Eject by Alessandro Sponza

E j e c t Fascicolo 0 - Anno I Numero 0 - Giugno 2012

STEVE JOBS

FROM GARAGE TO WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE COMPANY

EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI: Apocalypse in Japan

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Pulls down San Siro

ALL CHANGE AT EXPO

With a thousand days to go

EJECT N°0 - MENSILE - ANNO I - GIUGNO 2012 - €4,00

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CONTENTS Cover Story: 9 Steve Jobs: From Garage to Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Most Valuable Company 6

Letter from the Editor: 5 Letter of presentation 6 The market of authorities Articles: 17 Earthquake and tsunami: Apocalypse in Japan Columns:

Music:

22 Bruce Springsteen pulls down San Siro

Architecture: 25 All change at Expo with a thousand days to go

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The original source for this book was created in Adobe InDesign CS5 and output as PDF. Photographs were enhanced and processed using Photoshop. The fonts in the book are Gill Sans and Optimus with additional elements in Helvetica and Futura. The book was printed on 50-pound Finch VHF paper on a sheet-fed press. It was imaged directly to plates at 2400 dpi, with halftones rendered using a 175-line screen with round dots angled at 45째. The binding was Smythe sewn. Book data: 26 pages; 6.007 words (main text: 5.857, notes: 150); 36.105 characters; 24 photos. Book designer: Alessandro Sponza Cover designer: Ryan Rachmanto Additional designers: Alessandro Sponza Layout assistants: Alessandro Sponza Production software developers: Alessandro Sponza Primary graphics finisher: Alessandro Sponza Manufacturing manager: Alessandro Sponza All diagrams and most photographs are original to this book. (Original photographs by the author and Chris Brown, Ian Collier, Matthew Cook, Andrew de Laix, Theodore Gray) Additional photographs are licensed from a variety of sources, believed to be in the public domain, or are courtesy of the following: The British Museum; National Archaeological Museum, Greece (page 43). A. C. Charters; Yves Couder; P. E. Dimotakis; Peter Freymuth; H. Honji/S. Taneda; E. L. Koschmieder; Fred Landis; MIT Press; Maarten Rutgers Research Group, The Ohio State University; D. Howell Peregrine; Ephraim M. Sparrow (page 377). Ralph Buchsbaum; Jeremy Burgess/Science Photo Library, Photo Researchers; Chip Clark/The Smithsonian Institution; Christian de Duve; Eric Grave/Science Photo Library; Manfred Kage/ Peter Arnold, Inc.; Lynn Margulis (page 385). For legal notices see the copyright page. Printed by Kromar Printing Ltd, Winnipeg, Canada.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR ď&#x201A;˘

Letter of presentation

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m here to introduce the first issue of a new journal, a monthly output, named Eject. This publication is a collaboration between Contrasto, unique reality in the photography world, and La Fondazione Forma per la Fotografia, stable space dedicated to photography. The magazine talks about current affairs, deepening the national and international events, through careful selection of texts and iconography, consists mainly by photographers represented by the agency Contrasto. The goal is to create a magazine that helps a range of readers, found in women and men from 20 to 40 years, old to navigate in the panorama of international events, to be updated on the phenomena that affect the daily lives, to know the various personalities, emerging and established, of various cultural and professional areas. Another goal of the magazine is to spread a new visual culture that is based on image quality and giving its readers the tools to select, among the numerous iconographic sources disseminated in various media, the good ones to tell the world. Events, surveys, analyzes, reports, interviews. Starring the world of culture, politics, art, science, cinema, music, etc.. News, trends, design, architecture, fashion. These are the starting points from which this magazine starts. To the next issue. Alessandro Sponza as@nabaeditori.it

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The market of authorities

It's really weird in a Country where you plan to solve each problem by creating a new authority. The last in order of appearance is the independent organism that the Camera and Senato had to institute to oversee the public finances, provided by the constitutional law which was introduced a balanced budget. It was not enough, the Court of Conti, which our fundamental law assigns that task? Not to mention the General Accounting Office, regarded as the gendarme of the Treasury. And without considering that each of the two Houses of Parliament has its own structure dedicated to the examination of financial statements. All this while the state has a vague idea of the scope of public spending, barely know the number of salaries paid by taxpayers and not even know how much they earn their high civil servants: the point of having to ask themselves, in order to apply to the roof payroll, to declare the actual salary received. On the other hand, we know with certainty how the members of this latest authority will be identified. After seeing what happened with the Guarantor of the communications we have no illusions. Let me be clear: nobody is angry with the individual. Not with Antonio Martusciello, an ex employee of Mr Silvio Berlusconi and ex blue Honourable thrown out still young by the higher ranks of the party, who could not find,

