Christmas traffic

The traffic on the roads this week in Milan has been intense.  Everybody seems to be jumping in their cars to head off to look for prezzies for all and sundry.   The guy in a chemists commented that the true meaning of Christmas seemed to have been totally lost and that everybody just seemed to want to splash out on the biggest and best gifts imaginable without giving a thought to the main joy of this holiday which is being able to spend some time with family and friends and to put life’s often too hectic pace on the backburner for at least a few precious moments.  I have to agree with him.

The other day while I was crossing a main road, at a pedestrian crossing, green light, etc, I was nearly mown down by an idiot who was driving far too fast.  The only Christmas spirit which this twerp was displaying was that which he had recently consumed in some bar or other.  Then there is the floral tribute two steps from our house to someone who was killed on the pedestrian crossing.  I don’t know what happened, but I would like to bet that it involved someone being in too much of a hurry for no real reason at all, with tragic consequences.

Yes, giving is good, but not everything you give has to be material.

Anyway, a hearty Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you who kindly read my ramblings.  Peace and Goodwill to all on this earth.

Have a good one.

Alex.

Gianpietro Carlesso – pure creativity

Gianpietro Carlesso is an Italian sculptor from Bolzano, which is in the north east of Italy. I have just completed another translation for him about the item on the left.

It is a work he is entering in a competition dedicated to sculptures in steel- the European Contest for Monumental Sculpture in Steel – Art is Steel.

I have to say that I think it is a fabulous creation and, even if he is unlucky enough not to win the contest, his creation is something I could easily imagine being placed at the entrance to Microsoft or Oracle‘s worldwide headquarters. This sculpture really does capture the nexus between natural form and technology. The designs cut into the surface, which resemble some indecipherable language (his words, not mine, alas), give the sculpture a look that is at the very least quite alien, and at most highly futuristic, almost surreal, and always intriguing. It is the sort of thing that might descend from the sky one day and just hover silently just above the ground.

The finished article will not be small at 3 metres high, by 6 metres long and 4.5 metres wide, although I’d love to see it much much larger.

Gianpietro has done a lot of other sculptures and here are two other examples of his creativity. The wooden water sculpture really is striking and completely complements its environment. Take a look at this marvel:

Here is another shot of the same:

And last but not least, to finish off, something which could have acted, at least in part I suspect, as inspiration for the sculpture he is entering in the Art is Steel contest:

Sometimes creativity is wonderful, don’t you think? You can see some more examples of Gianpietro’s work here. Many thanks to Rob Tousain, in the Netherlands for the link.

Please Note:

Although I am more than happy to put people in touch with Gianpietro Carlesso, I feel as though I ought to point out that what could be seen as an attempting to ‘bypass’ local galleries that stock his work in order to possibly obtain a lower price will cause problems for Gianpietro Carlesso.

In much the same way as a business, Gianpietro uses distributors who sell work on his behalf. To an extent this means that such outlets have a form of ‘exclusive’ supply agreement with him.

If Gianpietro is seen to be avoiding such agreements, then he will end up with no distributors, and thus no outlets for his work. This means no income for him, or his family. This would be a shame, and it is the last thing I would wish to do, as I am sure you, my esteemed readers, will appreciate.

However, if you live in a country or town where Gianpietro has no distributors, then direct contacts are fine, especially if you wish to display or sell his work.

Another niggle

Is email getting slower?  It took 3 hours for a simple mail from my dad to get to me.  My old man is in the UK.  Will the day ever come when we go back to snail mail?  Probably not.

A little niggle

My mouse, OK it’s a trackball really, sits on my right hand side, but all my program menus, and the tabs for this here WordPress system, lie on the left hand side of the screen.   I don’t know if other people think the same, but I would prepare to have all the most regularly used menus on my right hand side.  It just seems more natural and more ergonomic.   Maybe programmers could include an option which would let us decide on which side of the screen we want our menus.  I also think this would be better for websites too, and have noticed that some web sites do have a right hand bias.

As I have entitled this post, it is a really little niggle, but I wonder why nobody has considered this before.  Or am I just being strange??  Back to work.

The transformation of words

In Italian the verb ‘fornire’ means to supply, which is similar to the French ‘fournir’.  Both words seem to have their origins in Latin, seeing as one word in Latin which means the same is ‘orno’.

Then one could compare both the French and Italian to the English verb ‘furnish’, which in one of its meanings means something similar to supply.  However, at some time in the past, for some inexplicable reason, English took the word ‘furniture’ under its wing.  This word does not mean anything similar to the Italian or French verbs and even the Italian and French equivalents to ‘furniture’ are very different.

I would love to know just how this transformation in meaning actually took place.  One could suppose that the English version came about as a result of some misunderstanding arising from a conversation that took place many moons ago between either a French or Italian furniture supplier and an Englishman working in the same trade.

Whatever went on, the word ‘furniture’ came to be the collective term for all those items found in a building, and meant that future generations of French and Italians would be puzzled as to why a friend has become false.

Etymology is quite intriguing, don’t you think?

A frittela

This is a frittela:

It’s a kind of deep fried bread, which is then coated in sugar. Not great for diets, or teeth.