Now that I am a tourist in my own ex-town, every change in its face appears to me in all its drasticness. Some buildings are no longer there, in their place there are new ones. The traffic lights have been replaced, the train station is unrecognizable. Pane e Pomodoro is crowded and the airport is twice as big.
On one of the walls of the underpass on Via Quintino Sella there were these words written: “Sognando un mondo reale, un brivido fuggente nella trasfigurazione di un istante”. Under them, in small, the author’s name: Rael. For years I passed through the underpass without ever being able to decipher the message. A fleeting shiver in the transfiguration of an instant.
On some covers of Tom Violence’s “Definite Limits” I had fun reproducing the graffiti on the Park Hill Flats Bridge in Sheffield. I had fun changing the original phrase, replacing it with the title of a Tom Violence song. I read the story behind the “I Love You Will U Marry Me” graffiti. A very sad story but also very fascinating. I wonder if one day I will find out something about Rael, to know what’s behind that phrase.
(Is This What) You (Call Change)?
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