workspace |noun| a space in which to work

Da Vinci said an artist’s studio should be a small space. Small rooms discipline the mind; large ones distract it, he said. What, oh what, would Leo say of our Digital Age where the internet makes artists studios potentially boundless? I guess it doesn’t matter – everyone knows he was full of crap anyway.

Every writer seems to have an opinion on the matter. Raymond Carver retracted an earlier statement in which he said where you live doesn’t affect your writing. Martin Amis recently said a writer should be able to write from inside a Tupperware. (OK, what he actually said was “It doesn’t matter where you are. The room where you write is a hermetically sealed world. It doesn’t really interact with what’s out there.”) Although my sass-bone is tickled by Leo’s inability to retort, I am significantly more subdued when it comes to Martin Amis. After all, he’s an accomplished writer – I’m a nobody. I suspect he could obliterate me from the face of the literary planet with the thought of a sneeze and Carver isn’t around to defend me anymore.

In any case, my current obsession with artistic workspaces is all Annie Liebovitz’s fault. A few years ago, I saw an exhibit of hers at London’s Hamilton Gallery called “Pilgrimage” in which she photographed artistic workspaces (or props) of the likes of Emily Dickinson, Martha Graham and Georgia O’Keefe. (I recall this day with reluctance. It was also the day I was accosted mid-Mayfair by a choir of dead turkeys. It was Christmas and it was all deeply wounding.) Anyway, the photographs completely reeled me in. I realized that, even before falling into bed with writing, I had always been attracted to spaces of artistic creation. Magnetically. So now that the Writing Times have dawned for me, the search for my own creative workspace feels a little like – well – mattress shopping.

What do we look for in our artistic workspaces – those delivery rooms of our personal art? Clearly, the answer is just that – personal. Given my itinerant dynamic this year, I don’t get to inhabit my workspaces for long, which is too bad because the Design Library here in Milan has certainly grown on me. Instead, I’ve heavily invested in my portable spaces – my notebooks, my detachable mood walls, my virtual creative spaces (Facebook, Pintrest, this blog). And, rather than being planned and selected, I get the feeling that creative workspaces accumulate around us much in the same way fossils are formed. But, then again, what do I know – I’m full of crap too.

Be that as it may, I decided to indulge my obsession by pounding the pavement and visiting a few emblematic workspaces in this incredibly creative city. I soon realized that the transition from internet voyeur to actual visitor would require real stamina, unflinching patience and exceptional bureaucratic persistence. Oh, the Milanese and their eternally locked doors!

Ansaldo Workshop – fairy painter at work

Stop no. 1: Long gone are the days in which railroad tracks and carriages were built at the Ansaldo Workshops – a stone’s throw from my loft. Now, these monumental warehouses are the scenery and costume hub for the La Scala opera house.

On your visit, you’ll get the feeling of stumbling into an orderly playroom for giants, where fairy welders, painters, sculptors, carpenters and seamstresses perform their magic with a quasi-religious respect for tradition. From the height of a suspended walkway, you get an amazing view of enormous canvases rolled out onto the floor, over which artisans labor standing-up. (Everyone seems to be working in their pajamas – aka, their blue La Scala overalls – which makes me and my little Peter Pan complex think why stop there? Why not work in harnesses hung from the ceiling from which you can swing to and fro while listening to arias – an operatic Cirque du Soleil?) Anyway, this privileged angle allows you to zoom in and out on the whimsical scene. Zoom into the particular and you’ll find the lone artist that uses what looks like a refined broom to add color to a canvas or the sketcher that creates carefully measured lines with charcoal extended on a stick and a giant ruler. Zoom out and you will quite literally see the big picture: the set for next season’s main production.

Despite my lack of craftiness (in the sense of these people anyway), what I wouldn’t do for a little corner from which to write! Each morning, I’d high-five welder and sketcher alike en route to my throne (a leftover prop). I’m pretty sure I’d get snubbed by the seamstresses – Mean-Mommy Elephant-from-Dumbo complex. As far as pathologies go, I prefer my own.

The Designers – Castiglioni, Magistretti, Zanuso, Sottsass (from left to right)

Stop no. 2: The studio of the famous 20^th century designer Achille Castiglioni next to Castello Sforzesco is a place brimming with stories. (If you walk into the Flos flagstore near San Babila, half of what you’ll see was designed by Castiglioni decades ago and is still incredibly modern.) If Ansaldo is a giant’s playroom, this place is a child’s treasure chest. Every corner of it is filled with prototypes, postcards, knick-knacks, toys, props (a bag of which he often took with him to the university where he taught design), old radios, bicycle seats, sculptures made out of cigarette packets, ordinary wicker rug dusters, laboratory flasks, film reel, a Swiss milkman’s seat, masks, copper cake tins, a maquette made out of Parmesan cheese… everything fodder for Castiglioni’s creative mind and everything with a story attached. To give but two examples, the cake tins were “borrowed” from friend’s houses and later inspired a hat for a Domus magazine competition. Makes me wonder about my own friends – not a cake tin among the bunch. The cheese maquette is actually Castiglioni’s final project for his undergraduate degree: a model for a fascist’s house. I’d say his feelings about the task were quite clearly conveyed in his chosen material. (And let’s not forget we’re talking about the economically depressed Italy of the 1940’s, where the cost of that amount of cheese is not entirely negligible.)

