I made some research about the shoes thing.
Before carrying on with the story, let’s reveal the mystery.
It’s a very “smart” trick to squeeze money out of unwary people. Those guys I was talking about asked me to bet; I didn’t get it, because I didn’t understand all they were saying.
They come and tell you “Betcha I can tell ya where ya got dem shoes”. The unfortunate who takes the bet up and find himself forced to pay 10$ or so when the guy tell him something like “you got them on your foot” or “you got them on Canal Street in New Orleans”. Needless to say, it’s not advisable to walk away without honoring the bet once you lose it.

New Orleans is one of the poorest cities in the USA and it’s even worse after Katrina.
The economy is slow and corruption among politicians doesn’t help change course. New Orleans is a city where you can see poverty in the streets more than somewhere else, where poverty is less confined to the degraded areas, it mingles with tourists and “good people”.
New Orleans is a city full of weirdos who stop you in the street. Likethe guy who asked me if I was a local, and when I told him I wasn’t asked me to take a picture of him a bring it home; and then got down on his knees, smiling, with his hand on the chest, to “give me a good shot”.

I found the shuttle I already paid and would take me to the hotel. But I hadn’t print the voucher, so it was necessary to call the company and ask them to fax it. I asked the lady at the front desk to do it for me and she kindly accepted. “It will take half an hour; I’m sorry, you can go to the bathroom or take something to drink if you want…”. I went to get a copy of the local newspaper instead, The Times Picayune, because you can understand many things from a local newspaper, and above all I was looking for obituaries.
My expectation were just in part frustrated: it had two page and a half of obituaries (as many as the following days), and each one had its own photo, and I read them all looking for at least one jazz funeral. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any, I would satisfy myself with “live” music…

In the meantime, we had a good laugh with the lady of the shuttle company and another worker of the airport, who randomly mangled my name.
I had read almost all the newspaper and I had been there for about a hour when finally I got my ticket. The waiting was not that weight anyway. It was raining on the street to the town and it was going to rain all night long.

Rob Walker – Letters from New Orleans
Tom Piazza – Why New Orleans Matters?
[William Faulkner - New Orleans Skecthes]

With 21 goals, Alex Del Piero is the top scorer of the year of the Serie A. Grazie Capitano!

Naples is another high expression of civility. A city swamped with garbage, left to her fate by a corrupt and/or ineffective political class, plagued by the violence of the Camorra. A city that finally rebel against all this and revolt throwing stones and Molotov against Gypsies camps.

KHORAKHANE (By dint of being the wind)
by Fabrizio De Andre’ (translation by Jacopo “Laverdure” - Usenet Newsgroup it.fan.musica.de-andre)

The hearbeats slow down, the head walks on
in that poddle of piss and concrete
in that field blown by the wind
by dint of being the wind

I bear the name of all baptisms
each name the seal of a pass
for a ford, a country, a cloud, a song
a diamond hidden in bread
but for one humour in blood so sweet
for the same reason to travel, travelling

The heartbeats slow down, the head walks on
in the dark of forlorn swings
some gypsies stopped and became Italian
like copper hung to get brown on a wall
Being able to read the book of the world
with everchanging words and no writing
on the narrow paths in the palm of a hand
those frightening secrets
until a man meets you and won’t know himself anymore
and every country lights up and peace surrenders

Sons would fall from the calendar
Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary
soldiers would take them all
and all they threw away

And then Mirka at St. Georges in May *
between the flowers flames, with laughs and drinks
a relief in tears flooding the eyes
and from the eyes falling down

Now rise you childbrides
the time has come to go
blue veins on your wrists
another day for begging

And if this means stealing
a scanty bread out of poverty and misfortunes
on the mirror of this kampina **
to my eyes, clear as a farewell
that can only tell who’s got in his mouth
God’s point of view

Čvava sero po tute
i kerava
jek sano ot mori
i taha jek jak kon kašta
vašu ti baro nebo
avi ker.

kon ovla so mutavla
kon ovla
ovla kon aščovi
me ğava palan ladi
me ğava
palan bura ot croiuti.

