NOT SO SUPER MARIO

Wait – I think I see a solution to all our problems!

Whatever else you say about Italy’s caretaker premier Mario Monti, he is not usually a man to speak first and think afterwards.

His measured, robotic voice shows that he is not in the business of making a drama out of the financial crisis.

He restores the notion that economics is a boring but necessary part of political life.

But his skills as a economist are greater than those as a politician.

In response to the latest match rigging / bribery scandal to hit Italian soccer he has stated publically that it would be better if soccer matches were halted for up to three years. This, he reasons, would allow the time for reflection needed to set the sporting house in order.

Monti was at pains to point out that he was voicing a personal opinion but, predictably, the media are not about to let facts get in the way of a good story and report his statement as if it had become official government policy.

THE DAY THE EARTH MOVED

Locals in front of the destroyed clock tower of Finale Emilia.

When it comes to earthquakes, being on the periphery of the epicentre is not really newsworthy.

It means I can only report of being woken in the small hours of Sunday morning (4 am) by a strong tremor that left the bedroom light swinging for a few minutes.

I’m relieved to say that there was no casualties in my neighbourhood and no structural damage to local buildings.

Even if I had had the misfortune to live in one of the worst affected area – like the poor folks from in or around Modena or Ferrara – I would probably be one of the many struggling to put the experience into words.

A headline in one of today’s papers quotes one woman in Modena saying “the roof shook and then the walls collapsed” which is about as illuminating as witnesses to a terrorist bomb saying “there was a loud explosion”.

SENNA – THE DRIVEN DRIVER

SENNA directed by Asif Kapadia (UK documentary, 2010)

You don’t have to know anything about Formula One racing  to appreciate this exemplary documentary film about the life and death of Brazilian motor racing champion, Ayrton Senna. This is just as well since this is a sport and spectacle it leaves me cold.

Of course, I knew the name of Senna and the fact that he tragically died at the age of just 34 at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. Other than that most of the facts presented were new to me.

Being a sport which is so rabidly followed by the media and public alike, there’s no shortage of footage of Senna in action doing what he did best and there’s also plenty of home movie footage and behind the scenes material. Kapadia has done an amazing job of editing this into a compelling 1o6  minute story where the driver’s humility, intelligence and honesty shines through. He has dispensed with the common strategy of lining up a series of talking heads telling us what an amazing guy he was but wisely  lets the film shot at the time speak for itself.

What struck me most of all was that Senna typifies the single-minded sense of purpose needed to separate the winners from the losers. For Senna, there was never a question that merely taking part and competing at the highest level was enough. There is only one winner and he was not prepared to accept second best.

To achieve his goal of being the champion, he had to contend, not only with the other drivers (notably Alain Prost) but with the politics which, in common with all sports nowadays, meant that business and money interests take precedence over the human factor.

When Senna drove, he talked about being “closer to God” and his religious belief seems to be what grounded him.

It is the interviews that are at the heart of the film with Senna speaking candidly about what motivated him, making it clear that even when things were not going to plan, quitting was never an option.

His tragic death was both avoidable but somehow inevitable.

SPEAKING OUT – HEALING MY LIFE

The disembodied mouth in Samuel Beckett's 'Not I' is a poignant image of isolation.

I am often sceptical of holistic remedies and new age thinking but Louise Hay’s ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ contains a lot of explanations and advice about feelings of dis-ease that more often than not accurate.

She identifies just two mental patterns that poison the body and lead to illness : fear and anger.

I currently have a sore throat and feel that I am on the point of losing my voice.

Louse Hay describes the throat as an “avenue of expression” and a “channel of creativity”.

As a consequence, she states that problems with this part of my body are due to: “the inability to speak up for one’s self. Swallowed anger. Stifled creativity. Refusal to change”.

This diagnosis strikes a chord with me and rings true.

In my family, I am currently feeling that my voice isn’t being heard and am finding it harder to communicate with my 16-year-old daughter who is experiencing a lot of growing pains and psychological challenges resulting from school, boyfriends and other peer pressure.

At work, I am in a situation where I am no longer sure of my role. I am finding it harder to motivate myself and to feel that my work is worthwhile.

In other general situations, when I am with Italians and try to express my opinions; I feel the burden of having to articulate complex ideas or emotions in my second language.

Many of these would be hard enough to say in my mother tongue and the linguistic filter leaves me feeling that I have barely scratched the surface about what it is I really want to say.

Louise L. Hay’s cure is to change my thought pattern and feel that it’s okay to make noise. She advises the following affirmations:

• I express myself freely and joyously.
• I speak up for myself with ease.
• I express my creativity.
• I am willing to change.

The voice of Henry Miller in the opening lines of his novel The Tropic of Cancer also come to mind as I contemplate these thoughts:
“To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing”.

If this post makes you think you should be singing more too – click on ‘like’ button. It would help me feel less alone.

TESTING BOOKTRACK

I’ve been test driving Booktrack on my ipad – a free app marketed as a revolutionary new reading / listening experience.

How it works is that selected titles are downloaded to your chosen device complete with a built in synchronized soundtrack. You can set specially composed music to play at the same pace as your reading speed.

The website assures us that “Unlike listening to random music, this music is scored to accompany the text and make sense to the story, helping to further the imagination and the story telling. The sound does not take away from the reading experience; it enhances it”.

I sampled the whole of The Ugly Duckling and the preview copies of stories by Salman Rushdie and Edgar Allan Poe.

The ‘sound designers’ combine ambient effects and field recordings like quacks and gunfire for Hans Christian Anderson’s tale.  Initially it felt quite distracting but it is quite cleverly done and by no means as kitschy as it sounds.  The site is clean, well designed and easy to navigate.