Da spettatore, ricordo un incredibile scontro fra un "vecchio leone" ancora aggressivo ed una torma di "giovani lupi" che non avevano conservato neppure un filo di ingenuità giovanile. Le zampate del primo si perdevano nei sanguinosi morsi del branco. Pensavo di aver salvato quel materiale, invece non lo ritrovo più. Forse meglio così.
Furono anni ed anni di continui, pregevoli e talvolta ingombranti "stimoli intellettuali".
***
Retrospectively, I don't want to mention real names or provide references to the aliases I used. It was common and accepted practice to use, alongside one's identifiable identity, hidden impersonations to which one entrusted tasks too bold for common respectability. An ethically questionable but nonetheless fruitful practice, as it allowed reaching extreme levels of sincerity that opened rifts in discussions that reached incandescence. Delicate material nonetheless, which can hardly be extracted from its complex context without adulterating its meaning.
The environments were quite qualified: figures moved there who seemed one step away from national notoriety, and a couple of them actually achieved it, several others only almost.
I, as a "painter" with theoretical obsessions, and therefore in a certain sense outside the literary lists, was generally tolerated and in certain cases even appreciated - and this was no small thing in those acidic, brilliantly corrosive environments, where common frustration over the evident excess of supply (too many write, too few read) continuously triggered libidos for new mechanisms of natural selection.
As a spectator, I remember an incredible clash between a still aggressive "old lion" and a horde of "young wolves" who had not preserved even a thread of youthful naivety. The former's paw strikes were lost in the bloody bites of the pack. I thought I had saved that material, but I can no longer find it. Perhaps it's better that way.
They were years and years of continuous, valuable and sometimes cumbersome "intellectual stimuli."
