24 Mar
41/365(+1) by Luca Rossini
41/365(+1), a photo by Luca Rossini on Flickr.

Lens: Voigtlander color-skopar 35mm f2.5
Camera: NEX-7, ISO100, f2.5, 1/8, raw

Today was one of those days in which I find myself at 11.30 pm without a valid shot. So I left home for the night walk with my dog Lucy. What is nice about dog walking at night is that you can linger around places without getting people nervous or raising suspects. So, I was dog-walking, my small NEX-7 bouncing from my neck, when I reached it:
“Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest / non radii solis neque lucida tela diei / discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.”
“Hence, such terror and darkness of mind should be dispelled not by sun’s beams or by daytime’s luminous darts, but by the aspect and logic of nature.”
That’s what introduced me and all of my schoolmates, every and each morning, carved in a marble plaque, when entering at high school “Liceo Classico Tito Lucrezio Caro”. A high school focusing on humanities, that is philosophy, literature, and history, but mostly latin and ancient greek, which I simply hated. Fourteen years since I finished high school, and I’m still so glad I don’t have to see that crap anymore. Studying those topics is supposed to be “formative”, but I guess any organized torture which lasts for five years would be somehow formative.
And yet, walking by this building raises only good feelings and a strong melancholy. Because those years where not just about studying, and at “Lucrezio” being popular was very much related with being politically active and a member of a (school) rock band. It was a bit like living a last fragment of the ’68, for some lucky reason, scattered through time and space to Rome 1993/1998. Most of my best friends are such since then, which I think tells a lot about how much I fit into that environment. It would be just so nice to find a niche of nice and smart people with which work, play art, and talk politics and philosophy. If you know of any, please let me know.

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