Pinata Series #1

DoEAT was up to it again this past week, this time being provided with a gallery space at Sesto Senso in Bologna, Italy for the first in a series of Pinata's that we are planning to construct and then have others destroy. Camilo and Shannon were able to come over to join us in the process. Here are a few shots from the time that they were here.

More to come, including a video at some point in the near future.

Sorry for my absense from the blog. Have been busy since arriving from the holidays. Work, work, work...

looking back.

the working holiday is over.
boBo is here and now begins our few days together in the place where we met in the first place.
as we do our merry making here, i wanted to post some of the pictures from the last year to recall the better associations of this whirlwind of a life.

new name (part one)

perhaps i am being a bit obsessive right now. call me crazy (read my last post, i just did), but there is this slight feeling of insignificance that is overwhelming me at the moment with regard to my name.

jason moore. there, i said it. everyone i know knows my name. and probably has varying images or notions of what that names connotes. what i have not been completely conscious of, however, is how ubiquitous it is in this ever-web shrinking cosmos around us.

it started an hour ago. i added a friend's link to my blog and had to google her in order to remind myself of the proper spelling of her last name. after typing in what i thought to be the appropriate surname, i successfully came up with her link. there it was: the very first of the first on the first page on google. (i've done this before with niamh, and found some interesting links to doeat...another story).

out of curiosity, i proceeded to do it with my own name. yes, the name comes up. but nothing relating to me does. not in the first 20 pages! i don't know about afterwards. i halted the search out of discouragement.

am i being egotistical? what is there, in the cliched expression (okay, go ahead and use it!), in a name anyway?

probably nothing. but i'm bored. and i want to do something about it.

my ex-roommate changed his name once. around the same time, i thought about doing the same. but it seemed like a bit of work. maybe too much to do with my short attention span. or maybe i didn't want to come off like i was mimicking him.

i guess i simply don't like it. never mind the associations it has with the family. there is too much anger and self-pity in that realm to even waste energy on anymore.

it won't change me. probably people i know will not even use it. but i do believe that i am going to look into it.

da firenze a roma

why is it that breathing sometimes can be a chore, a laborious task that seems to invest more energy that what is really desired to give. i felt this way both the night before hitting the pillow as i headed out of florence, though restlessly awake, and again the next morning as boBo graciously offered me a ride to the station.



when i travel, i like to break up the itinerary as legs of one giant monster leading to an eventual head. i use the word like rather liberally here. i think i would rather not think about it at all, but my OCD/ADD impulses come into play and it at least makes me feel safe knowing that i look at things in this manner.

part one of my journey: getting out of the house. my train was not until ten minutes to eight when i would be taking a eurostar to rome. of course, i had to wake up at six although we are literally a ten-minute walk from the station (and that's if i am full of luggage and tired).

in the end, we made it past the first leg (to the car) and ventured onto the second portion: the ride to the train station. yes, i could have walked. it would have been faster. but then again, i would not be seeing boBo for an entire month and i thought that the last few minutes together would be better spent together. but then i realized that we were in a car in the centre of florence.



anyone who is familiar with this city knows that it is impossible to get anywhere merely by driving in a straight line. the highly strict navigational course forces you to leave the city on the other end only to take another busy road to get back to where you were before. such was the case the morning of my departure.

and this led to my forced breathing.

i did not want to freak out with the assumed fact that i would be missing my train and all of the implications such a fiasco would ensue. instead i tried to think that i would make it, dammit! the traffic getting heavier and the minutes ticking away fluidly, the breathing increased in depth and speed.

if i would have walked, i would have been there by now.
we should have left earlier, i knew we should have left earlier.
is a taxi such a bad idea at a time like this???



such were the rapid thoughts passing through despite efforts to control my mind. sometimes these patterns of thinking, however, become too strong to stop and then they merely run rampant.

