Viaciovassocinque by Boombang Design

• VIACIOVASSOCINQUE • by Caterina Pinto

• MAP OF THIS BOOK • ROOMS The Hallway

4 My Uncles’ Room

The Living Room 2 - The Cupboard of Fine Chinas ........ 10 3 - The Dolls’ Cabinet ......................... 12 4 - My Cosy Corner ............................. 14

The Living Room

The Bedroom

My Uncles’ Room 5 - The Portrait . .................................. 17

2 6 My Mum’s Room

The Sewing Room

1 - The Bended Metal Small Table ....... 7

1 The Hallway

The Kitchen

My Mum’s Room 6 - My Mum’s Maiden Bed .................. 20 7- The Mirror . ..................................... 22 The Sewing Room 8 - The Fabric Box ............................... 9 - My Toys’ Shelf ................................ 10 - The Buttons’ Box . ........................ 11 - The Sewing Machine . ..................

25 27 29 31

The Bedroom 12 - The Dressing Table ...................... 34 13 - La Madonnina .............................. 36 14 - Behind the Big Dark Closet ......... 38

17 The Bathroom

The Kitchen 15 - The Kitchen Table ........................ 41 16 - The Curiosities’ Cabinet .............. 43 The Bathroom 17 - The Bath Tub . .............................. 46 DREAMS The Sewing Room ............................... 49 The Bathroom ..................................... 50 The Bedroom ...................................... 51

• MEMORIES LOST AND FOUND • The oldest known mnemonic device is called Memory Palace or Method of Loci (“Loci” is the plural of latin word “locus”, which means location or place).

5. When you need to remember the items, simply visualize the place you have chosen and go through it, room by room. Each item that you have associated with a specific location should spring to your mind as you approach it.

In basic terms, it is a tecnique of memory enhancement which uses visualization to organize and recall information.

When I first heard about the Method of Loci, I wondered which place I would pick to perform it.

It is based on the assumption that you can link something you need to remember with a place that you know very well. The location will serve you as a clue and will help you to recollect memories.

I thought it would most likely be the house I grew up in. But it was not. Instead I immediately pictured my grandparents’ old house. A place where I used to spend a great part of my time during childhood, while my parents were at work.

Here’s how it works: 1. Think of a place you know well. 2. Visualize a series of locations inside this place in logical order. As you enter each location, move logically and consistently in the same direction, from one side of the room to the other.

Via Ciovasso 5 is the address of the apartment that has left such a deep mark on my memory and in my unconscious.

3. Each piece of furniture or object could serve as a location.

I was about 17 when my grandparents moved out from this house leaving there most of their furniture and stuff. As a grownup, especially after loosing mum

4. Place each item that you want to retrieve in one of these locations.

and my grandparents, I always regretted not saving more memories of that place. It felt as if I left there a crucial part of me, a part I am still missing.

can recall situations that never happened. Memories can also mix up with dreams and it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between real and unreal.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably why this house has been haunting me in my dreams for years. Sometimes I can dream about it for many days in a row. I could say I spent in there quite the same amount of years in reality as in dreams.

This is why I am not sure whether the house I tried to picture in this book is real and I wonder if people who used to live there would recognise it. Time too is a fluid condition: in my memories I can be a small child or a teenager and, in my dreams, I am usually my actual self.

This was definitely the place I wanted to walk through once again in my mind and, when I did it, I discovered that every single spot in there was already full of images and deep suggestions I thought I had lost forever.

Furthermore I have never been in this house by myself but I am always alone when I think about it. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s maybe because I see it as a lost world and everybody that used to be there with me is longtime dead. I remember of them like vanishing presences or voices coming from a different room. Sometimes they are soothing, some other times they are haunting and scary.

