Chess and Tetris

I was obsessed about Tetris. I still am, but I got better self-control on. I used to play it non-stop, borrowing a friend’s Nintendo and on our home computer, on a floppy my dad got us.
I would embark into marathons. I hit bottom rock in Beijing: no class scheduled because of the Sars-induced shut down, personal life in shatters, I started a game of Tetris. I played for about 20 hours: safe for some loo break, it was a non-stop brick after brick frenzy.

I told myself “Just one more game”.
But then I made a stupid mistake. Or beat my record.
So I told myself “Just one more game” once more and started again. I drank hot water and ate that weird supermarket bread that felt and tasted like rubber, because I had nothing left in the room.

When I finally turned the computer off and went to bed I wasn’t feeling completely myself: I could feel my heartbeat in the throat, thumping like crazy and I couldn’t breath properly. Every time I closed my eyes, colored bricks kept on appearing behind my eyelids and I had to rotate and move them to clear enough lines to keep them falling. I didn’t fall asleep easily and, when I did, I dreamt of Tetris.
When I woke up I was still very tired, still with a crazy heartbeat. Tetris brick were now everywhere: in the washroom’s mirror, in the chopsticks holder in the canteen, in the paths and ponds around Tsinghua garden.

Because of the lockdown, foreign student were extremely bored and this brought a surge in consumption of booze and pot. People all over the dorm looked quite stoned and in a perennial state of hangover (with the exceptions of the North Koreans, of course). Having just overdosed on Tetris, I fit in with the rest of the crowd so perfectly, I think I never fit with the crowd so well before, nor I ever did after.

Obsessed and high as I was, I also knew I had reached a limit with Tetris I couldn’t allow myself to go over again. The fascination with the game was (and still is) strong, but so were the alarms ringing in my head. Obsessions find a welcoming habitat in my head, my brain seems to always be waiting for the next one to come along. But right then I had a very physical reminder of the consequences: the nausea blocked my body and thought process. It took me more than two days to go back to normal; I knew I couldn’t let this obsession take over, so after that episode I didn’t play Tetris for about 3 years.

I still play Tetris nowadays, but I got strict rules: there’s no game after 10 in the evening. The Tetris app gets periodically deleted from my iPhone and it’s got to go before I’m about to go on a long trip (which reminds I need to delete it before Saturday: 18 hours of plane travel are waiting for me, I simply can’t afford to leave room to temptation).

Last month, while in London, I bought a book by Stefan Zweig.
I didn’t plan to buy (more) books and the way I justified it to Francesco sounds a bit pathetic.

“It’s only 3£. And it’s a novella, not a novel. And it’s so tiny it fits into my coat’s pocket. So it doesn’t really count as a book, does it?”
“No, you’re right. It doesn’t count as a book”, said Francesco, with the kind the kind of tone a nurse of a mental word would use with one of her patients before trying to make her wear a straitjacket.
I didn’t say that I bought it because of a sign:

A small communal garden, a giant-size chess set, a match in progress. Five days later, I was at Foyles holding a small book, aptly named “Chess”: could I have left it behind it? I could have, but it'd be not very in character and I wasn't in the mood of disappointment.

It took me 2 commuting travels to finish it, but the story stayed with me for much longer. It was a discovery from many point of view.

First of all the author: how is it possible I’ve lived until today without having basically no knowledge of his work? For such great and famous writer, I couldn’t remember his name ever be mentioned during literature or German culture classes.
Secondly: how could I have watched "Grand Hotel Budapest" without ever feeling the curiosity to find out a bit more about Wes Anderson's inspiration? Zweig's life and work, everything is tragic and fascinating. Reading “Chess” made me curious about his other books.

The story takes place on a ship headed to Buenos Aires: on board a world champion of chess accepts to play for money against a group of passengers. It looks they're set to be defeated when they're helped by another passenger. The narrator then listen to this man, Dr B, recanters his story: originally from Austria, like the author, Dr B used a stolen book on chess to learn to play the game and used it as mental relief during his imprisonment by the Gestapo. But then chess, turned into an obsession: the game moved from his improvised board to an imagined one and then into his mind only. He started playing both black and white, battling his now self to a game that claimed his physical and mental health.

It’s a fascinating read, no matter the fact I can barely tell a pawn from a knight. What gripped at my soul the most is the description of how something can quickly turn from saving grace to obsession, pushing you to the brink of insanity and perhaps beyond. One could argue that Tetris, a video game, is not the same thing as chess, the Royal Game: true but, as the title of a brilliant documentary suggests, it's the ecstasy of the order. And much more than that.

