The fact remains that you cannot socialize always and everywhere: you need a reason to interact, something to share and construct (otherwise we might just as well be in a shopping mall), nor can we do it scattered and wandering (remember, this time we’re to socialize really and truly, not just by posting our photo on some social media website). What we need is a place in which a number of people can come together and be physically present. So, quite a few conditions to be met, but we can do so brilliantly next Friday and Saturday, 10 and 11 March, at the eighth edition of the multi-venue literary festival “Ananti De Sa Ziminera”, at Bauladu, in the Province of Nuoro.
The idea at the heart of this event is simply delightful: just as people used to do up to the middle of the last century, we’re going to sit round a cosy fire in a rustic fireplace and listen to someone talking about literature, culture or just listen to stories or make music. According to the event, the fireplace may be either real or just symbolical, nevertheless the idea remains of “gathering-round-a…”, the idea that thought, intellectual activity, the expression of emotions, tales, must have some sort of small ancestral centrepiece in stone and fire round which to circulate, something offering warmth and intimacy, something able to stimulate the mind and help us to feel – if only for a short while – travellers on the same journey.
So here we are in Bauladu where the houses, the bars, the squares, the streets and all the other village places become a fireplace round which we can gather in wonder and warm ourselves with ideas, words and music. Amongst the guests this year we should mention climate expert Luca Mercalli, political theorist Carlo Pala, journalist Anthony Muroni, Maria Antonietta Farina Coscioni (Istitute Luca Coscioni), Stokka & Madbuddy + Dj Shocca, Emidio Clementi (Massimo Volume) and Corrado Nuccini (Giardini di Mirò). So forget those damned smartphones and let’s light up a thought-sharing fire for once.