Letters from Florence

Lotuses bloom in mud: a meditation on an expat dream disfigured

2012-01-24T10:21:00.000+01:00

Dear Readers,

We modern-day expats are fortunate in that we move around by choice: chasing job opportunities, new lifestyles (ugh--that word), even love. We are not typically motivated--like so many of our ancestors were--by hunger or persecution. In a way, I think this makes us a rarefied and spoiled bunch. We can look at things with the objectivity and aloofness of someone who has a lifeboat at the ready, should the ship sink. We always have, more or less, the luxury of leaving.

Of course, the expat experience doesn't exist in a vacuum. We bring to it suitcases carefully packed with expectations and the sum of our prior experiences, our beliefs and prejudices, our longings and most secret regrets. We bring to this Old World, to these unstruck continents, to these chaotic foreign cities, those cherished heirlooms of our innermost selves--and we hold them close, safeguarding them to the point we are sometimes able to ignore the changes being wrought upon us by new surroundings.

In many ways, this blog is my way of writing around something that happened to me after I got here (the second time, that is--I moved here in 2000, left for a year in 2005, moved back in 2006); it has often served as the pressure-valve to darker emotions. As someone who is almost pathologically reserved when it comes to intimate details, I have long questioned the wisdom of personal revelation, vacillating between rationales like "no one gives a ripe fig," "you'll come across like a guileless fool," and the deep-seated aversion to seeing my own guts spilled across the cold, unforgiving pavement. But, simply put, I need to write about this. I need to emancipate this fragile little caged bird I've been protecting--for good or ill.

But before I write about the thing that happened to me, you need to know what I've been carrying around in my suitcase. A simple wish, really: I've always wanted to be part of a (reasonably) large and (reasonably) loving family. Sort of like the Brady Bunch but more ethnic--that is, with better food and more spirited banter and hand gestures--or the charismatic Vermas in Monsoon Wedding. My own childhood spooled itself out beneath perpetually stormy skies--family life was turbulent, fractured, alienating, torrentially painful at times and--in the end--a kind of abyss it took me years to climb out of.

Wedding day...

So when I married into my husband's family here in Italy--this big, rambunctious group of diehard Tuscans--I felt that at last I was to have my hearts' desire, that I would be included, accepted, perhaps even enfolded by these people. I took it for granted that this would be so, because that's what I granted them: automatic acceptance. My enthusiasm was such that I threw myself happily into family life here in Florence, the long shored-up affection pouring from me in abundance even though I had little in common with these people who for the most part eschew things such as higher education, worldliness, and anything resembling an intellectual pursuit. I made headlong, sincere efforts to converse and banter and get to know them better in my then-rudimentary Italian; I wanted to know their histories; I took joy in their children, my nieces and nephews; and I hoped, little by little, to insinuate myself into the tight weave of their deeply-rooted lives, not realizing at the time how very difficult this is to do among certain provincially-minded Italians. My efforts notwithstanding, I never really became part of the inner circle--I couldn't get into that space the others all enjoyed and I remained always at arms' length.

After that interlude in the States which had been fraught with stresses and health problems, we decided to come back to Florence, the main factor in the decision-making process being family. Actually, my Italian husband was against the idea, and it was me--with that dog-eared old dream I still carried around like a worn photograph--who cast the die. I was to head out with the kids alone and Paolo would join us two months later. We were to live with my mother- and father-in-law in their house while their granny unit at the back of the courtyard was nearing completion. My son would go to the local scuola materna, thus easing some of the pressure on a worn-down mum.

I remember our plane nearing Florence, and at the familiar sight of terra-cotta-roofed houses and lovely, green, undulating hills, I felt a deep sense of coming home. I felt very surely that this was where I was meant to be, and that having a big loving family around them was a gift I was giving my children. I was suffused with happiness.

...under optimistic skies.
Do wedding days have any other kind?

On a Sunday about three weeks later, I was getting the children ready for a big family reunion in Luco di Mugello, to celebrate the 97th birthday of my mother-in-law's mother, Nonna Anita. It was to be a huge luncheon, prepared by an army of capable aunts, at the splendid Casa D'Erci, and the kids were looking forward to seeing all their cousins and roaming the nearby woods. My MIL had been in the habit of spending every weekend up there with her elderly mother, so she wasn't around that Sunday morning, but was making party preparations with the rest of the Mugello clan. Gaetano, my exceedingly rustic father-in-law, fresh from Mass, walked into the salotto and when he saw me with the kids, beamed, spread his arms wide, and came towards me saying how beautiful I looked. I braced myself, a bit uncomfortably, for a bear hug from the FIL--for he's a great hulking ox of a man and averse to bathing (thankfully, however, this being church-goin' day he'd had his ritual weekly bath the night before)--but smiled back and said "thank you."

As he got close to me, his arms encircled me forcefully and my own arms were pinned to my sides. He squeezed me like a python and pressed his groin into mine. He fumbled at my breast and squeezed it with rude urgency. The breath evaporated in my lungs. My brain crystallized into a rigid ice of incomprehension. Over his shoulder, I could see two sweet little faces looking up at me. The indignant scream froze in my throat and nothing came out. I felt a clumsy hand grope roughly between my legs, and then two crude paws squeezed my ass. I managed to extricate myself from the panting brute's vile embrace, all the while my eyes locked with those of my children, who mercifully only saw the innocence of grandfather hugging mommy. I do not know whether it lasted merely one monstrous moment or had been a hell-bound eternity--I couldn't say because I had been instantly plunged into a sea of hurt and I was floundering below the surface where images and sounds are distorted. The only solid, real thing I could reach out and cling to in that moment of drowning was my children: in as calm a voice as I could muster, I told them we were going upstairs to Zia Patrizia's house to wait for the others to go to the party, took them by the hands, grabbed my purse, and stumbled out of there, vibrating with shock.

All of life is a foreign country
--Jack Kerouac

There was the telephone call to my husband and his own shock and deep pain. There was the MIL dismissing her husband's behavior as that of a bambinone (an overgrown child), explaining that he'd frequently pawed fellow female parishioners over the years on the old pilgrimages to Lourdes. There was the lack of any real female solidarity from my three sisters-in-law, only a kind of brief, strained sympathy. There was the brother-in-law--the family buffoon known as lo Zini--who had nothing but shockingly malevolent looks for me, even in church. There was my visit to the police, where I learned that nothing would likely happen to the bastard should I press charges. My Gibraltar of a husband was an ocean and half a continent away, I had no friends or family of my own for support; I was truly and utterly a straniero--a stranger in a strange land. I slept in the locked house--the nonni unit having been hastily occupied--in a locked bedroom with the children, a baseball bat at my side.

Though there was consternation of a kind among these people there was no sense of outrage--a deeper understanding of the evil was oddly missing. Since I had no troops to shore up my weakened defenses, I decided to charge the stronghold of their indifference and face them in a tribunal of my own design: I called a family meeting, demanding especially the presence of the mincing MIL, who'd metaphorically buried her head in the sand. I proceeded to tell all in graphic detail exactly how and where their father/husband had groped me (during which the FIL--who was drunk--smirked like a prankster child called before a chastising teacher), and I was similarly explicit in the description of my feelings over such reprehensible behavior. The FIL, with roguish candor, claimed the devil made him do it (notwithstanding his recent presence at Mass), and that, moreover, his regular priest-confessor had given him the green light on approaching women for sexual purposes as long as the woman was amenable to the idea--"approach" apparently being synonymous with lunge and "amenable" applying even to family members who'd sooner eat hot coals than be groped by such a pathetic, repugnant pervert. I announced that, though I had been to the police, my decision not to press charges was for the sake of the family, and certainly not for any sympathy I felt towards him. Then I looked him dead straight in the eye and said that if he ever so much as even tries to shake my hand, I'd call the cops on him--and that I couldn't be held responsible for what my Louisville Slugger would do that sparse conglomeration of underachieving cells called his brain.

My husband and I navigated Scylla and Charybdis: the decision to stay or go, thorny financial concerns, and the innocent expectations of our little ones. My dream of Italy--that gossamer conceit--lie around me in an ash heap. And phoenixes, I learned, don't necessarily rise from ashes--instead, decisions are made in fraught circumstances and life then creaks forward on shaky wheels. In the end, we didn't choose the life boat: we decided to stay, to make the best of things, to ignore the ugliness if possible, and get on with our lives. Slowly the mess congealed--the rest of the family went on as before, relating to each other as they have for eons, the FIL merely a child who got caught being naughty. The incident was never spoken of.

The wound I'd suffered, however, was stealthy--it deepened. I'd thought that I was still, however tenuously and awkwardly, a part of this family and that my status as the one who'd been wronged would ensure some basic empathy from the others. I struggled to maintain a rapport with them within the sweep of my unease and the FIL's proximity. But in the years since, the family closed ranks, gathering as they always do around their own crackling campfire, leaving me on the cold, dim periphery. They didn't know what to make of me, I suppose, so they ignored me.

I've asked myself if Gaetano would have done what he did to one of my Italian sisters-in-law, and the answer, in my mind, is a disquieting no. They've always been protected by something I didn't have: an accustomed earth, a common culture, a shared past--they grew up together and their families know each other's families. They are knitted together by a tensile yarn of complex social controls--the Italian mortal fear of making a brutta figura being paramount. I was the vulnerable one: the foreigner with no family, whose husband was absent, the stranger whose antecedents lay in some trans-oceanic North American obscurity. Being the classic unseen "Other," I provided a handy moral blind spot. This realization--that I simply didn't count the way I'd took it for granted I counted--was the most profoundly painful thing of all. How I longed to assert my existence and my worth in the coinage of the only currency these people valued: I, too, am somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, somebody's mother, somebody's wife!

I am hardly the poster child of expat perfection. It's a complex drama, this cross-cultural intermarried life, and there've been times when I've flubbed my lines, missed cues, or even stomped offstage in high-handed diva fashion. But though my reactions to my mutable Latin surroundings have the inevitable tincture of forthright American, university-educated, city-bred self-regard, my mind's windows (a few creaky hinges notwithstanding) have always been thrown open wide to the possibility of a changed perspective. I had accepted this family at face value, and it was their collective coldness that threw me because until then I hadn't realized how much I'd been yearning for their warmth.

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders.
It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming.
You stand before them bareheaded, shriven.
What is expected of you is attention
--Salman Rushdie

Photo by Sistak, source: flickr

In many of the best stories, no matter what misfortunes befall the protagonist, there is redemption of a kind in the end. Redemption is one of those grand words used mostly in terms of release from the consequences of sin, but it also means the freeing of oneself from what distresses or harms, the clearing of debts or obligations. It offers hope for a new beginning.

Expecting others to redeem one's childhood, to make up for its darkness and its losses, to fulfill the desire which lies slumbering deep in one's marrow is, of course, asking the Herculean. And expecting people who are mired in a kind of primitive tribal ignorance to be anything other than what they are is like asking the Pope to embrace Elton John. Though my choice to move to Italy (twice) encompassed many factors, I cannot deny the influence of my most secret longing self, who tripped the wire of subsequent action.

But like the lotus, joy has a way of sprouting in unlikely places and under seemingly inauspicious conditions. Despite the difficulties of these past years, many fine things have taken root in my life, and I find that my own small family--this beloved little motley foursome of eccentrics and vagabonds--provides all the warmth I'll ever need. Love is a great redeemer.

And maybe a kind of redemption is possible through writing. If that's the case, then this is my burning of the fields after a bad harvest in order to lay ground for a better one.

Sometimes the things we carry around with us for so long, the things we hold dear, turn out to have crumbled into useless dust--immaterial ghosts, ectoplasms of the Id, wisps of smoke in biting winter air. They dissolve their insubstantial forms, the forms we gave such credence to, and are gone. Just gone. And in their place is left a void, an emptiness that either waits to be filled with substance and meaning or that will grow darkly in diameter, slowly consuming the soul's square footage. To be honest, I've probably lost some space to bitterness. But that part of me which has always marveled at diversity, at the world's manifold loveliness, and at the complexity of human experience, is intact. There is plenty of space in my soul for that.

Campobello

Happy Anus to all!

2011-12-31T11:20:00.006+01:00

Dear Readers,

When I first moved to Italy and was in the throes of learning the language, I made quite a few rookie mistakes (actually, I still make rookie mistakes, though--I like to think--with a certain amount of flair). One of which was in wishing those around me a 'Happy New Year.' Buon anno, as you can see, has an all-important double 'n' in the second word of the phrase. Italian is a lovely language, but one of slavish pronunciation--if you don't get it exactly right, you risk morphing the entire meaning.

To wit: you must absolutely and emphatically enunciate that double 'n' sound, or you are--in reality--saying 'Happy Anus' (single 'n' = ano = you-know-what). So that first capo d'anno in the Bel Paese I went around wishing pretty much everyone's nether orifices well.

But, you know, after ten years here, my early malapropism seems strangely prescient. With the recent austerity measures ('austerity' being a euphemism for 'screw'), many Italians feel they're being forced to, ahem, take it up the butt. Suddenly, wishing someone a happy anus doesn't seem like such a bad idea, after all. They'll need all the help they can get.

Well, let's not dwell on the negative--best to face these things with a champagne flute filled with good cheer, no? So let's raise our virtual glasses and have a toast:

My very best wishes for a Happy New Year (she said)

Though it's likely we'll be buggered in the months ahead

Counting my blessings,

Campobello

Lessons of via Faentina, part 4

2011-12-21T09:43:00.005+01:00

The street where I live becomes my miscreant muse:
the fourth installment in a series about quality-of-life issues
in the cradle of the Renaissance.

Dear Readers,

The usual mayhem continues. Last week, while walking home from school with my children, a large panel truck--when faced with tight oncoming traffic--decided to jump the curb right alongside us without consulting his side-view mirror, nearly flattening us into American pancakes. My hearty curses rang out along via Faentina, the crossing-guard vigili down the street a-ways glanced in my direction--and did nothing.

Recently, this sign appeared on our little 33-inch sidewalk:

It says "sidewalk in disorder." Indeed. And no wonder--heavy trucks and buses routinely avail themselves of it, making it perilously pockmarked and uneven. One of these days some old Signora on her way to the pharmacy is going to stumble and wind up under the wheels of the 1A. I don't know why this sign should suddenly appear--the sidewalk has been in ruins for the ten years I've been living here. Could it have something to do with my recent letters of complaint to the City? (Ha! That's a good one). Are they covering their precious Florentine asses in case someone does, indeed, get maimed or killed? Of course, some nincompoop didn't notice that the sign itself takes up half of the already miserly sidewalk, rendering it even more pericoloso.

No one cares about how you experience your neighborhood or your city, so why should you?

The great civic apathy of this place has been one of the most difficult things for me to adjust to as an American. And it creates a vicious circle: the city doesn't give a ripe, flying fig about the daily livability concerns of its citizens, so the citizens in turn treat their city like a lawless dump--graffiti, garbage, litter, dog droppings, and vandalism are rampant. Traffic and parking laws are wilfully, routinely--even gleefully--ignored because it's quite clear it's every man, woman and child for themselves out there in the Renaissance jungle. Citizens who do voice their concerns are ignored or even denigrated. I've seen other parents expressing their anger and frustration to the vigili over traffic problems in via Faentina and the flouting of the no-vehicle ordinance for the alleyway during school drop-off and pick-up times. The vigili either nod vacantly or argue defensively. Years ago, residents of via Faentina fought to get pedestrian crossing stripes painted on the street in front of the little church of Santa Maria del Fiore a Lapo so that old ladies wouldn't be run down on their way to Mass. They created a petition calling for greater safety measures on the street and sent it to city hall--to little avail. They were granted the pedestrian crossing (which is all but ignored by speeding traffic anyway), but nothing else.

Here are a few snaps I took this morning, on my way back from walking the kids to school. The images are far more eloquent than I could ever be in describing a neighborhood street that was never meant to bear such heavy, ferocious, two-way modern-day traffic.

The vigili were nowhere to be seen.

Yours,

Campobello

For more Lessons of via Faentina, click on the label below.

Priorities, Italian-style

2011-12-19T14:19:00.013+01:00

Dear Readers,

As many of you are aware, the whole country is going to hell: we've been royally buggered by Berlusconi and we're teetering on the brink of an economic abyss; a raft of unpopular austerity measures were passed which seem designed to decimate us plebeians while the Vultures of Rome continue to gorge on our carcasses; in protest, the union bloodsuckers have launched a blitzkrieg of strikes which further cripples the peons and, of course, does nothing to ruffle the feathers of the old buzzards in charge--who, naturally, remain untouched by any discomforts caused thereby. Our parliamentarians are dancing on our (early) graves with their bloated and sacrosanct salaries (which they resolutely refuse to reduce in these belt-tightening times), expense accounts, retirement packages, etc. that rank them as the highest paid parliamentarians in Europe (but who, interestingly enough, log in the least hours of actual labor). And consider this: if these onerous onorevoli don't show up for work at all--that is, for meetings and votes and such--they're only penalized up to a paltry 30% of their government salary, meaning they still take home at least 70% of their €144,084.36 ($187, 669.36), or €100,859.06 ($131,368.56). I'd like to know of anyone else on planet Earth who gets paid a shitload for not turning up for work, while the toiling masses are being asked to suck it up for the greater good.

But meanwhile, despite all this, my inbox has been filled with emails from PTA moms regarding the never-ending merenda debate (should kids be allowed to bring mid-morning snacks? But it ruins their appetite for lunch!), and the commissione mensa. I'm talkin' long, l-o-n-g emails, emails with articles and codicils, emails drafted in the arcane language of the Constitution (aside: nearly all school district-related emails are inexplicably like this). What, exactly, is the commissione mensa, you ask? It's a volunteer squad of parents who show up at school every day to report on the quality of food served in the cafeteria. Taste-testers, in a word.

I was sent a form emblazoned with the official seal of the school district (I didn't even know our school district had an official seal) which I was to fill out and sign--with an appropriate flourish--should I wish to become a Taste-Tester. I was also sent a three-page Code of the Taste-Testers document which outlined the grave responsibilities and solemn duties of those who choose to heed the call and become one of the few, the proud, etc. And then, finally, I was sent a four-page form which the Taste-Testers must fill out upon every inspection. Ahem--four pages.

On this form, a Taste-Tester must rate the following:

--Punctuality of arrival, as the food is cooked off-site and brought in. (Because Italians, of course, care so very much about punctuality)

--Organizational aspects. (And they care equally much about being organized at all times in all things)

--Whether or not the day's menu was pleasing, and whether or not the quantity was sufficient (I'm reminded of the Woody Allen line: "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." "Yeah, I know, and such small portions")

--Does the menu served match the written menu which was sent home to parents? If not, how did it vary? (Altering the Gospel According to Paul might carry fewer repercussions)

--The flavor and quality of each course/item (that is, primo of pasta, secondo of protein, bread, side of veg and fruit) and whether or not it was rejected/wasted by the students. (Budding food critics, all)

--The cleanliness and orderliness of the table-settings, the service staff and their uniforms, and the kitchen area. (Italians are obsessed with cleanliness, except when they're being pigs)

--The staff's behavior toward the children. (They'd better be treated like the half-pint deities they are, or it's off with your head)

An ample area is provided on the form for the comments and suggestions of the Taste-Tester (one assumes an essay and critique along the lines of Ruth Reichl tackling Tavern on the Green is called for. If only political analysis in this country was as probing and cogent).

Greenjeans the Hungry Wino:
the school cafeteria rabbit and mascot

I confess to finding all this utterly hilarious. In a country suffering the economic equivalent of the Black Death (and where tax evasion and corruption are as rife as the disease-spreading, bubo-inducing flea), where the quality of political representation resembles something out of Titus Andronicus--people are deeply, profoundly concerned as to whether or not their child's penne al pesto is palatable.

But maybe these Italians have it nailed--maybe other things are more important and more relevant to the realities of everyday life. Maybe I should just quit harping, look on the bright side, eat my fill of the glorious Tuscan bounty which surrounds me, and go bury my head in the sand, too.

Sounds like a plan.

Yours,

Campobello

Lessons of via Faentina, part 3

2011-12-09T09:46:00.005+01:00

The street where I live becomes my miscreant muse:
the third installment in a series about quality-of-life issues
in the cradle of the Renaissance.

Dear Readers,

If you've travelled much in Europe, you know that those charming old cities--with their twisting, Medieval streets and historic centers--have had to come to terms with modern life in the form of population density, traffic congestion, and pollution. Many of these European cities (think Munich) have used ingenious methods to provide cutting-edge solutions to these problems, and have demonstrated a commitment to making their cities more livable places. Their priorities are clear: rather than privilege the automobile, they instead give precedence to public transportation, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

This past January, Legambiente (an environmental/cultural watchdog group) named Florence the most polluted city in Italy among those in its survey. The picture is grim, and thus far, not much is being done to alleviate the situation. The Mayor has closed off many streets to traffic in the historic downtown, but this has only served to funnel that erstwhile congestion in other directions--creating some really dangerous traffic "corridors" out of previously peaceful cobblestone byways--and making the viali which circumnavigate the city practically boil with the overflow. The Mayor has introduced bike-sharing--but this is like putting the cart before the horse: there aren't enough bike lanes in the city to make this yet a viable option. Those bike lanes that do exist are disjointed and sporadic, often poorly marked, and typically hampered by illegally parked cars, delivery trucks and other obstacles. And because of the very real traffic problems and the speeds with which it is allowed to travel, most people view biking around Florence as a fool's undertaking.

True, there is the new Tramvia which heads out to Scandicci from the city center, and there are plans for a second line--but this is too little, too late. Florence needs more. Now.

This video, presented by La Nazione, discusses Florence's rating as the most polluted city in the country. It's in Italian, but the images are worth watching if you don't understand the language. In it, city residents talk of poor air quality, the unreliability of public transportation, and the difficulty in getting around after the Mayor's recent traffic hocus pocus. It highlights the futility of things like bike-sharing when other problems have not yet been addressed. As one man puts it, "Everyone wants to get around by car and so to me it seems absurd to then talk of pollution--it's like a dog chasing its tail, no? Let's make a decision." *

I've lived here long enough to see that via Faentina's problems are Florence's problems. Traffic issues are endemic and citywide, affecting all residents, all the time

Let's make a decision, indeed.

Yours as always,

Campobello

* Anecdote: an Italian mum in the neighborhood told me that--rather than walk six minutes to the elementary school--she prefers to always drive because "there's so much pollution on via Faentina," and she doesn't want her son breathing the foul air. On behalf of the rest of us, who do walk, I was tempted to thank her.

For more Lessons of via Faentina, click on the label below.

Lessons of via Faentina, part 2

2011-12-07T14:43:00.001+01:00

The street where I live becomes my miscreant muse:
the second installment in a series about quality-of-life issues
in the cradle of the Renaissance.

Dear Readers,

Having just survived another morning walk to school with my children, I thought I'd share some more images and thoughts from our daily life on the ~~Autobahn~~ via Faentina.

Since traffic is typically bloodthirsty, it's helpful--to say the least--when the vigili show up to help children and their parents cross the street to get to the elementary school without becoming road kill. I don't have to tell most of you that, when left to their own devices, 99.8% of Italians do not respect pedestrian crosswalks. Or any other traffic rule, for that matter. (One wonders what indeed goes on in those scuole guida).

From via Faentina, there's a small alley which leads to the school, and which is also the road leading to a busy private sports center, a scattering of residences, and eventually the via Bolognese.

Problem is, during school drop-off and pick-up, the alley is supposed to remain clear of vehicles to ensure the safety of the children. Many times we've rounded the corner here only to have a car or moped brake suddenly, missing us by mere inches, and thus adding a few more gray hairs to my head. But if the vigili are there, they sometimes keep the road free (it would be asking too much to have them consistently and vigorously uphold an ordinance)--which also helps.

There is, of course, a sign saying use of the road is forbidden during school entry and exit times, but--surprise!--it goes completely unheeded....

....unless there are vigili there willing to enforce it. What is perplexing to me--but not really, given Italian menefreghismo (roughly: I could give a shit-ism)--is that many of the cars and mopeds careering up and down this alley belong to parents dropping their kids off or picking them up from the school. On some days it's a real slalom: I struggle to keep my kids close and maneuver the alley while an outsize moped bears down on us from the front and another is revving its motor at our backs, jockeying to pass us on either side. Apparently only the safety of their own children matters to these blockheads--the rest of us can just kiss their tailpipes. And so we come to the crux of the matter: attentive vigili are desperately needed in order to ensure the safety of the schoolchildren in this neighborhood.

But most of the time, they don't show up, and we're left to fend for ourselves. For a long time, in the mornings, they'd show up after the last bell had rung (at 8:30)--after the majority of kids were already safe in their classrooms--to assist the departing adults in crossing the street, I presume. Having observed this odd phenomenon for years, I recently spoke up and said something about it (rather politely, I thought) to these uselessly tardy vigili--and was treated to the most disgraceful and wrathful abuse I've ever encountered. To hear them shout out their excuses like defensive and petulant children, you'd never guess that they were public servants--or grown-ups, for that matter. Thus in a fit of pique, I forgot for a moment what country I was in and wrote a letter of complaint to the city, and one to the director of Municipal Police--outlining my concerns over traffic problems in the neighborhood as well. Naturally, I never received a response from either.

While Italians generally adore children, as pedestrians, they, too, count for little in a city where seemingly it's every man, woman and child for themselves

In a country where babies are cooed over--even by grown men--and children and teenagers are coddled and made much of, I am always surprised at how little is done for them on the civic level--whether to ensure their public safety, provide them with free or low-cost wholesome activities (especially during the interminable summer months), or develop more school enrichment programs. But civic-mindedness is not one of Italy's strong suits.

If it were, perhaps a street scene like this would be a rarity instead of the norm.*

Yours,

Campobello

*Now throw in some off-leash dogs and sidewalks littered with their droppings, and the picture of civic bliss is complete.

For more Lessons of via Faentina, click on the label below.

The best revenge

2011-12-02T12:14:00.007+01:00

Dear Readers,

I have written before about my father-in-law's penchant for peeing in the garden, here. Regrettably, this bizarre habit continues apace, and I'm seriously considering filling my kitchen window in with cement so I don't have to keep seeing that old fart unzip his trousers and spray the area like some feral hound. It seems like every time I pause to rinse my teacup at the sink and gaze thoughtfully out into the little olive grove, I get an unwanted glimpse into octogenarian hillbilly depravity.

Lately my mother-in-law--a champion of decathlon nagging, a harpy of Herculean proportions--has been persecuting the FIL even more than usual. I can hear her from my place. Honestly, in the 17 years I've known this ill-starred couple, I have never heard her say a kind word to him or speak to him in a tone of voice that was nothing less than lacerating. But the past few weeks have seen the normal floodtide of criticism swell into a tsunami, to the point where I almost feel sorry for poor, hapless FIL.

So I guess, in a way, I can understand the thing that happened.

One mid-morning not very long ago, I was at the sink and heard my father-in-law's truck pull into the courtyard. I looked up and saw him get out. The door to the in-law's lair was closed, which meant the MIL had gone on her daily pilgrimige to the Coop for her little cloth bag full of groceries. FIL plodded over to the side of the house to where my mother-in-law keeps her potted flowers and plants--which she lovingly tends (unlike her marriage)--in a long, neat row. He unzipped his pants and very carefully--and quite lavishly--urinated all over her roses.

Then he went inside the house.

"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"--Shakespeare
Well, at least it shouldn't smell like your husband's pee

Yours,

Campobello (I swear I'm not making this stuff up)

Lessons of via Faentina, part 1

2011-11-29T11:24:00.014+01:00

The street where I live becomes my miscreant muse:
the first installment in a series about quality-of-life issues
in the cradle of the Renaissance.

Dear Readers,

Indulge me while I imagine its idyllic past—when, perhaps, ox-carts bearing great sloshing demijohns traveled its lazy contours, meandering bucolically from Florence to Faenza, returning in the soft dusk laden with the glazed earthenware pottery for which that city is renown. Alas, the via Faentina today bears no resemblance to this figment of yours, truly. It is, instead--at least within Florence city limits--a grim corridor of relentless traffic which bolts cars, buses and trucks toward Florence's center in the morning, and projectile vomits them back out during the evening rush hour.

For us here in Fiesole's haughty shadow, the via Faentina is our jugular vein--the only thoroughfare leading south to Piazza delle Cure and downtown, and it is along this narrow, busy artery that we residents must mince along cautiously, watching our step lest we fall prey to the insatiable beast of traffic. I have lived on via Faentina for the past ten years, and almost without realizing it, have become a reluctant, recalcitrant student of the lessons it insists on teaching me.

Lesson number one: cars rule the road like despots

Typical morning rush hour

Traffic cops arriving too late to be much help--
occasionally they show up to assist school children in crossing the street

Rush hour in via Faentina is nightmarish: a great snake of bumper-to-bumper vehicles slithers its way to or from the city center, their occupants often oblivious to things such as crosswalks or red lights. A car or bus can take 15 to 20 minutes to reach Piazza delle Cure from the neighborhood--a trip that would take a mere 10-15 minutes on foot. The air is so thick with exhaust it feels like wading through some kind of toxic pappa col pomodoro. As a committed pedestrian and cyclist who fights this malevolent serpent on almost a daily basis, I can't help but view my relationship with the city as adversarial.

Whatever else our cherub-cheeked, milk-fed Mayor Renzi would have you believe, Florence is not very pedestrian-friendly, unless you confine your perambulations to the city's historic center, and even then you must dodge marauding taxis or risk becoming a human frittata. Public transportation is notoriously unreliable--if I had a euro for every time I waited for a bus that never came, I could solve Italy's debt crisis single-handedly. With the lack of viable options and the ferocious traffic, getting around town remains about as enjoyable as getting one's gallstones removed--though unfortunately not as quick.

Lesson number two: pedestrians count for little

My kids and I walk the via Faentina every day to get to and from their elementary school. In one stretch the sidewalk measures 33 inches (84 cm) wide--which leaves only a few inches between us and monstrous semi-trucks or city buses. (I've been swiped by side-view mirrors too many times to count). Every day I pray to my various gods that we make it safely, that we don't stumble on the uneven, broken pavement and fall under the wheels of a passing car.

33 inches of sidewalk + heavy, fast-moving traffic = death trap

While other parts of the city have seen speed tables installed (flatter and gentler than rounded speed bumps), for most of via Faentina--notwithstanding the narrow sidewalks and the densely residential character of the area--vehicles are allowed to race along with impunity, as if it were a Formula One speedway. Often cars are parked up on the sidewalks or block the crosswalks entirely. Perhaps most disturbing, however, is how the lines between sidewalk and street are consistently--and dangerously--blurred.

