Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 11 i Lampoon Magazine International

LA COPERTINA di Nick Knight, la sceneggiatura di Fitzgerald, le marionette di Billie Achilleos, Jeff Koons e Jack London. La critica di Émile Zola, una casa di Mongiardino, i marmi italiani. Questo è magnifico, il nostro nuovo modo – il nuovo Lampoon. LE IMMAGINI gli esplosero in testa, ed egli cominciò a uscire di sé in picchiata silenziosa. Magnifico e Malaparte. L’uomo è magnifico nel suo errore, nel suo rialzarsi – non è mai piaciuto a nessuno l’uomo seduto sul suo trono, staccato dalla terra, intriso nelle sue nuvole. Noi stiamo qui, nei nostri peccati di carne e di furia, in una Napoli che mai tornerà bella com’è stata, in un’Italia che resta il centro del mondo. Solo gli italiani non ne sono consapevoli. We didn’t know our own strenght,…

I WAS LITTLE MORE THAN twenty years old, and I knew practically nothing about the world. I lived in a small town, tucked away in the back end of the province. The only places you could go, on a Saturday night, were a disco on the main road and a few coffee bars in the centre, which always closed too early. We all would watch what we called the cover girls go by. We could count them on one hand. If they hadn’t been born in a place that consisted of just countryside and a river, they would have ended up as models on the pages of Vogue, or in an Armani fashion show. Instead, their catwalks were the empty streets of the town centre. At the weekend, they dressed…

THE NEW YORK MUSEUM is involved in challenging restoration and refurbishment work of its spaces and buildings, due to the necessary new expansion of the premises. The partner chosen during this work is the Fondation Louis Vuitton. A segment of MoMA property that comprises over two hundred thousand works including paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings, photos and also media and performance art, design articles and film. A true incunabulum of modern and contemporary art at its aesthetic, cultural and communication peak, the MoMA will therefore be coming to Paris to assert its mission as an aggregant and dynamic focal point for modern planning. It will tell the story behind the collection, its educational aims and the criteria that have marked and guided its foundation. THE EXHIBITION resounds with the names of…

THEY CALLED THEM It Girls and It Boys. They are a disappearing race. They have democratized themselves on Instagram, annihilating themselves without even realizing. I remember them just under ten years ago, at the height of their splendor. I have met plenty and interviewed a few. A German princess (I use the title loosely) managed to tell me about her fear, whether there were more dirty people or more poor people in the world—firm in the belief that the former was the more dramatic option. After filling up on buttered bread with caviar, she continued, describing humility as boring—not entertaining—she said in English. LET’S PROCEED IN ORDER . It Girl, It Boy. I like to think of this as a rhyme, between this It and Stephen King’s clown. In Italian,…

IT’S DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE HIM . Ascetic and affable, frank and caustic, spoilt yet disciplined; he manages to interpret the impossible and dreamlike projections, a prophet of consumerism capable of unexpected flights of poetry. His evolutions in language, a synthesis of semantic alchemy and metastasis, half fortune-telling and half comparison, following paths that blend provocation and reinterpretation, weaving high culture, fleeting kitsch and glossy quotes from comics. THE EXCURSUS of repossession and redefinition of the past in the contemporary era, their outlines recomposed to form further narration, seem to provide wonderfully inspirational terrain for today’s artistic debate: they represent an overflowing milieu of mythological evocation and adventurous metamorphoses. Jeff Koons was one of the first to rework, in particular, the poetry of figures in art from centuries of history. An…

The legend tells that into the bowels of Palazzo Sacchetti there are some ancestral places of mystic rituals coming from the East Robert de Balcany was born in Romania, in 1931 On 19 September 2016, Marchioness Giovanna Sacchetti decided to donate the Portrait of Cardinal Giulio Sacchetti, the real gem of the palazzo collection, an oil on canvas by Pietro da Cortona, executed between 1626 and 1627, to the Borghese Gallery in Rome Palazzo Sacchetti was soon back on the market, managed by Sotheby’s, the same auction house that sold the objects and furnishings that Monsieur Robert had in his various homes THE DARK square mass of Palazzo Sacchetti, with its sharp edges, stands at number 66 on Via Giulia in Rome, one of the streets that symbolise the urban…

