The Year in Writing and Failing (final edition)

The year went so badly for writing that I pre-empted this now-annual post with a precocious version over the summer, declaring that "while I am writing, I am failing."

My year-end taking-stock has been an enjoyable ritual for the past 7 years as I am typically able to log a few solid accomplishments each year. 

That's despite the fact that I am still a completely unknown writer (trust me) and an emerging literary translator (emerging at my tender age, by the way, not so great).  

(If you're curious, here's the post from 2019 and another one dedicated to literary translation). 

But 2022 diverged so thoroughly from the outline of my writing goals for the year that in a fit of despair, I decided in July to declare 2022 'The Year In Writing and Failing' (OK, yes, only on my blog, which is read by about five people, but as you can see on the right, last year was 'The Year in Writing and Contemplation,' which sounds oh so much better than failure).

And it's because I'd decided that 2022 would be the year to write about the uncle I never knew.

What I didn’t know, of course, is that it would also be the year I struggled to write about the uncle I never knew -- struggled over and over and over. I submitted the idea dozens of times in myriad different versions, writing it and rewriting it.

Nicknamed Spike, my uncle died long before I was born -- before he could even become my uncle. Exactly 65 years ago this year.

And now at the end of what I’d dubbed the Year of Spike, I have not told his whole story -- but I did manage to tell a part of it. An 11th hour compromise that introduced my readers to him, and the hole his death left in my mother's life.

By which I mean: at the end of November, I published an essay in Boston Globe's Ideas section about the importance of recording our parents' stories, and it included excerpts from an interview I conducted with my mother about Spike. Here's the essay:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/23/opinion/why-you-should-record-your-holiday-dinner-conversations/

So much about Spike remains in my notebook and unpublished: the details of an archival article I found about the accident ("Youth, 18, Killed in Crash"), the comments sent via email by his octogenarian schoolmates from the now defunct Brooklyn Prep high school (that he was "a wild man," that he went to "smoochie smoochie parties," that he was defined by speed and fun), the list of high school activities (he ran track, was in the honor guard, had twice been elected Class Vice President, etc), the scholarship he may have received to the College of the Holy Cross (the college doesn't still have admission records from 1957 -- I checked).

What I read in 2022 & What I plan to read in 2023

Reading is much more than a hobby for many of us, right? It's the equivalent of a runner's pre-marathon workouts. It's breathing (essential) and also eating chocolate (indulgent). Reading is such an important part of the work I do -- and the way I want to live my life -- that I have long kept lists of what I read each year.

So I suppose it's natural that I've now evolved into the kind of reader who plans what she's going to read each year.

Not that I always fulfill my reading campaign promises (you can see here what I planned to read in last year's reading roundup) but having a plan helps me map out the genres I want to immerse myself in.

I always know I will read books in Italian (mainly 20th century fiction by emerging or overlooked Italian women authors). I also know that I will do a fair amount of reading connected to my translation work, in particular this year books about the Holocaust since I have an NEA grant in literature to translate the short stories of Edith Bruck, a transnational Italian writer whose work is often inspired by her deportation at age 12 to Auschwitz. 

Lastly, I write memoir so I read memoir or works with aspects of memoir. And this year I read Bonnie Tsui's Why We Swim, and Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails by Tim Parks, as well as my first Emmanuel Carrere: Lives Other than My Own, plus I re-read Il sistema periodico (=The Periodic Table) by Primo Levi.

Reading is tied to obsessions, right? So I've become obsessed with dual-language editions but not actually in Italian and English (though I spent a lot of time reading English translations of Italian works, with the original in one hand and the translation in the other). Instead, I have come to love French-Italian dual language books (all because I bought one by Erri de Luca on a whim in Montreal a few years ago), and hunted them down in Florence this past summer by visiting the French bookstore in Piazza Ognissanti.

I also returned to an author who mesmerizes me: Patrick Modiano. (To be clear, I read his work in English, not French -- let there be no mistake!). New books of his that I read in 2022:

Invisible Ink

The Black Notebook

Dora Bruder

This year, I did tackle a whole new genre for me: Graphic novels. And that includes the best of the best: Maus (which, of course, is also connected to my reading on the Shoah).

You'll see below if I read the books I set out to read -- in some cases, yes, in others no. But the most important thing is that I set out to read "any book my father owned or recommended (including perhaps Alan Turing: The Enigma)" and I did just that (including the Turing biography). I wanted to immerse myself in the Michael F. Bonner book collection in the year following his death, and I DID.

