MAI PUBBLICATI - NEVER PUBLISHED

Sand, silica and lime  

It is quite obvious why a simple but wonderful mixture of sand, silica and lime provided Aborigines with shelter, a medium for their artwork and an inspiration for their mythology, and later became the most used building material by white men: sandstone is everywhere around and underneath Sydney.

Formed by sand grains transported by wind or water and laid in strata which are extended for kilometres, Sydney's sandstone began to form in the Triassic period about 200 million years ago.

Dramatic changes in climate and vegetation created the ideal conditions for the formation of Hawkesbury Sandstone on which Sydney is built.

As marine fossils have never been found, it is possible that once the area was a huge delta where fresh water carried sand particles.

Far later many species of plants as well as animals adapted to this new environment and eventually humans appeared.

Aborigines were the first humans using sandstone: they lived in and decorated naturally formed caves, built tools, utensils and weapons of sandstone and made particular sandstone formations their sacred sites. 

In the late 18th century the Sydney area witnessed the first British settlement: all materials used to construct the initial buildings were poor and there were not many tools or skilled men available. All properties were crown land and leased on a   short-term basis depressing incentive in building quality.

Under Governor Lachlan Macquarie's leadership things began to change.

Architects and skilled men (stone masons) arrived from Great Britain and thanks to Macquarie's grant concessions the public building programs began to proceed much faster. With the supervision of Francis H. Greenway, a convicted Architect who designed many beautiful buildings which can still be seen today, building material was standardised and the use of sandstone promoted. 

Architect and human-rights activist Ms Fiona Folan says:

- Abundancy of sandstone helped to create the Architecture of the Colony. Sandstone as a material was functional, utilitarian and authoritarian: Australia was a penal colony and convicts were used in the quarrying and cutting of stone blocks as well as in building.

Administrators began to use their resources of cheap labour and unlimited sandstone to erect permanent public constructions. 

Quarries started their activities everywhere in and around the Sydney area (Bondi, Paddington, Hunters Hill, Balmain).

The use of sandstone increased considerably and become such an important activity that in a few decades (1855-'56) The Operative Stonemasons' Society in Sydney was the first in the world to win the right to work the eight-hour day.

Sandstone has been put to a broad range of different uses: public building, roads and bridges; churches, monuments and tombstones; houses, forts and barracks, lighthouses, warehouses and cellars; schools, clocks, hotels as well as steps, walls, gatehouses and entrances. Many of these works have been decorated by fine sculpting.

This massive activity involved a large number of skilled and unskilled labourers.

Iniatially they were convicts but when the system of transporting convicts was

abolished and gold was discovered in the eastern colonies the supply of cheap labour came to an end and the building industry began to suffer.

Around 1890 more brick edifices were starting to appear and gradually the use of sandstone was reduced.

- Sandstone reserves were being depleted by the huge request of material.

Advances in building technology led to the development of alternative building materials such as bricks and then concrete block which imitated the sandstone look while being easily and economically produced. Concrete block is also lighter and readily conforms to modern building regulation making it far superior to sandstone for mass production - Ms Folan said.

Today the use of sandstone is limited to restoration of old buildings or the cladding and paving of new ones while thanks to a number of artists the ancient art of carving continues: Geoff Pollard is one of these artists.

****************

I met Geoff two years ago attending one of his carving courses. Carving is a challenging and difficult way to use stone. But Geoff Pollard's endless patience and his 13 year experience allowed me to achieve an acceptable result in a few hours of practice and enabled me to carve a cheerful relief to take home.

But there are those who went further than I did: while I was slamming my hammers on a punch, beside me someone else was giving the last gentle touches to a perfectly sculpted head.

Geoff Pollard, a pupil of one of Australia's major contemporary artists, Noel Gray, actually took over the classes when Gray moved from Australia to the USA.

His earliest means of expression were drawing and music. Then, to make a living, he became a piano tuner.

 His first experience with practical sculpture dates back to his return to Sydney after spending one and a half years in Europe. He got a job restoring pianos which involved carving timber.

Through this new activity he understood he had found the way to express himself artistically and soon the idea to work on sandstone challenged him.

