Trees -- as Reynaldo Arenas wrote -- have a secret life that is only revealed to those willing to climb them. Italo Calvino knew that, too.
That's why it was so thrilling that Claudio Abbado had requested that thousands of trees be planted in Milan, his native city, before he came to conduct, again, at la Scala (he'll appear at the opera house in June to conduct Mahler's Second Symphony). And how cool was it that Renzo Piano himself had dreamed up a plan to make Milan much greener?
Sadly, Milan's city government has very lamely decided that the Abbado-Piano plan is apparently too expensive, and it has therefore been sunk, as Corriere della Sera reports today.
Renzo Piano explained today in the Milanese paper how his plan would have changed the city, made it better, gentler, not simply greener. "Peccato", is the final word of Piano's essay -- it's a pity.
But it's more than that -- it's a shame, really. Shame shame shame.