IN QUESTO MOMENTO , in Francia, non abbiamo più critica. Questa è l’espressione che sento ripetere attorno a me. Formalmente, nulla da eccepire, ma il ruolo della critica, ha ancora una grande importanza. Certamente, non credo alla sua influenza, diretta o meno, sul piano estetico. Non siamo più ai tempi in cui si potevano richiamare gli scrittori al rispetto dei generi e delle regole, in cui la critica distribuiva colpi di bacchetta comportandosi come un maestro di provincia. ALLA CRITICA non si assegna più la missione pedagogica di correggere, di segnalare gli errori come nel compito di uno studente, di imbrattare i capolavori con annotazioni da retori e grammatici. La critica si è allargata, è diventata uno studio anatomico degli scrittori e delle loro opere. Prende un uomo, prende un…

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Soprano (canta): «C’è amore fuori dalla finestra. Amore oltre la porta, Amore che aspetta dietro l’angolo, Ma non è più lì che son diretto». Nicolas e Althea applaudono svogliati. I loro occhi si incontrano, ma fanno un piccolo sforzo per non guardarsi. Nicolas (premuroso): «Altro sherry?». Althea: «No, grazie». Passano accanto a loro alcuni individui su di giri, mentre si dirigono di fuori. Urtano il tavolo e si scusano. Nicolas si affretta a controllare se la cosa ha infastidito Althea, poi inclina leggermente la testa. I due mangiano in silenzio. Con un gesto non troppo enfatizzato, Althea rigira il proprio anello di nozze con il pollice. Entra in scena il capocameriere. Cameriere: «Tutto bene, signor Gilbert?». Nicolas: «Tutto perfetto». Althea (quasi all’unisono): «Perfetto». Il cameriere si ritira. Nicolas (cortese): «Sale».…

 SEDUTA PER TERRA , impegnata nell’arte di fare cose. Maker of things – è la sua definizione. L’esordio a teatro, dove costruivi pupazzi e marionette. «Al Blind Summit Theatre, l’ho fatto per un paio d’anni, oltre a decorare le vetrine di Natale. Faccio cose per il piacere di farlo, mi ci è voluto un po’ per abituarmi all’idea di essere chiamata artista». Hai una visone distorta della realtà, gli oggetti sono pezzi di lego da assemblare per costruire qualcos’altro. «Vedo cose nelle cose. Una diversa forma di spettacolo di marionette. Come il burattinaio sa animare un pupazzo, io posso creare un personaggio senza doverlo muovere. Può sembrare naive ma è la mia visione delle creazioni». SONO FAMOSI I TUOI ANIMALI . «Mi piacerebbe saper creare figure…

Gian Paolo Serino IL DOSSIER HITLER by Matthias Uhl e Henrik Eberle Utet A BIOGRAPHY of Hitler like no other. For the first time in Italy, publication of the secret life of the Führer prepared for Stalin: File No. 462a was delivered to ‘The Tiger’ (which is what Hitler called Stalin) on 29 December 1949, after years of research carried out by the Russian secret services involved in Operation Myth and always stored in very confidential archives since its creation. Detailed reconstruction for fans of twentieth-century history, but also a fascinating read for those who love novels. Stalin was obsessed by Hitler and, not believing the news of his death, examined the autopsy papers several times. He had brutal interrogations carried out of some of the closest, most trusted of…

Sempre Libera by Lorenza Natarella, BAO Publishing. A comic-strip biography, the graphic novel that tells about success, passions and torments of the Divina Introduction by Gian Paolo Serino. Silvia De Laude offers us a portrait of Maria Callas forty years after her death, by looking at her close relationship with the intellectuals of the twentieth century. Internationally-acclaimed philologist and co-curator with Walter Siti of eight Meridiani by Mondadori focusing on Pier Pasolini – her story starts out with the relationship between Maria Callas and this writer, poet and film director from Friuli. Painting a unique picture of a bygone era that can still teach us how the concept of Magnifico always starts out with an encounter of the arts, even those that are seemingly remote to one another. The voices…

CE GÉNIE léger propre à notre temps et dont le nom magique comporte Dieu et or—an admirable quote from Jean Cocteau, who with the mathematical grace of a Hellenistic lyric poet uses words to paint a portrait of Christian Dior. ‘CD’, the linchpin of an entire world. «The beginning of the Dior saga», writes Florence Müller, exhibition curator with Olivier Gabet, «paved the way for the most extraordinary epic in the history of haute couture. Bearing the promise of a bright new fashion future». The future would appear to be the access code for this adventure. IN 1947 , when the first ninety-piece collection created by Monsieur Dior appeared in the neo-eighteenth century building at number 30 Avenue Montagne, Monsieur Dior’s headquarters since October 1946, it was immediately obvious that…