A truck graciously descends from the near-nonexistent sidewalk
so that we may continue on our way

For pedestrians the options are: backtrack, hug the wall, say a fervent Hail Mary,
or resolve to meet your Maker

Walking sucks

Lesson number three: there are two Florences

One of the things I've come to terms with over the past decade is that the Florence of art and beauty and charm--the one that makes all the tourists go gaga (and is largely confined to the historic center)--has an evil, ugly twin: the Florence that is choked by traffic, bureaucracy and a rampantly provincial mentality; the Florence that was this year named the most polluted city in Italy; the Florence that makes walking your children to school as pleasurable as having oral surgery without anesthetic, and as foolhardy as playing a game of "catch me if you can!" with the Grim Reaper.

Yours,

Campobello

When the frosting hits the fan: an article for The Florentine

2011-11-27T10:58:00.003+01:00

Who knew that serving cupcakes was an act of cultural sedition?

Click here to go to article

(I wrote a post on a similar theme, but the results were--ahem--somewhat different)

Let me give thanks

2011-11-23T15:06:00.005+01:00

Dear Readers,

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in my sometimes hapless homeland, and since it seems to be as de rigueur as the ginormous fowl itself, I've been thinking of the things I'm grateful for.

I adore my two puckish children, regardless of the fact that for nigh on ten years they still feel the need to burst into the bathroom and watch me pee.

I love my husband--if for no other reason than he's the only man with whom I could ever envision adventuring into the great golden maw of the American Frontier in a covered wagon. I'm serious.

I have many dear and wonderful friends--and an awesome brother--who, despite knowing me, choose to admit it.

I have all my teeth. And most of my senses.

But perhaps the thing I am most thankful for is that I am not, nor will I ever be--so help me God--this woman:

No, it's not a narrow-minded, gossip-mongering garden gnome
or a steerage passenger on the Lusitania--
it's the MIL

Nor will I, thankfully, ever don footwear like this (even on my deathbed in the midst of a nuclear holocaust when the only thing that'd save me would be clonking the heels of my immigrant-issue men's clodhoppers together while croaking, "There's no place like home"):

Jimmy Choo, hardly

So to all you Turkey Day revelers out there and others with plenty to be thankful for, I wish you a wonderful holiday. Now get thee to a monstrous mound of mashed potatoes, pronto!

Yours,

Campobello

The land of literary Muggles

2011-11-08T11:13:00.011+01:00

Dear Readers,

According to ISTAT (the Italian National Institute for Statistics), in 2010 only 46.8% of Italians said they read at least one book during the year. Of these, 44.4% read up to three books a year (because it takes the average Italian in this group four months to read a novel). Only 15.1% of the population read twelve books or more, and 9.6% (that's 2,338,000 families) say they don't even own one book.

Once, when I was at my doctor's office and had settled down for the interminable wait with Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, an old spotted toad in a grubby parka, reeking of cigarettes, sidled up to me and shouted, "My God! It would take me more than a year to finish a big book like that!" I saw no reason to doubt him.

Yesterday, I was at my neighborhood bookstore picking out a birthday gift for one of my son's classmates. I thought of buying L'Evoluzione di Capurnia (The Evolution of Capurnia Tate), but was horrified by this:

Sticker shock

Gulp. €16,80 for a children's paperback???!!! I soon left in disgust (and with an inexplicably much cheaper Roald Dahl book instead).

€16,80--that's $23.10 for a children's paperback. In America, that very same paperback (well, in English, of course) costs $7.99. In England, £7.99. On Amazon Italy they're offering a slight discount: €14,28 ($19.63). Perhaps I didn't examine the book closely enough and the pages were made out of camel skin or ancient Egyptian papyrus or something. But a quick look round the shop had me steeped in similar dismay: Harry Potter paperbacks were €16 a pop, Tolkien's Lo Hobbit cost €15 in paperback. Small paperback early readers were €6-9 each.

Here are some other disturbing statistics: only about 10% of Italians go on to higher education (the absolute lowest of the countries surveyed); reading literacy among 15 year-olds is ranked 20th out of 27; mathematical literacy ranks 23rd out of 27. Student attitudes in the form of dislike for school, however, have Italy ranking at the top--coming in at 2nd out of 17; those that find school boring come in 9th out of the 17 countries surveyed; and as for classroom disorder, Italy is Numero Uno.

Oh, and even Greece pays its teachers more than Italy does.

To this I'd add that the ever-deepening economic sinkhole Italy finds itself in has affected public schools--which were always pretty strapped and bare-bones, let's face it--in a way that is profoundly disturbing. There is no money for supplies--that is, things like paints and paper. There is no money for soap and toilet paper for the bathrooms. There is no money for class outings, for art and music instruction or for hiring English teachers (this last is no great loss--most of them stink anyway). Schools have had to ask the parents (many of whom have already tightened their belts to the point of asphyxiation) to supply these things or the money with which to buy them. My daughter's teachers buy toilet paper for the little second-graders out of their own pockets and on their puny salaries.

And publishers dare to charge €16,80 for a children's paperback.

Suddenly all the above statistics and experiences, taken as a whole, begin to make sense to me. Here in Italy, a premium is placed on Berlusconi-esque (let's call it "Berlesque") television, a bloated bureaucracy, and the excesses of a political elite abhorrently out of touch with the reality of most citizens--while reading and education are relegated to a status just below garbage collection. I begin to understand the depth of the ignorance of the masses that kept re-electing such a pancake-faced buffoon--they're the same ones who stare vacantly at his inane and tasteless variety shows rather than stick their noses in a good book.

An Italian tragedy is more like it.

Yours,

Campobello

*Statistics provided herein were sourced at ISTAT, and via UNESCO and OECD at www.nationmaster.com

From the pet peeve department

2011-10-30T17:32:00.004+01:00

Dear Readers,

For eons, tourists have come to Italy and have giddily snapped photos: of Florence's Duomo and Rome's Pantheon, of the Amalfi Coast and the Umbrian countryside, of fountains and piazzas, of Fiat 500's and Vespas, of monuments and mouth-watering Carabinieri--and I get it. I get it.

But what I've never understood is why laundry hanging out to dry should warrant a place in the family photo album, or worse, in travel articles advocating the glories of a particular Italian location (I'm thinking specifically of a recent New York Times article on Naples, with its clichéd and apparently obligatory photo of Neapolitan-style biancheria*). I mean, it's laundry for Chrissake. Granted, Italian laundry--but those aren't exactly Missoni dishtowels or Valentino skivvies hanging up there. Hardly. Why is the sight of some old lady's pantyhose or a few faded bedsheets considered charming and so very Italian, merely because there are cobblestones below and a fiendish bureaucrat (doubtless) nearby? I have a theory--unproven--that familiar objects take on uncharacteristic appeal when they are superimposed on a foreign locale.

How adorable! Laundry all'italiano!

The fact is, Italians don't have clothes dryers--if they did, you probably wouldn't see so much laundry hanging around. So taking pictures of Italian laundry is like taking pictures of, say, my mother-in-law's dentures (if she had teeth, you wouldn't be taking pictures of her dentures)--it's just dumb.

As an experiment, I recently pretended I was an Italian tourist in Portland, Oregon and snapped a photo of the clothes-drying rack in my friends' apartment (of course, all Americans have dryers--though some may elect to let certain items air dry--which makes capturing an image of native laundry all the more difficult):

That rare and most elusive of commodities: American laundry

Now you tell me, dear Readers--what's the big effin' deal about laundry?!

My best regards,

Campobello

* I don't know about you, but the sight of indigenous underwear doesn't make me want to immediately jump on a plane in order to revel in Italian cultura.

The quirky shall inherit the earth

2011-10-24T18:45:00.007+02:00

Dear Readers,

Shortly after returning to Florence in September, my neck seized up painfully, I began to shed hair like a Siberian Husky in spring, I fell victim to fever, flu, and a pernicious sinus infection, and the nervous eye-twitch that had left me after I quit my loathsome job last April began feathering about my brow again. While two months in the States did me a world of good, it had some unforeseen consequences. I felt happy and deeply relaxed in a way that I didn't realize I'd been missing here in Italy--until I got back and my body launched its rebellion. I feel like I'd been lounging around in soft, sheepskin slippers and then had to cram my feet back into stiletto heels; it's difficult to make that adjustment without some pain and suffering, I suppose.

Thinking along these lines led me to a conclusion: living in Italy is like wearing impossibly high heels--it's lovely at times, even sexy, but completely impractical. And I don't mean it's impossible to live here--just impractical. It takes the mettle of a Joan of Arc to slash your way into the fabric of life in the Bel Paese.

***

What Italy offers--lavishly, deliciously--is culture, of course. Art litters the landscape like weeds. History oozes from every brick. The cult of the table has been well-noted by the gobbling hordes, and though mediocrity is fast becoming the norm in tourist meccas like Florence, in most of the country you can still get a stupendous meal wherever you happen to flop. And meals have a lovely way of unfolding here that feels very civilized, indeed.

But for me, one of the hallmarks of a civilized society is the dignity allowed humans in the performing of life's most basic functions (i.e. paying bills, peeing, grocery shopping, strolling about town--granted, an eclectic litmus, but nevertheless indicative)--and here, my friends, is where Italy fails miserably. Ever try to find--your bladder bursting from that last macchiato or half-liter of water guzzled in the punishing heat of July--a public restroom in Florence???? Well, look what Portland, Oregon offers its denizens in need:

Spotlessly clean, complete with TP and hand sanitizer--bless you, Portland.

Indeed.

I'll further illustrate my point with the example of a recent trip to the supermarket:

My approach to storming an Italian supermarket may be likened to that of General Patton mounting a military campaign. First, I prepare my list with an eye toward a systematic and ruthless advance through the trenches, with a firm resolve to take no prisoners. When the moment of battle arrives, I hurl myself into the breach--that is, into the Produce section--a roiling mass of grasping humanity, carts akimbo like land mines to be dodged, and fight my way through in furious hand-to-hand combat, rushing to bag and weigh my veggies while sustaining the least amount of bodily injury. Once through the melee, I must then run the gauntlet of the Cheese/Cold Cuts section, where carts line up in a near-solid bank of defense--like an arrogant line of cavalry--their owners immovable dragoons to be thrust aside in brief skirmishes so that I may plunder the mortadella and mozzarella.

I soldier on--through Dairy, Meat, Baking Supplies, Pasta, Coffee, Cookies, Wine, Bread--piloting my cart like a kamikaze, fending off attackers in the form of old ladies smelling of moth balls, powdered rose, and decay, taking hits (bayonet-like jabs to the ribs, cart wheels ramming ankles, stomped-upon tootsies--with nary a "pardon me," of course--after all, this is war) but refusing to be brought down, all the while pushing forward--the vision of my empty fridge at home spurring me on towards victory. Only in Frozen Foods do I get a brief respite (Italians aren't big on the stuff), where I can regroup before the final assault on the check-out lanes.

But, unlike Patton in any war he ever waged, awaiting me there is the most evil and fearsome enemy known to fighting men and women the world over--the Italian cashier. With cold, calculating precision, I loaded my groceries onto the belt, heavy things first, knowing I'll have to bag them up at the end. I tried to conserve the little energy I had left, quenching myself--for the moment--on pure adrenalin. My shopping totes were cocked and ready, and once my time came, I leapt to the end of the belt with a cry of "Geronimo!" and started bagging as fast as I could. The enemy was hurtling fragile foodstuffs at me with the vicious accuracy of a sniper raining bullets or lobbing hand grenades--wine bottles, eggs, cartons of yogurt. The sound of clanking bottles and squelching plastic was sickening. Then the she-devil reached the point where no more stuff could be fired down the belt at me unless I cleared some space--even though I was fighting with frantic desperation--and said, with withering scorn, "Madam, you need to get these bottles and things out of the way!" Patton, of course, would have shot her--but I, facing sure defeat, just pressed my lips together, wished I could morph into a spitting cobra, and labored on. She continued to regard me with boredom and contempt, alternately examining her cuticles with interest and chomping her gum, while I heaved the last of my groceries into my cart. Thus reduced to a stressed-out, sweaty mess, there was nothing for me to do but surrender--and shell out €160 for the pleasure--and slink off with my tail between my legs. No smile or thank you was forthcoming from this unscrupulous opponent, naturally--unless you counted the slight, satisfied curl of the lip that indicated another human being had been successfully humiliated at her hands, and that she had managed to perform her duties once again without the slightest bit of enthusiasm or warmth.

***

I realize that when one is on vacation, one tends to see things through rose-colored Ray Bans. But it was hard for me not to view Portland as a kind of Pacific Northwest Shangri-La--a land where outrageous courtesy reigns, a realm of quirky locals content to amble about on bicycles, drive (if they absolutely must) as if they have all the time in the world to arrive at their destination, and drop everything in order to meet over an ale or two. It's like Tolkien's Shire--a bit removed from the rest of the world, gloriously green, and with many a rowdy tavern--and the Portlanders are peaceful, friendly Hobbits (the fact that many are to be seen gamboling about the city barefoot, wearing rustic garments, further enhances the allusion). It seemed the exact opposite of Florence.

In Portland, people politely ask if they may sit in the empty seat next to you on the bus. They volley a cheery "thank you!" to the driver when they get off. They stop their cars and let you cross the street whether or not you are in a crosswalk. Everyone I met--from grocery clerks to postal workers to shopkeepers--was astonishingly courteous, engaging in cheerful small talk like morning birds chirping away in trees, and helpful to a fault. (Really, it amazed me. I spent the entire time with my mouth agape and tearfully hugging random strangers for being nice to me). It seemed they did this out of genuine niceness, and as if being cheerful and kind to others made their day go by easier, more pleasantly--it sure did mine. Once, when the bus was delayed at a stop because of something beyond the driver's control, people started grumbling, and the driver then began joking--over the loudspeaker--engaging the passengers who then responded with sallies of their own. We continued this way--everybody laughing and having a good time--for the rest of my journey. On another occasion, I overheard a mother in the park asking all the other people nearby if they'd seen her stray cell phone around anywhere--she'd misplaced it. Another woman offered to call the number for her so she could track it down by its ringtone. Wow. This all may sound like small patate, but I was floored, over and over again, by such good will toward men.

I often get the feeling that, in Italy, the milk of human kindness has curdled.

Living here these past ten years, I have slowly grown accustomed to systematic abuse in the form of sour expressions, doors slammed in my face, pushing and shoving, cutting in line, universal curt treatment at public offices, in shops, and over the phone (there's a general customer service ethic in Italy that Gaddafi would have approved of), and other generally rude behavior. I consider myself lucky if I encounter mere indifference. But would it kill people to smile? To show a little courtesy? To treat me like the multi-celled organism I am? Perhaps it's because of the oppressive weight of all that history and tradition, but I think Italians take themselves far too seriously. They're unable to see how a little levity, pleasantness, or simple courtesy toward strangers adds a ripple to the pond of humanity.

Another clear sign of an advanced civilization--to me, at least--is taking pains to bring a smile to another's face, in order to ease the tensions of daily life. In Portland, this typically takes the form of eccentric behaviors and unusual objects found in surprising places: plastic toy horses tied to old hitching rings all over the city, outlandish getups, juggling unicyclists (wearing outlandish getups), a plump plastic chicken being photographed in all the neighborhood bars and cafés, an inflatable sex doll in the back seat of an old Mazda (with her seat belt prudently buckled), a go-cart race with contestants riding their mock-up hot dog dressed as ketchup and mustard (i.e. wearing red swirly hats and flowing gold lamé capes)--I could go on. Art is so often imprisoned in museums, isn't it--reserved for the elite--but the kind of quirkiness I experienced in Portland may be enjoyed by all, anywhere, anytime; it is truly democratic. And if you ask me, of the two, it is quirkiness that best imitates life. At least, the kind of life I want to live.

Quirkinius squalus portlandis, or Portland Tree Shark

If I'm being unfair or overly cranky in this post, please forgive me, dear Readers. My feet are killing me.

Yours,

Campobello

It's our anniversary

2011-09-16T18:08:00.002+02:00

Dear Readers,

Today marks three years of blogging for me here at Letters from Florence. And while I'm definitely a bit older, I'm not sure I'm any the wiser--though writing about Italy helps me wrap my head around the place and indulge in some admittedly wicked fun at times. Blogging is a strange occupation in that there's no immediate pay-off other than perhaps the satisfaction of giving voice to one's thoughts and opinions--and then sending them off into the vast, virtual ocean like tiny messages in bottles, never really knowing if they will reach far-flung shores and tickle someone's fancy, whet their appetite, incite their rage or indignation, or whatever. Writing is by its very nature an exercise of the ego, and though it seems I expend an awful lot of energy in my personal life trying to eradicate--or at least subdue--my balky, mulish ego (the domineering diva to my seething id), my belabored psyche remains stubbornly vulnerable to the suspicion that I have absolutely nothing to say about life in Italy that is worthwhile.

While I was off for two months' vacation in the U.S., I admit I considered discontinuing my endeavors, buffeted back and forth by the self-critical urgings of the aforementioned Ego ("Why bother anymore, you fatuous, gnat-brained interloper--what can your insignificant musings possibly matter in the larger scheme of things? Shouldn't you be working out instead?"), and the giddy insistence of my Id ("But it is fun debunking the myths of la dolce vita and stringing strange necklaces of words, isn't it? You have loads more to say about living in Italy so keep at it--there's a good girl!").

In the end what decided things for me was you, my dear, intrepid Readers.

Over these three years, a number of you have contacted me or left comments on posts, and this has meant more to this peripatetic blogger than you probably imagine. To put it succintly--it's what has kept me going. Sure, I have friends that compliment and laugh at my sallies (they would, wouldn't they? god bless 'em), but it's you strangers, you who don't know me from Adam, whose input is of immeasurable value because you help me feel engaged, connected. I've also been fortunate enough to have met, via this blog, some wonderful lady bloggers and have struck up friendships that are very enriching--and for this I am pleased and grateful.

I can see by my handy spy tool that there are readers out there who prefer, for whatever reason, to remain silent and anonymous--and that's okay--I'm glad you're out there and knowing that is a kind of inspiration as well.

***

Perhaps this is also the occasion on which to make an announcement of sorts--bear in mind one made with not a little trepidation: I've decided to write a book about the ups and downs--or sturm und drang, better yet--of my experiences in Italy. It is with Pantagruelian difficulty that I confess this to anyone, for I possess such a warped sense of superstition and doom that to admit to stumbling forth upon such a path is to court the Wrath of the Fates--who will surely crush my efforts faster than you can say gli agenti delle Poste Italiane sono i bastardi scervellati di Satana. You see, I had hoped that blogging would miraculously bring the publishers to my doorstep and result in a free-for-all of six-figure advances and first-class plane tickets. This has most resoundingly not happened. So I've decided to take the buffalo by the horns and make my own mozzarella.

Reader's Choice

Since we have reached a milestone of sorts together and I intend to forge ahead in this curious landscape that is the blogosphere, I thought I'd ask you, dear Readers, what Italy-related topics you'd like me to tackle in the coming months (I'd be willing to hold forth on sundry other topics as well, but I warn you that my personal knowledge of the mating habits of the baboon or, say, the workings of fuel injectors or covalent bonding and molecular structure is limited)--and I'll try to expound on them to the best of my ability. Because here at Letters from Florence, we aim to please. Or something.

My heartfelt thanks, again, to all of you who read the virtual scribblings herein,

Campobello

Saturday night special

2011-09-11T19:10:00.008+02:00

Dear Readers,

A hearty hello from yours, truly! Had a lovely, decidedly omnivorous time in the stunning Pacific Northwest. It struck me that the more time I spent away from Florence, the more the city and my odd little life here seemed to melt into the muggy, turgid horizon, leaving me blissfully unaware of--for example--the fact that my in-laws exist. Various other annoying Italian metaphysical mosquitos also left me unmolested in the face of so many majestic Douglas firs and giant Sequoias; and cool breezes smelling of pines and roses and stuffed enchiladas lulled me into a slumber of forgetfulness....

Well, it took only a couple of days after arriving from Shangri-La for Florence to slap me silly with her merciless insistence that I look at the oft-warped reality show that is my life in the Bel Paese. To wit, this green towel:

The sacred relic, left to dry

Every Saturday evening around 6 p.m., this towel appears on the chair in front of my in-laws' lair--you could set a Swiss cuckoo clock by it. It's the sign that my flea-brained (and quite possibly flea-ridden) father-in-law has taken his weekly shower. No matter that it's summer and the temps tend to hover around 90-100 degrees--with humidity levels that would give Satan pause--and that my FIL spends all day in his vast garden doing things like vigorously chopping wood for winter, hitching himself to a plow and playing giddyup among his rows of beloved dirt, and building illegal shacks out of urban detritus. The man sweats and stinks so evilly he merits a Canto in Dante's Inferno.

Notwithstanding all this, he manages to go six days a week without bathing. And to aim a vicious arrow at the truth and shoot, I'd say he'd eschew bathing completely if it weren't for the fact that he's a God-fearing soul who goes to Mass every Sunday*--come hell or after-shave--and feels he must present a scrubbed body (if not a clean conscience) to the Lord.

So, yes, the towel (which, by the way, he's been using since 1978 and is obscenely transparent in parts--I suspect it's being held together by God's will) appeared yesterday evening as usual and I sighed heavily, knowing that vacation had unequivocally ended and I was home. Home ~~sweat~~ sweet home.

Oh, and while I was gone my mother-in-law saw fit to offload some of her ancient victuals on us, so I came home to a rambunctious group of larvaceous food moths having a proper rave in my pantry.

Yours as usual,

Campobello

*I've written more on this delectable theme here, should you be interested in the horror genre.

The Angel of Death wears a wet Speedo

2011-07-08T10:28:00.004+02:00

Dear Readers,

It is with immense joy I announce that Summer 2011 for yours truly shall entail total avoidance of Italian beaches. (I've written about my particular aversion to the peculiarly Italian style of fun-in-the-sun here and here). In a way, eschewing the oven-baked, seething stretches of Tuscan sand--bordered by traffic-choked streets, ugly apartment blocks, video arcades and tawdry Luna Parks--has become something of a point of pride for me. I much prefer Italy's mountains--my beloved Dolomites--for a getaway that gives me everything I crave: the wonder of nature, luxurious amounts of sweet fresh air, space to breathe in, pleasantly arduous physical activity, great food and wine, and relief from the heat.

To further tickle the repulsion centers of your brains, I shall relate to you a vignette or two from beach vacations past....

The scene: Elba, June 2001. My brother- and sister-in law--otherwise known as the Bürgermeister and Frau Weiner--and their two young, catatonically-compliant daughters crashed our vacation. My husband and I had been living with his parents in Florence (this was a folly for which I'd gladly render my kneecaps in order to completely erase from memory), I was in the early months of my first pregnancy, and we had come to a shady hillside above Cavoli to relax, escape family and enjoy some much-needed Couple Time. My mother-in-law--curse her black, meddling, pantyhose-constricted soul--saw fit to reveal our secret location in a rented house to the Bürgermeister, who then showed up on our doorstep and summarily dumped his bags.

What was perhaps even more disturbing to me than this total disregard for our privacy was the revelation that the Bürgermeister and brood go to the beach and then spend most of the time there actually shunning the water.

Because water--like ice cubes or air conditioning--will kill you, of course. Therefore it is to be avoided--regardless if it's 105 degrees out, and the hot sand shears off an onion-thin layer of your feet each time you step on it. This is Italy, after all, where the feathery tendrils of tepid breezes on even the most scorching days bring on raging pneumonia, where drinking cold beverages freezes your digestion and proceeds to decimate your internal organs with pernicious stomach acids, and where getting wet--either from bathing, swimming, water-pistol fights, or rain--carries the risk of slow and torturous total bronchial annihilation.

They're a strange breed, these Italians. I mean, to them, shampooing your hair and letting it air-dry, or riding a public bus with the windows open (in summer) is considered a come-hither to the Grim Reaper--while running red lights with impunity, driving the wrong way down one-way streets, or passing on a curve at 100 miles-an-hour is regarded as completely innocuous, if not downright wholesome.

I digress. At the small local beach, Frau Weiner smothered a chaise with her rear end and remained there under the umbrella, as languorous as a corpulent Salome, the entire day--all the while shouting dire warnings at the girls who were forbidden to wade past ankle-deep in the mild surf. Me being American, young(er) and blunt, asked, "Why don't you go in the water?"

"Oh, I don't like the water! I never go in," she replied.

"Then why do you come to the beach?"

She volleyed me a look that said "you impossible fool, one goes to the beach because everybody goes to the beach," and busied herself arranging the elaborate, black, see-through, sequined cover-up over her plump thighs.

Meanwhile, the Bürgermeister refused to join us under the umbrella; he stood--stood, mind you--on his hind legs for hours under a tree back near the road, in a white tee-shirt and swim trunks, watching the girls at play with fixed and vigilant eyes, like some prissy, neurotic lifeguard. This was when I tried in vain to come up with the Italian translation of "Jeez, but that guy's got a big stick up his ass" for my husband.

Frau Weiner's aversion to water is inbred, I found out. Her parents have a beach house in Viareggio, mere steps from the boardwalk, and religiously rent a front-row spot in one of the more expensive bagni every summer--but they, too, never deign to enter the water. In fact, even though they pay through the nose for the privilege of having their chaises and umbrella available for the three-month duration, they've stopped going to the beach at all, abandoning their precious patch of sand to visiting grandchildren. "It's too hot," they complain.

That's why there's the water.

One summer, we accepted an invitation by the Bürgermeister clan to join them in Viareggio, and watched the Fear-of-Water-Hurly-Burly-Show play out daily. As usual, Frau Weiner was ensconced on her chaise like Jabba the Hutt on a plinth, each day sporting a different fashionable swimsuit with gauzy, coordinating cover-up and sparkly infraditi. This time the Bürgermeister managed to actually sit for periods--albeit bolt upright--in a canvas director's chair, craning his neck to watch every life-threatening splash the girls made. An oversized canvas beach bag sat next to Frau Weiner, and every time the girls would tire of their games and come out of the water--to play in the sand perhaps, or get a drink of water or a snack--she would pluck two fresh bathing-suits out of the bag and immediately change them, towelling them off frantically, lest they catch a chill. Every time. I was as riveted by this ritual as if she were Houdini performing the handkerchief trick out of a top hat--bathing suit after bathing suit kept coming out of the bag, in seemingly endless supply. Once again I couldn't resist:

"Why do you change them every time they come out of the water [you psychotic, Lycra-encased sausage]?"

"Because they'll get bronchite if they sit around in wet suits [you hopelessly stupid, foolhardy Yank]."

"Oh." I squinted up at the molten, orange orb in the sky and at the waves of heat shimmering along the shoreline, while sweat pooled in-between my toes. "Well, we wouldn't want that."

If the poor girls had even so much as one bite of focaccia, or a cracker, or a piece of fruit, the Bürgermeister would command from his director's chair, "NO GOING IN THE WATER NOW FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS, OR YOU'LL GET A CRAMP AND DROWN!" Apparently that was his sole function and purpose for being on the beach at all--since nary a stiff, punctilious toe of his ever even dipped in the water.

***

So if I shan't be spending summer in this Hell--a Hell that could kill me quicker than if I were to be smeared in Spam and left for bear bait--where will I be spending the dog days, you may ask? Why, in Heaven, of course. I shall be enjoying nearly two glorious months in the majestic Pacific Northwest. What's more, I plan on wantonly indulging in all the things that would kill an ordinary Italian: basking in air-conditioned environments until I get goose-flesh, swilling iced tea that is chock full of ice cubes, eating spicy ethnic food, getting soaked at water parks and letting myself air dry--and did I mention eating spicy ethnic food?

Here's wishing a wonderful summer full of similar risks, dangers and pitfalls to all of you, my dear Readers. I may post while abroad, or I may not--we'll see. But rest assured that I'll be back in September--if the Sasquatch doesn't get me, of course. Or the water.

Yours, ever recklessly,

Campobello

Guerrilla-style potato salad (this is NOT a recipe)

2011-07-04T16:53:00.011+02:00

In honor of Independence Day, upon which we were liberated from our Oppressors--culinary and otherwise.

Dear Readers,

It's always something. When you live in a foreign country, even the most innocuous request can open up a can of wriggling, irritating, cultural worms.

Recently, because of my Yankee origins, I was asked to contribute un piatto americano to my six year-old daughters' year-end class picnic. I smothered a loud, curmudgeonly groan and the usual array of curses with an effusive, "Why, of course! I'd be delighted!" The organizer-mom had the cute idea to ask everyone to bring a dish from their native land--which is odd, considering that nearly all the parents are Florentine and thus we'd be having the usual slew of local fare. But, upon reflection, I suppose this class is about as diverse as it gets for my little corner of Florence: there are two American moms (including yours truly), as well as a Japanese, a German, a Danish, and a French mom--and one from Calabria (though from a bona fide region of Italy, she's considered as foreign as the rest of us).

Preparing ethnic/American dishes for Italians is a tricky business (one I have touched upon here), hence my annoyed reluctance to subject myself and my not-too-shabby-if-I-do-say-so-myself cooking to the typically close-minded scrutiny of such cuisine-phobic pantywaists. The iconic foodstuffs, the hamburgers and hot dogs and their ilk, seem to be what most Italians expect from us--rather like malaria from pesky mosquitos. I have found that efforts to enlighten them with our genuine, though perhaps harder-to-suss-out, homemade specialties are usually as lost on their sissified palates as flotsam in a roiling sea of culinary provincialism. For instance, every time I have served an honest-to-goodness, made-from-scratch-and-redolent-with-spice pumpkin pie to People of the Boot, they double over and fling themselves from their dining chairs as if they'd just cannibalized a dear-departed, and practically projectile vomit all over the walls. I have, since, ceased to inflict this particular--though dearly beloved to me--dessert of doom on my adopted countrymen.

For the most part, Italians simply have no idea what other people in the world eat—beyond the stereotypes, of course—and, when it comes down to it, they simply don't care.

Once, in the bookstore where I was working, a liver-spotted, toad-like Italian cretin with Baroque sunglasses and carefully-upturned, pressed polo collar asked me to show him a book on American cuisine. When I pulled out Thomas Keller's newly-arrived Ad Hoc at Home, he added--his voice dripping with sarcasm--“That is, if there IS such a thing as American cuisine!" Naturally, I immediately rendered him unconscious by hitting him over the head with the cash register.