The sentences Zweig used to describe how the chess matches claim the whole intellect of Dr B rang true to my eyes and ears, as I felt the same for Tetris when in Beijing. I was not in a prison, even though Beijing during the Sars was not (and still isn’t, after it) exactly the poster image of freedom. Yet I felt trapped. Tetris provided me a getaway from a physical prison, but triggered the bars that could and still can shut my brain down.

In due time

This morning I was slowly making my way to work: I didn’t hear the first, second and third alarm clock and when I managed to snooze the 4th one, I was already 30 minutes late for work. I woke up asleep: I got up, but brain decided that no no, I’m going to have a lie-in, come back in half a day, thank you very much.

On the way to work, my 30 minutes slowly but surely growing into a 45 minutes delay, I sat on the metro skimming through my Twitter feed and one tweet caught my eyes: it was a news from an Italian magazine, telling the news of a movie going to be in the theatre very soon.

The thing is I already watched this movie, not in a cinema but on DVD: “Grave of the Fireflies” is a 1988 Japanese move, it has a new dub version and that's the reason why it’s finally coming to Italian theatres. It’s being called an event. In a way it surely is: this movie is almost 30 years old and it’s appearing on the big screen in Italy only now. For two days only.

Either you go on November 10th and 11th to the cinema or you buy the DVD like I did years ago.
Yesterday, after dinner at Eli’s place, we watched “My Neighbour Totoro”: we’re both big fans of Studio Ghibli and I, as per tradition and habit, had to wine about how hard it is in Italy to see a Studio Ghibli movie in the cinema. Or any non-Pixar/American animation for all that matters. It’s not the first time movies by Studio Ghibli are released in Italy as a “1 weekend off deal”: it happened with “The wind rises” and “When Marnie was there” just in the last couple of years.

It just makes me mad. Why? Why? Why!?!? It’s not like people are not interested: the cinema was packed for “When Marnie was there”. And why shouldn’t it be so? Not only it’s a beautiful movie, but when you know that if you miss that weekend you might as well start looking for the DVD, you’re surely going to buy a ticket. This time it’s going to be even harder because they’re releasing the movie during the week, which means everybody working will have to go to the evening show.

Looking at the DVD I’m sorting recently and the films I bought on iTunes, I realised I have been to the cinema only twice in the past 8 months. Why should I? Movies are all dubbed and the choice for the one in original language is sometimes non existent. Films I’m interested in don’t last more than 2 days on the billboard. I get annoyed at people munching popcorn and chips and vacuuming up the drinks… cinema looks more stressful than anything else right now. Yet it might not be enough to keep me from getting a ticket for next week.

Fast Car

I remember lending “The Hare’s Corner” to Barbara.

I remember she gave it back to me and I brought it back to Milan.
I remember it sat in my office desk drawer for quite some time then: I was not in a hurry to bring it back to the flat. In one of my midnight insomnia induced redesign of the living room I had unplugged the DVD reader, the only way I had to listen to CDs. Plus with the music on my iTunes library I didn’t feel the need for it.

I spent about a year without the DVD reader. It was good in a way: in between TV, DTT box, Apple TV, an uncounted number of lightning cables and the plug for the turntable, my living room is a bundle of cables crossing one another in a lovely electric spaghetti nest… Having 2 cable less to deal with made the whole thing look already tidier.

But, on the other side, what if you want to watch a movie you like and you own? Tough. I did re-buy some of the movie on iTunes, but it wasn’t the same thing, especially when I bought “Grand Hotel Budapest” thinking it was in English and it turned out to be only the dubbed Italian version.

While in London I bought a DVD I wanted to watch (more on that another day) and once back, I went and replugged the DVD into the mess.
Tonight I wanted to listen to “Blue Shoes” but, instead of iTunes or Spotify, I thought I could just listen to the CD. I could, if only I remembered where on earth I put it. But even remembering where in my apartment I put it would do, really.

I dived into the search and lost myself in it; I found some DVDs like “To be or not to be”, and “天下无双“ (this movie is hilarious, plus there’s Wang Fei acting in it), 1 bus ticket and some CDs: Fabrizio De Andrè, Wilco and then “Tracy Chapman”.

Ah. The first time I bought "Tracy Chapman", it was on a cassette: I bought it at "Maschio", a music shop that was more than a shop and that I still miss every day. I listened to it so much the tape eventually gave up on me and I was extremely sad about it. I bought one CD then, but left it as a farewell gift to a friend: it felt bitter-sweet and I do hope he still listens to it.
I re-bought it once more the first time I went to China, about the time I found out that even big French supermarket chain sold not-so-legal (read: downright ripped) CDs.
The copy I found tonight has seen all my moves of the past 10 years, with the other CD of hers. I put it on tonight, playing the song in the order I used to like listening to them as a teenager… no wonder the tape self-destroyed! You can't keep fast forwarding, rewinding and switching sides without the poor tape going a little bit bonkers.

