Articles from magazines and dailies of the period are displayed in the moving integrity of their original appearance and “incarnation” in the world. Thus the source for each quote is not simply indicated, it is displayed in all its tangible reality. See, for example, the complete copy of the 19 January 1975 edition of «Corriere della sera» carrying Pasolini’s article “against abortion”, an ephemeral object yet with a content and a history that are still explosive today.
In this exploration, alongside newspapers and magazines, the book as an object becomes a powerful embodiment of the word and in fact may well play the most important role in Pasolini’s corpus, ranging from his adolescent dream of printing his own book of poems (self-funded, artisanal, naive, wonderful) right up to his major publications, the collections that marked the onset of fame and notoriety. Pasolini’s passion for publishing books is linked to his interest in disseminating thoughts, visions and torments in an ongoing dialogue with people, with the public, with the hoi polloi – a dialogue built from 1965 to 1975 in columns, interviews and a ceaseless string of essays in dailies and weeklies.
His weekly columns in «Vie Nuove» (“Dialogues with Pasolini”) and «Tempo» (first “Chaos” and then “Readings”) right up to his cooperation with «Corriere della sera» paint a clear picture of Pasolini the eternal “corsair”. His entire output as a journalist can be seen as a fantastic medley of thought and struggle: it is in dialogue, in encounters with others that the most poetic bodily experience takes place.