Category Archives: Compositions

In Selvena, Southern Tuscany, a Meeting of the Estover Administrations after Twenty Years

ASBUC, Compositions

On April 20, in Selvena, on the Amiata mountain area in Southern Tuscany, there has been a meeting of the Estover (Usi Civici, in Italian) administrations for commons in the province of Grosseto. If you are not aware of Estovers, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estovers.

The meeting was the opportunity, after many years without this type of gathering. for an overview on this type of institution in the area of Grosseto, considering technical aspects, issues, and opportunities.

From Tatti we had the possibility of summarizing some of our experiences in the field of community mapping, as well as documentation and promotion of lesser known aspects of our territories. We hope that these ideas of interest also for other administrators.

The meeting was attended by around fifty people overall, and the day was closed with the plan to schedule another meeting soon, so as to continue along a common path.

In the map below, the locations were “Usi Civici” exist in the Grosseto area (please note that the point refer to the main location, and not to the areal extension of the interested land).

For more information: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +393317539228.

You live in the city…

Compositions,

An English version of “Rock in Milano, Blues at la Rocca” by the Jug Band Colline Metallifere, adapted on the fly by Jack O’Malley during the “Rural Citizen Science” session at the ECSA Conference in Vienna (April 4, 2024). A city dweller and a country guy interact on their perceptions of urban and rural dimensions..

You live in the city, where people produce and innovate (x2)

But let me tell you something babe, you live in the city – for me it ain’t that great!

Monday morning, you get on the bus, you go to work, in the same old fuss

Then in the week-end you’re all lined up in cars, for shopping or recreation, but that’s like behind bars..

So you’re living in the city, most beautiful place on the earth

you live the ugly grey old city, but you don’t know what that is worth

You live in the country, you’re a small pin on my map (x2)

We come to see you in the Summer, but with the cold wind we leave with a snap

You’re driving an Ape – and maybe a tractor too

You’re diggin’ and sowin’ – with some of that rural blue

Enjoying the landscape, contemplating the sunset

but your village is dying, and this is something I don’t regret

So you’re living in the country, and you say rural is the best

But I feel fine here in the city, don’t care much about the rest!

Hey guys, don’t you realize, you’re getting nowhere: I ain’t telling no lies

Rural and urban, they have to mediate…

let’s have a common workshop, well: does not that sound great?

When the city folks go rural, and the farmers go to town

With live music for more outreach, and cit-science all around…

A representative from the Jug Band Colline Metallifere at the ECSA Conference in Vienna: How did it go?

Compositions, Senza categoria
Jack O’Malley (maybe?) at the end of the 2023/2024 Winter.

We announced in early January that a delegation from the Jug Band Colline Metallifere (namely Jack O’Malley and Mauro Tirannosauro) would have been attending the fifth European Citizen Science Association conference.

This is a medium-large event for a congress (around 500 participants), with a significant presence of extra-European folks. The topic is “citizen science”, where any citizen can become an active component of a research team, interact with professional researchers (especially in data collection) and help improve how society addresses some of its challenges with such an approach.

With the pibinko.org network we work in this domain since 2008. Our flagship projects are the buiometria partecipativa on light pollution project and our community maps, so we were curious of interacting with other projects on a global scale. In the meantime, together with parts of the Jug Band Colline Metallifere, we brought parts of our stories, including some wheat ears selected by Wolfgang Scheibe in the context of his rural regeneration projects in Southern Tuscany. Putting together these ingredients, and Mauro Tirannosauro in great shape, we had the possibility of presenting to a wider audience our upcoming Gran(i)Tour. In addition, we provided a little sample of our live entertainment at a workshop on citizen science and rural communities.

The initial idea for our presence in the workshop was to propose some songs from our “music and territory” repertoire. These were to be from our Italian songs, since listening to Italian is interesting for many non-Italian listeners, with the idea of showing the translation of the lyrics on screen. As the workshop was progressing, we agreed with the organizers that it would have not been immediate to make this work. At that point, Jack O’Malley sat down and in twenty minutes he wrote an English version of “Livin’ Milano” (the first of the JBCM songs about the relationship between city and countryside), adapting it to the workshop setting (but please also check out the original version). A few more acts followed.

We are now heading South, back toward the Tuscan latitudes. Thanks again to the Empowerment, Inclusiveness, and Equity ECSA working group for co-funding this mission, together with some of our JBCM viennese fan base.

Below, a few shots from the event, as well as some of the m(‘)appare Vienna survey by pibinko. For more information and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +393317539228.

The Tattistampa Art Print Day: how did it go?

Compositions

Here are a few shots from the “open door” event with Wolfgang Scheibe and his combined universe of art, agriculture, and music. As a peculiarity, with over 400 events in this celebration, the one in Tatti was the only one in Italy (and, in practice, almost the only one out of German-speaking countries…there was another one in the South of Denmark.

Now, we have a question..how come there are some grains in the picture? Are they ancient? Are they modern? Are they hand-made? To know more you will have to wait for the next episodes of the Jug Band Colline Metallifere! series, or you can write to micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +393317539228 if you are curious.