Another thing that caught my eye was a beautiful black and white photograph of Castiglioni, Magistretti, Zanuso and Sottsass. They were all great Italian designers of their time and were close friends. So much so, that to visit their studios is to find each other’s work in them. In the picture, they are old men, but their faces are full of playfulness – a joie de vivre present in their work. I somehow feel like they wouldn’t have been as creative or happy outside of this friendship.

Castiglioni’s meeting room is my favorite in the studio. In it, you find a great big table with an enormous ashtray and a variety of chairs around it. Some were designed by him, others were not – they’re there because they’re good design. Not surprisingly, each tells a story – the one designed to make the sitter sit straight and named after his wife Irma, the “telephone chair” (Sella) which is uncomfortable as an invitation to make calls brief.

When my days of nomadic living come to an end, I’d love to replicate this tutti-frutti chair philosophy to lamps – I’ll call it my lamp bouquet. A tradition, I’ll admit, I’ve already begun, as you’ll see…

Portaluppi’s Museo del Novecento seen from the Duomo rooftops

Stop no. 3: In addition to Villa Necchi-Campiglio (starred a few posts back), Piero Portaluppi, a very quirky 20^th century Milanese architect, also designed the Museo del Novecento building… which I have in full view… from the Duomo rooftops… from which I am writing these very words…

When I walked into the elegant bright green marble entrance of Portaluppi’s former architecture studio (with beautiful bronze lettering), the silence intimated me. I knew it wasn’t usually open to visitors, but I didn’t realize I would be the only one there – along with the person who kindly opened the proverbial and literal door to the place. Over the phone, I’d told him I was a writer – not an architect – and that I was interested in stories. Stop by, he’d said. I have plenty of those and indeed he did.

Portaluppi’s style is functional, geometric. Ornamentation is used sparingly, but is intense when present, as are his materials – the richest woods, the most beautifully hued marbles, wonderfully intricate polished mosaic floors. My host showed me exquisite furniture designed by Portaluppi for his personal use or that of his architectural clients. They are full of hidden compartments and sliding sets of drawers. To reproduce them today would be prohibitive. Alas, the world would be a better place if only we could get a few Russian oligarchs interested in this, instead of easily identifiable Cattelans and Emins.

This was, however, a man with some seriously weird habits. In gloved hands, my host pulled out an über detailed personal accounts ledger where even a tailor’s debt left by his son killed in the Second World War was recorded. And do you know how much you spent last year on hats? Nothing, however, tops the notebook where the young Portaluppi painstakingly recorded… the volume of milk consumed in a year, the amount of minutes spent riding his bike, the quantity of correspondence exchanged with male friends vs. ladies vs. “babes” – all this data compiled in beautifully painted watercolors. Quirky doesn’t begin to describe this guy, but one thing is certain – I find him beautiful in the details.

Eclisse and the author

Stop no. 4 (fourth and final): I don’t care what the laws of physics say, sand does go through the hour glass faster towards the end – so I wasn’t sure I would find time to visit Vico Magistretti’s studio at the end of my Milanese days. But one day, I found myself at its door. An extraordinarily kind girl (incidentally, Magistretti’s granddaughter whose childhood portrait hangs discreetly in a corner) again gave me an earful of stories – how if Magistretti could have invented anything, it would have been the umbrella, how his faithful basset hound died of old age so he named the lamp he was working on after him (Dalù), how he acknowledges that we feel affection towards objects because they tell our story. To hear these stories is to love Magistretti and to want to own “a piece of him”, to be a part of this community.

The studio is presently compiling a virtual scrapbook, where owners of bought, gifted, won or found Magistretti design objects are invited to send in a picture of it with a short account of it’s story in their lives. Here is what I sent in for my Eclisse lamp:

“This year I am on an adventure. I can only take with me what fits in my tiny car and tiny budget – already full of books, husband and dog.

But I so wanted my first Magistretti! Yesterday I went out and bought the smallest one…

‘Ciao, Eclisse. How would you like a life together?’”

This little lamp will begin by telling the story of this year – much like this blog – and will maybe then tell the story of Luis’ first sports job and my first publication… here’s hoping! For now, it represents our future – a story told in the future tense.

conquest |noun| the subjugation and assumption of control of a place or people by use of military force

“Hello. I’d like a quote for a sky writing message, please.”
“How many letters?”
“Let me see. I-W-E-N-T-T-O-L-A-S-C-A-L-A. That’s 14 letters.”

Would that be overkill? Sorry, no matter how understandable my enthusiasm. More planning went into this little expedition than bringing my dog Botox into the UK or pulling together an offering memorandum – those horrible volumes I used to write before I learned words had souls. I feel like some sort of celebration is warranted. But first, let’s retrace our steps through a little technique we writers like to call a flashback.

