Infinity in a Bottle

The other day while showing my visiting friend around Antwerp, one of my favorite cities in the world , I had to pause when I saw a certain boutique. I recognized the design on the products before it sunk in as to which store it actually was, namely because of the cognitive disjunct going on in my head. Something just wasn’t right.

It was a small outlet for the Officina Profuma Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella di Firenze.

“Hmmm...that’s odd,” I thought and said aloud, “this ain’t right.” “Why not?” she asked.

“Because we’re in Antwerp, not Florence.”

I like paradoxes, and I secretly like to think that I am one, giant living paradox, and perhaps my favorite one is Zeno’s Paradox of the Arrow of Time. If an arrow is always half-way the distance of its target, it can never arrive, as it is eternally in transit, yet at the same time, always being half the distance of some distance, it is eternally at rest, never moving, setting up the paradox of either all is in motion, or nothing changes, or...MU. ‘Tis such with me. I like taking a different route to familiar destination s, thwarting habitual patterns, yet at the same time, I love certain things to be exactly the same, or perhaps neither and both at once, MU...this was such a conundrum for me to see this store.

I love shaving with a brush and cream. Since I can’t always enjoy the fine, though dying, art of the straight-razor shave, like the ones I had in India and elsewhere, the next best thing is a premium brush and cream application. And, the best shaving cream that I have found to date is from the original, and previously only,  Officina di Santa Maria Novella Farmaceutica in Florence.

I first heard of Santa Maria from one of the other professors, who theoretically was on staff with us in Castiglione Fiorentino, though in truth was just there to sight-see himself and leave the rest of the work to the other faculty. Yet, he was the one who indirectly introduced me to Santa Maria, so I can’t fully begrudge his blatantly selfish desires. The one thing that he wanted to make sure to do in Florence was to buy soaps, perfumes, etc. at Santa Maria, so he went on and on about Santa Maria. What’s the big deal? I unknowingly wondered. Until I went, that is.

Since 1612 the famous potions of the Santa Maria Novella have been dispensed exclusively, or so I thought, from their Florence abode. Currently housed in a beautiful old locale, just southwest of the church on the Via della Scala, one walks in and is immediately taken by the smells, the aromas, the essence of the place. It is an olfactory ex-stasis. I would not be surprised if Süskind did not find but even a little inspiration for his best-selling novel about the artisan mastery of making perfume from this store.

Although there are many, many wonderful things in the boutique, for me, my coveted purchase is always a bottle of Emulsione Analcolica contro fuoco del rasoio (aftershave) and a cake of Crema di barba. The textures and aromas of both are indeed divinely inspired and a single cake of the cream will last me several years of regular shaves. So, I can space my trips to Florence accordingly, until now, that is. For now, if it runs out, I can go down the street in Antwerp to get my Santa Maria Novella aftershave and/or shaving cream.

Well, though one might think I should be over-joyed, I was over-noyed instead. How could they? I felt the bitter pangs of infidelity, like a lover spurned, grip my heart. The only place I should be able to get my shaving products is in Florence, not Antwerp. I don’t go to Florence to buy Belgian chocolates, do I?

Now, this all sounds like a whining petit-bourgeois, which ultimately it is, but that really isn’t the point. There is truly something special about knowing that something is unique in this world, isn’t there? To be the only one of something is quite remarkable in a world of imitations, and mass production. I cherished knowing, or perhaps living the illusion, that there was just one Santa Maria Novella in my life. Yet, the illusion has been shattered, and even if I go back to Florence, I know that this one here will be sneering in mockery and contempt, chiding me for being oh-too-good to walk inside...or something like that.

But, I do like unique places. I like knowing that there are certain places that I will never see anywhere else. But, you never know. I remember visiting a pretty cool, little grungy coffee shop in Seattle about 25 years ago, thinking, “Whoah, that’s a cool, little, grungy coffee shop. Wonder if they call it Starbucks because of Moby-Dick?”

As a business, places need to expand, to franchise, to thrive. As a consumer, I like the personal touch, the history, the storied tradition. They are in eternal conflict with each other, tradition and survival. One seems to never be moving, frozen in Time, the other always moving, never static. I wonder what mysterious, scented cantor dust wafts in between the interstices of the infinite moments which separate the two...indeed, which perfumed aroma would best suit Infinity?

I wonder, and would it be franchised?

Pre-Occupied

Wasn’t really sure where to post this one, as with each of my postings, there are multiple undercurrents, connections with one another, jewels reflecting each other, so, since it has to do with Italy to a certain extent, and I haven’t posted on this site for a bit too long for my comfort, eccoci qua.

Sitting last evening at one of my favorite Antwerp cafes, a place I have come to over the past twenty years that holds fond memories as well as new experiences, de Muze, I had purchased a latest edition of La Repubblica since I have been a bit out of touch with the news and in order to force me to read some Italian on a more in-depth level than I have in a while, and in part to be the mysterious stranger, wearing an American letter jacket (mine, actually) with an Italian newspaper at a Belgian cafe. So, the story goes.

One of the articles that caught my eye was Roberto Saviano’s “Cambiare il mondo a Zuccotti Park” about the Occupy Wall Street movement. In all honesty, I had not really kept up with this movement at all, merely giving cursory glances at the headlines and keeping minimally apprised of the situation as such. For a couple of reasons, neither of them really good ones, I will readily admit.

One, merely because I am not living in America, and I am selective about what I actually read about it. My confession there, however, is that I have a real weakness for following football (sigh, yes, American, not Soccer...) on-line. For not being a sports fanatic at any level, I do know ridiculously a lot at any given time about both NCAA and NFL football. As I said, not a good excuse that one.

Secondly, well, I am generally pretty unimpressed in general with demonstrations and protests, which is a holdover from my college days at The University of Texas at Austin, when they actually had demonstrations and protests (though now the real Hippies are bristling, and perhaps rightly so), but in all honesty, they were usually a joke and did absolutely nothing. In fact, no matter what the cause was, you would see the same “professional protesters” with the same old spiel. It was not about the cause, it was a cause itself to just get out and yell potted slogans and look really self-important. Jaded, I know. Again, not a good excuse.

So, the Occupy Wall Street had appeared to be just the same old same old. No agenda, good reason to read bad poetry and dress up by donning a “V is for Vendetta” mask...yawn...

But, as this was my poser moment to be reading the Italian newspaper, I decided to give it a go. I did learn that the movement was actually begun by Canadians (I’ve always said, don’t trust them, they’re too “nice”), which later was taken up in true American style and went for the Big Apple. More than that, it sounded exactly as I had imagined, dressing up like Guy Fawkes and spouting off slam poetry manifestos. God, I am jaded.

Yet, and that is the rub, yet, it made me proud to be an American (which is why this could have gone under my other blog ) when Saviano writes that within the crowd he saw: “Alcuni sono liberali, alcuni anarchici, altri si dichiarano socialisti, libertati, ambientalisti, democratici, e ci sono persino ragazzi che si definiscono repubblicani. Troviamo ragazze e raggazi atei e molti credenti. Ci sono musulmani, ebrei, indù, buddisti e cristiani. Molti ventenni, ma tanti manifestanti sono più maturi.” In short, people of all ages, genders, political stances, and religions. Which, in shorter terms is America.

That is still true, no matter how uniform America may seem at a superficial glance, it is still a country made up of all kinds of people. Coming from India, where there are only Indians, albeit from multiple religions, they are still Indians back to Belgium, where although there are people from around the world, they don’t come together like I have seen in America, which is Saviano’s point. He is lamenting the fact later in the article that although Italians show no lack of enthusiasm (understatement of the year), they will manifest upon lines of division and distinction rather than synthesis. Instead of looking at the intricacy of the weave, they will instead look at the individual differences of the threads. Such is the case here in Belgium, where the mentality can crudely be called “tribal” as in much, if not all of Europe. Hence the so-called “euro-crisis.”

America works as a bizarre experiment of bringing together the world. Not to say at all that there are not issues of division, xenophobia, and tribal mentality, not at all. For that, one needs to look only as far as the college football rivalries that are being played out each Saturday afternoon. However, what I have seen in America that I don’t see in Europe, and especially in Italy, to which Saviano heavily points the finger at his compatriots, is that Europe is founded upon differences, not unity. Whereas America, as a concept, seeks to unite, Europe seeks to disengage, to dis-entangle. 

Ciao, Professore!

Living in Bologna, Italy and teaching at L’Università di Bologna is still one of my fondest memories. I had finally arrived on the scene, or so it felt like that. I will never forget being introduced by my Joycean mentor there, Rosa Maria Bosinelli, one of the greatest mentors of young Joyceans to have played the role. Always gracious to the nth degree, when I first visited the Forlì campus, which is where I would teach for a year and a half (commuting from Castiglione Fiorentino part of the time), she introduced me as “Professore Fulton.” Ciao!