Also Castelfiorentino is in the Heart of Tuscany

Compositions

Jennifer the Verona Reindeer and Mauro Tirannosauro have ascertained it beyond any reasonable doubt. Also Castelfiorentino, close to Florence, is “in the heart of Tuscany”.

Help us to draw the perimeter of this great big hear by letting us know about locations to micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +33317539228. For the moment the heart of Tuscany is looking like a tight ventricle, but we are only in the very first steps of this survey.

To follow the story: https://www.pibinko.org/en/?s=heart+tuscany

A Summary of the First Italian Survey of Hand-made Crochet Hook Christmas Trees

Compositions, Metà-verse

Between Dec. 22, 2023 and Jan. 6, 2024, the pibinko.org network, in collaboration with those who will collaborate, and the endorsement of those who will endorse, organized the First Italian survey of hand-made crochet hook Christmas trees. This was under the art direction of Jennifer the psychedelic reindeer, and the notary Maurizio Ascalzone.

The survey was partly conducted in the so-called real world, and partly in the pibinko.org metà-verse and led to:

  • identify sixteen trees across the country
  • an improved satisfaction of the work groups which in the previous months were busy creating the trees
  • a full page of a newspaper, plus a citation on a national radio station
  • various kudos and congratulation e-mails
  • another thread of mails and messages questioning our mental sanity etc.

Geographic distribution of the trees

The header image gives and overview of the diffusion of hand-made crochet hook Christmas trees in Italy, based on the current survey. These are the localities involved:

  • Bagno di Gavorrano, Grosseto, Tuscany
  • Braccagni, Grosseto, Tuscany
  • Castell’Azzara, Grosseto, Tuscany
  • Cerreto di Montignoso, Massa, Tuscany
  • Montemassi, Grosseto, Tuscany
  • Oliveto Sabino, Rieti, Latium
  • Reggello, Florence, Tuscany
  • Roccatederighi, Grosseto, Tuscany
  • Rocchetta Tanaro, Asti, Piedmont
  • Ruscio, Perugia, Umbria
  • San Piero Patti, Messina, Sicily
  • Scansano, Grosseto, Tuscany
  • Tatti, Grosseto, Tuscany (indoor)
  • Torniella, Grosseto, Tuscany (outdoor and indoor)
  • Viterbo, Latium

To review the articles where these cases have been reported, please see: https://www.pibinko.org/it/?s=natale+uncinetto (in Italian).

Methodology Notes

As a survey methodology, intentional web searches have been excluded. On the other hand, unrelated web searches were accepted (e.g.: you look for news on how to comb a camel, and you find a related article about a crochet hook tree..this happened to Sara Landi from Il Tirreno in the case of Castell’Azzara).

In addition to trees made by stitching together crochet hook “tiles”, following a consultation with our notary, Maurizio Ascalzone, we decided to accept also report of trees made in any material, excluding plutonium bars, and subsequently decorated with crochet hook balls and similar hand-made artifacts.

A Zoom on Tuscany

A zoom on Tusccany, including the portion of Corsica which can be seen at sunset from Tatti (this is where we are writing from) and other places with a similar position, when the sky is very clear, like yesterday.

Even a blind man will see that there are more trees in Southern Tuscany than in other parts of the region. For this reason we are calling for the immediate creation of the first Hand-made crochet hook national park. We are also strongly advocating the declaration of the hand-made crochet hook Christmas tree as UNNESCO heritage (Note: this is with two N’s – it is an organization based in central Italy concerned about people who are not going out)

The correlation between the presence of the Jug Band dalle Colline Metallifere and that of hand-made crochet hook Christmas trees is obvious.

We did not know that the territorial waters boundary was there.

Conclusions

  • There are different ways of spending time in the Christmas period.
  • Additional investigations are required to confirm the actual distribution of hand-made crochet hook Christmas trees in Italy, and other parts of the world.
  • It is possible that, by inviting the Jug Band dalle Colline Metallifere to perform at a given location, a hand-made crochet hook Christmas tree will grow. Also this finding requires additional field tests.

Did you like this story?

Jennifer the psychedelic reindeer, art directory of the survey

If you liked the story of the first national survey of hand-made crochet hook Christmas trees, please support the pibinko.org network buy sponsoring our upcoming initiatives: https://www.pibinko.org/support/

If you have other trees to report, either from the past season, or trees which might be in preparation for the next one, please write to micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +393317539228

If you are curious about more investigations and spatial analyises by the pibinko.org network, please have a look at the “maps” section of our site, or contact us for specific inquiries: https://www.pibinko.org/contacts/

Closing theme

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all those who contributed by reporting trees, and/or promoting the survey. For the tree reports, more or less: Sonia, Cinzia, Luciano, Fabrizio, Sara, Eda, Gabriella, Giuseppe detto Milluzzo, Simona, Fausto.