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR ď&#x201A;˘

just 50 years, the plight of retired baby Parliament. Neither Antonio Preto, former Chief of Cabinet of European Commissioner Antonio Tajani and author of essays along with former minister Renato Brunetta. But even with Francesco Posteraro, Deputy Secretary General of Deputies Pier Ferdinando Casini, With the goal is not secondary, concesponsored by, which can add up to the board of the ding the second chair Casini Agcom theChamber lautissima even the salary of 260 thouoretically attributable democratic, to pave sand euros AGCOM Commissioner. the way for a place of privacy to the priAnd even with Maurizio DĂ¨cina, considered sumary dermatologist Authority Antonello peresperto sector, indicated by the Democratic Soro, the former parent who had to leave Party. the Democratic chair Dario Franceschini. We have it with those who chose them for the way he did. Expect these parties to give up their And others, of course, have not prerogatives, perhaps by appointing the membeen watching. bers of the 'European public authority with The League has placed the Privacy Giovanna calls, was perhaps too much. Bianchi Clerici, director Rai. While the party of Silvio Berlusconi has been But it is undisputed that those 90 met with Augusta Iannini, head of the legislaticurriculum arrived in Parliament for the ve Justice Angelino Alfano, first with and then selection of candidates none of whom had a with Paola Severino, incidentally, the wife of the say in them unopened. conductor of "Porta a Porta", Bruno Vespa. Not even in the PD. The painful scripted curriculum, that the least we Everything was already decided in negotiacould save. tions with internal and other party leaders: not known features of flipping candidates, Sergio Rizzo but the dear old manual Cencelli under which the First Republic, political parties were divided appointments to public companies.

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COVER STORY

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STEVE JOBS

COVER STORY 

From Garage to World's Most Valuable Company

So we're sitting in the payphone trying to make a blue box call. And the operator comes back on the line. And we’re all scared and we'd try it again. … And she comes back on the line; we’re all scared so we put in money. And then a cop car pulls up. And Steve was shaking, you know, and he got the blue box back into my pocket. I got it-- he got it to me because the cop turned to look in the bushes for drugs or something, you know? So I put the box in my pocket. The cop pats me down and says, "What's this?" I said, "It's an electronic music synthesizer." Wasn't too musical. Second cop says, "What's the orange button for?" "It's for calibration," says Steve. — Steve Wozniak, lecture at Computer History Museum, 2002

So begins one of the earliest chapters in the life of two remarkable young men whose youth, energy and enthusiasm transformed the world.

in a San Jose Mercury News interview, what these two friends most remembered was “not bringing computers to the masses … or the many ‘aha’ moments The "Blue Box" was a simple electronic gizmo that designing computers. Instead, it’s the time bypassed telephone company billing computers, the two tried to unfurl a banner depicting allowing anyone to make free telephone calls a middle finger salute from the roof of Hoanywhere in the world. The Blue Box was illegal, mestead High School…” or their many Blue but the specifications for hacking into the telephoBox exploits. Walter Isaacson, Jobs’s official ne network were published in a telephone combiographer, cites Jobs reflecting on the Blue pany journal and many youngsters with a flair for Box: electronics built them. The "two Steves" had a great deal of fun building and using them for If it hadn’t been for the Blue Boxes, there would "ethical hacking," with Wozniak building the kits have been no Apple. I’m 100% sure of that. Woz and Jobs selling them—a pattern which would and I learned how to work together, and we gained emerge again and again in the lives of these the confidence that we could solve technical protwo innovators. (Wozniak once telephoned blems and actually put something into production. the Vatican, pretended to be Henry Kissinger (Isaacson, p. 30) and asked to speak to the Pope—just to see if he could. When someone answered, Woz Jobs, like Wozniak before him, attended Homestegot scared and hung up.) ad High School in Cupertino, California, a solidly middle-class school in the suburbs of Silicon ValThese early playful roots are what ley. Homestead was progressive, with an innovative Wozniak remembers most fondly of electronics program that shaped Wozniak’s life. Jobs Jobs. As columnist Mike Cassidy recalled and Wozniak had been friends for some time. They

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met in 1971 when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced then 21-yearold Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. After hours, the two Steves would often meet at Hewlett-Packard lectures in Palo Alto, and both were hired by HP for a summer. Jobs graduated high school in 1972 and attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon for a semester, during which he collected Coke bottles for money and ate free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. After drifting from class to class, Jobs left for India on a spiritual quest with Reed College friend Dan Kottke (who later became Apple employee #12). Jobs returned as a Buddhist and in 1974 began working at the legendary gaming company Atari as a technician. The next year, Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of electronics and computer hobbyists in Silicon Valley who got together to explore the latest in a new technology, the microcomputer.

