By Simone Bandini
(…) “You don’t remember the house of this evening of mine.
And I don’t know who goes and who stays”
Eugenio Montale, The House of the Customs Officers (1930)
Summer, or the season of holidays and lightness for many, of heaviness, bad taste and oppressive heat for others.
Time of light and endless days, skimpy clothes, aperitifs at the end of the shift. Finding each other. Or perhaps to get lost and forget, given the boredom, lack of modesty and coarseness that rage.
Time for village festivals, unhealthy fried food and forgotten folk songs, often out of tune and disturbing.
Children at the beach with their mothers or grandparents, while the sun spreads fiery blankets over the city, evoking atmospheres and sensations at the end of life for those who remain.
You undress, how nice! You are free, or rather on leave.
What is usually hidden is shown: the season of ostentation, if we want to be mean and precise, of vulgarity.
Garçon, s’il vous plaît…
A miraculous drink, a portentous soma, is needed to heal our bad mood – which closely resembles that of Richard III: “Now the winter of our discontent is made glorious summer by this York sun”. How to move from a dark and softened present to a shining era of peace and power?
How to implement a disconcerting, sudden change?
With a reversal of perspective.
Let’s think: the show is noteworthy and careful observation is needed. There are new and unexpected phenomena under review. Not everything is lost in the samsara of the obvious. In this desert populated by monsters arises the feeling of individual quality, the perception of difference. We know ourselves by antithesis. We know who we are through what (fortunately) we are not: the principle of individuation.
While highways are populated with Chinese cars and beaches with tank slippers, an adrenaline-pumping and futuristic internal motion gives us a newfound strength.
So, let’s start from this to build our happy vision.
Recommended listening: ‘Summertime Sadness’, Lana Del Rey