Tales from the summer :I: The Crack Report

Writing to you now from Napoli--

As much as the center of Rome has been preserved, manicured, and shined; the center of Naples has been neglected, marinated, and burned. The question that I ask you now is: which treatment yields better results?*

Now, for a more relevant question: how much organization is necessary for a temporary zone to function? For every amount that the center of Rome was shining marble, sweet cold water, and impeccably salted carbonara, with wild outskirts; forte prenestino was near total disorganization and disorientation and luke-warm water (definitely no soap), with some virtuoso-esque tables of art.

I still couldn’t tell you who organized the thing-- and are they the same people that squat this fortress? But it must have been organized since even my grandma’s cousins in the boonies of Sturno, Irpine valley, heard about it on the radio. There were lots of posters designed for the event... but they may have been all created by independent artists, the way that we independently wrote four essays on the theme of the event: ‘DO EAT YOURSELF’. We never did get the essays over to the organizers of the event, unless it was by accident.

Tunnels. Confusion. Campari. Shitty music. Good music. Sound system breakdowns. Electric blackouts. Lots of dudes peeing on the path to my campsite. Waking up in an oven of a tent, and trying to sleep out in the grass, but tortured by the tickling of overly active morning insects. The nearby coffee shop with a broken restroom. The portapotties with no toilet paper. The farther coffee shop with old Roman locals and a nice bathroom with very hard toilet paper. The pizza inside for five euros, and the chicorea panino from the local farmstand outside for three. The Campari sodas for one-fifty that we used as flower vases for our ipirico, st john’s wort bouquets. AB’s first crack at typewriter busking. Us two aggressively flagging down passersby to offer them a spontaneous poem in either English or Italian. Take your pick.

Writing poems on classical subjects like love and confusion, and stranger ones on dirty rubber gloves (that starts light and ends profound), or an entire conversation about how the u.s. system is broken, or macaroni mandolino mamamia (or some Italian cliche shit like that). Then perfectly relevant poems on the writing collective, st john’s wort, and campari. Am I mentioning campari too much?

something about campari

reminds me of drinking blood

and ringing ears,

yet this discomfort somehow

makes me feel quite cozy,

quite clean

like a swimming pool full of

chemicals

stomach full of cherry-red

bleach.

A little heaven, a sharp

slice of bliss

close within reach,

yet these kisses of

the sort

that my sweet angel

of reason,

will condemn me

to miss.

So, were the people consuming themselves, as they were commanded to do? Perhaps the artists, yes. Having something around 600 vendors made it hard to make many sales or have constant profound conversations with the passersby. So the artists turned inwards, at their tables, their posti. We ate each other and we made art. We drew and typed and sketched and wrote... for each other and for ourselves. We exchanged poems and bookmarks and zines and tarot-postcards.

I have yet to understand the youthful anarchy of Italy, so pardon me if you spot any discrepancies. But it was strange to me, the way that the people that I met told me that they would burn every city down, and miss many days of work in their tornado of an adventure to crack and back.... Yet when we made plans to meet post-event, they were busy with their 9-5s and their evil bosses would maybe even keep them at work later than that. However, it was amazing how many of my neighbors made a living from their art, even if part of their income came from a more-commercial gig. As well, Italy is clearly killing it in the realm of underground vibrancy, despite being a little country with a strange bouncy language that the rest of the world doesn’t understand.

I know I’ve been living in a temporary oasis out in marijuana country, rural Oregon. Surrounded by those who work anything but a 9-5, and have achieved a self-constructed rhythm and motivation, without depending on the standard workweek or bars and restaurants and other such standard activities. Despite this dreamy luck to be surrounded by stacks of benjamins; I know all too well the tentative balance between stoking the passion of art, the excitement of a collective, minimizing natural burnout and resentment, and still meeting my earthly needs.

Despite all these philosophical contradictions that we as artists are reconciling with, the festival was a temporary zone for us to light up fully and unashamedly. Full of fresh inspiration by all the stimuli around us. I paused for a long moment in front of the stage to watch a live voice-over performance of a kinky spy comic, accompanied with a live DJ mixed soundtrack. The possibility of collaboration and new places to crash and new spaces to visit was near-infinite... except that we the artists had little time to wander far from our tables. Surely it would have taken weeks, not days, to fully absorb all the vibrancy and new friends around us.

today we inhabit

a tunnel full of bricks

they say that Rome was not built

in a day,

and that’s certainly due

to all these dang

BRICKS!

It seems difficult,

but if we make it a habit

we can fill

our world

with little things

that keep us cool

in the summer

full in a dry spell

Little art,

tiny proof our our persistence

life, as insistent,

as a fortress made of brick.

—- moldyroot

*Personally, I’ve always found rust and wild meadows growing in abandoned courtyards aesthetically pleasing. Graffiti is one of my favorite art forms to observe. Shit and piss in the walkways? Less so... but I suppose that I can’t have it all. Perfection is tiring and... imperfect, in that it cannot last for long.

Or perhaps I’d rather say that perfection is not a word that has any real-life representation. Vague sensations and images come to us when we hear the word. But really, perfection and defrastinabinoonies are similar words in that you can imagine what they may look like, but you’re just making shit up.