(Note to self: One day, I’d like to open a creative writing themed bar. I’ll call it Love Letters. I’ll serve cocktails with names like Plot, Conflict, Teenage Skaz, Magic Realism and Metafiction. “I’d like an Interior Monologue please.” The waiters can dress-up like their favorite writers, but only one person can be Hemingway at any given time. What should go into a Flashback cocktail, I wonder? Besides gin, obviously.)

As if foreshadowing difficulties to come, I began a La Scala expedition journal even before arriving in Milan. It is a brave account of the countless initiatives taken in procuring suitably angled seats for a ballet at the emblematic Milanese opera house – from tapping Italian secret agents, to hacking attempts; from dawn raids, to anonymous blackmail. Having been ultimately successful in my endeavors, I feel I owe it to art lovers everywhere to impart my hard-earned sagacity to them. This is my legacy.

What you wear to La Scala is your own call. My advice concerns your outfit when venturing to the box offices – a crucial issue that is often overlooked and is, to my mind, the origin of so many ill-fated encounters with the Scalonians. (You know, the terse bellicose peoples that inhabit the La Scala box offices.) So here goes.

Wear urban safari clothes. In the savannah, you’d wear a khaki colored get-up to blend into the shrubs, right? In this case, the goal is to make yourself a blank slate, so the Scalonians on the other side of the glass can glean from your appearance as little information as possible. We’re going all black, baby. The type of fabric is a question of personal taste, but remember discretion is key (aka, keep vinyl and fur to a minimum, you kinky little vixens).

Wear a red clown nose. The Scalonians are a fierce people. They speak a language of grunts and evil looks. You will not be able to avoid this no matter what language you speak, no matter how incandescent your smile, no matter how generous you décolletage. Best to shift around the power balance by wearing the nose – it is very difficult to manhandle someone who looks that stupid.

Take a compass and a sextant (which is not a sex toy, for all you ignoramuses out there). The Scalonians live in two colonies they call “box offices”. One is buried deep within the Duomo tube station and is protected by a Labyrinth wherein roams – you guessed it – a Minotaur. Basically, this guy is a retired opera singer wearing a leftover prop, but the bastard can run like hell and he will run after you so – and this is my next point – wear comfortable running shoes. Use your compass to keep yourself orientated. Keep hydrated. If you have a spare Taser gun, it wouldn’t hurt to bring that either. As for the second colony, it’s accessible only during the brief moments of dusk… on the days that the moon is in the third quadrant… and Jupiter and Mars are aligned… thus the sextant.

Some theorize the Scalonians have a Bat Cave complex. In my humble opinion, this thesis is not without merit. Why else would they make their colonies so cavernous? Why else would they envelope their day ticket practices in such senseless mystery? Why else would they so ardently try to keep us from prying deeper behind the glamour of the opera house, as if Wayne Manor it were? And just like Bruce Wayne, the Scalonian leaders make rare appearances at global performing arts networking events  – or so I’ve been told. So there are two ways in which you can go about this. You can either wear a bat mask, as a sign that you recognize and pay homage to their leader. Or you can make a bat signal by taping a cut-out bat symbol to the head of your flashlight. Once you’ve slaughtered the Minotaur, put on the red nose and breached the threshold of the colony, take the bat signal and flash S.O.S. in Morse code on the ceiling. Either way, you should be home free.

As you may have gathered, you will me covering a lot of mileage here, so bring plenty of snacks, toilet paper and an extra pair of underwear. If you tend to get disoriented from extended periods in the darkness, a glow in the dark watch is highly recommended. If you tend to get scared, bring your teddy bear (just make sure he/she is also wearing a red nose and bat mask).

If you’ve done all that and your organs and limbs are intact and teddy is OK too, you tell me who deserves the clapping, the roses, the skywriting – the pampered divas on stage… or you?! The Scalonians will be slow to recognize defeat, but –worst case scenario – I can always offer you a Flashback cocktail at my new bar. We can decide together what other ingredients should go into it. Besides gin, obviously.

Epilogue:

We made it in the end. Our prize was Notre Dame de Paris with Roberto Bolle (whose Youtube videos I had scoured while in Leicester to research a story I was working on). We paid through our red clown noses for them, but our seats were fabulous, as was the performance – Bolle’s flawless body dancing the role of the hunchback, Yves Saint Laurent costumes (with lots of hyperbolic hats), incredible cathedral façade (complete with enormous sloshing bell).

Before the caped-crusader-wanna-bees led us to our seats (unlocking the door to our box – yet another Milanese barrier), we took a photograph of an old dressed-up German couple in the foyer with their clunky camera. They were almost as cute as the little girl that twirled her way around the predictably elegant fashionista crowd. She nearly knocked down a lady wearing her vintage Dior clearly not because vintage is in, but because she’d bought it decades earlier and still liked it – kudos!

