Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The Dreams

I.
The Italian word for
FACADE is
not

faccia.
Faccia, Face.

Ta
mper with it.
Add a -ta and the face is complete
ly shrouded.

Faccia-ta, Facade.

II.
Here, some people are coated in
sun.
Others, makeup.

Faces
made down,
sent away.
Faces hiding.

III.
Firenze is exceptional.
Of all of the places in the world
this must be
the capital of
beautification. Beau-defecation.
A city so smeared with
bullshit, the falsified bleached white
walls seem to powder themselves
scentless.

IV.
It is a comfort
to be
back because,
to be
back is to say that, once,
I was
here. I need that comfort because when I walk here, I
don't feel that
I am.

V.
The man in the cafe whistles in the morning.
I like him.
His hair parted like a split cantaloupe, slicked back, black.
He whistles, in a bleached white coat and
releases
his song into the day. He
opens
his lips and rings for us to
listen.

VI.
After coffee there is
a church or a
mansion or a
battlefield of statues.

VII.
It is beautiful, this white, rose, pale green.

In the morning the Duomo makes me
"Cliche-cliche," cliche Cliche:
When I see the Duomo,
I am happy to be
awake.

VIII.
We enter the church and though
the frescoes are centuries old, we are asked for
their exact meaning.
How are we to know when
this is art? How can one answer exist if
one vastly complex mind created this? Unless,
unless many simple minds created this.

One painting was painted on the ceilings,
to hang over the citizens
in their dreaming, in their restless sleep of
a dream of
a life.

The oligarchy painted
Power.

IX.
I ran

away
,
walking.

I ran for the art; the art for
the sake of
the art.

I found

the Edge
of a dream.

X.
You know that place where
asleep beneath a quiet ceiling
the image arrives with
memories and friends and
the colors fade into
blackness as they become
brighter and brighter and brighter with
Certainty and Truth.

And then you wake up.
The Edge, right?

Do not forget. In Florence we wake up
to the Dream.
Frescoed facades.

XI.
The Edge was
bright. Like I said.

But mostly, it was sad.

It happened one youthful day when the two of them were
little two-hundred-year-olds. Rascals.
The Center had a dream and
when it woke up, it put on its
royal blue cloak, its
leather boots,
its mascara and sexy leather purse and the Center said to the Edge
"your thoughts are not worthy of my eternal ceiling" and the Edge went
to the edge, and
way out There
it got sad.

When I got there, I could feel:
there was no white powder on the walls.
It was brighter because nothing
no swath of freshly scentless orange stucco
no thick tablecloth or bargaining tent was covering it in muddy white.
The Edge was lathered in Florentine sun. And on the walls
you could feel just what it was thinking.

XII.
I guess that
with all that makeup on
Florence doesn't sweat much
Because I sure as hell couldn't find any water fountains.

So I went to the Bridge.

It too is an old bridge
filled with the one Dream.
The Dream is washed into the
green-crusted murkiness of the Arno
the very foundation of
the bridge.
So, Florence sells its dreams on

The Ponte Vecchio. That is why
it is an old bridge. (Everything we know is old, and aged because
everything is alive.

But) Vecchio,
old - that refers to the ONE old thing.

The Dream now hangs around necks and
fourth fingers in
Hollywood, while the people sleep.
I hope the frescoes in the Valley of Los Angeles are pretty
at least.

XIII.
I am entranced by the ceilings' beauty,
this strange form that power has assumed.
Hierarchical blood
in the guise of
inky rainbows. That is
(aesthetically)
pretty.

XIV.
Tonight, in pursuit of sleep and
in search of dreams,
I walk back.

Others are here.
We hope to dream
more than one
dream tonight.

XV.
am
dizzy
I.

On the return to Rome

My pan refuses
at its center
to heat itself.

Half of the egg cooks. We look
through the glaze of egg white
unbleached.
The hot walls spin as
nausea sends us searching for the
mildness at the pan's center.
But through this clear-cut window,
we can see where
we are.

XVI.
You are a vegetarian. Nothing with a face, then.
You eat fish?
What is this "face", you speak of?
Does that chicken you ate have one?
When does a baby become a boy
a chick a chicken?
We are all alive.

Look at my face.
We dream many dreams.

Phone Home - Rome Call Log

Several days in Rome already. Still surprised by how dark and busy Viale di Trastevere is. Around seven in the evening. This road is nothing like Lomas Santa Fe, Solana Beach, at the phone booth there. This is flat, narrowed by hairy-canopied trees. They take out the light. In pools of yellow, people. Some lanterns hung at restaurants, others on walls. In one, two scruffy men and their dogs tread water. Very friendly. Also surprising. The two men call to me at the booth of shattered glass. L'altro! L'altro! Apparently this phone does not work. Hang up the red plastic boomerang, and swing around the broken windows to the booth at its back. Grazie, to them. A smile too. No coins though. The machine takes no coins. Only numbers from a receipt. I dial many. Eventually my mother answers.
What a strange surprise
I am in Trastevere
and Mommy is too

. . . . .

I go back to her. Walk down San Francesco da Ripa. It's been only a few days. Amazing, after this continental trip, here we talk together again. Street's brighter; it's day. The grey is light and cigarette buts and black stains no longer hide from the night. Very clear on the sidewalk. Turn the brick corner, the group of scruffy men are there too. Dogs, no doubt. Right across from the shattered phone booth. We are all friendly still. They do not ask but, I should give money. Should I? Too concentrated. Head toward the booth. Still noisy, though morning. Pick up the red plastic hairband, wiggle my ear into one end and, after a few numeric combinations, there she is again. My pack is with me; sits close on my feet. Hear her voice. Also the ambulance, an ape motor, business man's shiny fourwheelmobile. That's wonderful, Mom. Wow. What a day. Hey, could you talk louder? Troop of motorcycles, racing towards the Ponte Garibaldi. Dad, louder? Yeah, good to hear you too.
This call is hard so -
garbage truck eats the pavement
loudly - later then
The guys pretend not to watch. Like I do with them. Still think they're nice though. Dogs tired.

. . . . .

Tried Viale di Trastevere again but, wandering through alleyways, there was a quiet Piazza. We walk on a broad street to get there. Bakeries passed. Via del Cerdo, Via della Scala. Down many stairs - looks like Atlantis. I, a merman. Swim past more curving walls. No sense of direction, only sense of street. A trash pile on the right. A school suddenly opens out of the wall on the right, children spill through the gates. More twisting, cars on either side, parked. Cars, motorbikes approaching, not parked. I park in between two parked cars; they roll bumpily on. Morning glory-laden arch to the left, of yellow stucco. Turn past and, the Piazza appears. Church on the left. Pink. Banner over the doorway announces an exhibit on the Middle East inside. It is a small but open piazza of the usual steel-colored cobblestone and, in the center, I approach the phone. Stickers leech all over the transparent phonebox. Drunken man sleeps on the church steps, body curled around the sharp edges. There was a restaurant there last night with plastic weave chairs, behind where I stand. It is quiet beneath the leafy overhang now. The morning sky shines grey-blue and, as I dial my familiar set of numbers
bearded sleeper stirs
church steps littered with black clothes
soft awakening
Hi Andre.

. . . . .

