ecopolis

Armin Meiwes, the German cannibal serving a life sentence for killing and eating a man who begged to be devoured, has described how the meat tasted of pork: “The flesh tastes like pork, a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good”. In his first television interview, broadcast last week on the RTL channel, he also spoke about his decades-long yearning to consume another man, an his obsession with cannibalism since puberty.

Meiwes filmed himself killing, disembowelling and cutting up the corpse of Bernd Brandes, a computer engineer met after posting messages in chatrooms Desperately Seeking “Men for slaughter.” He defrosted Brandes portion by portion in the following months and turned him into gourmet recipes: “I sauteed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce,” he said. While he kept the skull in a freezer and buried the left parts in his garden.

Someone to be part of me

He found a perfect match in Brandes, who was obsessed with being eaten. “The first bite was of course a peculiar, indefinable feeling at first because I had yearned for that for 30 years, that this inner connection would be made perfect through this flesh…” he said.

German scientists have recently discovered that Truffles produce a musky chemical that is also secreted in the male pig’s saliva and prompts mating behavior in the sow. The investigators suggest that “the biological role of this boar sex pheromone might explain the efficient interest of pigs in search of this delicacy.

It is generally believed that the truffle excites the genetic sense. So wrote Jean Antheleme Brillat-Savarin, the renowned 17th century gastronome, in his classic work The Physiology of Taste.

Do truffles actually have aprodisiacal properties? Whether a porcine pheromone scent has any effect on the human libido is yet to be proven: there are too many social and behavioral factors influencing human sexuality to consider any strictly chemical to be any reliable mating trigger. But the main characteristic of the truffle remains its smell, which can be perceived even from a distance: the unique aroma is difficult to describe. Like its unique taste.

Truffles are a sort of mushroom that lives below ground. They form a symbiotic relationship with their environment and feed on the substances they find on the roots of some species of trees to which they also restore vital substances.
Since they live in symbiosis with trees, the most important species for truffles are walnut, poplar, hazel, linden, chestnut, pine, oak. Inside the fruit is the flesh or gleba, which is differently coloured according to the species, the host tree, and to the minerals in the soil. Truffles are earth parts.

The body of the truffle is spherical in shape, varying in size from a hazelnut to a melon, with a more or less even surface
The outer part of the truffle (peridium), which is more simply known as the peel or skin can be white, yellow, dark grey or black and smooth or warty according to the different species, and according to the soil, the plants with which the truffle has a symbiotic relationship, and the area or countries in which the truffles grow.

However, the main difference is that between the black and white truffle. The best truffle of all is the white truffle. You can find it in Alba, Piedmont or in the Monferrato region and in the Marches region of Acqualagna.
White truffle sale’s seasons is just started: from 1st October to 31st December. For Black winter truffle you must wait until the 1 st of December until to 15 March.

Scrambled eggs with truffles: Beat eggs lightly in a bowl with a little cream; add white or black pepper if desired, but no salt. Scramble over medium heat in lightly browned butter. At the last minute of cooking (literally; all of the soft textured truffles are generally best either raw or very lightly heated, just enough to incorporate their essence into the dish), add slivered or shaved truffles.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth (4.1.45-6)

People believe that if you put your clothes on inside out as well as outside walk backwards on Halloween night, at midnight you will see a witch in the sky. The word Witch comes from middle English wicche, from Old English wicca, masculine, wizard & wicce, feminine, witch; akin to Middle High German wicken to bewitch, Old English wigle, divination. Wicca is a ditheistic religion, also called Witchcraft, founded on the beliefs and doctrines of pre-Roman Celts, including the reverence for nature and the belief in a universal balance. Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Samhain is the word for November in the Gaelic languages. It is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is generally regarded as ‘The Celtic New Year’.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. And the dead returned to earth. Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. These prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. Two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain: Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead, and Pomona, to honor the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

Pumpkin carving is a popular part of modern Halloween celebration. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form.

The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years. When Jack died, as the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset for the tricks, would not allow Jack into hell and sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”

People believe that if on the Halloween night, a girl carrying a lamp in her hand goes to a spring of water, she will see the reflection of her life partner in water.