I moved to “Collection”, yet another souvenir of Beijing, even though slightly more legal than the previous one I bought there. At the same time, I've kept searching for “The Hare’s corner” while Tracy played: now I got a nice pile of DVDs waiting to be played in the next days and, if I’m lucky, I’ll eventually find some CD to play too.

The etymon of a scarf

The Italian word for “sausage” is salsiccia.
I have to confess I was more than 10 years old when I discovered its correct spelling. Before then, I was convinced the word was salsiccia. It made perfect sense to me: “sal-“ as in sale, meaning “salt” and “-ciccia”, meaning fatty. And what’s a sausage, at the end of the day, but salty fat? When I discovered my mistake, I was puzzled as nobody had ever corrected me, possibly because people found it funny or cute; or maybe they did corrected me, but I didn't pay attention, as usual.

For sure I’m not the only one that made this mistake while growing up, even though I’m not sure how many others felt the need to base their spelling on some etymology ground, no matter how partial and non-sense it was.

When I showed a photo of my ongoing scarf project to my friends, the mistake came back to my mind and I decide to name it “salsiccia”.

I’ve started knitting in at the end of March, at the beginning of my streak of concerts. It’s an easy pattern, the kind you learn after 2 or 3 repeats, not too difficult yet not too plain: perfect for traveling. I was planning to knit a shorter version of it, maybe turn it into a cowl, but then I realized I had no pattern to use the eventual yarn leftover. Also, I don’t wear cowls: I decided to keep knitting. And knitting travel after knitting travel, the scarf reached a considerable length and started creating quite a mess in the project bag I carried it around (ok, the supermarket bag I carried it around).

The solution to me was simple: I just rolled it up and block it with an elastic, and voilà, here’s a salciccia. Ok, the original name of the pattern, “Foreign Correspondent’s Scarf” is far more elegant and suggestive, but, really, at the moment the scarf doesn’t resemble much more than a badly spelled sausage!

This gift

This gift will last forever
This gift will never let you down
Some things are made from better stuff
This gift is waiting to be found

Last week, while in London, I went to Glen Hansard’s gig. It was the last concert of his European tour and to me it was a way to balance the fact I missed the concert in Milan: I can’t understand this nasty habit of everyday life’s duties, such as work, to interfeer with my concerts schedule.

Despite my never-ending wonder at how drunk Brits can get, not just in general, but specifically at a concert, and how people can be more interested at their phone displays rather than watching the concert (yeah, I’m talking to you, blonde on the 3rd row that spent good part of the concert blinding me with the display of your iPhone: from where I was standing I could see that you’re truly into Facebook, but please pretty please dim the brightness of the screen, ifs), I loved the gig.

The setlist was a cool mix: a bit from the old album, a bit of the Swell Season, tracks from the new LP, one cover by Songs: Ohia and one by the Interference.
Towards the end of the concert I got a little bit blue: if a concert is really good, then there’s a moment, shortly before the encore, when I wish that it never ends. I wish we were trapped in a pocket in the fabric of time and space and we could be listening to music forever and ever.
Sadly, encore arrives, if you’re lucky you get a second encore as well, but then lights are on and you’re out, making your way to the train station.
The best way to deal with this kind of sweet sadness is to think about how beautiful the night have been and about more beautiful nights ahead.

It’s the same way I feel in the days after I return from a travel: I’m happy, my eyes full of wonder and memories, but also sad and with a longing to leave again. The best way to deal with it is to postpone the sorting of the photographs and plan the next travel.

With concerts I do pretty much the same: after I've been to one, I think of the concerts I already got tickets for and about the ones I hope to go to. Last week, sitting on the Hammersmith line, my mind was split between images of the concert I just saw and vague hopes for the ones that I'll go and see very soon.
In the last year travels and concerts have often gone hand in hand. They become my perfect getaway from all the things that are not really working as they should.
It's nice to visit a place and return home with a soundtrack in the mind and not only with pictures that I won't sort out but will rather dump in a random external hard drive anyway.

Instead of overthinking what doesn’t work I’ve decided to not care about it for the time being, or at least try to do so.
I try to not dwell too much on life and get an headache because of my inability at fixing my problems, but let stuff go with the flow: every travel I do, concert I attend, play I watch is a small gift I allow myself for having not given up so far.
Sometimes in order to enjoy my gift, there are some small price to pay, such as traveling with Ryanair after having managed to avoid it for almost 8 years: I got nightmares by simply recalling their lottery ads on board, but I still got a bit more of month to get used to the idea.

Friends. Gifts.

There are moments when I just hate being me.
Like early Monday morning, around 6:15 a.m. : I know the alarm clock is set for an early hour, earlier than usual, and I know I can't snooze it. I got a train to catch, so I can’t really turn around with the risk of missing my ride back to Milan.
That's why I try to go to bed early on Sunday evening. Try being the keyword as I miserably fail each single time and end up going to bed late, grumbling about being grumpy the morning after.