On the end of Ponte Garibaldi, caught a bus. Waiting for it there was a sign I didn't understand. I asked what it meant and, Dei Capassi - place name. Final destination, not ours. We kept talking, boarded the bus to Termini and rode past the shop-ridden streets. All familiar, with the curve and crowded height of the buildings. Busy streets; like the alleyways were expanded. The bus was very busy but, we kept talking. At Termini, I headed out to Stella Polare to find ceramics where the mediterranean waves lap on the sand. He to Firenze. But the restoration architect gave me his telephone number. I was in Florence in a later week. It was very tidy there, and there were no water fountains. Wouldn't expect to find a phone either. Everything was brightly lit. Even the natural light shone metallic on the billboards, the sunglasses, the leather jackets, the stylishly restored renaissance antiquities. The street was broad, all square right up to the tops of the walls. On the edge of the wide, shallow sidewalk, there was a phone. It was red, like the shattered booth in the dark Viale in Trastevere. But it had been cleaned. Maintenance costs money.
It ate the coins as
shuffling through clanging pockets
hands scramble for gold.
Credit gone. Call made. Hurry off to the meeting place, across the Ponte Vecchio on the other side of the Arno River. Pio Palace. The Big one. No phones there.

Traveller's Guide: Crossing the Ponte Sisto in Rome, It.

Directions

Shortcuts all start
here on the middle of the Sisto.
At either end, the
turn is made.
On the peaked cobblestone squares that
roughly thrust these leather shoes, that
send the morning walker directly forward:
On the crest of this arch
the mind whirs in
all
directions.
The plane flight direct;
the mental soar a daze.
A landing point at the other end sends the walker
hurtling
off through curves of
alleyways of
the city of
Rome.
The mind whirs again
as the body bends
as the two try to track
one another among
curving sidestreets and find themselves
somewhere new.

Monumental Structures

The local basilica, House of Modern Law, is a sight
not to see.
The debated sit on the ground.
They weave strings, char cobs, arrange their many wares.
They watch as
every single
person
that walks by glances and
pretends not to.
This is the silent debate:
share a coin now or
reserve it for later.
Even if that later
never comes.
Which will help more?
The debated sit in patience.

Geography

It is common to look over the rail in the night and see
the Tiber River, glimmering there.
In the night time, the lights glimmer
green and red (even though it is summer) and
down below
the Roman ho-down stomps along in Florentine cowboy boots,
music hurrying the pace of the embarrassed American above.
In the night time, it is more common
to look over the edge; it is
less common to see
a reflection,
reflecting
yet on the expected face below.
Among the floating lights
glimmering on the curves of the waves
the gaze strikes
seeks to draw thick waters to
drink to
absorb to
hold and understand.
All the while the glimmering gaze chases, it chases
itself.

Cuisine

Beverages available
with a squeeze of lemon since
Brazilians are included too.
After refreshments,
the apartment filled with
instruments awaits:
guitars, voices
toothpick holders and beaded shakers
a hollowed chest, a palm, two snapping fingers.
If you are smart, you'd best avoid this.
If you are lost already
you'll know
the best way to find the way home
is to wander somewhere that looks different but
smells of your doorstep
and get lost again.

This Is My Excuse For Going Back the Way That I Came (self)

Prompt: Each day in Rome we set out for a new destination, yet even with the immense historic and multicultural vastness of this city, we inevitably cross over our tracks on the way to new places. What do we see that is new? How do we observe places that we have seen before and the ways that we have already seen them? On your visit in Rome, take care to not only get to know parts of the city, and how they connect to one another, but find new routes to the same destination. See what works for the people of the city, what works for the tourists, the new immigrants, younger people, older people, bus riders, versus cinquecento drivers versus walkers. Explore that which you thought you knew.

--- --- ---

I'm not sure of how long of a walk it was. I lost track in the month they gave us to do it.

--- --- ---

It was a tiring night before, because it was awake. Now that I woke to the day, it too was tired. Still, somewhere from the bellows of my stomach I drew a voice, as though a pail from the depths of a dusty old well. The waters of Rome revived me and, in speaking of them, in raising my voice as though it was important and sharing my precious water with the class, I found the day that the rays of sun had brought to the busy intersection of Largo Susana.
After gathering to listen to the words of the waters of Rome, we congregated around the water basins, for a peek, a sip, and we set out together on a pilgrimage into the center: home. However, within two turns down the road and a few handfuls of explanations, the determined mass had scattered into little wandering groups, curving around through the circular cores of the city's trunk.
I was a solitary group, departed from the Via Nazionale and, in my steamy jeans weighed down with soot and sweat, I felt of lighter step. I floated along red and orange walls, side streets stained with the shadows of exhaust and towering walls of coral cracked cement, and I jumped. My white American-made running boots released me and my anchoring jeans from the sidewalk and, for a moment, we drifted to the wall; as feet tapped wall, my tired limbs felt a sudden strength, and a taut spring simultaneously pressed us back toward the horizontal plane. It pressed us back down to the ground and, in our weight and force, we moved toward the earth, as if in mutual agreement with the spring in the air.
I knew then...I had got somewhere. I had been walking a long time, with the group, down the street from the group, floating with toes pressed to the wall next to the group. We had walked out together and now, I would take myself home.

--- --- ---

It was the first day and, we went to the beginning. It may have been a cow pasture once, beneath a river often, a mud quarry for the most part. But in the form we saw it in, it was the beginnings of Rome. This was where lives were judged, where the gods decided the fate of the city, where citizens traded for their daily meals. Here rolled the fresh produce and the spoils of war marched in red and gold.
We set out from the Campo Di Fiori, headed through the Jewish Ghetto past Alexander VII. From there, a short uphill climb took us to the foot of the Campidoglo. Where the shallow, slippery steps once carried horses, we now moved into the presence of Marcus Aurelius, and with his permission passed between the beautifully shell-laden buildings of white columns and pink stucco. As the armored Roma pointed us to the left, and the postcard man tried to slow us up, we continued to descend, out, to the balcony, over, the beginnings of - Rome the City.
The Forum was a ridge of marble peaks and valleys of rubble and dust. I had seen it no more than from far above and from there on the Janiculum hill the Forum was no more than a balancing act of bones and limestone. Now we hovered among it, drawn into the gravity of the grey marbled boulders. We sunk down the steps; the columns towered overhead.

--- --- ---

To see the whole city of Rome all at once: that was surreal.
It happened in the night, fog of flaring red torches pouring smoke northwest overhead, the ranks of heads bobbing and thrusting forward further into the depths of the monumental mass. A motor rumbled by, parting that insomnial sea as a balancing act of drumming dwarves bounced on a seesaw from the truckbed. The golden sparks ceased to fly through the red smoke as the Carnival troop marched off into the blaring haze behind the truck. We wandered along a wide road littered with drunks and drifters, towards a purple glow emanating from the Colosseum.
On our right was a glade of statues on the forum slopes. A path led down through the gloomy blue into the ancient center. We tried to walk in, but the fence kept us to the road. We wandered on into the purple-lit march.