So, instead of trying to store new memories, I just embraced the ones that poured out from every corner and I tried to scribble down both thoughts and images. Memories are messy and unreliable. We forget most things and what we remember usually changes in time. Sometimes it changes so much that you

This book contains everything I found in there, represented in the exact way I found it.

the

HALLWAY • ROOM 1 •

the • BENDED METAL SMALL TABLE •

It is a familiar and friendly object that welcomes me in the house and it’s the first thing I can see when I get in. Its rounded corners and modern shape make it look harmless and also kind of bold. It seems to be proud of being the only Design object in the house. On its smooth and cold surface there are a grey wheel telephone, a can of pencils and some paper sheets to take notes on. I am allowed to sit on the floor and do my drawings over there as long as I don’t touch the address book, filled with names and numbers, all written in an old fashioned calligraphy, or those huge telephone books with thin yellow pages that are stacked on the side of it. These are useful things, not toys. Sometimes I can also use this phone to call my Mum, when I am particularly upset or longing. But not for too long though, because using the telephone costs money.

the

LIVING ROOM • ROOM 2 •

the • CUPBOARD OF FINE CHINAS •

Just besides the door, on the right, there is a white squared cupboard which surface is literally packed with fine sparkling knick knacks. An airy vanishing mass of thin glass objects and crystal shapes. That’s where Grandma jealously keeps all of her fine chinas and Christmas plates along with her silver cutlery. All these things are not placed there for our family’s sake. This is Grandma display, it is ment to welcome guests and make a good impression on them. It is also her way of showing off and make us look like some elegant and refined people. I am absolutely not allowed to touch any of these things. I like them though, so shiny and distinctive as they are. That’s why I am happy when it’s polishing time and, as an exception, I get to handle these tiny candle holders and silver frames to clean them while chatting with Grandma.

the • DOLLS’ CABINET •

Grandma is a practical woman who comes from a poor farmers’ family. She never had a doll for herself. That’s maybe why she loves to collect them. All of her dolls come from different places of the world where her relatives or friends took a trip. She doesn’t cherish them as babies but as souvenirs that tell her about wonderful exotic places where she will never go. They are her way to escape, a window on the unknown. I can sit on the floor playing with them for hours. They talk to me. They are a weird bunch of people, wearing all sorts of costumes and ornaments and speaking incomprehensible languages. The dolls are all different from each other in size and materials. Huge babies living side by side with tiny women half their size. Serious girlish baby boys, horses and monkeys, blue eyed dancers with thick eyelids. There are complex connections among them and also a twisted, rigid hierarchy. You can’t just carelessly put them together or force them to play a part in your game. You need to discuss with them, sometimes even fight, given how stubborn they are. You are asked to mend their relations and broken hearts, respect their moods. I especially love the ones I can comb or dress. I find the ones with glued hair or clothes quite frustrating. My favourite ones are a little girl and her baby brother, they unnaturally resemble Mum and her younger brother as they appear in a picture that Grandma keeps on the top of her Cupboard of Fine Chinas. I name these dolls after them and I cherish them so much that Grandma allows me to keep them in My Toys’ Shelf. That creates a huge turmoil among the other dolls because they’re jealous and, also, they strongly resent to be deprived of some member of their group. That’s why, from that moment on, they look at me in concern and I feel compelled to say sorry every time I want to play with them.

my • COSY CORNER •

A bottle-green rough tissued armchair with hand knitted cushions, a soft seafoam coloured blanket and, of course, a TV screen. That’s where I sit in winter afternoons eating ham & mayo crackers, ceaselessly prepared by Grandma in the kitchen and delivered to me by my solicitous Grandpa. I sit in this colourful warm spot and I get lost in a world of cartoons and teens’ series. I let the flashy and naive spirit of the eighties shape my brain, leaving me with lots of tacky suggestions I am still in love with. That’s where I learn to live outside myself in a fake reality where everything can be modeled by my mind. Telling myself wonderful tales I can’t help but believe in. In my stories every little occurrence has a purpose, like in a childish predictable plot of a family sit-com, and people are always looking at me, the main character, through a perpetual fourth wall. Laughing or booing all the time. A mind wrecking habit I simply can’t get over with.

