The Boiling Lampoon: the new Spring issue: saliva and bubbles

The new Spring issue is out worldwide: the Boiling Lampoon – a consideration to everything that boils. From the saliva we blow bubbles with, to the sex that warms our delusion

Lampoon 29: the era of Global Boiling has arrived

António Guterres said it precisely: The era of Global Warming has ended; the era of Global Boiling has arrived. The image this conjures up in our heads is as disturbing as the flowers that strangely bloom in January. 2024 is feared to be the hottest year ever, with temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere expected to reach intense highs in June – but what is most exhausting is that the highest temperatures on record to date are from just last year, 2023.

Lampoon, the Boiling issue: boiling weather, boiling sweat, boiling sex

Lampoon, The Boiling issue – this is an issue dedicated to everything that boils. From the water droplets that burst like the blisters on our skin, ravaged from walking barefoot on bitumen; to the sweat pouring down from our brows, between our lashes, and onto our eyelids, mixing with our tears before reaching our mouths – where it tastes of salt, expiring muscles and soaked hair. From the saliva we blow bubbles with; to the sex that warms our delusion (perhaps it is only sex that will be left to comfort us). From the frozen lake that breaks in February and the snow that becomes an avalanche, or worse, a waterfall; to our bundles of churning neurons, tired and furious, that jump like Emma Stone for Yorgos Lanthimos.

Our kids will experience July, not as the best time of the year as we did, but as a nightmare. Summer is afoot with its harsh sun overhead, a thunderstorm of light. Seasons, not just half-seasons, no longer exist – it is in their departure that we lose the silliest of pleasantries.

At Lampoon, we avoid sustainability, we prefer the word transparency – an updated definition of Boomer

There are Boomers who will be bored of reading these lines – perhaps because they know it won’t be their problem.  They keep promising to work for the future of their – not our – children. I would like to update the definition of Boomer: it is no longer a signifier of the generation to which one belongs, it carries with it too negative a connotation to be so. A Boomer, today, is someone who reverts to boredom when asked to consider what it means to be positive, ethical and sustainable – especially when prompted to make decisions to that effect in daily life. At Lampoon, we try to avoid the word sustainability. It has been overused, repeated, becoming too generic and essential. We prefer the word transparency.

Lampoon 29th issue – reaching the boiling point: the difference between custom and culture

The Boiling Lampoon is the 29th issue we have sent to print – the first was in February 2015. Since then, the editorial direction has changed. In 2015, consideration could be given to digital happenings, to social media sharing – it was a novel, customary phenomenon. Today, the same attention would be misplaced. The difference between custom and culture is that custom passes, while culture evolves. Today, there is only one form of communication that can appear contemporary, capable of cultivating value in the near future: that is the communication of ethical values, upon which a brand can only operate in full transparency.

Human fragility and roughness – Benjamín Labatut, The Maniac and the Manhattan Project, Paolo Giordano, Tanzania

Among the first pages of this issue, is an introduction by Benjamín Labatut, author of The Maniac (2023) – a book, between historical-scientific research and literature, that elaborates upon a quite contemporary topic: the power of technology and the consequences of this power. The construction of the atomic bomb remains the matrix of this dilemma; research has not stopped, and never will. We are under no illusion. Can man ever maintain control?

Labatut’s book explores the life of John von Neumann, who enters the Manhattan Project where he meets Oppenheimer. Does it seem as if coincidence that a book like this should be published hot on the heels of the Oscar-winning movie? In Italy, Paolo Giordano’s book, Tanzania (2022), touched on the same dismay. Labatut recalls – or rather imagines – how, in the course of their experiments, Americans hypothesized that nuclear power would one day make it possible to control weather patterns and rainfall. What if this is not just a utopia? The Maniac closes on a game of Go played by AlphaGo, a computer, against Lee Sedol, a Korean champion, in March 2016 and won by the computer – the first victory by computer calculation over human intellectual ability.