People began to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In Mexico, Latin America, and Spain, All Souls’ Day, which takes place on November 2, is commemorated the dead who, it is believed, return to their earthly homes on Halloween. Often, a wash basin and towel are left out so that the spirit can wash before indulging in the feast. Candles and incense are burned to help the deceased find the way home.

MELBA’S BLEEDING BRAIN: A Peach and Raspberry Gelatin Brain for Halloween

2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1 can (29 oz.) canned peaches in syrup
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons peach flavored syrup
Raspberry pie filling

Prepare the mold by following instructions on the mold package to oil the mold and place in a bowl for stability.

Pour milk and cream into a small saucepan and sprinkle with gelatin. Whisk the mixture well, then let it sit for 3 minutes. Place the pan over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking frequently to insure that gelatin dissolves. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, pour contents into another bowl and let the mixture cool for about 20 minutes.

In a bender or food processor, or with an immersion blender, purée remaining ingredients.

Pour purée into cooled cream mixture and stir well. Pour about half of mixture into prepared mold. Chill until set but not firm — about 40-50 minutes. Remove mold from the refrigerator. Carefully spoon the raspberry pie filling into the center.

If you like, you can scoop a small space before you add the filling, but be careful not to take too much or the filling will bleed through to the outside of the mold. Carefully pour the remaining gelatin mixture over the filling.

To unmold, dip the bottom of mold in a bowl filled with hot water, taking care to not let any water get into the mold. Dipping the mold for a few seconds helps to loosen the gelatin from the mold. Remove from water and dry off the bottom of the mold. Carefully remove the mold from the gelatin.

Excepts from: http://www.fabulousfoods.com/holidays/halloween/gelatinbrains.html

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, Tonight, Tonight

What crosses your mind when you hear someone talking about prostitution?

Prostitutes in the Bolivian city of El Alto sewed their lips together as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after violent protests by residents last week. “We are fighting for the right to work and for our families’ survival,” Lily Cortez, leader of the El Alto Association of Nighttime Workers, told local television via Reuters.

“It’s not only us owners and the sex workers who are affected, there are thousands of waiters, cooks, bartenders, taxi drivers and street vendors who will be without income,” said Ramiro Orellana, spokesman for the business group. Prostitution in Bolivia is legal but pimping is outlawed.

Hunger strike in El Alto. REUTERS/David Mercado

The commercial exploitation of the human body is nothing new. Italian Politics stressed hypothesis to build a SexDrive Park. A sort of drive-through service, placed on fast and anonymous ways like Cristoforo Colombo in Rome, targeted at truckers and sex travelers. The government’s focus is looking at improving protection of prostitutes and clients, exclusion of uncontrolled activities of streetwalkers on city streets, places of cult, hospitals and publics places attended by underage.

Contrary to the urban picture of prostitution painted by the social recognition of sexual entertainment as sex work, the violence and the trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation and slave labour have become two of the fastest growing worldwide problems in recent years. Victims do not agree to be trafficked or sold: they are tricked, lured by false promises, or forced into it in order to work.

The harm of prostitution is graphically evident in its health consequences. (Not only) women in prostitution suffer the same injuries that women subjected to other forms of violence against women endure, including bruises, broken bones, black eyes, concussions, and loss of consciousness. The reproductive health effects include a high incidence of unwanted pregnancies, miscarriage, multiple abortions and infertility. In addition to HIV/AIDS, chronic pelvic pain and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are alarmingly high among women in prostitution.

In May, 1998, Sweden became one the of the first countries to prohibit the purchase of sexual services with punishments of fines or imprisonment (Swedish Government Offices, 1998). In so doing, Sweden has declared that prostitution is not a desirable economic and labor sector. Another example : Venezuela ruled that “prostitution cannot be considered work because it lacks the basic elements of dignity and social justice.”

Prostitution is a sign of economic marginalization and social inequality. Prostitution institutionalizes the buying and selling of (not only) women as commodities in the marketplace. For example, Second Life “Khannea” took her first client on her very first day in Second Life, and since then has been busy working. Khannea charges 750 Lindens (about $3 at current exchange rates) per half hour “of varied activity,” but clients generally tip more. On one occasion a man in game paid her 5,000 Lindens.