He was looking for good stone such as Debden (NSW) or Donny Brook (WA) at the Gosford Quarries' store in Annandale when he met Noel Gray and that's how his career as a sculptor began.

A career which included collective works such as "The Cities of the Blue Mountains" (Visitor Centre - Glenbrook), restorations at the Sydney City Library (Hay Market) and lately the biggest sandstone relief  in Sydney, "Creative Energy", located at The Ritz Apartments (Cremorne).

He also exhibited his works at Parramatta and Greenwich exhibitions and in several galleries at The Rocks where some of them can still be seen.

Usually a reserved man, when asked about sculpting, he can't help but became

excited:

- Sculpting for me is feeling like a child holding his favorite toy and playing his favorite game. It gives me a sense of interaction as I am handling such a solid material as stone and it provides me with the way to explore an infinite number of rooms to my creativity - he said.

Soon our conversation turned to a more practical aspect of carving:

- Tools used in carving are essentially four: a hammer, a punch, a scutch and a few different sized chisels, - Geoff said.

- Conceptually they are the same since man began to carve stone thousands of years ago. Work on relief is relatively simple and this is where most people are encouraged to begin.

- Once you have sketched your subject on the slab of sandstone, you want to exalt it by cutting away with a wide chisel the contour around the lines you have outlined. Next step is to whittle down the useless material and the punch does this rough job - he said.

While he was talking, he got his hammer and punch and started to hit a block of stone and with some appropriate touches an old Egyptian figure appeared: amazing!

- Then you begin to define your subject and to give it an evenly carved base using the scutch," he showed me a notched chisel.

- Finally you use your chisels to refine your work, " he said pulling out from his rough leather bag a number of chisels with an octagonal handle - they are more comfortable to use than the hexagonal handle ones because of their wider shaped corners - Geoff explained.

Shortly under his expertise a section of the relief was completed.

- The last part of the job is to get your work smooth: you have to get rid of all sorts of bumps, rough spots and chisel marks by using a polishing stone like carburundum or sandpaper - he said.

The atmosphere at the classes is creative: "Teaching the class helps me to pick back up all the energies I have spent during the day, thanks to the depth and sincerity of the students involved."

According to present students Paula, Naomi, Scott, Mark and Andrew, carving classes are an exciting experience which stimulates creativity, enriches practical skills for its immediate, direct contact with sandstone and last but not least  is a very good stress relief for the physical work involved. 

The Sun was going down on the magnificent city view you have from the Annandale's workshop location, creating an intriguing interlude between skyscraper and sandstone reliefs resting on benches.

Watching students replace tools while still listening to Geoff’s last words of advice, it becomes apparent how intriguing it is to challenge oneself in this modern age with such an ancient art as stone sculpting.