A short distance outside the city of Milan, one of the largest Data Centers in Europe is under construction. Two hectares of grass fields have been used, a small but useful lung for the heavily polluted Po Valley is destroyed

These ebullitions are not just literary or figurative. A short distance outside the city of Milan, one of the largest Data Centers in Europe is under construction. Two hectares of grass fields have been used: land that could have become a forest, a small but useful lung for the heavily polluted Po Valley. The Data Center will provide jobs for local residents, enable urban redevelopment, and street side tree plantings, yes – but yet another piece of countryside is spoiled. It’s for a better future, they say. When working on the foundation, a few meters below ground arsenic seepage from industrial warehouses that had been active during the decades in which suitable disposal practices had not yet been implemented was found. The construction site recovered this area, it had to. In front of what will be the Data Center, there are at least two abandoned industrial buildings in disrepair. There is no provision within the site’s zoning charges and obligations to rehabilitate them; in the meantime, they build new ones. The Data Center will produce heat and energy – which we can only hope will be used by the area’s real estate, residential and industrial complexes, instead of disappearing into the ether.

Lampoon is boiling. Martin Parr, Silvia Prada, Jordan Firstman and the Italian Design (Franco Albini, Gianfranco Frattini, Cini Boeri, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Claudio Salocchi and Nanda Vigo)

For The Boiling issue, we asked Martin Parr to return to Brighton beach, Silvia Prada to turn herself into a fruit and Jordan Firstman, who played himself in Rotting in the Sun, to question the sense of belonging to an outdated stereotype. We walked around Milan, photographing bathrooms – of mirror and ceramic – in a design review titled, Hot Tubes. We searched for kitchens constructed out of aluminum and designed by the masters of Italian taste: Franco Albini, Gianfranco Frattini, Cini Boeri, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Claudio Salocchi and Nanda Vigo. Milan has both an identity and an identifiable style – we want to recover and re-propose it so that we may dismiss the rhetorical and provincial decor, those printed upholsteries and damask tablecloths. Garage Traversi has recently reopened the doors to its top floors; while Louis Vuitton remains at the street entrance, the terraces are now Audemars Piguet’s new home. Once upon a time, anything motor-related appeared modern – now, anything that goes fast is out of sync with the times.

In the Fashion Industry the only textile future is the return to natural fibers

Fashion, and the luxury world, has no other option; it must recover ethical values and positive industry practices in the districts in which it operates. Turnover may well grow into the double digits – but, soon, financial analysts will begin to properly assess the local impacts of manufacturers that allow such a turnover. (Even though analysts may say they already do, they have yet to do it for real).

We know that the textile industry is one of the top three culprits when it comes to the release of microplastics. These microplastics have found their way into our bodies; they are in our atherosclerotic plaques, where they double the risk of heart attack. Microplastics come from tires, makeup, and clothes – we ought to clarify, from the use of clothes. From the washing of clothes, from fabric abrasion, from fabrics sprinkled with PVC and from black fabrics in which the coloring is fixed using chemical processes. 

Textile recycling, in the case of plasticized and synthetic fibers or fixatives, is not indicated – it only increases the release of spent stitches. The only textile future is the return to natural fibers, as well as the addressal of the transparency and consistency of their production and sourcing – which must be done without looking for shortcuts. Luxury has a responsibility to operationalize this solution, designing garments conceived of natural fibers and invigorating their desirability.

The Boiling issue is dedicated to Pyrolysis – plastic and organic waste will be dissolved

We are still at boiling point – or, rather, we are searching for a powerful heat that we will be able to use to our advantage. Pyrolysis, a process of combustion in the total absence of oxygen that leads to the production of solid, liquid and gaseous products capable of producing new energy, will be a game changer in the, hopefully, near future. With pyrolysis, both plastics and organic waste – thus textile waste – will be able to be dissolved, providing a positive fuel for both engines and industrial and domestic systems. It is a process that has not yet fully entered into industrial management or people’s daily lives, but it is one that will surely come – and it is to pyrolysis that The Boiling issue is dedicated, as luxury companies could be among the first to invest in experimental plants powered by this process.

Lampoon remains a magazine about fashion and the responsibility of the luxury sector – mixing fashion, design, and manufacturing with scientific, cultural, social, and human aspects. These topics, sometimes uncoordinated and entropic, are introduced in these lines. Entropy is the energy of confusion, perhaps the first form taken by heat; entropy is a metaphor for intellectual culture.

Roughness and Human Fragility

At Lampoon, there are two words that adequately synthesize our identity: roughness and fragility. The same words can be found in every self-respecting love story. We are in love, you and I – just as Lampoon is in love with fashion. And even if we are in love, we know we cannot agree on everything. It is in the roughness of our beauty and the fragility of our contradictions that the strength of this love of ours will – I hope – prevail over science.

Carlo Mazzoni

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