One hundred pages. A couple of hours, including breaks for a coke, a beer. A sandwich. To pee. To wait for the election results. To relax. To reflect on politics and free time. To conclude, today both are scarce and it’s a rip-off, but who cares. Nobody pleats.
One hundred pages and nothing is missing. Updated Baedeker that helps you think about yourself and others. Even in times gone by and the changes that have occurred.
A cheat sheet that suggests the best ways and places to mind your own business. A file that collects busy and lost time and continues to be lost.
A homo memento to warn that you only live once. We are not made to live like brutes, but alongside the virtues and knowledge exalted by the poet, the author invites us to consider recreation, not excluding the nocturnal one.
One hundred pages that are a rip-off. They remind you of the past and warn you that the present and future exist. They suggest that in Crema and its surroundings, if you are not parched to the core, there still exists the possibility and space for a shot at life. Forever young. Fuck the rest.
One hundred pages to read something different. Unusual in the republic of Tortello and that of Marubino. And also in the Tomato Republic.
One hundred pages to indulge in intellectual masturbation. To detox from social media stupor. For intelligent and stimulating fun.
It is a game of literary, cinematographic and musical quotes and references. A quiz for older hypsters, survivors of extinction, assuming they existed on the banks of the Serio. Life is all a quiz, Renzo Arbore sign.
But what are these one hundred pages?
I am John Barleycorn in CremaOf Paolo Emilio Solzinight trip among wine bars, pubs and underground clubs.
They are rogue nostalgia. They are a kaleidoscope of images and sensations that constantly change as soon as you turn the page. They are anti-stress therapy.
There are a hundred pages that you read for a long time Apocalypse now or Once upon a time in America. Less demanding than The strawberry place. Less boring than any movie Terrence Malick.
They are not a journey at the end of the night, but in the city of the night. And the underground in the subtitle is perhaps excessive. Drinking a couple of blondes and staying out late at night is not an alternative. It’s survival.
The title, explained the author, is inspired by John Barleycorn must diea ballad of the Trafficused by Gabriele Salvatores in the movie Nirvana. But the reading of alcoholic’s autobiography was decisive Jack Londonentitled, precisely, John Barleycorn.
One hundred pages to make friends with the people of the night: from the intellectual to the tamarro in designer clothes, including the numerous intermediate categories. To get to know the managers and the stories, the anecdotes.
A tribute to the exes of everything, whether they were beats, hippies, punks, grunge, protestors and street or living room revolutionaries. But also for those without labels and not ex something. For those who pull the file and the cart, for university students destined for precarious employment. Long story short, one hundred pages for lovers of the night and company.
For those who like Crema not only tortelli, salva, spongarda and carnival. Which is not alone Call me by your name. Which is not just the shitty level crossing on Viale di Santa Maria, and the train to Treviglio-Milan of the same matter. It’s not just the Dossena trophy and the Pantelù. It’s not just the peripatetic politicians with the itinerant office in Piazza Duomo.
It’s a hundred pages for me Charles Bukowski hey Raymond Carver of our house. For the Jeffrey Lebowski who order White Russian. For fans of Blade Runner and dystopian novels.
The one hundred pages cost 8 euros. They are published by Éditions Later. They fit in the back pocket of your jeans. Where it once stood the Unity or the poster. And there’s no shortage of surprises. You have the imprimatur of the Pro Loco of Crema. Who sells it.
