost again in space and time, the street crossing the oldest Passages of Paris. I was like a little baby in a toy's shop.... or a flaneur, thrilled, amazed, puzzled, it was like walking in Paris with Walter Benjamin who depicted those places in the 30s and defined them as the first examples of the modern urban lifestyle.
I think the Passages still are vaguely looking like they were in the XIX Century, but in some fully re-interpret the same spirit, especially the ones restoreds and reconverted to their original function: proto-shopping malls for luxurios and bizzare goods. Others lost their original Bourgoise flavour of croissants and smell kebabs and baklavas, they display pakistani and arab shops. I found this fascinating, they reinvented the place, transferring the oriental souk in a parisian Passage... but after all isn't the passage a glass-and-steel re-interpretation of the old oriental bazars?

A cool site about Paris' passages: http://www.passagesetgaleries.org/

From Benjamin W. (1939), Paris Capitale du XIX Siècle.
La majorité des passages sont construits à Paris dans les quinze années qui suivent 1822. La première condition pour leur développement est l’apogée du commerce des tissus. Les magasins de nouveautés, premiers établissements qui ont constamment dans la maison des dépots de marchandises considé- rables, font leur apparition. Ce sont les précurseurs des grands magasins. C’est à cette époque que Balzac fait allusion lorsqu’il écrit : « Le grand poème de l’étalage chante ses strophes de couleurs depuis la Madeleine jusqu’à la porte Saint-Denis. » Les passages sont des noyaux pour le commerce des marchan- dises de luxe. En vue de leur aménagement l’art entre au service du commer- çant. Les contemporains ne se lassent pas de les admirer. Longtemps ils resteront une attraction pour les touristes. Un Guide illustré de Paris dit : « Ces passages, récente invention du luxe industriel, sont des couloirs au plafond vitré, aux entablements de marbre, qui courent à travers des blocs entiers d’immeubles dont les propriétaires se sont solidarisés pour ce genre de spéculation. Des deux cotés du passage, qui reçoit sa lumière d’en haut, s’alignent les magasins les plus élégants, de sorte qu’un tel passage est une ville, un monde en miniature. » C’est dans les passages qu’ont lieu les pre- miers essais d’éclairage au gaz.