--- --- ---

It all slopes down onto the main causeway: this is the place where the feet of conquering armies must have marched where, pilgrims neared the crest of the scallop shell where, masses of citizens shuffled - each to beg just one small favor. It booms and belches with the new vehicles of Rome. I have nike-made running shoes on, and surely am of lesser purpose. I can feel it in the bagginess of my clothing, my uneven steps, my undirected fatigue. I am a wanderer in excess in this city - not in search of material weight but something, something old that is also thicker than mere cream. The road still shouts from exhaust pipes and car horns.
A spontaneous turn right and, the wide stretch of road is suddenly cut by a twisting alleyway. At the opposite end of the sidestreet, one can see the sunlight as it dips into the greying courtyard, sidling among the cool shade. I go there. Turning around to face the street at the other end, it is quiet. Just a few steps and, this magical garden of gates doors and windows, is suddenly under a peaceful charm.
My eyes relax here and, my feet move on. This is Rome, I am a wanderer and, neighborhoods like this, where old Sicilians and young Trasteverians reside, these are places for me only to look at. The road booms at the sides of my head again as I move back into the causeway.
This is the place where the Tiber turns, where, its brief east-west path becomes unpredictable. I cannot follow the river, so I follow the mob. Their street points to the chariot racer's delight and the savage theatre, the colosseum, and it sweeps me away from the Acqua Felice at my back. We speak of water no more, rather walking along the fenceline, past the yellow fringed vendors of bubbly canned syrup and stale beans. I walk along the fenceline of the Forum, the fenceline that makes a barrier of what was once a city center. And finally, remembering this long journey, I follow the steps in.
This is not the home to emperors, farmers, judges or shepherds any longer. The travelers that arrive here do not seek to reap riches from this center of the world. They are not wanderers. This is the home of the tourists, lost by definition: by the clear sign on their endless receipts of guidebook, map and tour guide purchases. And I, a self-admitting wanderer, lost at my very root and therefore temporarily found, I am free to drift among them.
I do this with a guise of decisiveness. Anyone willing to doubt my certainty by looking at my hairdo and shoes is sure to be dispelled by my dress clothes and assertive pace. I will not be further lost in the labeling of strangers! I know what I am, and so I strive to speak.
Those same stones we covered slowly in the sweat of the sun: today I am baked by the blue heat again. I cross them, pass the great basilica and the ancient senate. The columns loom above, great teeth clenching the forum to the ground, and I gaze up at their soaring vertical grooves. My line of sight bounces smoothly up and down as I head into the arch's noontime shadow.
This is the way that the path curves to the right. This is the way that the glinting black cobblestone squares curve into the foot of the earth-red stairs. This is the way that we climb to the top, two steps at a time, past the Japanese photographer and the English chatting queen. This is the way that I climb, now alone, met at the pinnacle by the familiar twenty-postcards-for-one-euro-man. This is where the two workers in blue shirts dirty the fountain with the laboring dust from their hands. This is where the top is.
With the view from the Campidoglo
I can see so much and know
I can see very little.
All is in the walls
And I descend the steps.

Circles in Squares (10)

Sometimes the city is quiet. On the White Night, on Notte Bianca, on the day where everyone stays awake until the next begins, we did not expect it to be quiet. But Oh, how disappointing Piazza Navona managed to be.
We approached in suspense, ready to wind through crowds, keep our pockets safe, our voices singing with midnight excitement. But when we arrived at the spacious piazza, the laggers gained fuel for their barrage of excuses. Navona's energy amounted to less than a murmur. The wide open space broke the dense population of the night into insignificant clusters, gathered at the edges of the three fountains. It was very quiet, and, I felt sleepable. But I was not ready to sleep. This expanse would not lull me to bed with its shadowed corners, its simultaneous sense of enclosure and dispersal from the three distant fountains. We needed to walk.
Stamina? I ain't heard of it. It was just past ten and we were damn near sprinting to the Pantheon. It's close, Schuyler informed us.
There were two things in the way: bodies, and chains. I chose the chains. On the side aisles of the main walkways, those metals ropes closed off a fifteen meter length of open sidewalk, and the hop into their passageway was worth it to me. Guided by the flexible rails, I would speed down the uncrowded pathways before hopping over the next linked barrier. Then I would wait for a second, let my heart beat against me in frustration at the confusing directions I was giving it, and with others caught up, dive back over a chain.
It really wasn't that close. Schuyler agreed. At the entrance to the Pantheon's piazza, we were frazzled by the strain of the crowd. We were led by a furiously-stepping Christina, black hair waving gracefully back and forth in the still dark sky. The night had not yet struck the hour of push and shove and so we rather wound. With the street opened up a bit we set off through standing circles, diagonally up steps, briskly past those other winders (head on and at our backs) with an inferior pace. And to get to the light, that great gleam emerging from the entrance of the Pantheon, we had to go around the fountain.
There is one fountain in the Pantheon piazza. An obelisk seems to spiral up into the sky from its center. As it points to the moonlit realm, its height seems to direct us further, towards the glorious dome. It was busy outside; it was night and, people did not have lunch destinations or, work to return to from a siesta. They stood there and filled the space, the one space: the space between the fountain, and the doorway. Our line of four twisted through the edge and, funneled into the doorway that seethed with light.
Inside, though, it was day, the lamp-lit oculus directed upward instead. The people stood bewildered, uncomprehending and without direction as they do in the day, as they did outside in the night. And along the walls, along that wondrous interior curve, each monument smiled with the respect of its own small, caring audience.
I was tired of spirit, tired altogether and, it was only the beginning of the night. Naturally, I was drawn to the birds, the ones that stand still; I knew that Rafael could console me.
In that glass box, the light collected softly, away from the brightness, the hustle of the center. I found a quietness unlike the disappointing stillness of the Navona. It was a peaceful movement, between the words, the wings, the body, the architectural piece just above. I wandered slowly, surrounded by enough people to form a wall, and I felt that I was the only one truly there, where my two feet were. The glass held me there with open arms, slowly flowing soft light over my head, as I seemed to lay my head on the stone in gazing at the light-hearted birds. Rafael - I do not know him. But I trust that he laid there and, calmly, gave me his own direction, into the nighttime dome of the Roman city.
A breath. I turned about, head down over the circles and squares lain attentively on the floor. With the top of my head and my feet and, a muffled grumble of 'scusi' I found the laces of the wall of bodies and, squeezed between the threads. As I did so, they wrapped themselves in behind me. Picking my head up a little, I saw over a few other shoulders and heads the other three, waiting. The floor seemed to spill out in a great arch beneath me, gradually sloping to the other side of the hill at which the waiting trio stood. It is a floor of gilded sand, striped sparsely with bold blocks of color. Its own soft color becomes the light, and the circles and squares upon the floor become the walls, as the interior itself reaches up towards the oculus, surrounding all, even the sky. Because the domed effect is so great, even the dark expanse beyond can be captured, and so, all is inside and outside at once. The fresh night air was there, and the hustled heat of the crowd - foreign and familiar. I did not know if I was inside, but we were going back out.
Approaching the three who were anxiously waiting to get back to the other lagging waiters in the Navona, I needed to pause. I took Rafael's breath in me, and felt the roundness of it all. Even the light curved, as it dropped like dew on the heads of the amazed and as it turned to grey green in the coffered ceiling. I felt the dome held me all at once like a safe womb, or tomb, like a welcoming kitchen, like an open prairie lit by the deep night sky. The Pantheon truly was a polytheistic place of worship, because it was created as a whole, as a structure that captures that which enters no matter if they are outside its walls or have just left. Its interior is in its oculus which is in the sky which is in the fountain in the Piazza.
We walked towards the fountain, and into the movement.
It was tiresome to move back to the Navona, but I had Rafael's breath in me. I had learned to slow more, to think of the coming night, and to watch my tiredness. We moved as a group, in our weaving line, through the narrow alleys, narrowed further by the lines of nighttime visitors, and arrived at the rectangular opening that feels of Piazza.
It is from these openings that, the rectangular tunnel of the Roman alleyways becomes a pot, steaming over into the cobblestone plain, a place where the light filters through, past the individual lamps of street-inhabiting restaurants, where the sound becomes lighter, drifting into the openness past the walls. It is another vertical rectangle, but one that thins with an imminent end. And it was from that rectangle that we entered the Navona to the right of the four rivers fountain.
It was still composed of clusters, but they were clusters formed with more stature, more purpose of the night in their spines. Still, some encircled the fountains but, the rectangular form of the Piazza has built on itself, on these columns of visitors, and had taken shape with the depth of night. The light here was a pale blue, hazed by the length of the great cobblestone plateau. There were corners but, these were less visible with the rounded groups of figures making up the floor of the space. And the walls that climbed upwards from this place once a stadium, flew into the sky, away into open above and hectic nearby.
This was a place for waiting, before a climb - such as the determined steps of Vittorio Emanuele, the upright confidence of the Colliseum, the strong sense of direction of the Via del Corso.
We found our own purposeful cluster, waiting, lingering, and headed towards the Roman mass.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Pauline (17)