HOLLYWOOD , the movie industry as we know it today, was invented by two women. The first, Mary Pickford, a blond, lively, Canadian actress adopted by the United States to become, in the golden era of silent movies, America’s Sweetheart, is still, even today, a cinematographic model; we just need to think about Laura Palmer by David Lynch. The other, Frances Marion, of San Francisco, more inclined to writing than to acting, initially Pickford’s assistant, then almost her sister, in a bond that lasted their entire lives, in front of, and behind, the scenes. Both were born at the end of the 1800s and died in the 1970s and both lived between Santa Monica and Los Angeles. WHEN THEY FELL IN LOVE with someone else, they left their husbands and…

THE CARRARA SCHOOL AN EXTRAVAGANT CLASH of neurons: expecting a stone trapped stubbornly between the ground and the roots of impervious mountainous areas, to express a poem about harmony, lightness and ecstasy. An amalgamation of crystallized calcium carbonate, coming in fantastically different colors – including the darkest black and the most angelic white – capable of interacting wonderfully with the light. IMPERIAL ROME was the main consumer of marble sourced from all around the known world, not just the Mediterranean basin, from Tunisia to Turkey, but also Northern Europe and even more exotic places like Sri Lanka. Even today, thinking of the tremendous problems encountered when transporting the gigantic blocks of stone with what they had available at the time, in a society that could only count on human and…

Verso la fine del 1914, un giovane aspirante scrittore inviò una copia del suo manoscritto a Jack London, il celebre autore de Il Richiamo della Foresta, Zanna Bianca e Martin Eden (proprio la difficile storia di un giovane uomo che lotta per diventare uno scrittore). London, quando redasse questa lettera, a oggi inedita in Italia, era al massimo della popolarità: conosciuto in tutto il mondo, aveva venduto milioni di copie e la sua popolarità era pari a quella di una rock-star dei nostri tempi. In questo scritto London consiglia all’aspirante scrittore, autore di un manoscritto sul proprio disagio adolescenziale, di lavorare più duramente e soprattutto di leggere. Malgrado la fama London dimostra di essere un esempio di scrittore come non ne esistono più. Riceveva centinaia di lettere al giorno nel…

Un inedito di Sinclair Lewis, ottenne il Premio Pulitzer per il romanzo nel 1926, ma rifiutò di ritirarlo (il più ambito dagli autori degli Stati Uniti), con una lettera che qui pubblichiamo per la prima volta in Italia (nella traduzione di Michele Crescenzo). Vinse con il Dottor Arrowsmith, la storia di un medico di campagna arricchitosi diventando professore in una clinica privata (il dottor Cottard della Recherche e Charles Bovary), ma perdendo ogni professionalità con l’avanzare della sua carriera (il nome del protagonista richiama la parola inglese narrow, stretto, ristretto). Lewis rifiuta quello che allora era ancora chiamato il Premio Pulitzer per il Romanzo, scrivendo una lettera al Comitato del Premio e declinando l’onorificenza, intuendo come molti concorsi letterari erano già asserviti a logiche commerciali e alla cecità di…

L’UOMO AL VOLANTE dice che la netta maggioranza dei cubani di oggi non ha vissuto la rivoluzione, ne conoscono solo il racconto. I cubani sono felici della situazione politica attuale. Non devono pagare per il cibo – anche se non è mai abbastanza – non devono pagare per la loro casa, non devono pagare gli ospedali. La propaganda appare a ogni angolo di ogni strada dell’isola – Castro rimarrà con noi, il nostro amico migliore. L’embargo americano ha bloccato il commercio con l’isola – ma a Cuba oggi si trovano le più belle macchine americane, Cadillac smaltate, Chevrolet cromate, pelli verniciate, frizioni oliate. Percorriamo Fifth Avenue di Habana, si affacciano le sedi d’ambasciata – quella italiana, ce la indica, è una delle case più belle. Il cimitero che sorge poco…

Gentilissimi, allego – pur stanco per aver sognato nuovamente di essere in un video di George Michael in bianco e nero con Lagerfeld protagonista dagli occhiali che sorridono maleficenza. Piano sequenza: io e Angelica vestisti alla Golden Age, Zelda e Fitzgerald dal Trimalcione. Passeggiamo: mi sento Robert Redford, con qualche ruga in più, Angelica in bombetta serigrafata con il marchio di Charlot e la tessera del Golf Club di Selvino in borsa che pensa non si sa mai, magari è utile. Siamo magnifici, eterei, inattaccabili nella nostra goffaggine che tutti vedono luminescente magnitudo di scontri tra amanti scellerati. Procediamo tra la gente che fa rima con niente. Ci guardano. Ci guardiamo. Siamo due sub in perfetto stile marina inglese 007 – poi torniamo a essere Scott e Zelda, usciti…

