After a three-day stay at Irene's mum's lovely cottage in Guidaloca we are ready to move on and head to Gibellina.
We spent our time here mainly chilling and finishing off admin. I managed to work on two of my projects, namely Square of Paint and 60. Besides this, I have been thinking an awful lot about social media and how to get this thing, including this blog off the ground. Oh, what a headache! It's harder than one might think. Content, visuals, text, all of it needs to be carefully curated. Photos have to be interesting, not only to oneself but to other people, people who know you and people who have no clue who in the world you are. Not too many baby pictures. Ah, but they are sooo cute! I want to share the steady growing process of Delphine. But of course, who gives a you-know-what... Keep it short, witty and to the point, not too much information. And consistency is important. This sounds like hard work. Not that I am scared of hard work. No, on the contrary I work about 28 hours a day on my art. Okay, by now I probably have lost 90% of all readers... I guess... Anyway, let's get back to our daily adventures. Everyday life seems pretty, PRETTY uneventful. I don't want to bore you with too many details. Just imagine: it's hot, the sky is blue, you can hear birds singing, there is lush green around you, tropical plants, Italian radio from the kitchen, the sweet smell of flowers mixed with the salty wind from the sea. This is here, this is where we are now, this is where we are living an uneventful and totally unglamorous life. In order to get a bit of good old urban action you need to go to town, to the big city of Castellammare del Golfo where I got my hair cut in that stereotypical Italian barber shop on the main street, something out of a Hollywood movie, where people come in for an unnecessary five-minute hair cut, talk about the latest news, kiss each other on the cheeks and shake hands. A place that has three paintings on its white washed walls: a enormously badly painted tiger in a golden frame and two naked ladies in plastic frames, one is called Winter and the other is called Spring. Very profound and nude. A place that is filled with blades, scissors, bottles of aftershave, conditioner and shampoo, pictures of Padre Pio, Jesus and Maria. A place that is simultaneously in- and outside. A place with two barbers: one who looks like my uncle Walther with a mustache, glasses and small eyes that catch every detail; the other one a younger man, a bit fatter with a full head of hair. A place where skillful people work. I like my Pakistani barber in Hackney Downs, London, but this gentleman here cuts in a different league. Quick and precise, no hair in the inside of my T-shirt. Castellammare is also a place where you meet friends and Delphine runs around and falls into dog poo. Hands and shoes brown and smelly. It's a place where Simona and her four angry looking dogs live who piss and shit in their walled-in yard. It's a place where Delphine chases those four dogs with a broom. Castellammare is also place of worship where they build whole altars with bread for Joseph, I mean SAINT Joseph. Oh Joseph, one of my favorite characters in the Bible. God gave him the important job to look after Jesus. And when you need to really relax, then you drive through Castellammare to Terme Segestane where you can jump into a sulphurous and natural hot spring. Note that there is the official hot spring where you pay good money to sit in hot water and the free hot spring that you reach by crossing a little river.
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AuthorsJay Rechsteiner Archives
August 2016
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