Today is September 10.
Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 33, and today, I woke up with the biggest smile on my face. Holy smile. Holy morning. Holy life.
I went to bed at 3:33, fell asleep, and woke up around 6:30. I did my morning practice: TM meditation, Surya Namaskar and pranayama.
Around 8am, I received a message from Francesca Milani asking if I was coming to the presentation of Cattelan’s book at the Neue Nationalgalerie.
I hadn’t planned to go, nor did I even know it was happening. But since Francesca texted me, I took an Uber and went to the Neue.
There, I met Francesca, who was on the phone call and looking incredibly chic. She finished her call, and we warmly hugged each other, as we hadn’t seen each other since Venice in May.
She told me she had come just for the exhibition and that she had to go back to Milan tonight. Then Umberta Beretta, Paola Manfrin, Warly Tomei, Marco Gerosa, and others showed up too. I told them how lovely it is that Cattelan has this little family of friends who always follow him to all his events, and that he’s lucky to have such a generous friends.
Francesca mentioned that she was having dinner in Milan on September 16 and invited me to join her. So, I was happy. I love Francesca, she is real and special. She is aquarius.
In her hands, she was already carrying a signed copy of Cattelan’s book and his passport. We passed through the Brandenburg Gate, Francesca and I shared a warm hug, then went our separate ways. I stayed in line, waiting for Godot and banana bread.
I wanted to buy the book, but it was sold out. Then I started wondering: why am I waiting in line if this is a book-signing line and I don’t even have a book for him to sign?
Then I noticed a pile of bananas on the table, along with banana bread that was slowly disappearing. An idea came to me: He could sign or stamp my banana. Because banana bread is too crumbly and too brown – you wouldn’t be able to see the stamp or the signiture on it haha.
While waiting in line, I ran into Rossella Farinotti, again.
We greeted each other warmly, and she told me I looked elegant. She and her friend Eleonora liked my new Kuboraum bag, which Sergio had given me for my birthday, along with my Kuboraum sunglasses yesterday.
We talked about a potential collaboration for Mal di Mare and ideas for a sound installation in Filicudi.
Soon we reached the front of the line.
Cattelan spotted us and rolled his eyes. But it was such a nice eye-roll that it looked much more like,’ Ah, finally they’re here‘ rather than ‘Oh God, them again’.
Rossella had a book in her hands that she had managed to get in time. I, instead of a book, was holding a banana. Rossella pulled a T-shirt with the Mal di Mare logo from her bag and asked him to sign it too. Of course, he rolled his eyes again. But there is something so revealing about the way he rolls his eyes that you immediately understand: he is actually pleased to do it, he simply doesn’t quite know what to do with his own feelings, so the eye-roll becomes the easiest available language.
When he finished signing Rossella’s book & T-shirt, he looked at me with a half-smile and said: Do I know you? and I answered very seriously: Yes. From a previous life.
Then I told him: The book is sold out. I don’t have it with me, but I have a banana.
So he rolled his eyes again and stamped the banana. Rossella was waiting with me and said: She’s a big fan of Mal di Mare, you know.
He rolled his eyes again, traditionally.
We stayed there a little longer on the right side while Rossella and Eleonora took selfies, and I filmed them eating the banana in front of him while he continued signing books.
Then Rossella took out a hairbrush to comb her hair, but somehow, spontaneously, the banana and the hairbrush ended up together in her lap.
Of course, I caught the moment and took a photograph, immediately. I found something very contemporary about it – almost conceptual, a small gesture becoming an object before I had time to decide why.
Then we said goodbye to each other, because I had to go to Hamburger Bahnhof for a sound check.
We hugged in front of the Neue Nationalgalerie while Eleonora’s IQOS, an electronic cigarette device, slipped from her hands and almost broke on the floor. I felt sorry for her, but then I thought in myself: Oh, maybe this will stop her from smoking. Her lungs will thank her.
then I got on a Lime and rode to Hamburger Bahnhof.
I put the stamped banana in the front basket of the Lime bike, and that is where it stayed.
I forgot it there because I was in a hurry. Someone else surely ate it – along with Cattelan’s stamp, without ever knowing what, exactly, they had eaten.