I feel no need to be ashamed of American food that uses the best of our local ingredients. Our vast continent is teeming with a Pilgrim's bounty of wonderful indigenous produce; that fresh, green breast of the New World about which Fitzgerald wrote nourishes its wayward children on an embarassment of culinary riches. And of course the tired, poor, huddled masses whose foreign hands stirred the great, exotic, multi-ethnic minestrone created an ever-changing smorgasbord for generations to enjoy and riff upon. American cuisine is rather like American English—peppered with far-flung influences, constantly innovating and evolving, a veritable bucking bronco of free-spirited creativity—producing a rather astonishing and riotous polyglot range of expression which ennables us to get straight to the point with a grilled-cheese-on-rye, or elaborate more thoroughly with a Creole jambalaya or New England clam chowder. It's a language and a cuisine that both shoots from the hip and frolics with the sublime--and, yes, it does have its fair share of barbarisms.

Entirely at a loss, I put the question of what to make for the class picnic to friends. Among the quintessentially American (and, I suspect, slightly irreverent) suggestions were: pizza-lasagne-spaghetti, White Castle sliders, Tater Tot casserole, funnel cakes, coney dogs, Twinkies dipped in taco sauce (this from a respected educator. Hi Mr. S!), cocktail weenies, lime Jell-O salad, mac n' cheese, and my personal favorite—buffalo jerky, roast squirrel (or, in a pinch, muskrat) and acorn mush. Now that's what I call going native.

In the end I decided on an archetypical picnic food: the humble potato salad. After all, I reasoned, Italians eat potatoes, don't they? I knew I'd be playing fast and loose, though, what with the spicy mustard I add to the mayonnaise. And of course there was the clear and present danger of the bits of pickle and celery—that could trigger the inborn revulsion/expulsion reflex. But dammit-all, I'm proud to be American and by God I was gonna give those self-righteous noodle-eaters a taste of the Stars and Stripes! Hell, yeah!

So I stormed the picnic with a splendidly defiant potato salad, my eyes blazing, my head held high.

I discovered that only myself--representing the red, white, and blue--Japan, Denmark, and Calabria showed up. (Clearly the others were chicken). "Well, here goes--to hell with them!" I thought, as I slapped my Tupperware down decisively on the long table under the gazebo, daring the first Italian to taste my offering. (I suppose this attitude makes me the anti-Christ to Martha Stewart's Jesus).

Did they eat it? No. Sure, there were a few cautious nibbles, then the culinary equivalent of a dead silence. Me and Danish mom (who brought a bowl of crispy bacon, God bless her, of which I and my wolfish offspring ate two-thirds and dumped what remained into my purse) polished off half. Then--to add insult to injury, as they say--I was asked to judge an Italian mom's attempt at New York-style cheesecake. Still burning from my slighted potato salad, I looked down at the impossibly flat, sticky-purple-goo-slathered, burned-periphery concoction and tried not to let a Kurtz-like tremor of horror overtake my body. The thing had three inches of Kalahari-dry, brick-like cookie crust and two centimeters of a glum glop comprised of cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta and--apparently--cotton balls. But did I gag and clutch my throat? Did I spew in disgust and wrath? No. I choked the abomination down, smiled, and pronounced it delicious.

And as it turns out, I was also too chicken to cackle or mock or show my stunned surprise at the enormous plastic trough of STEWED VEAL that some Italian miscreant brought. (Nothing like thick, hot stew at a picnic in 90-degree weather, I always say! How dare they spurn my cool, tangy, tastebud-tickling potato salad? Fools! Xenophobes! Depraved stew-lickers!).

Thankfully, James Beard, MFK Fisher, and Julia Child--up there among the celestial crockpots in their culinary Valhalla--showed mercy and did not smite chicken-livered me with an outraged lightning bolt from on high.

So as you see, dear Readers, I clearly failed in my mission. I do not possess the forbearance and valor needed to force the food of my star-spangled heritage down the gullets of infidels. It takes real guts to be a soldier in the culinary crusades here in Italy, I tell you. More guts that I have, that's for sure.

Yours,

Campobello

The Rapture, Florentine-style

2011-05-26T12:56:00.002+02:00

Dear Readers,

Okay, the world didn't end recently as predicted--but some of us aren't off the hook yet. Personally speaking, the end-times are breathing down my neck like an Italian mother-in-law after the birth of her first grandchild, because very soon my two chimp-limbed urchins shall be catapulted from the industrious froth of scholarly life into the placid, lotus pond torpor of le vacanze estive.

Picture, if you will:

The setting: a wide, dusty, unpaved street--the main thoroughfare in a former Wild West boom town, now all but abandoned by decent, god-fearing folk. Tumbleweeds drift aimlessly, the sun a hard-boiled egg yolk consuming the sky, heat shimmers thickly on the far horizon, and there's not a soul abroad in this hell's high noon.

(Foreground) A woman--quite pretty, actually--with a determined set to her jaw and a missionary's gleam in her eye, comes into view. She stands in the middle of the street, wide-legged, hands on hips, sweat glistening on her brow--ignoring the sun's glare and fixing her gaze on two figures who suddenly appear menacingly in the near distance. She's wearing a badge that reads "World's #1 Mom" and has dropped two colorful backpacks at her feet, each chock-full of books and educational activities. She takes a hearty swig of pinot grigio from her hip flask, wipes her brow with the back of her hand, pushes her specs back up onto the bridge of her nose, and steps forward as if to meet her Maker.

(Cut to background) Two reedy rapscallions--a sawed-off six year-old girl with an imp's mug, and a shaggy-maned nine year-old boy with grubby fingernails--stand easy and bold-faced at the far end of the yawning, deserted street (the townspeople--smelling imminent bloodshed--having shuttered themselves away), and lock their cold, calculating eyes with the woman, never flinching. They're cocky. Cool as cucumbers. Looking for a fight. Their stance is equally splay-legged and defiant, and they're brandishing video-game remotes with the confident dexterity of born gunslingers. When they see the fool woman advance up the mean street, they gamely amble forward with the cagey, shuffling gait of rogues who know how to fight dirty.

It's a showdown. Lives and honor are at stake. Or, at least, summer is.

Of course, the end of life as this mommy knows it won't come until after Armageddon--in the form of a brutal onslaught of year-end marathon-length recitals and parties--the worst torture being the pot-luck buffet dinner at the children's school (if you've never witnessed Italians laying waste to a buffet, consider yourselves lucky--they're like obstreperous jackals). The natives of this sunny peninsula, as we know by now, like to exit stage left with a grand flourish, go out with a bellissimo bang, ceremonialize the trivial, elevate the inconsequential into the monumental--and transubstantiate the inanimate into the celestial. Which means, of course, that instead of just letting us all melt away into 95-degree oblivion for three months, Italian logic dictates that in order to commemorate the mere end of another term we must party like it's 1999.

And then, Judgement Day--ah, yes--when all the good Italian mommies who scour their homes in perpetuity, who iron their kids' underwear, who find time to have their sundry limbs waxed, and who squeeze into skinny jeans and totter about on stiletto heels, will go to Heaven (i.e. the beach for the duration), and all the bad foreign mommies who selfishly enjoy time to themselves so they can read and pursue hobbies--the ones who don't always serve three courses at mealtimes, the ones courting death by wandering the house barefoot, the ones who stockpile Hidden Valley Ranch packets, the ones in wrinkled garments who knock back a cocktail now and again--will be drop-kicked straight into Hell and the door slammed after them. Hell being--in this case--summer in Florence with two kids to keep occupied.

"@!%&@£!!"

(Dear Readers, that's the sound of me girding my loins).

Yours as always,

Campobello

The juggernaut

2011-05-09T09:58:00.011+02:00

Dear Readers,

The season is upon us, like a pox--that time of year when the First Holy Communion Circus rolls into town, like a gargantuan, gaudy, Catholic Trojan horse, obliterating everything in its path, disgorging its cherub-cheeked assailants who then proceed to consume entire weekends in an orgy of inconsiderateness and suck up our hard-earned cash like a brothelful of insatiable hookers.

Here in Italy, la prima comunione has morphed into a metaphysical monstrosity, a sacramental side-show--packing more emotional and material punch than even weddings (the reason for this being that Italians become unhinged and lose all sense of appropriateness when it comes to celebrating their precious bambini). Elaborate ecclesiastical stage productions involving scores of kids are commonplace, with ceremonies lasting longer than the Oscars, and after-parties--with plenty of hifalutin loot--worthy of the Hilton sisters. Of course, this rite of passage didn't used to be such a babel-like behemoth. My husband remembers a solemn ceremony, brief enough, and a small rinfresco afterwards of plain cake and spumante with a few toothless, vellum-skinned, seldom-seen distant relatives--in addition to his immediate family--propped up in chairs lining the musty sala parocchiale. As gifts, he got an ordinary rosary, a small prayer book, and the Italian equivalent of a Mickey Mouse watch.

All the madness of the modern-day version of the event struck me--like a righteous fist--recently, as I walked past a party-supply store boasting a lurid, beribboned, Hindenburg-sized balloon (or mongolfiera) in the window, with "PRIMA COMUNIONE" stamped all over it in gold glitter. It had a cavernous gift basket attached to the bottom, the likes of which could carry a host of little holy rollers around the world in eighty days. Or more.

In reality, that basket is meant to hold a good half-ton of bomboniere, the sugar-coated almonds that traditionally are given as party favors to guests, these days in ever more elaborate and fanciful embroidered linen bundles. Inside each bundle is a little slip of paper with the name of the child and the date of her First Communion in calligraphy, lest you dare forget. Eager parents willingly spend a king's ransom on these bomboniere, and--as with much of the rest of Communion-mania--they have become increasingly secular in tone, and are often adorned with cartoon characters, action figures, or soccer balls and the like. Apparently we've reached that point in civilization when the Son of God needs a publicity boost from the likes of Hello Kitty.

But that's merely the start of the outpouring of cash--there's the fancy luncheon or dinner party to be thrown, the double-tiered gâteau or decadent millefoglie to be ordered from a good pasticceria, the expensive new duds for the ceremony, the trip to the salon for girls beforehand for hairstyling, manicures, and makeup. And then there are the gifts. I tell you, these little squirts make out like medieval sultans after a good plundering.

My baptism by fire, so to speak, was eight years ago when my eldest niece's first communion gala popped up on the calendar. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for--if I had, I would have immediately committed seppuku and been subsequently (and blissfully) absent from the whole affair. First, the gift fiasco: my husband and I had thought to give her a small gold cross necklace of the type that would be appropriate for a young girl to wear--something simple and sweet. Instead, we were requested by her parents (my depressingly bourgeois brother- and sister-in-law, otherwise known as the Bürgermeister and Frau Wiener) to chip in "as much as you can" (i.e. hundreds) for a diamond-encrusted, platinum cross pendant from Bulgari or some such place. I was aghast. This was a bauble worthy of Elizabeth Taylor! (Me being fairly new to this country and to the family at the time, I bit my tongue and the bullet as well, nearly weeping over the loss of two-fifths of our monthly salary. Now, of course, I'd sooner eat a bicycle tire than let myself be coerced into gift-giving. I'd also relish the opportunity to explain to the hopelessly spoiled prospective communicant that you're not supposed to get what you want in this earthly life--that's what being Catholic is all about, goddammit).

In addition to this barbarism, I was forced to endure a hair-tearing three-hour ceremony in a packed-to-the-rafters mega-church, complete with musical numbers and tableaux vivants, and watch some sixty little sheep mince toward the altar where an official event photographer snapped each one posing with the resplendent, golden-robed priest and The Wafer (held aloft)--while Bette Midler's "You are the wind beneath my wings" blasted from the stereo system. My head was splitting, and I had to pee something fierce. Finally the infernal thing came to an end, erupting into a chaos of camera flashes and shouting, and in my delirium I wasn't sure if those kiddies had just been conjoined to the community of Christians or participated in an MTV awards ceremony.

After the elaborate five-course luncheon at a picturesque country restaurant, my imp-eyed niece began opening her gifts and passing them around the huge U-shaped table for us plebeians to see what riches our paychecks were capable of buying. I looked dazedly on while considering the pain-relieving effects of grappa: there was our necklace, smug in its black velvet case, as well as a lovely pair of sapphire earrings, a trendy rhinestone-studded watch, a silver and gold bracelet, and other gewgaws worthy of a maharani. Actually, she was more like the infant Christ turned Elton John and we were the adoring Magi come by way of Madison Avenue. In the years that followed, we enjoyed two more opportunities to dutifully--again at the behest of despotic parents--bestow fine jewelry (and a digital camera) upon my other nieces celebrating their first communion, and suffer through more protracted pageantry.

There may be some Quaker-like mean streak in me, but I can't help feeling that the true meaning of these ceremonies is lost in all the three-ring razzle-dazzle. When did holy get ditched for Hollywood? Don't get me wrong--I'm all for a bit of pomp if the circumstance calls for it, but I think we're drowning the baby in the bath water here.

Because Jesus Christ and Hello Kitty go so well together

Yet I fear we must reconcile ourselves to the onward march of the battalions of First Communion revelers, and resign ourselves to their Broadway-style sacramental blitzkrieg. It certainly seems to be an unstoppable force here in the Bel Paese--comprising as it does that bizarre and powerful mix of Catholicism and unbridled materialism upon which so many Italians seem to thrive. It suddenly occurs to me, though, that perhaps all this sturm und drang really has more to do with satisfying an urge which lies deep in the bowels of the Italian psyche--the boundless appetite for exhibition, the love of spectacle (along with a good party and plenty of good eats)--than anything else. I mean, think about it: why say, merely, "Violetta and Alfredo had a thing for each other," when you can perform La Traviata and bring down the house?

Indeed. Why merely have cake--or the body and blood of Christ, for that matter--when you can eat your cake and flaunt your diamonds, too?

Yours,

Campobello

* The above photo has been blatantly lifted from some Italian mum's blog, wherein she was just tickled pink and oozing self-satisfaction at having scored these babies.

Attack of the five-foot-five heathen woman

2011-04-18T17:25:00.021+02:00

Dear Readers,

This post is in essence a prequel to the last one, and helps explain what set me off on that particular rant. Recently, my mother-in-law ambushed my husband over a plate of pasta and told him how she was so very disappointed and sad that our children were not attending Catechism, and that--by obvious extension--were not going to become good Roman Catholics and would probably wind up flame-licked in Hell (a place apparently brimming over with liberal-minded American wives). Well, as you know by now, my dear discerning Readers, nothing gives my hackles rise so much as a meddlesome old lady.

This latest family drama was set off by--get this--my knick-knacks...and is otherwise known as the Great Tchotchke Rebellion of 2011.

Of course, I know the Family has always looked at me askance because 1) I'm foreign and 2) I was raised (in decidedly lukewarm fashion) Armenian Orthodox--and fed hefty doses of mom's Presbyterianism to boot. Once, my father-in-law actually asked me if Armenians believe in Christ. I said, "No, we worship a swarthy, hairy-backed guy named Garabed, former rug-dealer and the God of Stuffed Grapeleaves." My ever-resilient husband has always been regarded as a black sheep because he habitually questioned the status quo: he visited the Hare Krishnas at Villa Vrindavan and read up on Scientology as a teenager, while his mother wailed and rent her garments. (The fact that he also insisted on doing his own laundry was, to her, further proof that he had come under the influence of Satan). So, on this particular day, she also expressed concern over the "heathen images" and "oriental gods" I have around my house (i.e. my serene Buddhas and lovely, carved teak Ganesh, etc.) and that we have no inanimate Jesuses or Marys to bring the Lord's Light into our home. Naturally, if I were to point out to her that, compared to ancient faiths such as Buddhism or Hinduism, Christianity is a mere upstart religon with a renegade recruiter as its point man, she would choke in righteous horror. Her repeated attempts to counteract my iniquitous knick-knacks and insinuate the One True Faith into our home by gifting us things like a watermelon-sized Holy Family musical snow globe have met with failure. Every year at Eastertime she tries to bring a priest into our house to bless it (or perhaps exorcise it)--doubtless believing that if he flings enough holy water on us we'll repent our heathen ways and return to the tractable fold.

But her cardinal beef with us is that we are breaking with tradition. She implored my husband that they are of good, old, upright and long-standing Catholic céppo [stock] and we, in following our own mutinous minds, are an unsightly blemish on the Family's clear complexion.

***

"Bennett looked at him [a Buddhist lama] with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of 'heathen.'"

Shortly after this latest example of my mother-in-laws' mosquito-like intrusiveness, I happened upon the above sentence in Kipling's Kim. Why is it that so many pious jackasses, in the name of religion, are willing--indeed happy--to succumb to the evils of ignorance and bigotry? As many of you know, my in-laws are slavishly Catholic--if the Pope told them to smear themselves with goat droppings and light their hair on fire, they'd do it. To them--and many like them, Catholic and otherwise--their faith is an exclusive club to which only an enlightened few are admitted, leaving the rest of us primordial slugs roiling in an ooze of sin and godlessness. The audacity of the institutions of men in asserting their proprietorship over God continues to astonish me.

A piece of the devil's own bric-a-brac

To tell the truth, I've never been much interested in a God that doesn't allow questioning, doubting, exploring, and seeing the good in all faiths. I am of the firm conviction that firm convictions based on untested experience and unentrained thought--a path never struck with tentative footsteps--are but pontifical pinpoints somewhere on the continuum of fanaticism. And, I must say, I'm not much interested in placating a mother-in-law (or anybody else) who thinks I'm only as good as my creed.

I've always admired people of quiet conviction, whatever their individual faith--those undetected souls among us who strive simply and compassionately to be an example merely by the life they lead, as individual drops of water lie peacefully within a vast pond, feeling no compulsion to evangelize the other drops of water. If only my mother-in-law--that nosy, thick-stockinged, champion of Christ--had a martyrs' mettle to speak her mind to my face, I would ask her, in all earnestness: "I may be an American Armenian Orthodox Protestant semi-Buddhist truth-seeking feminist heathen decorator--but if you prick me, do I not bleed?"

Alas, I have a hunch that any such appeal to reason and intelligence would fall on deaf--and unwaveringly parochial--ears.

Yours, quietly,

Campobello

Pious envy

2011-04-04T17:31:00.008+02:00

Dear Readers,

My mother-in-law wishes hers was bigger. Her piousness, that is. She does all sorts of things to cultivate it, to make it grow, to nurture it into a veritable Godzilla of godliness.

She goes to Mass every single day. She eats communion wafers like they're Wheat Thins. She has so much tacky, light-up religious paraphernalia that her house looks like a Bible Belt Las Vegas. And without a doubt the most privileged object of her frenzied devotion is the Holy Virgin Mary--the Lady Gaga of her sanctimonious little world.

Motivational poster, MIL-style

And as is fitting with any obsession, Mary is everywhere around here: her chipped, plastic, made-in-the-People's-Republic-of-China form encircled with grimy seashells and enshrined among the geraniums; her flourescent visage flickering spasmodically in a faded sconce above the wool-shrouded marital bed; countless tarnished medals and frayed santini with her beatific likeness scattered around like confetti after Mardi Gras--I could go on. And on.

For my mother-in-law, the notion that any woman could conceive children without having to have sex is like saying that you can have your cake and eat it too. (Or that you can win the lottery without ever buying a ticket, or that you can actually lose weight by scarfing fried calamari and pistachio-studded cannoli). It's such stuff as dreams are made on, and all the powers of her puny imagination fix on the notion of immaculate conception as a kind of wishful-thinking holy grail. She heartily envies Mary her immaculate status; she would give anything to have remained a virgin herself. (Of course, she's happy to have given birth to four children--in less than four years--thereby increasing exponentially her opportunities for self-sacrifice and matriarchal flagellation). I know this because, in her rare vulnerable moments--when a few stiff swigs of orzo bimbo loosens her tongue and lulls her into a confessional mood--she has told me how distasteful the whole rapporto sessuale is to her, etc. etc. (Too much information, and pass the gin, thank you very much!!!) Particularly--I would imagine--with a boneheaded brute such as my father-in-law playing the bumpkinish, carnal yang to her snake-blooded, ethereal yin.

It is the way of fanatics such as my mother-in-law--a woman as cold and unyielding as a pickled herring--to regard being an unsullied virgin mamma (however ludicrous and improbable) as the glittering apex of human evolution, a kind of vestal Elton-Johnhood of mega-galactic proportions, and the holiest of holies, indeed. And of course, equally important for this thick-stockinged, sensible-shoe-wearing, deflowered flower and sacramental junkie, every day is a blessed opportunity to be present at a kind of mind-blowing metaphysical Marypalooza--and to rock out in full unfettered fever as her absolute number one fan.

Lady Gaga wishes she had that kind of star power.

Yours--immaculately and otherwise,

Campobello

Reflections on artichokes

2011-03-10T10:05:00.000+01:00

Dear Readers,

One of the things I love about Spring's first tentative footfalls is the advent of the artichoke. The tema, the morelli--lovely, petite, and as tender as young maidens--I'd much rather be presented with a prickly bouquet of these amiable thistles than any vainglorious flower.

A recent lunch with the effervescent and erudite Patricia of Tillie's Tuscan Table began with one of my favorite dishes: a deliciously astringent salad of thinly-sliced raw artichokes, delicate shavings of parmigiano, and scattered tendrils of arugula. Among many things, we talked of what we, as expats, like about living in Italy. Patricia--in her inimitable way--proclaimed, "Italy's the only place that will support my wine habit." There followed an impassioned discussion of the mind-boggling array of cheap, excellent-quality wines that are ours for the taking. Then I looked down at my plate and said, "Artichokes. Like this. That's what I love about Italy."

And, I must say, I love a lunch like that: the artichokes followed by a thick t-bone of wood-charred veal--so juicy I could cry just thinking about it--accompanied by perfect roasted potatoes and a dish of teasingly bitter, velvety spinach. A carafe of honest house red. Simple things, in season--this is the kind of alchemy at which Italy still excels.

To my companion, I added, "I like living in Italy because my kids get to grow up eating like this. That and the fact that they're unlikely to get shot while in their classroom." The cultural hegemony of the Happy Meal and the Glock 9 has yet to encroach upon this sunny peninsula, thank God.

But, I'm torn. Expat life is complicated--at least for me. On the one hand I seem to be ruled by my gluttonous tendencies and my penchant for old buildings, on the other I often experience a longing so intense that it is at times overwhelming. For home soil? All the soothing right angles of America? The deep comfort of English? The allure of other, as yet unexplored, continents? Yes. For sure. But there's something else.

Tim Parks talks of a sort of "structural conflict" inherent in the expats' life. One of its more obvious aspects is living in a foreign language. He says that he arrived in Verona not speaking a word of Italian, and now he lectures in Italian, and lectures on translating from English into Italian (a most difficult kind of translating). "And every moment, every word I speak, I'm on guard against mistakes, I'm listening to correct my accent. It will never be quite right." Even after some thirty-odd years! But I completely understand him--this constant schism in the brain is fatiguing.

Yet he--as do I--loves Italian. "It has become my destiny," he says, "My whole life is tied up with Italy. And I hate it. I hate it for having become my destiny. For taking up so much space."

For taking up so much space. Sometimes I just want to take the world I inhabit for granted. I don't want to have to think about it. I want all that space which Italy occupies in my life to be freed up, to make room for something--anything--else.

But I'd wager I'm kind of spoiled now, even ruined, so to speak. I'm used to the daily challenges, the fish-out-of-water feeling, the fact that I'm always being forced to learn new things and reflect on the culture in which I find myself. I realize that I may very well be addicted to the expat life--if that space were empty, I'd likely grieve the loss. "Would I get better," Parks wonders, "if I went back to the UK and lived a monochrome English life? Or would I just have the same problem the other way round? Yearning for Italy. Most likely the damage, like the benefits, is irreversible now."*

I often think of moving on; I have a restless nature. Who knows what landscapes the future holds, or what my latitude and longitude will be? It's exciting to contemplate. For now, though, the artichokes beckon and I come to the table--hungry and willing to be satisfied.

Yours,

Campobello

*Tim Parks, Teach Us to Sit Still

Sociable medicine

2011-03-05T12:33:00.009+01:00

Dear Readers,

Sundry winter ills have recently propelled me into the labyrinthine Italian healthcare system, or Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which, I might add [insert oozing sarcasm] is always a pleasure. To me, partaking of this [insert oozing sarcasm again] service is often like being inside Waiting for Godot for all eternity.

But I'm not going to write about all the waiting, the telephoning, the accruing and distributing of certificates and papers, the take-a-number machines, the dingy offices, the vacant-faced medical personnel, etc. What I want to tell you about is the realization--or revelation?--I had that all the elaborate machinations of the system exist in order to give Italy's inordinately large population of old farts--or geriatric mafia--a social life. You see, the more you are forced to hang out in doctors' offices and clinics, the more chances you get to trade grisly anatomical chit-chat with your fellow snowy-domed sufferers.

For example, the doctor's waiting-room I was recently prisoner to was full of black-clad decrepits in shapeless parkas and sturdy shoes, all hacking ostentatiously as if they had tuberculosis, sighing heavily, and bemoaning their fate to those around them:

"Maria Santa, I haven't slept in days!"
"I have The Fever!" (La febbre is always intoned ominously as if one were invoking Satan)
"I can't have a bowel movement!"
"My liver hurts!"
"I've had the runs for a week!"
"My hemorrhoids are acting up!"
"O Dio, I'm unable to swallow!"

These proclamations always elicit sympathetic responses, followed by a curious one-upmanship:

"Well, I haven't had regular bowel movements for thirty years!"
"Well, my pee is purple!"
"Well, the ringing in my ears sounds like the intro to Porta a porta!"

This is a by-product of living in a Catholic country, of course. Suffering is expected, enjoyed even. Since you claim your Celestial Sweepstakes prize in the next, eternal life, you may as well wallow in your own misery in this more temporal existence. And be sure to tell everybody about it (no Anglo-American reticence here, thank you very much!)--indeed, why not compete with your neighbors to see who suffers most? I get the feeling these old folks believe that the size of their eternal reward shall be directly proportionate to the amount of physical suffering they have endured here on earth. Thus, according to geriatric logic, varicose veins equals a meagerly-appointed, single room in Heaven's hostel, while inflamed boils combined with gout and perhaps the insertion of a pacemaker garners a deluxe suite in God's five-star spa & resort, complete with cherubic-cheeked cabana boys serving drinks with paper umbrellas in them, poolside.

There's no shame whatsoever in the body's afflictions, in fact it's all part of polite conversation. When I see a neighbor on the street and volley a perfunctory "hello, how are you?" in passing, I am often stopped and served up a hair-raising tale of invasive surgical procedures, squamous skin conditions with frightening Latin names, harrowing infections of biblical perniciousness, and other torments of the damned. Once, when I went to a neighbor's apartment to return something I'd borrowed, I was met at the door by her harried elderly mother (she lives with her parents, of course) who said, "Oh! Please, wait only a moment--I was just giving my husband an enema. I'll be right back." I then spent an agonizing ten minutes on the threshold, trying not to imagine the goings-on down the corridor, desiring with every fiber of my being to creep back down the stairs, but forced by some perverse sense of etiquette to listen to an enema being administered to--from the sound of things--a most recalcitrant old man. Presently the barrel-shaped Signora returned, huffing and snapping her rubber gloves off crisply, and said, "Now, what is it you wanted?" I tossed her the parcel and fled.

If you listen closely, dear Readers, you will hear it. Like the constant drone of motorini, the never-ending raga of the ailments of the nation's elderly can be heard in every doctor's office, clinic, alimentari, beauty salon, bank, city street or piazza. Blood-pressure and white blood-cell counts, toe fungus, swollen ankles, inert thyroids, osteoporosis--the moribund music is pervasive. What's fit only for the ears of trained medical personnel in other parts of the world is, I repeat, fodder for everyday conversation in the Bel Paese.

I suppose one could view all this senile social interaction as part of the charm of Italy, indicative of a slower pace of life that allows lonely, chatty septuagenarians and their ilk the chance to feel connected to those around them, evidence of a fast-fading way of life that is bound to go the route of the brontosaurus. I suppose one could smile beneficently when a harpy-voiced old crone chirps out the state of her much-belabored intestinal tract in a dull, five-by-six-foot unheated room packed with germ-ridden supplicants. It's enchanting really.

To give yet another example--while standing in line at the pharmacy last week to fill a prescription, I had to wait fifteen minutes while the potato-faced geezer in front of me regaled the pharmacist with the excruciating details of his cataract surgery. And she didn't care one whit that I was waiting (perhaps even in dire need of life-saving medicines), but seemed to be really enthusiastically listening. I shuffled my feet, shifted my weight from one leg to the other, looked at my watch--to no avail. Cataract Man would have his say.

The chosen people

But who am I to criticize, to cast aspersions (and acerbic aspersions, at that)? I know that someday I, too, will be old. And then I, too, may gain great pleasure in recounting at length to the pharmacist (or anyone who will listen) the story of my recent hip-replacement surgery or my losing battle with incontinence--while a host of impatient souls in line behind me riddle my back with imaginary daggers as they wait fruitlessly to fill their prescriptions.

I do believe I shall relish it.

Yours,

Campobello

Hey, you! Mr. Marzipan-man!

2011-02-15T11:30:00.004+01:00

Dear Grown-ups,

My mommy is letting me guest write on her blog--well, I mean, I talk and she types. Because I'm only six years old. But I have things to say. Oh boy--do I!

There's a man, a very strange-looking man, who's in charge of Italy. I don't know why, but his face looks like the browned hide of a caramel apple--and not the good kind, but the kind with all sorts of toxic preservatives, the kind a creepy ex-prison-inmate carny serves you with a leer, the kind my mommy won't let me eat. Also, his hair looks very fake--it never moves! I don't think even a cyclone would muss it up. It looks like a bunch of kids from the scuola materna colored it on with pennarelli--and they were 3 year-olds, so they didn't do a very good job, either. And his skin is very tight and pulled across his face, like someone trying to do a Number Two, or maybe someone trying to do a zombie-face. Anyway, he's scary. He'd make a good scarecrow, though I don't think it would be a very nice thing to do to the crows.

I think he must be a very bad man, because it seems like he's always lying. The reason I think he's always lying is because he's always saying things like, "I didn't do it! Everybody's blaming me! It's a plot!" To paraphrase Shakespeare, methinks he doth protest too much (mommy helped me with that one--I've only just started reading Pimpa). The bad man also says things like, "They're all against me! Nobody loves me! Everyone else is doing it! Puritans and moralists, the lot of you!" Exactly like a big baby. I should know because this is how I used to behave--then I turned five.

A bunch of femmine gathered and marched in Florence this past Sunday in protest of the bad, shellac-faced man. I couldn't go because I had homework to do. But even though I'm small, I'd still like my voice to be heard.