Pauline is not the princess; she is not the queen: her role and the role of her servants goes beyond mere title. What she chooses to do is unopposable (her brother owns the continent) and while her power is identifiable as something massive massive, she herself remains undefined.
She waits for us there, smirking, perky breasts taunting us. She knows that she cannot be labeled, cannot be confined to an emotion, nor a single societal role. She needs not flight, as Apollo and Daphne, so serene is her prowess. Needs not the grimace and strain of David to flew her immense power. And so, her story is told in the stillness. In the light of this single candle, We approach her from behind, in the darkness beyond her grace (freshly carried from the baths in the sturdy arms of her extra-tall and especially exotic African bath servant). The golden light surely laps over the dark grey speckles emitted in shadow from the darker doorway we have entered from.
If we know of her, the featureless backside on that highly fashioned turkish cushion together would be a glare enough to humble us as we approach from the darkness. If she is new, then already her pomposity is a disturbance: we wonder in frustration why she deserves such a glorious position in the Borghese Gallery, reclining there without a myth or wreath to her name. Either way, Pauline elicits an extreme response.
But all of these presumptions as to her character are only confirmed as we round her hair, or her toes, and center in upon her two faces: the blank glower coming from her relaxed yet poignant cheekline and the cocky laughter of the two nipples on her bare chest.
Nothing moves. Though the pillow is soft, soft and enveloping as the whiteness it is made of, it remains still, holding her weight as though a pillar fashioned of marble. Her gown almost begins to flow, but it too is caught in the cold calm of its mistress. Here on the edges of the fabric, intricate detailing attempts a dance to free itself of the frozen nature so present on the rest of the relatively smooth figure. But all is under her control. Nothing will move, no candle, no tapestry, no foolishly soft pillow. No subject - this includes her husband Camillo - will move...until she does. And meanwhile, in the flicker and wave of the liquid-orange flame, Paulina's cool control, her wicked emotions dance like fire over the statue. The tension she creates is the same stone that holds the room still.

Fetch The Wax, Find the Bitters. (4)

From my small piece of cheese, I send my teeth to fetch the wax: find the bitters, the striking! Strike me awake! Wake me in Italy.

--- --- --- ---

In the city of fountains, I twist, dazed between the sheets, my body in need of water.
The light weave between the closed shutters, the fanciful drapes, onto the blankly thick walls, weaves between faded blue-grey -- golden sheen like the inside of a goblet -- faded blue grey of the inside of a stormy sky.
Water. I twist into a sit, rise quickly.
In this lofted residence the winds that move the skies above, that put the liquid light from pouring to sipped, the winds open and close. It slams again, the bathroom door, opens itself, clicks again shut, resounding through the hollow workroom with the snap of wood thrusting metal into bronze.
Water. Slowly I gulp at the deep cup. Water. Gulp, gulp down the words, I read: Water, the waters of Rome. Sitting, twisting, skittering between bathroom bedroom workroom, water. I read: the waters that revived Rome. The fountains that laid pilgrims into love of Rome. I read: the preferences of one aqueduct over another - "Vergine...for boiling vegetables."
I want to taste this. Revive me: Shirt plain, brown-patched white socks, perfectly tanned leather shoes.
Door closes, outside - speckled light, light normal enough for me to walk quickly, speckled and bland enough for me to ignore the peppering. To the park, and they notice me; they look at my eyes, look at my shoes. American - cloven - Italian - shorts - long light hair - leather cloven. They are obviously confused, not sure whether to be in disgust. I look back down as I pass through the park, green-filtered light mixing into the deep, grey cement. I had folded the socks, socks on my still tingling legs, to put on the shoes, to become something different, something unidentifiable. I do not know what those legs are as I look down at them - black shorts, filthy socks, shoes with the gleam of a Florentine cow's backside.
My limp is less now, the air entering me as I round the corner, to the shop where the yellow hair on the purple-red meat hanging on ropes signify it is dry.
Entered in a daze: the daze of the hectic, and the constant daze at the real, unrefined, true-colored quality of the food - edible food - all over these walls.
The two men there smile. One is Roberto, the one wit tired red wrinkles sunken into the eyes of his skinny brown face. He is tired, and occupied. But his partner sends out "Dimmi."
Un Buffalo, latte, Caccionata: it is not hard to decide. The only difficulty is in requesting slightly less, asking him to slice off that hunk of reality, that true flavor, that wakening taste. Now I smell bananas, I am in such confusion. Slice off a smaller piece, so I can pay less, so I can constitute myself more in between these two words, rather than firmly in both. Blue grey - gold, blue grey. The walk a teenager takes down the sidewalk, the age a traveller takes when he leaves home.
Roberto does not forget home. Another 'ciao' says everything, but I ask him, I wonder why his eyes look that way? Why on Saturday did he hurry in madness, the madness of the specialty shop! Was it because Sunday, domenica, the Day of Rest had thrown its labors his sabato way?
Normal, yes, worried with work. But me, how was I? How did I feel?
Triste, my explanation, one settimana left here. I seemed somber. This morning I had walked through quiet, my eyes felt dug in and grey. I had walked with slow and sluggish movement, trying to stumble smoothly home.
And so I got a pinch! This Italian actually pinched me on the cheek. He did it twice, he told me of his beautiful country, told me of my own week remaining, and he gave me a new walk, told me exactly, serenitá, the quiet peace I should find in this city of life, in this last week before I see my family.
And we left with a ciao.
Was a pinch enough? I wanted espresso. I wanted the tiniest of cups with the most necessity to sip. I wanted spicy serenity, in a little white goblet, golden-brown glow within.
"Come va il giorno?" I asked the barman. And he asked me to repeat it. Did I speak Spanish he wondered afterwards? Si, Si. I released a laugh. I laughed more. He was awake now, and he had been for a long time. His eyes were bright, but still, "Cuando dormi?" "No dormo. Non mai." We laughed, back and forth with each other. We were awake, different, and serene, quietly mixing into each others' dizzy afternoons. The light was a dimmed gold inside, and I stepped out to be greeted by the bright.
At the door, the family leaving tried to understand my words, not my shoes. We all held the door for each other. As it closed, my coins jingled all at once, as though on uniform bell in my right pocket, clanking with the hammer of my thigh. We bounced up the stairs, sharp clear jingles sweeping me up past the shadowy platform on the second floor staircase. I slowed, through the shadows of black, into the dimness of yellow grey, through the turning lock. Metal and wood clink, and the bathroom door reopens. I slowed, mounted the workspace - workspace flooded bright white, tainted with reflections of pink and green, And I hurried into the two pages.

