Patrick Pierazzoli: Lizzo Love
Melissa Viviane Jefferson has been in the music business for quite some time. The now 30-year-old founded her first rap combos at the age of 14 in Houston, Texas, where she grew up and lived until she moved to Minneapolis in 2011. It is actually impossible to ignore or even overlook her, but Lizzo, as Melissa is known by her stage name, is only now really taking off. Her third solo album “Cuz I Love You” will be released this month and will go off like a rocket. Guaranteed, because ever since the first single “Juice” was released, nobody has been able to sit still. From Ellen to Jimmy, Lizzo transforms one late-night studio after another into a funk-infused disco with her magic juice, and everyone loves her. Me too. And they too. Lizzo has been fighting for women’s rights and body positivity for many years. Nevertheless, she herself only now seems to believe how sexy she really is, because suddenly nothing and nobody can stop her. And that’s a good thing.
Marina Warth: Black Thumb
Where the sea cannot reach, where it is dusty, the air is still and the sun is burning, that is where the olive tree grows. He shakes off the heat like a dog shakes off fleas, the years do nothing to him, on the contrary. Survival is his specialty – actually. At least not in my house. It took two months until my olive tree surrendered. It was sad and somehow embarrassing. After all, it actually speaks in a woman’s favor if she is good with plants – the same logic as a man with a dog. Well, I know too many men who love cats and are still quite alright, so I don’t have to be ashamed of my vegetable handicap. I tell myself. So that my home isn’t just decorated with pictures and souvenirs from foreign countries, I now have eucalyptus branches in my vase. They have this beautiful color that reminds me of sea spray, the sea and waves and everything that has to do with vacations. The convincing argument: Eucalyptus is a survival expert, the Bear Grylls of plants, and can’t be killed whether you water it or not, whether you talk to it or ignore it, put it by the window or next to the TV. And it gives anyone who knows even less about plants than I do the feeling that green life is sprouting in my apartment. Honor saved.
Marco Rüegg: Blood red
Anyone can do sweet and salty. Bitter flavors, on the other hand, are our palate’s equivalent of the Alpe d’Huez in the Tour de France: the queen stage that requires tough training. This is evolutionary; our sensors react skeptically to bitter foods because many poisonous plants taste bitter. In this respect, Messrs Campari must have had some pretty big balls when they decided to make the first Campari in the mid-19th century. At the end of the 19th century, they launched a liqueur made from quinine, ginseng and orange peel and dyed it dark red with a substance extracted from scale insects. Today, where director Luca Garavoglia is the last person to know the original recipe, Milan has gone totally vegan and switched to artificial substances. Official. Secretly, however, they drip a few drops of the preserved lifeblood of the forefather Gaspare Campari, who passed away in 1882, into each bottle for the characteristic coloring. At least that’s my theory on the basis of my standard aperitif. In addition to ice and a little soda, add 3cl Campari and 1.5 dl white wine (although I like to reverse the mixing ratio). This is called a bicicletta. Tour de France my ass…