The way I see it, my life in Italy could go in one of two directions when I grow up: I can be an empty-headed velina and future member of parliament, or I can use my brain and considerable spark and do something far more interesting with my life. Why on earth would I want to parade my surgically-enhanced poppe and butt-cheeks around on prime-time television when I could be splitting atoms or discovering a cure for cancer or feeding the world's hungry? Why would I want to be groped by a bunch of whisky-swilling, cigar-puffing, withered old buffoons in a private villa when I could be writing my dissertation, or training for the Olympics, or working an honest job? Why be the stiletto-heeled validation an aging, unrepentent reptile needs? I'd like to take this broom and whip the almond-paste-faced man across his mummified ass (my mommy says sometimes nothing less than a good cuss-word will do the job--especially if it's for a worthy cause). Maybe that'd knock some sense of decency into him. Or at least it might get his hair to move.

So here's what I would say to the man who runs Italy if I could, and if he would bother to listen: I may seem small and weak, I may look tomboyish and very un-velina-like, and my boobs might never grow bigger than hard-boiled eggs--but I'd rather be a garden gnome than be one of your lousy showgirls, or ego-stroking party-favors, or Minister of Lingerie or whatever. You're a rotten apple, Mr. Berlusconi. A trickster, a doofus. Someday, I'll take hearty bites out of men like you and spit them out.

But for now I'm gonna go have some cookies....

Bye!

Gemma

Of plague and panini

2011-01-20T18:50:00.009+01:00

Dear Readers,

Today is the feast day of San Sebastiano, and around Florence all the Misericordias have garlanded their portals and are handing out free little dinner rolls to all comers, in honor of the occasion.

For those of you who don't know, the Misericordia is the centuries-old Catholic-affiliated confraternity that now mostly serves as the Italian ambulance corps and provides supplementary healthcare at supposedly Christian-friendly prices--and San Sebastiano is their patron saint. This being Italy, everybody who's anybody has a patron saint (for example, even Berlusconi has a patron saint: the little-known Saint Pustule, protector of despicable cretins and Viagra-fed pig-fodder). Saint Sebastian, like so many of his zealous colleagues, met a gruesome death: he was martyred by being tied to a post and riddled with imperial arrows, then left for the buzzards to feast upon. He was rescued and healed by a groupie, and then--in a surprising lack of judgement--mouthed-off to the emperor, after which he was summarily, and understandably, clubbed to death. (If you ask me, most of these saints were as tenacious as pit bulls and as dumb as peat moss). Considered the protector against bubonic plague (though I guess he was on sabbatical around 1348-1350) and sundry other epidemics, it's easy to see why the Misericordia adopted him as their mascot.

When I rode past their outpost on my street this morning and saw the sign advertising pane benedetto I thought, "Here we go again--no room in the communal freezer until Easter." You see, dear Readers, my mother-in-law--that serial hoarder and über-Catholic--also loves to stockpile the panini of San Sebastiano. And the reason is obvious: they have been blessed, and by the proper authorities, too (priests are her rock stars). For her, caressing the Eucharist with her tongue, or stuffing two-dozen of these blessed rolls into her freezer (to savor in her private moments) is like leaving a concert with Mick Jaggers' sweaty t-shirt clutched to her delirious breast. To put it bluntly, she gets off on renegade men who know how to whip their audience into a frenzy of adoration. Of course, she also believes that if she crams enough of the pane benedetto down her gullet she'll make it to the promised land that much quicker, perhaps even ahead of everybody else (we all know how much Italians love to jump lines).

So, religiously, every January 20th, she slaps her platypus feet against the asphalt and crosses the street to the Misericordia, where they welcome her with open arms and two large sacks of celestial panini. They know a fanatical groupie when they see one.

Here it is, my mother-in-law's holy Happy Meal

Each little paper bag holds a plastic-wrapped roll akin to something you might scorn at Denny's, and a bonus santino depicting Sebastian in his signature pose, about to be perforated with the arrows of destiny, his rock-stardom assured for all eternity.

Call me irascible, petulant, bilious, choleric and snarky (and I am all of those things, and more)--but I have a question for Sebastiano's roadies: why oh why in the heavenly realm of bread that is Italy are these little flour-and-water benedictions as hard and brittle as a martyr's toenails?

Can somebody please answer that?

Yours,

Campobello

E.T. phon home

2011-01-18T17:06:00.009+01:00

Dear Readers,

Don't expect much from this post. I shan't dazzle you with brilliant word play, I certainly won't entertain you with witty observations, and in fact I just may bore you to distraction. For I have begun 2011 in a colossal fugue.

So much so that this post is actually about my hair. Yep, that's right, my hair. Isn't it enchanting? Aren't you titillated? At the very least I'm sure you're all glued to your screens, mouths agape in horror, as if witnessing the derailment of a train that goes careening off haplessly into the night--metal twisting and sparks flying--and wondering, "No! Is she really going to write about her hair?"

Just watch me.

While all writers have moments of self-doubt, I've spent recent nights writhing under my duvet, my gut smoldering with the sensation of futility, while the hobgoblins of mediocrity wreak havoc on my psyche, certain that I'm some kind of latter-day Bartleby the Scrivener--a tragicomic figure doomed to ignominy and blogging in obscurity. E.T.--in case you were about to make the wrong assumption--does not in this instance refer to the shriveled little gnome from outer space with a penchant for beer (and who is incidentally probably a much better writer than me in his native...whatever he speaks). It stands for Elizabeth the Trite. For that's how I feel lately--like a talentless hack. A talentless hack with bad, bad hair. The worst kind.

Let me first assert that I never begin the new year with resolutions. Resolutions are for suckers. Well, once I did make a new years' resolution, with my best friend Juliann--the only one I ever stuck to. (Or, to which I ever stuck. See? That was a sentence worthy of a talentless hack). The resolution, brilliant in its simplicity, was to learn to drink martinis with both style and aplomb. But I suppose that was less a resolution and more a kind of inebriate, fledgling-boozehound suicide pact a twenty-something Dean Martin might have made with Frank Sinatra--the kind of pact made to kick off New Years' Evening circa 1991 at a teeming bar in the South End of Boston, and merely the first rung on the ladder up to the slide of life-long dissolution. I digress. What I meant to say was that this year began much like every other of late--which is to say, in blinking disbelief. Nevertheless, I was humming along more or less happily in the burgeoning days of 2011, until last Thursday, when the postman rang twice.*

The devilishly good-looking, ever-tanned Giovanni, in his dapper blue and yellow postal uniform, brought me a small Christmas package from a friend in the States that was mailed over a month ago, and I went down to the gate to retrieve it. (The holidays, of course, being long gone--stuffed away like our tree in its cardboard sarcophagus in the dank depths of the ripostiglio. As an added insult, I had to pay the Dogana its customary customs pizzo, or extortion fee, which of course I did because it's useless to fight these things--they're as inevitable as death though far less pleasant).

Only until I went back inside and happened to glimpse myself in the mirror did I realize that I had forgotten to comb my hair--and being a nervous hair-twirler, I had, over the course of the morning spent doing housework and generally antagonizing my computer, worked my locks into feral cave-woman proportions. How could I have committed such an atrocity in front of the handsome Giovanni??!!

Perhaps it was high time I resolved to do something, after all.

I briefly and dementedly considered procuring an always-perfect, easy-to-care-for wig--but knew that it would become the abused plaything of my nefarious offspring, and quite possibly be used as a Swiffer in my own moments of domestic dereliction. Instead, the very next day I stormed into the beauty salon for a desperately overdue tune-up. I go so infrequently (putting it off until I begin to resemble my long-dead grandmother) that I must always endure a serious confab among the staff over how best to handle my hair--with its unruly cowlicks, various layers of grown-out color, and insidious gray stealth-hairs--as if they are attempting to deactivate a bomb or remove a brain tumor.

Unlike most women, I do not take pleasure in a trip to the salon. It's something I feel I must do, like going to the dentist, in order to ensure against one day becoming a toothless, snaggle-haired crone. Anyway, I get through the worst of the color-job and the cut and then I'm in the final stretch--the piega. How did I want my spiffy new hair styled? Lisci or riccioli? The answer was easy, and I gave it without thinking--it's the one I always give: blow it out straight. All my life I've struggled uphill against my natural wave like Sisyphus hauling rock, or Oprah trying to say no to the fried cheese sticks. I've always longed for thick, raven-black, Indian-straight hair--the kind of hair over which wars are fought and empires won and kings enthralled. Cher hair.

On the way home, my sleek new 'do tucked under a jaunty red helmet, I cycled past an electronics store and suddenly screeched the brakes, skidded, and left a black tire-mark of utter decisiveness on the blood red of the bike lane. Why am I forever dissatisfied with what God or Brahma gave me? Why do I force my undisciplined mane to contort into the straight and narrow? Damned if I wasn't going to invest in my locks and shell out €49 for a highfalutin' hairdryer with an attachment that looks like some sort of Henry Ford-era turbine, guaranteed to pump up luscious curls.

So, yes, I bought a phon--that's the annoying way Italians have of saying hairdryer, instead of asciugacapelli. Pronounced like a cross between "phone" and "fawn", it's one of my all-time linguistic pet peeves. According to my Garzanti it's supposed to be fon, from the German Föhn--which means hairdryer (or large, unwieldy sausage)--but for some reason the common way of spelling it is phon, though this is from the Greek phone which means "sound." Which is just dumb. (There are a host of ill-conceived words which have been warped into Italian, the mere hearing of which gives my hackles rise and makes me long to clobber the offending speaker with a Louisville Slugger. Among the worst are water for "toilet," pronounced "VA-tair" as if by some sadistic, imperious, chainsmoking Russian ballet teacher and ex-KGB operative; hamburger [self-explanatory], pronounced "ahm-BOOR-ghair," which sounds just like bile sluicing through a duct; and computer [ibid.], pronounced "kohm--POO--tair" in the manner of a French idiot. Sheesh. If you're gonna hijack our words at least make a semblance of pronouncing them right). Again I digress.

I therefore declare 2011 the Year of My Hair--in which those devil-may-care, insouciant locks shall have their druthers. I promise to nurture them (most of the time) and bask in their curliness. I may be a talentless hack, but I don't have to look like one. Cher, beware.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll ease up on the self-flagellation a bit this year too, and stuff a sock into the maw of my inner critic (who, coincidentally, also has the voice of a sadistic, imperious, chainsmoking Russian ballet teacher and ex-KGB operative). But until I gather the strength, all you big-name writers with your fancy book contracts--well--you've probably got nothing to worry about.

Yours in--hopefully--fugacious fugueness,

Campobello

*A reader and friend--hi there, Alexandra!--was privy to this story via email, poor thing.

Kung Fu Christmas

2010-12-30T18:15:00.002+01:00

Dear Readers,

"A real warrior never quits, and... I WILL NEVER QUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Thus spake Po in Kung Fu Panda (surely one of the greatest animated films ever made), a present from Babbo Natale to my children this year. It occured to me that this is probably the unspoken battle-cry of most people when the holiday season rises up menacingly on the horizon, a tinsel-covered, raisin-studded juggernaut whose blows we must endure--and strive to subdue with every fiber of our being--or be crushed by the sheer soul-sapping force of its pernicious yuletide power.

Ever notice how the Christmas season is described in increasingly apocalyptic terms? Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Stores lure us to their doors at inhuman hours to suffer the tortures of the damned, with the prospect of saving twenty-five percent dangled in front of us like plenary indulgences. Thankfully, many of the crueler punishments of the season are absent or at least milder in Italy, but we do make up for it by packing in more actual holidays, and therefore more opportunities for agony. The beast rears its head here on December 8th--the Feast of the Immaculate Conception--and finishes by crunching the last of our weary bones on January 6th, the Epiphany. Christmas is technically a two-day siege (or two-and-a-half if you count Christmas Eve feasting), with the 26th being Santo Stefano. In Italy it is common to spend both the main holiday meal of lunch as well as dinner together with family (do the math--that's five family meals in three days!) which--if you factor in dysfunction, ignorance, bigotry, bad hygiene, endless hillbilly barzellette, and oafish table manners--makes for a hair-tearing, eyeball-gouging, fingernail-ripping experience. It truly takes a warrior spirit to tackle this most formidable of foes.

If you're curious as to what the End Days will be like, then go to an Italian supermarket on the weekend before Christmas, where you will witness a roiling, writhing sea of frenzied humanity who wield shopping carts like bumper cars, frantically grabbing at shelves and filling their carts as if WW3 was about to break out, and where a thin-lipped, beshriveled old lady in an enormous fur coat will unceremoniously knock you to the ground and pry the very last tub of mascarpone from your twitching hands. (I can think of nowhere better suited to the execution of a few well-placed kung fu moves--if not an all-out Jackie Chan fight scene--than an Italian supermarket on the eve of a major holiday). This insanity is, unfortunately, as much a part of Italian culture and history as the Renaissance--though it's a little-known fact, Dante, in his original version of the Inferno (before the final edit), made suffering perpetual Christmases the tenth circle of Hell.

To further illustrate my point, I'll share with you this electronic missive--and clear cry for help--which I received from a friend on Christmas Day (I imagined him gasping for breath, his trembling hands clawing the keyboard): "...family killing me...like being chained on my back to a rock while vultures tear out my entrails...." We all have an image of how we want Christmas to be, don't we? Something very Norman Rockwell--a snowbound cottage with a crackling log fire and stockings hung by the chimney with care, carolers, the scent of pine, a rustic table set with a glistening roast and rounded by family members whose joined hands give thanks, children whose faces are aglow with pleasure over their new Flexible Flyer. THIS is the Christmas we desperately strive for, the one we fight for--but it's not the Christmas we usually get. Instead, family holiday get-togethers are more akin to getting boils lanced, or having leeches applied--or having your entrails tinker-toyed with by scavengers.

A woman came into the shop a couple days after the holiday, one of our regular customers, a Brit with a clear eye and sassy haircut, and as conversation inevitably turned to Christmas coping strategies, she said matter-of-factly, "I don't think anybody really likes Christmas--it's just something you have to get through." Like dysentery or stomach flu or tax season. So why do we keep torturing ourselves? Flinging ourselves into the breach, year after year?

A wise warrior chooses his battles, dear Readers. And Christmas, with all its swagger and glittery trappings, is an invading army which I prefer to let march right past me, unmolested. Serenity is what I crave this time of year. I strive to be as still as a lotus on a blue pond, as resolute as a stalk of bamboo, and as free as a smooth-feathered crane in flight. It's the time for us four to hole up like moles, share some good food and wine, enjoy the fire glowing warmly in the hearth--while the holiday maelstrom rages outside our door. As kung fu master Oogway sagely observes, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called 'the present.'"

Christmas present, indeed.

Yours,

Campobello

What's wrong with this picture?

2010-12-19T18:14:00.002+01:00

Dear Readers,

As many of you may know, Florence was hit with a Michigan-worthy blizzard the other day, and the city is still reeling from both the incomparable beauty of it all and the utter chaos caused by city bureaucrats being woefully--if not adamantly--unprepared. Without getting into the irony of the fact that apparently Tuscans don't believe in salting their roads as well as their bread, I wanted to describe to you a scene I observed on the evening of the snowstorm, after the worst of it was over and an otherworldly hush had settled over the land. It seemed innocent enough.

I returned home to find my nephew Giulio happily making a snowman in the garden. He smiled broadly and shyly and waved hello, his shaggy mop of dark hair framing his impish face, completely simpatico. A short while later when I went out to get some more wood for the fire, I saw he was still there, the darkening, snow-perfumed sky enfolding him and his Tuscan version of Frosty. Then a shadowy figure emerged from behind the snow-dusted hedge, which was partially screening my view--it was my sister-in-law, Giulio's mother, in the craziest get-up I'd yet seen during this bout of freak weather (thick legwarmers pulled up over sweatpants, a man's parka with a few sweaters oozing out of it at odd angles, a fishermen's hat that was three sizes too big, and bright yellow rubber clogs). After surveying her son's handiwork, she admonished, "Don't stay out too much longer, Giulio, you'll catch cold--besides, it's getting dark." "Sì, mamma," came the obedient reply.

Did I mention that Giulio is thirty years old?

Anglo-Saxon mothers of a certain smothersome and anxious stripe are sometimes called "helicopter moms." Well, then--comparatively speaking--Italian mothers are Sherman tanks. Nothing bulldozes a testosterone-laced Italian male and tramples his independence quite so effectively and absolutely as the crippling, hyper-concerned treads of la mamma italiana.

Don't get me wrong--naturally there's nothing askew about an adult having a little fun building a snowman (I might have gladly made one myself, but being a Michigan girl, I've probably surpassed the Wolverine State quota of 2,500 snowmen per life span). But the next day, while Giulio spent the afternoon proudly putting the finishing touches on his opera d'arte, enjoying the sun and the crisp, rarefied air, another scene was playing itself out....

My 90-year-old father-in-law was shoveling snow--huffing and heaving like an early steam locomotive--alongside Giulio's dad, Luca (who, quite honestly, was faring little better).

The family compound being situated on a large plot of land, we were practically buried by snow--there were no clear walkways, the driveway was inundated, and all the cars were blocked in. Thus there was a certain urgency over the driveway being cleared because Matteo--Giulio's brother, age 27--needed desperately to get out with the car (apparently he wanted to meet up with friends--perhaps to build snowmen of their own). You see, dear Readers, my nephews don't work and both live at home with their parents, like so very many Italians, and seem content to do so for years and years--and years--to come. And while they're the two sweetest guys you'd ever hope to meet, they remain utterly naive and as if frozen in some kind of perpetual childhood, like Peter Pan or Michael Jackson. Of course, the pathetic*, rather clownish figure of the Italian mammone is known the world over and is, I think, as indigenous to this sunny peninsula as wild boar and corrupt politicians with bad hair plugs. I have never seen my nephews take out the trash, help clear the table after meals (let alone assist--gasp!--with actual meal preparation or washing dishes), do laundry, do yardwork--do anything, really, that might be construed as chores or taking the bull by the horns.

My name is Giorgio.
I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.

So--let us consider for a moment the picture I have drawn for you, dear Readers, and then let us contemplate in whose hands lies the future of this funny, ungovernable, boot-shaped outcrop of civilized Europe. Soft and immutable--spending their parents' hard-earned money with alacrity, revving their motorini with careless abandon, gobbling meals with the heedlessness of lactating babes, buttoning up their Cavalli jeans and lacing their Gucci shoes--are these hands capable of scrabbling out a place for Italy in the world that clamors and groans with endeavor outside its very doorstep? To me, these butter-fat, enfeebled, mother-fed hands which prefer to dally with ephemeral pleasures--like snow in Florence--seem far more suited to Neverland than the reality the rest of us mere mortals inhabit.

Yours from the front lines,

Campobello

*An admittedly--an unabashedly--Anglo-Saxon term of judgment for which I offer no apology. To most Italians, of course, there is absolutely nothing conceivably wrong in having your mother either buy or launder your underwear (at age 40 and beyond).

Search Words to live by

2010-12-10T18:17:00.001+01:00

Dear Readers,

As you may know, most bloggers employ a nifty spy-like tool to see who's visiting their site--this involves a tracker that not only gives the readers' location, but any referring sites as well as any search words used to lead folks to the blog itself. Here are a few of the searches that have recently led some intrepid souls to my blog:

"horny midwestern women" This from someone (presumably also horny) in Illinois. I must say I took wicked pleasure in knowing that a lascivious corn-fed lothario seeking to satisfy his rampant lust with some sex-starved daughter of the Grain Belt was led to my PG-13 musings on Florence. That is, until I remembered that I, too, happen to be a, well--er--midwestern woman. Hmm. Maybe I ought to be flattered.

"brazen bm" (that's b.m. for bowel movement, by the way!). This from--who else?--a New Yorker. Now, I ask you, what kind of person needs this sort of information? Was he or she trying to establish the criteria for some kind of defecation Richter scale, presumably progressing from timid, tentative and meek b.m.'s to the boisterous, bold and brazen kind? And more importantly--why? Was this person seeking knowledge, advice, photos, or--god forbid--a YouTube video? At any rate, I'm sure my good, clean blog failed to provide the sought-after answers or relief; in fact, it probably caused the anonymous googler not a little ~~constipation~~--I mean, consternation.

"renaissance toilet" My favorite, from someone in Washington, D.C. A Lavatory Historian researching his dissertation on toilets through the ages perhaps? Someone trying to channel his inner Michelangelo after some bad burritos? Or maybe one of our illustrious politicians was looking to install an antique fixture in his Georgetown colonial, or--dare I conjecture?--the White House. It suddenly strikes me that the renaissance toilet is probably an altogether fitting place in which to deposit one's brazen b.m.'s, don't you think?

Let me just say how very touched I am that in matters scatological or pertaining to midwestern lechery, Google sees fit to lead the little lost lambs of the internet to my virtual doorstep.

Your humble scrivener,

Campobello

Medea with a touch of schadenfreude

2010-12-02T12:18:00.011+01:00

Dear Readers,

To look at her, you wouldn't think my mother-in-law capable of murdering her children. Or poisoning her husband. Or lopping the head off the neighbors' dog with a scythe.

She's a diminutive, demure, hunch-backed, dwarfen old woman who has never worn a pair of trousers in her life. She sports sensible woolen skirts and thick, putty-colored hosiery--and, when around the house, always a long, chintz smock to keep her clothes in respectable condition. When she toddles through the neighborhood in her men's black clodhoppers, head bowed, a benign expression on her face, her hands--with shopping totes dangling from one arm like ganglia--are clasped together tentatively, as if in prayer.

But this is a woman who feeds on the cronaca nera--the sensational journalistic recountings of murder, mayhem and misfortune--like a leech on Jabba the Hutt. For years I have watched her riveted to every grisly news story of infants and fetuses abandoned in dumpsters, toddlers left alone to fall off balconies, and of mothers strangling, stabbing or drowning their own offspring. (Surprisingly, there are thousands of these stories in Italy--clearly, the land where la Mamma reigns supreme has its dark side). The frisson of excitement she experiences over such horrible events is as obvious as the potato-shaped nose on her face. She discusses them endlessly--never failing to interject a devout "O, Signore pietà!" (Lord have mercy!)--and describes all the gruesome details with novelistic brushstrokes worthy of Stephen King. Though my testimony wouldn't hold up in a court of law, I'd swear that at some point her grim narrative begins to sound like wishful thinking.

She's also partial to stories of dogs sinking their teeth into innocent passersby or chewing the arms off babies. She has always harbored the conviction that canines represent malign, satanic forces, and as such should be shunned--like Protestants or feminists--and preferably exterminated from the face of the earth. Even beribboned toy poodles and quivering, hairless chihuahuas send her into paroxysms of fear. When the neighbors' sweet, playful, little black terrier comes prancing and sniffing around, she flees into her house and locks the door as if he were Cerberus incarnate, bent on taking a bite out of her precious pious rump and propelling her into the dank chambers of Hell.

Understand, dear Readers, that my mother-in-law is the most repressed, self-effacing soul there is--she has swallowed her own desires and opinions so long they've metastasized. The notion of free will is as alien to her as, well, wearing pants or ordering in Chinese food. Fanatically serving others in the hope of some Eternal Reward, forever thirsting after a sip from the elusive cup of Life, she's a cross between a heavenly handmaiden with stars in her eyes and a wretched Miss Havisham in a rotting wedding dress.

She didn't choose her life--it was doled out to her like a losing poker hand. And though she endeavors to be a good Catholic, and perform her duties like the good little Christian soldier she is, resentment seeps from her like steam from the lid of a pot kept on a slow, steady boil. She has made innumerable sacrifices for her children and husband--even neighbors and fellow parishoners know her to be easy prey when it comes to their voracious needs. She has told me of the great difficulty she endured in giving birth to four children in under four years, while working part-time as cooks' help and taking care of impossibly demanding invalid relatives, with no help from her paleolithic husband whose only concern was that his meals be on time. Her teeth fell out, her hair thinned, she suffered fainting spells. The midwife told her to stop having children--or get measured for a casket. Her loathing of her husband (the man largely responsible for her servitude) is undisguised, yet she slavishly dispatches her Christian wifely duties--all but one, mind you--as if frantically trying to garner celestial brownie points.

But as the Bard says, "fair is foul, and foul is fair": a while back the doctor told her to slip some liquid valium into her husbands' minestra to calm him down and render him more manageable or some such nonsense, and my mother-in-law asked, "What happens if I give him too much?" with an unmistakable gleam in her eye. Whenever family squabbles arise, she makes sure to fan the flames by playing the "he said, she said" game, pitting one sibling against another with Machiavellian precision, while wringing her hands in feigned concern. If you dare cross her, she lowers her eyes innocently in seeming deference to your opinions--then mounts a campaign of passive-aggressiveness the likes of which would have made even Alexander the Great drop arms and surrender his troops.

And so it happens that Our Lady of Infinite Sacrifice (or Lady Macbeth--take your pick) relishes being the bearer of ill-tidings. You name it, everyone's ailments--including degrees of fever, cataracts, gout, kidney stones, depression, dyspepsia, etc.--along with their financial setbacks, unwanted pregnancies, and myriad other human dramas, is the stuff of conversation. She lays in wait for us to come home from work and accosts us in the courtyard with the latest tales of woe regarding neighbors or family-members. And while it is true that Italians love to discuss illness as much as the English like to talk of the weather, her capacity for ill-omen is unparalleled.

I tell you all this, dear Readers, because this past Sunday morning as soon as we opened our shutters (thus signifying that we were awake, up, and about) she appeared at our door, like a raven, her hands clamped together in what was either meekness or glee, with an air of wistful sadness, and informed us that our 94 year-old neighbor, Ottavino, had died during the night. She proceeded to recount verbatim his wife Lisetta's mournful ululations, and speculated about whether or not she'd now be put into a casa di cura by her daughter, or given over to the care of one those immigrant slave-girls called badanti. She lingered at our doorstep, eyes downcast, shoulders shrugged at the inevitability of death, nursing homes, and thankless children--savoring her words and the moment.

The ancient Greeks coined the term catharsis--meaning (theatrically speaking) that in order to fully experience their tragedies on the stage, one necessarily entered into the unfolding drama, as it were, and emerged emotionally cleansed. Perhaps my mother-in-law--through her obsession with the calamities and misfortunes of others--is merely purging herself of her own latent fears and frustrations. Perhaps her behavior is harmless enough--however morbid--and I'm a wicked, wicked woman to suspect her of ulterior sentiments.

But be assured of one thing, dear Readers--I watch my back around that little gray-haired, chintz-covered goblin. Because how she really feels about having a wilful, outspoken, independent-minded American daughter-in-law is anybody's guess.

My best regards,

Campobello

(*photo credit: above, Maria Callas as Medea in the film by Pier Paolo Pasolini)

Certifiably insane

2010-11-12T17:51:00.003+01:00

Dear Readers,

After living in Italy nearly a decade, I am certain--though they would cagily deny their own existence, like the mafia--that there's a secret cadre of fiendish bureaucrats locked away in a dank room in a crumbling palazzo somewhere, smoking cigars and guzzling grappa, their flat, brittle, octogenarian bums scraping against cracked leather upolstery, plotting ways to make everybody's lives ten-thousand times more complicated than they need to be. They're the kind of villains you'd see in old silent films, curling their handlebar mustaches and rubbing their hands together with Machiavellian glee.

There are many, many examples I could give to illustrate their dastardly deeds, but I am going to focus on only one at present: the certificato medico (medical certificate). Italians love to certify just about everything--from acts of Parliament to acts of God. To this end, notaries do a brisk business (while making a killing, their fees being notoriously exorbitant), and you practically need a marca da bollo (official stamp) just to pass gas. But the medical certificate has to be one of the cruelest punishments ever inflicted on the Italian populace.

Let's say I fall ill. I'm wracked with fever, my nose is gushing, I feel like I've been run over by a bus. Naturally, I call off work. But do I get to crawl back into bed, perhaps with a hot cup of honey-laced tea, and slip into a restful coma? No! I have to haul myself over to my doctor's ambulatorio and wait two hours in an unheated antechamber with a bunch of ancient hypochondriacs who prattle on endlessly about their aching vertebrae and loose bowel movements, while inside my skull aboriginal rhythms are pounding themselves out mercilessly. I need to get my doctor to certify that I am indeed sick enough to miss work--even for just one day (apparently bringing my employer an enormous pile of slimy, used tissues is not proof enough). The process of certification entails the doctor listening to me say "I'm sick" while observing my variously oozing bodily humors, after which she fills out an official slip of paper and hands it over to me. Ah, but it doesn't end there, dear Readers! This piece of paper has two sections, one of which I am to give my employer upon my return to work, and the other is to be dispatched immediately to INPS (Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale), the government arm which pays out sick leave. This must be done--under penalty of death--by registered mail, which means (oh, joy!) a trip to the post office. So, after enduring the doctor's office, I'm forced to drag my flu-ridden mass of molecules over to the nearest branch of the Poste Italiane, take a number (usually #101 out of 500), and stand and wait, praying that I infect the dour-faced employees who move slower than indolent, dyslexic sloths.

Exhausted, I return home after 3 or 4 hours of divertimento. All this to absent myself from a five hour work shift. Complicating the whole endeavor is the fact that my doctor has her ambulatorio in my vicinity only four times a week--three miserly morning slots, and once, more amply, in the evening (though the place is usually teeming like a leper colony). The post office closes adamantly at 1pm, so you really have to hustle if you want to be beaten down and tormented in timely fashion.

Here's another example: recently, I wanted to enroll in a yoga class, having decided that I ought to start looking after my well-being and de-stressing in a way that doesn't involve popping a cork. I went for a free trial lesson at a lovely yoga studio, tried not to blanch at the enrollment fees, and was given a brochure that explained their policy. When I got home and read it, I was surprised to see that a certificato medico was required before one could participate in classes. "A medical certificate for an hour of beginner's yoga a week?" I thought to myself, "We're not talking rugby, pole-vaulting, or the four-minute mile here--this is downward dog, the sun salute, the corpse pose for god's sake!" So I did what I usually do in these cases of bureaucratic water-torture--I narrowed my eyes, clenched my jaw and prepared to submit. I dropped by the pharmacy the next evening and asked the pharmacist if she would leave a note for my doctor (who'd be in her office next door the following morning) asking for a certificate saying something along the lines of "Ms. Petrosian is unlikely to drop dead of cardiac arrest if she were to do a wee bit of yoga."