Carbone...e altri disastri

Non erano passate ventiquattro ore da quello che qui definiscono un “coup”, il classico colpo di mano, con il quale nel settembre scorso Malcolm Turnbull ha spodestato dalla guida della coalizione liberal-nazionale il “destroide” Tony Abbott, che il rappresentante della “sinistra” del partito conservatore dichiarava che la sua politica per l’Ambiente si sarebbe completamente distaccata da quella del suo predecessore.
Ad oltre due mesi di distanza da quelle dichiarazioni, dei cambiamenti a così gran voce promessi e strombazzati su tutti i media nazionali, non c’è neanche il più vago sentore, anzi...
Alla vigilia della Conferenza ONU di Parigi sui cambiamenti climatici, la cosiddetta COP 21 (30 novembre – 11 dicembre), a cui prenderanno parte migliaia tra delegati, esperti, ricercatori, operatori media e osservatori che giungeranno dai quattro angoli del pianeta, le autorità australiane hanno voluto, per così dire, riaffermare a gran voce quella che era e rimane la linea ufficiale della politica ambientale “downunder”: carbone, carbone e ancora carbone.
Dopo anni di dispute, ricorsi, petizioni, proteste e nonostante la creazione di decine di comitati, sia indigeni che “bianchi”, il Mackay Conservation Group in testa, che hanno manifestato contro, il 16 ottobre scorso il ministro federale dell’Ambiente, Greg Hunt, ha dato il via libera ai lavori per la realizzazione del polo minerario più esteso sotto la Croce del Sud, il Mackay Carmichael Coal Mine Project, del valore complessivo di 16 miliardi di dollari, che prevede per l’esportazione del minerale fossile, dopo la necessaria ristrutturazione, l’utilizzo dei terminal di Hay Point, dirimpetto alla barriera corallina e la costruzione ex-novo di una linea ferroviaria lunga 190 chilometri che colleghi la miniera a quella già esistente che si stende fino alla costa dell’oceano.
Hunt si è premurato di informare l’opinione pubblica che ben 36 sono i criteri ambientali strettissimi a cui la ditta titolare del progetto, l’indiana Adani, è stata sottoposta, specificando che in qualunque momento, in presenza di qualunque violazione anche di uno solo di essi, il permesso sarebbe sospeso ed eventualmente revocato.
Intanto i lavori stanno per iniziare: abbiamo detto della linea ferroviaria e del terminal portuale, proprietà di una joint-venture tra BHP Billiton e Mitsubishi, che rivedremo presto. Ma per dare l’idea dell’estensione del bacino minerario, basti pensare che la miniera sarà lunga, per fare un parallelo ligure, da Genova a Sestri Levante e occuperà una superficie pari a 500 chilometri quadrati, la metà della provincia di Imperia. A pieno regime la miniera produrrà sessanta milioni di tonnellate di carbone annuo, la maggior parte del quale verrà esportato in India.
L’ultima notizia in ordine di tempo (è di poche ore fa) è che il Queensland Coordinator-General (il direttore generale alle Infrastrutture), su pressione della Adani, ha proposto di eliminare il Native Title - che attesta la proprietà del suolo alla popolazione indigena - da una parte dell’area designata per i lavori. Questo perché l’azienda indiana intenderebbe costruire su essa un aereoporto, una centrale termoelettrica e gli alloggiamenti e servizi per le migliaia di addetti ai lavori che verranno impiegati.
Ed ora, in chiusura, presentiamo Jeyakumar Janakaraj, il direttore del futuro polo minerario. Forse il lettore ricorda che l’anno scorso la KCM di Lusaka, braccio operativo della indo-britannica Vedanta Resources, fu trascinata di fronte alla High Court di Londra da una class action per rispondere del disastro ambientale causato in Zambia dalla miniera di rame a cielo aperto di Chingola, nel periodo che va dal 2004 al 2014, appunto. La miniera, inquinando con i suoi scarichi il fiume Kafue, ha privato di acqua potabile e di cibo circa il 40% della popolazione nazionale. Fino al 2013 il direttore dei lavori in Zambia era quel Janakaraj che ora dirige i lavori in Australia.
Quanto all’Adani, lo abbiamo accennato, utilizzerà per il carico sulle navi gli impianti della BHP Billiton, che risulta essere titolare delle dighe brasiliane che letteralmente sono esplose nei giorni scorsi nella regione brasiliana del Minas Gerais, provocando il più grande disastro ecologico della storia del paese sudamericano.
Insomma, tutta gente che ci tiene veramente alla conservazione del Pianeta!

TRADOTTI

Freudian projections

I have told him and as the proverb recite, man warned half saved…etc!

But he denied. He went through that kind of experience – he said - he previously smashed his face against them and he knew what that meant and many other nice stories that I eventually believed, calming that bit of  blame, or was envy?, that I felt for him.

Then for at least six months never seen him again: you know when one lives in a town too big, do you?

The other day at lunch time, sick of the left over warmed in the microwave, I decided to get down and buy myself a nice plate of  “al dente” spaghetti with fresh clams. In these cases the place is a must: Pipino Gautier! I get in and Pipino, the face of a little aged child, impeccable pinstriped suite and last fashion spectacles on the point of his nose, welcomes me and get me a table with his usual friendliness.

I look around me: same managers –  with or without accommodating personal assistant, who with the occasional commercial partner, a few snob ladies from the Northern suburbs of the town, a table of German turists and, in onwe word, no one to start a conversation with.

Pipino welcome his patronage and get them their tables: in one of his passages, stops briefly at my table and take a sip of Riesling from the glass that as usual I made filled for him.

A grin of pleasure for the wine and then with his wonderful Neapolitan accent he tells me:

- Here is quiet, guagliò! When you have finished we take a stroll and smoke a cigarette.