In Piazza della Scala nine hundred and fifty meters of lawn were laid on the square, including three thousand bay trees and eight hundred ferns. Temporarily Writing in The New York Times, Vanessa Friedman wonders whether Milan still matters AmfAR, it is embarrassing for Milan to have performed so powerlessly compared to Cannes, New York and Parisian editions Carlo Mazzoni MILANO MODA «First the bad then – as if looking for comfort – the good». Though in this case, we will start with the good as we have no way of offering comfort from the bad. «First the good». PIAZZA DELLA SCALA . It was beautiful. Milan appeared as if run by those in power in Stockholm. Temporarily, nine hundred and fifty meters of lawn were laid on the square,…

Massimo Cotto READINGS AT 45 RPM ONLY PEOPLE who aren’t music lovers believe that songs are something you simply listen to. You can smell a song because they all have their own scent. You can taste them, because they have their own flavor. You can devour them; savor them. They taste of honey and butterbush; of licorice before you start chewing, and of the forest after a storm. You can touch songs; you can hold them tight or punch them. You can see a song, because they are films or trailers or still shots. If you’re listening to Lucio Battisti singing ‘bicycles abandoned on the lawn, and then’, you see ‘us two, relaxing in the shade. Hitchcock said that drama is life with the dull bits cut out; well, songs…

Editions de Parfums, the editorial series of perfumes founded in 2000 by Frédéric Malle In Milan, via Verri 2, his second italian boutique has been opened 14 September, Frédéric Malle wore Geranium pour Monsieur MUSAC . The air is heavy with patchouli. «It has been the raw material of choice over the last few years, quick and easy to cut into pieces, hence the ‘patchouli hearts’ wherever you look. I don’t believe we can speak of trends in perfumery. Instead I think that since the dawn of time, perfumers have copied what worked. Looking back at the history of perfume in the 1950s, the 1960s, many of Guerlain’s scents were copies of fragrances by Coty. Mitsuko is a copy of Chipre, Shalimar of Emeraude, L’Heure Bleue of L’Origan». Copying, precisely…

WELCOME to the sixteenth minute. Andy Warhol was right with his fifteen minutes of fame for everyone, but he hadn’t considered the sixteenth of those minutes. Today, with celebrity status readily available for all—namely the possibility we all have to be public, diffused, ubiquitous—someone (avant-garde, cunning or snob?) is probing that sixteenth minute, which, unlike the fifteenth and its light, exposure and presence, means darkness, discretion, and absence. The anti-Warhol prophecy of the twenty-first century is already here: in the future we will all be famous, busy seeking our fifteen minutes of anonymity. WARNING . Continual, widespread exposure is a powerful habit, one that will be difficult to give up. After years spent opening accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Klout and FourSquare, in the name of what acronym lovers…

PIVOTAL FIGURES in American culture and showbiz, say they want, at least temporarily, to leave the States to move elsewhere in the world. The conservative choices made by the Trump administration and the results of the consequent political debate, in a climate of renewed Witch Hunting, does not provide suitable terrain for that stubbornly libertarian idea of ecumenical welcome that since its Republican origins, apart from a few significant exceptions, has generally been inherent in the American legend. «There is no room for intolerance, racism and violence in this country, because they are an affront to key American values», states the Strategic & Policy Forum. «America first», replies the mantra, the nationalistic and protectionist obsession guided by Donald Trump. The Canadian immigration website froze due to the exorbitant number of…

Sat plastic tables outside Bar Sympathy in old Lambrate, the former working class heart of Milan, some Egyptians have learned to play scopa and count their scores in Arabic, ordering grappa. Up high, on the fifth floor of one of those industrial buildings that find new aesthetics in contemporary design, in a mix of pastel hues, Rossella Discolo has just turned twenty-two and her fans have given her a 4.5 magnitude star. «It is written on this certificate» she explains, showing a page which she waves around as if it were a degree. «They have given it my stage name; the coordinates are there and as of today, if you look at some constellation and point the telescope properly, there I am, twinkling». THE STAR is called Roshelle, not Rochelle,…

Some of the italian marbles: Pink Verona Bardiglio Cipollino Taormina Green Botticino Perlato di Sicilia Asiago, Trani and Levanto red Asiago white Carla Tolomeo BEAUTY A MAN mistakenly called a caveman, in a period we now call the Neolithic Age, went out looking for stones to make tools, and came across a mountain wall that was a different colour: not the usual grey, but almost white, and not as hard as the flint normally used to make arrowheads. He touched it; scratched it. It was easy to work. He pulled a chunk away and started rubbing it; it seemed to shine. HE WAS ALSO A FARMER . He had already learnt to plough the earth and considered the soil a divinity to be worshipped. So, before sowing seeds, he sprinkled…

