SILVANO GREGOLI Gaspare Lobino (pseudonym of Silvano Gregoli) took a step back and looked at his desk with a tired eye. The ancient behemoth had eight drawers, eight mouths full of notebooks of various sizes, scattered sheets of paper, old…
SILVANO GREGOLI I recently witnessed two unusual events. Unusual in themselves, first; then doubly unusual because, although random in nature, they were mysteriously connected. The first event took place in the waiting room of a barbershop in Italy. As I…
SILVANO GREGOLI Exactly sixty years ago, on the morning of February 15, 1961, a total solar eclipse in Italy affected southern Piedmont, Liguria, part of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, northern Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo. To find another total solar eclipse in…
SILVANO GREGOLI. THE 60s, AREA OF PIAN DELLA TURA Mondovì, Saturday afternoon, Piazza Adua. Spring is at its fullest but the mountains are still white. We, the people of the refuge, are ready to get on our Vespa and Lambretta…
SILVANO GREGOLI Italy, Mondovì, Delle Ripe Street. A few days before Christmas 1947. The basket of Baby Jesus was waiting, already filled with presents for the children of the Delle Ripe neighborhood. That year, it was mostly socks. Exultate! The…
Two poems by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), in memoriam Mirror I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. What ever you see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful…
SILVANO GREGOLI. THE 60s, VALL’ELLERO The Dwarves of Norea! Whenever I think back to that remote spring morning, I feel a disturbing sensation of disbelief. Did it really happen? Yet the story unfolds from a beam of initial certainties. The…