1976 -- Steve Jobs with Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer Inc.

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Wozniak, who had no formal engineering training, designed the Apple-1 computer as a way of “showing off ” to the people at the Homebrew Club. Based on an inexpensive 6502 microprocessor, the Apple-1 came as a kit and was aimed squarely at hobbyists who wanted to own their own computer, even if they weren’t quite sure what they could do with it. The Apple-1 was a masterpiece of circuit design and its elegance impressed all who could appreciate its simple but powerful conception. Ever the salesman, Jobs quickly appreciated that there might be a demand for the Apple-1 beyond the geeky members of the Homebrew Club. Jobs showed an Apple-1 to Paul Terrell, owner of the local Byte Shop computer store, who placed an order for 50 of the machines—so long as they came pre-assembled. To obtain funds to purchase parts for the Apple-1, Jobs had obtained 30 days’ credit from suppliers—just long enough to enable Wozniak and Jobs to build the computers (mostly in Jobs’s parents’ garage) and get paid for them. To fund the circuit board layout of the Apple-1, Wozniak sold

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his beloved HP-65 calculator and Jobs his Volkswagen van. The Byte Shop order brought in $50,000, a “total shock” to Wozniak, who was earning one-tenth of that as an engineer at HP. The sale spurred Jobs into thinking about a new computer that anyone—not just those handy with a soldering iron—could afford and use. Funding this vision presented some challenges: the idea of people having their own computers was viewed as absurd at the time. Banks were unwilling to loan the two Steves money. After several unsuccessful visits with venture capitalists, Jobs met Mike Markkula, who, at 32, was already retired from Intel. Markkula was an electrical engineer with solid management skills who would provide “adult supervision” to the young company as well as something else: he personally invested $250,000. The three founded Apple Computer in January, 1977. Steve and I get a lot of credit, but Mike Markkula was probably more responsible for our early success, and you never hear about him. — Steve Wozniak Failure Magazine, July 2000 Jobs and Wozniak immediately moved forward with their new machine, the Apple II. It was a big improvement over the Apple-1. It had an integrated keyboard and case, could plug into a TV set for display, and was ready to run right out of the box. It also had color graphics, which made it unique among similar computers at the time such as the Radio Shack TRS-80 and the Commodore PET. It was a consumer item, not a kit for hobbyists. If the Apple II featured typically brilliant Wozniak design, the marketing was vintage Jobs. This was Apple’s first mass-

1977 – Photo shows Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as he introduces the new Apple II in Cupertino, Calif.

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produced product, and Jobs sold it as a computer for everyone, from students to business professionals. The Apple II’s success was unprecedented, in part because, under Markkula’s urging, Apple donated or gave huge discounts to schools—ensuring that a new generation of students would learn about computers on an Apple. But the Apple II also enjoyed a business windfall with the arrival of the spreadsheet program VisiCalc in 1979. Powered by demand from both the education and business markets, Apple II sales soared. The Apple II would live on in various models until 1993—an astonishing 16 years. Early chants of “Apple II Forever” among the Apple faithful rang long and clear. Jobs’s greatest triumph, however, was the 1984 Macintosh, “the computer for the rest of us.” Macintosh offered users an entirely new way of interacting: the graphical user interface (GUI). No longer would people have to learn special commands or have specialized training to use a computer. Now everyone who could point and click a mouse (even children) could run a computer. The Macintosh kicked off a new personal computer revolution, one that stressed intuition and use of a common graphical look and feel over memorization of computer codes. Apple launched the Macintosh with a revolutionary television commercial produced by science fiction filmmaker Ridley Scott. The commercial aired only once—during the 1984 Super Bowl broadcast. Even with its splashy introduction and its breakthroughs in usability and design, however, the Mac started slowly in the marketplace and sales were modest in the first year. Moreover, Jobs’s intense personality, drive for perfection and difficult management style frequently clashed with others at Apple. In 1985, he suffered the same fortune as many Silicon Valley founders: he was fired by the board of directors. Jobs’s departure marked the end of an era and the 1984 – Steve Jobs, chairman of the board of Apple Computer, leans on the new “Macintosh” personal computer following a shareholder’s meeting in Cupertino, Calif.