It was a heady time. I had been teaching for several years prior at The University of Texas at Austin, my alma mater, but now I was teaching the alma mater studiorum. Not bad for a kid who had dropped out of college a bit more than a decade before. But, while at UT, I was not allowed to be called “professor,” because I was primarily hired as an Academic Advisor, and my superiors did not cotton to the fact that the students were beginning to see me as their potential equals. I was told more than once to be aware of my “place,” so the furthest I got was a compromise of “Dr. Rob” by the those fun-loving rugrats of the Liberal Arts Honors Programs. But, that is neither here nor there, I was now “Professore.”

That was not the main reason why I have such fondness for the time there, but it was part of it. It was a sign that I had graduated from being post-doc to being doc. Moreover, it was based upon who I was, not from anyone I knew that was helping me along, and that can be an important feeling in life. Rosa Maria had believed in me as me, and that was priceless.

Once I learned how to interact with the Italian students and had sufficiently convince them that I actually do not have a Texas accent, the rest was the sheer joy of teaching.

But, what for me was most important about living in Bologna was that it was the first time that I was living in a country where I had to learn to survive in a language that was not my own without the constant aid of a native speaker as had been the case in Belgium. In Italy, we were both stranieri and had to learn the ropes as such. In Forlì I found my groove and had my haunts and coffee shops and lunch spots. I really felt that I was making it there as a foreigner. I was well aware that one will always be a straniero in Italy if not from there originally, but at least I was getting the support and acknowledgment from the locals that I was making an effort. I was drinking my morning espresso and eating my paste with them.

It was a major transition for me as a teacher and within academics. Because of Rosa Maria’s help, I was able to publish my book on James Joyce and to attend several conferences as a visiting scholar of interest. Unfortunately, as it was merely a visiting appointment and we had obligations to go to in Castiglione Fiorentino, it came to an end and things have a natural tendency to do. I was no longer “Professore” and by the time we got to CF, I was back to being Dr. Rob as we were teaching for a UT Study Abroad program. I was just “Rob” again, humbled back several years, and for the most part, I had to tell people that I really did teach at Bologna. It was a blow to the ego, which I did not always handle well, but in hindsight, I now see the significance. We can change from the inside, but if our environment is unwilling to see that change, than there is often nothing we can do, but wait out the course of Time.

While checking some stats on my blogs, I noticed that someone had typed in “professore fulton forlì” for a search on this blog, so perhaps to some people still out there, I am indeed still “Professore Fulton.”

Ciao!

Strange Affinities

Don’t know where this is going, but just throwing it out there to start thinking about it. The more that I am in India, the more it seems to be similar to Italy in many ways, which is rather mind-boggling.

Some of the things that I have noticed are the dynamics of the household, in which outwardly it is a male culture, but inwardly the females run the place, especially the mother-in-law, though often that is not a good thing for the poor wife, that is quite clear.

First-born sons are treated like gold, whereas the rest of the children must fight for whatever they get, and again especially the girls.

Indian and Italian children both run in packs here. It is seldom to see just one child, but rather an entire herd of them is the norm. They are always playing in the streets, often until very, very late at night.

Both cultures are very sexual in the media, yet, on the whole, both are quite conservative with social interactions. Of course, public displays of affection in Italy verge on the grotesque at times, but for the most part, Italians are quite conservative with social norms and what you can say and not say, or do. For fear of being see as the dreaded “che brutta figura.” There is a similar shame culture here as well.

The entire culture revolves around food and music. There is always music in the air at some level, and Indians love singing as much as they pride themselves on their food. If you are ever invited to eat with Indians, I hope that you haven’t eaten for four days because, like the Italians, they will have an endless buffet of dishes and as the guest, it is incumbent upon you to eat til you explode for fear of insulting the host or hostess. As such, I have surprisingly not lost the 10 or so pounds I had expected to while traveling here.

The Indians love India, as the Italians love Italy. Most Italians don’t travel outside of Italy and that could be said about the Indians as well. It is all here, why travel anywhere else? Culturally pride runs deep in both countries.

The languages are very similar in expression. I have learned just enough Tamil by now to be picking up on the fact that you never say the same thing twice. That is also the case with Italians. They both pride themselves on the fact that they can always say the same thing differently in many ways. Now, that has made learning Tamil and Italian more challenging, but I admire the richness of linguistic variety.

Religion is dominant in the culture, both secular and sacred. Just as churches dominate any Italian town and religious festivals will involve the entire community, so to do the Indians do religion on a grand scale. Every day is virtually devoted to one god or goddess, similar to the Italians preoccupation with the Saints’ days.

The concept of Time and Space are also quite similar. Except for in the North of Italy, where Time is actually rather “important” to many, Italian Time is something on its own. Things happen when they do, whether it is a train, a meal, or a large event. Likewise, to bother an Indian about Time is a fruitless endeavor. There is a laissez-faire approach that is maddening to most non-Italians and non-Indians, but when you embrace it, life takes on another dimension.

The same goes for Space. If you go to a movie in Italy and the theater is empty, you sit down in the middle, guaranteed, if one other person comes into the hall, he or she will sit right next to you. Personal space does not exist in either country and it is something that you have to get over quite quickly. Or, the shops here and in Italy are quite similar. You will have very small, specialized shops that are literally packed to the ceiling with things and what would take up a city block in America will be condensed into a broom-closet sized store in which the storekeeper has an uncanny way of knowing exactly where everything is among the items packed as densely as a neutron star. I remember going to the hardware store in Castiglion Fiorentino and was amazed that the man could navigate through the insanely labyrinthine stacks of merchandise to find the exact item, and seemingly could do so blindfolded.

The street culture is likewise quite similar. Italians often consider their apartments as merely where they go home to bed because the streets are their living rooms and dining rooms. Indian homes may very well just be an entryway and bedrooms with a small cooking area because they are always out on the streets. I am reminded time and time again of Naples being here because of the incredibly vibrant street culture at all times of the day and night.

Restaurants often don’t have menus here, but rather you just ask what they have that day. In addition, as with Italy, you cannot simply order, but it has to be a full conversation with the waiter, who will also try to persuade you, often successfully, to choose something you did not intend on ordering. When we went to eat with Handel in Tirunelveli, his British friend Tess and I looked at each other and asked what in the world are they talking about for so long, we’re just ordering, but it was a lengthy discussion. This always happened in the local restaurants in Italy as well.

Mere coincidences perhaps, but it has been interesting to see the similarities unfold. I will be curious to see how I look at Italian culture when I do return one day after my Indian experience. Vedremo...

The Day Time Stood Still

Without looking at my watch, I can tell you what time it is at the Bologna train station. It is twenty five minutes past ten in the morning, August 2, 1980, to be precise. Two things will strike your eye when you either approach the Bologna train station from the main entrance, or if you arrive there and are standing out in front and something just doesn’t seem right. Look for a moment, and it will start to stand out. Where there is now a MacDonald’s adjacent to the main entry hall, the architecture seems to be out of synch, from a different time, than it. Then, you may want to check you watch and to see what time it is so as to catch your train, (though ultimately, that may in itself prove to be an act of futility), but the clock reads 10:25, even though it is well into the afternoon.

Twenty-one years ago, on August 2, 1980, members of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari executed one of the most infamous civilian attacks in recent European history, known as the Strage di Bologna. They bombed the Bologna train station, killing 85 people, and literally stopping Time. The shock of the blast blew out the clock, and the city of Bologna has since decided to keep it there as a reminder, per non dimenticare, of what happened that day.

Bologna holds an interesting place in Italy, politically and socially. Theoretically, it is Communist by political stripes, though I often joked at the visible wealth there that it was “rich enough to be Communist.” Socially, it houses an extremely highly educated population and boosts the alma mater studiorium, which is more or less the mother of all universities, as L’Università di Bologna, where I was fortunate enough to be a visiting lecturer, is recognized as the oldest established western university, officially designated as such in 1988, celebrating its 900th anniversary, at which time the controversial Bologna Accord was signed, re-defining collegiate education in Europe on a grand scale.

Something else that makes Bologna special is its sense of city awareness and pride. People are really proud to be from Bologna, and they should be, it is an incredible city, very likely my favorite mid-sized city to date. It has an incredible infrastructure for civic events, and there always seemed to be something going on in Bologna that was celebrating being “bolognese.” In addition, it is a city that is highly geared to the personal and family level, and nearly every week in the summer months one can find some sort of program on the piazza maggiore, with kids running around, laughing and chasing pigeons, under the shade of the half-finished façade of the San Petronio Basilica.

The church itself has been a source of anxiety as well. Inside, on one of the tableaux paintings, there is a depiction of sinners being tormented in Hell, amongst them is no less than the prophet Mohammed. While living in Bologna, there was a controversial case in which seven Muslims were apprehended based on the suspicion that they were going to bomb the cathedral as retribution for the painting.