Also, a note about the numbers: I read about 40 books, though that doesn't account totally for all of the books I re-read but only in part. I would like to read 50 books one year, which I believe is the annual total for my Uncle Larry (and for my father? Who knows how many books he put away each year?).

The year ahead could be daunting as I feel I need to get serious about reading works that will help me with my translation work. I also feel the press of classics I haven't gotten around to.

Without further ado, here is a partial log of what I read in 2022 ...

(If I list it, you can consider it an endorsement, in the event you're looking for suggestions)

What I actually read (English):

*Forty-one False Starts (essays) by Janet Malcolm (Nonfiction)

*Alan Turing: The Enigma (biography)

*Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails by Tim Parks

*Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui

*Occupation Journal by Jean Giono

*Lives Other than My Own by Emmanuel Carrere

*The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat (Sacks)

*The Secret History by Donna Tartt (about Bennington!) (Fiction)

*The Torqued Man by Peter Mann (ditto)

*If You Kept A Record of Sins by Andrea Bajani and translated gloriously by Elizabeth Harris

*We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

*Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett

*Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (permission given to all to stop reading my blog right now to go read this book right now)

*Against Forgetting: 20th Century Poetry of Witness

("This anthology was born of a desire to gather works of poetic witness to the sufferings and struggles of the 20th century," reads the introduction, and the compendium includes this line of verse from Abba Kovner: "Sorrow already on his clothes/Like an eternal crease.")

What I actually read (Italian):

*Accabadora by Michele Murgia (Fiction)

*Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano (In Italian, yes, just because)

*Le otto montagne by Paolo Cognetti

*Come una rana d'inverno: Conversazioni con tre sopravvissute by Daniela Padoan (Nonfiction)

*Sono Francesco by Edith Bruck

*"Inverno in Abruzzo" ("Winter in Abruzzo") an essay by Natalia Ginzburg that I re-read every year or so if for no other reason than she writes, "...era quello il tempo migliore della mia vita e solo adesso che m'è sfuggito per sempre, solo adesso lo so." = It was the best time of my life and only now that it has gone from me forever, only now do I realize it.)

Graphic novels that I read (NEW CATEGORY!!!):

*The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman (file under essential reading for any human being on Earth)

*Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Dual-language books (NEW CATEGORY!!!):

*La plage/La Spiaggia by Cesare Pavese

*Placeres carnicos/Meaty Pleasures by Monica Lavin, translated by Dorothy Potter Snyder

(This category in 2022 also included quite a few Italian-English combos, such as La stanza del vescovo, Il sistema periodico and Lettera alla madre, as part of my on-the-job translational studies, but I am particularly interested in the French-Italian editions).

What I re-read (Italian):

*Se questo è un uomo, Levi

*Il sistema periodico, Levi

*Lettera alla madre by Edith Bruck

*A ciascuno il suo by Leonardo Sciascia (birthday treat; I sometimes re-read his novel, Il giorno della civetta, in which he wrote this inimitable thought: "Niente è la morte in confronto alla vergogna." You can translate it like this: Death is nothing compared to shame. And there you were thinking nothing could be worse than death, right?)

What I re-read (English):

*A Christmas Carol -- Dickens

Some of the books I'd planned to read but did not:

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold 

Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey

*The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Books I began but did not finish:

*What You Have Heard Is True 

*The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain

*This Is Your Brain On Music

What I'd like to read in 2023:

*Horizontal Vertical: A City Called Mexico by Juan Villoro (began it last year but had to return it to the library before I was finished -- it's brilliant!)

*A book by new Nobel Laureate Annie Ernaux

*The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

*Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

*Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey

*Books about Patrick Modiano (and probably by him, too)

*The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin

*Graphic novels of the caliber of Maus and Fun Home (SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE!)

*Se consideri le colpe by Andrea Bajani (in the original)

*The Friends of Eddie Coyle (file under 'books from my father's library')

*The bible in Italian (I've never read it in Italian, now have I? So I bought a copy this year)

*The Letters of Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante (Quando verrai saro’ quasi felice)

*Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed

So what did you read this year? What can you recommend, especially in the genres of graphic novel, memoir and spooky post-war psychological thrillers (fiction or nonfiction)?

And what do you plan to read in 2023? So exciting! Another year of reading awaits us, my friends.