UNCLES’ ROOM • ROOM 3 •

the • PORTRAIT •

Since their kids left home my grandparents started to use this room as some sort of warehouse. Facing the door there is a mountain of framed pictures, dust, bags, old toys and a great mass of boxes. I suppose there is a bed under this plentiness but I can’t tell for sure. On the right wall there is a fine old painting representing a handsome young man in his uniform. He has a huge moustache and he’s staring somewhere beyond us. He is Grandma’s first husband, my older uncle’s dad. He died during World War Two. Then she got married with Grandpa and had two more children, Mum and her little brother. Every time Grandpa goes to check his strongbox, hidden behind it, he has to remove the picture and I start wondering. As long as he compulsively rearranges the stuff he keeps in there I can’t stop asking questions about the man in the portrait. Do you think she misses him? Does she still love him? Have you ever met him? What was he like, was he kind or rough? He seems to be an austere man. Does my uncle remember him? How did he die? How did she know about that? Did she cry? Does she still cry for him sometimes? He doesn’t like to talk about him, he is still jealous and I can tell. So he just lets my questions fade out unanswered. I am not upset by that, I am not even sure I am asking him. “Well, they’re going to meet again in Heaven” he told me once, maybe because he thought I was getting too sad about that story. But it just triggered another lot of questions. How will she explain him that she got married again? Will he be angry? Will he still talk to her? Do you think he likes you? And what about when you die too? Are you allowed to have two husbands in Heaven? Or will she have to choose? Who do you think she would choose? There is no point in trying to stop me. And he doesn’t even bother. He is a patient man and he simply goes on minding his business and smiling, leaving me to wonder. I love that. Sometimes, when Grandpa puts the portrait back on the wall, I see him slip his tongue out and mock him. I am outraged and enormously amused by that. He was always my favourite.

MUM’S ROOM • ROOM 4 •

my mum’s • MAIDEN BED •

Unlike my uncles’, my Mum’s maiden room is kept in proper order. Like someone is still using it. This is a bright small room, simply furnished. There is a big white closet, a Mirror, a nightstand and My Mum’s maiden bed. It is always fresh and neatly tucked in. The bed is covered with geometrical patterned sheets. A fine drawing of orange, pink, white and purple lines with tiny matching pillows. It looks elegant and outlandish, girly but strong, powerful and soft. Just like she is. I think about her as a teenager living with her parents. I struggle to picture her as a daughter, being directed by her mum, instead of being the assertive and sometimes even bossy woman I know. I wonder what she wished for and how she felt. I try to imagine if she was a bit like me and also if I will turn out to be a bit like her. I’d like to. Very much.

the • MIRROR •

Just in front of My Mum’s Maiden Bed there is a big wooden framed mirror with a tiny shelf under it, always covered in pins and chalk. Grandma is a tailor and this is where she takes her clients to try their new clothes on. Sometimes, out of the blue, she decides to sew a skirt or a dress for me too: You should stop wearing that boyish stuff, she says. When that happens, I have to spend a lot of time in front of this mirror, wrapped up in some shapeless cloth that she pinches with pins and marks with chalk to cut and create a fine piece of garment. She looks at me, closely examining all the fabric folds and lengths to balance them and give my dress the right shape. In the meanwhile, I do the same thing with my body. I watch myself in the mirror and, in my mind, I start cutting, adding, pinching, adjusting everything that doesn’t seem right to me. Tailoring myself and hoping that growing up I will turn out right-shaped, as Grandma’s dress will surely do.

the

SEWING ROOM • ROOM 5 •

the • FABRIC BOX •

Inside a cabinet in The Sewing Room there is a big cardboard box filled with many pieces of cloth. The cabinet door can’t stay opened so it goes on banging on your back while you dive into the box looking for something or just exploring the wonder of its content. There are all kinds of fabric: smooth, ragged, fine, light, thick, rough, plushy, coloured, plain, patterned, embroidered, shining, soft. I get lost in this tactile experience every time. They smell like mould and mothball and I can use them only if Grandma says so. You can’t cut and waste the biggest pieces but you can wrap them around you like a shawl or a night dress. If I want to sew something for my dolls I have to make do with small uneven scraps already cut into weird shapes and full of stitching all over them. But I don’t mind. I am helpless as a tailor and what I am really looking for is to dive again in the box to disclose more wonders.