Any act of violence upon civilians is an act of social horror. The bombing of Bologna’s train station struck a deep, deep chord with all Italians, and was even more insidious because it was home-grown. The NAR was Italian. Similar to the Timothy McVeigh-masterminded event in Oklahoma City and the more recent tragedy in Norway at the hands of Anders Breivik, these were acts of terror from home.

Today, commemorating September 11, 2001, and the events that transpired that day, such acts are on my mind. They are still all unfathomable to me. Yet, the Bologna train station does stick out in my mind. Mainly because it was place that I have been to the most often where such an event took place. I had visited the Twin Towers years before when they were still standing, and was in complete awe of their monumental stature, but I have not been to other such sites, except for the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, where Pakistani terrorists attacked and lay siege to Mumbai, the result of 164 dead and over 300 wounded. Currently, the hotel has a police barricade around it as does the plaza in front of the Gateway to India to prevent any further attacks. Reminiscent of the November 2008 bombings, more deaths were recorded in Delhi this week at the hands of Pakistani attackers.

But, to return to Bologna, what made it different for me was that it was because I went to that station nearly every day to take a train to the Forlì campus, where my department was located. And, every time, upon approaching the station, I would see that clock stopped, and it would indeed give me pause as to how it had happened. I do remember feeling uncomfortable at times there, imaging what the scene must have been like at this station, which for me was usually a place to enjoy knowing that I was in Bologna. There would be moments, though, when I would seem to have flashes of the chaos and pandemonium, and above all the fear that must have been there on that day. It is as if sometimes I could still feel it, the horror, suspended in Time.

Camel Time

This past weekend in Madurai, the school that I teach at celebrated “Sports Day” at the local stadium. The students were divided up into the four historical Tamil Nadu dynasties: Chera, Chola, Nayalla, and Pandyas. Instead of what one would expect in a normal “Track and Field” day at an American school, for example, there was actually very little sports that day. Instead, it was more of a celebration of sports as the events themselves had been done throughout the week at school and this was more of an awards ceremony and exhibition of a few of the sports clubs and musical spectacles carrying the message of the importance of protecting the Earth and an awareness of Nature. Of the three clubs on display were the Yoga, Gymnastics, and Karate, again not something you might see highlighted in an American or European school.

The Seniors’ class representative gave an inaugural speech for the program and in it she said something, though perhaps oddly phrased, stuck in my mind. She said that some students may not be good in school, but are good in sports, so Sports Day is for them an important day. This stuck out because in a typical American high school, it is the athletes who nearly always have the spotlight and of which the majority of television shows and films will focus on if they are about high school. An excellent example of such a mini-series, and one which my sister worked on, is “Friday Night Lights” which actually attempts to balance small-town Texas football with the academics as the coach’s wife is also the principal, bringing the war of attention to the home front.

However, the balance is often not struck in reality, nor in the show. One of Socrates’ well-known dictums about education is the need to have both a healthy mind and body. This is something that I have always had a strong position on as well. I believe that if possible, the addition of physical conditioning is a crucial part of mental development. During all of my schooling and professional life I have been either active in swimming or water polo and was the swiming coach at the Antwerp International School as well.

While I was teaching at the Study Abroad program in Castiglion Fiorentino, I had been swimming at the local pool for as long as it was open. Set against the Tuscan hillside on one end and looking up at the 12th-century town of CF on the other, it was a swim workout that included quite a deal of backstroke because I never tired of either view under that Tuscan sun. However, the pool did close, and I was at a loss as to what to do. Often, the students and faculty would play ping pong in the off hours, which does work up a sweat at times, but was merely a band-aid to the situation.

So, I decided to start a yoga class. One of the classrooms was called the “Bishop’s Room” as it was a vaulted appendage to what had at one point been the Bishop’s apartment that the program now owned and used for faculty housing and classroom space. As such, I booked the Bishop’s Room and put out the notice. As is common with novelties, the effect can often wear off rather rapidly. With Yoga, it is quite amazing how many things can become suddenly so “important” and not make a class. However, I held the class at 7 a.m., so this was to be expected with college kids and I as actually more surprised with how many soon made up the core of the group on a near-daily basis. Beth, Katie, Barrett, Jamie, Dane, Whitney, Leyla, and Andrew became the base for the CF yoga club.

The most surprising of all, however, was Andrew. Andrew had been more than aloof in my “Portrait of A Student in Exile” class in which we were reading works dealing with either self-imposed or state-imposed exiles as well as writing about our own experiences of living in another country. Andrew would normally just be sullen, disengaged, or flat-out rude by either not showing up or falling asleep. Reality slightly hit when he failed his first paper, but he shrugged it off with an air of disinterest.

But, when Yoga classes started, I was more than surprised to see Andrew. His friend, Leyla, who was the exact opposite type of student, had convinced him to come. Within a short time, I could not believe the transformation that I saw in Andrew. From my Yoga Guru, Bekir, I inherited a tendency to philosophize during long poses, thereby distracting people from their discomfort, allowing them to actually settle into the pose nearly unconsciously. I could see Andrew taking it all in and he never missed a class, even if it had been a late night for everyone. Suddenly, he began to “show up”  in my class as well and ultimately became one of the strongest students.

It was the Camel that broke the student’s back though. As the winter came on in CF, I began to incorporate the Camel pose. Now, if you have ever done the Camel, your thighs probably just started aching from memory. Bekir would have us do lots and lots of Camels in late autumn, early winter because that is when we become more sedentary, more kapha, more lethargic, in a word, lazy. The Camel, then, is the ultimate antidote to this winter psychosomatic slumber. It is also the ultimate thigh workout.

At the end of the workout (had to be the end, because often you can barely walk after several sets), I had a specific DJ Cheb i Sabbah song that I would play, indicating that, yes, ladies and gentlemen, “It is Camel Time.” A collective groan would sweep across the room when that song would come on. However, Leyla and Andrew became the superstar Camels. They took it to a new level and it became a serious source of pride, and for those not attending the Yoga class, it was not uncommon to hear, “yeah, but you haven’t done the Camel.”

When Andrew and Leyla went back to Austin, I heard from them and they actually started classes with Bekir, being so proud of their Camels. It was a great feeling for me as a teacher that I had stumbled upon a way of getting to Andrew, because for me, the greatest failure I experience as a teacher is not reaching those that that seem to be unreachable. I was on the verge of giving up on Andrew, and it was the most unforeseen event that the Camel would be the key that finally unlocked that door. By the end of the semester, I could not believe the transformation that Andrew had undergone. I have learned to never underestimate the power of the Camel.

At the Table, Italian Style

While eating lunch today in Madurai, India, at my host, Pradeep’s home, I was reminded of an experience in Italy that I treasure with fondness. While living in the small hilltop Tuscan town of Castiglione Fiorentino, we befriended Marco, who owned La Bottega del Vino, a truly first-rate restaurant with Marco’s unsurpassable personal attention to hospitality and friendly evening banter, though often to the chagrin of his friend and partner who was stuck in the kitchen sweating over the hot stove the entire time and their wives who were busy serving people.

Marco was gregarious nearly to a fault, but genuinely loved to see people enjoy the food he offered at his trattoria. He was a craftsman of the old school and adherent to the slow-food movement in Italy, which involves sitting down and enjoying your food over time, quite in opposition to the rise of the American import of fast food into Europe.

When Marco found out that we would be in the town alone for Easter, which happened also to be on my birthday that year, he was sad and invited us to his home for an Easter dinner. Now, I may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree always, but I’m no fool if the owner of my favorite small-town Tuscan restaurant invites me over for a home-cooked meal, I am not going to turn him down.

It was quite the event. I counted at least four generations there, though there was one older woman who might have been the fifth, but I am not certain. There were kids running around and several other of Marco’s family members, who were also no fools to turn down one of Marco’s banquets.

The thing that I remember most, more because it was an interesting custom more than anything else, was that we started with an enormous bowl of hard-boiled eggs. I mean several dozen at least. That was traditional for Easter and I am sure that we all had about four or five of them to inaugurate the meal.

After that, it was just one dish after another coming from Marco’s rather modest kitchen, but you would have never known it. Marco’s mother owned a grocery store on the edge of the town, just outside the city walls, and she always had good cheeses, wines, and produce, all of which was used in abundance to throw together this unforgettable meal.

So, after about five hours of eating and conviviality, Marco even brought out a birthday desert for me that he had made and I celebrated it with all of his family. It was a very special birthday event and a true testament to the hospitality that one can find in Italy.

My advice, if an Italian offers to bring you home for dinner with the family, it is most likely an offer that one should not refuse...and speaking of that, time to go down to dinner for one of Jacinthe’s home-cooked meals, Indian style. 