Monday, September 24, 2007

L'Acqua Felice: The Terminus to Rome's Thousand-Year Draught


Terminus of Acqua Felice


Creator and Creation
In the time of the Empire, 11 aqueducts amply fed the city of Rome's 1,212 public fountains, 11 imperial thermae, and 926 public baths (Morton 31); with this consistent supply the metropolis had no need for water storage. When the Goths ravaged the last of the aqueducts in 537 A.D. the city had already been floundering for several hundred years (55). Following that loss, a trickle from the Acqua Verine became the sole external supply of water for the populace for one thousand years. During that period, Rome's then severed population gathered around the few bends in the Tiber river, where the surface area was greatest.
The waters of Rome returned when in 1585, Pope Sixtus V commanded the completion of a new aqueduct within one and one half years (117). The thousand year wait was trying indeed. Such a monumental restoration project at such a rapid pace as Sixtus' was not fit for average abilities: Sixtus' successor, Pope Gregory VIII only went so far as to propose the project (117).
Sixtus V (1521-1590), originally Felice Peretti, came from poor roots (117). As a young shepherd he taught himself the basics of reading. His intellect recruited him to the church and when he was elected to the papacy in 1585 at age 64, he was full of determination, described as "autocratic and irascible like Julius II" (Majanlahti 172). With this motivation, ne was named after Sixtus IV, the same that restored the Acqua Vergine a century earlier. His building plans were just as, if not more ambitious: Sixtus V restored the ancient Acqua Alexandrina to the modern Acqua Felice, repaired the Quirinal Palace (Morton 175), completed the dome at St. Peters (Wikipedia) and erected four obelisks around the city (Majanlahti 174) among a horde of other projects. These extensive plans for the city were executed with the constant aid of his prized architect Domenico Fontana (1543-1607).
To achieve construct his legacy during the limits of his lifetime Sixtus had to be commanding, strict and without remorse or hesitation for punishment. Upon entering the papacy, the new pope was asked the sentence of the current prisoners, and his reply was that "while I live, every criminal must die" (Majanlahti 172). That summer the criminals' heads staked on the Ponte S. Angelo were "more numerous than melons in the market" (172).
The Acqua Felice was planned to lead 15 miles from the swamps at the Pontano Borghese on the back of the old ancient Acqua Alexandrina (Morton 120), in the process draining the swamps for agricultural use. With the same obsessive pace as his criminal campaign, the aqueduct was completed in one year. However, under the strain of the papal taskmaster, the first engineer was unable to create a level flow (119). At this point, Fontana took over and leveled the grade within six months (119). The long wait was over, and the now watered city ready to thrive.

Design by Fontana

Most of the visual manipulation of the Terminus at the Fountain of Moses can be explained through the direct propaganda at the end of the monument's inscription which explains: Sixtus V was responsible for this aqueduct which has water from the springs near Colonna, brought through Prenestina, is of a certain length and is named Acqua Felice after the Pope's original name (Virtual Roma). In common Italian, felice translates to 'happy'. It is a subtle yet precise alteration. By naming the fountain 'Felice', rather than after his papal name, Sixtus not only appears as modest, but he labels the fountain as a thirst quencher, a bringer of happiness to the people of Rome. In doing so on his project he simultaneously attributes those qualities to himself. This same shrewd method was used to name a street, the Strada Felice, and a bridge commanded by the Pope among other public works (Majanlahti 172).
The effect of this glorification is enhanced through the poignant revival of the Roman Triumphal arch (Morton 127). Domenica Fontana cleverly portrayed Sixtus V as an unusually generous and fruitful pope. What was once used in the days of ancient Rome to guide a victorious army and its spoils of war back to the Roman populace now welcomed the waters of the Acqua Felice through this triumph after its fifteen mile voyage from the Pantano Borghese and was gallantly distributed to the people of Rome.
Also a symbol of gathering and distribution, the fountain is laiden with scallop shells, signifying the great pilgrimage (Crull) that this water took to reach the terminus as those pilgrims to the Vatican did. The lines of the shell converge on the single crest of the wave, representative of the force of God that brought them this distance (Crull). Pilgrims brought these shells to the fountain to scoop up the water of the Felice as they neared the Vatican (Crull).
In this religious fashion, the Roman citizens receiving the water are tied to characters in the biblical scenes on the monument's reliefs. On the left, Aaron brings water to the wandering Hebrews (Virtual Roma). The right side is debated, as the fountain was finished in such haste, but is presumed to be the story of Gideon as he chooses soldiers by the way they drink (Virtual Roma). At the center, a statue of Moses portrays the leader drawing water from a rock in the desert (Virtual Roma).

The statue of Moses is the most clear sign that Sixtus' project was indeed rushed. In this prominent feature of the monument, the sculpture holds the tablets of law, but is inaccurate as at this point in the bible Moses did not yet have possession of them (Ostrow 272).
The story is but one minor reason for this statue receiving four centuries of constant criticism. The foundation for this began when Giovanni Baglione wrote a biography on Prospero Bresciano, one of the Moses' sculptors, and therein laid out a ream of skewed facts for critics to come (283). And yet, even at the unveiling, the statue was not well received. At this point in the history of Western art, proportion was meant to resemble reality, to a divine degree; disproportionate design was utter failure (280). In addition, the statue was bombarded by constant comparison to Michelangelo's stunning Moses from 40 years before, the critical barrage of Tuscan writers in support of the Florentine Buonarotti (275), and the frightening man in charge: Sixtus V Peretti.
For the critics, Moses' characterization is minimal, the coat ungraceful; the tablets are not a major feature, nor is his pose. But from these many viewers and points of pressure on the sculptors Bresciano and Leonardo Sormani, the collective target has been their proportional inabilities (278). A ridiculing pasquinade from the unveiling read that the sculptors had literally "lost their mind" (272).
In this era there existed an idealization of the human form that every statue should depict. The sculptor's duty was to recreate God's work. In accordance, the work of a Renaissance sculptor was defined by both measure and taste, Misure e Giudizio dell'occhio (278). The artist must capture physical proportionality, as well as the sense of beauty that only the eye can master. Without the support of accurate measurement, this piece was unable to portray actual beauty. The practiced model maker Bresciano and sculptor Sormani failed to achieve the idealization in the hastily carved Moses. Rather, it was a major disgrace when compared to Michelangelo's emotive rendition of the biblical figure (276). This Moses is considered an actual error (282) because it does not follow the laws of the time, the laws of proportion and perspective, the laws that consider the viewer's position as well as the sculpture itself.
However, while the sculpture fails to properly glorify Sixtus' achievement, direct symbols on the monument from the Pope's coat of arms laud the Pope more exactly. Felice Peretti, as he was originally called, assumed a crest with three pears, in reference to his surname, as well as a lion as a show of strength. Four lions therefore perch at the entrance to the fountain itself. They are docile, but firm in stature (130).
Because the aqueduct was finished before the fountain was, two black egyptian lions were moved to the monument from in front of the Pantheon. This was not an issue of historical significance for Sixtus as though he "loved building, he was no lover of antiquity" (Symonds 311). The two adjacent lions were rushed, carved from white marble (Garden Fountains). The Egyptian lions have now been replaced by more modern white marble designs (Morton 133).

The balustrade of the Acqua Felice was taken from elsewhere, still bearing the name of a Pope Pius V (1566-72) who preceded Sixtus (133). While Sixtus had greater priority for modern improvements than ancient structures, namely his own, he did hold respect for the styles created. As seen in the obelisks and the Egyptian lions, he held a fascination with the ancient world. This fascination is most visible in his erection of obelisks around the city (Symonds 312), an outstanding engineering feat that only a leader with specific interest in their meaning or significance would assume. For Sixtus this significance was a triumph over Paganism.

"Nothing was more absent from the mind of Sixtus than any attempt to reconcile Ancient and Modern. He was bent on proclaiming the ultimate triuph of Catholicism." (Symonds 312)

While obelisks are generally seen in Rome standing alone, Egyptian tradition placed two side by side at an entrance as symbols of rays of the sun. Here on the Fountain of Moses, two obelisks are visible, testifying to Sixtus' understanding and interest in the ancient tradition and his works with them around the city.

