GABRIELE D'UVA » bologna

Urban blight in Bologna: drink a beer or break it on someone’ s head…

gabrieleduva — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:21:49 +0000

On Saturday I finished lab. These were months quite enough tiring, but in the end it was worth it. There are results and they are good as well! Therefore going out was a must. Finally with the mind free and especially without alarm clocks for the morning. So I decided to go to the “Margherita gardens” to meet some friends that were there to celebrate a girl who was leaving. A bit of chit- chat, some beers, the garden, a guitar, the “delirious” improvisations of Nino… so a chilling and relaxing atmosphere.
At the beginning.
After a while, though, a group of guys from Marocco came threatening close to us.
OLIVETTI M40: It’s always them! Bastards!
Eh, no, though! As W.Blake claimed “Generalizing is for idiots!”.
OLIVETTI M40: They are all delinquents!
I’m sorry, but my typewriter has been for more than seventy years downstairs in the storage room and did not have any contacts with the world around, therefore she doesn’ t know what she is saying!In every population there are good and bad people (and after what is “bad” if not a consequence of a social failure). For example the italians in America were not all in the “mafia”. As the majority of the people from Marocco in Italy is reliable and working people.
So anyway, going back to the subject about that night, these guys came straight to look for a fight, without any kind of reason.
Pushing, punching, kicking, people on the floor and glasses that were flying. After we realized that this was all a plan to steal something taking advantage of the chaos caused (theory comfirmed by the fact that they tried to take a mobile from the hands of a girl).
Infact, if things were going to go wrong (since we were more than them), there were all of their friends spread around the gardens ready to attend. And as a matter of fact after 10 minutes four or five of them arrived, and one was under the effect of who knows what kind of drug started threatening us with a a bottle in his hands. So we went away and after the police arrived ( that in the while someone had called).

Results of the night: Pio (in the picture) would not get laid for a while (since in that mess he lost his “cool glasses that made him look so “intellectual” and as he says they were his “attraction point”); some other guys in another group who were a bit further away from us were threatened with a bottle, attacked and robbed completely; some other people, before it happened to us, caught them while they were trying to steal their bags crawling on the floor so they wouldn’t be seen.
Now, this is only one of the cases that lately are happening in Bologna. And for sure it’s not the most serious (thinking about the several rapes).
My disappontment is that the people from Bologna “has it” with the students! Complaining about the noise, the pee and the beers! And all the police are either in “Piazza Verdi” or “Piazza Santo Stefano” to gurantee silence!
A beer can be drank or broken on heads!There is someone that calls urban blight both of the things! Let’s begin to make a difference!!!
A small article came out on Leggo of today (at the bottom of the page to the left). See you. Gabriele

Still Par Tòt: let’s share the pictures!

gabrieleduva — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:18:46 +0000

Here you will find the slideshows of groups of Flickr which share pictures Par Tòt Parata. The groups are opened for everyone ( there is no need of invitation, you just have to go to the page of the group and press the key “JOIN THIS GROUP”) and they are divided by years.
Clicking on connections over the slideshows, it will be possible to access to the page of the groups, see the authors of the pictures and if you want leave comments (that are always needed!). Bye all of you.

SEE THE SLIDESHOWS

AbetterBologna (Bolognaamigliore)

gabrieleduva — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:55:27 +0000

AbetterBologna (Bolognaamigliore), o Bolognalamegghiu to say it in “leccese”, o Bolognanafigata… o…
OLIVETTI M40: But how? Did you change your mind?
Eh, no… I have to make a balance!!! Today, if you press the word Bolognademerda on search engines such as Google o Virgilio, as a first result of the research it will come out Gabriele D’Uva, even before the blog of the author, the piece I posted! With the trade-off of today, I will come out as first if you press Bolognaamigliore or Bolognalamegghiu!
OLIVETTI M40: Ah! All words that people writes everyday on search engines?!?
No, infact normal people don’t. Weird keywords= weird readers! Better!!! I’m sick and tired of normality! Limits and normality are words I always hated. In this way it’s not the search engine that selects my blog, but my blog selects people (the weird ones) who writes strange keywords!!!
OLIVETTI M40: Bah..
Anyway, going back to the original subjectof the post, therefore Bologna, I have to say that I like it and I always did.
OLIVETTI M40: It didn’t seem you were of this opinion last week!
The truth is that Bologna is dozing off and this is a shame. But it still remains a living city, young, a city to talk about, to argue about, where you can share opinions and initatives, the Par Tòt is an example…
Before leaving I inform you that on Flickr I created an open group with the purpose of sharing the pictures taken at the Par Tòt this year. There also two more for the ones of 2005 and 2006. I Invite everyone to join in and to see it.