I do wish we had taken Botox though. He would have felt right as home with the amount of injectables abounding. I felt like warning the little girl prancing around in her black dress: Look around you, child! There is a lesson to be learned here about the dangers of plastic surgery. Aesop or the Brothers Grimm have nothing on this!

Villa Necchi Campiglio, Milano (They may vaguely remember me if you mention a girl with an orange bag that tried to lock herself into the upstairs bathroom with a Martini bottle.)

style |noun|fashionable elegance

A few good reasons to go to Villa Necchi Campiglio (near Porta Venezia): (a) you want to know how the other half lives, (b) you are the other half and miss the lavish lifestyle, (c) your girlfriend/parents are in town and you don’t want them to think you booze all day when they’re not around (which we know you do), (d) you love architecture, design, the 1950’s and period houses, (e) you love wearing vintage clothes and time traveling, (f) if Don Draper were an Italian industrialist, he would live here, (g) it looks like a Martini ad, it feels like a Martini ad, the black marble bathroom IS a Martini ad, (h) the guides are really nice and will tell you about a secret tunnel (if you ask in a hushed voice), (i) it’s totally “Upstairs Downstairs” Italian-style, (j) they let you peak in the closets, (k) they let you try on the vintage Chanel (I’m totally lying – they most certainly do not), (l) they have an entire closet with only HAT BOXES!!!, (m) royalty like totally stayed there – a lot, (n) it has a Dr. Seuss themed flowerbed, (o) you just bought a 1950’s one-piece that would accessorize the pool really well, (p) for a special price, you’ll offer to sunbathe by the pool and talk like Sophia Loren, (q) no green and yellow here, but lots of sage and ochre, (r) Portaluppi, Portaluppi, Portaluppi (really difficult to say quickly, and yet it’s the genius architect’s name), (s) the ladies of the house loved cats and supposedly had a tree cut down because the cat wouldn’t come down (which somehow doesn’t sound very nice for the cat – I like it!), (t) they have male models walking around doing fashion shoots (with a look saying “I’m not just stylishly leaning against these books, I’ve actually read them… their covers, I mean”), (u) the foyer looks like the inside of a liquor cabinet (when they were still called liquor cabinets), (v) the doors would inspire fabulous jewelry, the ceilings fabulous sock patterns, there is a totally random star shaped window in a second floor corner of the building that looks into a bathroom and is totally out of context with the rest of the carefully designed building (yet the guide resolutely denies it has any symbolic or political meaning), (x) it has a Conservatory like in Clue (the board game) where Ms. Scarlet could kill Colonel Mustard with a dagger on the Portaluppi lapis lazuli table, (y) it is scientifically impossible to walk through the brass & glass opus of an entrance without flicking your hair back (even if you have none) – I dare you – try it and (z) MVB suggested it and she’s never steered you wrong before.

(This post is for my ever fashionable friend Melanie – the Miu Miu kitten says Meow Meow.)

culture |noun| the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively

I was in second grade when I was quarantined at home for a month with the chicken pox. My teacher Mrs. Marosay (who also called me MMM for Mariana Motor Mouth) had my brother bring me home some books to better pass the time. Among the pile was my first poetry book – The New Kid on the Block by Jack Prelutsky. A dozen of those poems are still ingrained in my memory to this day. I could also tell you about the first time I fell in love with a museum… (we were at the Uffizi in Florence, I was 11). The first time I cried in a movie… (it was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, I was 4). Or my first love affair with dance or theatre.

If prodded, my husband Luís would tell you similar stories from his initiation to the world of sport. At 10, his father took him to see Benfica at the stadium for the first time. Sick of sitting in his seat, the rambunctious youngster took to running about the aisles when a sudden roar from the crowd told him Benfica had scored. He ran to his dad asking for the replay – alas, the days before jumbo screens!

As you can see, in our household live two very different people. No one would have ever put us together if we hadn’t stumbled upon each other 8 years ago now. But although different passions fuel us, you could say that we drive side by side in parallel lines. Every once in a while, I’ll pull him into my car (for a trip to La Scala or the Royal Court Theatre), every once in a while he’ll pull me into his (for a Champions League or a Premier League match). The platform from which we share in each other’s interests may be small, but it is one that I take great pleasure in. It’s an opportunity to enter a new world – and a fascinating one at that!

I’ve always enjoyed playing sports, but my interest in it mostly stops there. This year, however, I feel like sport deserves that I give it some Aretha-style R.E.S.P.E.C.T. After all, it is largely due to Luis’ head dive into the world of sport that I get to write full-time – something for which I am incredibly thankful.  In addition, his professional shift will most likely have a permanent impact on our life together – and my interest in him, makes me very interested in the force that catalyzes that: namely, L.O.V.E. And I don’t mean his love for me. I mean his love for sport. So for this year, I decided to sit in his passenger seat for longer spells.

