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halloween

Posted on October 26, 2006 @ 1:50 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, news, people, wordpress

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halloween mcluhan aynaku illustration adobe

I have posted this pic a few days ago on ARTFULWISDOM (please check the link on my blogroll) run by very talented and creative Ann Ellis and also joined IF’s Halloween contest with one more illo…
Although Halloween does certainly not belong to my cultural tradition it is becoming increasingly popular among Italian youngsters. Is it noteworthy that nowadays cultural exchanges are held -world wide- on the basis of exporting the pizza “culture” and importing the pumpkin’s one, according to the mesmerizing globalization and permeating market laws? (…la mondialisation as the French call it, to mark the difference…)
For now my ghostly sailor wanders in the unlimited ocean of the global Internet among blogs and sites, and -off course- ads; fortunately enough genial Mc Luhan wrote:
“Any ad consciously attended to is comical. Ads are not meant for conscious consumption. They are intended as subliminal pills for the subconsious in order to exercise an hypnotic spell, especially on sociologists.”

Happy Halloween!

a ghostly place…

Posted on October 22, 2006 @ 11:43 am by massimo | Filed under: blog, fear, philippines, travel, wordpress

ifugao sagada philippines cordillera aynaku illustration adobe

I once visited the ancient burial caves in the village of Sagada located in Northen Luzon’s Central Cordillera.
The area is home of the ancient Ifugao tribe, a former head hunters population who made -2000 thousand years ago- the stunning Banaue’s rice terraces that start from the base of the mountain range and reach up to several hundred meters high. Permeating Central Cordillera there are also Ifugao’s funerary customs peculiar enough to make a traveller an aspiring anthropologist. The formation of the lime stones with their hanging coffins are really spectacular and aw everyone. And everyone has his own theories on how the coffins were placed on seemingly impossible locations! I also learned that the natives of Sagada had a ceremonial burial ritual which involved placing their dead into hollowed-out logs and placing the coffins in caves; so I decided to venture with a native guide inside one of these caves. The place we headed to, was actually nothing more than a big hole hardly holding to people together. I entered the ghostly cave alone and remained for a little while to contemplate those skulls that seemed to glow in the darkness…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: ghost

seadogs

Posted on October 14, 2006 @ 5:31 pm by massimo | Filed under: ancona, blog, fun, people, wordpress

salty dog procolarum david sylvian aynaku illustration adobe

October is here again. The warm early autumn sun still shines, yet behind a thin layer of fog. The fog is going to take over the coast by mid-November, getting thicker and thicker in the next few months. These days there is no better place for me to hang around than the harbour. There’s really something peculiar in the empty docks during the cold season and David Sylvian got it beautifully… The docks are to me the best place to enjoy the fog and the magic of its spooky light; the best place to recover from gloominess, the best place to share with all sorts of elderly seamen, Tunisian fishermen, retired salty dogs from Greece…On these occasions old seadogs silhouettes always emerge suddenly from the thick fog and the queer sound of their voices smites upon my ear! Gathering together loudly, they use to tell picturesque stories in a broken language worth Hemingway’s best narrative before vanishing again into the fog…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: smitten

goggles

Posted on October 7, 2006 @ 9:42 am by massimo | Filed under: beach, blog, india, travel, wordpress

What a trouble for me getting my expensive goggles lost! I am a bit short-sighted and use to wear special goggles. Though they are not really necessary to me they become a fundamental item I rely …