Affect of Aqueduct on Renaissance City

The Acqua Felice was of tremendous proportion for its time.
Several massive troughs line the front of the monument, each with a designated structural purpose, humans and their livestock all in consideration. However, the size was additionally meant to act as a display of Papal greatness; because the volume and pressure of the water flowing from this fountain was so far beyond than any other aqueduct or Terminus since ancient times (Garden Fountains), it truly glorified Sixtus's accomplishments in returning Rome to a state of stability.
The Felice's breadth of distribution was and continues to be exceptional. After its 15 mile journey to the Terminus in the outskirts of the old city, water was distributed as far as the Santa Maggiore, North to the Villa Medici, and to the heights of the Campidolgo at the fountain of Roma (Rinne). The left bank of the Tiber, however, did not receive any water from this aqueduct; the left bank's growth was therefore minimal until Pope Paul III built his equivalent, the Acqua Paola in 1608 (Morton). While other aqueducts have brought Lazian waters greater distances, the breadth of distribution throughout the city remains prolific today; this aqueduct was the source of revival of a vast amount of the withered city.
While Sixtus did distribute this coveted resource once it had reached the Fountain of Moses, it was siphoned preferentially to those people and locations in the Pope's favor. Pious organizations of his liking, including monasteries and cardinals, received water in the form of 'donations' (Rinne). Meanwhile, the extensive gardens of his nearby Quirinale palace and the Fontana del Quirinale received the largest amount of the Acqua Felice supply (Rinne). Aside from the public fountains that Sixtus himself created, the civil government was forced to buy a significant portion of the water with only a limited stipend of 100 oncie (Rinne).
The aqueduct's direct effect on the growth of the city is visible in the endeavors of the succeeding Pope Paul III. The Acqua Paulo of 1608, which was the second built since the time of the empire, came just twenty one years after the completion of the Acqua Felice (Morton 164).This competition for reputation and memory was a common drive among popes in commanding public works. However, in the case of supplying a material resource of water, as opposed to the more common religious monuments, the city was actually able to support a larger and more stable population. In the era of church reformation, these waters would be able to revive the capital of Catholicism.

Visible in maps from sixteenth century, Rome is a city wrapped around the folds of the Tiber, where the greatest surface area was available. What today is the city's periphery was then the location of country villas. The population beyond the Vatican was composed around "solitary little churches and monasteries which had managed to exist by virtue of an old well" (Morton 123). Sixteenth century Rome was wild without water.
Sixtus was therefore very proud of the effects of his aqueduct, and made sure his meetings with foreign dignitaries were held at sites where water from the Acqua Felice sprung. As a Sunday tradition, the 66-year-old Franciscan would walk from the Vatican to the top of the hill at his Quirinale Palace and down to his favorite church, Santa Maria Maggiore following mass (140). On his walk he would observe the buildings being constructed along the causeway of the Felice's fountains. Much of this construction on these initially rural areas was by his own persuasion, by providing tax exemptions and building material (140). Such neighbors of the Fountain of Moses include the Monte Cavallo Fountain, the Quattro Fontane and the Triton Fountain Piazza Barberini, and further off, the fountains on the Capitol (127). Also, for his own pleasure, the Quirinal Place now thrived with secret grottos and lavish foliated decor (142).
On the quiet country hill where the waters from Pontano Borghese were first collected now roars one of Rome's busiest intersections.
This literally loud success was not happenchance, the lucky break of one aqueduct by yet another hastily building Pope. Rather, aside from the fact that much of the the aqueduct was originally the Acqua Alexandrina (Virtual Roma) and the concept for the renewal was that of predecessor Pope Gregory VIII, propaganda effectively directed applause to Sixtus. The propaganda involved in the project, including name manipulation, the use of the Triumph and the display of the aqueduct to dignitaries all contributed to the widespread appreciation of the achievement. This propaganda-based success in turn contributed to the competition that soon after led to the construction of the Acqua Paolo.

Modern Day Acqua Felice

In comparison to ancient Rome's 11 aqueducts, today there are only 6 for the entire population of this seemingly boundless city (Morton 64). Five of these six is a restored aqueduct from one of those first 11; the work of the ancient Romans is continued by their modern counterparts. The city is still uniquely supported by a continuous flow as "no other city is served in a similar way" (Morton 65), though the need for water storage is finally being considered for the current population. Even the unit of measure, the oncia, is in use in the modern system:

"It is astonishing to hear a hydraulic engineer, while seated in the most modern of offices...pick up the telephone and discuss with a colleague the measurement of water in terms that would be comprehensible to an engineer of the XXth legion." (Morton 65-6)

The current organization in charge of Rome's water supply is Azienda Comunale Elettricitá ed Acque (ACEA). Following the lead of their predecessors, ACEA employs prideful propaganda to address their subjects, or customers. As part of the information they provide, ACEA includes programs on artistic lighting and community solidarity as part of the company . This closely resembles the attention to visual appearance and manipulation of the masses that the Senate, emperors and Renaissance Popes like Sixtus V Peretti employed.
Rome's bella figura of water is not only supported by the visual presentation of its fountains' sculptures. The presentation of taste follows ancient tradition as the waters from the different aqueducts remain unmixed, this "owing to the different characteristics and qualities carried by the various aqueducts" (Morton 65). With these specifications, the individual citizens, the users of the water, maintain the culture as well. As Morton approached one old Italian man filling up a pot with water at a fountain in the street, he was greeted with the response, "There is nothing better than the Acqua Vergine for boiling vegetables" (70).
The waters of Rome remain the livelihood of its population, culture and legacy and are most likely a keystone to its future.



Bibliography

"ACEA for Rome." ACEA. Online. Sept 12 2007.

Crull, Kerry. "The Scallop Shell: Walking the Camino de Santiago". 14 Feb 2007. Other

Spain. Online. 12 Sept 2007.

"Fontana Del Mose." Copyright 2007. Garden Fountains. Online. Sept 12 2007.

"The Fountains of the Acqua Felix." Virtual Roma. Online. 12 Sept 2007.

Majanlahti, Anthony. The Families Who Made Rome. London: Chatto and Windus, 2005.

Morton, H. V. The Waters of Rome. London: George Rainbird Ltd, 1966.

Ostrow, Steven F. "The Discourse of Failure in Seventeeth-Century Rome: Prospero

Bresciano's Moses." The Art Bulletin 88 (2006): 267-291.

"Pope Sixtus V." 9 Sept 2007. Wikipedia. Online. Sept 12 2007.

Symonds, John A. Short History of the Renaissance in Italy. New York: Henry Holt and

Company, 1894.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

With Green Shutters (5)

'The cracks and creases enchant me. On the outside, I see a number 20. It dribbles down, lightning slits in the fortress wall. Number 20, enter here. Number 20, dribbles here. Number 20, breaks here. Number 20: it grows here.
Here, the 20 lay their roots in stone.'
The quietest cloister in Rome: Santi Quattro Coronati. mezzogiorno di Mer, 5 Sept. Scabbia.


Yes, my most beautiful sights of Italy are the walls: certain walls; most walls. They are those most colorful walls, yet not necessarily the brightest; sometimes a grey wall can hold more visual flare than the freshly painted orange mockery next door. The color of the walls grows with time - they are aged like the wine drunk inside of them, like the generations that move slowly through their space. There will be a patch of dark metal color, then one so rained upon it appears as clear pewter. The patchwork pattern on these walls reflects the clouds, shifting steadily overhead as these erected skies hold up a slow maturation of the events on the ground.

If a beer bottle is hastily chucked over a Roman shoulder and smashes into the wall, it does not immediately crumble to the horizontal plane. The wall shows first its pain with a dents, a rough edged, monotone hole. As the drunken nights pass, the edges wear, they leak downwards and stagger the wall beneath with painless lines. The hole itself collects rain, and drops that down too.


These walls serve as intermediaries between the sky that makes Rome - Makes the water of Rome and the fruit of Rome and the light of Rome and the sometimes sooty breath of Rome: makes Rome - and the land of Rome itself. Just as the people change the products of the rain with their cultural crops and their flooded roads, so too do the walls mediate the sky as it enters the people enlightened by it.

