Inarea

The way food has been depicted in images has always mirrored human cravings. Starting, for example, with the late Renaissance paintings of butchers and meats hanging on hooks, as well as of tables laid out for feasts (which were really allusions to memento mori). Nowadays, there’s always a rich panoply of dishes on our mobile ‘phones. Composition, light, saturation: everything seems cooked to perfection. Yet, food on social media looks about as fresh as the victuals on display at the waxworks. We’d like to invite you instead to visit the tableaux vivants which you’ll see in shops and supermarkets around Italy today where a lot of sorting out, organising and donating will be going on. Finally, it won’t just be a question of merely looking at the ‘artwork’ but of actually stepping inside it. It’s the National Food Collection Day which, for the past twenty-five years, has been teaching us that solidarity can be just around the corner. And in order to convey to you the full meaning of this special day, we’ve put the freshest ingredients we could get our hands on into our ricotta basket. Name Day: St Virgil

What colour is chemistry? Anyone who’s seen “Breaking Bad” will reply that it’s blue, rock crystal blue rock. Anyone who’s thinking about the plastic that surrounds us everywhere will say that there’s too much of it and that it’s too colourful. Anyone who’s thinking about burning oil wells will have only black in mind. But what colour will chemistry be in the future? To answer that question, we’ll have to consider the analogies between the Nobel Prize awarded in 1963 and the one assigned a few weeks ago. The key word for both of them is “catalyst”, an agent that intervenes in a process and speeds up its outcome, then quietly recedes. The 1963 Nobel Prize was a relay race between Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta: the former recreated natural rubber in a test tube, the latter the substances that accelerate this process. Since then, plastic has gone wild and now rules every aspect of our lives. The 2021 Nobel Prize for Chemistry went to Benjamin List and David MacMillan. And here too it’s a question of speed, because the two engineers have discovered a third kind of “organic catalyst”, one that – so the Royal Swedish Academy of Scientists informs – will make chemistry greener. Perhaps we’ve stumbled on chemistry’s future colour. The two prize-winners are only 53 years old and have perhaps achieved their success so early on in life thanks to catalysts and calculators that their colleagues of the past wouldn’t have even remotely been able to imagine. Measuring instruments change, but we’re certain that a bright light on a night desk will continue (in the shadows!) to be the unnoticed catalyst for discoveries of all kinds, for a long time to come. Name Day St Siricius, Pope

At the start of each academic year at Athena College, Professor Coleman Silk would explain to his students that “All of European literature springs from a fight.” A quarrel over a woman. Then he would pick up his copy of ‘The Iliad’ and read to the class the opening lines: “Divine Muse, sing of the ruinous wrath of Achilles…” We’re quoting from the beginning of Philip Roth’s novel “The Human Stain” because it seems to us to be quite jarring to talk about the violation of a human right (as violence against women is defined by the UN), and to note that it is ratified in the so-called cradle of civilisation. In an entirely different context and miles and miles away, Eugenio Montale used to wonder whether a withered leaf was more genuine than a fresh shoot. We’ll leave that doubt to the poet; for our part, we’re certain of one thing: violence against women leaves an indelible stain and withers the very meaning of life. We hope that a future Homer (male or female) will one day be able to sing to the Muse that this unsightly human stain has been removed, eradicated once and for all. Name Day: St Catherine of Alexandria

Do you remember Elliott, the little boy in “ET”? Towards the end of the story, he and the eponymous extraterrestrial are being chased by the police and take flight… on board a bicycle… That moment became the film poster’s iconic image. The pram depicted above ideally belongs to a baby who was born two years before Spielberg’s masterpiece and who, rather than learn to walk, began embarking on continuous “Pindaric flights”. Certainly ,after forty-one years of such ‘take-offs’, its hair has gone a bit salt-and-pepper, in the same way as these leaves are no longer bright green. But they who fly on the wings of imagination remain children at heart, regardless of their age: time has gone by, but the content hasn’t changed. It’s been a time filled with dreams, because each individual life has its own signature design, and designing is what we do for a living. We consider it a privilege, one that we wish to continue nurturing, so we’re celebrating our birthday by drawing a beautiful rainbow in the sky, as in the final frames of “ET”: it expresses how grateful we are for your affection, and implicitly (and “terrestrially”) is wishing you all a lovely day… Many happy returns, Inarea! Name Day: St Chrysogonus

Here’s a record that – luckily – hasn’t yet been broken: that of the longest recorded survival alone on a raft. During World War II, a British merchant ship, SS Benlomond, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Atlantic. A young Chinese steward was the only member of the crew to survive: he dived into the sea and found a life raft equipped with supplies, including chocolate, drinking water and food. The victuals would not have been sufficient to last for the entire period that followed, but they got him started and he did his bit by collecting rainwater and catching fish which he then proceeded to dry. After 133 days, Poon Lim was rescued by a Brazilian fishing boat. Later, he toured the world teaching survival techniques. But let’s take a step back. While he was adrift, the young man had been sighted also by various other ships which, however, did not pick him up because an Asian on a raft was assumed to be a ‘trap’ set by the enemy. Even solidarity can slip up on a banana skin Name Day: St Clement