True to form, I have been to quite a few live sporting events with the FIFA-folk. Leicester brought me football and rugby. Milan so far has added volleyball and basketball to the list. Not to mention the seemingly eeeeendless hours in pubs watching football (out with the screen-corner pint glass, in with the Martini cocktail glass). With few exceptions, televised sport leaves me looking for split ends. But the immediacy of live sport is an entirely different story. To go to the Olympics in London, to see a Lega Calcio match live, even to see Luís play football with the FIFA-folk is infinitely more engaging for me. (A few months ago I saw a discussion board at the newly opened Tanks of the Tate Modern London that asked “Does live art have to be experienced live?” This just goes to show that the “live vs. televised” debate is not unique to sport, although I can’t imagine a field where it stirs quite as much interest – be that intellectual, emotional, legal or monetary.)

But of all the sporting events, football is queen. This week, Luís took me to see AC Milan – Barcelona at San Siro. The physical act of going to this stadium is quite the metaphor for life in Italy – beautiful from a distance, a frustrating mess as you’re coming into it, but wonderful once you’re there (as long as your patience doesn’t run out – Italians have a penchant for trouble). Despite my mild interest, it is impossible not to feel awe-struck by the whole thing. What is monumental about it is not just the vast amount of mid-city open space, but the palpable tension that encloses it. Any wrong move by those very talented young gladiators (oh, I mean footballers) and they set off a chain reaction of compressed springs. Or have you never heard the sound of 80,000 people whistling in protest? It’ll make your neck sink into your shoulders! Add to that the smell of pot, the solemn Champions League hymn, the twinkling flashes, the opening banner covering various rings of the stadium, the constant cheering… (and jeering) and you have a veritable bombardment of the senses.

Being the profoundly creative place it is, Italy intermingles the arts and sport with revealing spontaneity. Giorgio Armani sponsors the Milanese basketball team (which is very nice of him given the literally gargantuan task of suiting those boys up), Dolce & Gabanna does boxing (must be the propensity towards shiny fabrics) and San Siro describes itself as “La Scala dello calico” (the opera house of football). Not only is this ingenious, it also exposes the driving forces of Italian culture – yes, because a Scottish FIFA-friend once pointed out that, just like the arts, sport is culture. So to be fair – because I do love them – maybe I should add dynamism to the generalizations that I make about Italians!

Yet for all of my acquired openness to the sports world, I hear it from a different volume than my more enamored neighbors (hubby included). I don’t have a readily accessible database of sport statistics, I don’t have a drawer full of jerseys and I don’t have a collection of football-themed jewelry. I guess it’s a little like explaining what music feels like to someone who is deaf. But their perceptions intrigue me and people have been very gracious when I ask to be reminded where Messi is from, what off-sides is again and why so-and-so got a card. (Damned if I can tell!). In proportion to my unfamiliarity, my obtuse angle also frees me up to gather all sorts of wonderful imagery – the scrum that looks like a giant Kafkian tarantula making it’s way stealthily across a line, the rugby line-out that pretty faithfully replicates a typical lift in classical ballet (with only slightly less elegant ballerinas) or the father and son, all three of which wear matching Leicester Tiger jerseys (the third element being a stuffed Tigger sporting a carefully knit version of the established attire).

One thing I’m certain of, sport is a powerful thing. It’s ability to bind or splinter, to crush or exult, to challenge and teach truly important life lessons, never ceases to amaze me (or imprint upon me the weighty responsibility of those active in this field). And for all my lack of technical knowledge or spontaneous interest, it is a pleasure and privilege to be able to live sport in this way, for this year, with these people – most of all, with Luis. And I know who my number one fan is too. I don’t need him to understand the in’s and out’s of my field or to even particularly like them. He likes me. That’s enough. Each is running his own race here – but the finish line, we’ll cross that one together.

Gadget fidgeting – Parco Solari (FYI – Botox looks like a mini-polar bear in the snow!)

writing |verb| the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper 

Milan is melting like a giant popsicle. The big fluffy flakes made their first appearance Monday morning and by Tuesday night were already dripping away. It was short-lived, but for a few days this cavernous city was almost kind.

Snowstorms made fairly regular stops in Washington D.C. (where I grew up), so why the excitement? It’s cold, it’s wet, it makes doing virtually anything a Japanese obstacle course. And, importantly, it makes us wear really unattractive clothes – like a little nation of Michelin men. So what is it about a snow snooze that makes us feel like Christmas has landed on our doorstep out of hours?

We were up in Madonna di Campiglio last weekend for some skiing with a Dutch FIFA-friend. True to his origins, he was impossible to miss in his bright orange jacket. This proved to be a strategic advantage, given my (ahem) meditative skiing style. No matter how many adjectives I can come up with – and I’m a writer now, so I can come up with a lot – now matter how many photo uploads to Facebook, nothing comes close to capturing what it feels like to be up on that mountain. (And that’s not just because it was a sunny -10º C.) To pop off a ski lift and find myself on the edge of that immense space, is truly something. It’s not a conversation I care to rush. Out of the gently groaning expanse, something assures me that, although infinitely small in the universe, I am looked after to the most infinitesimal detail of my existence. Now I’m ready to swish my way down into the scenery. And by now, as you can imagine, the speed-demon Dutchman is long gone – so thank God for his bright orange jacket.

