Declining Exchange Rate

One of the best places to gauge Italy’s changing demographics are the open air markets held throughout Milan each week. Our neighborhood affair takes place on Tuesday and Saturday. Hosted in a square bordering Via Vitruvio, its a great place to buy everything from olive oil and parakeets, to Italian translations of the Koran, and cheap pantyhose.

For the last month, I’ve forced myself to go down to the market, and record the different languages I encounter as I walk from one end to the other.  French, Arabic, Spanish, Tamil, together with several different Italian dialects, are the primary languages spoken. Often I have found myself recording one language on my left, another on my right, simultaneously.

Focused on making audio recordings, I almost always left my camera behind on these trips. Last week, however, I made an exception. An Egyptian merchant had been selling Obama-themed grocery bags for the previous couple of weeks. I didn’t want to buy one. However, I didn’t want to leave Milan without having taken a picture of one of them either.

Milan Does Obama

The hair salon around the corner from our apartment. Viale Andrea Dorea, June 2009.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

It could have been a Crass cover. Bologna gift shop, May 2009.

Council Estate Irony

It could be celebratory tagging. Considering how much pro-Obama iconography is to be found in our neighborhood, its not unreasonable to consider.

However, from the looks of it, this displaced gate blocking entry to the nearby council estate looks like it had been marked long before the US elections, in all likelihood, in reference to something else.

Still, its a terrific commentary to encounter at this historical juncture.

His Halo is Gone

If you happen to have read any of Obama’s policy statements on central Asia during the election campaign, the post-inauguration US missile strikes on Pakistan’s tribal areas ought to come as no surprise.

It was equally inevitable that such actions would be accompanied by a metaphorical loss of innocence, especially considering the immense hopes that progressives have held for Obama in Europe.

To that end, today, in Comment is Free, Richard Seymour does as good a job as anyone could in expressing exactly how disappointed progressives will be with the new US president’s foreign policy.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Obama can develop a consistent approach to greater west Asia. Perhaps Pakistan and Afghanistan will become of equal concern to the peace community as Palestine.

Photo: Clapham garage, January 20th.

Everyone’s President

Obama and child, and then some. Acre Lane, Clapham, the day after inauguration.

The first candidate for cover of the year. The lightbulb montage is priceless.

The Politics of Ambiguity

Not long after Israel began its military offensive in Gaza last month, a senior Bush administration official told the Washington Post that the Jewish state had embarked on its campaign in order to create ‘facts on the ground’ before the Obama administration assumes office on January 20th.

In our first collaboration together, Arthur Neslen and I push the envelope, discussing how this ‘leak’ has helped frame an otherwise confusing and brutal military operation, and illuminates the unfortunate tensions that exist between America’s president-elect, and the present Israeli government.

If you haven’t read Arthur’s work before, now is as good a time to start as any. For those Tikkun readers among you, I interviewed Art about his fabulous book, Occupied Minds, in the January/February 2007 edition of the magazine. A PDF copy of our convo can be downloaded from the Clips section of this site.

England’s Reading

The day after the US election. Victoria line train heading north, between Stockwell and Vauxhall. 9:45 AM.

The two most popular papers at our newsstand – The Guardian and The Independent – were sold out.

Leaving Here

I couldn’t think of a better title for this post than Motorhead’s very first single. Released on Stiff Records in 1977, it was one of the first 7″ singles I think I ever saw – in a London record store. Three days away from moving back to the UK for the first time since 1979, I couldn’t imagine a better heading to affix over this genius of a shop sign, three blocks away from where we live, on Mission street. Boasting a fist full of skull rings, Motorhead leader Lemmy Kilmister practically invented bling.

If only we were leaving here by car. Not just any, but in our prized Prius, now being cared for by friends in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. It’s just about the only hybrid we know that felt the need to balance out the obligatory Obama propaganda with a reminder that at least some of the people who will be voting for the Democrat in the upcoming US elections first thought of themselves as leftists because they listened to bands like Black Flag.

Mixed Media

Along the same lines, I wrote a series of reflections on Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen's 2007 film Jellyfish, which appeared in Zeek today. Nonsensically titled Netanya Fish Fry, the piece addresses recent American attempts to come to grips with contemporary Israeli cinema, and a tendency I detect to try and de-politicize it. Contending that recent narrative experimentation in Israeli filmmaking is in fact it's own political gesture, the article is about Diaspora anxieties about Israel, displaced onto film criticism.