Anyone who has passed through Capri this or other summers may have visited the gardens of San Michele, a spectacular villa on top of the mountain in Anacapri that is also rented out for events – anyone can have their wedding there if they can afford it. The history of the place is inextricably linked to that of the Swedish doctor Alex Munthe, who fell in love with what were then Phoenician ruins on his first visit to Capri in the early 20th century, when he was 19 years old. Two decades later, when he had already been appointed private physician to Queen Victoria of Sweden, he bought it and began its reconstruction. Munthe would later write The Story of San Michele, which in 1929 became one of the first best sellers of the modern era, translated into dozens of languages, including Esperanto. Siruela will reissue the book in October, which was already rescued a few years ago by Vanguard Books in an illustrated edition. It is not a typical story of a Nordic who falls in love with an enclave in the South and manages it, but a fantasy that includes an intense namedropping (Munthe was a friend of Guy de Montpassant, Henry James and Louis Pasteur among others and they all have cameos) , chats with animals and even a post-mortem conversation by Munthe himself with Saint Peter at the gates of heaven.
BACK, WITHOUT THE WITHERED FOREHEAD
Neighbours, the Australian soap opera that for years was broadcast on TV3 as Veïns, closed its doors at the end of July after 37 years on the air and did so by inviting some of the stars who were forged there – it is mandatory that every Aussie performer who ends up succeeding in Hollywood, before and for several seasons in the powerful industry of daytime television they have there – to appear in the last chapter. They were joined by Guy Pierce, Margot Robbie, and of course Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, who were the ideal boyfriends of the entire Commonwealth in the late eighties. This custom, that of the superstar who returns to the series that saw him born, also has many precedents. George Clooney dropped by County General to close down the ER operating rooms and Steve Carell returned to Dunder Mifflin for the latest episode of The Office.
RAFELSON, ALSO CREATOR OF THE MONKEES
Director more influential than prolific (his are The Postman Always Rings Twice, Head and My Life Is My Life, the film that made Jack Nicholson a star), producer and in general one of those figures who were always translating the countercultural into mainstream taste, Bob Rafelson, who died at the end of July at the age of 79, will also always be remembered as the ideologue of The Monkees. After seeing A Hard Day's Night by the Beatles, it occurred to him that inventing a band would make for a great television show. He auditioned for “four crazy kids between the ages of 17 and 21” and selected four young Californians from among the 437 applicants to form that pre-produced group, not suspecting that the band would end up being much better than many authentic combos that were emerging then and starting a parallel history of pop, that of creative artifice. The members of the Monkees soon began to rebel and demand to play their own instruments (they also played with friends like Neil Young and Stephen Stills) and to write their own songs.
THE SAD HEART OF BAD BUNNY
Dual culture, bilingual reach, niche credibility, and massive success. As a pop superstar, Bad Bunny lacks nothing, not even a big name. And besides, the Puerto Rican has a very powerful visual identity. Since its inception, it has been accompanied by a logo, as memorable as it is easy to reproduce, a rabbit similar to Miffy that is also reminiscent of the KAWS dolls, without a mouth (like Helly Kitty) and with crosses for eyes. His identification with the animal is due to the fact that, as a child, he was apparently made to wear bunny ears at school when he misbehaved. Bad Bunny's latest album, A summer without you, also has its own graphics and logo, a sad heart with one eye and two little hands that appears on the album cover and on all official elements. The heart is the work of Adrian Hernandez, a self-taught illustrator and designer (he started drawing the flyers for the quinceañera parties in which he DJed in the Latino communities of Los Angeles) who is known as Ugly Primo and with whom he had collaborated before. Now it is already in the skin of many fans, who have tattooed it.
BERGMAN IN THE NEW TOWN (OR NOT)
If you take a guided tour of the Poblenou cemetery (highly recommended) or simply visit the cemetery reading a guide, at some point this information will appear: the sculpture The Kiss of Death inspired The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman. Actually, there is no basis for this urban legend or any evidence that the Swede was in Poblenou before 1957 and decided to make a film about death, but it doesn't matter because at this point that idea is already part of popular folklore and not does no harm to anyone. The hyper-romantic sculpture represents a winged skeleton that grabs and almost tenderly kisses a young man in a situation of erotic surrender. His story is as tragic as it sounds: it was commissioned by the Llaudet family of Sant Joan de les Abadesses in 1930 to commemorate the very early death of a son. It is awarded to Jaume Barba although it is believed that the real author was his son-in-law and disciple, Joan Fontbernal. The tomb, which receives many tourists every year, bears these verses by Jacint Verdaguer as an inscription: “Mer son cor Jovenívol no pot mes / en ses venes l asanch s'atura i glaça / Y l'esma ja perduda, la fe embraça / sentint-se caure de la mort al bes”.
