Changing My Life, 1st TRY

It’s late night here in Milan, and I’m going to bed, but finally we have a place where talk about Changing and I’m so happy for this!

Well, I bag your pardon because, as you can see, the website is still under construction… but this is the way ideas live: you never can tell when they are going to show up, so…

I’d like to thank *Mario*, *Fran* and *Umberto* for helping and trusting me on this project (is it a ‘project’?). Thank you very much my friends, I wouldn’t be here writing this stuff right now without you!

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Oh, just 2 notes about the website:

– There will be soon a useful (I hope so) room for everybody who want to change their life, so in the meanwhile please just let me know your e-mail addresses (filling in the form) if you’d like to take your place in that room, so I can keep you infromed about it. Thank you!

– We are waiting for other ideas to show up to improve the website features… we’ll see…

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Ok, done with the formalities, let’s come to the main argument!
As I wrote, it’s too late now to go through the Changing, but I want just to tell you that on Friday 4th May I’ll start to Change My Life.

If you want to know what will happen, just keep an eye on these pages and soon I’ll tell you!

Ciao! =D

.d

Well, a bit hard to believe, one year has passed from the last time I wrote something here.
One year passed focusing on what ‘changing’ exactly means… and I think I’m slowly understanding where I’m going. Or, better, where these cogitations are leading me. I started to simplify my life in a way I could have never imagined just few years ago. I changed my way of eating, dressing, even relaxing… I have a house on my own now, living with my friend and girlfriend Francesca, but we know that is probably just a place from which observe the world, ready do take the next step. I still work in advertising, but I’m every day more aware that my job is not MY job, or at least that I would use my ‘creativity’ for another kind of products. We’ll see.

Also I used to think that this website could be a place where people wanting to change could meet and maybe find together the energy to succeed in their life changing. And I still think it. No matter what the change is.

So for these same two reasons, after one year, I am here again. For my 2nd Try!

Yes, becuase in 2 days I’ll be in New York City again, for the:

2nd New Yorker Conference

As you probably remember Louis, the (former) Vice President of the magazine, promised to invite me for this year Conference… well, he didn’t exactly keep his word, but finally I find a way to be invited.
Mostly, I have to thank my dear friend Phyllis and somebody there at the New Yorker who decided to keep the word even though Louis doesn’t work there anymore. =D

Well, since I didn’t plan this new trip I’m quickly packing all my stuff again (you can see it in the posts below) and going to New York City to meet other wonderful people and see what happens!

Oh… this time the website is complete in all its parts!
Thank you, my ingenious and generous brother, Mario!!! =D

So if you want to try to change your lives, fill in the CHANGE YOUR LIFE FORM! You never know who’s going to pass by here… =D
Your message will be published in the LIVES-TO-CHANGE LIST!

Thank you everybody! I’ll update these pages as soon as things happen!
CIAO! =D

P.S: Here is a small collage of some last year pictures…
Click to enlarge!

Yes, it’s October! =D

And until today I didn’t feel much like writing here things about the “2nd TRY”, and the reasons are basically two.

The first is that as soon as I came back home after my second trip to the New Yorker Conference I suddenly found myself through “Changing My Life 3rd Try” (that soon I’ll tell you about), and I just didn’t have the time to think to other things. =D

The second reason is that after these two strange and wonderful adventures in NYC I understood that, even though the people I met there are just amazing, they don’t seem to be interested in the kind of ‘change’ I’m slowly developing in my mind.

Actually it seems to be not a matter of people, but of context.

At the Conference I found all successful people, but the most of them are completely into the ‘social system’ that I want to change. =D

I know it sounds a bit confusing… the fact is that the way I want to change my life now is extremely connected to the changing of the social system, which is incredibly connected to my 3rd Try! =D

But before proceeding with the 3rd Try, I’d like to tell you some of the beautiful things that happened in NYC, because I think that would be useful for anybody trying to find the energy to ‘do’ things for their life changing. =D

First of all I’ve been wonderfully welcomed by Jana, Phyllis and Rhonda, that I use now to think about as ‘my beautiful 3 ladies’. =D

They are so kind to me and they truly love me every time I’m with them!

Jana hosted me at her beautiful apartment in Washington Heights, well actually she completely left me the apartment, because she was going to her mother’s in Texas… so I had a house all on my own in Manhattan! I think this is extremely rare, counting that Jana and me met just two times in our lives and only for few hours. =D

Phyllis and Rhonda were waiting for me at the Conference and they took care of me with their smile and always asking if I was enjoying the event and introducing me to other people coming from Europe. I kind of felt at home in the IAC Building.

I also had a wonderful lunch with Phyllis before leaving, exchanging stories about our lives. =D

Again people were amazed by the changemylife thing, and thanks to it I met some special friends.

