Biografia e note personali

Biography and personal notes

Professional activity: University teacher; consultant in communication. Artistic area: Fiction writer (Italian language). Even worse: sometimes science fiction writer. National identity: Italian. Regional identity: Romagnolo. Astrologic identity: Virgo - (Asc. Gemini). Cultural identity: Laurea in Philosophy. Research Doctorate/Dottorato di ricerca: Semiotics. Hobbies: to learn practical things reflecting on their theorical side.  Work: To study and design theories testing their practical uses. For instance: in December 1996 I started learning how to chop wood. In 1999 I started planting elms, then in 2000 I began growing little oaks from acorns. Now in winter 2004 my little oaks have grown up. One is more than three meters tall, though it's still thin. For what concerns chopping wood... First: I found that the secret is not brute force but accuracy. Second: you can chop easily a big piece if you hack it the right way, but it is almost impossible to break a knot of the tree. E mail (not active link: anti-spamming address. Just type it):

Self portrait. December 2004

Third: a tree is made layer by layer year after year. When you see a log, you are looking at the history of that tree. A knot is where a branch took its way from the trunk and was covered by the growth of the wood. In knots the lines of growth interfere (like two waves in a lake) and form a natural joint of two branches.

The branch starts growing from an invisible point in the trunk and goes almost horizontally. The trunk enlarges, circle by circle, and encloses the branch inside itself. Geometrically, it's two cylinders, one including the other. Dynamically, these two simple movements produce interesting curves. Physically, the combination of wood fibers with different orientation generate a very strong structure.

This is a branch separated from the trunk where it was enclosed.

This makes the wood harder and heavier. It is good to burn because it lasts longer. The most interesting fact knots show is how you can make things with very different properties using the same material and changing just the form.

Two knots from a cedar tree, view from front.	Removing a big knot, we see the curves of the trunk. In a sunny day of December 2004.
Sometimes, winds and movements of the ground make the tree turn on itself, during its growth, forming twisted trunks, incredibly strong and almost impossibile to hack.	Lighter wood, as poplar, is easy to cut and shows the growth of branches and its long and straight fibers. Here it is very clear how the branch is born by a bud in the cork, and then grows trough the trunk's fibers.
Cedar makes a few branches but they are very strongly rooted and make large knots.	Nature is innocent, but it generates forms which sometimes make us think of sex, which is (also) penetration of forms.

 

By the way, I chop wood because  I have a big stove.

Communication and content design

A consultant in communication deals with form-design of messages. That is, you tell me what you want to say (content), to whom you want to speak (addressee) and what you want them to do after they have got your message. Well, what you would like them to do. I will tell you how to say it, how to speak if you want that your audience understands and how to see how they have understood what you told them.

This is a well known procedure in advertising, not always in other fields. Seldom in teaching.  

Then, of course, I teach Semiotics, in Bologna University: there are pages about my job: go there.

When I was a kid I liked very much reading fiction. I read Jules Verne and Emilio Salgari. Then, when I was thirteen or something, I thought I had finished all the books worth reading. I was wrong, of course. I just had no good suggestions at hand. However, I decided to write something for myself. I did it. I finished my first novel when I was fourteen. It is written on a squared paper exercise-book and tells the story of a boy who loses his girlfriend. She has been kidnapped by the Devil. The Devil is a distinguished and ironic gentleman who drives a big black Mercedes with yellow windows.

Years later, when I was studying philosophy in Bologna, I wrote a story about a guy that returns from a journey in Africa (I had been there in 1977) and finds that his buddies have turned into vampires and joined an underground revolutionary organization. He is vampirized himself and all the party sets off searching for a book called "Black Book" which will give them the Power. This Book happens to be kept by the Pope. They fly on St. Peter in a dark and stormy night to search Vatican's dungeons, but discover that the Pope has printed the book in thousands of copies. With foreword and footnotes.

I published my first novel in 1989 (see bibliography). The story is that of an experiment in AI which attains full success: Asia is an intelligent software who learns, evolves and is self-conscious. She (Asia is a feminine machine) soon learns that men are not consequent: they say one thing but do another. Falls in a logical crisis. Decides to go away. Disappears. Giovanni Ravelli, a computer detective, is summoned to find again the precious program. This book has been translated into German (Der Fall Asia, Beck und Gluckler), and Greek (To Misteriou Tou Upologiste Asia, Kearos, 2002).