An inscription on the façade of a well-known building in Rome proclaims that the Italians are a nation of saints, poets and explorers. Similarly, we find the statues of Vasco da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias standing proud on the Monument of Discoveries in Lisbon. But what about the poets? The category is represented by a certain Luís Vaz de Camões who created the myth of the sea explorer, capable of such feats as rounding the Cape of Good Hope aided by the Monsoon winds. Yet, whereas when Vasco da Gama returned home the title of “Dom” was bestowed on him and he was appointed Viceroy of India, with all the perks and privileges that came with the title, the poet didn’t receive the same treatment. Indeed, it was another Portuguese poet, Nobel Prize winner José Saramago who, with a mixture of despair and irony, described the destiny of poets. In his comedy play “What Will I Do With This Book?” he tells us that after seventeen years spent in India and Mozambique, Luís Vaz de Camões returns home, enthusiastically intent on publishing his book. Here he is not only scorned by the ignorant, but also has to suffer the indifference of the then king (Saramago himself mentioned this during his speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony). Ultimately, Camões’ poem “The Lusiads” ended up by becoming Portugal’s equivalent of the “Aeneid”, which is why even an unproductive man of letters was able to win himself a rightful place on the monument that stretches out onto the ocean. If the main storyline is like a lighthouse which instils hope in our heroes, you can be sure there’s always also a subplot lurking in its shadows. This particular subplot teaches us that hope never dies – which goes for everyone, poets included. Name Day: St Cecilia

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein left us a dictum which should be distilled generously: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent” . If by “speaking” we mean “explaining”, point-by-point, would anyone be able to explain what Amazon is today? Yesterday it sold books, today it’s a shopping basket overflowing with everything under the sun, from items of all descriptions, to leisure activities. As for tomorrow, who knows: perhaps we’ll see Bezos conquer the world, like the Risk board game player who accumulates the highest number of tokens. Best remain silent, as Wittgenstein suggests. Yet we can try to define what Amazon is not: it is not a platform for buying or selling cars. The experiment  was attempted by FIAT six years ago; as for the ‘battle horse’, it could only be the model which is a world brand: the new 500. In actual fact, the selling formula was a hybrid, because you pre-ordered the model online (lured by a juicy discount), and completed the purchase at the dealer’s. But what would happen if we were to search for it on Amazon now? The only car we might be able to add to our basket is a toy model like the one depicted above: an item which allows us to take our first footsteps as toddlers, just as the 500 allowed an entire country to get moving. Name Day: Blessed Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd

20 November 1959 is the date when the UN General Assembly adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of the Child” which was later enshrined in the “Convention” signed by 196 countries. Fifty-four articles from which four fundamental principles stand out: the right to non-discrimination (art.2), the respect of the best interests of the child (art.3), the child’s inherent right to life, survival and correct development (art.6), and the right of the child to be heard (art.12). The first person to consider the child as a perfectly complete being (and not simply an ‘as yet non-adult’ ) was Rousseau. With this in mind, at a time when children (which the charter describes as being such up to the age of 18) are increasingly taking part in the decision-making processes of the planet which they wish to inhabit for a long time to come, it would be an interesting experiment to submit said document to them. Would it fit their yardstick, or would they run (perhaps on their scooters) for the hills? We do have our reasonable doubts. Name Day: San Gelasius I, Pope

The inauguration of a museum doesn’t just bespeak paintings, sculptures and prints; it’s always a political event that tells us something about the times. Today, the Louvre brand exports its artefacts in excess to whoever can afford to rent them (see the homonymous museum in Abu Dhabi). In 1819, the Prado was being inaugurated during a special moment in history, to celebrate Napoleon’s failure to invade Spain. All the past glories were present (El Greco, Velázquez etc.), as well as he who was the most acclaimed of the living painters. We’re referring to Francisco Goya who famously described the days in which the French troops had invaded Madrid in his painting “The Third of May, 1808” . This painting has gone down in history, yet it wasn’t displayed at the opening; indeed, it remained in the museum’s storerooms for about forty years. Let’s say that it’s hard to process the contemporary with politics always lurking – albeit in the background. In any case, mounting an exhibition is the best moment in museum life: opening up crates, smelling old oils, hanging up pictures. A canvas gets hauled up and up and up, just like a tree-topper: think of Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas”, the painting that revolutionised how we look at (or look at ourselves inside) a painting. It would be worth travelling to Madrid next Christmas just to take a good look at it. Name Day: St Matilda

The Teddy Bear is the toy of toys, the one that sits under the Christmas Tree and with which children cuddle up for comfort when the lights are switched off. It gets its name, however, from an inveterate hunter: former United States President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt. The story goes that during a hunting trip in 1902, Roosevelt refused to shoot at a bear that had been tied to a tree; it wasn’t an act of pity but, rather, of hunting sportsmanship. The Washington Post published a political cartoon, poking fun at the President’s indecisiveness in the Midwest. A few days later in Brooklyn, a candy manufacturer and his wife created a stuffed bear and (after receiving permission from the President to use his name) called it “Teddy’s Bear”. Roosevelt had agreed, thinking it would be a passing fad. In 1904, however, a teddy bear became the mascot of the President’s election campaign and the candy manufacturers built up an empire churning out stuffed animals. Roosevelt was the epitome of the horseback rider, the one who goes proudly hunting with his greyhounds, as in the best equestrian portraits. Nowadays, pet-strategy is an essential part of any election campaign, as testified by the myriad kittens on Twitter, or lovingly-held lambs in April. All thanks to a satirical cartoon which lit up someone’s imagination almost a century ago. Who knows what good old Teddy Roosevelt would think of all this. Name Day: St Odo