On our way back down to Milan, I found myself craving one of my childhood snowstorms – the ones that, in one fell swoop, erased any other plans you might have had and sentenced you to a day of building snowmen, drinking hot cocoa and having lots of buttery toast. I was soon to find out what a grown-up version of me would do in the same circumstances.

The lockdown from the snowstorm was more self-imposed than actually necessary. This was a watered down version of a storm at best, and yet nonetheless effective in throwing me into a creative maelstrom. When I caught sight of the first flakes on Monday morning, I thought this would be the perfect excuse to enter a writing competition that ended in 4 days. It was an ambitious project – I had 4 days to write, re-write and review an entirely new short story with a rather complicated plot line. This was going to take time, it was going to take dedication and it was going to take a tub-load of tea. (Depending on how things went, I might need some vodka as well.) Whenever I got into a tiff with my stubborn characters, I’d stretch my legs over by the window and watch the snow accumulate on the electric cables, on the cars below, on the towel plopped on the floor of the balcony across from mine ever since I moved in. (Incidentally, that’s the model’s apartment I’ve mentioned before – naughty, messy models!)

By the end of the day, I’d written my fingers to the stub and my head into an overheated fuzz fest. I desperately needed some airing, so I went with Luis to walk Botox in the park. From every corner, you could hear dogs howling with pleasure as snow swirled down thickly. Around a pop-up carousel, Botox frolicked in the snow banks like a bunny rabbit. He was enchanted by the refreshing lickability of this white substance from the heavens and was weirdly enthusiastic about peeing in the stuff. I kept trying to capture the Willy Wonka scene with my Blackberry until I realized that, again, nothing would come close to communicating how magical it all felt. So I stopped fidgeting with gadgets, and just felt thankful.

Some days have since passed and I’ve submitted my story to the competition. My writing books tell me that rejection is a fact of writing life. I figure, if that’s the case, than I better get cracking – better move along and get this first piece in so that the “yes” piece, can make it’s way up the line. The editor Ted Solotaroff wrote an easy fittingly entitled “Writing in the Cold” where he says “Rejection along with uncertainty are as much a part of the writer’s life as snow and cold are of an Eskimo’s: they are conditions one has to learn to live with, but also learn to make use of…” He calls on us to persist – because this is a truly daunting task. We are trying to encapsulate in words the impish, the impossible and the impactful elements that can make our existence magical.

A young Ernest Hemingway’s passport photograph

creativity |noun| the use of the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work

I had visitors – that’s why I’ve been cybernetically silent. There were pressing issues. I was busy enjoying their company. I was busy scandalously ritualizing early afternoon Aperol Sours in the sun-baked window of a worn-in (rather than -out) cult bar in Brera. I’m not secretive – I’ll tell. I was busy mixing with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Lucio Fontana in Bar Jamaica (or Giamaica, as it used to be spelled). The smoke was a bit thick from all of the time-warping, so I’m not sure if I got the Hemingway that was recovering in a Milanese hospital from his World War I injuries or the one painfully reminiscing about the nurse who broke his heart during that time. (And thus, from pain, A Farewell to Arms was born. Ernie heartily agreed with my “embrace your scars” mantra. “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places,” he self-quoted. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get matching tattoos across the street.”) Patrons tend to pay their bills now at Bar Jamaica, although that was not always the case. Their list of famous moochers is headed off by non-other than a certain dictator whose name starts with an M, ends with a –lini and has a –usso in the middle.

I’ve found it’s the older places I like the best. In these, the walls and heavily varnished furniture have absorbed decades of conversation – like the tavern-owner in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities that keeps records of the revolutionary clientele’s conversations in her constant, encoded knitting.

An amusingly snooty guidebook I bought when I arrived in Milan mentioned a neighbor of Bar Jamaica’s – the Marc Jacobs Café in Piazza del Carmine. Don’t get me wrong, if anyone at Marc Jacob’s wants to send me the Hayley stripe dress (size 0), I won’t complain. But that bait would be very necessary to get me to sit at one of those tables during aperitivo hours. Bar Jamaica is to that kind of place, what Hemingway’s devastatingly good looks are to Donatella Versace’s plastic surgery binge – nothing about tormented beauty, all about tormented self-worth. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, if Hemingway’s face is his autobiography, Donatella’s is her work of fiction.

Give me middle-age men drinking Campari mid-morning, give me yocos (young cosmopolitans) drumming away at their MacBooks, give me fur-clad ladies drinking matching colored tea with slices of lemon, give me waiters in bow ties and I’ll give you a kiss, because that means you’ve brought me to Caffé Cucchi – another favorite! Working our way through marocchinos, I vented to my visitors yesterday that Milan can be exasperatingly secretive. There are all of these decadently frescoed rooms to visit (but only when there happens to be an exhibit going on), all of these fabulous art collections (but by appointment only), innovative private galleries (lodged in interior courtyards behind forbidding wrought iron gates), intriguing shops (where you need to be buzzed in), wonderful conferences and libraries (for members only). There are world-renown cultural experiences to be had (such as Da Vinci’s Last Supper or a performance at La Scala), but only following gargantuan planning. (Thank goodness at least Michelangelo’s Pietá Rondanini at the Castelo Sforzesco is easier to chat with.)