Here in Rome, we live in layers. It is easiest to show one, to be modern, simple minded towards la festa. And yet, of course there are other layers: There is the ancient we walk through, there is the solitary rooms we sleep in, there is the flood of others from around the Mediterranean, from around the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific. And while as travelers it may be difficult to see those layers all at once, the shock of their presence forming a wall by its own accord, the Romans see it. Not all at once of course, but they see many layers, and I have proof! Have you seen a Sicilian scream about a bus? Have you seen a leather vendor grumble away a carelessly rich tourist? Have you seen the sexy stare of a middle-aged, woman tightly bound by her clothing? The Romans are dramatic. They are not one emotion, but a collision of emotions at once. They are open, releasing their experiences, soaking in the new ones that, however modern, are tainted with the ancient. Rome is not botox - it is alive with wrinkles on its face, with movement and smiles and scowls about the littlest of things.

In that cracked grey stone, we find the most vibrant color, vibrant because it holds flavor, it holds old scent, and fresh tears. These walls have watched for a long time, these colorful walls. And the walls that are yet to be colorful, the walls of a dull new orange, eventually they will bellow in frustration and laughter as walls of the city of Rome.

Minestrone (9)

Enough of this stale food, this packaged, plasticized, extracted and injected monocrop crap. Basta, Basta cosi. I am going to Italy.
And I am here. The pepperoni, the spinaci dance in my belly, spaghetti and olio winding around their waists. Even the dried peppercorns on my tongue act freshly dramatic as a grump Italian woman woken up from her siesta by a load of tourists.
No, there is no scanner here. The vendors have eyes, they have dirt-creased hands, they have responses: laughing for a stranger, excited for the meal they help to prepare, disgruntled at the rush hour where their produce cannot be given the proper care. Produtti di Italia, that is what we buy here.
I buy cheese every day or two, bread every day or two, milk and pasta once or twice a week. But the fruits, the vegetables, the greens and roots - I bring a new bag of bags of them home every afternoon. Yes, even with each day's purchase overlapping with the next, each meal is still fresh.


Sometimes I am disappointed, that all I can say in Italian are in introduction of myself as a student, and then a heaping sack of food words. But, we are communicating through our mouths somehow, the Italians and I. If we eat together, if we share their handsome produce, bagged by hand in paper and plastic, instead of crated crates of crudely decrepit crassness, if we pass the food from one to another, the game of telephone comes through more clearly, the scents brighter, stronger, more audible. Yes even a stranger from across the Atlantic can learn in the first dish to cook with the Italians, to cook with their fruits, their pomodori, their piatti. I don't like to go out to the restaurant. I don't like to go out to the supermarket and rush back home. I like to make my way from the bakery for half a loaf of Napolina to Roberto's for some guanciale and parmiaggiano, to the frutavendoli, back and forth between them until I find the perfect combination for a salad, sauce, a stuffed pepper, a midday snack and some vitamin C. They teach me as we speak, even if it is only with the price and a smile - I know what to make of a dish, if I can listen to what is fresh, sometimes even see the dirt around the cracked hands of the fig vendor in the Piazza in Trastevere. Nothing more than, "che...che Buona."
---
Tomorrow is Rosh Hoshannah and Today in the Campo, I picked out seven apples and passed her the bag. Relentless sugary munching on a sweet new year. She did not weigh them. She looked in the bag, shifted hands, and said un euro cinquanta. Un limone (to contrast the sweetness and raise its happy effect) as bumpy and gnarled and plump as I could find. E tre funghi (tonight was to be my second attempt at a stuffed peperono). It was rush hour, it was the Campo, and soon we were both gone. But all day I carried those apples in my pack with the crusty stubs of bread. Carried them when I went back over the filthy Campo (though at least it is filthy with bright, fresh leaves and fruits of Roman soil) while those useless sweepers attempted to tidy the place while blowing puffs of smoke into the air and spitting mud all over the ground in two neat little brush-stroked lanes. In late morning, she was the first apple seller I saw, and I walked all the way around the Campo and saw other busy people with more costly apples and I walked back and stood there with a bag of reds and speckled yellow-greens, and I waited for her to come. I paced around the stand to every angle to catch her at ready. And when the lines had cleared and I stood solitary off to the cash register at the side, she was still in a hurry. But she still has my three euro, and I her apples, and we trust each other with them.
---
Roberto and I smile easily to each other now. Just as easily as we started, really. The first day Mark and I walked in on our way home through Trastevere, we found ourselves talking about peace and tranquility of the world, of what is important. And when I returned from Florence he dramatically responded to my fazed view of the city with the knowledge that Rome truly has "cuore, cuore." This he assured me of with a nod, a squeeze of the brow, and bend of the back, and crook of the arm; it was as though he was wrapping his skin around the heart of Rome, in his heart, in his San Francesco a Ripa store, In his full-feeling city.

Roberto has given me many interesting cheeses, each one with a lingering bushy smile. He's a skinny guy, for an Italian specialty shop. The buconccini, the Sieneta, the Malga, each wrapped up finely in plastic, wax, unwaxed, with a twist that remains impenetrable until it is warmed by the heat of the pan and the cutting board. But when I see him next, I am going to want him to wrap something different. Product of Italy, I want him to wrap a journal for me. Hopefully there will be a nice little stick handy to put on the edge. Smiley man, friendly man, a bushy moustache on his skinny browned frame - skin the color of the yellowed lights of his shop. How can I buy cheddar from Trader Joe when I get back home? How?
---

---
It felt strange going all the way to the Campo to buy bread from an unfriendly, hurried baker. I wanted to meet an unfriendly baker in Trastevere. The first time I went in, she was curt. I knew nearly as much Italian bakery lingo as I did today, but it's all about timing in the oven, and how much you knead the bread. The next time I ordered two cornetti, lemony frosted and my first, in exchange for some euro and a broken friendly offering. Yesterday, I gave a quick ciao. I got a pagnato, mezzo. And just as I was leaving, I tossed in a pointed Buon Domenica. She smiled. Today, I noticed, we still do not know each others names, but we know our produce - her work, my appreciation. Un ossagio d'Italia, I told her, as I asked for two different half loaves.
---
I had wanted to share that day, but by the end of the morning's market experience, I felt like I had only given the two vendors half of what they wanted. The first had run all over the Piazza Trastevere for me just trying to break my hefty ten. But I left there with three syrupy, oozing figs, the lightest flesh with the slightest hint of sweet water and a blast of sugar within. "Due fichi" had meant three to him, " with the explanation of "...che...Buona." Came back a week later to make some sweet insalata. Roberto had some Greek Feta for me, but at first didn't know why I needed so much, or wanted to put it with fichi. The fig man. Asked for some figs and in a moment I felt myself spinning away with a kilo plus of little tough balls of the fruit, boxed and bagged with 4.50 euro and a smile. Still don't really know how that happened so hastily. But when I left, I remember, between the dizzing results of a rapid--paced sale, that there were no more figs on the table when I staggered away grinning goofily. They went very well with the feta. The full kilo plus.
---
First I wanted to know what that dirty looking batch of pre-cut leaves sprinkled with bright violet beans and glowing carrot slices was. Really, sitting in that shallow crate, half shoved to one side, half of the pale wood planks showing, it reminded me of the market's equivalent of the pork butcher (they are definitely the most raw; the whole store looks pinker than a 60's diner). But on a Saturday before Notte Bianca, after a week when I had learned that if I did not stock up on energy and excitement for Sunday, the quiet would make me sad and hungry, I just asked: "Minestrone," I chewed on the familiar word. That is my next dish, or pot, as the case may be.
---
Damn it. I just got back from Despar - the desperately dispensed despot. I have some pale red tomatoes (they're supposed to be truly red tomatoes). I have a 44 cent pasta bag, which I should be frustrated with myself for buying. The tear in the bottom of the frail green plastic just about amounts to my amount of confidence in this shop. I looked for twenty five minutes, three friends waiting for beans. Canned, frikkin' beans. "Sotto," the red-shirted, broom-wielding man said. Not sotto. Not! Alla entrata. Sopra. SOPRA!
I hope the pasta e fagioli turns out tasteful. Hopefully rosemario will save the evening.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Mattina, Domenica, Siena (self)

Prompt: With a limited capacity to speak Italian, we see many people that we do not actually converse with. Without even meeting them, we still make presumptions about them in order to try to understand what they are doing in this foreign land. One might even say, we tell ourselves stories about these strangers. Tell me a story about one of your strangers.