Statuesque Intrigue

Got statues and sculptures on the brain today, thinking about my upcoming trip to India and the first port of call, the Caves of Elephanta to see the large, rock-cut Hindu sculptures there.

We love statues as symbols, they give us something to hold onto, if only metaphorically. Hegel said that the statue of an altar was the metaphysical crux of a church as it was the presence of the deity, surrounded by the sacred space of the cathedral, surrounded by the congregation of paintings and stained-glass windows which view the statue.

I like statues out in the open air, al fresco, if you will, and Italy is full of them. However, upon reflecting about Italy today, three of them stick out in my mind that I would advise you to see, should you happen to be traveling to Italy any time soon. For me, these three statues capture the essence of what is appealing to me about Italy as a whole.

The first one is on the Campo di Fiori (the Field of Flowers) in Rome. This is a great piazza to people watch on, and for buying flowers, of course. However, the figure who presides over the Campo di Fiori is a bit ominous as it is none other than Giordano Bruno, who was burned in 1600 for heretical beliefs about the nature of Good and Evil. Bruno, as Stephen Dedalus says, "was badly burned" for his beliefs, something that seems so foreign to us now, but is actually quite recent in our history. Many a good man and woman have perished at the stake for their beliefs. What is interesting to me about Bruno is his idea of coincidentia oppositorum, or the concept that opposites attract. For Bruno, however, this is merely an illusion that there is actually something that can be opposite to another. Instead, there are merely two ends of a the same spectrum and ultimately like a wormhole in space and time, when the spectrum is bent, the opposite ends are actually the same. 


Something similar is described in the Phaedo of Plato when the friends of Socrates feel both pleasure and pain at the knowledge that Socrates is to die that day. Plato introduces the myth of Aesop that   pleasure and pain are like a saftey pin and are joined by a single joint and indeed are merely two ends of a single entity, beyond pleasure and pain. Well, when Bruno takes his idea to the logical conclusion, the granddaddy of opposites, Good and Evil, you can see where he got in a bit of tiff with the local Church, that being the Roman Catholic one... When people ask me about Italy, it is this strange attraction of opposites that comes to mind. Italy is one, gigantic living contradiction, but it works. I have a feeling that my trip to India will show me this contradiction exponentially.


So, Bruno's statue stands there mutely amongst the throngs of lascivious Roman men hunting unsuspecting American tourists for wallets and "romance" and reminds us of the odd chemistry that binds Italy together.


The second statue is Dante's but not in Florence,  rather in Verona. Verona's main attraction is the famous balcony from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, so it is almost ironic to find Dante's statue there. Go see the balcony for sure, it is worth the spectacle with graffiti messages all over it and the statue of poor Giulietta's breast rubbed endlessly for good luck and "romance". But, Dante serves as a reminder of the fact that Italy is the source of so much inspiration, such as the backdrop for the Elizabethean play. Italy has been part of the Grand Tour for artists, writers, and lovers long before the Grand Tour was even a concept, and much, much longer before Italy was even a country instead a bunch of territorial city-states at constant war with each other, centuries and milennia before Victor Emmanuel ever conceived of "Italia" as a country. So, visiting Verona, give ol' Dante a nod after you payed tribute to the "second-best" surrogate bard of Italy.


Finally, what would Italy be without Savonarola? "Who's that?" you ask. Well, he's the guy whose memorial that millions of tourists to Florence walk over every year without ever noticing. Next time you are in Florence, and you happen to be on the Piazza della Signoria, mistakenly looking at the fake David colossus (the real one's not there, but at the Academia), look down. In front of the ducal palace and next to the Uffizi is a commemorative disk that tells of the fate of the Monk on the Edge of Nervous Breakdown. Savonarola had his moment before he hit the flames. He preached a life of piety mixed with poverty, which worked for the über-rich Florentines, for a while, that is.


Savonarola got everyone worked up into a frenzy in Florence and had them stripping themselves of their Venus in Furs, paintings, rich linens, and most notably, their leather-bound books. Savonarola was the MC for many a public book-burning festivity to purge the city of its secular leanings. As I say, this worked for a while. Until the Florentines started missing their luxury goods. Then, as the fickle crowd often turns, they looked for something else to burn instead of the expensive wares and words. They found a crazy, gesticulating Monk from Ferrara that would do just fine, Savonarola himself. In the blink of an eye, the wealthy Florentines got religion in their material goods and decided to make a mark on the Piazza with Savonarola's ashes. Apparently, the crowd, which only a few months before had cheered on the Monk, was now charing him. The public burning was reportedly stopped several times so that the executioner could mix up Savonarola's charred remains, and then relighting the pyre to ensure that not a single earthly, material remain remained. If nothing else, those wascily Tuscans were thorough.


The statue of Savonarola, however, is in his birthplace, Ferrara. It is an eerie, eerie statue. With arms outstretched and a wild look of possession, you can almost hear the enchanted Monk delivering one of his (in)famous sermons that would wind up a crowd as frenzied as if they were listening to Paganini himself on the violin. I remember seeing this statue on a very foggy, autumn afternoon while visiting Ferrara from nearby Bologna, where I was living at the time. Ferrara is rumored to be a place of secret, dark magic, and seeing Savonarola's wild gaze stare out into the misty distance, I am willing to believe.

I'm Not Really From Texas

Part of my teaching position at L'Università di Bologna was a large (125 students) lecture course on British and American Literature. The set-up for the classroom was nothing like I had ever known, nor care to repeat. The students were on a lower level as there is a real "upstairs/downstairs" attitude in Italian universities and the students are much more obsequious to the professors than in America or Belgium. (OK, maybe that part of the class I enjoyed.) My students at The University of Texas at Austin had called me Dr. Rob, or sometimes even Rob. I don't even go by "Rob," so you can see the difference pretty clearly.

As a result of them being physically on a different level, I had to sit up on a podium accessed by stairs and had a railing around this small loft, with a table and a microphone on it that is like the ones that used to be in the airport to announce flights. If you have seen the famous "outing" episode with Ellen DeGeneres, you know what I mean.

So, there I would reign supreme above my minions, or so I thought. They apparently didn't understand a word I said for three weeks. And I had thought all of the giggles were coy little, flirtatious signals from the female students. Not quite.

About three weeks into the course, Nicole R., one of my favorite students approached me on my throne after class with a covey of giggling girls behind her, again, me thinking they were flirtatious Italians... She said, "Umm. Professore Fulton (respect at last!), some of the students asked me to speak with you about your class." I thought to myself, "Teaching awards? Already? Best class they had ever had? Americans really are smart!"

As I was rehearsing my acceptance speech in my mind, some of the other giggling girls goaded Nicole on in Italian. At that point, I had not learned enough Italian, so in my head I heard, "Go on Nicole, tell him how brilliant his lectures are, that he should replace Eco himself..." and so on.

So, Nicole approaches me further with her polished British accent that she was quite proud of as the other students had much more pronounced Italian accents.

"Umm. Professore Fulton (never gets old), there seems to be a problem with your class lectures."

Problem? What, they're not long enough? Was it my hair? (still had some then, and a sporty "European Professor" goatee). Were they swooning too much to listen.

"Oh, okay, what seems to be the problem?"

"Well, Sir (chaa-ching), it's your accent..."

My accent? Too suave? Too debonaire? Too, too?

"What do you mean, Nicole? Is there a problem with my accent."

"Ummm...yes Sir, nobody can understand your heavy Texas accent."

Thump. That was my Ego that fell.

Well, if you have ever heard me speak, you will know that I have absolutely NO ACCENT, in fact, most people don't know where I am from when I speak.

So, I replied, "Ahh....I see, my Texas accent. Okay, thanks, Nicole, I will be sure to address that."

Nicole turned, related the dialog to the others in Italian, and there was much laughter, mirth, pointing and giggling, more laughter, tears, lots more laughter. Finally, I just left the room because it became unbearable.

The next class I ascended my royal loft and thumped on the microphone and addressed the collective bated breath of the class.

"Apparently, there seems to be something wrong with my Texas accent and you are having trouble understanding me," I said quite slowly and deliberately, sans any trace of an accent.

Lots of hugging and patting on the back, hail Mary's and processions took place. Nicole was hoisted on the shoulders of her peers and general merriment ruled for the next twenty minutes or so. When the ruckus had subsided, I said,

"Eff ayya spoak in a reyaal texssassh accsent, y'all wudn't unnerstan a gaosh dern thang ayya was a'sayin."

Dead silence, or at least as silent as Italian students could be. You could have heard a penne drop. (in my mind, that joke will never get old).

I resumed my lectures in my "Canadian Newscaster" normal speaking voice and there were no more discussions about Texas accents in the class.

That was the end of the lesson on assumptions for the day.