This week, for instance, I was on my way to pick up my friends at their hotel, when something familiar stopped me dead in my tracks. What was this I saw out of the corner of my eye (through a crack in a gate, across a misty quadrangle, under a sputtering streetlight)? The La Scala logo denounced, a mere stone’s throw from my loft, the location of the Ansaldo Workshop – where I have been trying to book a visit for some time now. From the clues I pieced together à la Hercule Poirot, the decrepit industrial titan bearing this badge appears to be not only where the theater’s costumes and sets are made, but also a buzzing cultural center for new artists under the name Officina Creativa Ansaldo. But I guess Time Out has never heard about it, since their site has no mention of it. (Actually, I’m convinced their pulse of the city is taken telepathically.) Even the Daily Secret folk – who take seriously the art of discovering a city’s hidden in’s and out’s – don’t seem to have an active operation in Milan. Are they, just like me, having trouble cracking this nut open? Is the Milanese culture set convinced that secretiveness is the only thing that will keep us tuned-in? Isn’t content more to the point? I find this a suspicious strategy, but maybe I am tormented as well.

Matisse said that creativity takes courage. My take is that the creative process does not exhaust itself only in the making, but also in the giving.

World War II air raid shelter sign (Viale Enrico Martini 15, Milano) – From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/giorgiobranca/5430990582/

scar |noun| : a mark left (as in the skin) by the healing of injured tissue

For all the flash and splash of Milan, for all the updated impersonations of Truman Capote’s Holly Golighty (with their studied airs of “effortless” elegance and their dictatorial attitudes about lifestyle trends), I know there’s more than meets the eye. I know, because I’ve seen Milan’s scars. Shall we go for a stroll, reader? Please wear comfortable shoes, you’ll need to keep up!

For a street as carefully manicured as Via della Spiga – inhabited by such rowdy tenants as Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and Armani – you’d wonder why they’ve immortalized the very noticeable cracks on some of the buildings. Are these the signs of some fashionista brawl in which studded stilettos were ruthlessly thrown at each other from across shopping bag barricades? Or are they the markings of cannonballs from the 1848 Milanese insurgence against Austrian rule? And what of the cannonball partially plastered into a wall at Palazzo Sormani – is it a tribute to Cindy Crawford’s mole or another sign of that bygone uprising?

Moving along, you can find diluted black, red and white arrows with R’s, U.S.’s and I’s painted onto buildings all across Milan. These are WWII air raid shelter signs – now generally turned into garages, wine cellars or depots for knock-off handbags sold in the main metro stations. (R is for rifugio, U.S. for uscita di soccorso and I for idrante). The corresponding air raid siren tower still stands in the gardens of Palazzo Isimbardi whose inside bears a sign saying “better alarmed, than bombed”. All are excellent examples of the graphic and architectural styles of their time, as well as a surprising window into an altogether different Milan – not quite so carefree. A walk across town to Piazza della Repubblica will show you tram pylons that have been shot clear through by the air bombings, although no bombing story is as impressive as that of Santa Maria delle Grazie – the home of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. We owe it to Italian ingenuity that this masterpiece escaped the explosions that destroyed large portions of the adjacent monastery. Given that it was impossible to move the fresco, the friars protected it with sandbags – leaving us with a legacy that is nearly as intact today, as it is difficult to visit!

Stazione Centrale, Milan’s main train station, still bears signs of its terrible role in the war. Although nearly all fascist symbols have since been removed, the Sala Regia still shows the decorative motif of swastikas embedded in the design of its parquet floors. (Sadly, it was from Stazione Centrale, in a basement under platform 21, that Jews and political insurgents were packed into cattle cars, away from other traveller’s sight, to be shipped off to concentration camps elsewhere in Europe.)

Next on our itinerary, we head to the Museo del Novecento, where 20th century Italian art is celebrated in a magnificent 1950’s palazzo built in the same white and pink marble of it’s imposing neighbor – the Duomo. If I could make any room my bedroom, it would be Lucio Fontana’s room – ahem, I mean, of course, the room that has Fontana’s artworks in it. (Incidentally, in this room you can do yoga under a Lucio Fontana neon sculpture with the Duomo perched in front of you.) In this architecturally rich room, hang several of Fontana’s famous “slashed canvases”. Fontana wanted to make other dimensions present in his work, which he inadvertently succeeded in doing by taking a knife to a canvas he was frustrated with and slashing it. On doing so, he realized that the space he was looking for was right in front of him, right beyond the canvas’ surface. He had taken a 2-D object (a canvas) and created a 3-D space with it (the space formed by the tear). An apparently destructive act had actually created something. When you look at these paintings/sculptures, they look very much like open wounds. And they are – but a wound within which something has been born.