A creature rustles on the wall...a shutter. The opener grimaces out at the day, one arm half raised, the other in full stretch at the rope above.
This morning, I realized, I reached Italy.
As I sit here on this wall, Italian sun washing my face in soft tangerine, I remember a walk through Cahors. Beyond the city barricades of Sienna, I sit now at a junction - a way home, a way away, a road to the road. I am glad to be writing here, in this book, and thank you pen but I would prefer a more natural version of your kin.
I have said twice now that I have been in Italy. And that was true. But each time, I lose it. And each time, it returns with more magic of itself unguarded. Here I am, and I am in no need of bean soup to see Tuscany properly. A church, a bus to a walk, friends. Eyes open, eyes closed, I am here.
The people that walk by - I can hear them in these morning streets, cobblestones ricocheting off the brick walls. One seemed a drunk, or rather an old woman, or rather - when my presumptions from her head movements gave way to full-bodied sight - She was elderly, and handicapped by Leash of Dog; her head and shoulders did indeed bob unpredictably.
The cars here, head not to market. They go far from here, or they go home. The people to work. The birds to sing. Not consumption, but life, the day. The cars run beside the city walls, they go through them. They shake and buzz. This is real.
The sun and I, we seem cradled by two peaks of the valley - dividiamo, resting encieme. We rest in Italy.
Another shutter opens, and three motorbikes move on, up the hill.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Warming the Center

The climax of this day is such a subtle yellow.
I sit on marbled sidewalk, surrounded by dusty pools of pale-canary sepals.
This has all come so gradually, so dripping from closed lips, from tense tongue, from echoing mouth, down, flavorfully, warm, slow, dripping down my throat.
The day began. It was closed, resting. And upon arising, the day became glum, disappointed and bare in the fragrant wind. The center of my stubborn frying pan refused to heat.
Slowly I spoke, smiled. Later I shared.
Now I breathe deep, am caught amidst a veil of dog droppings, and release the canine-clotted yet breezy evening air with Laughter.
Dinnertime. Showertime.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Excitement (2)

11:53 pm
8-21
tuesday, day two

I have been excited, a spark of fire in this electrified fortress.
I have been excited, I have walked everywhere, quickly.
Rome has jumped at me, loomed at me. Roma has walked with me, steered past me. Romani have ignored me, and brought me into their world. I walked to them. I ran to them. I am very excited.

I was asked to be excited. They said, "You should be excited." Said like their parents must have, "You have no idea what you're going to see there; this will be the memory of a lifetime." I was not asked, I was told. So I found an answer to their question-telling, scrounged it up from an offspring culture ten thousand miles and two thousand years away. I decided: Rome will be overwhelming. Rome will be - I am afraid to go there. Rome will have so many layers of meaning in each footstep, so many people with significance in each piazza, so much time in one glimpse and I will not be able to take it all in.

I am here, I am in the city, and I confess I cannot take it all in. I saw the arch of titus today, and my mystification has reversed itself. I looked for meaning from across the Atlantic, from the new world, from a newly plowed and erected civilization still looking for meaning in itself. Here I looked for those storied layers of overwhelming meaning and I found one purpose; Power.
Right now, I want nothing more from this past that sadness. To think that such greatness was achieved, such a social system perfected and that the fuel of its leaders through their great reigns was a desire for Power. It was not a lust for power, nor an obsession. It was not a part of the system. Power was the purpose itself, what drove the (ever shifting) leading individuals and thus the empire.
And how many died a natural death? How many used that power to find respect for those who had less? It was their own purpose, and once fulfilled, the power was not to be shared, not to be lost, lest they lose themselves. Rather be slain by fellow leaders with a blade in thy throat. Rather slay thy friends, and, in the name of gods, in the name of God, in the name of the powerful self, live a single-meaning life. Is this the basis of western culture?

The Italians have not been at war for fifty years. There is nothing left to violate the beauty that colors this land. I like it this way. Ciao Romani.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

jews in rome

i saw the arch of titus today.

Rome is very impressive, very intelligent, but entirely savage. the frequency with which a system like this appears on our planet, a system of militant hierarchy that, with cultural ignorance, dominates the surrounding world, amazes me. Saddens me.
But I have experienced this disheartening sadness as you have (as only the best of today's journalists can bring); the response that can lessen the sadness for future generations is not to close off from it, to hide in the darkness of its shadow, but to consciously create, provoke, a newer, peaceful world in the world around each of us, in the communities that we are all an integral part of.

it is savage of me to respond with pity and sadness only once i have seen the roman plight of the jews. but perhaps that experience will rather be a gateway for my jewish self to better understand the communities of the gentile world, a world that is not separate. The world is not separate.

With that, I am very excited for some day trips, go see the lands around Rome, the communities that Romans are neighboring parts of.

And it's great - The Italians are very good at making themselves understood, at least the friends I made buying food and walking by on the street and, well, the Italians. They could converse with a child. Remnants of an empire?

And also, very excited to try the Jewish restaurants, Da Giggetto serving carciofi alla giudea. Synagogue down the street. I really don't understand why it took the [eternal] Pope until the 1500's to put the jews in a ghetto. In the capital of Catholicism?

Thursday, July 19, 2007

LOst?

This should help you get back to the Piazza:
http://honorsinrome2007earlyfall.blogspot.com/

Di dov'è se?
Abito al Campo de'Fiori.

LOst?
I always seem to be. Often intentionally. Those rhymes make me hungry for some Shel Silverstein.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Dude you guys! What a scrumptious day!

(that adjective was for you Shawn, out of shame)
Mon. 27: Prep day for Florence

Morning Free to catch up on readings

1:30-3:30 Language class

4:00 p.m. Cooking class with Sabrina Tatta in Shawn’s apartment
(#6, first floor, Palazzo Pio)

Come at 4:00 if you would like to participate in cooking. We will eat at 8:00.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

who's up for the beach?

capo spartivento, galati, calabria, italy
http://www.surfline.com/travel/travel_bamp.cfm?id=9129
talk to me -
Joel
(think I'm gonna go looking for a surfboard while I'm down there. 10 hours from Rome vs. my other consideration, five hours to Venice. Free surf lessons, anyone?)

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

To market, to market

Any vegans comin' along? How about Kosher-keepers?
If you hold my hand, I'll be ready to temporarily break both along with you. Time to bulk up with some parmesan-coated ground beef saturated in fermented grape juice (the waters of italian soil and sky) - get a little meat on our wretched organic bones in preparation for a cold Seattle winter.

L'chaim!

Joel
(Who hopes he doesn't sound drunk on wine already...)

Monday, May 14, 2007

With Visas Submitted

So I don't know if y'all were at the same set of forks in the road when the Italian government asked you what your first entrypoint to the Shaggen states would be, but I certainly don't know how I'm getting from London to Roma.
Who wants to take a train from West to East with me?
Eccelente! (wish I knew more words...ready to learn with anyone who wants to this summer)