The Prada is in the Details

Similar to the question about what I answer to the question of what do I miss about the American West, when asked about Italy, I have no hesitation about my answer. In the case of Italy, it is the details. Without a doubt, the country that I have come to appreciate the most with an eye and attention to details with every aspect of life is Bella Italia. Even when these details reach hyberbolic proportions, there is something to be said for this.

Perhaps it is the non-Italian's lacuna of such details that gives us (at least me) away from a mile (1.6 kilometers) away that I am indeed a straniero there. No matter how closely I would try at times to attain such heroic measures of style or precision, it was always forced, contrived, or simply ridiculous. And, it was not lost on the Italians.

But, let's cut to the chase. When it comes to the details, there are two things that jump out at me, the food and the shoes. How trite, yes, I know, but I just returned from the grocery store to make an Italian dinner tonight and it took me back to the streets of Bologna thinking about picking up fresh pasta at La Baita on the Via Pescheria Vecchia, which is a crowded street of fresh fruit stands, home-made pasta trattorie, and of course, as fish mongers as the name implies. It is, in short, a gastronomical paradise and where I would walk through nearly every day from the train station to the Piazza Aldrovandi, where we lived for a year. The tortelloni di zucca (pumkin/squash-filled pasta) are simply nothing short of a masterpiece. Boil for about two minutes max, saute with fresh sage and real butter, and you will never look at a pumpkin the same way again.

But, when it comes to details, as my mind was wandering back to Bologna, I will never forget the shoe store. In the first place, Italian shoes are legendary. However, take that to the nth degree with this cobbler's shop on the northeast entrance to the Corte Isolani, a secret "bat cave" passageway to get to the Piazza San(to) Stefano. I am pretty sure that I stopped and gawked at the hand-crafted shoes every day that I lived in Bologna. I am pretty sure that I would sometimes just leave the apartment to go stare at the shoes.

And, I never bought a pair. Normally, I am pretty impulsive with clothes shopping, inter alia. I know what I like, I like it, I get it. Pretty simple formula.

Except for those darn shoes. In addition to them being cost-prohibitive, it was more out of respect for the shoes in the window that I never even WENT INTO THE STORE! I know that I did not trust myself to go in there, I probably would have hyperventilated or something. I just remember peering in through the window, gazing at the immaculate and meticulous footwear, every stitch in place, every fabric perfectly cut. Every sole, a work of art. The two people that worked in the store were no less intimidating. A man and a woman, both dressed from head to toe each day with the clothing and shoes of this small boutique and were themselves works of art. No matter what your sexual preference or gender, I doubt many people walked by without a brief palpitation of the heart.

Why am I rambling on about this shoe/clothing store that I was too timid to even walk into? It is because I felt that it was one of the last, truly, truly great hand-made stores that I had seen. It was as if I wanted to keep it as a shrine in my mind of what craftsmanship was all about. Perhaps if I had walked in there, the beautiful woman salesperson would have had a funny voice, or the man might have mocked me, or the shoes would not have fit or, whatever. I just wanted to have that visual experience each day, unsullied by the actual commerce of buying the shoes. Just pure, unadulterated, visual pleasure.

Is it the fashion devil who tempts me to one day go back and purchase a pair, thus breaking the enchantment?

Perhaps...ci vedremo, ... ci vedremo...

Che Brutta Figura

One of the greatest challenges that I have had living in different countries, learning different languages, and observing different cultures is the concept of a social faux pas, because often we make them without even realizing it, and as a result, end up "giving offense" to someone unwittingly.

When I teach a class, I usually have a few housekeeping rules about class discussion. One is that if one student says "a" and the other student says "b," then student one should not say "A" back, usually resulting in "B" from the second, which then leads to "AAA!!!" then "BBB!!!" and so on, there is no resulting dialectic , no synthesis, only differences.

One of my other "house rules" concerns the concept of "being offended." For, at least, as far as I am concerned, I can only "take offense," and someone cannot offend me. For example, if someone says something to me that just isn't true, I can't, in good faith "take offense," because, well, it just ain't true.

Cultural gaffes, however, are a bit trickier, and so far, no place has been so than Italy. There is a cultural designation of a "brutta figura," and only a native Italian really understands the nuances of that. In short, at some point, every tourist or traveller to Italy will at some point make a faux pas and whether spoken or not, will be considered "che brutta figura." I know that I have my lion's share of such moments in Italy, sometimes wittingly and other times, wondered what just happened?

Sometimes, like walking into a swimming hall full of fashion-model level clad Florentines in fancy bath robes with nice swim bags, being a "brutta figura" is rather patent, other times, you may never know, though all of the Italians will be quite aware of it.

Such situations we find ourselves in even our own cultures, making gaffes and having other talk about us or worse, shame us. Shame within a cultural faux pas can be the deal breaker for further communication. Public shame is a stigma not easily overcome, nor is private for that matter. Not knowing the nuances of a society or social norms can put the kabosh  on even the best intentions.

However, the true "brutta figura" for me, and by all means including myself, is knowing that faux pas, yet still committing it. Again, something that I have done (don't worry, dirty laundry is all aired in good Time), but have hopefully learned to recognize, so that I am not saying "BBBBB!!!!" to a culture's "AAAAAA!!!!" and "giving offense," when none should be taken. But, I am still learning the language of the cultural idioms, including my own.

Italian Pool Rules

Being slightly unorthodox in several ways, one of them has to do with my swim bag. I am teaching my uncle, a recently retired neurologist, how to swim at the old club that I used to swim at many years ago. After our workout, we were sitting in the hot tub and the topic of tics, both voluntary and involuntary came up. I used the example of my usage of hand gestures when I speak, something I picked up while living in Italy. The joke is, "how do you stop an Italian from speaking?" "Cut off his hands..." Yep, we're going high brow today, folks. So, we decided that is a voluntary tic on my part as I could stop it if necessary, just as I will have to learn how to not eat with my left hand when I get to India.

So, my apparent swim bag issue then must fall along the lines of a voluntary tic as well. It is something that I found out is pretty much like farting in public when I lived in Italy. Despite being a high-level and daily swimmer for the majority of my life, I have rarely had a "proper" swim bag. Usually I just have old canvas bags either from James Joyce conferences, the Sierra Club, or an Italian grocery store. Currently, I have a canvas bag from the National Wildlife Federation and a plastic bag from Del Haize, which is the Belgian grocery store chain that is known as Food Lion in the States.

Now, it being somewhat of a "tic," I don't really notice these things until I see people's reactions. Basically the first three days I came into the club/gym, the person behind the counter looked at my bag collection and drily asked, "Can I help you?" This would be endearing if it was a different person each day, but it is the same guy, and he recognizes me...

OK, level one passed. Go into the dressing room, feeling somewhat self-conscious and then level two self-conscious arrives. I really get the looks from the corn-fed true-grit 'Mericans in the locker room giving me the fuzzy eyeball. I then notice that on the plastic bag from Del Haize, there is a large fuchsia heart on it, with the logo in English, despite being from Belgium, blaring gaily out, "I love my Bag!" Someone coughed in the distance, "Kabosshhh!"

This reminded me of my first swim meet with my Italian team in Bologna. I had the typical array of bag lady surplus on me and I entered the swim hall. Needless to say, you could hear a penne drop. All heads turned. All, highly-coifed, runway-ready heads turned.

What, me worry?

In Italy, the number one rule is how you look, no matter what you are doing. In Castiglione Fiorentino, one of the street sweepers was an attractive young blonde woman who was usually sporting designer sunglasses and makeup. True story. I have witnesses.

One of the more stringent requirements at any public pool in Italy is the mandatory usage of a swim cap, which I almost never have worn in all my years of swimming. I once saw a bagnino, life guard, argue for 15 minutes, waving arms, with a BALD guy about not having a swim cap. True story. I have witnesses.

At the pool then for a swim meet, there are two more accessories that any swimmer worth his salt would not be caught dead without, a professional swim bag and a designer robe. I had a canvas bag and a monogrammed towel from 25 years ago with AAC on it and my initials in the corner.

Dead silence.

In their heads, every Italian was thinking, "Ma, dai, che cozzo stai faciendo? Che brutta figura!" Which is Italian for, "Kabosh."

Tree of Love

For those of you who know me, perhaps it will not come as much surprise to know that my favorite Saint amongst the canon of Christian saints is the quirky, but lovable St. Francis.

From the totally seventies movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" by Zefferelli on the folk origins of the Franciscans and Sisters Clare, to the St. Francis Church in Santa Fe, the nonpareil St. Francis Cathedral in Assisi to the man himself, St. Francis rocks.

One of the best memories I have teaching in Castiglione Fiorentino was one of the many in situ trips we took and this was indeed to Assisi. Having already been to the Cathedral, I was nonetheless stunned once again by this piece of devout architecture. The world would have been a much poorer place culturally if the  earthquake of 1997 had demolished this truly inspired building.

