Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Cimitero Monumentale, a Che Guevara Exhibit and a Practice in Skorpion Weather


Martedì, 13 Febbraio, 2018

"Houston, we have a problem . . ."

I apologize to Mike and Paul.

Tuesday night I sat down to do the daily blog post as usual.

I had posted about half of the day's pictures when a warning notice came up on my computer screen saying that the battery was running low.

Easy enough to deal with, I simply plugged in the charger like I had hundreds if not thousands of times over the past five years since purchasing this particular laptop computer.

A few minutes later I noticed that the computer had stopped charging, I rechecked the connections and everything looked good but still no charge.

Then I smelled it. 

On the floor, my charger
cord was doing a slow burn!

End of the charger, end of the blog post and end of my computer for all intents and purposes as I only had 4% power left.

Fortunately this was not a major disaster but it could have been serious.

My first laptop served me well in EuroBall experiences in Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and France from 2008 to 2012. That was five years of use and then one day in Lyon it died due to a "fried motherboard" I was told at the Apple Store.

Now this computer is five years old so I have been worried about another such disaster but I never imagined a "fried battery cord."

Thus the two day delay in posting about Tuesday's activities after spending Wednesday searching for a replacement charger in Milan.

They were good activities as you'll soon see . . .

Rusty Pipes by the
Venegono Inferiore Train Station

I had two goals for today's trip into Milano.

One a bit morbid and the other a bit Communist.

Il Cimitero Monumentale

Yes, I was headed to Milan's immense cemetery.

Indeed there were a lot of
niches that you find in most
cemeteries around the world

What makes this particular cemetery unique is the emotional portrayals of the deceased and their heavenly companions.

In short, the Cimitero Monumentale is equal parts cemetery, outdoor art museum and familial displays of wealth and power.

The Cimitero Monumental was built just after Italian unification in 1870 to provide a suitable final resting place for Milan's "famous and well deserving men."

Women too as it turned out.

Mary I'm guessing

Amalia needs a dusting

This Mary too

The Famedio

Pall bearing nuns

GREAT beard!

Tender loss

Grief

Single Parent and Child

Love Lost

Take Me

I like blue

On guard

Supporting the grief stricken

Inside the Famedio

This building is reserved for Milano's most famous souls. 

Manzoni was one of Italy's
most admired writers

The Famedio Cupola

Praying

Soul Searching

As I said,
the Cimitero Monumentale is IMMENSE!

Why is she crawling?

Farming Family, I presume

The Death of the Grim Reaper?

Pieta

Famiglia Antonio Bernocchi

The Armed Angel of Peace

Grieving Widow

I like the Hammer of course

Sign of the Cross at the Cross

Thoughtful

Musical Children

Luigi Fossati died fighting in WWI
in 1918 at the tender age of 22

Angels mourning

Warrior at Rest

As I mentioned earlier, the Cimitero Monumentale is an interesting place to view emotional art in a calm setting.

Goal #1 accomplished, it was time to see an exhibit about a controversial Argentinian Communist.

The Exhibit was at the old
factory for electric trams

Our Skorpion RB Coach, Cristian "Bumba" Bianchi, recommended this exhibit to me a few weeks ago, so today I made it happen.

The Fabbrica del Vapore was just a five minute walk from the Cimitero Monumentale.

R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N

No, not the exhibit I was aiming for
but it sounded interesting

"Revolution" is an exhibit about music and rebels from 1966 to 1970, from the Beatles to Woodstock.

I may have to return here.

My Exhibit

This Argentinian doctor turned Communist guerrilla leader, in first Cuba and then Africa and Latin America, is considered a revolutionary hero by some and a butcher by others.

If nothing else, he makes for popular t-shirts and belt buckles.

At the ticket booth I was told that even at my advanced age the entry fee would be a whopping 13 Euros!

I reminded the young lady selling the tickets that Che was a Communist not a Capitalist.

Point made, I still had to fork out the 13 Euros to enter. 

A young Che

"A little dab will do you!"

Evoking the 1950s when Che went to Cuba with Fidel Castro and his guerrilla forces.

Nearing his "Motorcycle Diary" days

With Cuban peasants after
the Communist takeover

The Death of Camilo Cienfuegos

Cienfuego's passing in a plane crash was a bit mysterious.

Some say that he was not in 100% agreement with the direction of Castro's vision for Cuba after the guerrillas won their revolution.

Conspiracy theory? 

Communist Tri-Fecta
Khrushchev, Mao and Che

The now famous (infamous?) Che
changes his appearance RADICALLY
to stealthily move about the globe

Che was captured and executed
in Bolivia in 1967 while
leading another insurrection

Alberto Korda's iconic photograph
of a young Ernesto Che Guevara

More of the Capitalist possibilities
of a Che Guevara Exhibit

Che pencils, pens, postcards, posters and books were on sale for the souvenir hunters.

I passed.

Huge but weird looking
multi-part mobile . . .

. . . until one walks around to
the front of it

The Exhibit was worth seeing but probably not for 13 Euros.

Did Che get any clearer in my mind as to who and what he really was . . .

No.

I boarded the #1 tram for the short ride back to . . .

. . . the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
and . . .

. . . the Duomo

Street Musician at work
near the Duomo

Here's how he sounded

Another Duomo view

They have been serving great coffee
here since 1824

I had to give it a try.

The coffee was great and their pastries looked amazing.

But I was strong.

I HAD to be with . . .

. . . these temptations all around me!

In Milan, it is ALWAYS
about fashion and style!

Tuesday night meant another . . .

. . . chilly evening practice
in SKORPION WEATHER!

Our U15 Flag Team has 
improved on these bag drills

Proud of them all, even the ones
who still have a ways to go

We had a solid Senior team turnout of Skorpions who were hungry to improve on last Sunday's Verona Mastini scrimmage mistakes.

We will make the one hour drive to Switzerland on Wednesday night to scrimmage the Lugano Rebels and, hopefully, do a better job with our fundamentals and display a better grasp of our playbook.

It's GREAT to be a Skorpion!

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