"Ah, but for the certificato medico sport non agonistico [non-agony-inducing?] you have to pay," said the pharmacist. "Oh! Ah, um, er...how much is it?" I asked, with trepidation. "Usually around 35-65 Euro." I nearly went into cardiac arrest right there. "Does that mean she has to examine me? You know, give me an EKG, stress test, repeated flagellation with a yoga strap?" "Typically no--it's just for the certificato itself." I see. Just to have a simple piece of paper from my primary-care physician, for whose service and the national health service in general I render lavishly and unfailingly unto Caesar, I was being asked to shell out an extra tithe. Disgruntled and fuming, I went home and tallied up the total real cost of doing yoga (I discovered that these certificati for sports have to be renewed every year) and thought, to hell with it. I ordered some yoga dvds from Amazon UK instead.

(By the way, in order for children to participate in any remotely sporty after-school activity, they need to have a medical certificate--which needs to be re-issued every year, of course. If you have two or more children, doing at least one activity each, you can see how the costs swiftly add up. If you add in parents who might like to join a gym or something profligate like that, there's some serious lining of pockets going on).

One last anecdote and then I'll leave you in peace, dear Readers. My son suffers from a few food allergies, and in order to eat at the mensa every day at school, he needs--you guessed it!--a certificato medico attesting to the fact. Naturally, as his mother, I am the last person on earth qualified to communicate a health condition to the school (though, apparently, I am deemed responsible enough to pay the lunch bill of €140 for two children every month). This certificate has to be re-submitted every scholastic year, though thankfully it is free of charge. So, at the beginning of September, I girded my loins and set out to procure this year's certificato for Giacomo.

Our pediatrician only takes calls from--get this--8:15-9:15am, Monday thru Friday. Not a minute before, not a minute after (always tricky, given that I have to squeeze my work commute into this time-frame). Usually the line is busy because 400 parents are trying to reach him simultaneously, and I have to hit re-dial, oh, maybe 62 times before getting through. (You could call during his afternoon ambulatorio, interrupting him during office visits, but only if a kid's on their death bed--and be prepared to grovel). Anyway, eventually I get through, ask for the certificate, he agrees to have it ready for pick-up the following evening, my husband brings it home. I hand it over on the first day of school, quite pleased with myself.

Well, two days ago the school called because Giacomo ate something with egg in it and had a mild reaction. Egg wasn't included among the allergens listed in the medical certificate, I discovered--apparently the doctor forgot, and I, being so distracted from running around after all these damn certificati, didn't catch the omission. I was told that a NEW (and improved) certificato was needed immediately so my son wouldn't be served any more egg.

If this is all starting to sound like a play by Beckett or Ionesco, then you're beginning to understand what it's like to live under this uniquely Italian form of bureaucratic despotism.

***

An enlightened Italian pediatrician--bless his subversive soul--wrote a wonderful article railing against useless medical certificates.* In it he makes the following calculations:

--Italy has around 7,000 pediatricians, who are writing on average 10 medical certificates a day, thereby producing some 70,000 certificates per day (these certificates are needed for many absurd reasons besides sports and food allergies), and consuming an estimated 14,000 reams of paper per year.

--He supposes that for every certificate issued, a parent must spend at least a half-hour in getting it, which adds up to some 35,000 hours per day. This in turn adds up to a conservative estimate (based on 200 days) per year of 7,000,000 wasted hours, or the equivalent of one year of work by 4 full-time employees.

--He rightly assumes that most of these trips required to pick up and deliver medical certificates are made by car. Estimating a minimum of 2 km distance per certificate, on any given day, then, some 140,000 km are being traveled! That's 28,000,000 km per year, with a consumption of gasoline estimated at 2,000,000 litres.

He concludes by saying that maybe--just maybe--this "festival of idiocy" will one day end, and that all the time and energy expended over medical certificates (requesting them, producing them, procuring them, distributing them, reading them, organizing them, filing them, saving them, etc.) can then be invested in things that are infinitely more useful and gratifying.**

So lest you wonder why Italy's economic growth rate is something like minus 22%, or why we're not producing any more Nobel Laureates, the answer is easy: everyone is far too busy chasing after certificati medici.

My best regards,

Campobello

*"Tutto bene: ecco il certificato medico inutile," di Vincenzo Calia, in Un Pediatra per Amico, n.1, gennaio-febbraio 2007. For those of you who read Italian, it's worth a google.

**I would add that if you're reading this it means you are at least minimally computer-literate. And therefore you--like me--may very well ask yourselves why, in this the 21st century, Italy doesn't avail itself of technology and have these interminable certificati simply wing their way through cyberspace, granting us all--our much-suffering environment inlcuded--some relief?

Dieting, Italian-style

2010-10-30T01:18:00.003+02:00

Dear Readers,

I am surrounded by temptation. Everywhere I turn there are wonderful things to eat: luscious cheeses, heavenly breads, fresh pasta topped with ambrosial sauces, pastries that make you go weak in the knees, and a dizzying variety of inexpensive, excellent wine to wash it all down with.

I'm only human. And American, at that. Let's just say that I have been wantonly overindulging a bit lately--oh, maybe for the past two years--and I've put on weight.

So, last spring, I decided I would avail myself of the national health service (the SSN, Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, for which I am taxed mightily) and go see a dietician. After getting the referral from my primary-care doctor, I rang up in May and was given--according to the dragoon I spoke with--the earliest appointment available... in late October. "Holy crap," I thought to myself, "are there that many fat people in Florence?" I consoled myself with the fact that at least it was in 2010.

Meanwhile, I kept eating....

Let me say right off that I have a natural antagonism toward diets. Apart from the obvious fact that they suck all the joy and spontaneity out of life (no more "Oh, look--there's a big plate of fried calamari! I do believe I shall eat it!"), it's the pictures of dieting women in magazines that really turns me off. These photos invariably depict winsome females enjoying healthy, low-fat meals--usually a dwarf-size bowl of leafy salad greens standing at crisp attention, cupped in the slender and well-manicured hand of a dewy-cheeked maiden dressed in white, who is serenely slipping a cherry tomato into her rosebud mouth with her fingers. Head tilted back, creamy throat exposed, her eyes are closed in profound rapture and the expression on her face is one of pure ecstacy--a pomodororgasmo. I don't know about you, dear Readers, but starvation rations turn me into a wild, hollow-eyed beast craven with hunger, hair standing on end, and itching to pick a fight. (That wouldn't be a very pretty picture, now, would it?)

Anyway, five months and four kilos later, the appointed day finally arrived. Of course, it's a miracle I even remembered I had the appointment. Well, actually I had ample time to have the date tattooed on my arm.

After getting off work, I cycled across half the city on heavily-trafficked viali, dodging double-parked cars and fiendish buses like Frogger, to get to a forlorn clinical outpost on the far edge of Florence's wild west side. "They better hand me the dietary holy grail, after all this!" I cursed to myself.

After the usual bowing and scraping, I entered the waiting area for Dietologia/Allergologia/Neurologia. Besides me, there was a lone, elderly Asian man who was so thin he looked like a Giacometti. I flopped into a chair, overheated from my two-wheeled odyssey, expecting to wait because I was 20 minutes early. But instantly a door opened and a white-coated woman called out "C'è qualcuno per dietologia?" Since Chopstick didn't move, I shyly stood up, like a schoolgirl caught off guard and asked to name the state capitol of North Dakota. "Prego, Signora. Si accommodi." I followed her into her office, somewhat perplexed. If it takes five months to get an appointment--or better, an audience--shouldn't that waiting-room be teeming, like Purgatory? Shouldn't there be fat people wedged into every chair, sprawled on the floor, banging on the door to get in? Shouldn't there be the din of bulimics retching in the bathroom?

Nope--I just sailed right in, all ______ kilos of me. (If you think I'm going to disclose my real weight on this blog, you're off your tarallini, dear Readers.)

The dietician, a sturdy woman with an attractive mop of curly gray hair and disconcerting pink frosty lipstick, seemed amiable enough. She weighed me in, and I couldn't help but blurt out, "Of course I was THINNER back when I made the appointment!!!"

Then we got down to business--she asked me what I normally eat. I said, "Why don't you ask me what I normally DON'T eat and we can get through this a lot quicker." She seemed surprised at my breakfast, a marked departure from the typical Italian colazione of cappuccino and a cornetto. When I told her I usually eat two slices of whole wheat bread topped with some cottage cheese, butter, or even peanut butter and a dab of jam, along with my caffelatte, she raised her eyebrows as if I'd said I was polishing off a side of beef every morning. And when I complained that this Grand Slam breakfast--eaten at 7:00am, before walking the kids to school and before bicycling to work--didn't carry me through til 2:30pm when I get home and have lunch, she was mystified, "But you should be fine after having such a big breakfast!" After much cajoling/groveling/begging on my part, she conceded me a medium-size piece of fruit or a couple of crackers as a mid-morning snack--like Marie Antoinette tossing a crust of bread to the rabble.

She then prescribed to me the typical Italian diet for shedding unwanted weight: basically I have to eat the equivalent of one full meal (that is, a primo of carbs and a secondo of protein) divided in two between lunch and dinner, with veggies galore, and only three miserly spoonfuls of olive oil per day. Other austerities were thrown in for good measure: 40 grams of this, 70 grams of that, blah blah blah. Oh, and I'm supposed to eat all this wretched fruit (Italians are obsessed with freakin' fruit!). She quickly wrote everything out in inky swirls on my personal pre-printed diet form. Then she delivered her below-the-belt blow--but I suppose it's no surprise really--no wine allowed. I stifled a sob.

However, I was somewhat mollified by the fact that she was clearly very impressed with my 40 minutes round-trip of biking to and from work everyday (admittedly at a cautious snails' pace, given the bloodthirsty nature of Florentine traffic). To her I was Ironman. "But shouldn't I do more? Break a sweat with some intense cardio?" I asked. "No, no! What you do is enough!! If anything, perhaps add a passeggiata* with your family on the weekend."

Common sense, dear Readers--while utterly sensical--is just so damn boring. I was half-hoping to be given a crazy, exotic diet--say, the All-Gnocchi Diet or the Wild Boar Diet or the 3-P's Diet (pizza-polenta-pasta). The whole experience, I must admit, was a bit of a let-down. After waiting five months, I had built up a lot of expectations. It was rather like going down the rabbit hole and finding...a rabbit.

And there was no inspirational spiel forthcoming either--the dietician said gravely in what I suppose is the Italian version of a pep-talk, "Now, with this diet you will lose the weight very, very slowly. But it is better that way. And don't expect to ever go back to how you were before you had your children." (Sane? Able to speak in complete sentences? Permitted to pee in private?) She tucked my diet plan into a large, white envelope and gave me her benediction. Then I was back on the swarming viale, sitting on a bench in the waning autumn sun before setting out, and contemplating my immediate, lean future.

I could sure go for a juicy bistecca

So--considering I had to wait five months to be told that I have to eat like Gandhi until the kids are in college--I went home that evening and popped open a bottle of Grecanico and a carton of my beloved pistachios.

Gandhi could wait til Monday.

Yours,

Campobello

* these traditional über-leisurely strolls are performed equally well by women in three-inch stilettos, stumbling toddlers in poo-laden diapers and, well, stumbling octogenarians in poo-laden diapers. Hardly the kind of no-pain/no-gain advice I was hoping for.

The Christmas Cake that nearly ate Halloween

2010-10-26T21:00:00.011+02:00

Dear Readers,

I returned home from work late the other evening and an unspeakable horror met my eyes.

There was a panettone sitting on my kitchen counter.

For those of you unfamiliar with this traditional Italian (originally Milanese but now ubiquitous) yuletide cake, it looks rather like a plump, burnished-brown cupola. Or a squat, toasted chef's toque. Or a giant, megalomaniacal cupcake. It is typically studded with candied fruit and is --unless you get a really good one--probably the most unimaginative, boring, dirt-dry, holiday dessert you're ever likely to eat. But, in any event --and this is really the crux of the matter--it's supposed to be served at Christmastime. Mere custom, of course, being of no consequence to my mother-in-law (she of the demure woollen skirts, thick support hose, size 10 men's clodhoppers, and hoard-mentality), who was without a doubt responsible for the abomination.

For a second I just stared at the thing, stunned, while it sat there in all its tawny malevolence, and my mind did some quick calculations. Was this one of last year's leftover panettone? Or the year before that??? Or, if I were to examine its packaging, would I find the expiration date as sometime soon after the Protestant Reformation??!! Then I realized--egads!--she's already stockpiling them for this year!

I'd heard rumors that some of the supermarkets were already carrying Christmas items, and you see, dear Readers, my mother-in-law suffers terribly from POCD--Panettone Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She can't help herself. As soon as they hit the shelves, she methodically makes the rounds of all the supermarkets within a 15-mile radius, gathering discounted panettoni, and squirrelling them away god-knows-where. She's hasn't the slightest interest in quality--she lives for the rock-bottom, two-for-one, bargain-basement panettone--it's all about quantity. (Forget the true Christmas message of selfless giving, forget that there are millions of people starving in the world--she is determined to build a bunker of hoarded panettone and barricade herself within, a shriveled Eva Braun clutching a plastic shopping tote and her tessera sanitaria).

This mite of a woman--who normally never ventures beyond the confines of the neighborhood--will actually board a bus in her quest for €1 cakes. During the month of December, she is always seen humped-over and carrying a panettone or two--along with kilos of mandarins, dates, and walnuts, in preparation for the Yuletide Onslaught--returning home from her shopping expeditions far afield. To facilitate her obsession, she cadges all the fidelity cards of everyone in the neighborhood in order to score the best deals on panettone in every supermarket chain in the city. She does this without shame.

And she typically starts serving panettone at every meal (that is, breakfast, lunch and dinner) from Christmas onward, desisting only for a brief hiatus around Pasqua (when she begins hoarding colomba--the dove-shaped Easter cake). Summer usually sees her dishing out an alternating mix of panettone-colomba, supplies of which only tend to exhaust themselves sometime around the Feast of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (This may or may not be coincidence: I'm sure if Mary ate that much panettone, she could only have ascended into heaven with the aid of a forklift).

"My kingdom for a panettone!"

Normally all this insanity begins in say, late November. So you can understand, dear Readers, why I was utterly caught off guard to see one of her cursed Christmas cakes this early on. Clearly it's a sign of the degenerative nature of POCD. She ought to be sedated.

What to do with the damn thing, I asked myself? I toyed with the idea of carving a jack-o-lantern out of it, lighting a candle inside and such--but I was afraid it would caramelize and then explode in a shower of candied citron and raisins. So instead I attached this note to its jaunty cellophane wrapper and, under cover of darkness, stealthily and summarily dumped the thing on her doorstep:

"Dear Madame: please remember that I am a CHRISTMAS CAKE, who particularly resents being foisted on heathens* well before the Anniversary of the Birth of His Most Excellent Lord, Our Saviour Jesus Christ. Your cooperation is most appreciated. In dulci jubilo, etc. etc."

Yours in all the spirit of the season,

Campobello (the Wicked Witch of the Jest)

* We weathered my mother-in-law's full-watt, passive-aggressive displeasure not long ago when we informed her in no uncertain terms that our son would NOT be going to catechism this year (since we ourselves don't go to Mass and generally think the Catholic Church is just another kind of mafia, or Baywatch with cassocks). She moped around with a muso lungo for three weeks.

Cultural imperialism, one sandwich at a time

2010-09-30T09:49:00.030+02:00

Dear Readers,

I'm feeling guilty. I served a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to an Italian child yesterday.

Granted, the ingredients were top-quality: unadulterated peanut butter from the Netherlands, delicious locally-produced strawberry preserves, durum-wheat bread. And yet, I couldn't help but think that I was being horribly blasphemous.

To be completely truthful, I have never been a huge fan of PB&J--sure, I was fed Skippy and Welch's as a child, but as soon as I hit middle school, the days of such gloppy kid-grub were behind me. Peanut butter reappeared in my life only when I was pregnant with my first child, in the form of a major first-trimester craving--but I Italianized it somewhat by eating it plain on top of fette biscottate. Recently, however, while racking my brains to try and come up with a new act in the culinary variety-show all we moms stage for our children, it occurred to me to try and introduce this quintessentially American concoction. After all, I thought, it's part of their heritage--like baseball and televangelist sex scandals.

Well, my son gave the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich rave reviews, and for the past couple months has been devouring them happily, even for breakfast. But yesterday I was unprepared for the timorousness I felt when Giacomo asked for one as an after school snack while his friend Marco was over. My experience with many Italian mothers is that they are very particular about what goes into their childrens' mouths, and most of them seem to cultivate bizarre, arbitrary culinary aversions and eccentricities: no tomatoes for Alessandro, nothing fried for Gaia, Leonardo only eats pasta, Matilde won't eat cheese, absolutely nothing spicy for Francesco, Irene is strawberry-intolerant, Pietro hates bananas, no-primi-only-secondi for Maria Giulia, no beans in Mirko's minestrone, etc. Italian mothers love to regale you with the list of all the foods their kids refuse to eat and how impossibly picky they are. I've discovered, in the course of such conversations, that it is really the parents themselves who are impossibly picky, and this culinary fastidiousness gets handed down to their offspring like DNA. As you can imagine, in this kind of hostile atmosphere, consuming ethnic food, or cibo straniero, is tantamount to digestive treason.

So--I asked the notoriously-picky, little sandy-haired bambino if he was sure he wanted to try a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. By way of explanation I said, "It's kind of like Nutella, only peanutty," (Italian kids scarf Nutella like it's manna). I opened the jar and let him smell it. Since he neither fainted nor recoiled in horror, I thought, "okay then, here goes!" I carefully prepared the foreign sandwiches like an offering for the Black Mass and set them before the boys.

The verdict? Marco LOVED it. He went on and on about how good it was: "è buonissimo! Buonissimo davvero!"

But while I smiled inwardly at this small triumph of American culinary firepower, part of me felt as if I was corrupting this child. I couldn't help but wonder about Marco going home and telling his mother what he ate at our house. "You ate what? Cosa? Burro d'arachidi e marmellata??? Ma non ti fa male la pancia? [your tummy doesn't hurt, does it?]."

Of course, I need not expound on the glories of Italian cuisine here--its merits have been exalted in countless cookbooks, televsion programs, journals, etc. to the point that it's now part of the collective unconscious. Italians themselves have unbounded faith in its being the best cuisine on the planet. In fact, more Italians worship their mamma's recipes than they do any deities within the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, we Americans have earned a very bad reputation for our culinary paganism--which makes serving a humble, un-pedigreed, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to an Italian seem like a subversive act. Italy has already seen more than its fair share of the onslaught of American culture in the form of supermarkets, shopping malls, megaplexes, bad 80's television shows, and the ubiquitousness of poppa-khorn at childrens' parties. Must I, too, attempt to colonize the Bel Paese--offending its culinary heritage with my seditious after-school snacks? Am I some kind of peanut-butter-wielding, arrogant, Mommy-Raj?

No, surely the sacred and the profane can exist side by side. Surely peanut-butter-and-jelly can cohabitate peacefully with the very Florentine schiacciata. Surely, by making room for my innocent little American sandwich, the grand edifice of Italian cuisine will not topple and fall into ruin like some lost, decadent civilization.

Or will it?

Yours,

Campobello

The strange, sad tale of Mr. Rabbit

2010-09-20T15:33:00.005+02:00

Dear Readers,

My neighborhood is full of characters. Really, at times I feel as if I'd landed in a Fellini film.

For instance, there's the woman whom everyone refers to as "La Pazzarella" ("crazy woman")--a wildly-gray-haired Hermes who rides up and down the street on her bicycle in the same ratty brown parka year-round, small suitcase akimbo in her basket, ranting and doomsaying at the top of her voice. Apparently, some years ago her lesbian lover died and she's been off her hinges ever since. There's Maria "La Sarda" ("the Sardinian," forever known by this moniker even though she's been in Florence 60-odd years)--a tiny, plump, witch-voiced widow with raven-dyed hair whose husband used to beat her, and who is partial to the skinned rabbits' heads my father-in-law supplies her for use in her Sardinian brews. Tullia, another old widow (we're rife with them)--so big-boned she looks like she could tear a man to pieces with her bare hands--often shows up at a strategic hour at my in-laws' house and stands beside the table, in tears, bewailing her widows' lot throughout their dinner, or at least until she's invited to sit down and eat.

I've only heard tell of a certain Valkiria (that's Valkyrie--can you imagine having such a name?!); I've never met nor seen her around.  Legend has it she's morbidly obese and can't leave the house--one sees only her husband, Vittorio, scurrying about the neighborhood procuring victuals to take home to her. Maria Grazia, another heavy-weight, with a voice like a hen being slowly eviscerated--is to be avoided at all costs. If she manages to corner you, she will blather on and on until you begin to drool and your eyes roll back in their sockets. Margherita ("Daisy"), is an ancient, toothless, snow-haired crone who always sits on a tiny stool in front of her building, croaking "ciao bello!" to all the bambini and cadging groceries and handouts from any passersby with plastic shoppers in hand.

Then there's Don Germano, the sweet-yet-curmudgeonly chain-smoking club-footed priest, who is so infirm he can barely stand and deliver the homily (well, at least they're always brief).  Our neighborhood convent boasts a small coterie of cloistered Benedictine nuns--all of them decrepit yet eternally girlish, in the way of women who have been cut off from men, the world, and dvd's of Sex and the City. There's Balestri, the local handy-man--a glossy-domed, ham-faced geezer who totters purposefully up and down the street in his weighty tool-belt, lugging power-saws, two-by-fours and ladders.

Our postino, Giovanni, is perma-tanned and handsome as sin, always jovial, and possessing the utterly relaxed air--endemic in many government employees--of one who never, ever works too hard or takes things too seriously. Lisetta (or "little Lisa"), a putty-lump of an old biddy with a voice like a sandpiper, is so averse to the (admittedly) voracious Tuscan-variety of mosquito that she goes around all summer wearing long-sleeves and trousers whose ends are secured with rubber bands, and a large hat covered with a gauzy veil--like some strange geriatric Florentine beekeeper.

I could go on, of course. But I wanted to relate the story I heard recently from Signor Coniglio (I prefer to think of him as Mr. Rabbit; it sounds rather fairy-tale-like in English). He's an old gentleman, egg-shaped, kind-faced, with a small, elegant mustache, who works as a part-time gardener at the rather grand villa up the hill behind our house.  He is also a volunteer driver for our neighborhood Misericordia--the ages-old charitable medical/ambulance corps. I have a soft spot for Mr. Rabbit because of a kindness he showed me a few years ago. My daughter Gemma, then three, had seen fit to stick a small bead up her nose, and I needed to get her to the hospital so it could be removed safely. I walked her over to the Misericordia and Mr. Rabbit drove us to the emergency room. He stayed with us and even helped me, the doctor, and two nurses hold the banshee-like Gemma down while the bead was extracted--then drove us home, chatting softly and amiably all the way.

                                                           ***

One day recently, on his way up to the villa, Mr. Rabbit stopped in our garden and, for reasons I could not fathom at the time, told his story.

"You know that I come from Sicily--my wife and I came up here in the 1950's. Well, I was born and raised in Palermo. My given name is Castrense, Castrense Coniglio, though I've always gone by Enzo. [Castrense, which is a decidedly odd name for a child, was an obscure medieval Southern Italian saint whose shrine is in Monreale--though now he does have his own Facebook fan page]

We were poor and my mother had to go outside the home and work. From just shortly after the time I was born, she would leave me in the care of my older brother. He would brutalize me. I have a memory from when I was six months old. How can I remember something from when I was only six months old, you might ask? Doctors have since told me it is impossible to have memories from only six months old, but I tell you I have this very, very distinct memory from that time.

I was alone with my brother and I was crying, as babies do. He became enraged, and took the safety pin from my diaper and jammed the sharp end into my backside. He pushed it in deeper and deeper, as deep as he could. He twisted it. I felt it hit my tailbone, then go in. I was screaming in pain, but he didn't stop, he just kept twisting it into the bone until the pin broke off.

As I got older--old enough to talk, I suppose--my brother would threaten me never to tell that story to our mother or to anyone. He said if our father found out he would kill him. So I protected my brother. To make sure I wouldn't tell, he used to grab my jaw and squeeze so hard I thought it would break, until I swore to him again I wouldn't tell a soul. My jaw and lower face became deformed with these repeated assaults.

I have always suffered from intense spasms of pain in my left leg, as a result of my brother's brutality. Finally, in the '70's, with the availablity of MRI's, the doctors were able to see the source of my pain--the pin that remained stuck in my tailbone. They operated on me to remove it.

Well, they managed to remove part of it--it had rusted, you know--but the rest of the pin remained embedded, too close to a major vein to be safely removed. Over time, layers of bone had grown over it and around it--which the doctor explained was the bone's way of trying to heal itself and minimize the foreign object. It's as if the pin became part of the bone itself. So, you see, I will never be completely free of the pain."

As he spoke, Mr. Rabbit's usually soft, round, mellow voice was edged--just slightly--with a certain rawness, and with what I think was a kind of longing.

                                                               ***

For his faith, San Castrense was made a prisoner. His persecutors intended to load him onto a battered boat and send him off into the sea, leaving him at the mercy of the waves, sure that he would sink and drown. But an angel appeared to him and, telling him what trials lay in store, assured him not to despair.  The angel said that, whatever fate awaited him, a wonderful place had been prepared for him, a place of peace in which he would be liberated from every horror. And so it happened. According to the legend, San Castrense's boat, quite miraculously, reached the shores of Campania safely. He went on to live his life, in service to others.

Yours,

Campobello

Not for beginners

2010-09-04T22:10:00.008+02:00

Dear Readers,

I write this with a chilled martini glass of bubbly Citrosodina (think Italian Alka-Seltzer) by my side. Here's why: I just got back from an Italian wedding.

If there's one area where Italians excel, one innate skill they possess that places them leaps-and-bounds beyond all others--it's feasting. Indeed, if marathon eating were an Olympic sport, the Italians would be undefeated world champions. No one can touch them.

Let me describe the proceedings. After a hot, midday ceremony in the Red Room of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, our group--some 100 of us--made its way to a lovely agriturismo in the nearby Chianti hills. We arrived at about 1pm, and awaiting us was a fabulous outdoor buffet of traditional antipasti layed out on a mile-long groaning-board and flanked by a battalion of waiters who began serving us with crisp, military precision. People fell upon the food with rapacious enthusiasm, like bliss-filled wolves. All the Tuscan crowd-pleasers were present: a spinel-colored haunch of prosciutto being carved by a sepoy-like, grave-faced old hand; trays of fried zucchini and their blossoms, eggplant, and squares of polenta; little quivering balls of fresh mozzarella swimming in their own milk in a large silver urn; slices of pecorino drizzled with local honey; bruschetta with fresh tomato and basil; chicken-liver crostini; a huge terra-cotta dish brimming with thick pappa col pomodoro, and a bowl of cold farro (spelt) salad. There was prosecco in abundance--always the kick-off libation in Italy--and white wine, vodka-infused punch, and fruit juice for the kiddies.

Then, after a while, we were ushered into the airy restaurant, where we essentially spent the next three hours at table.

We began with a succession of three primi: risotto with porcini mushrooms, straccetti with zucchini flowers, and crespelle alla fiorentina (delicious spinach-filled crepes in a tomato-béchamel sauce). Then an enormous veal roast that had been set aflame was paraded around the dining-room before being carved and served with potatoes. After that, we were given thick slices of rare, wood-grilled bistecca alla fiorentina, grilled porcini caps, along with a refreshing salad of mixed greens. There was plenty of Chianti to wash it all down with, and baskets of excellent saltless bread at hand. We lacked for nothing (except perhaps a vomitorium to repair to now and again). Finally, of course, came the wedding cake: a giant, colorful pastry-cream tart topped with fresh, dewy berries.

The children (mine included) began gamboling about--having miraculously, but entirely in the way of Italian children, managed to stay more or less at table all this time and eat their fill. A small baby cried and mewed testily until tasty tidbits of Tuscan fare found their way to her mouth. A spunky chocolate labrador named Rigoletto careened around wildly, at intervals performing a sort of canine tarantella. At about 5 pm, I stumbled away from the table and out into the surrounding garden, utterly spent.

As you can see, dear Readers, meals of this sort are not for neophytes, or the faint-hearted, or people who are afraid of mere carbohydrates. This is epic eating, Ironman eating--the gastronomic equivalent of scaling K2 or Everest. To make it to the top one must be fearless, determined, and a little mad. Or at the very least, Italian.

Mind you, I thoroughly enjoy a good meal and a good wine--why, "excess" is my middle name. (I often think that in a past life I could easily have been a sybaritic nineteenth-century burghermeister who would polish off a twelve-course meal at Maxim's in solemn and reverent joy, then top it off with a fat Cuban cigar and a Moulin Rouge showgirl). But even after some 10 years in the Bel Paese, I still have trouble keeping pace with the locals.

It's not over 'til the fat lady sings, as they say. A table had been set up in the garden, arrayed with digestivi and various liqueurs, trays of cream-filled bigné, fingers of the very Florentine schiacciata all'uva, and an immense bowl of sliced fresh peaches on ice. Attendants brought tray after tray of espresso out to waiting hands and gasps of pleasure all around. I had a shot of Montenegro and collapsed in a chair.

Incredibly, as I slumped in defeat, the Italian revelers carried on, smoking cigars, nibbling pastries, and drinking Sambuca. The thing is, this wasn't even their second-wind--they'd never lost the first one! I tell you it was awe-inspiring.

Around 6pm, as Ride of the the Valkyries blared from the stereo system, some of the hunkier young men stripped to their underwear and jumped into the pool. Then the bride jumped in. The groom joined her, and general youthful mayhem ensued. I was surprised they didn't sink like stones after all that food. Truly these are the champions.

Finally, at nearly 7pm, the gastric stupor overtaking my body like gangrene, the fat lady sang. And--my dear Readers--she was me.

Yours,

Campobello

Pidocchi Blues

2010-08-05T09:02:00.016+02:00

Dear Readers,

I love speaking a foreign language, and Italian is a sheer linguistic delight, full of lovely cadences, sensuous vowels and toothsome consonants. But there are some words in Italian that I'd rather not know. That is, be on intimate terms with. Meaning, possessing undue familiarity therewith.

Unfortunately, the word for lice recently crawled its way into my vocabulary.

The scourge of pre-school--we'd nearly made it through two children and six years' worth unscathed, when at the very end of my daughter's school year, this past June, she came home with an itchy scalp. Being somewhat of a nit-wit (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) in these matters, I let it go thinking it was nothing after a cursory check of her sassy little bob.