there were no long goodbyes as i scurried out of the car, and with my extra-large bags in hand (and on back), i breathed one last sigh as i entered the station and found that i had five minutes yet before i was scheduled to depart.

i should trust him more. me, i'm just crazy.

flight's eve. continued.

we began the evening at No. 28, an all-white restaurant that boasts of a pretty stellar wine list as well as an all-fish aperitivo. the clean lines and minimalistic approach to the ambiance made me enjoy the place despite it tendency towards water-derived delicacies.



after a nice bottle of sicilian white, sveva, native to rome, brought david and i to a very tiny osteria in the middle of trastevere where the selection is at a minimum and so is the english. but the woman who runs the place is apparently always present and serves her special dishes significantly of roman origin. despite being in one of the most touristic areas of rome, sveva said that she is not interested in catering to the tourist with americanizing everything, including her speech. what she does want is for the customers to enjoy her modest surroundings and exquisite yet simple cuisine. although we arrived early at 21:30 with the place appearing to be so tucked away that not a roman soul knew it existed, by the time that we left, the placed was packed.

indeed, there is nothing quite like being in a town with a person that truly knows what to do and where to go. so much is missed if one consistently follows tour groups and travel guides. perhaps it isn't always possible to know the natives, but it helps.

despite the delicious fare and more-than-accommodating company which included a driven tour of the exact procession i would need to take the following morning in order to catch the bus to the train station, i woke up before my set alarm with a sudden fear of the oncoming day. so many what ifs were clouding my head. and at 5:00 AM, not a recommended way to awaken.



flashes of recent news reportage of crazy violent crimes surrounding the rome area convinced me that upon trekking to the bus stop at such an early hour, i would certainly be jumped by a barrage of hooligans or moroccans.

i did look into my wallet upon getting ready to go and had a bit more comfort that the available funds in euro was embarrassingly low, but in that particular moment, it seemed a form of comfort for my erratic and ridiculous behavior. at least by waking up early, i was able to spend the few moments calming myself down before departure. all of this energy and stress.

for what? certainly there is nothing wrong with being aware of the surroundings and being cautious...but i had a moment of conviction that the crime upon my body and my wallet had already happened, before even leaving the apartment.



sitting in the airport lounge in the not so comfortable metallic chairs included at gate C24 facing an ostensibly bright samsung refrigerator billboard, i wondered what all of the tension was about.

fear of flying? that's the least of my concerns. fear of leaving bobo? well, i would miss him. but we would see each other in exactly a month.

after much thought on the subject, it was the vast cavernous fear of the unknown that was (and still is) concerning me.



lately it seems that i have been doing a lot of walking in the dark, not really knowing where i am going or what is going to come up from behind the next curve. it is exhilarating and terrifying on consecutive levels. perhaps this is the state of life. when it becomes predictable either it is time to die or at least make change happen.

a friend once said that change is necessary for growth. and sometimes that growth involves stretching in places that aren't that comfortable. and i am feeling those growing pains as i finish typing this line.

flight's eve. part one.

the sleep was sound considering what little i actually got. i found myself lying comfortably under duvets with overstuffed pillows on the couch of sveva and david's cozy flat in trastevere.

apart from the obvious that i needed my sleep due to the extensive travelling that i had in store for me to head to america, my yawns began to multiply after envisioning all that i had done the day before. this would include especially what transpired after david and i left his office.

with luggage tightly secured, we boarded yet another underground so as to meet sveva in a more convenient place. taxi drivers roma unite. apparently the traffic was even more of a mess than usual since the taxi drivers decided not only to go on strike but also to block some streets yesterday evening. yes, indeed, one of a series of "strikes" comes upon the city and country revolving around transportation. they are always on a friday and only happen between the hours of 9:00 and 17:00. good for the businessman. better for the employees in the transportation sector. bad for the shopper and housewife.

non vedo l'ora

i am persistently pinching my skin. i get to go to the states in less than a week. where, indeed, have the last year and four months gone?