Photographer Bryan Huynh brings forth a visionnaire dream in this shoot where artistic references meet fashion
La Scala, Lucia of Lammermoor. The opera had already started and we had no tickets. At the theater entrance we used the tickets stolen during rehearsals. Passing the ushers, we chose a box that you were sure was empty – I wasn’t that sure. You inserted the key from home, you jiggled the lock and it opened: we entered. The cough of Milan mingled with the soprano’s notes. We sat on the floor, crouching so we would not be seen. I whispered to you about chords, harmonies, and key changes. «You see, you have to disrupt the world for distraction.» You threw your arms around my neck; you would have adored me: «Gio, I promise you, we will be problematic.» Dangerous and disobedient.
La Scala, Lucia of Lammermoor
Naive, excited and in love with ourselves, at sixteen. «We are free, free to do anything, not just things that make sense,» you replied. «Everyone’s free to do sensible things.» Mid-October. Mietta – you rode your motorbike to Palatrussardi. You brought roses, tucked between your legs. You jumped over the barrier. The guards grabbed you suddenly, ready to put you back on the street – then they thought better of it – in those days, the young Mietta was gorgeous.
The guards went to ask the organization managers and obtained permission to accompany you to her dressing room. They asked Mietta for her autograph, telling her it was for their girlfriends, and they left you there. Standing there, frozen, you started mumbling strange syllables. Mietta asked her hair stylist to take your picture together, to try and put you at ease – you, still awkward, asked her who was better: Baudo or Mike Bongiorno.
The guards asked Mietta for her autograph
San Firmino. Literature class with Ms. Ercolani, the wicked teacher of every book about school, like Cuore. Catalini was sitting in the front row of the classroom: he was short and scrawny and had no beard. Catalini raised his hand: «Prof, can I go to the bathroom?» Ms. Ercolani grunted yes. After ten minutes Ms. Ercolani heard a knock at the classroom door. No one entered. They knocked again. Ms. Ercolani nervously raised her head. No one entered. They kept knocking. Ms. Ercolani jumped up and threw open the door, convinced of catching smart-alecky fifth year students at San Fermino – but she only found Catalini who was sobbing, gagged, and with vulgarities scribbled all over on his eyeglasses. «Catalini, you’re really an idiot.»
She slammed the door in his face. The bell rang. You freed Catalini and I went to Ms. Ercolani to tell her that I wouldn’t be in Latin class on Saturday because I had to attend my father’s uncle’s funeral. Ms. Ercolani told me, matter-of-factly, to send my father to the funeral. I went to the funeral – and my grade of seven in Latin became a four. Ms. Ercolani was the best teacher in the Milan school district, with the highest ranking. I started a paper on the Middle Ages that took forever to write. On it, Ms. Ercolani added red lines and wrote cliché.
Ms. Ercolani was the best teacher in the Milan school district
She gave my paper a grade of four. Ms. Ercolani, hissing from her desk, taught us that a sentence should never begin with a conjunction in the Italian language – despite the many publishers, translators and writers who ignore that rule. She barked that she, he and they must never be used as the subject – other abominations caused by the same – and she threatened unspeak- able torture if we used the word extraordinary, which was unnecessary rhetoric.
February, Mid-morning, we were going to the chemistry lab. You forgot the fruit juice that was now omnipresent to control hypoglycemia. You went back to find Ms. Ercolani rummaging through the pockets of the jackets hanging in the back of the classroom. Tall and heavy, with stringy hair and droopy hair clips, Ms. Er- colani came onto you. You got scared and ran away. You stopped and thought for a second. You turned around, «Professor?» You said that you would have told your philosophy teacher everything if the four you got was not changed to seven.
Mak- ing a decision is the point: deciding. In those years, in high school, you learned to say the opposite of what you thought. You discovered the futility of opinions. You rejected common sense and preferred artifice to nature, ambiguity to emo- tions. You appeared inconvenient.
You started searching for and discovering your soul. Yes, I was the handsome one, a sort of Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites: wide forehead, wide shoulders, tousled hair, piano, Chopin and even Nyman, the constant dream of Smemoranda notebooks – but you, because of, or thanks to, your disease, became handsome: you became slim, your face became more chis- eled, your muscles formed during training, rowing on the canals.
Making a decision is the point: deciding
Your legs grew long and straight, your feet were no longer pigeon-toed, and the tips of your shoes were tranquilly aligned. You resembled a young Alain Delon: flowing black hair, a slow voice, dark skin, and a luscious mouth. Still fragile, you became poetry.
Girls tried to kiss you. Elena. Free the last period, the janitor arrived to tell us to go home. Elena took you by the hand, told you to wait, tickled you, and pushed you in the corner at the back of the room. You didn’t react. Alessandra. Alessandra invited you to come up to her place after the movie – her parents were sleeping in the next room. She sat next to you on the couch, asked if you liked sleeping without sheets, and placed her hand on your stomach. You did nothing. Valeria.
On your motorbike on Saturday night, in front of Parini or at the park. In front of her apartment building, Valeria leaned back against the door, waiting for you to kiss her. You drew closer so that her head pressed against the entry phone buzzers – they all started buzzing – nothing, nothing. Veronica, Angela. Barbara. Barbara. How many times – Barbara: the one with plum-colored lips, three years earlier you waited for her on your way to school. The situation improved: Barbara stopped and waited for you.
During the May 1st holiday, my father took us to London; Barbara was also traveling to London with her family. Leaving the day before us, with the taxi already at her door, Barbara looked up your home phone number and called you to meet for a date. «Barbara is on the phone, do you want to talk with her?» yelled Rina. You ran, tripped, and reached the receiver.
Barbara was traveling to London
Barbara asked you for the name of your hotel. «I’ll call you, Matteo. I’ll see you there.» You arrived in London and started badgering the doorman, asking him for your messages. You looked for her on the buses, in taxis, and at the National Gallery. You never saw her there and returned to Milan. Outside of the school you asked her what had happened.
I tried, Barbara replied, I kept getting an answering machine in English and I couldn’t understand the instructions. I didn’t understand the English. There, outside of the school, Barbara tried to kiss you on the tips to make up; you left, feeling nothing.Deciding. Decision-makers are interested in possibilities. One can decide only when faced with possibilities, not after they are lost or never seized. Where there are shor- tcomings, there are possibilities.
The possibilities of taking the Cooper test, of entering La Scala when you feel like it, of talking to Mietta, of outshining that stupendous mon- ster that was our Italian teacher.
The possibility of not being stopped by a disease, by a girl who does not understand English. You would have decided everything, about thunder and great sorrow, details and when to laugh – you would have decided the lives of others, as do the Gods. «There is a difference between men and the Gods,» you told me on the train going to Ronchi in June. «Men think about happiness; the Gods think of love.»
Photography Bryan Huynh
Editor Alessandro Fornaro
Models Matilda Dods @ IMG Models, Joland Novaj @ Red NYC, Andrew Sherman @ IMG Models, Jay Wright @ Next Management
Make-up Morgane Martini
Hair Cameron Rains
Photography Assistants Tristan Clairoux, Shijing Wang
Editorial Team