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beginning of a period of massive hits and equally big misses for him. That period would last for a decade. Two years ago we made a decision. We saw some new technology and we made a decision to risk our company. — Steve Jobs’s NeXT presentation, October 12, 1988, Jobs spent the next ten years away from Apple but was by no means taking time off. In 1986, he bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, renaming it Pixar. Pixar had started as a manufacturer of high-performance graphics hardware. Its main product was the Pixar Image Computer, a rendering engine for animation. While the computer was technically sophisticated, its high cost (about $130,000) made it appealing only to well-funded customers such as advanced medical research institutions and government laboratories. There was one exception: Disney. The legendary studio bought several dozen of the systems for use in animation.

Jobs with the original iMac, 1998

Disney’s interest in Pixar’s hardware, however, was not enough to save the company from lackluster sales. Pixar finally sold its hardware division in 1990. Jobs shifted Pixar’s focus and concentrated it on producing short film sequences and commercials. The next year, partly due to the success of Pixar’s Oscar-winning “Tin Toy” short film, Pixar and Disney agreed to produce a computer generated film called “A Tin Toy Christmas.” Hollywood had met computing, and together Pixar and Disney would move computer-generated graphics from the niche of special effects to the heart of filmmaking itself. Using groundbreaking computer technology and some of the most skilled animators and storytellers in the

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world, Pixar produced the blockbuster film Toy Story, released in 1995. Toy Story proved that a feature-length motion picture could be entirely animated by computer and also made wildly entertaining. Pixar exploded as a Hollywood powerhouse, and its partnership with Disney produced some of the biggest box office hits of the decade. Jobs sold Pixar to Disney in 2006, earning more than $7 billion from his initial $10 million investment and becoming Disney’s largest single shareholder.

Steve Jobs unveiling iPad to the world

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While Pixar was beginning to work its magic, Jobs was working in parallel on another computer startup. His new company, NeXT, set out to build high-performance UNIX workstations for the educational and scientific market. The machines, introduced in 1990, were prototypically Jobs: elegant, well-engineered and easy to use, but the NeXT “Cube” was too expensive for mass appeal. Although it had highperformance hardware, the NeXT delivered its greatest innovation in the form of its “objectoriented” operating system, NeXTStep. Yet despite its originality and power, the NeXT system struggled to find its place in the market. It did, however, have a significant claim to fame: a British scientist named Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web on a NeXT. In 1996, Apple bought NeXT, mainly for its software and operating system, and Jobs returned to Apple as a consultant. Jobs joined an Apple that was in no better shape than the company from which he had been unceremoniously fired. It was losing money at a catastrophic rate. Its product line was bloated and confusing. Its marketing was ineffective. Its innovations in user interfaces and software had long since been eclipsed by Microsoft’s Windows and applications for the Windows system, which had become the de facto standard for personal computing worldwide. And Apple seemingly

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had no strategy for capitalizing on the internet, which was exploding as a force in home and business computing. A year after returning to Apple, Jobs was named interim CEO, replacing Gil Amelio in July 1997. Apple had lost more than $700 million the preceding quarter. It was running out of money and it looked as if it might not survive. Jobs quickly sought new financing, terminated languishing projects, fired hundreds of people and focused the company on just a desktop computer and a laptop for professionals and for consumers. The first desktop computer from the new Jobs era was the iMac (1998). Ultimately available in several colors of the rainbow, the iMac emphasized connection to the Internet and—Jobs’s mantra—simplicity. Out of the box, the iMac could be on the Internet in just two easy steps. “There is no Step 3,” Apple claimed. The iMac and its distinctive design also marked the first tangible collaboration between Jobs and Jonathan Ive, the British-born designer with whom he would form a legendary partnership. The return of Elvis would not have provoked a bigger sensation — Jim Carlton, January 1997, In 2000, the Apple board removed the term “interim” from Jobs’s CEO title, cementing his permanent return to the company he had co-founded. It must have seemed a glorious triumph for Jobs personally. For the Apple faithful, it represented a glimmer of hope that the resurgent company they loved might have a chance. Perhaps no one within or outside Apple—with the possible exception of Jobs himself—could foresee that the company was embarking on one of the most remarkable decades any company in any industry had ever experienced.

