Imaginarea Daily

Here’s a colourful lady who has been the prima donna of velvet-upholstered sitting rooms since 1885: the Tiffany lamp. She was invented by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), a painter, designer and decorator who was the son of Charles Tiffany: yup, none other than the founder of the famous jewellery shop where certain young ladies like to have breakfast. According to The New York Times, in 1913 Louis indulged his passion for ancient Egypt by hosting a costumed party at his Manhattan home: it came to be known as his “Egyptian Fête”. But although he produced lamps, he didn’t like being in the limelight himself; on the contrary, he preferred to remain unnoticed in the shadows, leaving his creations to get all the attention. Indeed, Louis was so shy that he asked his friend Gustav Mahler if he could to attend rehearsals of the New York Philharmonic in concealment so that he wouldn’t have to speak to anybody. Now let’s image him as a 17-year-old boy packed off to Europe to complete his training. In those days, Paris was the city of the Impressionist painters. But also in the French capital Louis liked to shy away from attention and began to think instead about the relationship between colourists and painters: “Colorists are men apart” he once wrote. “But always they are antagonized and decried by artists and critics who lack the gift and see nature in outline rather than in color.” So off Tiffany went to look for his colours in Africa and, later, even further afield from Europe. Thanks to his stained glass lamps, he entered in shining glory the world of Art Nouveau which, thanks to him, also spread to America. At that point Louis may have taken his leave of the Europeans saying something like: “Strangers have the best candy”. Name Day: St Eligius

There was no such thing as the Nobel Prize in 1753 and the Copley Medal was one of the most prestigious awards that a gentleman could aspire to. At the time, the British considered anyone born on the other side of the Atlantic not quite on a par with them; hence bestowing the Medal on an American citizen was quite a breakthrough. The “American” in question was none other than Benjamin Franklin, who may never have been president but is nevertheless the face on $100 notes. At 42 years of age, Franklin had become so wealthy that he could afford to engage solely in what he termed “Philosophical Studies and Amusements”: the pastimes of a gentleman. And so, partly as study and partly as amusement, he flew a silk kite attached to a metal key during a storm. Having ascertained that the flashes of lightning were not being hurled down by the fury of Zeus, he began to think about how to ‘channel’ such energy: this led to the invention of the lightning rod. There isn’t unanimous consensus that Franklin actually carried out this experiment: but we don’t want to burst his bubble. After all, it’s notorious that Benjamin was an inveterate womaniser and so, to stay in the realms of mythology, let’s imagine that he had been struck by Cupid’s arrow – or, as the French say, a “coup de foudre” (literally, “thunderbolt”) – and that he was multitasking at the time, combining… studies and amusements! Name Day: St Andrew the Apostle

Who knows why nostalgia always puts in an appearance, blushing shyly, when strawberries are mentioned: from Bergman to The Beatles, this fruit is something of a gateway to long-lost childhood. For song-writing John Lennon in particular, “Strawberry Fields” was the garden of an orphanage in Liverpool where he used to go and play: a place where “nothing is real” and “living is easy with eyes closed / misunderstanding all you see”. This song came at a delicate moment for The Beatles: personality conflicts were emerging, together with long periods (sometimes weeks and weeks) of creative lethargy from which, instead, no music was emerging. Although Lennon-McCartney never actually intended the song in question to be performed live, in November 1966 the band started recording several different versions of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. They seemed undecided vis-à-vis the number of beats and the key, with the song fluctuating between pop, psychedelic and orchestral versions. Much splicing took place (the digital era was still a long way off!) and in the end Lennon finally found the path that would take him down to Strawberry Fields. In today’s world any link (physical or digital) is like a zip that opens onto infinite possibilities, so it’s comforting to think that someone has chosen just the right note to take us back to memories of the past, leaving out all the fuzzy noise of the present. Name Day: St Saturnin

Oggi parliamo della compagnia aerea con il simbolo dell’arpa che, dal 1922, è anche quello dell’Irlanda. Il motivo per cui questo strumento è così legato all’identità di questa nazione, è da cercare nel fatto che era suonato dal mitico re Brian Boru, vissuto attorno all’Anno Mille. La sua arpa, oggi, si trova al Trinity College (anche se non manca qualche disputa sulla sua autenticità). Querelle conservative a parte, quello che più ci interessa è l’evoluzione del significato di questo strumento. Nel XVII secolo, dire “Tuning the harp / Accordare l’arpa” alludeva al controllo dell’Inghilterra sulla terra verde. Dall’epoca di Enrico VIII, infatti, le arpe sulle monete irlandesi erano sormontate dalla corona di sua maestà: un sottotesto politico che lasciava poco spazio all’immaginazione. Nessuno aveva detto a questi inglesi che, secoli dopo, sarebbe nata la Ryanair, con la sua arpa che suona ad alta quota e a basso costo, offrendo a noi passeggeri una certezza: viaggiamo stipati come in un pacco di pasta e, quando arriviamo, anche se siamo un po’ cotti, grazie al risparmio, ci sentiamo comunque al dente! Onomastico: San Saturnino

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