Oakland, California, 26 Ottobre 1914 PRIMA DI TUTTO , lasciatemi dire che, essendo un uomo che ne ha passate tante nella propria vita, ho apprezzato la sua storia per la psicologia espressa e per il punto di vista decisamente originale. Onestamente e francamente, però non mi sono piaciute le vicende e lo stile che ha utilizzato. In modo più diretto, posso dirle che ha poco valore letterario e praticamente alcun fascino. Avere qualcosa di interessante da dire non l’assolve dal non tentare di cercare di raccontare quel qualcosa nel miglior modo possibile. Utilizzando stili e forma che, nel suo libro, sono stati del tutto trascurati. CHE COSA C’È da aspettarsi da un ventenne senza pratica, né conoscenza dell’arte dello scrivere? Santo cielo, ragazzo, ci vogliono cinque anni di apprendistato per…

Giovedi, 26 Maggio 1926 Per il comitato del Premio Pulitzer, All’attenzione di Mr. Frank D. Fackenthal, Segretario, Columbia University New York City Egregi signori, vorrei ringraziarvi per aver assegnato il Premio Pulitzer al mio romanzo ‘Arrowsmith’. Premio che sono costretto a rifiutare e tale rifiuto non avrebbe senso se non vi spiegassi le ragioni. Tutti i premi, come del resto anche i titoli e le onorificenze, sono pericolose. Gli scrittori che vogliono vincere dei premi prestigiosi tendono a lavorare non per l’eccellenza, ma per queste riconoscenze amene. Si tende a scrivere in modo timoroso per non stuzzicare i pregiudizi di una commissione creata dal caso. E il Premio Pulitzer per i romanzi è particolarmente discutibile perché il regolamento è stato costantemente e gravemente travisato. Infatti, i termini per l’assegnazione del…

Michael Avedon The Inviolate Rose One Hundred Morns Hath Passed,And my Secret Rose, I hath yet to grasp,Weather Blossoming in the chant of Ida Grass,Or Dreaming amongst the Shadowsof Ancient Lovers who pass,I hath yet to feel the Infinite Mass,Of our Most Inviolate and Secret Rose,Through the Terror’s of Oedipus Wrath,Through the Silky Illusionof Lot’s fiercest Deception,I refuse to shatter the Glass,For The Rose of Secrecy,will engulf every principle I hath drawn,through perilous and druid Dream,The Eyelids of Enchant will wake upon Aurora’s Dawn,In a sphere where the Ruby Petal Never ceases to Fall,And I will praise thee,the brave one who rideswithin her Chariot of Gold,I shan’t disobey my Secret Rose,I will wonder through Dark and Hilly Landswhere the False Word is sold,I will find my Secret rose in…

L’ABBRACCIO di sconosciuti mi risveglia all’alba. Due ragazzi, li vedo, in fondo alla mia stanza mi salutano. Non so quanti anni abbiano, hanno delle cartelle sulle spalle. Credo debbano andare a scuola: io devo ancora fare pace con me stesso. Non ricordo perché siano qui. Non ricordo niente: mi sento sprofondare nell’infinito della sospensione. I MIEI OCCHI MACCHIATI DI ROSSO vedono sirene al neon che mi fissano come fossero carene di una nave in tempesta. Ho uno strano senso di pace. Il mio cuore è ancorato ad Argo, il cane che aspettò vent’anni il ritorno di Ulisse: appena lo vide, vestito di stracci per non farsi riconoscere nella propria casa dai Proci, Argo morì. Il magnifico Odisseo, mio compagno di sempre, che di molti uomini vide le città, scrutò la…

1.Formality is a difficult habit to quash. It is better to be distracted than thoughtless. Nothing is less elegant than rigidity – of form, habit, or mind. 2.Please, avoid using the word extraordinary – it is pure rhetoric and is meaningless. Are we to debate whether something is ordinary or extraordinary? That weary yawn – with the implacable certainty of still being in the Eighties, is something only Luca Montezemolo stubbornly continues to employ. Good, old Italian schools used to teach you to avoid the word extraordinary when you were still in year two. 3.Addressing someone with the formal ‘lei’ is something to do less and less. It doesn’t exist in English, and in Italian betrays a small-town mentality. Of course, there are people you address formally as ‘lei’, especially…