the plankman’s blog

As of the 14th of this month – 13 days ago – I have been here over a year. So this is my opportunity to recap.

:Top reasons for loving it here:
- Im living in Italy; Learning Italian; Learning to cook; Learning Capoeira; Meeting interesting people from around the world; Living in a different culture; I share my apartment with a Thai Ice Cream designing lass named Prima, and an Italian improvisational saxophonist named Diego; I walk through a city thats been around for a couple of centuries… walking the same cobbled (read: uneven as hell) streets that people have been walking for centuries; and well… just taking in a whole lot of wonderful things. Plus its kinda like being in high school again

:Top reasons for being frustrated:
- I work for an organization that is totally lost; Ive worked on a number of projects – some for a short period of time, and others for a long period of time… But for almost all of them, the result is the same: It gets swallowed up by inconsistency, bureaucracy, lack of creativity, and an obvious lack of vision. Fabrica is such an interesting place. It is full of potential – almost bursting at the seams with people who are desperate to make marvelous incredible things – but more often than not, their ideas are misunderstood – or don’t fit within a vision that is supposed to be Fabrica’s – though they really don’t know what their vision is anymore. Also its a lot like high school… Sometimes you want to get away from the gossip (although most of the time you REALLY want to know whats been going on with everyone else that you’re so close to so often!

Fabrica is changing. Theres no doubt about it. I don’t know how long its going to take before Toscani’s vision of a creative hub disappears, and gets replaced with emotionless corporate fun.

I’m a little on the cynical side tonight. But its because Ive been seeing the frustration grow in all my colleagues / friends eyes.
The up side is that its spring, and there are some potentially interesting projects that could… well probably won’t (but lets be optimistic) COULD make their way to completion! Heres hoping ;-)

daniel’s flickr library.

Continuing the catch-me-up posts: December 6th was Prima, my super duper awesome roommate from Thailand’s birthday. She got herself all ‘dolled up’ for the occasion. There was a lot of fun to be had by everyone. Its inspiring to see so many people devoting themselves to celebrating with one of their close new friends (whom they’ve known for a comparatively small time!) Cakes were made, songs were sung, and for a day, the winter was forgotten!

daniel’s flickr library.

As 2005 slowly came to an end, we, the vast and numerous group of ’students’ at Fabrica were offered the chance to express ourselves in some way for the impending Fab Party. The date unfortunately couldn’t be settled (as with many if not most things here) but that didnt deter us! Oh no! So Juan and I submitted the most magnificent hand written proposal of all: (drum roll please) FABRIOKE!
Imagine a mash-up of: funny pics of fab folk; funny videos made by fab folk (often OF fab folk too); awesomely horrendous MIDI music; and Karaoke. What you’re left with is our creation. Anyway, sadly with all the date changes Juan was one of the few that was forced to hang out in Holland with his lovely lady Tamara (and smoke loads of high class pot) – instead of be with us for the party. He was missed from the proceedings, and Fabrioke went on to magnificent success! (Er… well I was drunk enough to believe anything – so success it was to me!)

As for everything else, please take a look at the photos. There was a lot of wine, and a LOT of madness. Great projects all over the place, and a wonderful bunch of drunken friends to end the year with. Thus ended 2005 at Fabrica.