EDITORIAL / LAZAGNE ART MAGAZINE #10 (MEMORANDUM-MEMORIA)
by Ettore Siniscalchi
MEMORY IS ESSENTIAL.
BUT I DON'T REMENBER WHY
To remember to not make the same mistakes. Memories of the dead, and of wars.
Institutional rites, TV specials and on paper.
The memory-instrument, to better the future. We believe it, I believed, I used to believe,
not anymore. Memory is a private matter.
We don’t make use of it, it’s either there
or it’s not. Knowledge, perhaps.
The road to hell paved with good intentions,
errors and horrors, those killed to save others and those saved to kill others, the enclosed, the disappeared, those burned for one god or against another god, the violated women,
the escape from war, from hunger, from
religious, economic, ethnic hatred, you don’t need to remember them but know them.
You don’t remember that fire burns, you know it. Memory is our box that we can open,
that I open.
They’re my things. If you think you remember them, you are mistaken.
Those afternoons underneath the fig trees,
boredom and sun. Riding bicycles, action
figures, summer newsagents with wrapped comics, balloons and water guns. Popsicles, plastic marbles with soccer players, Carioca Joe with his long legs. The Eye of Zoltec. Tiramolla, Geppo and Grandma Abelarda. Jacula, Oltretomba and Lucifera. The Specialist, L’Omino Bufo, The Ethernaught, La Linea, Carosello, Pianeta Papalla, Super Santos, the issues of Photo with the pornographic pictures from the Belle Epoque. Airfix soldiers (English, German, Red Army, American, Japanese, and Australian). Subbuteo, the Solidò figures with the accent on the O, and Dinky Toys. Big Jim, Madelman, G.I. Joe. Il Meccano and those small bottles of Zabov. De Filippo, Dov’è Anna, A Come
Andromeda, Ho incontrato un’ombra.
The Frenzy of Orlando, Carini’s La Baronessa, and Karen Black being chased by the fetish doll. The smell of mandarin oranges, of
Coccoina glue, and of the light orange Carioca markers. It’s all my stuff, personal, private.
Vacations that lasted until October, shop
windows illuminated in the precociously dark autumn night, smocks, kids on the street, groups, bands, in the night. Streets and squares like soccer fields, baths in the fountains,
churches, gardens, bullies, off-limits zones,
drugs, people who take it out. Pippi
Longstocking, Unity festivals, Isuledda,
The Thunderbirds, Saturnino Farandola, Ufo,
Il Prigioniero (The number six, the vacation club/prison, the ball, the initials).
Theme songs, Sunday cartoons, comedies,
Supergulp, double features at the cinema, protests, Alto Gradimento, games on the radio, men who smelled like Fernet, Acqua Velva and tobacco. Movies at church, cinemas everywhere, full of people, smoking, some with openable roofs. La Dolce Vita, science-fiction features, Totò’s movies, Amici Miei, De Sica, experimental films a day. Electra Glide, Yellow Submarine, Harold and Maude, La Torta in Cielo, Zardoz, La Morte di Pasolini, Vermicino, bombs on the trains, in the stations and in the squares, the Garibaldini, World War Two and the march of the Mille. Ulysses, Pinocchio, Joe Petrosino,
Sacco and Vanzetti, History teachers.
The wild boy, The Four hundred Shots, farmer’s struggles, emigrating family, ancient Romans, Sandokan, the moon landing, the song
“Scendiamo giù dai monti / a colpi di fucile / evviva i partigiani / è festa d’aprile”. Vietnam, the Carbonari, Cowboys & Indians, the 70s, 50s, 1800’s, the future.
I traveled down a road that went from far away times and continued into the future.
We were in flux.
When did this continuity become interrupted?
I can’t remember.