David LaChapelle, Lil’ Kim, Keep it Real, photograph for Atlantic Records, May 13th, 1999, C-print

While the most invisible part of the sex industry is the buyer and his role and responsibility in creating the demand for prostitution. Italy allowed brothels to operate legally until 1959. Italy now provides a certain amount of social protection and laws to stop pimps exploiting prostitutes. Giulio Amato recently purposed to serve legal papers in clients’ homes in order to shame them. The main problem is a socio-cultural censoring of women’s sexuality, and culture’s objectification of the fe-male body. Prostitution expresses the worth of all human bodies.

A recent example of Italian culture body censoring was the Nolita campaign. Shot by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, the image shows anorexic French actress Isabelle Caro, for Italian fashion label Nolita. The image was published in newspapers and featured on billboards during Milan fashion week. Then it was banned. Toscani called the ban “censorship” and said he was considering legal action. I call “censorship” the image itself: a pretty woman in a standard position, which witness an essential advertising technique to accomplish the (sex) industry based on the exploitation of a (female) body. The problem is (not only) the stigmatised body of the under-weight model. And the the solution is (not only) the medical certificates for under-weight models, attesting their good health from doctors with expertise in recognising eating disorders.

Sex industry and sex worker is also a way to neutralize the term prostitution. Of course legalization would create a whole regulatory framework: a whole regulatory set of systems for regulating who’s involved, how they are involved, health issues, access to healthcare, how to deal with the police, how to get services around sexual assault or domestic violence. As ministry Amato said “prostitution is a complexion to deal with in light of social security” un elemento complesso da gestire in un’ottica di sicurezza sociale”

Soon we will end up with prostitution as Social workers. You will need a license, certification, or registration. The rules for getting these things will depend on the State where the worker lives. This certification will make it easier to get some jobs. Pimps will become businessmen and the buyers simply customers. Soon we will end up in the perfect paradox: you will prostitute yourself to become a legal one. Let’s strike immediatly for your (social) rights.

Mamma Roma is a 1962 film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Prostitute Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), tries to start a new life selling vegetables with her 16 year old son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo). When he later finds out she was a prostitute he succumbs to the dark side with petty crime and goes to prison. This project of self-gentrification and of “urbanizing” an illiterate provincial youth is doomed, not least by the reappearance of Mamma Roma’s old lover and pimp, Carmine—quite literally “a force from the Past”—who twice compels her to return to the streets she walked for thirty years.

Shifting flame have burned across more than 1,550 square kilometres, killing at least 12 people, destroying more than 2,000 homes and prompting the biggest evacuation from north of Los Angeles, through San Diego to the Mexican border. More than 60 people have been injured, many of them firefighters. 500,000 people forced to flee in California Largest Evacuation In History were expected to be back in their homes by the weekend.

San Diego County
Witch Fire – 197,990 acres
Harris Fire – 81,100 acres
Poomacha Fire – 35,000 acres
Rice Fire – 9,000 acres
Horno/Ammo Fire – 10,000 acres
Wilcox Fire – 100 acres
Cajon Fire – 250 acres
McCoy Fire – 300 acres
Coronado Hills Fire – 300 acres

San Bernardino County
Slide Fire – 11,366 acres
Grass Valley Fire – 1,100 acres
Martin Fire – 123 acres
Walker Fire – 160 acres

Orange County
Santiago Fire – 23,00 acres

Los Angeles County
Ranch Fire – 55,756 acres
Canyon Fire – 4,500 acres
Magic Fire – 2,824 acres
Buckweed Fire – 38,356 acres
Meadowridge Fire – 40 acres

Santa Barbara County
Sedgewick Fire – 710 acres

Riverside County
Rosa Fire – 411 acres
Roca Fire – 270 acres

Ventura County
Nightsky Fire – 35 acres

“The End” is a song by The Doors. It evolved through months of performances at Los Angeles’ Whisky a Go Go into a nearly 12-minute opus on their self-titled album. The band would perform the song to close their last set. Released in January 1967, “The End” was ranked 328 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004). The spoken-word section of the song includes the lines “Father/ Yes son?/ I want to kill you/ Mother, I want to…fuck you,” (with the last two words screamed (almost) unintelligibly). This is often considered a reference to Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, the tragedy of a single man who tries to outwit the Delphic Oracle inexorable slides toward ruin: “This is the end, Beautiful friend; This is the end, My only friend; The end of our elaborate plans; the end of everything that stands; The end; No safety or surprise; The end; I’ll never look into your eyes…again.”

