Un dos tres...Mambo...un dos tres...Mambo ah ah ah cha cha cha...Mambo
A stream of consciousness, a true satirical-postmodern zibaldone mixing Ventennio slogans (The Italian Fascist Era), pop refrains, Dante (The Fater of Italian Language) quotes ("o voi ch'avete li 'ntelletti sani..."), Petrolini (1884–1936, The Great satirical italian actor of the 1930s who mocked the solemn rhetoric and superficial snobbery of his era through caricatures like Gastone and Nerone), and a sacrosanct technical obsession for the photographic medium.
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Scraping away the surreal patina, the underlying bitterness is crystal clear. It is the eternal issue of technique and memory sold by the pound at the marketing counter:
The Trap of Alla cassa alla cassa! (To the cash register, to the cash register!) and "Mandarin Brand" Rhetoric[infoHide=...continue...]
The irritation toward the "bunnies" (or the influencer/content creator of the day) hired by companies like Canon to pontificate on things they barely understand is entirely justified. It is the commodification of a complex technical discipline, reduced to a superficial sales pitch for Generation Z (or "Ypseter") living in the illusion of an eternal digital present.
The Eternal Dilemma: Dye (Water) vs. Pigment
Here lies the technical and poetic core of the rant—the unmentionable truth masked by marketing under the buzzword "longevity":
Water-based ink (Dye): Possesses fluidity and penetration into the paper fiber (especially on the right semi-gloss or baryta surfaces without too many frills) capable of delivering deep blacks, continuous tonal transitions, and an organic brilliance that pigment can never fully replicate. It holds the three-dimensionality of flesh and blood, even if it pays the toll of lower lightfastness and air stability when left unprotected.
Pigment: Solid, mineral, eternal (those "200 or 1000 years" paraded in technical spec sheets). Yet it often sits on top of the substrate. A dry, protective film, "firing blanks" (a salve), which guarantees survival against glitches and fading memories, but sometimes at the expense of the turgidity and softness that only water-based ink provides.
The Digital Illusion vs. The Physical Object
Leaving an image trapped inside a smartphone or cloud storage is a Platonic shadow destined to vanish at the first system breakdown. Printing is an act of resistance, a necessary "blasphemy," even when commercial dynamics push users to buy the latest gadget at the supermarket (nomen omen) instead of grasping the physics of substrates and color.
Lamborghini or Ferrari to Go to the Supermarket?
The Ferrari, without question. If one must perform an act of empty ostentation ("gaja che pria"—a direct Petrolinian deformation from his Nerone sketch), it should be done with a classic red recalling fresh enamel, rather than the sharp, hyper-technological angles of a modern Lamborghini—far too reminiscent of today's molded plastic.
As for that thirty-third trentino who broke out of the chorus like Jack Frusciante... he might be the only one who didn't run "alla cassa" (to the cash register) to be hypnotized by trinkets.
The real question remains: between a dense, fleshy, yet fragile Dye black, and an eternal yet slightly chalky pigment in the shadows, what price are we willing to pay to salvage memory?
(Copy & Past)
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/J2w6Ea3Yog8&t=99s