[I'll lay my head on your shoulder
and I will
dream of the sea
and tomorrow a wood fire
so that the light blue air
become home

Who'll be there to tell
who'll be
it'll be who stays on
I'll follow this migration
I'll follow
this wings stream]

* Gypsies’ holiday, on the 6th of May
** kampina: mobile tent

Jakarta Post – Jakarta, Indonesia

by Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

According to artist AS Kurnia, the world needs a space between Osama Bin Laden, the icon of global terrorism, and George W. Bush, the leading advocate of the “war on terror”.

This “space”, he says, is called “non-violence”; it is where violent aggression is subdued not by vindictive retaliation, but by passive resistance.

Kurnia, who was born in Semarang, Central Java, and now resides in Ubud, Bali, chooses the enlightened Sidharta Gautama as the symbol of such a tranquil, peaceful “space”. In his piece titled Space, Kurnia places the statue of the head of the Buddha between black-and-white portraits of the bearded Osama and the wry Bush.

“Bush and Osama have become symbols of violence. We need a man like the Buddha to provide a space between the two,” he told The Jakarta Post at the opening of a visual art exhibition entitled “Ahimsa” at Bentara Budaya Jakarta on Thursday.

Nine painters, all Balinese except Kurnia, are participating in the exhibition that ends May 4.

Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word for “non-injury” or “non-violence”, which is the foundation of the Hindu and Buddhist religions. It was made popular by Indian politician, thinker and saint “Mahatma” Mohandas Gandhi, who used it as a tactic to frustrate and end the British colonial regime.

The teaching of ahimsa can actually be found in every religion, including Islam and Christianity, which are professed by the majority of the world’s population, including Bush and Osama.

But instead of creating peace, many followers of these two faiths have at times proved to be the most savage people in history, shedding blood in the name of virtue.

“Violence is often thought to be ‘bloody and physical’. But if we trace the roots of violence, we’ll find that the ‘bloody and physical’ actually stems from ideas, ideologies, thoughts and faiths,” Balinese activist Putu Wirata Dwikora said on the introduction page of the exhibition’s catalogue.

Kurnia’s depiction of violence in Space is perhaps too obvious and distant. Destructiveness, coercion, force, duress and many other forms of violence are very near and prevalent in our own fragile lives; although they might be far less obvious than blowing up buildings and airplanes.

Many of us have been exposed to violence from a very young age, perhaps without ever realizing it.

Ketut Sugantika Lekung, a graduate of Denpasar’s Indonesian Art Institute, said most people were taught to save their money in celengan (animal-shaped money boxes) when they were children, only to break them by the time the money box was full.

“You see, that is also violence. Breaking your piggy banks is an expression of violence,” said the 32-year-old, whose piece Make a Wish beautifully captures the irony of sweet turtle-shaped, pig-shaped and chicken-shaped money boxes that appear to be lined up as if waiting to be brutally smashed by a hammer or dropped to the floor.

Rather than blame ideas as the roots of all violence, A.A. GD Darmayuda, through his works Ups……..! and Sto….p!, puts the blame in the hands of the executors. The thick, black background of his oil painting dramatizes the zoomed-in image of an angry, offensive fist stopped by a soft female palm.

“The male character is usually associated with violence, while the female character is associated with non-violence, which neutralizes her male counterpart,” he said.

The other painters attempt to aesthetically explore the violent side of the world with their paintings; some are allusively poetic, while others are bluntly satirical.

Wayan Kun Adnyana through his work, Side of Nature, describes our hostility to nature, or our parasitical attitude towards it, to be more precise. Kekalahan, the work of Nyoman Poleng Rediasa, displays the prevailing sexual violence against women by relating it to conflict epics found in most religious traditions.

The exhibition is not a display of violence; but the artists manage to epitomize the brutality of the modern world we see, hear and read everyday in newspapers, on the Internet, radio and TV.

Kurnia, the most established — and the only — artist who uses non-canvas media in the exhibition, sees that many people have actually been victims of hunger.

His work, A Monument for Hunger, reminds us that Urip Tri Gunawan, the prosecutor arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe, and a migrant worker abused abroad are no different: They are both victims of hunger. This is symbolized in Kurnia’s installation of nasi bungkus (a package of steamed rice wrapped in thin, brown paper; usually distributed as charity to the poor).

The roots of violence may go back to our childhoods, long-preserved traditions, religions and perhaps, quoting atheist scientist Richard Dawkins, our “selfish genes”.

English philosopher Bertrand Russel once said: “The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.” But maybe what the world needs today is what Kurnia has suggested — a space for non-violence.