New York 18/10/07: Over 38.8 million people, in 110 countries have broken the Guinness World Record – set last year at 23.5 million – for the largest number of people to “STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY” in 24 hours.
Photo on the map

The “Stand Up and Speak Out” record attempt took place over 16th and 17th October and was jointly organised by the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC) and the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) with a wide range of other partners. The challenge saw millions of people physically and intentionally standing up against poverty, inequality and in support of the Millennium Development Goals. They spoke out to demand a more urgent political response to the growing crisis of global poverty.
Stand Up regional overview of World record numbers

Africa: 7,473,057
Arab Region: 2,546,885
Asia: 27,612,061
Europe: 218,604
Latin America & Caribbean: 734,185
North America: 109,828
Oceania: 117,333

“ It takes a revolution to make a solution … ”

Robert “Bob” Nesta Marley OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist. He is the most widely known performer of reggae music. A faithful Rastafari, Marley is regarded by many as a prophet of the religion

More than 150 countries around the world will observe World Food Day this year, organizing special events, conferences, contests, sports activities and a global candlelight vigil on “The Right to Food”.

FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, the day the Organization was founded in 1945 in Quebec City, Canada. This year’s World Food Day theme is “The Right to Food.”

Go to : Interactive Hunger Map

This year’s World Food Day theme, “The Right to Food,” highlights a basic human right that is often ignored as severe food insecurity continues to afflict more than 850 million people.

The right to food, according to international law, is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. It is the right to feed oneself in dignity, rather than the right to be fed.

Since the 1996 World Food Summit, FAO has worked with governments and communities worldwide to gain recognition for this basic human right.

Vivienne Isabel Swire born in Glossopdale, Derbyshire, on 8 April 1941, always enjoyed cutting a dash. As a teenager in the 1950s, she customised her school uniform to emulate the fashionable pencil skirt and made many of her own clothes, including a long, fitted ‘New Look’ dress made of sleeveless shifts, with a single seam and darts, from exactly one yard of fabric. Ecology and independence remain central to Westwood’s character. She has lived in south London for many years, cycles everywhere.

Using culture as a way of making trouble

Vivienne Westwood met Malcolm McLaren in 1965, and their son Joseph Ferdinand Corré was born in 1966. Their working relationship, which lasted from 1970 until 1983, launched Punk. Vivienne recalled : I felt there were so many doors to open, and he had the key to all of them. Plus, he had a political attitude and I needed to align myself.

McLaren was infact obsessed with fashion and music and saw them as inseparable parts of a Rock ‘n’ Roll outlaw spirit. Rejecting the dominant hippie look, in 1971, McLaren opened a shop called Let It Rock, and shifted to another fashion minority.

McLaren renamed it Sex and he scrawled above the door ‘Craft must have clothes but Truth loves to go naked’. The interior was sprayed with pornographic graffiti, hung with rubber curtains and stocked with sex and fetish wear.

Sex was intimidating and it attracted an extraordinary clientele, with voyeurs and prostitutes mixing with proto-Punk King’s Road shoppers. Jordan, the shop assistant, wore rubber clothes, a beehive hairstyle and theatrical make-up.

The Punkature Era

Soon Westwood’s horizons opened and expanded. As McLaren put it: We want to get out of this island mentality, and relate ourselves to those taboos and magical things we believe we have lost.They designed new collections based on ethnic and primitive looks culled from National Geographic magazine while their second collection Savage (S/S 1982) combined Native American patterns with leather frock coats. Third came Nostalgia of Mud (A/W 1982), with its huge tattered skirts and sheepskin jackets in muddy colours. In March 1982, McLaren and Westwood opened a second shop. It was called Nostalgia of Mud . The interior was styled like an archaeological dig. McLaren and Westwood began to conjure up darker spirits and found a magical, esoteric sign language in the work of the New York graffiti artist Keith Haring.

Punkature (S/S 1983) still had a raw feeling and an emphasis on pre-washed and over-printed natural fabrics. It played on the words ‘punk’ and ‘couture’, and carried images from Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner.