my • TOYS’ SHELF • Just besides The Fabric Box cabinet is my special corner. It’s a shelf entirely covered with toys and children’s books. A huge amount of stuff packed in a very small space. Nothing gets lost there, Grandpa wouldn’t allow anybody to throw away or even touch my treasure. Not even the oldest ragged toys in the bunch. Instead, now and then, something new appears over there. These are usually things given to me by some grown up neighbours’ kid, but sometimes they are Grandpa’s special gifts. He hides these small surprises among the old things because he doesn’t want to let Grandma know that he spent money buying more toys. She’s extremely careful with money and, even though she loves me madly, she is not the kind of person who likes to pamper children. Grandpa instead is the king of indulgence and I am the apple of his eye. I immediately notice when there is a new entry and I look at Grandpa in awe. We smile to each other and I rush to kiss him. We get along wonderfully because we both live in a distorted reality where our minds create secret connections among things. Our objects are the doors of our imaginary worlds and are sacred and personal. We deeply cherish and respect each other’s collections of oddities. My personal favourites are: • Filippo, the puppet found in an easter egg many years before, that insanely keeps its chocolate smell. I always wonder how that is possible. • Two wooden carriages and two metal egg-shaped boxes. Double set of twins. They look like pointless toys at first sight because there’s not much you can reasonably do with them. But they are, in a way, inspiring. Their colours and textures always get me in a new story where these toys play a key role. It’s unbelievable how much time I can spend carrying them around. • My books, especially the one with sparkling drawings of animals and lots of holes where I can put my fingers through. • The Matrioska. It has so many dolls nested inside that I am always bewildered when I arrange them in neat rows on the floor. That’s the only thing left from that house.

the • BUTTONS’ BOX •

Grandma values stuff a lot. Nothing can be wasted, ever. She keeps every tiny scrap of fabric or ribbon. And she never allows an odd button to get lost. She owns a huge metal box filled with these little orphans. It is a world in itself, a miniature society. Precious ones and cheap ones, made of wood, metal, plastic or glass. Some of them are even made of bone, which always appalls me. They can be round, squared, curved, double layered, covered in glitter or embroidered. Small fine carved flowers and chunky round plain buttons with crackled surfaces. My favourite ones have been painstakingly hand painted with perfect tiny drawings. These buttons cover the whole colour palette from white to black. Sometimes they come alone and some other times in a small set kept together by a fine thread. They’re like children at school or small armies and need to be ordered in rows and groups. I arrange them, defining criteria and categories. But each button belongs to one or more of these, so I have to create more classes with crossing parameters. I get lost for hours, defining and fine tuning their sets.

the • SEWING MACHINE •

That’s where Grandma sits all day, working. She owns an electric modern sewing machine placed over an old wooden Singer treadle table. This is where she rules. Sometimes I come up with an idea for some doll’s dress. I never pick a simple project or something that can match my poor tailoring qualities. I think grand. I imagine long decorated dresses with lots of tiny details perfectly modelled. I am always sure I can do it. Grandma knows me. She’s a disciplined woman and she can’t stand my sloppiness and lack of method. You need to start from small simple things, she says. She reshapes my ideas to create a more realistic plan. She shows me how to cut and mark and pinch and sew. Be neat, be serious. You’re trying to do something here, don’t mess around and keep your concentration. Sometimes I follow her suggestions and I end up with some well tailored but depressing looking outfit that makes my doll look like an inmate. Some other times I do it my way, banging my head against every issue that Grandma pointed out to me just a minute before. I change my project pretending it is a creative decision and not a pathetic attempt at getting out of the botch I am in. In this case, I eventually end up with some weird and unwearable fabric knot.

the

BEDROOM • ROOM 6 •

the â&#x20AC;˘ DRESSING TABLE â&#x20AC;˘

The first thing I can see when I enter in my grandparents bedroom is this romantic old fashioned piece of furniture, with its big baroque wooden framed mirror placed on a marble top. There are dusty perfume bottles and tiny carved silver boxes on that. And also a fine set of silver comb and hairbrush. I love this brush. It is packed with thin bristles that make your hair electric and it start floating around your head like living creatures. Or as if you were drowning. I have boring dull brown hair. I brush it for a long time until it shines and becomes soft and bloated by electricity so it seems to be a huge mass I am really proud of.

