My article about coffee cultures in Naples has just been published on the American magazine Fresh Cup. In this article I go back to my hometown Naples interviewing three owners of different typologies of cafès, the historical Gambrinus, the typical Bar Nilo and the innovative Spazio Nea.
Here’s the link to the article on Fresh Cup website
Here you can order a copy of the magazine
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There is a mesmerizing Patti Smith’s song I used to listen to when I was in my teens. It’s called “Land” and tells – in a very surreal way – the story of this guy called Johnny. Since the chord progression wasn’t too complicatedly, I quickly learned to play it on the guitar. There was a particular line that made me pretty excited when I sang it. It was “I hold the key to the sea of possibilities”.
When I was seventeen I had a number of small abilities, but very little how-to knowledge.
My guitar practice alone branched off into my folk Neapolitan repertoire, my intimate Carla Bruni-like songs and my love for punk rock. These three aesthetics were not conflicting to me. That was confirmed by reading on a magazine that Norah Jones also had a punk band. I thought, if she does it, why I shouldn’t? (Well, if you have ever heard me singing and playing, the answer is pretty straightforward).
Way before I would learn the position for a E chord, I was making been comic books. Since I was born, I have never stopped drawing and creating stories. As often happens, I started making comic books since I was in high school and my school mates were my first readers. Never in my life I considered to stop that. Then of course, there was the writing. I was that annoying kid asked by the teacher to stand up and read her essay out loud. I didn’t really like to do that, mostly because my pulp Tarantino-confronts-Romero-on-the-theme-of-abortion like essays were meant to be read with a little verve. Which I completely lacked of . Anyways, at eighteen I started writing for an art magazine and a number of rock and general publications. Around the same time, I started covering every blank spot I could find in the city with graffiti. Man, that was real fun!
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Potrebbe essere solo una posa, questo è vero, ma d’altronde quando si sceglie di fare l’intellettuale alternativo e ci si riesce pure, non è categoricamente ammesso soddisfare le legittime aspettative di nessuno, né del più accanito fan né del più severo critico.
Infatti, ecco che vediamo che quanto più i critici musicali e gli ammiratori si accaniscono a dare del “poeta” al proprio beniamino, con la chiara intenzione di fargli un complimento, tanto più il beniamino stesso rifiuta sdegnoso la definizione.
A parte il fatto che i fan non hanno un minimo di buon senso; basti pensare che chiamano poeta pure Ville Valo degli HIM che certo, come musicista sa il fatto suo, sicuramente ha un’ugola d’oro, senza ombra di dubbio è un gran bel ragazzetto, ma in quanto a ispirazione omerica stiamo messi male. Chiariamoci: niente in contrario a continuare ad utilizzare i soliti ritriti concetti legati a amore e morte e farlo anche in maniera abbastanza banale, e d’altronde lo stesso cantante degli HIM non ha mai avanzato nessuna pretesa, quindi il problema non si pone per nessuno! Insomma, chissenefrega se sotto i video di YouTube le ammiratrici in fregola, solitamente ragazzine che non superano i diciannove anni, scrivono di Ville “Che uomo, che poeta” (“com’è sexy” “me lo farei proprio” etc. etc.) , problemi loro, quelli sono i loro orizzonti, probabilmente lo scrivono anche di Bill Kaulitz sotto i video dei Tokio Hotel (dove ad ogni “che uomo” segue un’inevitabile, oramai prevedibile “Perché? E’ un’uomo?”), ma di questo non sono sicura perché francamente non ho mai sentito l’esigenza di andare vedere un video dei quattro marmocchi tedeschi.
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Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