Countries from which pibinko.org Network stories have been followed in 2023

Compositions

Following the publication of the full list of articles from 2023 (see link) and our year by images (see this other link), in preparation for our upcoming initiatives we are giving you a few more statistics on our web presence. Here you can see as a list (or in the header image as a map) an overview of the countries from which somebody have seen at least once of our blog posts over the past twelve months (the country list is in Italian as this is the default language for our reporting system):

Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaigian, Belgio, Bolivia, Bosnia ed Erzegovina, Brasile, Bulgaria, Cambogia, Camerun, Canada, Cechia, Cile, Cina, Città del Vaticano, Colombia, Corea del Sud, Croazia, Danimarca, Egitto, El Salvador, Emirati Arabi Uniti,
Estonia, Etiopia, Filippine, Finlandia, Francia, Georgia, Germania, Giappone, Grecia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Irlanda, Isole Salomone, Israele, Kenya, Kosovo, Lettonia, Libano, Libia,
Lituania, Lussemburgo, Malaysia, Marocco, Messico, Moldavia, Montenegro, Nigeria, Norvegia,
Nuova Zelanda, Paesi Bassi, Pakistan, Panamá, Perù, Polonia, Portogallo, RAS di Hong Kong,
Regno Unito, Romania, Ruanda, Russia, Samoa americane, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore,
Slovacchia, Slovenia, Somalia, Spagna, Sri Lanka, Stati Uniti, Sud Sudan, Sudafrica, Svezia,
Svizzera, Taiwan, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad e Tobago, Tunisia, Turchia, Uganda, Ungheria,
Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam.

If we extend the analysis to all of our logs (which start from 2019, even though the web site is on since 2006), to date in the world there are only a dozen countries from which our stories have not been seen.

For more information: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +393317539228

The pibinko.org Network + Jug Band Colline Metallifere’year in Review (photo version)

Compositions

After the list of the articles published during 2023 (click here) for the lovers of verbosityDopo la lista degli articoli pubblicati durante il 2023 (in effetti al 20-12- clicca qui), here we go with a more compact view of our past 12 months. The initial idea was to select six shots per month, out of 6101 photos we have, and then make a 72-second video with a laid back folk-blues soundtrack. Then, since it’s late, we preferred to make a simpler montage:

To see a larger image, do what you will…

With this we wish you the best closing for this 2023 and we will send you an update tomorrow. For more information and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +393317539228.

Passing it on to…

Don’t worry bout me | non preoccuparti per me
I’ll find a way | troverò una strada
I’ll find a way
Oh, I’ll find a way

Always have trouble | sempre problemi
Trouble each day | problemi tutti i giorni
But I left it all behind | ma me li sono lasciati dietro
No more to stay | non ci saranno più
That road I still ride | la strada su cui viaggio
The wind in my hair | il vento nei capelli
It blows away the trouble | porta via i problemi
For which I don’t care | di cui non mi curo

Come every Sunday | ogni domenica
That ol’ preacher would say | quel vecchio predicatore diceva
No joy will you know | non conoscerete alcuna gioia
’til your find your way | fino a che non troverete la vostra strada
And I spent many years | e ho passato molto anni
Waiting to be free | aspettando di essere libero
‘Til I found the great emancipator was me! | fino a che non ho scoperto che il grande liberatore ero io!

Well there’s rock in the mountain | be’ ci sono rocce sui monti
There’s fish in the sea | ci sono pesci nel mare
There’s no love left in my |non c’è amore per me
Girls heart for me | nel cuore della mia ragazza
And the bricks in the road | e il mattoni sulla strada
Come from clay in the hills | vengono dall’argilla nei monti
Well the end of my girl | be’ la fine della mia ragazza
aint the end of my thrill, Oh | non è la fine delle mie emozioni
Don’t worry bout me
I’ll find a way
I’ll find a way
Oh, I’ll find a way

Taking no mercy | Trattando tutti male
I would lie, I would cheat | mentirei, sarei un falso
I leave all my victims | lascio le mie vittime
Just laying at my feet | stese ai miei piedi
And the dark side of life | e la parte buia della vita
Is leading me out | mi sta portando fuori strada
But I saw the light | ma ho visto la luce
Now those shadows are gone | ora quelle ombre sono sparite

1st National Survey of Hand-made Crochet-hook Christmas Trees

Compositions

In the pibinko.org network this has been a hot topic for some time. After one of the national TV news made a report about this, we could no longer wait. Before some supposedly independent production company started the next hypo-lobotomizing reality show, we considered sharing some hints for some DIY territorial survey.

We noted in Italy that this year there is a mild proliferation of christmas trees which are (1) home-made (2) decorated with crochet-hook works.

We have actually found a few along the Via della Citta Brusca (the link goes to Italian), one of our metà-verse trails. One in Scansano, right in the middle of the Garibaldi square, and one in Torniella. These are places in Souther Tuscany.

We also had a message indicating that another similar tree was covered on national television. If two clues make one piece of evidence, three clues clearly indicate that the time of old-style Christmas trees is closing, while the era of self-made trees is dawning. This has the up-side that knitting and crochet hook are calling for experts with a rather high age, so they can maintain a role in today’s world. This is very, very important.

If you would like to let us know about any hand-made tree, especially with crochet hook works, please write, together with a significant photo, to micalosapevo@pibinko.org, or +393317539228.

The survey will close on January 6, 2024 and the results of the survey will be subsequently published on this site.