Of course when you arrive Palmyra, the impact with its archaeological wonders, with its columns, with its temples that rise for thousands of years planted in the middle of the Syrian desert, with the same pride of their queen Zenobia, was satisfied enough to leave the green dark and stopped just beyond the palm trees, only as an exotic backdrop of so much beauty. But the oasis of Palmyra is an experience in itself.
is already seeing the temples from behind the tall palm trees umbrellas worth the stretch in a walk through the walls of stone and mud that hide the secret gardens of the oasis. Kahtani, greets me as I look at the branches laden with unripe pomegranates that fold out from the edges of walls and invites us into his garden. 
did not know there were so many different gardens in the oasis and in fact are out of sight of passers, so you need an invitation. We settle in the shade of a large shed and trunks of palm branches and dried. Kahtani lighting a fire for tea with cinnamon, then sits down with us and brings us a delicious syrup, olives and dates. He explains that the ground water is delivered at every turn in the garden through a system of canals that run along the boundary walls and then shows us his plants. 
Palms, first of all, many at the top, there to collect the sun harder and give dates and shadow. Then, below, the olive trees on a large land clearly distinguishable from the sand, and festive pomegranate fleeing from the fence. At the bottom, take the cotton plant as it grew. 
The tea is ready. The glass cups are placed on a palm trunk that serves as a table. Even the dates are very sweet. Kahtani sort of takes out a notebook in which notes in Arabic pronunciation of some words in the languages \u200b\u200bof those who come to visit him in order to store the sound. They are generally German and English ones who venture along the paths of the oasis. 
We need more tea and opened a book on the French in Syria where there is a picture of her in the chapter dedicated to 
Palmira: Palmyre. The Bedouin kahtani et la Palmeraie . When we go out of his garden, we carry a small pack with dates of that piece of oasis and, in the eyes, gestures kahtani elegant, lithe in his clear coat, with its red keffiyeh behind the branches of olive trees. 
Salvatore Messina a few years ago he decided to open her own pottery workshop (Ceart) on a side street a bit 'secluded medieval village of Erice. First there is the love for the subject, for the land worked by hand, for color pigments that open pathways to unexpected chromatic after cooking. Often the clay is used in the first impure prehistoric pottery that Salvatore has found through his studies of marine archeology. The observation of the oldest pottery has confirmed his love for the imperfect. Has taken the ancient technique of working the clay without the potter's wheel, resulting in less precise form, but most popular for their restless curves. This has been arrived 
passing through the study of design. The contact with the object in perfect form and its potential serial, led him to contrast, to highlight the uniqueness of its pottery that is illegal, inaccurate and unrepeatable. In his work always leaves a wide margin of experiments in which, despite the knowledge technology, there is the chance of valuable space, the random, unexpected. The unpredictable effect can shine glazes nuances of luminescence and the more valuable because unexpected, while the small failures consolidate the experience in dealing with the matter. In the blue, green, white, yellow in the suggestions of his passes and Erice Sicily in particular. Large domes, fish-bellied water bowls, candlesticks ... forms are exaggerated, overflowing with commas clay, overflowing with decorations and glaze. 
E 'immediate recall to the Baroque, but the intention was rather to recover the deformation of the Romanesque fantastic and monstrous figures guarding the cathedral. 
So even the icons painted in his studio, which include the greek-orthodox tradition of his mother's family, of Croatian origin. 
Once in Aleppo, one of the pleasures of the rest in this ancient city is to go looking in his legendary souks of the famous soap laurel. The origin of the production of soap of Aleppo is lost in the mists of time really, but it is around the ninth century. 
Their half-naked bodies are strong, solid and big breasts and tired. Yet rub on the backs big clouds of white soap. But the soap is soothing, not their hands. Their movements are away from the idea of \u200b\u200bsoftness with which Eastern you lie for the first time on the hot marble hammam. It takes strong hands and bend down to wash and scrub and the hot vapors rise up my breath. We understand their familiarity with the naked bodies on how you get around to the different environments and working with their drawers chipped, useless. Sometimes a break in between shifts meet to land in a small adjoining room, laughing with each other and playing with real laughter. In a women's hammam what unfolds is a woman's body, every woman who has come here to make a simple gesture, humble to his body, wash it. Besides the marble basins where water collects, which bloom and there are breasts others that stretch faded, but in the end it seems that every woman is recognized in the other, in what has been or will be and what every look at the bottom is languid and distracted. There 
the image of the female body coincides with the natural things of life, with what is happening without major remedies to stop its progress. It might surprise some to see how well you pass the soap in the folds of her belly felt, but at that gesture is evident as his presence as a woman, as it is, as each may be behind closed doors, clothes and the matters that lead to the streets. And so it is for young bodies. Even good ones are not arrogant. There would be too many warnings in the hammam. 