The Witches collection was the final collaboration between McLaren and Westwood:

By 1984 Westwood had moved to Italy with her new business partner, Carlo d’Amario. The Hypnos collection featured sleek garments made out of synthetic sports fabric in fluorescent pinks and greens. They were fastened with rubber phallus buttons. This was followed by Clint Eastwood, a collection that hankered after the wide open spaces seen in Western films: It included garments smothered in Italian company logos and Day-Glo patches inspired by Tokyo’s neon signs.

The Harris Tweed collection celebrated Westwood’s love affair with traditional English clothing and also her growing obsession with royalty. It was named after the woollen fabric hand-woven in the Western Isles of Scotland. The word clann in Gaelic means children of the family. A Clan Tartan is the regular sett (pattern) of the clan or family. The identification of clans with tartan patterns became a dogma of great success: all the recognised clans had their tartans, be they Highland or Lowland. Using a mix of different tartans, Westwood ensembles exploits the rich depth, colour and diversity of the traditional checked pattern. Let’s camouflage.

Many of the garments – the twinsets made by the long-established firm of Smedley, the ‘Stature of Liberty’ corsets, the tailored ‘Savile’ jackets – became Westwood classics and her most recognisable trademarks. Romantic and historically accurate, the corsets are also surprisingly practical. Stretch fabrics allow ease of movement, and removable sleeves convert a daytime garment to evening wear. Once a symbol of constraint, corsets are now an expression of female sexuality and empowerment.

Frans Hals corset, 1992-3, “Vivienne Westwood”, Victoria and Albert Museum

With Britain Must Go Pagan, Westwood combined traditional British themes with classical and pagan elements. Classical drapery was paired with tweed, Smedley underwear was overprinted with pornographic images from ancient Greece. This strange mix reflected the inherent camouflage in her work, its respect for tradition and culture alongside a love of parody and sexual liberty. With the Mini-Crini collection she has devised a ‘mini-crini’ that combined the tutu with an abbreviated form of the Victorian crinoline. References to literature and high art pervaded Westwood’s work. She spent many hours in the Wallace Collection in London studying the 18th-century French art collected by Lord Hertford. In shows she began to use statuesque models dressed in sumptuous costumes and poised on 10-inch platform shoes, as if on a pedestal. The idea was that they had just stepped out of a portrait. Fashion is Camouflaging Environment.

Harlequin from Vivienne Westwood’s “Voyage to Cythera Autumn / Winter 1989-90″ collection “Vivienne Westwood”, Victoria and Albert Museum

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD – V&A Retrospective, Palazzo Reale, Milan.

Launched in the 2004 at the London Victoria & Albert Museum, the exhibition is the largest display the museum ever dedicated to a British designer. The Retrospective features designs selected from both the V&A’s collections and Vivienne Westwood’s personal archive.

Italian female singer-songwriter and rock musician Gianna Nannini
is on tour with her pop opera Pia come la canto io. Based on a section of Dante’s Purgatorio, the opera inhabits the kind of extreme territory of uxoricide, whereby Pia’s husband, Nello d’Inghiramo de’ Pannocchieschi, allegedly disposed of his spouse, Pia de’ Tolomei, at his castle near Massa Marittima in the middle of a malarial swamp.

« Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma:
salsi colui che ‘nnanellata pria

disposando m’avea con la sua gemma. » (Purgatorio V, 130-136)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. La Pia de’ Tolomei. 1868-1880. Oil on canvas.

Gianna Nannini tells her Pia’s story by making the Maremma the grammatical subject. The marshy region on the Tuscan coast sets a folks tradition and a familiar landscape to allow an eclectic blend of rock and popscene with surreal hip hop attitude. The narrative proceeds by extremely realistic details with the use of Bruscello: a dramatical forms of folk theatre linked with the rituals of late-Spring connected with the themes of conflict between good-evil, spring-winter, life–death.

Gianna Nannini contaminates this monodic song of lines, with her rock attitude and breakdancing battles. The result is a contemporary Bruscello Pop to narrate Pia’s concern for Dante’s well being and her request to be remembered : a shining example of the «eterno femminino» in the sense of acceptance of her eternal fate which stands out by the relative, dramatic contrast with the terrible descriptions of the manner of her death.

Gianni Nannini marks a climax: her down-and-gritty voice sharing Pia’s joy and sorrow emerges as a code in its own right. Thus ending the whole opera on a high note of female catharsis.