la • MADONNINA • On Grandma nightstand there is a plastic Virgin Mary-shaped bottle, containing some holy water that she uses for her night prayers. She has a screw crown that you must turn to open it. I do love her. She is so fine and delicate with her tiny hands joined on her chest and her sweet gaze. It seems rude to force her crown off and put her upside down to pour the holy water out. But the best thing is that, when you turn off the light, she starts glowing in a garish yellow-green milky light that reveals a very ironic and unexpected side of her. In the dark, she is no longer the Saint mourning for our sins but becomes a strobo queen. That object is nonsensical, how can something be so sacred and so showy at the same time? I avoid sharing this thought with Grandma because I know she wouldn’t appreciate it that much. You are not allowed to say disrespectful things about the Holy Virgin. I can, at least, focus on the holiness of this particular water. Why is it Holy, Grandma? Where does it come from? It is not where it comes from, it’s just plain water but a priest blessed it. Why? Because then you can use it to enhance your prayers and save your soul. From what? Oh, you stop it. Grandma is not as patient as Grandpa and she can’t stand any questioning about sacred issues. What if I drink it? Don’t be silly! You can never ever drink holy water. But what would happen then? Would it burn my throat? I suppose she thinks I am teasing her but I am not. I have always been willing to believe in any sort of magic. I like to trust this water is holy if she says so, but I want to know how it exactly works. What is its special power. Well. If you drink it, you will burn in Hell for eternity. That’s a kind of power after all.

behind the • BIG DARK CLOSET •

There is a small gap between the big bedroom closet and the wall. This is Grandpa realm. No one can enter it except him, not even Grandma. I can only stay on the edge of this narrow hallway and chat with him while he is working in there. But I prefer to sit on the bed instead, because I feel like this spot is not really safe. I can sense it almost physically. Everything in there is obsessively arranged. Boxes nested in boxes, bags held in bags. Tools wrapped in endless layers of newspapers and secured with rubber bands. Rubber bands are Grandpa’s way to keep everything together. And safe. He uses great amounts of them and I always wonder how he would do without them. There is a box containing many small blocks of used bus tickets. They are all even and packed in the same way. Three rubber bands in one direction and three more crossing. A box of electric wire scraps and old keys, held together in the same way. I think the whole point for Grandpa is the packing-unpacking process in which he can spend his entire morning. He is a keeper, of no matter what. But everything that seems pointless to me has a huge value for him and he knows exactly where everything is placed.

the

KITCHEN • ROOM 7 •

the • KITCHEN TABLE •

That’s where we spend our time all together. Eating, playing cards, chatting or just waiting for Mum to pick me up. But that’s also where we prepare food. Sometimes we spend a whole day crafting homemade Ravioli for special occasions. In these days Grandma takes a big wooden board, puts it on the kitchen table and spreads lots of flour all over it. That’s when our ceremony starts. She unwraps a yellow ball of dough from a wet cloth, cuts out a piece of it and gives that to me and Grandpa. We are in charge of smoothing it and transforming it in endless see-trough stripes, with our handle pasta-machine and Our Special Method. Then I am allowed to cut them into small even squares, but I have to be very careful because they must be all the same size. That’s when Grandma takes out from the fridge another heavy and greasy ball, a brown one, made of mashed meat, cheese and whatever she puts in there to make it taste so delicious. She splits the big ball in a multitude of very tiny ones and she puts one of them in the exact middle of each one of my squares. At last I quickly fold the Ravioli one by one with my small fingers before they get dry. I am thorough, and I enormously enjoy that procedure. After that, when we see dozens of them neatly rowed in their flour powder we feel really proud.

the • CURIOSITIES’ CABINET •

Facing the big window, behind The Kitchen Table there is a small cupboard with a marble top. A nice bright spot where I spend my time reading Grandma’s gossip magazines. I passionately enjoy these cheesy stories and I couldn’t care less if things really happened that way. If they didn’t, truth was surely way more boring than this twisted and exaggerate reality. I find it very amusing when the best parts of the article are repeated in big bold letters printed all over the picture. Just in case you are too lazy or too stupid to read the whole page. But the really amazing thing of this cabinet hides just inside of it. Grandpa’s box of wishes. The most odd, useless, weird and messed up bunch of stuff in the whole world. All put into a big wrecked cardboard box. If you look at it, it seems just a bundle of garbage, but in fact it is not. It is magic. Every time somebody in the house needs something to be fixed, Grandpa takes his key, opens the cabinet and comes up with the exact tool you need for it. It is never something predictable like a hammer or a screwdriver but, more likely, something that has no reason to be there at all. Like a small piece of rope the exact length and thickness to reattach your doll’s arm to her body or the missing clip for your earring. The sticky glowing-in-the-dark stars you decided out of the blue that you can’t live without. A shining glass green eye for a puppet that needs one or a perfect tiny wheel to make the kitchen’s table drawer open properly. Everything you could need it’s just in there. Only I don’t understand why he keeps this closet key-locked since that box is magic only in his hands. He is the only one who can find things in there. For anybody else that would be just a big box of junk.