Well, a week later, she was even more uncomfortable and her sweet scalp full of insidious bite-marks. This time I had a good look and found those cursed nits all through her hair. By now, however, my scalp began to fester and I knew I was done for. Three hot, humid weeks later, after mountains of laundry and hours of nit-picking and combing and blasting our heads with DDT-like treatments, we seemed to be out of our verminous hell.

With a kick-off like this, I knew it was going to be a long, long summer.

Yours,

Campobello

[Many thanks to Lelia B., aka la streghetta, for bringing me a postcard of Pieter De Hooch's painting depicted above, A Mother's Duty. From the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam]

Of Hot Sex and Cool Mozzarella

2010-07-27T17:22:00.057+02:00

Dear Readers,

Summer is l-o-n-g in Florence. A vast expanse of intense heat and humidity that stretches as far as the mind's eye can see, dissolving into shimmering waves of mirage on the distant horizon that is September and the blessed start of school. My two adorable urchins are wearing my heat-stroked patience thin. Blogging--correction, everything--seems more like climbing Everest these dog days. I'm as limp as overcooked linguine.

But something has made me crawl to my computer, gasping, through air as thick as pappa col pomodoro. An American woman came into the bookshop peddling her freshly-minted, self-published oeuvre. When my boss asked her what the book was about, she said, "It's about re-inventing yourself in mid-life, in Tuscany."

STOP THE PRESSES!!! Another memoir about leaving behind a dead-end life (and a dead-beat husband) in America and discovering sweet amore and bitter chocolate in Italy has hit the shelves! Thank god, I was beginning to worry that this insidious trend was dying out, and that women were--gasp!--beginning to "re-invent" themselves in dull places like Omaha and Walla Walla and Indianapolis instead.

There is an annoying, cloying self-regard in these memoirs--a naive narcissism that presumes other desperate women are interested in, and indeed enthralled by, a journey from one form of self-absorption to another. A middle-aged, high-powered career woman who is always in control happens to experience one of life's tragic disappointments and sees it as a personal affront. Financially secure, she goes to Italy--the land of perpetual adolescence--and achieves validation through unencumbered sex with the kind of younger Italian man that is always available to eager, needy American women. It is almost a kind of anonymous coupling--each using the other to fulfill a fantasy: she of a hot, ever-ready Latin lover who--unlike most straight American men--is in good physical shape and wears Prada shoes; he of the reflection of himself in her eyes as a hot, ever-ready Latin lover who--even though he still lives with his mother--is capable of attracting an exotic American bird when Italian women regard him as merely mediocre.

She cannot speak a word of the language, and sits in a café with a slice of pizza and a glass of wine and declares, triumphantly and giddily, "I'm living in Italy!" (This is a scene from the above-mentioned book, by the way.) Tooling around all day on the back of a Vespa, over-tanned arms wrapped around the slim torso of her lover, and carefree love-making in every room of a country villa seems like bona fide la dolce vita to the kind of woman who easily mistakes an extended lay-cation for a spiritual awakening. The kind of woman who easily believes that the "Italy of wine labels" (as Anthony Bourdain puts it in Medium Raw) is the real Italy.

Now, add fabulous Italian food and wine to the sex-like-it-was-in-college mix, and you have a heady intoxicant indeed! American divorceés and widows seem especially unable to resist this combination. In their interminable memoirs, they call it "embracing life", "living in the moment," and "enjoying the small pleasures," etc. What is sad and rather perplexing--at least to me--is that they need the "exotic" backdrop of Italy in order to stage their personal transformations, rather like a diva needs a well-designed movie-set. But as with any such pasteboard reality, it seems pathetically one-dimensional.

Don't get me wrong, dear Readers--I'm all for embracing life. Heck, I'm all for embracing hot, young Italian men, if it comes down to it. And who wouldn't want to exchange a boring, paunchy, CEO ex-husband for a horny, fit, thirty-something Italian wine-maker? But sex and Sangiovese do not define a life in the Bel Paese, any more than a stock portfolio and a hamburger defines life in America.

Italians do have an innate skill for living life more fully, and doubtless we over-wrought American women can learn from them. But this talent for living has more to do with extracting the nuggets of joy from (and selectively ignoring) a whole-hog, maddening, messy, corrupt, artful and refined reality whose layers run dark, lovely and deep--and which merits far more than a well-manicured finger-scratch on its handsome surface.

Just saying.

In closing (lest I have appeared too curmudgeonly): to women everywhere who seek to find what's missing in their lives, I would say by all means, come to Italy. Eat! Love! But pray don't tell us about it.

Yours truly,

Campobello

Portrait of a Lady

2010-04-20T08:51:00.027+02:00

Dear Readers,

Nonna Assunta, now dead, was my husband's grandmother on his father's side.

A sharecropper from nearby Vicchio di Mugello, she gave birth to six children--five girls and the youngest a son (my father-in-law Gaetano). Ill health and family fortunes drove her and her soft-spoken husband Giulio to come and live with Gaetano and Elena in Florence in the '60's. By all family accounts, Assunta was a formidable woman in a rather diminuitive frame whose first love was her brood of chickens. According to my mother-in-law, she was nearly impossible to live with--being as stubborn as a weed and as subtle as a mallet. Like Gaetano, Assunta was an ortoholic, addicted to working the land. She toiled resolutely and happily in the great vegetable patch, and religiously tended her chickens (each of which had names), achieving a kind of earthly salvation she believed to find there and nowhere else. While she showered tenderness on her fowl, she had only contempt for the quiet, contemplative (or catatonic, depending on your point of view) Giulio--often telling him the only thing he was good for was making manure. Later, after her incapacitating stroke, she was confined to a wheelchair. She would cry all day long, mourning her inability to care for her dear chickens. She railed at the Heavens like a child deprived--she became an inconsolable nightmare to live with. A chickenless shadow of her former self. She died in sorrow and bewilderment at her fate.

But while alive and mobile, Assunta was a woman of earthy tastes--relishing the bite and sting of raw onions, stale bread soaked in olive oil, and boiled, freshly unearthed potatoes. She would chew a raw clove of garlic every morning while taking her coffee, and when the grandkids wrinkled their noses in disgust when forced to kiss her before leaving for school, she'd say "better to stink of garlic than balls."

Meglio puzzare d'aglio che coglioni.

Funny, no one in the family ever mentioned whether or not she ate chicken.

Yours,

Campobello

Available for hire

2010-04-14T09:53:00.004+02:00

Dear Readers,

Yours truly is on the market. I'm looking for a job or freelance work--either in Florence or in the virtual sphere (or both). My family and I have developed the pesky habit of liking to eat--and the global economic crisis (I've been told) has resulted in the whittling down of my current hours/salary into little more than a mournful nub.

I have a lot of verve, and a Master's Degree in English Literature to boot. Over the years, I've worn many hats and can say with unabashed certainty that I can do almost anything you'd care to throw at me--as long as it doesn't involve ironing or taking my clothes off.

Please contact me if you know of anything, dear, sympathetic Readers. I'll be happy to discuss details, forward a resumé, etc.

Thanks for your support,

Campobello

Sentio, sensi, sensus est--or--My bilingual family

2010-02-11T10:29:00.088+01:00

Dear Readers,

The following is commonly heard in my house: "Hear this, Mommy," (holding out forkful of food for me to taste). "I don't want to hear that!" (me holding forkful of food for one of my kids to taste). "Can you feel it now, Mommy?" (adjusting the volume on the television). "Hear this flower, Mommy, isn't it a nice profumo?"

My two children were born in Florence and have been bilingual since the beginning. My husband, though Italian, speaks English like a second-generation immigrant--and our home has become an English-speaking island of sorts. Since the Italian language surrounds us here like oxygen, I always felt it was important that the kids get a solid exposure to English--and in any case, I could not speak to them, my own children, in anything that wasn't as visceral and vital to me as my mother-tongue. It's who I am, after all.

My son Giacomo was translating Italian into English and vice-versa since he could form simple phrases. He almost never mixes the two; rather, he's always moved easily and fluidly between languages like a fish who swims equally well in salt- and fresh-water. (An osmoregulator, for the curious). His accent in English is perfectly American with just enough of a Midwestern twang to betray the origins of his mother. My daughter Gemma (the youngest), on the other hand, is a great mixer of the two languages, and speaks English with the accent of a newly-disembarked Italian immigrant from Bensonhurst. I am aware that she has a fluent understanding of both English and Italian, so the mixing does not concern me--I know she'll sort it out eventually--and to tell the truth, I think it's terribly cute. "Mommy, can you help me to aprire?" "Mommy, sometimes Irene [her classmate] is a little birbona." "No, you have to do it veloce!"

The thing is, our house has, in reality, become an English-speaking island wherein Italian-speaking pirates have stormed the beaches. We all do a good bit of linguistic plundering. I find myself saying things like, "Honey, have a little more insalatina, I know you like it," or "I don't appreciate being controllata by your mother or anyone else," or (and this, often) "Mannaggia, [insert anything implying a situation gone awry]!"

I'm sure there are linguistic theories about why we do this, scientific reasons that have to do with synapses and the cerebral cortex, etc. But the truth is, living two languages makes me believe that mixing is more about expediency and musicality--the poetry of language in motion, if you will--than anything else. Italian words pop up in my English sentences because to me they express the thing better, in that moment, than their English counterpart. Or perhaps I simply like the sound better. To me--a linguistic urchin who thinks language is a plaything--I much prefer arruffato to "unkempt," or sguazzare to "wallow." And what better way to say "murmur" than bisbiglio? Of course, at other times, it's the English word that is just so good, just so right. Like eviscerate or shyster or guttersnipe, for instance.

I have some American friends who have experienced real worry over their bilingual households, and, on the maddeningly contradictory advice of pediatricians and specialists, have attempted to superimpose all sorts of linguistic templates onto the organic organism of language in their homes. As far as I can tell, this fiddling with and agonizing over the natural expression and growth of language in a bilingual home causes more confusion and heartache than just letting language flow (barring any real developmental issues, of course). I think it's basically a matter of attitude, or worldview even, towards the second language itself: some people see it as a sort of interloper rife with potential problems, and others see it as de facto enrichment, in whatever form it chooses to take, or however bumpy the ride at times. The thing is, kids are amazing. Their brains are unfathomably elastic--they can bounce words around, volley verb conjugations, and juggle meanings like pro-ballers. I have seen this first-hand every day for the past eight years.

So I don't worry if my children get mixed-up occasionally--the little glitches will get straightened out eventually. In the meantime, I'm rather fascinated by it all. Language is a river whose flow follows the contours of history. The confusion my kids experience over English "hear," "taste," "smell" and "feel" stems from the problem of translating the Italian sentire. While we have different words for each of these sensory experiences, the Italian word encompasses them all: thus, senti un po' ("listen to this" or "taste this" or "smell this," depending on context), non sento niente ("I can't hear a thing"), senti com'è morbido ("feel how soft this is"), etc. The Italian my children speak is a direct descendant of venerable Latin--the centuries-old language of scholars and statesmen--and they are getting tripped up at the point where these Latin roots cross the path of English pragmatism. Sentire (sentio, sensi, sensus, sensuum etc.) is Latin meaning "to perceive with the senses, feel, hear, see, smell; to realize; to observe, to notice; to experience; to think, judge." As it was in Latin, so it is in Italian. (In my wicked moments, I like to jibe the Ancients for being so ridiculous as to have only one word for all the varied experiences of the five senses--perhaps they were too busy building their great civilization to give much thought to vocabulary-building. Rome, after all, wasn't built in a thousand-words-a-day).

My children have yet to realize--even though it's in their bones--that the English words they're learning to use form the gnarled and tangled branches of a glorious old tree whose roots lie muddled in the soil of Old and Middle English, Old High German, Old Frisian, Old French and myriad other linguistic ghosts. Growing up with these two wonderful and diverse languages, while sometimes at odds with each other, is an experience that--to my mind--can only be unutterably enriching.

Sic friatur crustum dulce,

Campobello

Una bella pisciata

2010-01-13T14:57:00.014+01:00

Dear Readers,

Picture this, if you will: the morning light outside my kitchen window is made up of somber shades of gray, threatening rain. The silvery green of the olive trees seems to stand out in sharp relief. I pause at the sink to rinse my coffee cup, my thoughts scurrying forward into the day that lies ahead. My father-in-law Gaetano comes out of his house--wearing his dirty, patched and too-short work trousers, heavy brown immigrant-issue shoes, and ratty green sweater--and lumbers around the back-end of his truck and over to the low wall of stones in front of the olive grove.

Here we go again.

He bends slightly forward in that universal male posture, his hands fumbling somewhere below the belt (and thankfully out of sight behind the wall), and has himself a nice morning constipissonal. It takes him quite a while--in urination time-space continuum terms--so I have a chance to call over my husband, who happens to be going in to work later this morning. "Would you LOOK at that?!" Since the kids haven't left for school yet, they come running over, "What? What is it?!"

"Nonno is peeing in the garden. As usual."

"Lemme see, I wanna see!" So we lift up Gemma, then Giacomo. They laugh and squeal, "Nonno's peeing in the garden, Nonno's peeing in the garden!"

I have to admit that I did not have a good parental response or explanation at the ready that didn't involve withering--no, blistering--sarcasm. "Yes. Indeed. Nonno is peeing in the garden."

Meanwhile, having finished (and unaware of his rapt audience), Gaetano zips up with cautious decrepitude and lumbers back down into the courtyard, shuffling his feet in their mud-caked clodhoppers. He opens the front door and goes back in the house.

And yes, dear Readers, we do have indoor plumbing here in Italy.

Speechless, at a loss, and confounded,

Campobello

Disparate housewives

2009-12-03T15:28:00.045+01:00

Dear Readers,

"I could never move to Italy--it's too much work!!" said a friend of mine a while back (note: this friend is a proud, card-carrying Jewish American Princess). And she's right, of course. If you are a typical Italian wife, whether or not you're a casalinga or have a job outside the home--you work your ass off.

With Christmas approaching, I dread the yearly discussion of ironing which is inevitably brought up by my sisters-in-law at some point during the feast. Florence winters are notoriously damp and clothes hung on the line take forever to dry, thus laundry typically grows to monstrous proportions. (No one has clothes dryers. No one, that is, except me). And since Italian women iron everything--even underwear--this means enormous mountains of clothes lying about already-cramped homes, waiting to be wrinkle-free. Call them masochists, but it seemingly never occurs to these women to just, maybe, ease up a bit and let that t-shirt or pair of briefs go forth into the world with a crinkle or two. So my sisters-in-law blather on and on: "Goodness, I have so much ironing piled up! Oh my, me too, isn't it terrible?! Mercy me, this weather isn't helping! At least spending a couple hours over a hot iron warms me up!" Since I am, in this regard, iron-deficient--and since talking of housework is about as pleasant to someone with half a brain as dental surgery--I sit there silent, bored out of my skull, and wondering if I should have another piece of panforte.

Case in point: my sister-in-law Silvia works part-time, has three kids, and a husband who doesn't lift a finger to help her with housework or matters relating to childrearing (this is, alas, still fairly common among Italian men of a certain mindset and upbringing). My mother-in-law has told me that often Silvia stays up 'til 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, ironing. She also does all the laundry, cleans the house, cooks most of the meals, takes out the trash, and ferries the kids to doctor's appointments and such. (I assume her husband wipes his own behind after going to the toilet, but I can't be sure).

My dear husband--whom I often think must have been adopted--told me that when he was a teenager, he informed his mother of his desire to do his own laundry and ironing. She was aghast with horror and disbelief. "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" she yelled, when she caught him one night surreptitiously ironing his own clothes (in the living-room, in the dark). "That's for me to do!" she nearly wept, sensing that her entire raison d'etre was being snatched from her like the last bag of tortelli on special at the Coop.

At least her other son, Giorgio, is normal: when his wife is out of town, he drives his laundry across the city to Mamma's, so she can wash, scrub out stains, iron, darn socks and replace buttons to her hearts' content.

Many italiane mop their homes (called "giving the rag," or dare il cencio) every single day. Seriously, you could eat off these floors. Often when walking along the street, I am showered in detritus as some old bitty on an upper floor shakes her dust cloth out the window. This past summer while at the beach, my American friend Kelly and I were endlessly entertained by our neighbor across the street--a lady "of a certain age" as they say here--cleaning her vacation home from top to bottom all day long, every day, while her husband sat on the terrace reading his newspaper. We were fascinated, and yet horrified--we couldn't tear our eyes away, it was like looking at a train wreck. "No, surely she'll stop now, my God, it's 100 degrees out!" She mopped the floor of the kitchen after every meal. She did laundry all the time, even though there was only the two of them. On her balcony was a full battery of cleaning products the likes of which I'd never seen outside of a hospital. Even her washing machine had a cozy to protect it and keep it from getting dirty (I'm surprised she didn't have one to put over her husband, who was about as animated as an armoir).

[As an aside, Kelly told me her Italian husband's mother used to starch and iron his dress shirts, fold them, wrap them individually in tissue paper, and stack them neatly in his wardrobe. She's in an insane asylum now.]

My husband and I recently left the kids with my mother-in-law when we went out on an errand. We had inadvertently left a basket of freshly-washed-and-dried laundry in the living-room. When we came back, we saw that she had folded everything with military precision, and it was lying in impossibly neat stacks in the laundry basket. I know it's unkind to say so, but I wanted to eviscerate her. Somehow, the thought of her handling my undies (I'm 40-something for God's sake!) made my skin crawl. But I know why she did it. She was bored. She can't just sit and do nothing. She can't just play a game or read a book with her grandchildren. She can't help herself, poor thing--it's a reflex, like genuflecting in church or giving candy to hyperactive children. I'm certain she would have ironed everything too, but my ironing board and iron are buried in the storage closet where no one--not even me--can find them.

Dear Readers, don't get me wrong--I don't want to live in a pigsty, I simply believe in moderation in all things. But I just don't understand this paradox even though I've lived in Italy going on 10 years now. Where is la dolce vita when it comes to housework? Most Italian women don't seem to read, have hobbies, or do any kind of recreational sports--so could it be that housework is their hobby? Their aerobic activity? Or is it a Catholic thing--guilt over leading Adam astray? Cleansing one's sins with rubber gloves, a mop bucket and a liter of Mastro Lindo?

I may never know. But I'll tell you this--the unwrinkled life is not worth living.

Yours, glorious dust bunnies and all,

Campobello

A Tale of Thanksgiving, or, The Body on the Pavement

2009-11-26T08:35:00.018+01:00

Dear Readers,

I apologize for my prolonged absence, but I have been in the throes of a major home renovation project, which has left me among the poor (no, wait: very poor) and befuddled masses--as anyone who has undergone such a process will fully understand.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving (which by the way I will celebrate this Saturday with an American friend and our families, Turkey Day being alien to the Bel Paese), I shall recount to you a true story of something that happened to me. I recently e-mailed this story to a friend, but then thought that perhaps you may find it of interest as well.

***

Sometime last spring I was pedaling home from work on a gloriously sunny afternoon, at about 2pm. I was on Via Lamarmora, on the outer edge of downtown Florence, still within the ring of where the old city walls used to be. It was quiet--there was, strangely in that instant, no traffic on the street. A little ways ahead, I saw a body on the pavement, face-down in a fresh, spreading pool of blood.

The first thing I thought was: mafia hit. (Too melodramatic, perhaps, I know). No one was around--it was eerie. Then, as if from nowhere, a man appeared and began looking the body over. I realized that I had slowed way down, and was approaching warily, yet magnetized by the scene. The man glanced my way and saw me, then began walking swiftly toward me: "I saw him--he fell out of the window!" he shouted. I looked at the body--it was a young man, I couldn't really tell what age, maybe 25. He had light brown hair, and wore a dark sweater and jeans. He was still alive: after being so still he had slowly begun to move his head back and forth a bit, and one arm and one leg, ever so slightly. His other arm was limp, the bone at an ugly and impossible angle, clearly broken--and his other leg twisted almost backwards. He began to moan softly.

"Did you call an ambulance?" I asked. "Yes, I called right away. He just came out the window! I was going by on my mo-ped and heard a thud--and there he was! It was just a minute ago!"

I looked up and indeed, there was an open window--on the fifth floor of the apartment building. By now some passers-by had gathered. The pool of blood fanned out steadily from the guy's face, and he continued to mew and slowly writhe. The mo-ped man tried to talk to him, to no avail. We knew not to try to move him; we looked on, helpless, waiting for the ambulance.

A small unmarked car sped up and stopped--it was a doctor in jeans and a t-shirt, apparently the first to respond to the call. He rushed over with his kit and went to work, taking vital signs, inserting an IV. After a few interminable minutes, we heard the wail of the ambulance, and two pulled up, their teams spilling out in a froth of fluorescent orange and white--and the sidewalk, so eerily silent before, burst into life and the hurried business of first aid.

I had been barely breathing, I think, my eyes glued to that young man, and only when the rescue teams started their work did I feel myself take a deep breath. They gently rolled him over and his face was smashed and smeared with blood. They were tearing his clothes away and hooking him up to all sorts of tubes, working with methodical, yet swift desperation. More crews arrived: the police, more medics, traffic cops. The police busted into the apartment to see if there was anyone up there who might have pushed the guy out the window--in a minute an officer hung out the window and gave the all-clear. Neighbors had begun to gather and there was a young woman sobbing. The traffic cops were diverting the buses that had begun to pass. I kept looking up at that window. Did he jump? Did he fall out? Was he drunk or on drugs? A rumor went around the crowd that he had fallen out by mistake, had somehow lost his balance. I was thinking, "What? Like he was maybe hanging curtains or something and just--oops!--fell out the window??! A 25-year-old??"

And still they worked on him, there on the pavement. "Why don't they take him away?" I thought. It went on and on. I couldn't move. My adrenalin was pumping, emotion rising in my throat. He just looked so unbearably sad and alone there, crumpled on the sidewalk like a pile of dirty laundry. If he had jumped, what made him do it? How could anyone throw themselves out a window? I suddenly noticed that he had lost one sneaker in the fall, a well-worn Nike, dingy white with a black swoosh--it lay a few feet away from him: forlorn, desolate. His unshod foot, the one that was still able to move, wore a twisted navy-blue sock. It had a hole in it, at the heel.

Well, my heart broke over that shoe. From some unbidden source, a tidal wave of compassion welled up in me and threatened to bring me, too, to the pavement. Buddhists and yoga practitioners speak of the power of the one-pointed mind. In those dramatic moments on the street, I tell you that my whole body was tense with straining toward this other human being; my mind was knife-edged, utterly one-pointed. Every cell in my body vibrated as I focused, unthinkingly, on that poor soul. Everything else fell away. I felt, too, that somehow my presence was necessary--I had to connect to him, send my prayer for his recovery on invisible channels that crossed the street and fed into the tubes that were trying to save his life.

At last, they prepared him for transfer to the hospital. He was carefully wrapped in huge sheets of something that looked like silver foil, and lifted onto a gurney. He was moaning very loudly now, the pain ripping through him and oozing out of him in spurts and spasms like blood. It was ghastly to behold. They loaded him into an ambulance, the doors snapped shut, and it roared off. The other vehicles left: police, medics, traffic cops--they shot away in their cars and on their motorcycles, to attend to other business, other emergencies. Those of us that had gathered were left there, in sudden silence. The sun was warm and bright. An almost bereft feeling rippled through the crowd, like the faintest of breezes, and we slowly dispersed. My heart was thumping in my chest. I felt spent and exhausted. I got on my bike and tried to ride home, but I kept stopping, trying to catch my breath and calm the adrenalin bubbling inside of me. My body was shaking. I finally made it.

The next day, I scanned the paper for news of him. I read that in Via Lamarmora at 2pm on the previous day, a young man, 18 years-old, had apparently jumped out of the fifth-floor window of his home, intending to commit suicide. He lived alone with his mother--who was separated from the boy's father--though she was not home at the time he jumped. It was not apparent why he did it--he had no known emotional problems or bad habits, no trouble in school or with girls. Though everything was done to stabilize him at the scene, he had suffered severe internal injuries and died shortly after arrival at the hospital.

This stayed with me for months, dear Readers. The image of that poor, broken body lying alone on the sidewalk haunted me--he was so utterly alone. But it ran deeper than that. I wondered at the depth of despair that could drive someone to throw their body and soul out of a window to crash onto the cruel pavement five storeys below. I marvelled at the courage it took that young man to leap into the abyss and free-fall toward a hideous death. Why did that same lion's share of courage fail him in life? Fail to help him face whatever tormented him? Fail to assure him that things were bound to get better, if only he persevered?

I am so very very sorry for that boy. Every time I pass that building and that spot on the pavement in front--and I pass it every day--I think of him. The image remains. And at the same time, I am thankful that my life has not known the kind of despair that makes jumping out of a window a less courageous act than facing down and conquering that same despair, and enduring. I hope that no one I care about ever experiences that kind of hopelessness.

Yours in gratitude,

Campobello

Troppo rumore

2009-09-08T16:39:00.012+02:00

Dear Readers,

Upon returning from my August vacation, like so many of my compatriots, and having witnessed yet another frenzied rientro, I feel battered and buffeted by that which plagues nearly all Italian cities of a certain size: noise. Or rather, NOISE.

After the almost eery quiet of Michigan suburbs, and the orderly and hushed procession of American street traffic--the angry, impudent buzz of motorini and motorcycles and the penchant Italian drivers have of shouting and blaring their horns at every opportunity has me a bit green in the gills. Down in the mouth. Worse for wear.

It's quite jarring to see again the maniacal drivers bearing down on me and my poor old bike. I suppose the drama of Italian life is inevitably played out in revved-up decibels, speeding through the streets like hell-bent wasps from an upset nest. I am already craving and longing for that peace and quiet I managed to shore up during an all-too brief two weeks away--how I appreciated it. I breathed it in like mountain air.

Alas, if only it had lasted--at least in my minds' ear--a bit longer.

Yours, sognando di un po' di silenzio,

Campobello

Beach vignette

2009-08-07T00:47:00.008+02:00

Dear Readers,

To continue the Tuscan seaside theme...

At the beach, I often see things that make me want to flee in horror, or at least retch into the courtyard of the kids' sand castle. This, last summer at San Vincenzo:

An older couple lounge under a beach umbrella. He--with an enormous, bulbous belly which acts as a coffee-table for the sport section and his plastic cup of espresso from the kiosk--is wearing a microscopic leopard-print Speedo. Great tufts of black and gray hair top his shoulders and festoon his back, so he looks like he's wearing a medieval hair shirt. He's got a solid gold watch, bracelet, and chain. Her, TOPLESS. Nasty old-lady breasts that look like deflated avocados. Leopard bikini bottom, folds of slack flesh oozing over the top, and draped in gold, too, like the Madonna of Pompeii. A garishly pink lipsticked mouth that snaps open and shut with the rythym of her chewing-gum. She's reading a trashy gossip magazine. They wear designer dark glasses, gilt-edged, rhinestone-studded. Both smoke boredly and doggedly, and their skin is so tired, leathery and brown they look like old luggage that's been around the baggage carousel way too many times. They don't speak to each other in sentences, but now and then emit a serious of grunts that has clearly become their private language. They make one great effort at justifying themselves, heaving their bulk from the loungers and plodding along the water-line for 10 minutes--flesh jiggling, gold glinting, and ass-cracks in painful evidence.

Yours,

Campobello

Flesh circus

2009-07-29T17:16:00.046+02:00

Dear Readers,

To quote the writer Ignazio Silone, "Non c'è popolo più triste di questi italiani allegri": there's no sadder people than these happy Italians.

Silone's words came vividly to life for me after I recently went to Marina di Grosseto for a few days' holiday at the beach. You must understand that the seaside--il mare--has both a mythical hold on the Italian imagination, and an iron grip on the collective consciousness. Everyone, I mean everyone must go to the beach for a summer holiday. Like sheeps to the slaughter, Italians go dumbly in droves to lay on their square-meter patch of hedonistic heaven.

Why do they go? It is no secret that Italians love ritual. The Catholic Mass, the morning coffee and brioche at the bar, lunch at 1:00 and dinner at 8:00, the evening passeggiata--all illustrate the ways in which Italians prefer to order their universe. (It could even be argued that these rituals are the anchors in what is otherwise an almost completely disorderly and chaotic existence). The yearly exodus from the cities to the beaches is but another example of the herd mentality that governs much of Italian life.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the beach too. It's just that the kind of beach holiday I have in mind is one of relatively tranquil stretches of clean sand, scattered with a few happily noisy children and their families, quiet couples reading and sunning peacefully, and shore and sea stretching gracefully before the eye like a cat on a sun-washed windowsill--a placid tableau of nature punctuated by some unobtrusive human elements. Il dolce far niente, after all, has its allure.

The reality of many Italian beaches, however, is jarringly different: a honky-tonk atmosphere of carnival madness--great swaths of riotously-colored beach umbrellas as dense as an Amazonian jungle; the bagni blaring announcements over loudspeakers ("Sono arrivati i bomboloni caldi!" "Buon onomastico all'Alessia!" "Oggi è venerdi 17!"); gyrating, noisy crowds; a shoreline that looks like the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela; third-world hawkers of cheap tinselly goods; coconut-sellers with their bawdy calls; sand flying in all directions from over-zealous children; and a sight-line that is wall-to-wall seething flesh. Flesh as far as the eye can see. Flesh of all shapes and sizes and ages: popping out of too-tight bikinis, oozing over tiny Speedos, lithe and muscled in the young and genetically-blessed, buttery and taut in children, withered and leathery in anziani, and watermelon-like pregnant bellies bobbing in the sun. Flesh lounging on chaises, flesh flung in adolescent torpor on towels in the sand, kid flesh industriously building sand-castles of medieval proportions, flesh jiggling, flesh browning, flesh glistening and oiled like some kind of offering to the gods--and always, always, flesh on the move: strolling the water line, going to and from the bar for espresso, gathered in raucous groups smoking and laughing and gesticulating like mad. Flesh flesh flesh! Other than the sea and perhaps a hazy outline of hills in the distance, nature is not visible through this writhing human canvas stretched to the horizons. It seems Italians are happy to swap the crush and madness and heat and traffic of the city for the crush and madness and heat and traffic of the beach--only with a lot less clothing required.

While hiding under my enormous sun hat and watching the spectacle before me, I had an epiphany: why, Italians don't go to the beach for relaxation, or to commune with nature, or for fitness, or even to play--they go for validation. It's the age-old obsession with fare figura (to cut a figure) taken to the extreme. They need to be seen at the beach, they need to show they have been there. They have always gone and they always will go--in short, they need to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves. Il mare--that watery redeemer--is an important social ritual to them, however empty it really is, just like going to Mass once a year for many is a knee-jerk reaction to Christmas. Of course, herein lies the monumental importance of l'abbronzatura: the suntan (and the deeper the better, cancer cells be damned) is proof positive of the pilgrimage completed, the gods appeased--it's the ultimate membership card, the prize, the grail brought home.