I nod in agreement and watch him getting away while I get again overwhelmed by the sensations that my taste buds are offering me.

Is nice the Circular Quay when is sunny, relaxed people walking up and down, the beggars, the street artists performing, couples in love, children.

We talk music, Pipino and I, art, gastronomy and sometime sport or beautiful women.

We are nearby the overseas terminal when my eyes are caught by a figure crouched on the ground, ruffled hairs, long beard, scruffy and dirty clothes and a piece of cardboard with a block capitals word, HELP, on it.

A child throw a coin and the person raise for a short moment his face to thank. A moment long enough for me to recognize in that person my friend Dante Sgranò. I instinctively move a step toward him but I immediately feel Pipino’s hand tighten up my elbow and holding me back:

- Where do you want to go? Stay here and pretend you haven’t seen him: you would embarrass him. Let’s go and I’ll tell you – he whispers confidentially my escort.

We pass by the terminal and stop at the Ocean Club for a coffee:

- What happened? How he reduced himself this way? – I ask.

- E che ne saccio*,  I don’t know, dear Guglielmo! There are rumours that was a woman -  he drops there with nonchalance.

- Nooo, don’t tell me - I falter in disbelief – perhaps that lady with whom I saw him playing the latin lover, Australian, married…that..what’s her name?...well he use to call her Velvet, yes Velvet.

- You are right, that one – Pipino confirms.

- He use to go around – he starts to tell – saying that he was still in love with his wife but that now, well, that he didn’t fancy her anymore. One day he poped in the restaurant and introduced me the lady. She was elegant in her Prince of Wales suit, the blond hairs well dressed, witty and clear eyes, a cheeky smile, high heels, nervous legs. He introduced her as a friend but obviously, after what I heard from him about her – anyway he dropped the word “friend”leaving to me the interpretation of it.

- And then what happened? – I insist.

- Look Gugliè, we all told him that he seemed too much hooked with the woman, considering he had family. He was laughing and couldn’t care less.

Things must have developed and one day he rented a flat in Lane Cove and went to  live by himself because – so he said last time I saw him – he wanted back his freedom - he ends with disbelief on his face.

- Yes, sure, freedom back when you’re forty plus and with family on your shoulder – I reply

- it is not everything – he continues – since one of his friends told me the rest of the story. The affair was going ahead and they would show freely publicly and were making projects of moving together. But the devil must have put his tail fell seriously sick and her, driven by a sense of guilty or the renewed awareness of the solidity of the feeling for her husband, she dumped dante and went back to her husband – he concludes widening his arms mimicking impotence.

- Al right, she dumped him, he gamble his family by darts and lost but c’mon reduce oneself to beg for charity, with the position he was in – I reply in disbelief.

- Yes my dear, one shouldn’t play up with feelings! Chillo faciva ‘o guappo* but he got basted! That means that he couldn’t handle all his guapparia*! He found himself alone, he was the only responsible and he must have lost the plot – he guess my friend.

- After two or three stupid things he did at work, they dumped him as well; there’s rumours that he tried to go back home but his wife refused and in conclusion, I don’t know exactly how things went but on the Anzac day evening, at Australia Square, he got drunk and made a scene including strip tease, swim in the fountain and final cry when the police arrived topick him up.

- They look him up for more than a month at Rozelle, in Psychiatry, with tremendous nervous breakdowns kept down with psychotropic drugs. Now, it has been a couple of weeks, I see him everyday there, the hat at his feet asking for some coins to the strollers – he concludes sad.

- Al right but what can we do for him – I ask feeling uncomforted when I think about Dante there, on the ground.

I’m already doing something – answers Pipino – secretly for the director of the St. Vincent de Paul comes to eat at my restaurant and we found for him a sleeping bed. You guaglio, that short hairs brunette, cheeky face, petite but well built, leave her alone for there’s already a number of people gossiping that you having an affair with her. Be careful, you too you have family – he seriously warns me.

- Lets go Pipino, otherwise I’ll be late at work – I reply casting my eyes down to hide the discomfort and increasing my walking pace in the office direction.  