Then why, oh why, do I end up waking before the alarm clock?
Should I compliment my inner clock for being so proactive?!?
I check the time on the phone on the nightstand.
Still 15 minutes to go before I'm supposed to be up.

"Go back to sleep" I say to myself.
"No... It's late for falling back asleep. I'm up! I'm up rise and shine!!! I'm uuuuup!" Myself has I-take-no-order-from-anybody-not-even-myself attitude.
“Go. Back. To. Sleep.” I order myself.
“Lalalalalalala I’m not listening!” Myself is obviously quite an anarchic git.

This morning, as I was trying to force some extra minute of rest on my body (you'll thank me later, body), myself decided we had enough sleep and we should wake up: that’s the moment I started hearing something.
No, not voices: it was way too early even for schizophrenia to kick in, even though it’s never too early for some pluralis majestatis.
Was it a piano perhaps? Some chords... Yeah familiar chords, but I could not place them.

It was annoying: it woke me way before the alarm clock. I dig through the mess in my head, but couldn’t place it. The tune grew louder and clearer and by the time I locked the door behind me and started my walk to the station, the fog started rising.
I swiped my ticket at the metro entrance and I’m smiling because now the song is clear in my head: I can hear the melody, the words, the backup vocals.
I know the song, few taps on the phone and it’s not playing just in my head but on my headset too.
Like many Monday morning before, I’m sad and upset. I’m maybe a bit more down than usual, as the weekend has been so nice, lovely and serendipitous, the kind of weekend you wish it never ends. And yet it did end and what’s ahead of me is not so nice or lovely (I don’t think serendipity applies to Milan somehow).

And while the song kept playing on repeat, I stopped thinking about the train I had to take, the appointments ahead and just smiled at the memories of the last 48 hours.
It was a quiet weekend, family, friends and nap in between; I met new friends, new friends almost getting into a fight with an asthmatic dog; I met friends I planned to meet and friends I stumbled upon while crossing the road.

Sometimes I tell myself I should call or text a friend and 9 times out of 10 I don’t. I’m not sure why: surrounded and immersed into communication tools as I am on a daily basis, it shouldn’t be such a tough thing to do. Sometimes I got a desk with more iPad and iPhones than fingers on my hand, it shouldn't be such a task. Yet, most of times, I end up postponing calling people (so I don’t bother them), up to the point it’s too late in the night and I might as well do it tomorrow.

Some of my friendships languished and later died this way; on the other hand I believe it was their fate, they were not real enough, or maybe they were just one-sided, unrequited friendship. Just like love, being in a friendship means both parties have to work and care enough to keep it alive.

But for those 9 out of 10 dead ends, there’s still that remaining 1 and it compensates for all of them. That 1 doesn’t care how many months go by before we talk to or see one another: in the moment we meet again, it feels we just spoke one hour before and for all the thing that changed around us, our friendship didn’t. Or, if it did, it improved.

It’s quite awesome, isn’t it? For all the negative things that surround me, it’s an amazing feeling, to know I’m lucky to have such great friends. The trick is to remember about such luck: it’s so easy and dangerous to focus on all the bad stuff. Maybe because they’re more, but somehow the notion I got awesome friends fall too easily into the background.
I'm grateful for those friends, and I know it sounds cheesy, especially coming from somebody like me. A lifetime long education in stoic behaviours makes expressing gratitude and heartfelt emotions a tough, awkward experience. To say I feel happy, lucky, touched by having such great friends sounds weird, yet true to my ear.

And I should remind myself more often: breathing becomes easier after.
And in case you were wondering about the song… it was by Glen Hansard (who else?)

on Sunday

The best season to be in Torino is Autumn to me.
It's at its brightest and best.
Sure, bad weather is approaching, days are getting shorter and shorter, temperatures are dropping and it rains more often than not.
Yet after the rain has cleared, there are days like yesterday that are simply amazing.
Nothing special or awesome happens.
It's just another Sunday, nothing big. But the sky is blue after the rain, the air is crisp and it sparlkles with promises of better things to come. And it doesn’t matter that I know already thatn nothing better is truly coming, the promise of it is enough to be content.

Above all the light is amazing.
It shines down on the Mole and makes it look even bigger.
It envelopes the old buildings and makes them look lighter.
The Gran Madre church and the hill on the other side of the Po look so bright and beautiful.

You don’t need to do much to feel at peace, even if only temporarily: sit down for a coffee somewhere in the city center, slowly make your way back to the bus stop while perusing the used book stands.

Look up, breath deep and try to remember this feeling on Monday morning too.