By the way, these are my pictures. See you soon.

9th OF JUNE THE PAR TòT ARRIVES!!!

gabrieleduva — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:14:03 +0000

Energy, creativity, folclore…musicians, actors, jugglers, dancers, people on stilts, groups of dancers going with an endless and strong rythm of african percussions, some arabic percussions, tambourines from Salento, drums, pots of the house… and after wind instruments, squeeze boxes and every kind of instruments, theateres of the streets, small and allegorical floats…Everything strictly and without any kind of engine!!!Tomorrow is going to be “mad”…

I will post some pictures and one video (of a play fight on stilts) I took at the Par Tòt Parade of 2005…

Click here to view the embedded video.

…and some pictures of 2006…
(very few ecause my camera had no battery)

ShittyBologna (Bolognademerda)

gabrieleduva — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:02:45 +0000

Well, today I would like to talk about the city where I live in, Bologna. As you probably understood from the title of the post, I’m not really up of flattering it. “The city has changed a lot. When I came to Bologna in 1960, the city was really different. Back then it was a city where you would have never gone to sleep. Some restaurants were always open. The first “slap”happened in ’73- ’74, at the time of the petrol crisis, with the obligation of closing bars and clubs at twelve p.m.”.

To these words of Guccini, I would add that many initiatives of Cofferati, now mayor of Bologna, did not improve at all the situation, as I thought instead he was going to do when I was celebrating his victory through the streets of the centre!!!

“Forbidden to consume outside after 9 p.m.”, argues the mayor’s imposition. And the council of state agrees as well!! Reasons: assure urban safety and avoid loud and tipsy people who go around the arcades and squares untill late!

Basically, or alcohol or fresh air!! For everyone!.
OLIVETTI M40: yes, but there is still noise!
So what do we need squares for then, if not to meet all together? To socialize? Especially in a city where the spaces to socialize are in extinction!!! Let’s put it this way: the noise of (some) squares is something that the city has to accept, as it’s accepted the noise of the railways or the airport…So it’s a service that the city offers to the citizenship which permits dialogue and comparison!I would worry instead if the squares would be empty!!!
OLIVETTI M40: what about the people that pee here and there, and leaves bottles everywhere?
So, my dear typewriter, to forbid the sale of alcohol it was “acceptable” in America during the years where you got pruducted, therefore more than seventy years ago!Not in 2007!These are nothing else but excuses to justify the imposition.
Problems can be risolved in another way: chemical toilettes, for example! If people use squares there should be also services! Garbage bins would be needed as well. Or simply put the “vuoto a rendere”(in Italian we use the expression “vuoto a rendere” when we buy a bottle of something (milk, water, wine) living a caution that we’ll take back when we’ll return the empty bottle) as they do in Germany!!! It makes me laugh when in the newspaper “Il Resto del Carlino” concerning the urban blight of Bologna, they show full garbage bins and beer bottles piled up around them.
Obviously… where do they have to put those bottles?!? Mhhh! The funny thing is when you look around at night “dealers” of beers that stealthily sell warm cans that cost double (and people exasperated buys it!!! Hiding and stealthily, as he is doing some kind of serious crime!!!). All of this reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is Beer Baron.
Then, Bologna is missing of social places which are real and central, not public canteens with a discount of 30% up to 9:00 p.m…
Anyway, as a conclusion I will link a piece of Dario Dariotti, BOLOGNADEMERDA o BOLOGNA DE MERDA ( shitty Bologna), that I think it strays enough with the topic.

The piece is available in four different remix, which you can listen and download directly from the blog of the author: Myspace di Dario Dariotti (o DariodeRoma).
And since the piece talks also about “Mamma Roma Addio” (Mother Rome Goodbye) of Remo Remotti, famous artist of the Rome, I will post this video as well. Bye everyone!

Click here to view the embedded video.