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or daily scribblings

on my bedstand:

confederacy of dunces - j.k. toole
jacques le fataliste - diderot (rerun)
designing web usability - nielsen

on my list:

notes from underground - f. dostoievsky

sunday, april eighth twothousandandone
rag-time blues day

there are people who have a special talent for being at the right time in the right place doing the right thing and saying the right words. they are few and far between, most certainly, and they are the real heroes, the shakers and movers of history. most people instead do things and say words that only occasionally hit the spot while for the most part are simply in the groove following the aforementioned shakers and movers.

there are however some unfortunate beings who, whatever they do and whatever their intentions, are always in the wrong place, at the wrong time, saying mostly the wrong things. i'm afraid that i belong to this latter category. since my very first birth i showed this sort of negative talent, being born in the wrong place (who would ever, in his/her right frame of mind, be born in a pretty albeit inconsequential seaside resort?), a decade too soon and a decade too late (pick your favorite). in fact, had i been born in the late forties, i would have been one of the glorious '68 group; had i been born in the late 60's i would have been ripe to reap the wealthy fuits of the glorious 90's. instead, i was recruited in the armies of 70's semi-delinquent but perplexed protesters, not courageous enough to consort with terrorists (subversives) and not integrated enough in the establishment to fight them by selling out completely.

musically i missed out on all the potent and intense psychedelic experimentations until my generation had already moved on to something more potent still and much angrier. when i plunged into the punk movement, thinking that for once I had beaten my peers, sid vicious had already died and the movement had already lost its most creative drive. oh sigh.

the other day i pondered on my ill-fated sense of timing, reflecting on this particular knack for hitting the wrong spot at all times: i've been in the states at wrongest possible time, chewing on my belts throughout the whole reagan era (oh boy) with all its nastiness, repression, corruption and frustrations, to leave unconsiderately and stupidly at the beginning of the clinton years and return to an italy infested with berlusconi clones (oh boy bis), intense corruption, stupidity and well on the road of rampant racism. i wonder how come i have resisted through these past five years of leftist government.

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