Francis was an odd duck to say the least. Making a statement against his father's wealthy textile and garment trade, Francis more or less did the full monty in the town square of Assisi and then, having retired to the countryside to rebuild a church out there with a group of like-minded proto-hippies, gaining a reputation for preaching to the birds and chipmonks, Francis had a pretty rough go trying to get an audience with Pope Innocent, which he ultimately did, let's just say he was un-orthodox.

Francis had a favorite retreat in La Verne, which is above the city of Assisi. Our group decided to make the trek up the 3km pathway to stray far from the madding crowd below at the Cathedral. Being a rather hot day, we took it easy and talked the whole way up. One of the students, a wonderful young woman named Katie, was feeling rather ill, so I hung back with her and we walked at a very slow pace, but ultimately made it to the La Verne refuge. On the way, Katie told me about the origins of her hometown, which was Friendswood, and was quite appropriate for the day, a Quaker settlement. I had never heard of the history, so it was a great stroll up the hill.

Once up, it was indeed serene. Very few people make this pilgrimage outside the city confines of Assisi. There is a gnarled, old tree, held up by guy wires and looking quite ancient I must say, which is purported to be the tree under which Francis preached to his furry and feathered friends, the only ones who would listen to his message of peace and love.

I spent a good couple of hours up there, walking the pathways and sitting alone for stretches at a time, just enjoying the silence. It was tranquility and serenity embodied.

I leave you with the "Prayer of St. Francis."

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

and Namaste

Sliding Doors, Lesson in Italian Physics Continued

Returning now to the issues of trains, one can readily see that you cannot talk about Italy without talking about transportation. Italians and transportation are like Laurel and Hardy, who are surprisingly popular here. I will let you work out the details for yourself about that analogy.

The general law of antimatter, however, is something that amazes me each time. As I take the train to Forlì, which is fifty minutes from Bologna, I spend quite a bit of time at the train station. The train that I take to Forlì comes from Milano and the one I come back on is from Ancona. Both of these cities are major stops as is Bologna. So, while the smaller towns like Forlì and Faenza (I love that name, but finding a restaurant there is another story…) do not exhibit the full effect of this law as when then trains stop at Bologna. I usually take the Intercity or Interregional and they are more or less hourly.

But, it would be too easy to start with the train. First, you have to get to the train. Bologna has a dozen or so tracks in the main platform area. However, as a trivia question, there are two tracks that you will never have a train on. You will have to visit to know the answer. Anyways, on each of these tracks are trains coming from and going to major Italian cities as Bologna is at the center of the northern Italian train network. In fact, the train line that I ride is built along one of the oldest and straightest Roman roads in the world, the Via Romagna which bisects the Province of Emilia-Romagna. Bologna is in Emilia, Forlì in Romagna. Now you know.

So, in general, trains are supposed to run on the same track on a daily basis. That happens in fantasy lands like Switzerland, Germany, and Austria where you can set your watch by the train. As I never wear a watch and am often late (though those two are not connected in my case), I too can set my watch by the trains in Italy. Pretty much on a daily basis you can see a German, Austrian, or Swiss person being wheeled out on a stretcher from heart failure from the realization that he or she is going to be late for the first time in his or her fifty some-odd years on this planet.

The Italians, however, are different. It is okay to be fashionably late to the train station because the train won’t be there. For the first few weeks, I would be running to the station from the bus to get to the platform on time. Several times I got there when the train was supposed to leave, but I only found a guy sweeping the still-burning cigarettes off the binario onto the train tracks for the pigeons to smoke. Yes, even the pigeons smoke here. Damn, I had missed the train! This happened as I said a few times before I realized that the Italians had not even shown up for the train yet, much less the train. I had just missed the train from the previous hour, not this one. It is confusing if you start to think about the implications of that…

So, after ten minutes or so the Italians begin to arrive for this train. I have obviously learned better. If I want to take the 9:40 train, then I go at 10:20. However, if I want to leave when the 9:40 train would leave, I need to be there at 9:00 to catch the 8:40 train at 9:30 after a quick coffee. It’s kind of like a slide rule.

OK, so once you make adjustments for when you should be at the train station, the next step is finding the train. Sounds simple enough. They are large, make a lot of noise, usually pretty easy to spot in a crowd. However, remember that we are in Italy, and you can become invisible. So can the trains.

Normally if I take the 9:40, and I will let you do the math to figure out when I actually go to the station, that train is supposed to leave on Binario 4. So, you go to the main hall where there is the Arrivi and Partenze scrolling signs which indicate the trains and their binari. By the way, if there is one thing that I love about train stations, it is the scrolling signs. If you have never experienced one of these, then you are truly missing out. I have stood watching those for hours. Meanwhile I was pickpocketed and had my shoes stolen, but it is fascinating. You watch them spellbound and suddenly, rows and rows of numbers, letters, and symbols go racing by. It’s like Vegas, but you don’t have to pay. You stand there, everyone looking up as if Martians are landing (and meanwhile the pickpockets are have a field day) and everyone is waiting for their train to show up. The first time I was waiting for my train and it came up after lots of clicking and scrolling I yelled “Jackpot!!” and grabbed the guy next to me and hugged him. He was a pickpocket and took my train ticket.

The daily ritual then is for hundreds of people standing in the hall, looking up at the schedule and when the train and binario number comes up, it is chaos. Suddenly, the train that has been twenty minutes late rolls into existence on the board. However, it sometimes ends up be Ancoroma or Milanapoli so you’re not sure if it is Ancona, Roma, Milano, or Napoli. You roll the dice, it’s Ancona, binario 4. But when you get to binario 4, on the mini-scroll bar, it reads Venizia 8:56. But, it has not come, and you need the 9:40 train to Ancona. You go back to the main hall, and now, next to Romancona, the number for the binario is blank. All other trains have numbers, except yours. People are casually waltzing to respected binari, saying goodbye, talking on phones saying that they were about to leave, but not you. Standing there, after the train was supposed to leave, even on the calibrated analog system that you spent four sleepless nights perfecting, there is a blank.

Logically, a train that is coming from somewhere else must consequently arrive from that place, correct? So it seems. Looking at the Arrivi board, there is Milanoroma, binario 4. Looking back to Ancoromano, nothing. Binario 4, blank. Okay, you roll the dice again. You go to Binario 4 and you see, ES Monaco (which is very confusing because that is actually München, or Munich) 9:14. No Venezia train. No Romilancorona either. You decide to wait. There are a few coffee machines in the tunnels under the trains, so why not? Fifteen minutes later after having figured out how to actually get the coffee from seventy-two variations of sugar, coffee, water and milk with special names each, you go back to Binario 4. This time, it says Firenze 9:28. You go check the board. Arrival from Milano, binario 4. Some unintelligible gibberish that looks like there is an “a” and a “c” which you imagine could be Ancona, blank. As it is now well past noon, your hope of getting to work at all begins to dwindle. Back to the tunnel.

Now, you get to binario 4 and the mini-scroll bar is blank, except for two numbers a 9 and a 4. Suddenly, these scrolling signs aren’t so endearing. However, there is now a crowd forming and you hear whispers of faraway places like “Ancona” and “Forlì” and you figure out that you are not alone. So, then the crowd grows. Obviously you still have to work out some kinks on your analog system because magically every Italian has figured out that the 9:40 train is about to depart. It is 1:35. The mind literally boggles.

The crowd is now so large, that nobody from binari 6 and up (if you are paying attention, you know one of the trivia answers) can get by. There is a Doctor Suess story about two critters, a northbound one and a southbound one that refuse to move until an entire city and highway system is built around them. Something similar happens at this point, but eventually a little lady with more determination than most climbers of Everest have, breaks the dike and passengers from Balzonoroma come bursting through. When the confusion has hit its zenith, there is an indecipherable screaming over the intercom in a language that could very well have been spoken by the Italic tribes thousands of years ago, but you don’t understand a word of it. But somewhere in there, the Italians have managed to decipher, or at least you think they have, that among that cacophony of barking, static, and what may or may not have been singing, was the information that the train to Ancona would in fact be leaving from binario 4 as the train from Milano was in arrival. You dash to the main hallway to try and verify this, but just then, the scrolling bar has just finished spinning, and there is no train to Ancona. You sprint back to the binario to see that the train has in fact arrived.

And now, we get to the concept of antimatter, almost. The train glides towards a stop as there is another round of crackling howling and screaming over the intercom and everyone on the platform begins asking each other if this is the right train. Lots of lifted shoulders with hands out at the sides, which means in Italian, “don’t ask me, I’m invisible.”