Nadinette is a French beautiful girl working at MoMA’s Department of Membership. She’s pure energy and so smart that it’s a delight to talk with her. She also made me live an incredible night, first making me enter at a only-for-members event at MoMA, while the museum was closed to visitors. There was a hi-class party with music and a lot of food and drinks, and she guided me in a special personal visit through the almost desert rooms of the museum, showing me her favorite pieces of art and telling me their stories. And then we went to a birthday party at an Irish pub in Manhattan, where we had a beautiful dinner talking about our experiences and laughing a lot, really a lot. =D

Kai is a genius guy from Amsterdam, a 26 year old red-curly-hair gentleman, dressing and moving like a noble, which I think he is. He’s an Architect and an art-lover, he runs his own company and travels the world analyzing art, urbanism and economics. A polite and smart person you’d always share thoughts with, he also knows all the contemporary art galleries around NYC and he brought me through the ones located on the narrow streets of Chelsie, showing me wonderful art installations. I’ll never forget us running under the rain from an entrance to another and our strange trip on the tricycle-taxi driven by a madly gentle man, riding under the rain to bring us to the Underground station. =D

Antonino is an Italian bio-technology student in NYC, an extremely nice person, so curious about life and beautiful things, with his eyes always looking for people and new experiences and his gentle smile underlining his peacefulness. It was really a pleasure to exchange impressions during the Conference and during the New Yorker’s night party, where I also met Jacqueline. A girl of incredible beauty and a magical way of looking through her nice eyes. She was in a strange mood, I cannot tell exactly what it was, but she was definitely looking for changing her life, that’s why she asked me about my ‘project’. After few minutes I discovered she would love to paint, so I mentioned her a book I was using at an Illustration School in Milan and we greeted with the promise we would have met again during my next visit to NYC.

Kathleen is a social entrepreneur running her own Foundation “Breast Health and Healing”, researching the causes of breast cancer. A bright smile lady, extremely committed to her mission, who was so interested in my ‘project’ that even though we talked only for 5 minutes we are now kind of working together: I’m helping her with a new logo and t-shirts for the Foundation and the future will tell us what else will happen. =D

I also found the time to meet Deb, a sweet friend I knew last year while walking around Brooklyn. She’s a musician and an extremely creative girl, living exactly at the opposite of New Yorker’s lifestyle. =D Between indie music labels, going from a job to another, enjoying a simple (but sometimes harder) life with her friends and her wonderful dog Harpo. We had a long walk in the afternoon light and we had an unforgettable hug when parting at the Underground station. =D

Ah! There’s another unique thing that happened at the Conference! =D

When I came back home the first time, last year, I spent one month thinking and projecting some ideas to propose to Luois Cona. I had some things in my mind and at the end I came up with 3 ideas: a Cartoon Festival with also a big international cartoon contest, a TV channel on streaming for the New Yorker’s website with some idea for the programs, and an interior design idea for the floor of the hall at the magazine’s office in Times Square.

I sent them to Louis, but he never wrote me back, I also sent him a CD with the presentation, but no answer… actually he never answered to any of my e-mails. But we are friends on Facebook now ahahahah =D

So when this year I came to know that Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor, was one of the speakers at the Conference, I thought I could show him the Cartoon Festival idea.

Yes… why not! =D

So when I was there I asked Rhonda to introduce me to Bob and she gently did it, so I showed him the project. Well, he was amazed by it! He asked me if I had sponsor for it, and I told him: “Well… I’m not a businessman.” =D He told me to send him a detailed document explaining all the things I had in mind for the Festival and we would have talked about it. I was astonished! Isn’t it unbelievable? There were chances that I did a project with the New Yorker… ahahahah… all that just following my enthusiasm! Of course working a lot during the late nights to project everything, but basically I had fun doing that.

So I sent the document to Bob as soon as I came back home, and guess what?… yes, he never answered! =D

But of course we are friends on Facebook now! =D

Well, I’ve to say that he just wrote me a nice message about the fact that we’ll probably meet in NYC in 2 days… but this is another story, and I’ll write about it later. =D

So more or less these are the most beautiful things that happened last May… well, of course not counting the Conference, which is always inspiring and full of information and new ideas for the future. This year my English skill was also better so I could really understand a lot more. =D

Wow! This had to be an introduction to talk about the 3rd Try… but at the end it’s so long that I think I’ll write another post for the 3rd Try, it deserves it! =D

Thank you for reading!

CIAO! =D

The Conference has been something I can hardly explain with my English skill. So please excuse me if I take my time during these days to make a deeper thought about what happened to me.

