The Collegno Amnesiac
Collegno is a town at the very edge of Turin, the two places aren't even physically separate, there's a couple of signs telling you when you leave one place and enter the other, but other than that you wouldn't know. I suppose it must have been a separate village at some stage in a fairly distant past, but in the last 100 years odd it's been spillover from the big city, another area used to house the increasing population in the years of the industrial boom.
What differentiates it from all the other satellite towns of Turin, and the reason why everyone who's from the area or lived there knows it, is that it's where the old lunatic asylum was. The Asylum went, sometime in the early 70s I think, following the reform of the mental health act, and after the obligatory x years of abandonment and decay the structure was regenerated and turned into a park, a live music arena and a couple of venues (in fact, last time we were over there for a gig with V.o.M. we played one of the venues of the complex - fitting place to play for a bunch of madmen like us eh? ;-) )[1] but the area is still known as 'the asylum' to this day.
Now, another piece of local folklore, and which everyone from the area knows is the story of the 'Collegno Amnesiac'. To (try and) cut a long story short, sometime in the 1920s a man who'd lost his memory completely (didn't know what his name was or anything) was picked up by the police, having been caught stealing in a cemetery (!?) and committed to the asylum, as per the standard practice of the time. About a year later, following the publishing of his picture in a paper, he was identified as a well-respected professor from the North East of Italy, who'd gone missing in the war, by his supposed wife. Happy ending? Well, not really as shortly after that, ANOTHER supposed wife identified him as a somewhat less respected thief and all-round bad lot from Turin. The debate over who he actually was raged nationwide in the papers and the courts of the time and went on till the man's death, quite a few years later, and his identity was never conclusively proven either way. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, the Collegno Amnesiac has become a sort of local archetypal character and it's become part of local sayings, for instance you would say to someone who tends to forget things 'what are you, the Collegno Amnesiac or something?' and so on.
Now, I'd like to point out that I'm not from Collegno: I was born and bred in the city PROPER, and have nowt to do with them provincial types! ;-) As for being amnesiac, I also never thought I was. In fact I've always thought I had a very good memory.
Then why, I ask, (and this is where you lot come into play) have I got into my mind that I have something planned for Thursday night which'll mean I'll be eating out, AND I HAVEN'T THE FOGGIEST IDEA WHAT THAT THING IS SUPPOSED TO BE? My diary has nothing for that day, it can't be band practice cos we've taken a week off from it (we have, haven't we?), Type O Neg/Paradise Lost are playing A WEEK on Thursday, and I can't think of anyone I am supposed to see/meet up with or anything I'm supposed to do - Am I indeed losing my memory or (possibly worse) starting to make things up in my mind??
Anyway, the bottom line, and the ultimate purpose of this verbose post of mine, is: if any of you has something scheduled for Thursday that involves/requires my presence please LET ME KNOW... and accept my apologies for having completely forgotten about it ;-)
[1] and when it was still in semi-abandoned state it was also the venue of a legendary Siouxsie & the Banshees gig in 83/84 (not sure cos it was a bit before my time so I wasn't there), where the coppers went a bit trigger happy with the tear gas (this may sound strange to most of you, but the standard security at gigs in Turin in the 80s seemed to be riot police, and I have been on the receiving end of tear gas myself a couple of times, a few years after that) and the whole thing ended in sheer mayhem and subsequently went down in the Turin goth/alternative scene folklore for years to come... but this is another story, and I digress as usual.
What differentiates it from all the other satellite towns of Turin, and the reason why everyone who's from the area or lived there knows it, is that it's where the old lunatic asylum was. The Asylum went, sometime in the early 70s I think, following the reform of the mental health act, and after the obligatory x years of abandonment and decay the structure was regenerated and turned into a park, a live music arena and a couple of venues (in fact, last time we were over there for a gig with V.o.M. we played one of the venues of the complex - fitting place to play for a bunch of madmen like us eh? ;-) )[1] but the area is still known as 'the asylum' to this day.
Now, another piece of local folklore, and which everyone from the area knows is the story of the 'Collegno Amnesiac'. To (try and) cut a long story short, sometime in the 1920s a man who'd lost his memory completely (didn't know what his name was or anything) was picked up by the police, having been caught stealing in a cemetery (!?) and committed to the asylum, as per the standard practice of the time. About a year later, following the publishing of his picture in a paper, he was identified as a well-respected professor from the North East of Italy, who'd gone missing in the war, by his supposed wife. Happy ending? Well, not really as shortly after that, ANOTHER supposed wife identified him as a somewhat less respected thief and all-round bad lot from Turin. The debate over who he actually was raged nationwide in the papers and the courts of the time and went on till the man's death, quite a few years later, and his identity was never conclusively proven either way. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, the Collegno Amnesiac has become a sort of local archetypal character and it's become part of local sayings, for instance you would say to someone who tends to forget things 'what are you, the Collegno Amnesiac or something?' and so on.
Now, I'd like to point out that I'm not from Collegno: I was born and bred in the city PROPER, and have nowt to do with them provincial types! ;-) As for being amnesiac, I also never thought I was. In fact I've always thought I had a very good memory.
Then why, I ask, (and this is where you lot come into play) have I got into my mind that I have something planned for Thursday night which'll mean I'll be eating out, AND I HAVEN'T THE FOGGIEST IDEA WHAT THAT THING IS SUPPOSED TO BE? My diary has nothing for that day, it can't be band practice cos we've taken a week off from it (we have, haven't we?), Type O Neg/Paradise Lost are playing A WEEK on Thursday, and I can't think of anyone I am supposed to see/meet up with or anything I'm supposed to do - Am I indeed losing my memory or (possibly worse) starting to make things up in my mind??
Anyway, the bottom line, and the ultimate purpose of this verbose post of mine, is: if any of you has something scheduled for Thursday that involves/requires my presence please LET ME KNOW... and accept my apologies for having completely forgotten about it ;-)
[1] and when it was still in semi-abandoned state it was also the venue of a legendary Siouxsie & the Banshees gig in 83/84 (not sure cos it was a bit before my time so I wasn't there), where the coppers went a bit trigger happy with the tear gas (this may sound strange to most of you, but the standard security at gigs in Turin in the 80s seemed to be riot police, and I have been on the receiving end of tear gas myself a couple of times, a few years after that) and the whole thing ended in sheer mayhem and subsequently went down in the Turin goth/alternative scene folklore for years to come... but this is another story, and I digress as usual.