The train stops. The air is thick with anticipation. No, that is smoke. Every single Italian has just lit up a cigarette and is frantically smoking it, knowing that they are about to board the evil “non-smoking” train. The pigeons begin to descend, shaking from nicotine withdrawal. Now, how the concept of non-smoking trains got passed in Italian is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that it is more or less obeyed, is nothing short of witnessing the birth of the universe. Smoking in a crowded auditorium after an Umberto Eco lecture is another story, again. Especially when it was Eco. But, that will have to wait.

The doors begin to creak open. The pigeons are going nuts, waiting for the Italians to toss their cigarette butts to the platform. As I said, this train is coming from one major place and going to another, stopping in a middle major place. This equals lots of people. Lots of people with mass. Let us restate our law: Two or more objects containing significant mass are required to fill the same place at the same time. And so it begins.

Unlike the buses which have an ingress and an egress, the trains have one, two-foot wide door for each end of the car. On the inside of the train, there are thousands of Milanese people who were last sighted in the Bermuda triangle when the train left the station 12 hours ago and on the platform, there are thousands of Bolognese who are now a week and a half late to work. And there is one, two-foot wide door standing between them. Instead of standing aside and letting the Milanese descend and then have the Bolognese board, it happens simultaneously. I don’t mean, about the same time. I mean sim-ul-tan-e-ous-ly. The Milanese would never yield to a Bolognese and vice versa, so what happens is antimatter. As a Milanese descends, a Bolognese boards and presto! Two bodies occupy the same space. The mutated result is a part fusion, part fission. At the beginning of the process, the Milanese and Bolognese masses merge to form one larger massive body of four arms and legs, two heads and several brands of designer clothing including at least six pairs of sunglasses. And then, the fission begins and the boarding Bolognese and the descending Milanese seem to appear more or less intact, though not necessarily with the same three pairs of sunglasses.

After this defiance of natural process occurs, you start to fight for the seats. But that, like the flight is another lesson in Italian Physics.

For now, the train begins to pull out of the station. The pigeons swarm the tracks, and an American comes running up the stairs onto the platform believing that he has just missed the 16:45 train to Rome and realizing that the “long lost friend” who hugged him in the station just lifted his wallet. In the distance, the ambulance can be heard responding to a call about a German tourist at the train station.

Flying Lessons, Italian Style

Having just flown from Brussels to  Amarillo, via my favorite transitional airport, for now at least, Newark Liberty, I remembered a piece I wrote a few years ago about my least favorite airport experiences traveling back to Italy from the UK.

Hope you enjoy. (Remember, it only hurts when you laugh):

_____________________

And so we come to a very brief lesson in Italian physics. This law is best defined by the experience of riding Italian trains. The law that we will discuss today in Italian Dynamics (ID) is that of the anti-matter law. In normal three dimensional space, it is impossible to have two bodies which contain mass occupying the same space at the same time. In ID, this law does not exist. Whereas normal physical phenomenon resist being turned into anti-matter, ID requires it. In other words, as a law: Two or more objects containing significant mass are required to fill the same place at the same time.

This law can be seen on a daily basis at the train station, or any other place that requires a line in Italy. Requires is a big word. However, we must first digress on the concept, or rather the lack of the concept of a line before we return to the issue of trains. A well-known textbook axiom taught in school in geometry is that in Euclidean space, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Italians were absent on that day.

I was in Dublin recently and saw a very curious thing. There was a bus stop and the bus had not yet arrived, but there was this odd event. People were standing in single file. The bus came, they stayed in line. They boarded the bus, the bus left, and a new line eventually formed. I was in shock. I cursed myself for not having my camera with me. People back in Bologna would never believe this. I tried to remember if I had ever seen anything like it. Misty images of standing in line at movie theaters in America drifted by, but it seemed like a dream. Did people really stand in lines?

Wondering if the world was coming to an end, I was relieved to be back at the airport a few days later for my flight to Forlì with Ryanair. Ryanair is the Irish answer to Southwest Airlines. You can buy very cheap tickets and change them (with a rather large fee) and go to exciting airports like Forlì, or Stansted and spend another hour actually getting to the city you want to go by bus or train, in these cases Bologna and London. However, the main thing that Ryanair learned from Southwest Airlines is what is affectionately called “the cattle call” by those who have experienced it. As you know, that means no assigned seats and general admission. Obviously these people have not been to a Who concert or lived in Italy.

So, Ryanair adopted this same procedure. Bad idea. Very bad idea. Italians do general admission on any airline, regardless of the boarding procedure. Now, they are encouraged to do this. At Stansted, they have a horribly underexplained system of queuing that the Brits seem to figure out in their typical Brit-logic, the Americans just wonder aloud until an annoyed Brit clues them in on what is going on just to shut them up, and then there are the Italians.

The queuing is like this. Numbers 1-64 on the inside of a cordoned passage, 65 and above on the outside which wraps around so that the two lines begin at the same place. When 1-64 are in, they readjust the cordon, and voila, the second line goes in. Simple enough, right? I arrived from Dublin and got to the Forli gate in Stansted. There were more or less 50 or so people. I was number 118 on the card, so I had to go on the outside. People continued to file behind the first line. Much more than 64. Finally, a Ryanair person announces, only in English, the queue system and that people with 65 and above need to move. No one moves. Then, the employee announced how to look at the card to find your number. No one looks. Meanwhile, there is an Italian-speaking employee looking around bored. Now, since the flight was ninety percent Italian, you would think that the Italian employee could help clear things up, but instead, there is a sudden angst among the big line. “Are they letting us through?” As such, there began a condensation of matter. Now, everyone wanted to be at the front of the line.

While I was still standing alone on the outside, beginning to feel quite lonely, the Ryanair British employee who had made the announcements assured me that I would be first in the second group. I smiled politely. As the push from behind increased, an Italian-speaking Brit began to try to explain to the crowd the system. He pointed to where their number was and explained that most of them needed to move. Now, they got angry. Now they had no excuse. Several of them obviously understood the English, but in a way that only Italians can do, completely ignored it. They had become invisible. Nobody could see that they were number 130 and in the front of the line. Telling a couple of ladies six or seven times that they needed to move, the Brit finally began to give up. They ladies looked at him wondering, “Whom are you talking to? We are invisible.”

Finally, some started to give a hint that maybe they would act like they happened to hear this Brit. And then, the Ryanair employee started saying several times in English that those with 65 and above needed to move to the other line. This only caused everyone with 65 and above to start pointing their fingers at me and laughing. I smiled politely.

And then, showtime. There were two Ryanair employees who were going to start taking tickets, one of them was the Italian. The exasperated third employee who had tried to assure me that she would be able to control this began to mentally think about career changes to an alligator wrestle in Louisiana as she announced that we would begin boarding only those numbers 1-64. All others would have to move. She removed the cordon and the madness began. The other Brit who was one of the ones taking tickets was desperately searching for the number, handing her the boarding cards as she checked off the numbers 1-64 while Francesco was letting anyone go by with a cheerful “Buona Sera.” The cordon was placed back. Francesco was told again what he was supposed to be doing and the announcement was made again that only 1-64 could board. The Italians looked at her in amazement, “Whom is that strange British woman talking to? We are invisible.”

The cordon was removed. Repeat. Cordon replaced. Now, instead of having Francesco explain this in Italian over the intercom, he was given the task of checking off the numbers and two Brits would take the boarding cards. So, then, those with 65 and above didn’t move to the other line, they just stood there, making it nearly impossible for people with 64 and below to get by. Meanwhile, I had become quite a sideshow attraction standing there by myself on the other side of the rope. I smiled politely as my lower lip quivered.

After fifteen minutes of this, the now frazzled woman employee turned and asked Francesco if 1-64 had passed, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then, she found him singing with a group of Neopolitans at the next gate and so bringing him back, they counted the cards and yes, 1-64 and 25 others had boarded. So, in a defiant act, she removed the cordon on my row, and I mean my row as it was just me and two Japanese tourists who had gotten lost, and I was able to board. I thanked her. She smiled politely as a tear squeezed from her eye and she was wondering if her psychiatrist would still be up at this hour.

The plane ride is another story.

A Moveable Feast, Part III

(Note: reminder that this is a piece I wrote about six years ago and have recycled here. I would write this differently today, but that is not how life works. The greatest joy of a professor is the eureka-moment that we see in our students. Often it takes much longer for ourselves. Prego.)

But, on the other hand, Hemingway has previously warned us in the preface, that “[I]f the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.” So, “if the reader prefers,” he may read this as fiction or fact, leaving the question in suspense of whether you are reading a work of fiction or fact. Simple enough, but what is the weight of your choice as the reader? Again, I asked my  students, just who was Hemingway’s audience?