MAI PUBBLICATI - NEVER PUBLISHED

La liberazione di Pinochet

La FILEF, Federaz. Italiana Lavoratori Emigrati e Famiglie, unisce il proprio sdegno a quello generale suscitato dalla scandalosa decisione del ministro  degli interni  britannico Jack Straw, di non autorizzare l'estradizione in Spagna dell'ex-dittatore cileno generale Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet è troppo malato per essere estradato in un altro paese e per essere processato, questa la motivazione ufficiale.

Una decisione dettata più da esigenze di realpolitik e di mercato che non da motivi umanitari, come è stato detto.

Una decisione avallata se non addirittura caldeggiata da coloro che, per differenti motivi, hanno sempre osteggiato l'ipotesi che l'ex-dittatore fosse giudicato da un tribunale: dal primo ministro spagnolo Aznar (la Spagna ha forti interessi economici in Cile), al Vaticano e al suo segretario di stato, il cardinal Sodano che molto si è dato da fare per tirare fuori dai guai il suo amico di quando fu nunzio in Cile, passando per la signora Thatcher che si è instancabilmente battuta per la liberazione del compagno di tè, guerre (come quella delle Falklands) e affari legati alla vendita di armi e concludendo con le patetiche reazioni del governo di Eduardo Frei che ha passato i 17 mesi trascorsi dall'arresto di Pinochet a spremersi in una difesa dell'ex-dittatore oltre i limiti della decenza, anziché  ringraziare la giustizia spagnola e inglese che aveva fatto quel che lui e i suoi predecessori non erano stati capaci di fare in dieci anni di democrazia.

Anche in Italia, pur contandosi almeno sette cittadini italiani torturati ed uccisi durante il regime Pinochet, non c'è stata nessuna reazione ufficiale del governo. 

A questo punto, più che le dichiarazioni del neo primo ministro cileno Ricardo Lagos in cui si promettono improbabili processi contro Pinochet (che gode di un patto - negato ma reale - di impunità per se stesso e per i suoi uomini in cambio di una tranquilla transizione democratica in Cile) è doveroso, a nostro avviso, condannare il fatto che ancora una volta una decisione così importante sia stata presa da un politico e non da un tribunale. Non v'è dubbio, infatti, che la decisione di rilasciare Augusto Pinochet sulla base delle sue condizioni di salute avrebbe dovuto essere presa da un tribunale.

Ma si vuole anche sottolineare come il caso Pinochet, pur nella sua amara conclusione, ha almeno incrinato la tradizionale impunità che spettava fino a ieri a coloro che cosi' pesantemente hanno violato e violano i più elementari diritti umani.

La constatazione che ci sono voluti mesi prima di spingere la Gran Bretagna (e con lei l'Europa) a rispedire al mittente l'ex-dittatore avvalora le dichiarazioni di Amnesty International secondo cui il caso Pinochet è stato "il precedente più importante in materia di diritti umani dai tempi del processo di Norimberga" e che quindi esso ha contribuito enormemente a far si che una nuova legislazione sia venuta in qualche modo alla luce. La tortura è stata riconosciuta come un crimine internazionale e come tale impone agli stati di rispondere ad eventuali richieste di arresto e di estradizione da parte di altri stati. I dittatori non potranno più sperare sull'impunità per i crimini che hanno commesso e che sono stati riconosciuti come crimini punibili in qualunque stato.

       marzo 2000                                                                                                     F.I.L.E.F. - Sydney

MAI PUBBLICATI - NEVER PUBLISHED

The Cross and the Sword  

The Templars have always been surrounded by legends and mystery.

Official history has been paralleled by different tales, sometime supported by historical facts but often just the result of galloping fantasies.

Disciplines such as Esotericism, Magic, Alchemy and Free Masonry which are characterized by secrecy and usually reserved to a select few, have been frequently matched with the monks-soldiers: why?  

The militia Christi was created in 1118 by Hugues de Payns to defend Jerusalem and to ensure protection to the pilgrims visiting The Holy Land. 

They were called milites templi or Templars because Baldwin ll, King of Jerusalem, accepted their services and assigned them the Al-Aqsa Mosque, thought to be on the exact location of legendary "Templum Salomonis".

Thanks to Bernard de Clairvaux (St Bernard), in 1128 Hugues de Payns obtained the approval of the Church and the Templars were recognized as an Order.

