18 Oct 2021 | Rimini, IT > last night we were warned of sum alien invasion + went against protocol to line the base of a perimeter fence w/ oiled mozzarella balls + tomatoes > overhead we saw a surveillance plane + frogs started falling from sky + we wondered if this was the beginning of the end of it all > we asked those in the know if the entire world was experiencing this but couldn't get a straight answer

> woke up early in Positano + hit the road > crossed over 2 the Adriatic side, thru mountains capped w/ fresh snow > then up the coast to Rimini, Fellini's hometown > went to the Fellini museum, which recently opened in some castel > hardly any1 there so guess ppl don't know about it yet > then walked around downtown + 2 la spiaggia > lots of folks walking on the beach but nothing was aperto... so weird that all ppl do is walk on the beach bundled up in clothes even tho it was like 70° > no 1 swimming even tho the water ain't so cold > even when it's colder in California ppl would be surfing, playing volleyball, rollerblading, eating + drinking, etc. but here ppl were just strolling on the long flat beach, no 1 even running

homages to Fellini everywhere

canal

Castel Sismondo (housing Fellini museum)

Jesus statue from beginning of La Dolce Vita

motorcycle from La Strada

more Italian sushi, w/ passion fruit

19 Oct> woke up early + drove back to Bologna > got caught up w/ stuff from being gone for a week w/ shitty Inurnet... back in the routine, shopped, cooked, watched 1st episode of Succession

20 Oct> woke up, ran in the giardino, had our Italian lesson, started reading next Calamari book, looked for houses, ate bean + faro + vegetable soup + started to watch the new Velvet Underground documentary (great so far) > also finished rewatching Call Me By Your Name for the 3rd time (started watching it in Positano when we had shitty Inurnet b/c we had it downloaded), filmed not too far from here

> started reading Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans b4 + along the Amalfi coast... definitely 1 of the more misanthropic hermit characters ever created (the protagonist, Des Esseintes), leave it to the French > think we bought it last year b/c it sounded like a good lock-down/self-isolation read

Last but not least, he hated with all the hatred that was in him the rising generation [sic], the appalling boors who find it necessary to talk and laugh at the top of their voices in restaurants and cafes, who jostle you in the street without a word of apology and who, without expressing or even indicating regret, drive the wheels of a baby-carriage into your legs.

He found he was now incapable of understanding a single word of the volumes he consulted; his very eyes stopped reading and it seemed as if his mind, gorged with literature and art, refused to absorb anymore. He had to live on himself, to feed on his own substance, like those animals that lie torpid in a hole all winter.

Things happened because they happened, and that was the end of it. [...] 'My dread of the disease will bring on the disease itself if I keep this up.'

+ the passage about the tooth extraction was also classic