ECONOMICS • FASHION • FOOD • ARTS • CULTURE • MUSIC MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2012 LATE! LATE!for a very important date THE END OF THE WORLD DRUSILLA FOER TELLS ALL EURO BOXING CHAMP LEONARD BUNDU GLAMAZON ELDER SUSAN NEVELSON 1 Y Tack Up C REVELATION, THE DISCLOSURE OF SOMETHING HIDDEN, THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL T 2 SUMMER 2012 IN THIS ISSUE: FEATURES PERFORMING Zeitgeist Report: Apocalypse 2012 5 ARTS 14 Rituals, Totems and Taboos End of the World Chatter 6 of Classical Contemporary Food Rituals and Pasta 8 Music In the kitchen with Leone Contini 15 A New Beginning, a New Tune Culture Shock: Fumitaka Kudo 9 A Japanese point of view PHOTO STORY You Say You Want a Revolution 9 16 ÜBERGANG featuring Paolo Barnard pushes modern monetary theory Alessandro Schneider American Dreamers 9 FASHION Tackling tough issues with transforming artistic vision 18 Seismic Shift Survival Gear Drusilla Foer 10 20 Rocking the Solstice: Filippo iconoclast shakes our vision of reality Fanini Leonard Bundu 11 24 The World According to Up close and personal with the man himself Susan Nevelson Boboutic 12 Anti-Knitwear Transfi guration 26 Trends Emilio Cavallini 13 FOOD + WINE Channeling design genius into art 27 Out-of-This-World Wine Pairing 28 The Last Supper BLENDING LITERARY fi renze, SUPPLEMENT 3 29 Circus ON THE COVER: 30 Angels Florentine Iconoclast Drusilla Foer 30 Special End of the World Trip Photgrapher:Domenico Jerry Lee Strecapede Ingram Styling: 31 End of the World Book and Hair/Makeup: Angelo Nenna, Makeup Music Picks 23 Title TBD T EDITOR’S LETTER R Head-On Collision with Our Future Semestrale Semesterly Magazine Ha Reg. Trib. di Firenze n 5844 del 29 luglio 2011 Ma lending Magazine staff jumped on the Mayan End-of-the- Anno 1- Numero 2 - Primavera 2012 World prediction as a strong metaphor and theme to redi- Year II - Issue I - Spring 2012 oth rect the magazine on a course different from any English Direttore Responsabile Drector Ca language publication in Florence today. MATTEO BROGI BY B Caporedattore Editor-in-Chief BOur second bi-annual Special Spring-Summer 2012 Edition’s front cover GRACE JOH immediately invites you to share and talk with us. Let’s open the dialogue gjoh@palazzifl orence.com and fi gure out not only how to live together, but how to transform our new Coordinamento editoriale world together, confronting: social issues, econo mics, the arts, culture, Managing Editor fashion, food, sports, music and literature. Like Leone Contini’s Chinese Kim Coston and Pratesi experiment, we urge Anglophones and Italians to really en- In redazione Masthead C gage, not just fl oat past each other in parallel worlds. Progetto grafi co e impaginazione Graphic design and layout A quirky selection of singular, primarily Florentine luminaries agreed to Angela Neal delve into the end-of-the-world prediction with us, including whistle-blow- Maria Vasquez P ing journalist, social activist and proponent of Modern Monetary Theory Photographers Paolo Barnard, who has a thing or two to say about how governments Jerry Lee Ingram David Andre Weiss can better manage the Italian, American and British economic crises. Alessandro Schneider Sean Sullivan c Mysterious iconoclast Drusilla Foer shakes up our vision of reality for the Photo Editors Pe Mayan leap year with an unconventional take on Florentine aristocracy. Angela Neal Leonard Bundu, contender for the Welterweight World Championship Maria Vasquez p title, shares charmingly candid last-minute apocalypse thoughts. Con- Redazione Copy Editors temporary music composer extraordinaire Andrea Portera explores ritu- Brianna Bond Laura Aloise pa als, totems and taboos. Transformative fashion designer Emilio Caval- Maria Vasquez lini channels his talented energy and passion into innovative art. Susan Angela Neal Nevelson, print designer and artist, narrows the telescope on revolution. Editors at Large it Thomas Brownlees Published by Florence University of the Arts’ Ingorda Publications, Camilla Carrega Lucia Giardino Blending Magazine was developed by four extraordinary publishing stu- Alexandra Lawrence dent-editors and art directors with inspirational talent who have worked Baret Magarian Eva Sauer on the magazine from concept to launch: Laura Aloise, Brianna Bond, Simone Pierotti Until Angela Neal and Maria Vasquez. Remarkably, while working on the mag- and azine, they simultaneously wrote a marvelous book: Crafted with Soul. Copertina Cover by Jerry Lee Ingram had often This edition would not be here without the valuable help of our director Editore Publisher Florence Campus per fl ash Grace Joh; photographers Jerry Lee Ingram, David Andre Weiss; vid- INGORDIA Editore shatt eographer-graphics consultant, Silvia Mancini; our FUA section editors: Via Alfonso La Marmora 39 A sim 50121 Firenze Thomas Brownlees, Camilla Carrega, Lucia Giardino, Alexandra Law- Gree rence, Baret Magarian, Eva Sauer and Simone Pierotti; and