Annie Lennox Reiterates a Good Point

Yesterday afternoon I went to one of the four or five cafès around my neighborhood in which I passed many a snowy afternoon this past winter, and I realised while sitting inside and looking out (with an inward laugh at my own indulgence) that I'll have to find a new set of cafès in which to pass the springtime afternoons. Ones with great iced coffee, and plenty of outdoor seating in the sunshine. Walking out of this cafè, I mentally noted that I would come back to this winter cafe next time it snowed... and then I remembered that I won't have another winter in Turin. Only one of each month, one chance to live each Italian season. An uncomfortable realisation.

March 16th marked nine whole months since I boarded the international plane out of Denver, longer than I have ever been away from home. The first time I stayed away from home for a long period was the summer of 1998, sixth grade, two whole weeks at CYO summer camp. Six years later I moved to Colorado to live away from home for five months at a time. In 2007 I tested the boundaries of distance to study in for five months in Italy, Spain and England, but came home at the end of it. Then I graduated and came here. Talk about rootless. It's all a series of loops, really, that continue to bring me back to Berkeley with a deeper appreciation for the life that waits for me there.

On another note, I read an interview with Annie Lennox in Turin's low-quality daily newspaper, City. Here's my attempt to translate a bit of the piece entitled "Finally Free to Really Communicate":

(AL) I have a lot of ideas in mind. Of course I won't abandon music, but I'm searching other ways as well, especially now that there are all of these new technologies that let you get in direct contact with other people. Like blogs, for example. Internet is a liberation: it has rendered communication both global and instantaneous. ... I would like to tell people the things that I know, that I've learned thanks to experience, about my existential evolution. And maybe use this celebrity, which is disgusting and which I hate, to do something good. To talk about ecological sustainability or women's rights, themes that interest me a lot right now. But without become an oracle.

(city) What do you think about musical talent show programs on TV?

(AL) There are reality shows on TV. Like the one where they filled that poor kid with fake green slime. [???] I ask myself why they do it, and who watches it. The talent shows are better, even I watch them, but the judges annoy me. They're often not musicians themselves, and sometimes they're sadistic, humiliating the contestants. I think of the mothers of these kids sent to Berlin. The way the show works reminds me of ancient Rome, when the emperor could simply turn his thumb and condemn you to death.


Sigh. If only every celebrity could speak out against the dumb things, in favor of great things. Every person, actually, famous or not. Can we all be more awar, more tuned in to one another and the needs of the world? Please? Plant vegetable gardens like Michelle Obama at the White House (hell, yeah!), request that scads of British pounds' worth of condolences be instead donated to needy, worthy causes (Natasha Richardson)? I think the scary thing isn't how difficult it could be, but how simple.