“The cruel reality is that maybe improving my physical appearance is just as fundamental to my success as developing my art practice itself. It’s also frustrating to feel myself internalising this idea that I have to get sexier and show ass online if I want to play the game.” – Dylan, painter, New York
Conor dragged me up the stairs and led me to a sofa. “This is my secret space,” he said. “When it is cold outside, and my friends have better things to do, I sit and read and drink expensive coffee. I’ve read complete books sitting on this sofa. I am on show to everyone, and yet, I’m also invisible.”
When you love someone so much, and you think that everything about them is perfect. Step back, and you will see that they are not perfect at all.
Musk. What does musk smell like? I don’t know. It’s a bit animalic. But I like to think that you smell musky. I smell muskiness in your absence.
“I once met Neil Tennant in a bar,” said the stranger, “and I swear that he was wearing Primark jeans.” Why would this guy think that I might be interested in what Neil Tennant had been wearing? “Did you speak to him?” I asked.“ ”I did, but he ignored me, and I made a point of telling him that I was wearing Gucci jeans.”
“My great grandfather was good friends with Fellini,” said Aurelio who looked at the books I had bought. “They both came from Rimini. If you needed to know anything about Fellini, then Gio Carmello, with the tattoo of a boy on a dolphin, was the person to see.
“It is said that my grandfather was called Federico after his childhood friend.
“And now, you have bought a book about Fellini which makes me sad because I think of my family.
“But, if I am honest, I have never liked Fellini, because he came from an older generation, with primitive movies, and an Italy that was black and white and different to the one that I know.”
The barman poured vodka from one bottle into another. It was a soft pour, and he did it expertly. I told him that I was impressed with the accuracy at how he did it. “Easy,” he said, “I imagine that I’m pissing into your mouth.” Up to this point his face had suggested that I wasn’t there. Everything I’d said to him had bounced back with indifference. Now he had said something shocking and was calm enough not to look for a reaction. Instead, he concentrated on pouring from one bottle to the other and was satisfied that he had stopped me talking.
Hey, Super Star Destroyer. If we knew back then what we know now. The year of discovery. Friends for life and all that shit. A touch of flesh was all it would have needed, but the Angel of Grief spat from a big height.
The grey gloom of a rainy afternoon and the empty alleyway is depressing. Only the yellowish headlamp of an ancient Vespa ridden by Salvo the old greengrocer suggests that colour exists in monochrome surroundings. He drives through puddles and looks at us suspiciously.
Marco stands on the step and stares at nothing, because there is nothing there, but his face suggests something different.
“What do you see?”
“What do YOU see?” he challenges. I shrug my shoulders.
“I see sunshine and shadows,” he says. “The heat of a lazy afternoon. Tables and chairs. Miniature olive trees in pots. Young men and women sitting and talking.” He moves his gaze to the crumbling stucco wall. “There is a woman wearing sunglasses who holds a pen in her right hand with a notebook in front of her. There is something in the bag at her feet that holds a dark secret. But she doesn’t want to tell me anything. I want to tell her that from where I stand she is now dead.”
“What else can you see?” I ask.
“The woman opposite her, an old lady now, is reading the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova. The men wear sports jackets and baggy trousers and talk amongst themselves about football and fast cars – Alfa Romeos and Lancias – and the women they want to flirt with.
“Salvo the greengrocer is a young man, and he leans back on his chair, a Corriere della Sera sticking out of his pocket, and he is talking to a slender woman with long black hair and stiletto heels. She is ignoring him because she senses something but doesn’t know what it is.”
“Who is she?”
“This is your great grandmother and she is looking towards where you stand, but you are invisible to her because you haven’t been born. But she is troubled because something lies in wait that will cause distress to her family. She doesn’t know it yet, but your great grandfather, who sits before her, a philosopher amongst friends, with a violent temper, will kill the man he is talking to. Just like you did, Nido – her great grandson. It is the curse of your family. The curse of the Lombardos.”
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 