Rapidly, due to the Pope's protection and to the authorities' grants, the Order saw a fast growth and in a few decades it became an international power structure which prospered for nearly two centuries. It included an army, a fleet, a logistic net throughout Europe and the Middle East as well as a wealthy banking system.

The enormous political and financial power achieved by the Templars, the envy it created and the greed of Philip the Fair, were the reasons for their destruction.

The King of France owed the Order considerable loans: when in 1305 his sponsored-Pope was elected, he felt secure enough to launch his campaign against the Templars to take their treasure. He used the only crime which allowed a king to confiscate properties, heresy.

On October 13, 1307 all Templars in France were arrested: under torture most of them confessed apostasy, devil worship, idolatry and systematic homosexuality.       Many of them were publicly burned, other spent the rest of their lives in a jail or joined others religious organization or simply disappeared and by 1314 the Order was suppressed all around Europe.

The number of stories and myths has considerably grown since and following are some of the most suggestive ones.

In 1314 Jacques de Molay, the last Master of Temple, minutes before burning at the stake, supposedly set a curse upon his prosecutors. Within the end of the year both the Pope and Philip the Fair died.

Some stories are related to the allegations on which the trial was based: at their initiations they supposedly spat on the cross, denied Christ, idolized a bearded head called Baphomet, exchanged kisses on their lower back and promised to relieve all sexual desires with their brothers.

Despite these confessions, which arose out of tortures, it is hard to understand how such powerful, proud and well trained knights were arrested without opposing any resistences.

According to Gauthier Walther's Cavalry and the secret aspects of History, the Templars accepted the persecution to allow a few of them to carry on (thanks to their familiarity with enormous fonts of power), with their plan to conquest the entire world within the year 2000.

These fonts of power were the knowledge and wisdom brought back from the East. These were symbolized by a circle, the shape of Templar churches, which later became a pivotal of Freemasonry mythology.

A mythology built on secrecy, initiations and rites which survived over the centuries and spread all over Europe. Sometimes it generated tragic consequences: in 1994 in Switzerland and Canada all members of the Order of the Temple of  the Sun,

self-proclaimed New Templars and lead by Luc Jouret, committed suicide or were killed in a mass rite of initiation to a new life.

According to the Hermetism philosopher P.V.Piobb, Nostradamus' prophecies were just a cryptic list of suggestions left by the Templars to those descendants able to decrypt, understand and finally obey them.

To decrypt is also the mystery of La Rochelle, a little fishing village on the Atlantic Gulf of Guascogne in France, which was turned by the Knights into an important, well-protected port where seven of their main commercial roads met. One of the most intriguing theories is they used it, secretly, as a landing-stage to sail to America.  

In his book The Sword and the Grail, Andrew Sinclair has proposed a slightly new myth around those Templars who supposedly escaped from persecution recovering in Scotland and taking with them their treasure.

Here they helped Robert Bruce in his successful war against England and they founded and sustained the St. Clair (Sinclair) family which was later linked with Freemasonry.

Sinclair assumed they also sailed to North America where they founded an unsuccessful colony. As it died out, instead of sailing back to Europe with the treasure, they decided to hide it.

 For this purpose they built the complex of "Money Pit" on Oak Island (New Scotland) and they marked the site using arcane symbolism involving rocks laid out in a cross shape.

But the most fascinating myth concerning the milites Templi is their involvement with the  legend of The Holy Grail. 

The legend says it was the cup used by Jesus Christ in the Last Supper and brought by Joseph of Arimathaea to Britain where later King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table began the Quest.

Within the 12th and 13th centuries, while Templars saw their fortunes at their heights, literature played an important role in presenting them as guardianship of the Graal. In his poem Parzifal (1220) Wolfram von Eschenbach attempted to tell the Grail was still around while he was writing, and guarded by the Knights.

The search of the Grail (whatever it might be) is endless. Is it really a miraculous cup or, according to generations of alchemist, a prodigious stone which enables those who use it to turn any metal into gold?

It is certainly easier to believe it symbolizes the eternal search of how perfectible humans are and under this point of view and considering their role in Medieval history the Templar Knights can be considered the guardians of the Holy Grail.