(Re)production: Two Fragments from De Carlo

‘He indicated a little television on a shelf. He said, “I just need 30 seconds of advertising (any kind will do) to make me lose the will to write. The cynical and cowardly game that’s played upon the instincts of anyone who’s watching, the false and studied sentiments coming from murderers sitting at their agency drawing boards. The little smiling families out in their gardens used to peddle detergents to those who are prisoners of cities poisoned by the detergent industries. And they go to Ireland or into the Sahara to film cars, after cars have destroyed this country to the point where there isn’t even a corner where you can find a car that can drive along unimpeded.”’

‘Even I had to make an effort to keep on track. I tried to go very slowly. I checked up on him using the rear view mirror: he wasn’t sleeping. At one point he said to me, “One needn’t ever imagine anything in much detail, because the imagination ends up gobbling up the entire terrain upon which something might yet happen.”’

(Andrea De Carlo: Due di due)