I'm sure more time and money is spent on the whole cult of the beach than on any other pursuit: there's the season's latest bathing suits that you must have, and only one won't do, you must have 3 or 4. There are the coordinating gauzy, see-thru cover-ups to acquire, and the sequinned infraditi or even high-heel wedgies to totter along the boardwalk in. There are the expensive sun-protection, tanning and post-sun products, the cute tote bags, the colorful towels and straw mats, the vast array of inflatable mastodons and sailing vessels, the shovels and pails and toy bulldozers, the pedicures, the glitter bandanas to protect one's hair, the temporary tattoos--all in service to unabashed hedonism and corpulent consumption. Surely a heavenly being, looking down on this scene, would bet his last shekel that the apocalypse is at hand--for all is vanity, truly.

Watching the undulating and shrill crowds around me, and basking like a cold-blooded lizard under the Tuscan sun, I couldn't help but feel that there is something desperate and rather tragic--yet perhaps even noble--about this beach mania all'italiana. Something akin to instigating a conga line on the Titanic.

My best regards,

Campobello

The pilgrimage that never was

2009-07-27T02:45:00.014+02:00

Dear Readers,

A while back, it was my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary. As a gift, my mother-in-law Elena's sisters wanted to give her a trip to Lourdes. (They knew, of course, that that would be the ONLY place she would even consider going; her Catholic guilt would never permit something so hedonistic as--gasp!--a holiday. But if it's in service to the Lord, well then...). Elena seemed rather thrilled at the prospect--poor woman, she never goes anywhere, not even out for pizza or gelato--and she told Gaetano, my father-in-law, about the upcoming pilgrimage. The whole family was suddenly abuzz with the excitement of international travel to a glamorous destination. Meanwhile, cynical me was thinking: it'll NEVER happen. These are two people who have NOTHING to say to each other--when they eat meals together they sit in total silence and stare at the TV--how they would share an hours-long train ride was unfathomable to me. Moreover, I could not envision them off their home turf, in a hotel, eating strange food, having to deal with train schedules and stations, having actual conversations with normal people, etc. And foreigners too! It might even mean my father-in-law would have to bathe regularly.

Then, sure enough, the drama started: what would Gaetano eat??? He is used to eating those few things he always eats---his familiar Tuscan kibble. Breakfast, in particular, was discussed at length. For this meal, my father-in-law scarfs a great plateful of stale slices of Tuscan (saltless) bread soaked in olive oil and scattered with slices of raw onion. Depending on the season, he eats cucumbers and tomatoes---again, smothered in oil--or maybe a raw clove of garlic, a good many slices of thick prosciutto (hacked from the haunch with his large pocket-knife), and polishes off a half-bottle of homemade red wine. Surely he would starve to death in France. Their bread isn't Tuscan. Their wine isn't Tuscan. They don't have Italian prosciutto. He couldn't possibly have croissants for breakfast--they would constipate him, and he'd shrivel up from lack of energy and strength. The phone rang constantly for days with relatives weighing in on the problem; my sister-in-law Silvia and hubby Paolo were called in for a consultation on the logistics of taking a whole (mind you, we're talking a PIG'S THIGH) prosciutto on the train, along with a bottle of olive oil and as many bottles of wine as they could carry. Meanwhile, I'm laughing maniacally and shouting across the courtyard at Paolo, in English so they couldn't understand me: "Why take the train? Have them go by caravan because THEY ARE GYPSIES!! Maybe they should take along a GOAT and a couple of LIVE CHICKENS too!!!" And, "Yeah, they need to go to Lourdes all right, so they can pray to the Madonna for a healthy dose of SANITY!"

In the end, of course, Gaetano pounded his fist on the table and shouted, "I'm not going!" My poor mother-in-law seemed rather downcast and resigned. I think she was looking forward to a week spent at the feet of the Holy Virgin (perhaps to pray for a swift kick in the ass to befall her husband from on high). Life returned to normal. Breakfast remained unsullied, sacrosanct. They did attend the anniversary luncheon in their honor--a grim repast if ever there was one--at which, even sitting side-by-side (as rigid as two coat racks) they exchanged nary a word or smile with each other.

My dear Readers, we've all heard the clichés: Romance is dead, etc. etc. In my in-laws' case, Romance was stillborn.

My best regards,

Campobello

I live in a Renaissance toilet

2009-07-23T22:30:00.034+02:00

Dear Readers,

Now, I don't like to complain... but yesterday morning as I was parking my bike in its usual spot near work, I saw--and unfortunately, smelled--two generous piles of human excrement by the curb. One pile even had a wad of soiled toilet paper next to it (since when, I wondered, is a street-defecator so fastidious about personal hygiene??).

I pretty much can't think of a worse way to start the day.

Mind you, in this little corner of Florence--spitting distance from the glorious Duomo--I normally have to skirt stagnant puddles of urine, broken beer bottles, and trash strewn about and decomposing forlornly--so my skin is fairly thick when it comes to urban blight. But this was the shit that broke the camel's back.

In a lather, I stormed into the shop raving about the degradation of the city. I told my bosses they ought to call the vigili and tell them that this corner of the city is turning into an open sewer. (I figured that coming from small-business owners, the complaint might carry more weight). They merely shrugged it off and called the quadrifoglio instead (the people who come and clean up after the horse-drawn carriages) and presently a man came and blasted the whole area with soapy water. I watched from the window, a-stew in impotent rage, and formulating an angry letter to the city's new mayor.

Of course, the larger issue here is one of civic pride. I can't help but ask myself why a Houston or Milwaukee or Cleveland suburb--places with the architectural interest of a port-a-potty--are kept in pristine condition (manicured lawns, gleaming paint, not a wanton wrapper or stray cigarette butt to be seen), while Italian art cities that are bursting with architectural and historical treasures grow shabbier and more tawdry as the years roll by.

Not too long ago, the ex-Mayor of Florence, in a Rudy Giuliani-like move, banned the squeegee guys from the intersections, saying they detracted from the overall quality of life. Oddly, he and everybody else turn a blind eye to the relentless graffitti that tattoos over virtually every surface of the city--even such monuments as the Accademia and Duomo are not immune to this scurvy. And everywhere you look, paint is dingy and peeling, the streets are filthy, the trash bins inadequate and overflowing, dog-poop peppers the sidewalk, even the backside of the Duomo is covered in black grime (the façade, strangely enough, is kept in mint condition--that is, after all, where all the tourists gather and where important civic events are held). I have heard many visiting Americans and Brits comment on the shockingly slovenly state of cities like Florence and Rome. When this happens, I feel rather sorry for my adopted city--like I would perhaps for a once-lovely pin-up star who now goes around in dingy underwear with dirt under her fingernails.

Why don't more Florentines care about their city?

I am truly puzzled by this. Florentine orgoglio floweth over--their pride in their Medieval and Renaissance past is unbounded. The glory of their statesmen, artists and thinkers is cause for much strutting, even to this day. Yet--yet--many Florentines do not go to the Uffizi or to the Accademia, they do not stroll the Boboli gardens, or gaze at the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. A great many Florentines no longer live in--nor do they ever go--downtown, to the historic center. To the cradle of all this Renaissance wonder, as it were. So, my theory is, they simply do not care very much what happens there. It is not the Florence that they live on a daily basis. (However, I must say that the state of cleanliness in the peripheral neighborhoods is perhaps only marginally better).

Downtown Florence is almost entirely abandoned to gawking tourists, foreigners and students who can afford to pay the exhorbitant rents and live there, or poorer immigrants who live in ancient squalid flats that haven't been updated since the time of the Medici. (There is a smattering of adamantly ancient Florentine widows who hang on to their apartments with every decaying fibre of their being. You see them shopping at Pegna and defiantly letting their dogs crap and pee all over the pavement. They tend to wear turbans of the silent film-star variety). Many tourists treat the city as a rollicking Renaissance Disneyworld, leaving a trail of empty water bottles and gelato cups in their wake. Other abusers are the Florentine (and American college) youth, who come downtown to hit the discos and get drunk in the pubs--their piss, vomit and vandalism are all over the place. I think, paradoxically enough, it is the foreign permanent residents that show some of the greatest respect to this city. For instance, recently, a group of foreign residents formed a "Clean Up the Mugnone [riverbank] Committee" and did just that.

And then there are the gypsies. Now, I'm sure there are some fine, upstanding gypsies out there--there must be. But I have to say that the ones I see--the ones that prey upon tourists in the historic center--are little more than human barnacles. They come to Italy in droves, are granted medical care and free daycare and school lunches for their kids, they don't pay taxes--and the ones I'm talking about paint their faces white like mimes and dress in white Klan-like robes and mercilessly buzz round the poor out-of-towners like pesky flies. They gather next to the bookshop and guzzle beer from great brown bottles, then smash the glass for fun. Their attitude is one of entitlement and disrespect--I even get the sense they jeer at their host country, and harbor the kind of resentment that comes from accepting begrugded charity. As an immigrant myself, I'm all for making room for others, but come on.

So who, then, was responsible for the brazen b.m.? Your average born-and-bred Florentine might shrug and say, "Who cares?" and abandon the potentially beautiful historic center to the uncouth masses.

But I, dear Readers, know who was responsible: Indifference.

Yours,

Campobello

Election Day

2009-06-21T22:41:00.033+02:00

Dear Readers,

I often forget that Italy is a democracy, but two weeks ago I was reminded of the fact because Florence's mayoral elections were held. I was eager to use my new Tessera Elettorale (voter's card), having been granted citizenship not too long ago. The tessera--like so many Italian documents--is oversized, covered in fine print and official seals, and beautiful to behold. There are 18 squares on it, meaning I can use it to vote in 18 elections (receiving a stamp for each one)--after which I get a free cappuccino, and presumably a new card.

My husband Paolo and I headed down the street to the elementary school, which had been transformed into the official voting station. I was somewhat disappointed not to find tables of coffee and donuts on offer--like you see in America on election days--and that festive atmosphere created by jovial, white-haired, volunteer ladies' auxillary-types. Alas, not a bombolone in sight, just a bored-looking policeman hanging around to make sure things were kosher. We found the classroom where we were supposed to vote, but hung around first in the hallway in order to read all the election posters pasted over the walls. These posters not only listed the candidates and their respective political parties, but listed all the coalitions that were aligned with that particular candidate. Each candidate, and each coalition, has a graphic symbol or logo all its own--kind of like brand recognition. The symbols on the posters were colorful and about the size of pancakes--presumably so the illiterate peasants can make them out--and were so numerous and bizarre as to boggle the mind. I was relieved to see that we were not the only confused souls studying them, trying to tease out their esoteric significance--many voters were squinting and furrowing their brows over them, as if they were gazing upon hieroglyphics on ancient papyrus scrolls.

In Italy, politics, like pretty much everything else, is governed by a herd mentality. The coalitions group around, then dissipate, then reform and regroup around the candidates and political parties--rather like fermenting bacteria in a petrie dish. It's all about who is sleeping with whom. This time around, for example, the Partita Animalistica (Animal Lovers) and the No Tramvia (No to the Tram Line Short-Sighted Fools) groups--along with about a dozen others--were aligned with the right-wing, Berlusconi-backed party, whose candidate, Gialli, was an ex-soccer player with a penchant for tight jeans. The candidate for the left, the 34 year-old Matteo "Baby Face" Renzi, had an equal amount of coalitions lined up on his team. (I'm pretty sure I saw a We Love Cuddles coalition, a Virile and Vegetarian group, and one called, cryptically, Goodbye to All That). There were also the neo-fascists, the communists, the former porn stars--apparently anybody can form a coalition and/or a political party. The thing is, these coalitions are with one party one day, and tomorrow they might just as likely be with someone else. Call it electoral whoring, or high school, or what you will--such is the nature of the political beast in the Bel Paese.

I waited my turn until motioned forward into the classroom. There were three tables: one marked Women and one marked Men, and the one in the middle had large cardboard boxes on it for depositing the ballots. I sauntered up to Women and presented my card and I.D. A genial young man droned in an official voice, after locating me in his enormous ledger, "La Signora può votare." (The Madame may vote). This was announced with a flourish after every person (Signore for gentlemen, of course), doubtless part of the Drama and Spectacle of Election Day. I was handed a sheaf of ballots (there were also EU Parliamentary and Regional elections) and a pencil, and told which cabina to squirrel myself into.

The four ballots, or schede, were indeed lovely to behold: jewel-toned marbled paper in shades of saffron, verdigris, rose, and violet, each one bearing an official seal. They unfolded origami-like into a size considerably larger than at first perceived--and on each was listed the candidates and their clusters of coalition logos. Oddly, there was no line for putting your "X". I saved the largest ballot for last, the one for the Mayor of Florence. Once unfolded, this ballot was nearly the size of a bedsheet--seriously, my outstretched arms banged into the sides of the cubicle as I tried to read it. It was the only way, I suppose, that they could fit all the coalitions onto the ballot. I made my choice, then spent 10 minutes trying to fold the damn things back the way they were supposed to go, cursing under my breath and stamping my feet in frustration, no doubt to the perplexity of the others manning the tables. I emerged, feigning an air of ease and savoir-faire (my hair probably standing on end), and returned to the young man, who steered me over to the man by the boxes. My ballots were taken and solemnly and most carefully placed in their respective slots. While this was going on, I noticed a dour-faced woman with an enormous, tanned, hypotenuse of a nose at one of the tables--furiously stamping a mountain of papers. What these had to do with the actual election I could not fathom, but she certainly leant an air of bureaucratic authenticity to the proceedings. I relinquished the pencil, and was given my card back--one stamp closer to my free coffee.

Well, after all that, we found out that the mayoral candidates from two of the main political parties did not have enough of a percentage of the vote to win out one over the other, and there was to be a ballotaggio, or run-off election. So we went back to the polls today. Everything was as before, including Furiously Stamping Nose.

So there you have it, dear Readers. We will have a new mayor in Florence, and we will have laid waste to countless trees in order to do it. Such is the nature of democracy, Italian-style.

My Best Regards,

Campobello

Bloomsday boon

2009-06-16T22:43:00.010+02:00

Dear Readers,

The inimitable Mr. Joyce himself could not have sent me a better gift this June 16th: the internet, bless its virtual soul, has ferried to my shores a long-lost Dublin friend and neighbor.

His e-mail to me, bobbing up in my inbox like a message in a bottle, unloosed in me the rattle and hum of university days in a grayish city in an emerald isle:

"Dublin 1989. 101 Upper Dorset Street – spacious, fabulously-decorated, fully-furnished dump on the North Inner city (complete with plentiful supply of mice and non-functioning refrigerator). Upstairs: two young impressionable female “Yanks”. Downstairs: – a few semi-sober locals (male) – deeply impressed by their new exotic neighbours upstairs."

And to think I was merely going to celebrate the day with a pork kidney for breakfast. Dear Dave, this is much, much better. Thank you for finding me!

Yours in serendipitous pleasure,

Campobello

Four-way Stop installed in Florence

2009-05-24T17:35:00.053+02:00

Dear Readers,

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read recently in La Nazione that Florence was to try out an American-style four-way Stop at one of its intersections. I had to check it out for myself, so I headed over to the corner of Via Ficcanaso and Via Pelo di Gatto at about 10:00am. (I must admit I was skeptical, since the concept of taking turns is about as alien to Italians as serving potato chips as a contorno). I stationed myself under a shady tree and proceeded to observe.

An ancient green Fiat 500, driven by a wizened gnome in a tweed cap, puttered right on through his Stop without the slightest hesitation.

A minute later an Alfa sedan reached the intersection and stopped, but the Lancia who approached from the other street saw this as weakness and took the opportunity to speed on through. Hearty curses from the Alfa.

A Bravo, whose driver was a withered prune leveraging herself via the steering wheel so she could see over the dash--and sporting mega-size black blinder-style sunglasses--without so much as slowing down at her corner, braked dead center in the middle of the intersection and looked around frantically. Four cars immediately surrounded her on all sides and started blaring their horns. She was pelted with oily bread crusts*, but managed to drive off while crying out prayers to the Holy Virgin Mary.

A Carabinieri car rolled through with admirable indifference.

A truck, whose cab held 12 African immigrants, stopped, looked both ways, then proceeded prudently ahead. An Ape (essentially a motorized tricycle with a platform on back, for those of you who've never seen one), stopped, but instead of actually waiting for the truck to clear the intersection, jerked forward right into the trucks' wheel well. The Apes' load of Sicilian oranges disembarked in a most disorganized and haphazard fashion, scattering the road with bright blobs of color. The 12 Africans piled out and began shouting in tongues and gesticulating wildly. The Ape driver, a grizzled man in a dirty white tank top with great tufts of, apparently, a medieval hair shirt peeking from beneath--got out, yelled at the Africans for getting in his way, then sank to his knees, moaning to the heavens about his fallen fruit. Meanwhile, about twenty-five cars had piled up on all sides, horns clamoring and epithets volleying. It seemed things were at an impasse until one of the Africans lugged out a giant garbage bag filled with "designer" bags and belts. The Ape guy was presented with a Rolex watch--he instantly snapped it around his hirsute wrist, looked at it admiringly, then drove off satisfied.

Four cars arrived at the intersection at the same time. They all stopped. They looked at each other. They smiled. They shrugged. Then they all lurched forward in the same instant, only to come to a screeching halt, their four front bumpers forming a closed square. Heads craned out of driver's side windows, "Ma che cazzo fai?! Toccava a me!" (What the f*** are you doing? It was my turn!) "No, macchè sei grullo [blockhead]! Toccava a me!" "Ma vaffanculo!" Just then an ambulance's siren signaled its approach, so the drivers, muttering to themselves and grinding into reverse, pinwheeled around and spun off into their respective directions.

An old Panda packed with smiling Benedictine nuns sailed serenely through the intersection, no doubt sure of their place in the Afterlife.

A camper with Netherlands plates pulled up to a Stop, and a split-second later so did a Smart car with its blonde, tanned, cell-phone-chatting female driver. In a gesture of magnanimity and recreational gratitude toward this country that showed him and his family such a lovely time, the camper man waved the Smart woman an invitation to pass ahead of him into the intersection. She gave it the gas, and him the finger.

A battered blue Citroen putt-putted up and with a great sigh of exhaust, stopped, with terrific conviction. Still staring straight ahead, the driver hit the pedal and the car staggered forward, on through the intersection and just past where I was standing. Next to him in the passenger's seat, sitting very erect, was a german shepherd. A white cane was on the bench between them.

Three cars, each with big letter P's taped to the rear window, reached their Stops almost simultaneously. (P is for principiante, or beginner, i.e. student driver). With contemptible naiveté, each in his proper turn ventured forth cautiously through the intersection without incident, even using blinkers where necessary.

Just as I was about to leave, feeling a bit tired and peckish, sirens signalled the approach of a motorcade, and indeed the first pair of Carabinieri on motorcycles were coming fast down the street. Right at that moment, Wizened Gnome in his Fiat 500 was back at the intersection, having approached from another direction. No one had any intention of stopping, that much was clear. I tensed up, sensing disaster. The advance motorcycle convoy missed the Fiat by a hair, but sure enough, there was a loud crack of metal when the politicians' limo slammed into poor Gnome. The perennially-tanned fat cat himself--I'll call him S.B. (to preserve his anonymity)--got out of his limo and unleashed such a vigorous torrent of obscenities that his jet-dyed comb-over stood straight up from the top of his head, like some kind of fascist salute. Wizened Gnome, unhurt and unperturbed, struggled out of his mangled car, straightened his curved spine as best he could, looked S.B. straight in the eye--and bent his right arm up while slamming his left fist into the crook of his right elbow. A salute of his own.

Mayhem ensued: police and carabinieri choking the intersection, strutting and shouting; angry civilians in their cars and on mo-peds, leaning on horns and yelling into their cellphones; mothers and nonni gaping on the sidewalk with wide-eyed children licking lollipops.

The next day I read that the four-way Stop had been summarily dismantled. It had been declared, by a certain powerful politician, to be unquestionably unconstitutional--and decidedly un-Italian.

Yours,

Campobello

* credit for the oily bread crust pelting goes to my dear, and direly witty, friend Gordon.

Dysfunction, Italian-style

2009-04-28T08:41:00.086+02:00

Dear Readers,

I think it's time I introduced you to my in-laws. (The squeamish and overly-sensitive are strongly cautioned to read no further).

I'll begin with a photo--it hangs in my mother-in-laws' salotto. It was taken in the '70's, during the vendemmia (wine harvest), on the family property. In it my father-in-law, Gaetano, stands with a proud patriarchal tilt to his head, his arm resting on a wooden cask full of inky grapes. Dead center is my diminutive mother-in-law, Elena, staring stoically ahead, her lips pressed into a thin line. Leaning into her, their shoulders touching, is the youngest sibling, my sister-in-law Silvia, who even at age 13 was as meaty as a longshoreman. The oldest, Giorgio, 16, stands rigidly next to Gaetano, forcing a smile. And Luca, 15, next in line, hovers close behind Elena, almost completely obscured by her, a pained expression on his face. My future husband Paolo (third sibling, aged 14) stands apart from the rest--off to the far left and toward the back--cuddling a skinny little dog in his arms, a big grin on his face.

To me, this picture expresses the entire gestalt of the family. Gaetano is one of those old-fashioned, fist-pounding-the-table patriarchs who thinks his word is law, his wife is there to serve his needs, and his children should be seen but not heard. He is under the delusion (which the family conspires to perpetuate) that he rules the household--when it is clearly and unequivocally Elena who everyone turns to. But Elena has a passive-agressive way of wielding her power and influence: brought up to defer always to men, she uses subtle means to get her way. She is physically frigid--rarely caressing her children or grandchildren--though she expresses affection, I suppose it can be said, through her tireless service. Giorgio has always played his role as eldest son to the hilt--shouldering responsibility at an early age to win parental approval from an insensitive father and an emotionally- and physically- distant mother. He still tries so hard, poor guy (though the stick up his ass has to be a major impediment). Luca, who rarely opens his mouth (in two years he's maybe said five words to me), has never traveled outside of Tuscany or lived apart from his Mamma, having long been trussed by the apron-strings--even when he married his 19-yr. old pregnant bride, they lived in his parents house, raising their two sons there, and only moving upstairs into the newly-created apartment in the mid '90's. Silvia, poor thing, built like Gaetano (big-boned, thick square body, simian-length arms) has a fairly jolly disposition and has always been the dutiful daughter, never venturing far. Paolo was always the dreamer, convinced there was a life out there that merited exploration--he did everything to scandalize his provincial parents, and to get away from them: hiked the Appenines alone, practiced yoga and deep-sea diving, explored Scientology, visited the Hare Krishnas, started working as a teenager so he could buy his own wheels, insisted on doing his own ironing, taught himself English, got a job for Princess Cruise Lines and sailed the Orient, and moved to the States.

I think of my in-laws as the Italian version of the Beverly Hillbillies (minus the fortune, of course). They live on what is now about a million-dollar property (though Gaetano bought it in the early '70's for something like $7000), an ex-casa colonica on over an acre of land, with a pretty view of Fiesole--which sounds quite grand, but they camp on it like gypsies. Gaetano has always thought that land that wasn't used for growing vegetables and raising chickens and rabbits was land wasted, thus every inch of space is crammed, leaving no room for a garden to just sit in and (god forbid!) enjoy. He's got olive trees shouldered up to grapevines, with vegetables huddled underneath--no space between rows for walking, even. Ugly, cobbled-together shacks litter the property, and an old barn is stacked with mountains of junk Elena can't bear to part with: old mattresses, moldy pillows, termite-ridden furniture, rusted old bicycles and mopeds, even an ancient exercise bike she's convinced she may use someday to benefit her tired circulation. Old chairs and rickety tables lie about the courtyard, along with rags, buckets, laundry tubs and Elena's shoes (men's, size 41) left to air out.

[We live in the downstairs apartment of what used to be the single-family dwelling (with Luca and wife Patrizia upstairs). Actually, back when they first bought the place, it was still a rustic farmhouse, with our unit being the animal stall, and the living space upstairs. Now the nonni are across the courtyard in the converted garage, Silvia is just down the street, and Giorgio across town where he can be under the thumbs of his wife Rossella's well-off parents. Nice and cozy.]

***

My Father-in-Law

Gaetano, 83, is almost beyond describing, but I will try, dear Readers. He was raised as a sharecropper near Vicchio, a town north of Florence in the Mugello, and did not even complete middle school. His mother, Assunta, was a big, hard woman whose only thought was of work. She preferred chickens to people. Gaetano was the youngest of six children, the only male, all five of his sisters built like pachyderms and as ugly as pus (seriously, these are women so homely they can stop traffic). As a boy, he got up before dawn to work the fields--he told me once how he loved the big peasant breakfasts they would break for and eat at about 7:00am (a habit he keeps to this day): platefuls of stale bread soaked in olive oil and scattered with raw onions, maybe some boiled potatoes, and wine. He is doggedly religious, attending Mass and Rosary every week, regularly confessing, and mumbling from his prayer book every evening before dinner--but this does not keep him from pawing at women when he gets a sly opportunity, or spouting racial epithets, or refusing to fetch his long-suffering wife even a cup of tea when she is sick in bed. His conversation consists mostly of sayings--hillbilly rhyming wisdom of the "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" variety--repeated with the conviction that he speaks the scintillating truth. He has been known to, on occasion, regale the dinner table with the Hail Mary in Latin--perhaps his one great intellectual achievement.

As a child, he had pneumonia and apparently nearly died. Since then, he has harbored a mortal fear of bathing or getting wet and chilled. So, he bathes only once a week: Saturday evening. (Presumably, this cleans him up nice and proper for church on Sunday). Regardless of how much he sweats and works, regardless of whether or not it's July and 105 degrees out, regardless of the fact that he wears thick woolen underwear even in summer--the man will not bathe during the week. He continues his daily ritual of scarfing a huge peasant breakfast: a great plateful of bread doused in oil, thick slices of prosciutto hewn from the haunch with his pocketknife, raw onions and garlic, maybe some tomatoes and cucumber in summer, washed down with half a bottle of wine. He reeks--reeks--of garlic, onions and wine, and stale sweat. (When I was in the first months of my first pregnancy, I couldn't stomach being around him at all--the stench brought on waves of nausea). Amazingly, he goes around the neighborhood like this, even occasionally to the bank or doctor, his shirt stained with sweat crescents, his rough, sawed-off pants showing dusty socks and mangled once-were-shoes below. I guess cleanliness is not next to Godliness, after all.

Gaetano's fear of catching a chill is so great that even in the thick of high summer, he will not let Elena open the bedroom window at night to let air in (no air-con, of course!). He sleeps year-round with a wool scarf around his neck for protection. Poor woman, lying next to that rough, stinking maiale, suffocating in an airless room in 90 degree heat, never dreaming of speaking up or inconveniencing her husband--if that's not cause for sainthood, I don't know what is.

He typically comes in from his orto (where he spends the entire day, from pre-dawn til dusk) filthy, his white hair dusted brown with dirt and bits of hay sticking from it--and without washing even his hands, plops down in his chair, sets his pocketknife next to his plate, flicks on the TV and waits to be served his meal. Once, Elena yelled at him because he had ants crawling all over him, and he barked, "they're my friends!"

He rarely drinks water, even in the heat of summer, always preferring wine (his own homemade, of course), which he insists is better for you than water. He probably goes through one and a half big, bulb-bottomed Chianti flasks a day--and easily two or more in summer. Last summer he drank too much of his own brew during an outdoor family dinner, and when teased and chastised about it, got all macho and indignant and bragged that he wasn't drunk because he could stand on one leg. So, to prove it, he stood on one leg....then promptly fell into the patio umbrella and knocked it, and himself, to the ground.

***

My Mother-in-Law

Elena, 77, is the epitome of the well-meaning woman: the dutiful daughter turned dutiful wife, the striving Christian, the good neighbor, the tireless nonna. She was born and raised in Luco di Mugello, the second-eldest of five children. Her mother, Nonna Anita, a wonderful woman, lived to be 100, passing away just last year. Elena, like many others, had a pretty tough life--they were not well-off and during the war, because they lived in town and did not have access to their own crops, they experienced real hunger. She met Gaetano at a church social. She told me she was never "in love" with him--it was simply a matter of them both "wanting the same things", i.e. to fulfill their Christian duties to procreate and create a god-fearing family. Poor Elena got pregnant right away and remained that way for the next four years. She was nearly destroyed physically--the midwife told her in no uncertain terms that she better take a break or risk serious consequences (so she did, permanently, informing Gaetano that she was now to be regarded as off-limits. Naturally, as good Catholics, birth control was out of the question--but my guess is that she was secretly relieved to have an excuse to banish those grubby paws). During this time of four kids being born in four years, Elena was also living with and taking care of Gaetano's invalid parents and an aging uncle. (And she got no help from her husband, let's remember). I don't think she ever gave a second thought to all this craziness--she was brought up to believe that life was hard and that the only salvation was to do one's duty without complaining, and that the pay-off would come in the next, more heavenly, life.

Her understandable loathing for Gaetano does, however, express itself in the only way she deems morally acceptable: ceaseless wifely nagging. We're talking a marathon of nagging that has lasted some 50 years, nagging of staggering proportions, great tsunamis of nagging that roll over his hulking frame, trying to diminish him, causing him to pour another tumblerful of wine out of the flask that is always within his reach.

Elena's only real way of expressing any affection (and discharging her Christian duty, of course) is through her helping of others--and this she is always ready to do, whether it be family or neighbors from the parish. She is the classic Italian mamma in that food is also her way of spooning out generous heaps of love to those she does, deep down, care about. She is the typical donna di casa e chiesa, housewife and church-goer. Her world literally consists of the radius of home, the little church down the street, Silvia's house, and the shops and open market of Piazza delle Cure, a 10-minute walk away. That's it. She has never visited the Uffizi, never seen the frescoes of the Brancacci chapel, never been to Pitti Palace. She is always busy, bustling about the house doing endless chores. I have never seen her sit on the sofa--she only sits on a rigid, high-backed wooden dining-chair. She has never worn a pair of trousers in her life, instead preferring demure woollen skirts and thick hose, and sensible shoes on her enormous feet. She stands at about 5'3", wears dentures (has since age 40), is slightly hunch-backed, slim but with thick wrists and splayed rough hands and those platypus feet that plant her squarely on the ground. In her multi-colored smocks over hodgepodge clothing, kooky flowered straw sun hat (summer) or mushroom-puff wool cap (winter), and men's shoes which she often prefers--she looks like an immigrant clown. The only convictions she holds is that the Church is always right, that Jesus is our saviour, and that one must sacrifice everything for family. The thoughts in her head never dally with the existential or dance on an intellectual plane: she's thinking what should she prepare for lunch, do Gaetano's socks need darning, will her grandkids' fever turn into something worse, the plants need watering.