And that brings us to our last stop – Piazza del Carmine in Brera, where there is a sculpture by the Polish artist Igor Mitoraj. A dear friend once pointed out that Mitoraj likes to discreetly inscribe little flowers and leaves into the wounds of his mutilated sculptures. Unfortunately, the one in Brera has no such scars, but what a powerful symbol – again, something beautiful growing out of a place of pain.

The bit of road we’ve just conquered together, really struck a cord with me when I pieced it together. The truth is – I already look at this city through my own Milanese scars. My father passed away here 10 years ago – how could I not? I felt a new connection to the city in the fact that – just like I carry my own scars around in my handbag (not a Bottega Veneta – alas! – but a fluorescent orange Cambridge Satchel), so does Milan. For the most part, it is an amazing thing that these signs of pain and suffering have not been erased, but have been embraced.

The time I spent here long ago, was a lost, lonely and hurt time, but I discovered a place beyond the canvas too. Through the discreet intensity of God’s love for me, I discovered a place of such strength that even now – when I must suffer again – that is the place I get my strength from. So there was never any need for that wound to heal. It just needed to be embraced – like the historical scars of Milan – and given time to flourish – like Fontana and Mitoraj’s works. The 33 year old me would like to reassure the 22 year old, that my scars have constructed, not destroyed me. Embrace your scars.

Hmm, now that’s something worthy of some permanent body art.

From The Clothes Whisperer: http://www.theclotheswhisperer.co.uk/2012/01/outfits-atmosphere-mmfw-aw12-early.html

shop till you drop|colloquial expression| to shop until physical resources are exhausted

I wish I could be covered in seasonal tattoos. In the winter, there would be one on my wrist, on my upper inner arm, on my back (a long one down the middle), along my rib cage, across my chest – like the pallid, curvy girl that cut my hair once in Soho and had enormous red roses tattooed in lush bouquets all across her décolletage. Then I’d add one down my inner thigh, another sprawled on my calf and, finally, one twinkling around my toes. Little blue stars.

But then the summer would come and it would be Botticelli’s Venus. With sand underfoot, I’d go through the seasonal ritual of the first undressing to reveal my pale skin – recently awoken from hibernation – abuzz. A stray crab would then scamper across the expanse of me taking with it all markings, as if a spider’s web had gotten tangled in its rushed claws. The ocean waves would get rid of any lingering evidence and uninterrupted purity would be restored – fresh as sheets.

But, again, I wish it were seasonal. All winter long, I’d go around with these secrets stashed under my clothes like black lace. I’d smile for no apparent reason as I walked along the street in my overcoat and hat and scarf in the private knowledge of what lay beneath. Only one person would know about my secret and we’d exchange it in hushed voices at night.

To be honest, that‘s what goes through my head as Male Fashion Week spins around our flat on via Tortona. Little did we know, when we chose our Milanese lilypad, that we were landing in fashion showroom central. Male models – some of them rather imposing – rush about discussing plans amongst themselves in thickly accented English as varied as a fruit salad. They then abruptly disappear into who knows what secret doors. I’m still not entirely sure they’re not slipping through the slits in the street drains, which would make this all one big tragedy. Even with the apartment of models clearly visible from our living room window, my excitement about the whole thing lasted about as long as it takes to coo at a red squirrel. In about 10 seconds, I was more than happy to have it scurry off.

Saturday brunch was an entirely different affair. We landed ourselves a table ideal for people-watching at our snooty corner café (with the -unfortunately – delicious juices). The pop art tributes made from compacted drinking straws and the cosmonaut bean bags should have tipped us off that this was an “IT” place. Sipping our dulce de leche cappucinos by the window, we could see the hoards of carefully outfitted folk making their way… to a showroom?… to a secret sewer passageway?… chi lo sa di sicuro? Despite the glass pane between us, a complex and ever so slightly condescending smell of leather, perfume and the need for recognition wafted in form outside. The careful combinations that pranced by our brunch window were painstakingly put together – studied to the stitch! And – it may have been from the momentary lack of caffeine at that “early” hour – but I could almost swear I saw at least two ensembles walk past unaided by the superfluous accessory of a human body. I am certain, however, of the pair of pink glitter platform heels sported by a very tall bald man in a cheetah coat.

I felt the underground passageway hypothesis gaining ground within me. The sense of urgency about this crowd was palpable: the resolute pace (well, except for the dude in glitter), the tense sideway glances. With the exception of the gangly bunch in the back dangling their long lens cameras ever so low and loosely from the neck (and thereby conjuring up all sorts of ridiculous images), most others held their cameras steadfast – ready to shoot to kill. Oh this was to be quite the free-for-all in the underworld today – à la Hunger Games – and, yes, I am well aware that, when it comes to fashion, that pun works on many levels.

You naughty coiffed, curdled and contrived little warmongers, you! How is it that I only now grasp the full meaning of your classic slogan “shop till you drop”? I’m so on to you! Thank God for my present consumerist diet.