the

BATHROOM • ROOM 8 •

the • BATH TUB •

The bathroom is always dark, no light comes from the small window and the tiny ceiling lamp is never bright enough to light the room. Grandma prepares the bath, amazingly hot and soapy. I sink in there like a child in amniotic fluid and I start telling myself stories about whatever comes to my mind. I can stay in this hot twilight forever, no matter if my fingers are wrinkled and I feel dizzy because of the warm water. It’s like being sleeping, except you can decide what to dream about. I brush the soap against a huge soft sponge to create foam and make myself a beard or some fancy hat. I read the shampoo labels thoroughly, trying to figure out how these ingredients used to look like before they were transformed in this green deliciously smelling fluid. I love to watch the round intact bar of soap melt into the hot water. I am fascinated about how it gets thinner and thinner before falling apart in small slippery chips and disappear. It’s totally worth Grandma scolding when she finds out that I consumed a whole bar of soap in only one bath.

DREAMS

the • SEWING ROOM •

In my dreams I rush in The Sewing Room with desperate haste. I have to leave the house quickly and for good. I am looking for something I need to take with me but I don’t know what. I start to scrumble all around, opening the drawers and diving in The Fabric Box but I can’t find it. I never find it. Suddendly I think I should, at least, take something to remember that place. I would want to take my books or toys but they are too big to carry. So I just open The Buttons Box and I start taking handfuls of them. I put them in my pockets, in my shirt. I am desperate to take as many as I can and I feel it’s never enough.

the • BATHROOM •

When I enter The Bathroom it is dirty as it was when Grandma was too old to clean it properly. She couldn’t see well anymore and so Mum used to clean it for her. That was big trouble for her. I thought she was upset because of the unpleasant task but it was not that. She was sorry for her mum becoming old. She was just sad. Also, Grandma was furious because she couldn’t stand to be taken care of by someone. She felt weak. She was independent, though, stubborn and, definitely, a fighter. Mum was just the same so that became a big issue in our family. When I dream of this room the floor is slippery with mouldy water, the sink is stained and the The Bath Tub is filled with thick black water slightly bubbling, like there is something alive under there. I feel deeply sad, it seems like an abandoned place. I feel like my cosy world is falling apart around me.

the • BEDROOM •

I see myself in The Dressing Table mirror as I enter the room. I keep close to that because it reflects the light coming from the living room which comforts me. I face that creepy dark place where the flowery wallpaper seems to be eaten by mould and crumbling apart. I can see the bed, in the shadow. There’s always a dead body lying upon it. It can be Grandma or my Mum. I am horrified by that and by what is hiding Behind The Big Dark Closet at the other side of the room. I know I am supposed to go towards it. There is an open door just besides me but my legs are stuck and I can’t run away. It’s not even worth trying. The bodies on the bed are stiff and motionless but they whisper something in my mind. I suppose they are trying to comfort me but I can feel that they are sorry to see me there. Suddendly the bodies turn into shadows and fade away, leaving me alone in the room which is now slightly brighter. In this moment I know I am free, I could even leave. And that’s even worst than before, because I am alone and no one cares if I stay or go. I feel like everything I do is pointless.

Viaciovassocinque by Caterina Pinto All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. Cover image by: Pietro Baroni (www.pietrobaroni.com) Printed by: AlfaGi s.r.l. in March 2014 in a limited series of 20 hand-binded copies. Order from: caterina@boombangdesign.com More info: www.boombangdesign.com

viaciovassocinque is a book about retrieved memories and lost places. An inner journey undisclosing words and pictures longtime removed. It is also a call to action for everyone to build their own memory path and share it.