Thanks to everybody I met there and that are reading right now.
I hope you’ll join this website in the next future, when I’ll be back home and I could join it too. Ciao. =D

(two posts ago… =D)
-A place full of people I thought I could learn a bunch of things from. People that could show me points of view I don’t even imagine. People that did and do beautiful things and that understand the real meaning of Beauty:

The First New Yorker Conference

Well, what I’ll do is just try to tell all that people what I’m looking for and see what happens.-

Short preamble
I spent the last 2 months thinking about the Conference, and the last 2 weeks before leaving thinking about how telling that people what I was feeling, and what came out of these thoughts is of course this website (still working on it, as you see…).
But the first issue was how to tell the people about the website, so I told myself: “why don’t you make a business card?”… and I did. Then I thought: “you are going that far and you’ll be staying there for days and won’t you take the chance to tell about ‘this thing’ to other people too?”, so I did stickers to stick around in NYC streets or just to give as leaflet.

The sticker and business card. =D

But then I said to myself: “c’mon Dario, are you telling me you’re going to stop people and give them your card? YOU?!… you know you are so shy…” …I had to find a way to make people asking me, so that I couldn’t avoid telling them.

So I did THIS for the Conference. =D
(Backside)

(Frontside)

And THESE for going around NYC. =D

The last question was: “will you be so brave to wear them?”, well… I’ve been brave. =D
(And I had even the courage to change them during the Conference, so that people could read something different at each break.)

The Conference
When I arrived at the Conference building, I received a delightful welcome by Phyllis (with which I had a funny e-mail exchange), Jana and Rhonda, thank you all very much, I felt kind of special! =D
So after just few minutes I felt much more confident and showed my T-shirt…
From that moment started what I can surely define one of the most exciting experiences I ever had. I cannot count how many people talked with me, asked me, smiled at me, they were like waves on the shore, I didn’t even have the time to watch one going away that another was coming. I’m sorry I will never remember all the names, but thank you Daisy, Richard, Robin and Evan (it’s been a wonderful night! =D), Cat for reading my palm, Deborah (what about the Colorado? =D), David (you know why =D), Ginny, Dan, Joseph, Diego, Mishele and Bertha (hope to talk to you soon =D), Eric (it’s been a great pleasure and one of the most hilarious dinner I remember =D)… and all the people who talked to me.

What changed
I was just going around the wonderful lounge when this elegant man stopped me with his smile and said in a perfect American-sounding Italian: “So how can we change your life?”, I said smiling: “Actually, I don’t know… what do you do, for example?” He said something like: “I happen to be the Vice President of the New Yorker magazine…”
Well, you should have seen my eyes, only my mouth was open wider.
He told me he was really amazed by my idea and the things I did. We chatted about our recent thoughts on life and the way we would change it. I said that I really enjoyed the Conference and he invited me for the next year! =D Then he took my business card with a smile and told me to keep in touch, but then I asked if I could come to visit the New Yorker building before leaving, and he said yes! I had just to call his assistant, Anne, and fix an appointment. It’s been the first thing I did the next morning.

Then there I went. 4th Times Square, Condè Nast Building, 21st floor.
I met Anne, beautiful and very nice, who showed me all the departments and gave me many gifts, including a chic New Yorker brown bag with an elegant desk diary full of Cartoons (which I love =D) and an iPod Shuffle (New Yorker branded) loaded with songs selected by the music critic Sasha Frere-Jones!
She kindly apologized because Louis (the Vice President) was busy in a meeting, so I asked her if I could just also leave a gift and a message for him. I brought a T-shirt (the “Change Dario’s life” one – it was funny the idea to imagine the Vice President of the New Yorker dressing that words =D) and I started to write the message… but suddenly the door of Louis’s office opened, a man went out and after few seconds Louis went out too. He welcomed me with joy and happily took my gift, then he told me he had to rush for another meeting, but I couldn’t lose that chance and asked him if he had just 3 minutes for me to show him the website. Of course he had!
Then we watched the video-clip together and he was really amazed =D I think he just couldn’t imagine I did ‘all that’ only for the Conference, but that was exactly what I did. He said I had to talk with the New Yorker creative director, he called her on the spot, she came and we watched the video together again. She was amazed too =D and said we definitely had to keep in touch!

Well… I don’t know if Louis will really change my life, what I know is that I will take my chance to ask him. A lot of ideas are flowing into my brain in this exact moment. Ideas about this ‘project’, ideas about other projects… and you can be sure I will come out with something else. =D
My life is changing right now while I’m writing.

I hope this could be an evidence and a message for anybody wanting to change: when you really do something to change your life, it just changes.
For all of you I intend to build a network of people wanting to change their lives, so just continue to send me your email addresses. Soon there will be a kind of list and space for you so that anybody could know what you want and, who knows, help you. =D

Grazie =D and I hope you’ll continue to check this website, because it’s still under construction… Ciao. =D