Outpouring of remembrances and ‘thanks’ to Steve Jobs, Apple store, Palo Alto, California, Oct 8, 2011

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ARTICLES

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ARTICLES 

EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI: APOCALYPSE IN JAPAN Thousands of dead and wounded, dead bodies on the beaches. Yields a dam, the water swept away 1,800 houses. Atomic Alarm in Fukushima. Tokyo, March 11, 2011 - It was the worst in the nation’s history, and the seventh worst ever in the world, the powerful earthquake that struck the northeast coast of Japan, including Tokyo, in mid-afternoon local time, when Italy was not yet 7 am. The quake had an intensity of 8.9 degrees on the open stair well and Richter, as well as generating a ‘tsunami’ that arrived in the port of Sendai is a ‘height of even 10 meters, has also resurrected the specter of a nuclear disaster. And in the night, shortly after 4 (the 20 in Italy) a new violent quake of magnitude 6.6 was felt in Niigata prefecture in northwestern Japan. SOS ATOMIC POWER The telluric movement and tidal waves that dragged behind, have swept away all that they met along their pace: eleven nuclear power plants closest to the disaster areas have been closed, half of which are controlled by the automatic lock. More generally, it was de-

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clared a state of nuclear emergency, but said the Prime Minister Naoto Kan, only to allow for a more rapid adoption of urgent measures necessary. Japan has 52 nuclear power plants. Of these 11 were in some way involved in the earthquake today ALARM RADIOACTIVITY ‘A FUKUSHIMA

Oil Refinery Burning in Japan After Earthquake

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The most serious problems are occurring at the nuclear plant in Fukushima, 250 km north-east of Tokyo and operated by Tokyo Electric Power: was evacuated an area of 10 km around the station. The cooling system of reactor number 1 plant was damaged by the devastating earthquake, and according to the Japanese civil protection outside of the nuclear radiation is actually 1,000 times above normal. Even the cooling system of the reactor number 2 is damaged, according to the TV nipponica NHK. In total there are six reactors in Fukushima. The number 1 was launched in 1971 and the number 2 three years later. The development plans of the company owner, Tokyo Electric Power, provided for the installation of two more reactors in 2013 and 2014. The television quoted an expert on nuclear safety, has clarified that “there is no immediate health hazard” for residents near the plant despite the radiation level is 1,000 times above normal. The ‘reading’ of these values was recorded in the control room of Reactor Number 1, said the agency for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety of the Ministry of Economy. The Tokyo Ekectric Power, the company that owns the nuclear plant in Fukushima Daichi, has admitted to having problems cooling the reactors number 1, 2 and 4 of the second plant, Fukushima Daini at 11.5 km from the first. Reactors which is no longer able to control the pressure and in which the temperature is increasing. He had previously been warned for a reduction in the level of coolant in the reactor number 1 of the ‘system,

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40 years old, where the core cooling system did not work and inside the’ plant was recorded raising the level of radioactivity. The nuclear power plant could release radioactive vapor, as reported by the agency Kyodo: a ‘maneuver’ to decrease the pressure of the reactor all’intenro. The agency said the radioactive elements present in the vapors is not expected to impact on the environment or human health. THE BUDGET OF THE VICTIMS Difficult in a context like this provide a useful overview of the victims. Between 200 and 300 bodies were found on a beach in Sendai, the island of Honshu in the north-east of Japan, affected by the tsunami. An entire retirement home, with its 30 elderly residents were swept away in a village in the prefecture of Iwate. A dam in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima sold and the waters have swept away 1,800 houses in the valley. There were numerous missing. The official count at the time speaks of 378 confirmed deaths. According to police records have more than 950 wounded and missing at least 584: for a final budget will have to wait a long time given the extent of damage caused by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami especially since, according to the Kyodo news agency the number of deaths is projected to exceed one thousand. Missing even one hundred people who were aboard a ship, literally swept away by the ‘tsunami’ generated by the earthquake, while the number rose to 4 trains with which the Japanese authorities have lost touch along the east coast . Not only Japan still had to deal with the consequences of the earthquake: the Alert ‘tsunami’ followed one another from one side of allíaltra ‘Pacific Ocean, from Siberia and the Kurile Islands in Russia, Hawaii and all’ in the Alaska U.S., Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia up

Houses are swept by water following a tsunami and earthquake in Natori City in northeastern Japan March 11, 2011.

