The New Italian Weird: Muro di Casse

We spent many words in the first issue just to affirm that the new Italian weird doesn’t exist. Weird is a generic label that can encompass all of reality, and juxtaposing it with “new” doesn’t make such a change of paradigm. Also this time we won't focus on what “weird” means— someday we will do it, I swear— what is important for us is the attempt at classification that has been made with this definition, and our attention will focus on the writers that are a part of it. 

Counter-culture, free parties, communities, nerd shit. Any attempt at separation into a different reality has been explored by Vanni Santoni, one of the most eminent writers of the Italian scene. One that has also the energy and the will to emerge from the national scene (Santoni has been translated in French and he currently lives in Paris). He knows how to make a spiral drawn out of cocaine but at the same time he knows how the international publishing system works. Which are two great skills.
Gli Interessi in Comune (The Common Interest), is a fundamental book where he talks about the first experiences of a group of young boys from the country. Really a great book, I've been laughing for two hundred and something pages. But for the themes that he is talking about and for the more international breadth, I decide to talk about Muro di Casse (Wall of Speakers), which talks about the free party scene around Europe in the early 00’s. “Muro di casse” is an expression that we use to refer to a big fatty sound system, that is embracing you for meters and meters on your left and on your right, and that is on top of you blocking the way to the sky. Kind of a temple. 

We don’t need to say too much about the plot, it is basically exploring three different points of view from three different ravers— most interesting is the one about a young girl leaving for the Balkans with a sound system during the 90’s war— but what is important about this book is that it is a hybrid.
A hybrid in between narrative, report, essay and underground culture. It historicizes twenty years of a movement, talking about the people that form it, tries to create a geography of the movement, and talks about the social and economic reasons behind it.

Santoni is trying to draw a paper map of the movement that fades behind the wall created by the fast globalization of the 00’s. But that today, somehow, is coming back, maybe due to the crisis that we are experiencing, maybe just because it is cool.

So remember, friends from the USO, to rave is not just going to dance in a club, to rave is not even a one night party in a squat, a rave is something bigger and you have to come over here to understand. And you better stay a while.

Muro di Casse: an attempt of translation

There existed an era, I remember now, where in the newspapers you could see in the most simple way who these guys were: passionate about music, just a little weird. In between the trembling flash of the headlight (strobe light) you glimpse who is trying to maneuver, you cross faces that come from far away and others that instead certainly arrive from underneath: one Claust from Innsbruck and one Marystelle from Roubaix, there is a Baldo, a Colle, a Sarina.

And I will follow you indeed, Sarina: you who proceed seemingly sure towards the hill, with the socks laddered and the leg-warmers turned above the skateboard shoes, with the black hoodie on which you have sown— or did your mom?— one patch with the narkotek logo, how many times have you been up and down, during this week? Who gave you a lift up to halfway, this time? What do you do, you stand aside, you stop to play with a dog? If you do that I will overtake you… Do you need some capsule? O Sara, I’m Iacopo, il Gori. Ah sh’, ciao Iacopo. Do you want some capsule? With all the goodies that they’re going to have up there… Whatever I will give to you is for ten, it’s md from France…

I know. Listen Iacopo…. Do you have a cigarette by any chance? Take it, Sarina, and she takes the cigarette, she puts it on her ear, then she thinks again, she lights it, meanwhile the other three arrive, small like her, two young girls and one dude with the tennis visor on the twenty three. Ciao… Lucy? She says to the first of the group, she gets it, she obtains recognition; she flanks, then, and she finds again the desire, finally, to get ahead: I will follow you, Sara, have you seen what they built up? Just right here in our lace. You that for the first time you have seen a real rave was five weeks ago, that from the horrible boredom of the camping of the Arezzo Wave (Nota) someone gave you a ride and brought you to the In the wood, on the border with Umbria,

And there, yes, you have seen the thunder and the flashes and the demons that were coming out in hordes from the ground, and now you would do well to act as though you have been hanging on these paths since forever, and as if these paths had to exist forever: it is not like that, Saruccia, I’d like to tell you today, but for now here is the first thunder, and the first beat-up caravan covered in stickers, here is your peek at the lights that seem to be oil lanterns, there in the reflection of that wood and wood-like interior decoration, and there are those ones who sell even though it is not late, you imagine them saying come over, come over you flower of a merchant!

Here there is everything; but all the things are rare and without equal on the planet, or— Hey Lads, do you need something?— and so you peek and you jump here and there, Sara! Nothing compares to the capsule with which you brag to sell you as well, that you prepared crumbling one gram of md took it last night and dividing it into the envelopes that you emptied from the medicine cabinet of your mother; here, Saretta, there is everything, tonight from Castiglion Fibocchi [note] the Via della Seta is passing, here is Odilon with the opium from Andalusia and Kirsten with the white superman (all amphetamine) and that crew from Marseille with the acid named Timothy, that stands for Timothy Leary, have you ever hear of him, Sara?

Don’t take more than an half, one of them is recommending, they have three hundred and sixty micrograms and Fallaci (we already know him) comes from Reggello and he has half a kilo of black hash and Rocamadour with Sayfa that have the speed base, how it smells, and the Indian ketch that has just been cooked, and if you want also some pressies, blue smile, I know there is a lot of molly around, but these one are good for real, look, I can give it to you for five, for four and at the caravan with Luigi’s painting, they cut chunks of hash but they have also flowers from Holland and at the tent, the one with the pirate’s flag, they have crystals of lsd and 2C-B, for real guys we need opium, we need molly now that the first paths are created, now that the thunder and the flashes congregate in nodes and clouds on the crests and also the intersection with their market is growing, everyone with a headlamp on his neck or his head, someone with the dog, there is one who brings a picnic chair, acid? Hashish?