THE SUPREME ART OF ANTICIPATION

Billiards: how life depends on a breath, an instant, a fateful encounter

It is an ancient game, a physical exercise that requires strict discipline, which children or adults engage in. Among the enthusiasts of this type of competition regulated by conventional rules and whose outcome depends to a greater or lesser extent on skill or luck, there are those who approach it for pastime, entertainment or to replenish their physical and spiritual energies. We are talking about the game of billiards, a board game that is played with a cue and balls on a table covered with green cloth. There are several variations of the game, each with different rules and objectives, but they all require skill, precision and strategy. Whether you decide to play snooker or bocce, carom, goriziana or five pins, you will have to do it on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth. Colored marbles flow inside which the player hits with a rod, or by throwing them with his hands, trying to understand the point to hit. TIC Tac. The imagination of possible geometries sometimes makes him hold his breath.

Both snooker and billiards are played with a cue and balls on that green cloth-covered table, but there are some differences between the two games. Snooker involves the use of 21 balls, of which 15 are red and six of other colors; American billiards uses only 16 balls, including seven stripes, seven checks, one black and one white. The aim of the game is also different: in billiards you have to pocket all the balls, regardless of their order, and finally the black ball; in snooker you will have to score as many points as possible by trying to pocket the colored balls in the pre-established order, starting from black and ending with yellow, after hitting a red ball. In the game of snooker, the 15 red balls are placed in a triangle at the top of the table, with the black ball placed on the center line of the table; the colored ones are placed in specific positions on the table, each at a fixed distance from the black ball. In American billiards, however, the balls are arranged in a triangle, with the black ball placed in the center of the triangle.

Angelo Branduardi, an Italian singer who dedicated his own song to those who play billiards, captured with words and musical notes not only the complex geometries of the colored balls on the green cloth, but also those of the billiard player. Ti-tac. He imagined a fisherman putting his catch back into the water, a child giving his petite ball to the sky and a father with sad eyes, sitting at a restaurant table, while he looks at his children. In those gestures, the singer-songwriter imagined seeing the game of life, he superimposed the color of the balls with that of desires, emotions and hopes. Think for a moment: how many times have you had to hold your breath in life when faced with invisible and unexpected geometries? By reading the lyrics of this song, you will discover that the green grass of the plateau is your life, the one where you stretch out your hands trying to understand the geometries, when the going gets tough.

THE BILLIARD PLAYER – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rzexu1zfrc Only the grass on the plateau is a little greener, but there’s no need to think about it, there’s no need to spread your hand over it, trying to figure out where to hit. Tick-tock tick-tock. For every geometry, tick-tock tick-tock, you need imagination. There is a light that is not moon, in a darkness that is not night, and a voice that is not a voice, that does not speak but speaks about me. Suddenly my hand burns, the green air of the cloth on the piano. Tick-tock and the game rolls away my life. That’s why you hold your breath as long as you’re down, and forever means never again. Tick-tock tick-tock for every geometry, tick-tock tick-tock, it takes imagination. If you want to get to know international music scene, you can type http://meetingbenches.com/category/music/. The property of the images that appear in this blog correspond to their authors. The sole purpose of this site is to spread the knowledge of these artists and that other people enjoy their works.