To return to the beginning, I mentioned that Hemingway begins his book with the sentence, “Then there was the bad weather.” The Yoga sutras begins in a similar way and has troubled translators and interpreters for centuries. The sutras begin with the word, atha. This word may be translated as “now,” “then,” or “so then” and the like. “Now is the time for the practice of yoga,” or “Then, one begins the practice of yoga,” and other various translations begin this work. But what is before if we take the word to mean “then” in a concessive manner? What must happen before you begin yoga? A common acceptance is that the yoga sutras were composed by the same Patañjali who also wrote the grammar sutras and ayurvedic sutras. It has been supposed that the “then” aspect of atha is that first you must learn the grammar of Sanskrit and the science of living well through ayurvedic practice, and then you are ready to begin yoga.

In addition to this example by Hemingway and the yoga sutras, Thucydides is also known to play tricks with beginnings and use unconventional structures in his writings that frustrate students and translators of Greek. Derrida, a student of classical studies and philology took the concept of deconstruction in language to its logical conclusion by looking at every word and exploding its meaning into meaningless by exponential combinations of potential meanings in relation to all other words. He has been criticized for killing the possibility of reading, because of the inevitable entropy of communication as one reads a text or performs any act of communication. So, what do we do? Do we stop communicating?

I think not. Let us look again at Hemingway’s opening sentence, “Then there was the bad weather.” The students who were in my class are future interpreters, translators, and language experts. These students take three foreign languages from their first year in college and some are fluent in three from the start. As a “philologist” myself, this group really impressed me. However, they had not expected one of the first questions that I had for the class. “What does Hemingway mean by then?” Silence. Mummuring. Silence. More mummuring. Silence.

A hand goes up.

“Prof. Fulton, we don’t understand the question, could you repeat it please?” I repeated, “What does Hemingway mean by then?” Silence. Shuffling of pages. Coughs.

“Ok,” I asked, “how would you translate this word? Adesso (now), dopo (after), ora (now), ormai (from this point)? And what is the difference?” Signs of interest began to creep over their faces, brows began to frown. Now, they were starting to get it. How do you begin a work? How do you dive into another persons work and try and capture its meaning, dare I say essence? I asked again, “What does Hemingway mean by then?”

Now hands began to go up.

“Maybe he didn’t include what came before.”

“Maybe he is starting in media res and will tell us later.”

“Maybe he didn’t expect the bad weather.”

“Maybe weather has something to do with the story.”

“Why does he begin the story with bad weather?”

“It throws the reader off because everyone thinks of Paris in the springtime.”

“It is stream of consciousness.”

And so a discussion of a book begins. The responses move from “maybes” to more assertive responses and we are deep into the discussion of why Hemingway would choose to discuss bad weather in a book about Paris. Gay Paris, the image that many have of Paris in the twenties is suddenly inverted into dark, gray, cold and miserable Paris. Reality. So dark and cold and miserable that Hemingway and Hadley actually leave Paris, (though later to return) after the first chapter, quite surprising for a book that is supposed to be about Paris.

But, I returned to the question again. This time, they really listened. “What does Hemingway mean by then?”  What happens to people when they meet on the street, or when a conversation turns to mundane things. We talk about the weather. But what does the weather really mean to us? Why would Hemingway talk about the fact that then there was the bad weather. A time in his life that was to be remembered as the best, yet we begin with dirt, cold, and smells of stale beer and decadence in Paris.

Bologna has been cold, dark, and wet for the past four months. At the beginning of March, we had a record snowfall of over a foot in twenty-four hours. The red clay tiled roofs were covered with thick, wet, white and grey snow. Patches of red would slowly emerge above kitchens and heaters and the streets were slushed with black, messy sludge within a day. The sky in the Emilia-Romagna padana (valley of the Po River) is notorious for winter haze and fog. Ferrara, home of black magic in Italy, is often shrouded in a misty garment of cold, dark fog. The sky wraps itself in a mantel of darkness in northern Europe and keeps this mantel wrapped tightly for months.

I remember talking with people in Austin about my future in Italy and many were jealous that I would be sipping wine on rooftop terraces soaking in the Italian sun. Our rooftop terrace has been wet for a great deal of the time, and the sun has been vacationing in the environs of Ethiopia as was Poseidon at the beginning of the Odyssey. Yes, we have enjoyed some wonderful Italian wine, but more often then not, only after ducking into the apartment after escaping the chilled weather outside.

Living in another country presents many obstacles, challenges, and setbacks that can never be fully anticipated. On a daily basis, you are reminded that you are not from here, whether it be the language, or the simple fact that you order something in the wrong sequence at dinner. You have to deal with new customs, new schedules, new rules, and new ways of looking at life.

Standing in line for four hours at a time at the Questura to try and get your Permesso di Soggiorno (the Italian green card) only to be told to come back next week (for the fifth time) with no explanation tempers your nerves and your patience. Having people really think that you are actually quite ignorant because you speak well enough to get by, but not well enough to fit in yet, provides your ego with humility. Teaching a class of seventy students who laugh out loud (not out of rudeness, but mirth) when you mispronounce a word in Italian and then proceed to correct you in perfect unison reminds you that you  are not in Texas anymore.

There are countless events that happen in our lives that we often miss, don’t care to notice, or simply “don’t have the time to deal with,” and yet these small, or large if it be the case, occurrences weave the fabric that make us who we are.

Spring has found Bologna more or less, although as I write, winter is making one last stand. However, on the train to Forlì this week I saw the Po valley transformed into a beautiful tapestry of almond, cherry, peach, apple, and pear trees full in bloom. Spring does find even Bologna and it found Paris for Hemingway eventually. Soon, we will be able to sit out on our terrace again, looking out over an array of red-tiled rooftops dotted with green penthouse gardens, sitting in the Italian sun, and enjoying a glass of Italian wine.

Before that, however, there was then for us as well the bad weather. 

A Moveable Feast, Pt. II

The preface of Hemingway’s book is just such a communication. From this odd preface, we have to wonder, who really was Hemingway’s audience? Was this a journal, a memoir, an autobiography, a novel, or what? The preface makes it somewhat unclear. I asked my students this question and we discussed this half-page preface for nearly an hour, which utterly confused them. What was this odd American professor doing? Why are we spending so much time on something that doesn’t matter? This is not paranoia, for they later told me that this is what they were thinking, and saying.

But, what is the importance of a preface? Consider also that this was the last thing that Hemingway wrote before committing suicide and never saw it published. And yet, he felt the need to write a preface to somebody. I don’t think that it is a stretch of reality to suggest that Hemingway was well into his plans for suicide at this point and, in fact, no one was overly surprised when he actually carried it out. Having won the Nobel Prize for literature a few years before for The Old Man and The Sea, Hemingway sunk into an alcoholic downward spiral with multiple health problems and a fourth failed marriage. But, before checking out, he gave us this unassuming book.

Hemingway is also another author who people tend to take or leave. Too journalistic. Too stilted. Too arrogant. Too full of bullshit. Too “fill-in-the-blank.” The reaction to my announcement that this would be our first author to read did not exactly bring down the house in thunderous applause. Hemingway’s reputation as such is international. But, I am also one who is known to put Aristotle and Allan Bloom on a reading list just to get a reaction, so I proceeded as planned. We began with Hemingway, and we began with the preface.

 In the preface, Hemingway speaks to you, the reader. He says about the stories in the book that “[s]ome were secrets and some were known by everyone and everyone has written about them and will doubtless write more.” As you will see when reading, Hemingway relates stories about meeting such people as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ford Maddox Ford, Wyndam Lewis, Sylvia Beach, Ezra Pound, and the F. Scott Fitzgeralds. And, in fact, much has been written about some of the meetings and relationships and they inevitably fill a large portion of survey courses of modernism, creating the paradox of the idea of modernism killing the individual, but from modernism, we have such fascinating individuals who still hold our attention with their adventures in Paris.

We see Hemingway move from one vignette to another, sometimes with connections, more often not. We see the subtle evolution of Hemingway the unknown upstart fresh from War World One to Hemingway the writer who moves among the moveable feast as a regular player. We see relationships rise and fall as in the case of Miss Stein and Hadley, Hemingway’s first wife as well as the gradual ascent of Hemingway among the “generals” of writing such as Joyce and Pound. Hemingway relates scenes that appear to mean nothing, but in light of scholarship on these writers and the fact that most were dead by this time, these scenes take on a different shade of significance. When Hemingway is asked by Joyce (in the previous scene involving Joyce, Hemingway was only able to look wistfully through a restaurant window watching the Joyce family enjoy one of Joyce’s infamous spending sprees in a fancy dining place) to share a drink, Hemingway notes that Joyce did not drink white wine. As a Joycean, you realize the subtleness of this. Inevitably, Joyce’s habit of only drinking white wine seems to come up and you can’t be in the “club” if you aren’t aware of every idiosyncracy of Joyce before you can read him. Hemingway is aware of this, even in 1960, and reminds us that we were not there. Perhaps we don’t always know as much as we think we do in the academy.