‹ Previous Post   |   Frederick Seidel on Massimo Tamburini April 12, 2014 |  Massimo Tamburini died last Sunday, at seventy. Tamburini was an Italian motorcycle designer; his work for Ducati, Cagiva, and MV Agusta set the standard for art and style. The journalist Kevin Ash said that Tamburini’s design for the Ducati 916, which debuted in 1994, “moved it forward, personalized, and Ducati-fied it, in particular the blend of sharp edges and sweeping curves, which, like most innovation, broke existing rules.” And this week’s obituary in the Times found many enthusiasts who were unstinting in their praise: For decades Mr. Tamburini reigned as “the Michelangelo of motorcycling,” as The Sunday Express, the British newspaper, called him in 2010, and his work exerted a pervasive influence on the look of motorcycles in the late 20th century. “He always gave great élan to the shapes,” Bruno dePrato, the European editor of Cycle World magazine, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

“This élan is not aggressiveness, with very edgy shapes and other excesses in styling. His bikes were just shaped by the wind.” As it happens, Frederick Seidel, whose readers know him as a Ducati aficionado, had paid homage to Tamburini and the Ducati 916 in his poem “Milan,” from the 1998 collection Going Fast. (Curiously enough, Jonathan Galassi also read the final lines of “Milan” in his salute to Seidel at our Spring Revel on Tuesday; read on and you’ll see why.) Puppies For Sale Malone New YorkIn memory of Tamburini and his legendary designs, we’ve reprinted the poem here.Vacuum Cleaners At Apollo This is Via Gesù. Carpet Cleaning Joshua Tree CaStone without a tree. This is the good life. Big breasts in a business suit.

Between Via Monte Napoleone and Via della Spiga. I draw The bowstring of Cupid’s bow, Too powerful for anything but love to pull. Oh the sudden green gardens glimpsed through gates and the starkDeliciously expensive shops. I let the pocket knives at Lorenzi, Each a priceless jewel,Gods of blades and hinges, Make me late for a fitting at Caraceni. Oh Milan, I feel myself being pulled backTo the past and released. I hiss like an arrow Through the air,On my way from here to there. I am a man I used to know. I am the arrow and the bow. I am a reincarnation, butI give birth to the man I grew out of. I follow him down a street Into a restaurant I don’t rememberAnd sit and eat. A Ducati 916 stabs through the blur. Massimo Tamburini designed this miracle Which ought to be in the Museum of Modern Art. The Stradivarius Of motorcycles lights up Via Borgospesso As it flashes by, dumbfoundingly small. Donatello by way of Brancusi, smoothed simplicity.One hundred sixty-four miles an hour.

The Ducati 916 is a nightingale. It sings to me more sweetly than Cole Porter.Slender as a girl, aerodynamically clean. Sudden as a shark. The president of Cagiva Motorcycles, Mr. Claudio Castiglioni, lifts off in his helicopterFrom his ecologically sound factory by a lake.Cagiva in Varese owns Ducati in Bologna,Where he lands. His instructions are Confucian: Don’t stint. Combine a far-seeing industrialist. With an Islamic fundamentalist. With an Italian premier who doesn’t take bribes. With a pharmaceuticals CEO who loves to spread disease.Put them on a 916. And you get Fred Seidel. Pallacanestro Varese, also called by its current sponsor's name, the Openjobmetis Varese, is an Italian professional basketball club based in Varese, Lombardy. Founded in 1945, the team plays in the first division Serie A. For past club sponsorship names, see sponsorship names. Ottorino Flaborea lifts the 1970 European Cup trophy Basketball was introduced in Varese in 1945 with the creation of the historical club, Pallacanestro Varese.

The first sponsors were introduced 8 years later in 1954 including Storm and Ignis, followed by Emerson, Turisanda, Cagiva, Star, Ciaocrem, Divarese, Ranger, Metis, Whirlpool and the most recent, Cimberio. Varese is also famous due to the lack of main sponsor in the mid-1990s and the choice of franchise name, the Varese Roosters. Since their creation, Pallancanestro Varese has won 10 Italian titles, 1961, 1964, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1978 and the last title, won 21 years after the previous title, in 1999. With 10 titles, Varese is the third most winning team of the Italian League ever after Olimpia Milano and Virtus Bologna. As it is shown by its roll of honors, Varese was extremely competitive in the 1970s, when the club played ten Euroleague finals in a row, winning 5 of them in 1970, 1972, 1973, 1975 and 1976. Between 1970 and 1975 the club was named Ignis Varese. The golden age had begun some years before, as Varese conquered the Intercontinental Cup in 1966, repeating it 4 and 7 years later in its greatest decade in 1970 and 1973.

Varese succeeded in doing the great enterprise, the Triple Crown, winning all the trophies available in 1973 with legendary Professor Aca Nikolić seating on the bench. Varese also won two Cups of the Cups, 1967 and 1980, and four Italian Cups, in 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1973. Varese's great age ended in the early nineties, when the team dropped down to the second division. Soon, the club took its revenge, coming up once again to the Italian top league, and after 5 years spent as the real team to watch in the Italian playoffs, it succeeded in winning its historical 10th title in 1999, with the Italian national team's coach Carlo Recalcati. Varese has never repeated that triumph so far, but that success still echoes over Italy to this day. Varese is trying to return to the top Italian and European competition in the years to come. Note: Flags indicate national team eligibility at FIBA sanctioned events. Players may hold other non-FIBA nationality not displayed. Main article: Pallacanestro Varese in European and worldwide competitions