Apicius Ex- Redazione News Offi ce aban ecutive Chef Andrea Trapani, Pastry Chef Simone de Castro and Livia Le Corso Tintori 21 econ 50121 Firenze Divelec. We also thank our exceptional student contributors: Gudmundur Tel. 055-0332745 Per t Hilmar Tomasson, Fiona Katherine Barbour, Amy Berray, Joseph Camp, earth Stampa Printer Rebecca Elbaum, Arthur Kozlovski, Amy Tanzillo, Alessandro Schneider it’s a Tipografi a Vanzi Industria Grafi ca and Sean Sullivan. The Il numero e stato chiuso in Arab redazione nel mese di maggio 2012. disas Our ability to connect with readers via more meaningful cultural content This issue was completed will be what enables Blending Magazine to fl ourish. in May 2012 Terre It’s n Copyright 2012 Cale KIM COSTON, Managing Editor by Florence Campus, Firenze All rights reserved. As th H E 4 REVELATION UNVEILED: azine Have we been living in a parallel world? 5844 2011 Mayans, the Schuman cavity resonance, the Native Americans and 2012 2012 others are all predicting The Apocalypse. rector Can they all be wrong? ROGI BY BRIANNA BOND Chief E JOH e.com oriale Editor oston thead Chaos ensues! zione ayout Neal squez Parallel worlds phers gram Weiss neider llivan collide! ditors Per the Mayan 2012 End of the World Neal squez prophecy, an extraordinary, earth-shaking ditors Bond Aloise paradigm shift in our world is not en route; squez Neal Large it’s already here. nlees rrega ardino rence garian Sauer ierotti Until the bottom fell out of the U.S. mortgage-credit markets slumber, many are left homeless and suddenly stripped of jobs or ver by and more than 7 million people lost their jobs, many Americans the savings they were counting on. gram had blinders on, living and consuming at unsustainable speeds, But our take on the Mayan prediction, like the Greek defi nition of often with expectations that far exceeded what was possible. In a ‘apocalypse,’ focuses on a new cycle. We see innovation rising blisher us per fl ash, life savings vanished, houses were repossessed and families from moribund economies mirroring the mystery of a fi ddlehead ditore shattered. fern sprouting in a parched desert. Proven deceit on Wall Street ora 39 A similar story echoes loudly across the world, most notably in sparks invigorated entrepreneurial determination and a new way of renze Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain where people unwillingly life not exclusively focused on survival but fueled by fresh, creative Offi ce abandon dreams for a new, sobering forces. ori 21 economic reality. Fresh voices cut through static offering radical solutions to deeply renze 32745 Per the Mayan 2012 End of the World prophecy, an extraordinary, entrenched problems like Italian economist and modern-money earth-shaking paradigm shift in our world is not en route; theorist Paolo Barnard, who is lobbying for change in the form of, Printer it’s already here. “sound, people-centered economics.” rafi ca The Mayan prophecy has already exploded as evidenced by the Using the Mayan prediction as a metaphor and theme for this issue, uso in Arab Spring, the crumbling Murdoch empire, the Japanese nuclear we stand at odds with interpretations of the Mayan prophesy as 2012. disaster, the Costa Concordia, environmental destruction in Cinque cataclysmic destruction. The lifting of the veil doesn’t necessarily pleted 2012 Terre and subsequent landslides in Genoa. equate with doom-and-gloom; no need to build a bomb shelter in It’s no accident that these events coincide with the Mayan Last Day fear of planetary collisions or a nuclear meltdown. Now is the time 2012 Calendar, marking the end of the world. to engage as we fi nd ourselves at a fork in the road trying to decide renze erved. As the world collectively wakes up from an over-borrowed which road to take. How is your world irrevocably shifting this summer? EXPLORE THE WORLD-SHAKING TRUTH WITH US. 5 andrea portera “Cycles are fundamental to the nature of men. Af- ter every ending, rebirth emerges and the original inspiration remains with- in the artist and that mo- mentum carries him to the next score.” p. 15 paolo barnard “What we need now is sound economics, state-centered, people- - centered. A sovereign state regaining sover- eign currency to defi cit spend it more than they tax people...” fi lippo fanini p. 12 “Fashion is less about being famous and more about creating something special...” p. 21 W susan nevelson “If I were ruling the world right now, we would have peace. I would forbid preju- leone contini dice and racism.” p. 24 “…social change won’t come because of cosmic changes but through practices cre- ated over time.” p. 15 JERRY LEE INGRAM PHOTO BY 6 “Without guilt, everyone drusilla foerwould be pardoned. No war, no discrimination.” p. 10 PHOTO BY JERRY LEE INGRAM END THEOF WORLD CHATTER about the leonardthe future bundu What our featured guests“I think have I’m to part say of a gen- eration that hasn’t really believed in their ability to change the world.