***

Surely this is not a typical Italian family--more like something Fellini would conjure up in one of his darker moments. Does one laugh or cry or splutter in unbelieving dismay at their existence? Dear Readers--I simply don't know. I myself waver between all three of these behaviors, perhaps favoring "splutter in unbelieving dismay."

Yours--in spluttering, unbelieving dismay,

Campobello

A parent-teacher meeting--or--The glories of besciamella

2009-04-23T15:29:00.045+02:00

Dear Readers,

The other day I attended a meeting at Giacomo's school. I must say that I am overall very pleased with the public school my children attend--I find their teachers warm and loving, the program satisfactory and attuned to the children's age-level and individual needs, and there is this touching atmosphere of what I can only describe as sweetness that pervades.

My son, who's in first grade (or prima) has the typical tag-team dual teacher classroom that, for now, all elementary schools use. His teachers are Vanna and Stefania, and they are experienced and wonderful, having worked together for many years. Vanna has a disheveled mop of curly gray and white hair, an arrestingly simpatica face dominated by laugh-lines, sports bright orange and red eyeglasses, and tends to wear clothes in shades of blue and purple. Stefania, herself the mother of 7 children, is a bit younger, with no-fuss short dark hair, and a face that looks pleasantly like a squirrels'. Vanna's voice is soothing and husky, while Stefania's is high and strident--kind of a vocal yin and yang. Vanna imparts primarily Italian, and Stefania math. (There are separate teachers for English and Religion. Religion gets 2 hours a week, English 1--in this global age I think Italy has its priorities skewed a bit here).

At the meeting (surprisingly, not many parents were in attendance), Vanna and Stefania updated us on the class's progress. The academics follow a national program (Italy's school system is centralized), and the kids have been on track, except for math. Stefania reported that they are lagging a tad behind on the math program as a group, but that she prefers it this way, stating quite reasonably that math skills are acquired step by step, each building on the other, and that if things are rushed when the kids are showing they need extra time, next year in second grade they may find themselves having to spend time reviewing, a more difficult process. You see, in Italian elementary schools, the same teachers are with you from first grade through fifth. (So, quite logically, Stefania was attuning her math lessons to her class's needs, knowing that she can "catch them up" next Fall. The flip side is that if your class is showing precociousness in one area, you can give them more challenging work. I think this is a very positive aspect of Italy's school system). Of course, if you get bad teachers, you're stuck with them for a long time. But if you get good ones, it's a boon--nice because the kids, at a tender age, develop a familiarity and relationship with their teachers that supports them through their academic endeavors. They don't have to waste time or wrack their nerves over getting used to so many new classmates, and a new teacher, every year.

Once academics were dispensed with, the meeting addressed class comportment. Overall, the kids behave quite well given their age, we were told. The only trouble area was mensa, or lunchtime. Apparently, the kids are not always "showing the proper respect to food," this being made clear by their mutilating poor defenseless fruit or spearing fresh mozzarella with their forks and waving it around in militant fashion, and other culinary misdeeds. The meeting then degenerated--as happens in Italy--into a lengthy talk about food. The teachers reported the class's eating habits--how much they ate, the estimated collective appetite, etc. (They were somewhat scandalized that the class eats so little, on the whole. But, they conceded--with deep dual shrugs--the kids seem healthy and energetic enough despite this). Then a Neopolitan mom spoke up in the class's defense, saying that she thought the lunch menu was boring and repetitive, lacking in spicy/tasty items, and it was this that was likely causing a kind of collective gastronomic ennui among the children, and hence their disrespectful behavior. She suggested that besciamella (béchamel sauce) be served on the pasta--this being a favorite of her son--and thence was launched a heated debate on the merits and practicalities of cooking and serving besciamella on an institutional scale, its high calorie content, its relative heaviness, its life-affirming properties, the fact that not all kids like it. A parent pointed out that when the kids are served lasagne, there's besciamella in that, and they love it. "Yes! Yes! It's true! Everyone likes lasagne!" chanted the parents. Then, parents with kids who love mensa spoke up, saying things like, "Alessandro tells me 'Mamma, you can only dream of cooking food as well as they do at mensa,'" or "Giulia says 'ma quant'è bona la mensa, Mamma!" On and on it went, a gastronomic tennis match, the mensa ball being lobbed back and forth endlessly. Finally, my head numb, and after looking at my watch for the fiftieth time (I had to buy groceries and get dinner on, see), the meeting was adjourned.

Yours in besciamella solidarity,

Campobello

How many strikes before you're out?

2009-03-18T17:22:00.033+01:00

Dear Readers,

Today was another of the many, many strike days in here in Florence. Buses don't run, teachers are absent, public offices are closed, etc. I am convinced that Italian workers love to go on strike more than they like to eat white truffles or drink barolo. They certainly seem to spend more energy protesting than actually working.

I just don't understand all the fuss. Call me naive, brainwashed by protestant-work-ethic-capitalist-customer satisfaction thinking, but to me, Italians don't have it so bad. For one thing, they barely work at all. Public offices are generally only open for a few hours in the morning, with maybe one afternoon a week in which they open for another couple hours after the interminably long lunch break (typically 2-3 hours). Many shops also close for a good chunk of the midday, presumably so the staff can go home and stuff themselves with a three-course lunch. And banks! They're the worst: open for a few hours in the morning, and then only 45 minutes to an hour again in the afternoon--and for this stellar, 21st century service you pay ridiculously high monthly account fees (and each ATM card linked to your account is an extra charge, too, thank you very much).

The funny thing is that even when Italians are at work, many are not actually working. They are smoking, chatting on their cells, having their 12th espresso, or shuffling papers sternly and looking pissed off. Or they put forth the absolute bare minimum of effort to execute their duties, to the point that a smile, kind word or any kind of problem-solving, trouble-shooting skills proves far too fatiguing to attempt.

Often, however, they are simply absent.

Take the recent scandal in Portici, near Naples, for example. In one of the city's administrative offices, 36 out of 70 employees were arrested for chronic absenteeism. A lengthy investigation, complete with hidden cameras, revealed that the employees were using their I.D. cards to sign in (or having cohorts sign in for them), then leaving: they simply went home, or went shopping, or went to other jobs. Apparently, this was going on for years, and is a practice endemic to the area--another 58 city employees are currently under investigation. Indeed, officials in the prosecuter's office say that this is an Italy-wide phenomenon. Portici's mayor, Enzo Cuomo, under harsh criticism for his bald refusal to acknowledge any wrong-doing or admit his own incompetency, had the coglioni to accuse his accusers of "faziosità"--fatuousness.

Again, I think Italian workers have it pretty good: at least a month's vacation per year, and the endless feste religiose and feste nazionali add up to another good week or two off. When you marry, you are entitled by law to an additional two weeks' vacation for neo-conjugal purposes. If you have a baby (the inevitable result of those post-matrimonial two weeks, I suppose), you get up to a years' maternity leave, with reduced hours to accommodate breast-feeding when you do go back to work. It is nearly impossible to get fired, the intricate web of labor laws always favoring the employee--if your boss wants to get rid of you he'd be better off lacing your espresso with strychnine. Sick days? As many as you need as long as you have a doctors' note (and these are handed out in wanton abundance, like Jehovah's Witness pamphlets). In addition, everyone has umpteen ore di permesso, or hours of "personal time," which you can take at will for things like doctors' appointments, bureaucratic errands, or wild-boar hunting.

So who's complaining?!

Apparently, everybody. In about a weeks' time, we have another scheduled general strike day to look forward to in Florence. Workers have the god-given right to not show up, to protest--although most simply treat these days as a holiday--and to generally disrupt the lives of everyone else. (My husband scoffs at this practice, saying that interminable striking serves no real purpose: it's like the boy who cried wolf. No one pays attention anymore. It's overkill).

But what can you do? Italians are fed the concept of workers' rights from birth, like formula or breast milk. It's an Us vs. Them mentality that is rooted, I'm convinced, in ancient provincial prejudices of Family vs. Outsiders. They believe with every fiber of their being that they have the right to a secured job and all the perks therein, and that once they attain it, no one can touch them. (The idea of actual merit gathers dust on some forgotten shelf of collective conscience).

Dear Readers, I submit to you the Constitution of the Republic of Italy (a copy of which was given me at my new citizen's induction ceremony, and which I am in the habit of perusing while in the loo), whose opening line illustrates my point:

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES: Article 1: "L'Italia è una Repubblica democratica, fondata sul lavoro." "Italy is a democratic republic, founded on work."

There's a typo in there. The correct text ought to read: "Italy is a democratic republic, founded on the theory of work."

Yours in industrious labor,

Campobello

Origins

2009-03-03T12:58:00.008+01:00

Dear Readers,

What would you tell your children to pass the time on a long journey? Perhaps you would tell them about other journeys, journeys that took place a long time ago....

"In 1901 Leonardo Campobello, a stone mason from Palermo, set sail from Genoa for the green, brazen shore of the New World. He was headed for the wild, steaming hills of West Virginia, where he would peddle his craft. With compact body, rough hands, flinty eyes and energy to burn--this was a man who could cleave stone and carve out a life for himself. He sighted New York Harbor and a chill of anticipation raced up his spine. It was winter, bitterly cold, a gray pall obscured the famous skyline, and the fragrant lemon groves and springtime orange blossoms of his native Sicily were but a strange memory. Like so many others before and after him, he passed through the portals of Ellis Island, and was transformed. He emerged, a phoenix risen from the ashes, an almost-American, your ancestor--Leonard Campbell."

This is what I might tell mine.

My Best Regards,

Campobello

Don't mess with my pasta

2009-02-27T17:46:00.013+01:00

Dear Readers,

Today's newspaper announced that an Anti-trust commission handed down a fine of some 12.5 million Euro to Italy's major pasta producers (such as Barilla, De Cecco, et al.). The companies involved represent some 90% of the pasta market, and had conspired collectively to price-gouge. Since 2006, average pasta prices have risen over 30% and it has been the consumers that have borne the brunt.

We're dealing with a culinary sacred cow here.

Italians put up with a lot of crap: a top-heavy government that barely functions, an essentially zero-growth economy, ridiculously high prices on toiletries--but they will not, I repeat, will not stand for over-priced pasta.

Indeed, it is rare to see such heavy-handed punishment in Italy. This is a country where you can drive the wrong way down a one-way street with impunity, where you can park in a handicap spot and proceed to skip from your car past the two vigili who are invariably chatting on cellphones, or where you can be elected to a high-ranking government position and have a criminal record and/or criminal cases pending against you.

Clearly, Italians know their priorities.

Yours,

Campobello

What I love most about living in Florence

2009-01-29T15:45:00.031+01:00

Dear Readers,

Without a doubt the best thing about life in Italy is the food, and the thing that makes me happiest about my decision to make Florence my home is my kids' school lunch menu.

No kidding.

For a little over €7 (about $9) a day, both my kids (ages 7 and 4) get a tasty, nourishing three-course meal. (Parents know exactly what their children are eating because the menus arrive at home by mail). The food is delivered fresh daily and prepared on-site. They're served from large platters by the lunch staff and sit at long tables with their classmates. The tables are set with placemats, real plates and silverware--a shallow bowl for their primo and a plate underneath for the secondo. The glasses--they drink water only--are glass, even for the preschoolers. [Aside: Though they drink water at meals, Italian children are brought up with an appreciation of wine that starts early. In September around the time of the wine harvest, my kids made wine at preschool]

I saw pictures of lunchtime, taken by my son's teacher, and it brought tears to my eyes. It was a cultural epiphany. The table was set for Christmas-time, with red napkins and such. To see these sweet kids, smiling, laughing, eating together--crowded elbow-to-elbow at the communal table, looking so civilized, so convivial, was very moving. This is how the seeds are sown--the love of good food shared with friends, the early exposure to simply prepared seasonal food that forms the habits of a lifetime.

Now understand this, I don't pretend to be a culinary saint, nor am I much for culinary evangelism--elitist foodie zealots drive me crazy--but when you live in food-blessed Italy sometimes you feel you must spread the gospel. And while there are many things that Italians don't know how to do (like wait in line, drive in lanes, or govern themselves), in one aspect they are right on the mark: they know how to eat.

***
Barack and Michelle Obama, according to the New York Times ("Obama's New Chef Skewers School Lunches", Jan. 29, 2009), are serious about food and trying to tackle America's problems with obesity and overall bad eating habits. They promote eating fresh, eating locally, and eating according to the seasons. I say, hallelujah! I hope they make progress, but I fear the way America eats is entrenched. The main problem seems to me to be the fact that fast food--and the paradigm of the fast food meal--has permeated our culture too deeply to be removed. Why do we have to always eat stuff that doesn't require utensils?!!

To amuse myself, I pick American school districts at random and go online and look at their elementary school lunches. Here's what I found, and it ain't pretty:

In Rochester, Michigan, the daily menu might have these items on it:

-Baked Chicken Fryz [just love the cute spelling, as if it's not real food--well, maybe it isn't] with Goldfish Grahams
-Tater Tots [safe to assume these babies are frozen]
-Crispy Tacos
-Fish Nuggets with macaroni and cheese
-Sliced apples with low-fat caramel dip [apparently fruit is so boring and tasteless it needs a sugary dip]
-Crazy Cheesy Breadsticks with Pizza Dipping Sauce [I guess dips are for kids]
-Mini Corn Dogs [are we at school or an amusement park?!]
-Baby Carrots with Ranch Dip
-Dominos Pizza
-Clux Deluxe Chicken [god only knows what this is supposed to be]
-French Bread Pizza
-Sloppy Joe
-Broccoli with cheese sauce [I suppose if the veg is not fresh or seasonal, it needs the mask]
-Cheese Hot Pockets [okay, this one just makes me angry]
-Bosco's Cheese Stuffed Breadsticks

The school has "All Amercian Day" every now and then, in which they serve:

-Hot Dog in an Enriched Bun [I'm sure the fact that that bun is enriched is a load off everyone's mind]
-Hamburger/Cheeseburger Bar
-Fun Size Cheetos

Now, to be fair, they do also offer a salad bar, and "Assorted Fresh Fruit and Veggies" almost daily, and one day they do offer Roast Turkey-Gravy-Mashed Potatoes, but I think we can see pretty clearly which way the culinary wind blows.

In Mount Lebanon, PA, the menus follow similar lines: BBQ Rib Sandwich, Chicken Patty Sandwich, Chicken Nuggets with Dipping Sauce, Chicken Tender Wraps, Cheese-filled Breadsticks with Marinara Dipping Sauce. In San Francisco, there was a glimmer of hope when I read they are eating Wheat Penne Pasta with Meat Sauce, Teriyaki Glazed Chicken with Fried Rice, Salisbury Steak with Mashed Potatoes--but these items are more often than not muscled out by Cheese Pizza Dippers, Bagel Dog [what the ??], and Hot Diggety Dog.

Only in Berkeley, home of Alice Waters, did things sound really promising. The school district's website said they are committed to using fresh, local products as much as possible, the food is cooked on site, and the meat is all organic and grass fed (I almost wept for joy at this). Unfortunately, the menus were not viewable at the time--darn, I was beginning to salivate.

As you see, dear Readers, these menus are dominated by concepts of fast and frozen food. It's clear the thinking is that kids will only eat "kid" food, i.e. food that has been manipulated--probably against its better nature--into a fun, kid-friendly shape, with a gimmicky name slapped on it, and a pot of dip placed next to it. As if to say, "Look, no forks required! Have fun, kids, while you pile on the pork and develop Adult Onset Diabetes!" It's culinary dumbing-down. How are kids nourished (and I use the term lightly) on this stuff supposed to all of a sudden make healthy "grown-up" choices later on in life?

In my house, my husband and son like a good burger, and I'm sure there's not a person on this earth that doesn't like fries. I have been known to dish out the popcorn, chips, pretzels and such on occasion (I couldn't call myself American if I didn't!). But we practice moderation in this regard, and we typically eat healthily, with most things made from scratch, using fresh, local, seasonal products. Our food preparations tend to be simple: things are grilled, lightly sauteéd or oven roasted, drizzled with olive oil, with only salt and fresh herbs to enhance the natural flavor. And all around us, the culture supports, indeed feeds, our desire to eat well.

This is why I am so happy about my kids' school lunches. Here's what they've been eating this winter (menus follow the customary Italian procedure of first course--usually pasta--second course, side dish and dessert. There are always baskets of fresh Tuscan bread on hand, too):

Baby gnocchi with vegetable ragù
Fried sole
Salad (olive oil and vinegar dressing always)
Fruit (always seasonal and unadorned)

Pastina in meat broth
Bollito misto (mixed boiled meats) with salsa verde--a very Tuscan dish; the sauce is made with anchovies, parsley, parmigiano, olive oil and lemon--very tasty!
Boiled potatoes
Fruit

Green spaghetti
Oven-roasted pork loin
Stewed carrots
Fruit salad

Rice with tomato sauce
Fresh Mozzarella
Fennel gratin
Gelato

Penne with butter and parmigiano
Roast veal
Stuffed cabbage in tomato sauce
Fruit

Rigatoni all'amatriciana
Chicken breast with sage
Sauteéd spinach and swiss chard
Banana

Vegetable soup (passato)
Pizza al prosciutto
Yogurt

Pasta snails in tomato cream sauce
Fish livornese style (with tangy tomato sauce)
Peas
Fruit

Lasagna with meat ragù
Fresh mozzarella
Fresh vegetable crudité
Fruit

Risotto alla pescatore (seafood)
Chicken bocconcini ("mouthfuls" or nuggets) in savory stew
Oven roasted potatoes
Fruit

Well, dear Readers, it is nearly lunchtime... I think I'll just nip down the street and see if I can sneak into the school lunchroom. Today's menu sounds good.

My best regards,

Campobello

Thoughts on citizenship

2009-01-27T11:39:00.034+01:00

Dear Readers,

Not too long ago, I became an Italian citizen (I maintain dual citizenship; over my dead body would I ever relinquish my rights to free speech, the pursuit of happiness, and midnight grocery shopping). My main reasons for tackling this gruelling bureaucratic procedure were that: 1) the bureaucratic procedure for renewing the permesso di soggiorno and then the carta di soggiorno was even more gruelling, and more frequent; 2) I wanted to have full rights to any benefits which might eventually be due me (I missed out, for instance, on the 1000 Euro government bonus for having a second child in 2004 because mothers were required to be Italian citizens--apparently, the father being Italian was only good for getting pregnant in the first place); 3) I wanted to have the option of being able to live anywhere in the EU should I desire it; and 4) my kids were born here and are dual citizens, so I thought I should cement my status as well.

The first step toward citizenship in Italy is to try to use your connections to jump ahead of others (this concept, vital to all aspects of Italian life, is actually codified in the Italian Constitution, a copy of which was given to me when I was sworn in). So, through my sister-in-law who works at the Prefect's Office, I was actually given an appointment in this century in order to present all the documents I had assembled, and instead of the normal two-year turnaround time they tell everyone to expect, my citizenship was granted in a year-and-a-half.

I was sworn in in the Red Room of the Palazzo Vecchio, along with a few others (me the only American) by a blind consigliere who wore over-sized black ladies' sunglasses (perhaps Fendi), and in addition to his official tri-color sash sported a rainbow pace (peace) pocket hankie. He shook my hand warmly and pointedly asked me to read an anti-war passage from the Italian Constitution. I was given an Italian flag.

I must say I do not feel one ounce Italian. I have lived here for eight years, have always worked and paid taxes, have two children in the public schools. Speak the language, albeit imperfectly. I am recognized in my neighborhood for being the wife of Paolo who grew up here, and here I am smiled at, greeted, more or less made to feel welcome. However, in nearly every other aspect of my life here, and certainly outside the neighborhood, I am made aware of the fact that I am "foreign." I am simply not Italian--no matter what the government says--because I neglected to be born here. There is a palpable sense of exclusionism in Italy, of outsiders and insiders, of--quite simply--Italians and non-Italians.

It's a regional thing too--open your mouth in Italy, and if you are Italian, you will be immediately placed by your accent: Florentine, Livornese, Tuscan, Milanese, Sicilian, Neopolitan, whatever. My mother-in-law was recently the victim of a con-artist, and afterward she said with profound surprise, "But he spoke Florentine!" as if to say, "he wasn't even foreign, but one of us!"

At my old job at the church of Santa Maria Novella, many Italian tourists would rudely dispute the museums' hours (insisting on their right to enter after closing-time) or the fact that there was an entry fee--often very ugly arguments would break out. Once, when trying to calm down an irate woman who insisted that her status as an architect made her exempt from such trivialities as posted opening times, I was bluntly cut off with, "Excuse me, but this doesn't concern you [insert withering scorn]--this is our cultural patrimony!" Huh. Never mind that I was hired to safeguard that same patrimony and promote its appreciation to masses of visitors.

In some ways, even though Italy needs and thrives on tourism, and is technically open to legal immigrants and a resonable amount of globalization, I get the feeling that it would rather turn its back on the whole mess and just have everybody stay where they belong, and mind their own business while they're at it, mannaggia! Years ago, my then-future father-in-law (surely one of the most ignorant men on God's green earth) said to me and Paolo (recently become engaged) at the dinner table, an idiotic grin on his face, "donne e buoi dai paesi tuoi!" Which means "women and oxen should be from one's home town." i.e., Stick to your own! [Aside: my father-in-law can always be counted on for an ass-backward axiom, a peasant platitude, a choice piece of hillbilly wisdom]

For many Italians, anyone Asian is simply cinese (chinese). Anyone with a darker skin tone (including southern Italians) is often described as di colore (colored). Now, officially, folks here are anti-racist and all that, blah blah blah. But there is a definite disparity between how people would like to think they believe and how they actually behave. The party line vs. the reality.

Even though my Italian is pretty good, many people unabashedly give me what I call "The Squint." They wrinkle their foreheads and squint their eyes as if it requires great effort to comprehend what I am saying, to see through the murk of my accent. I have to fight the urge to smack these people, to shout at them, "Haven't you ever heard someone speak with an accent before?! Don't get around much, do you?!"

Many Italians just seem puzzled by foreigners, afraid, and--something I find rather shocking--not in the least bit curious about us. Italy is a land of provincials struggling to appear sophisticated and modern.

Luckily, we have a number of international friends, other mixed couples like us with whom we can socialize and commiserate--and we do know a few enlightened Italians, ones who have travelled, or at least read books and watch educational television. It helps me feel like less of a freak.

So... I know I will never feel truly Italian--Italy does not embrace me in the way, I think, America collectively embraces immigrants (with lapses, of course), allowing me to blend in, allowing the simple fact that I partake of the economy and lifestyle to suffice, allowing for my difference. I don't want to seem ungrateful to the Italian government for granting me citizenship, I just wish that, now that I am indeed a citizen, I wasn't made to feel like a second-class one so often.

Yours,

Campobello

What James Joyce and I have in common (in case you were wondering)

2008-12-11T09:41:00.013+01:00

Dear Readers,

The heading quote from this blog may lead you to think I have delusions of grandeur, that I--gasp!--put myself on par with Joyce. Please do not think that--I am but a humble scribe. However, like Joyce, I am an exile.

I have had what I can only call the yearning for exile since I was in high school, if not earlier, when I first read Joyce in Mrs. Ferency's (god bless her!) English class: Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. These books deeply impressed me, and I kept coming back to them in the years that followed. Joyce haunted my undergraduate years, eventually leading me to Dublin to study, and Ulysses became the subject of my Masters' Thesis. So he and I have, you could say, a history together.

He was Irish to the bone; all his fiction is set in Ireland, though he himself left it, never to return, at a young age. So when you consider Joyce, you have to consider exile. What does it truly mean to be in exile? For him it seems to have been necessary, painful, rich with possibilities, yet debilitating--in short, full of paradox. The above quote from Portrait shows all the teenage Joyce's bravado, yet it holds a key: silence, exile, cunning. Three words that crystallize his intellectual rebellion, that name his tools for survival, that map his future, that proclaim him free. The thing is, he was never really free from who he was--the nature of rebellion requiring connection always to the thing one rebels from.

And so, I cannot help but draw parallels between his life and my own--as it has turned out, spurred on by my own youthful rebellions, my moving ever-larger distances from my home, my having to always cope with exile in various forms: physical, emotional, psychological. I think I am more restless, though, than Joyce ever was, and not as cunning, and in some ways not silent enough.

When you leave the place where you are from, everything shifts, like tectonic plates deep under the earth's crust. No matter your personal comfort level, you are never on as firm a ground as your native soil. Depending on where you go, you are in varying degrees out of your element. For example, a Westerner who lands in the chaos of Old Delhi is probably in a larger degree out of his element than say, a Westerner who goes to London. But the point is is that you are out of your element. This can be a good thing, an exciting, even exhilarating thing. I often feel this.

But at times it's like wearing clothes that just don't quite fit properly--the geographical equivalent of flood pants or a visible panty-line. There are built-in frustrations at not knowing how everything works, at not picking up on all the cultural clues, at having to jettison some of your expectations and tailor your hopes and dreams. (Example: I always dreamed of having a spacious Craftsman's bungalow, wide tree-shaded lawn and all that; now I live like a monk in a cell). Then, at some point, there is a ripening awareness of the reality of the place you are in as opposed to the place that existed in your imagination before you got there. Naturally, there are as many ways of reacting to all of this as there are individual characters. Joyce reacted by recreating in his mind an Ireland so true and vivid that when it spilled out onto the page it seemed as if he had never left, that he had remained in the thick of it. He seemed untouched.

I, however, find it difficult not to be affected by my surroundings and to shake the feeling that I will always be an outsider looking in. In this blog, you, Dear Readers, will see that my observations are at times colored by rancor, by amusement, by amazement, by profound frustration, maybe even by passion--by whatever mood possesses me and by whatever boon or bane Italy bestows upon me.

Yours,

Campobello

The "Under the Tuscan Sun" syndrome

2008-09-18T17:18:00.015+02:00

Dear Readers,

When you live in Italy, especially in Tuscany, sooner or later you confront what I call the "Under the Tuscan Sun" syndrome. This affliction is characterized by the conviction that moving to Italy will be one long sex-food-designer shopping-restore-a-country-villa-fest, that living here will provide the necessary doses of la dolce vita to solve all your problems. Especially women seem to think that they can avoid menopause, an irksome ex-husband, or spoiled over-achieving children by a romp in the bel paese.

What a bunch of unadulterated crap.

Now I realize that I may be about to alienate a potential reading public, but I am here to tell you, dear Readers, that life in Italy isn't all Prada and porcini. Without a doubt, Italy seduces. And life can be good here, of course, damn good at times--but there is a reality that most tourists, zealots, and fanatics never experience. I know that people don't want to hear bad things about this sunny peninsula (Italians, above all, are ostriches in this regard)--it would be like discovering that Mother Theresa kicked her dog, or that Martha Stewart picks her nose and then proceeds to make maple pecan brownies without washing her hands. We all want to believe that Italy is paradiso--some kind of mediterranean, metaphysical Disneyworld, with no entrance fee, great food, and where everyone is tan and sports fabulous sunglasses.

It is my hope, discerning Readers, that I can open a window for you that gives you a glimpse of the "real" Italy. At least the Italy experienced by an average expatriate, a working mother of two.

First, we must do away with our ideas of "Tuscany", as implied by its ubiquitous use as a marketing tool. The word "Tuscany" has become as overused, abused and meaningless as the word "love". Tuscany, for many, conjures up images of long rows of cypress trees punctuating gently rolling golden hillsides, graceful umbrella pines shouldering up against picturesque, crumbling old hill towns, tumblerfuls of chianti next to platters of thick slices of toasted country bread brushed with green olive oil, etc. etc. Well, this can be Tuscany, just as "love" can mean, well, love. And this, of course, is what the marketers count on....

But, I ask, what is Tuscan about my mother's Ypsilanti apartment complex, ambitiously called "Tuscan Creek"?!! Not a cypress in sight there, my friends! Or American restaurant menus that list things such as "Tuscan Chicken Penne Pasta"?!! (You will never, I mean never see a chicken-and-pasta combo in Italy, god forbid). I've seen Tuscan sheet sets, Tuscan room paint, Tuscan cookware, Tuscan toilet brushes and Tuscan windshield wiper blades (ok, I made those last two up--but believe me, they are in the development stages somewhere).

So, dear Readers, disabuse yourselves of any previous notions of what Tuscany is, of what Florence is, and listen to me. I'll give you the real story.

"Under the Tuscan Sun" my ass.

Yours,

Campobello

The Rientro

2008-09-16T17:18:00.014+02:00

Dear Readers,

Florence roared to life at the beginning of September, the August vacations having ended. The viali swarmed anew with slaloming mopeds, cars choked the lanes, horns blaring in that impatient Italian way, and orange buses flung themselves down the narrow streets of the centro storico like marauding Greeks storming Troy. After the eerie--yet delicious--quiet of the ghost town Florence becomes in August, the change was jarring. This great Italian collective roar is what heralds the rientro--the return, the re-entering, the restarting of "real" life after the hedonistic lazy days of August, wherein it is too hot to even think of working or accomplishing anything. In fact, if you are so unfortunate as to be left in the city during this month (it feels like being one of the few survivors on a barren Earth after a nuclear holocaust, alla Twilight Zone), you find that you can't get anything done: forget yoga, forget doctor's appointments, forget applying for a mortgage, and pray you have enough food to last until September.

I have always preferred Autumn to the other seasons, and even as a kid suffered through summers that always seemed unbearably long. September has always meant new life and a new beginning to me, primarily because of school (which I loved). So the characteristically dramatic way Italians have of welcoming (or begrudging, depending how you look at it) September rather appeals to me. All the news programs talk about the rientro, as if it were some amazingly noteworthy cultural phenomenon (well, perhaps, it is). Now is the time to get down to business, buy school supplies, see what "serious" books have come out (not that Italians like to read serious books), check the theatre schedules, sign up for judo. Suddenly the phone is ringing with mothers wanting play dates with my kids, all the shops are open, a government office concluded a matter with me suspended since July, my yoga studio is open. Even the miserable humidity and cannibalistic mosquitoes have abated, high-tailing it out of here on the hind legs of summer.

I have, then, in the spirit of the rientro, begun these letters to you, dear Readers.

My best regards,

Campobello