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to ‘Remote Australia and New Zealand, recently returned from a similar disaster. The ‘alarm was triggered in all micro-nations of ’ Oceania, and has expanded to ‘Latin America, from Mexico to Chile State of emergency in Ecuador. The AID There are 300 aircraft and 40 ships ready to leave Japan for relief of earthquake victims. MOVED AXIS TERRESTRIAL The ‘impact of the earthquake that hit Japan this morning would have shifted the’ axis of rotation of the Earth by nearly 10 cm. It is the preliminary result of studies conducted by INGV, the ‘National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. The ‘impact of this event on’ axis of rotation, explains the ‘Ingv, was also much greater than that of the great Sumatra earthquake of 2004 and probably second only to Chile earthquake of 1960. TSUNAMI WAVES A ‘tsunami’ of 4 meters has quickly hit the northern coast of the ‘island of Honshu, the main of ’ Japanese archipelago. Another powerful tsunami of 7.30 meters was just recorded in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture. The report ‘s Japan Meteorological Agency. Other tsnuami of 10 meters hit the coast of the city of Sendai in northeastern Japan. The tsunami inundated the ‘huge parking of huge gaming center located in the region of Tokyo Disneyland. In the capital was closed ‘s Narita international airport, skyscrapers have fluctuated violently, sparking panic among the population, while at least six outbreaks of ’ fire broke out in the harbor. Injury due to the collapse of a roof reported that many people were attending a graduation ceremony. A woman who had been stranded in an isolated evacuation center for five days is rescued by officers of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in Ishimaki Town, March 15, 2011.

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In Miyagi, the capital of ‘homonymous prefecture, the’ sea water is poured to ‘suddenly in the streets, dragging himself away with cars and billboards.The harbor was filled with scrap vehicles. OBAMA OFFERS HELP U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. is “ready to help the Japanese people.” A Pentagon spokesman, Leslie Hullryde, said that U.S. forces are ready to intervene to rescue the people affected by the tsunami in Japan, but has not yet reached a formal request for aid from the Japanese government. The U.S. Navy’s seventh Fleet is stationed in Sasebo, Japan, but is on the west coast that was hit by the tsunami. A military ship is ready to leave for the disaster area already and others are coming tonight, announced the Department of Defense. The nuclear aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, sailing to Korea in the western Pacific, could take part in the rescue effort in the coming days. In total there are 38 countries in the world who immediately offered help and solidarity. He reports the Japanese Foreign Ministry, according to reports from the ‘news agency Interfax. At today’s 16 Italian, among others, had also offered to help the United States, China, South Korea and Australia. For the ‘Italy, the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has offered to the Japanese government “help” and “assistance”. THE HOLY SEE

A whirlpool is seen near Oarai City, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeastern Japan, March 11, 2011.

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Benedict XVI is “deeply saddened” by the “tragic consequences” of the earthquake and assured of his “closeness” to all victims. It says a telegram sent on behalf of the Pope by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone to the president of the Japanese Bishops’ Conference.

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COLUMNS

Bruce Springsteen pulls down San Siro

Faces. To tell a concert like Springsteen in San Siro, we must start not from the music, but from the effect that he does on people. Things that are seen in the evening at the stadium in Milan: children singing the songs like if they followed Springsteen by more time than their years, men dancing forgetting their physical problems, which were made on a power wheelchair dancing on the lawn or were on one leg alone was used as a crutch as air guitar. And then smiles, tears of happiness, wild dancing. The most beautiful image of the concert, at least for me, is the transfigured face, pure happiness, immaculate and full on the face of the girl who has just stepped off the stage after dancing on “Dancing in the Dark” by Springsteen, and speculate that the his father’s face. In no other place like a Springsteen concert see so many people happy, all together. And nowhere else, this effect is amplified as the San Siro stadium: “This place is special for us, you are the best,” he says at one point Springsteen is not the usual line of circumstance, but a truth that tells the deep relationship that exists between the Boss and his audience, especially the Italian one, in particular to this place. The figures show that the fourth Springsteen concert in San Siro (“now has the most appearances by Pato in this stadium,” one joked on afternoon on the network) was the second longest of his career, after a New Year’s concert in 1980 to Nassau Coliseum: a man of 62 years who has played 3 hours and 40 minutes, 33 songs spun without interruption. The evening begins with a little late, at about 8 and 40.