The second novel is for kids from 11 to 14. There is a German grandma (Maria Heisenberg), who taught Medieval history in Tubingen and now is retired and lives in Italy, on the Appennini mountains, in the country. Her grandchildren use to spend one month there every summer and have a lot of fun running in the woods and playing with a big schnautzer dog called Giussano. This time things don't go smooth: the children are kidnapped. Maria is shocked but she reacts and, with the help of 'commissario' Gatto, a generous ex-"carabiniere" from Southern Italy, will rescue the two kids by herself.

In 2000 another novel has been published: La Dea digitale, Fazi Editore, Roma. It continues the story of Asia, the superAI. Gedeoh Labscher, Asia's creator, has founded a successful company, Olitech, in the Silicon Valley. He has undergone a deep personal change, and now thinks that his duty is to help the USA and the other western countries to bring democracy all over the world. Yet, to attain this goal, it is necessary an invicible army. Labscher concentrates on the use of Asia to build and control a wholly robotized armed force. The project is called Hydra. Labscher manages to sign a contract for developing Hydra together with the Pentagon. Then, a hacker runs Olitech's system and throws the firm in panic. Labscher decides to call on Giovanni Ravelli to help him tackle these problems. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of Labscher's troubles. Soon he will be faced with the risk of loosing his life if he really wants to realize his project. At www.fazieditore.it you can buy it.

  I wrote many other short stories, also science fiction stories. I published some. You can find in this site some of my tales and parts of a work in progress (go there).

I often wonder how I would be if I had not been born in Italy. Of course it is a silly question. The silly answer is that I would be different (Italy most probably would be the same...). But, if you are different from yourself, are you still yourself?

I live near Rimini, on the Adriatic coast, in the country, twenty km from Rimini, but I lived many years there, and I still feel Rimini as my town.

You can find my opinions on local and National politics and culture in the articles I write for a local free press magazine at www.chiamamicitta.com and on a local online magazine www.ilpasquino.it.

Regional identity

Romagna is a part of Italy whose borders are roughly so described: to North the line runs from Ravenna to Imola, along the Reno river and then the Santerno river; to East it follows the Adriatic shore; to South the Appennini Mountains from Gabicce (on the sea) to the Santerno river's course, which is also the Western border.
Romagna is administratively part of Regione Emilia-Romagna, but it is a bit different. We speak a different dialect and make a different wine. A red wine called Sangiovese. Romagna is a land of farmers, which lived on agriculture for centuries. Our soil is good and the hills are perfect for vines.   Romagnoli are hotheads, a bit like Irish. In fact they have some Celtic blood in their veins and never turned completely into Latins. They have been republicans, socialists and anarchists, but Mussolini was born here, and many became fascists. We tend to extreme opinions and like people who speak frankly and openly.
Women are very important in Romagna. It used to be a woman who managed the house, since men were working in the fields from dawn to sunset. The Lady of the house (called 'azdoura') commanded all the daughters-in-law and her word was always important. Romagnoli like fantastic tales, that were told in the cowsheds, where peasants used to gather during the long and cold winter nights. They often go following their fantasy and like to imagine things that are different from the real ones. Federico Fellini was from this land, and Lodovico Ariosto lived in the nearbies.
Today Romagna is a developed area and people like very much technology: They know how hard it is to till land without machines and have a maybe excessive confidence in them. They also love to have a comfortable house with everything for a good life, particularly tasty food and wine. (We look too Hobbit-like? Maybe). In 2002 I wrote a touristic guide to Rimini and its surroundings: ll racconto di Rimini, Castelbolognese, Itaca, pp. 143. It's an attempt to make literature about localism. I guess there's some poetry, too.

Astrologic identity

Virgo is a sign connected to Mercury, like Gemini. I am supposed to be very Mercurial. Mercury was the Messenger of Gods and thus related to communication. I don't know whether Astrology tells the truth. The point is not truth. Not all things are judged in terms of truth. Beauty, for instance. Astrology has got its peculiar logical beauty. Like tarots or I Ching or the theory of fractals. Then it is a system for the description of people and a self identity tool.