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The first part of the show starts with the initial sequence practically standard of the tour: excerpts from “Wrecking Ball” mixed with some old classic. The voice a little effort ‘to keep warm, but Springsteen - from what is consumed showman - compensates with assistance from the public, alternating moves consoliA show within the show, another greadated theater (the jig of “Death to my hometown”) test hits album, which should end with to improvisations, immersing the audience, allowing “10th Avenue Freeze Out” and instead spaces at the E Street Band, as the first sax solo go forwards again, even after the silence on Badlands Springsteen observes Jake Clemons, dedicated to Clarence Clemons (“When tributing to him a real investiture, he will pay for the Big Man joined the band,” Springsteen the entire show as if it were possessed by the and the stadium watching dumbfounded a spirit of his uncle. photo of saxophonist on the big screen). After an hour he played only six songs, but is Two more songs, even “Twist and Shout” as “Candy’s Room” on the show opens, takes off: in 2008, this time more than those 22 miSpring Springsteen moorings, began to fish in the nutes that cost overruns to the promoter a repertoire known and well-known songs, began criminal complaint by the inhabitants of the directing the E Street Band as a ‘orchestra.There neighborhood ... are very great “gems” in the evening, except for Springsteen, in the end, happiness is a prothe piano and voice version of “The promise” fessional music, and San Siro is his preferred (“I always many requests for this song,” almost site, a place to build these effects better than justifies it), but an endless sequence of songs elsewhere in putting on a show so we do not that also know the stones at least at San Siro, want just a huge charge, but a ‘experience and notably a beautiful full-band version of “Johnwisdom just as big: leading a band with a nod, ny 99” and the breathtaking sequence “The how and when to stretch a song, what song calpromise” - “The River” - “The Rising”. While led reacting to the emotions of the audience, try the beautiful songs of “Wrecking Ball” seem to alternate theatrical skits, speeches rehearsed to lower the voltage, so much context, but improvisations and interactions with the public then there’s the finale in which Springstetoo many episodes to be mentioned, too many to en does not seem to ever want to get off pick one, but all documented in a masterly manner the stage: there is no interruption to the by the cameras on three big screens framing the encores, the staging exit and return no stage. use attacking the band “Rocky Ground” In essence, another memorable show at the San (usually the first encore) without leave, Siro, another of those shows that make history, just and then goes on for another 10 songs. one little story that is rock, but it is huge for many people and certainly not to those who were at the San Siro tonight . Again, that is the famous phrase of music fans the world is divided between those who loves Springsteen and who has never seen live. (Gianni Sibilla)

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26 | Eject | Dicembre 2011

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All Change at Expo with a Thousand Days to Go

A thousand days (1,053 to be exact) remain before the Milan Expo. “That could be plenty or not enough”, said Giuliano Pisapia to the Assolombardo business association meeting before handing his special commissioner’s mandate back to the prime minister, Mario Monti. Mayor Pisapia called his decision “a step forward”, the Centre-right slammed it as “a captain abandoning ship from opposition” and it triggered a day of stance-taking. First up was the other commissioner, Roberto Formigoni, who applauded the mayor – “an appropriate wake-up call” – before criticising him and asking him to withdraw his resignation: “The timing is supremely inopportune”. The thousand days and the curious chorality of the Northern League’s, Democratic Party’s (PD) and Left, Ecology and Freedom’s (SEL) call for “Formigoni to go, too” were followed by another surprise, as if there hadn’t been enough already, when Mario Monti said he hoped Mr Pisapia would reconsider and set up a new Expo “co-ordinating board”. A super team for 2015. But we’ll have to wind back to the morning to make sense of events. Mayor Pisapia’s resignation started the ball rolling: “I want this to nudge central government into making a concrete contribution”. The assembly in Via Conservatorio began to buzz. One of the first to comment was CGIL union leader Susanna Camusso: “Pisapia is right. The government’s logic is to sit on its hands”. Expo chair Diana Bracco said the mayor’s resignation was “a way of attracting the government’s attention” while the PD’s Milan secretary Roberto Cornelli said “the mayor has raised an issue of responsibility”.

(Annachiara Sacchi)

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