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Dialogue I once overheard on the bus to Bennington town from campus:

“Down there in Texas when I was working for A&M, they asked me to make some pizzas," a passenger says to no one in particular. "I made some heart pizzas, some diamond pizzas. And they were like, ‘Whoa!’”

“Chili’s. They keep saying they’re hiring,” he continues, as we pass the fast food restaurant. “But then I put in an application and they say they have no jobs.”

“Fuck it -- I’ll keep putting applications in.”

“De-termination,” the bus driver says.

“What does that mean?”

“You keep at it. Perseverance.”

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Spode Christmas cup time (sort of like pumpkin spice season?)

It's the little things, right? 

Always the little things that make life worth living.

So Spode Christmas coffee cups for my Italian coffee.

Why you should press 'record' on Thanksgiving (for the Boston Globe)

I began by recording Leo, and ended up recording my parents. 

And I've published an essay about doing both while also researching the Uncle I Never Knew for the Boston Globe.

I also managed to quote Jay Allison, the Moth Radio Hour impresario who says something so beautiful it might have been worth building an essay around:

"Sound gets inside of you -- it inhabits you. It can break your heart."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/23/opinion/why-you-should-record-your-holiday-dinner-conversations/

Why does it have to be so hard?

April 12, 2022

Lost diary entry

Last night after a day of working in the garden in Avon and admiring my father’s books and running on the beach with Caramel, I couldn’t resist any longer – I began to cry, saying to Mike, “Why does it have to be so hard?” But really I should have said, Why do we have to only appreciate everything when it's gone? Most interesting man I ever knew, my father, and yet I often shooed him away like he was some bothersome child. Like everyone had a father who was an encyclopedia of musical knowledge (among other things) and a master gardener and a minor comedian.

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Writing about Didion for CNN and revisiting 'The Second Coming'

I spent yesterday writing a piece about the Joan Didion auction, and immersing myself once again in her seminal 1968 essay collection Slouching Toward Bethlehem, I couldn't help but think over the lines of verse from Yeats that inspired the title:

...what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

So I re-read the poem ("The Second Coming") and now it's all my head can conjure.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Read the poem here courtesy of The Poetry Foundation.

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(P.S. I sought it out first in the 1944 anthology of British and American verse that I cadged from my father decades ago but it wasn't there; what was there, once again: "Dulce et decorum est": 'the ecstasy of fumbling' and the bitter descriptions of how war distorts the very flesh of the men forced to wage it)

On all of the Joan Didion items you might want to buy (for CNN)

Every now and again, I file stories for CNN (instead of simply editing other writers' stories), and every now and again I am able to combine my identities as a part-time journalist and a part-time essayist while reporting a story.

This is one of those occasions. I wrote about the auction of personal items that once belonged to seminal writer Joan Didion.

Of course, I've read Didion's work! I aim to chronicle my whole life through essays so I've absorbed many of hers, and was thrilled to quote a few of my favorites in this auction preview story.

A bit chagrined that I am already priced out of said auction -- which includes artwork, furnishings and unused writing notebooks (that last item, hmmm, yes I would happily take those if they weren't selling for $2,500!).

I began reading the Tracy Daugherty biography & revisiting other works -- I'm even thinking it's time to find my copy of Play It As It Lays, though I haven't seen it in years. Maybe decades.

Oh and I'll take recommendations for favorite Didion works I haven't read. Not that I need anything else to put on the TBR pile but...

Here's to pioneering women writers. Here's to women writers who are so successful and iconic that their belongings are coveted.

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Feeding my Modiano obsession (and yours)

From the novel, So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood:

He had written this book only in the hope that she might get in touch with him. Writing a book, for him, was also a way of beaming a searchlight or sending out coded signals to certain people with whom he had lost touch.

The novel is by Patrick Modiano -- the first work I read by the French Nobel Laureate. And the start of an obsession. Coded signals!

Are you, too, obsessed with Modiano? I even stalk one of his translators on Twitter!

In the event you've also fallen under the spell of Patrick Modiano, I've compiled a list of links so I can obsessively immerse myself in his history.

Since that first wonderful novel, I've read the following books by Modiano:

Suspended Sentences

The Black Notebook

Invisible Ink

Missing Person

Pedigree (memoir; you can read an excerpt here https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2015/12/09/patrick-modiano-on-childhood/)

Paris Nocturne

In the Cafe of Lost Youth

The Occupation Trilogy

I find his obsession with maps and addresses and half-remembered episodes from his childhood mesmerizing.

I also love the way he presents childhood as a puzzle we spend the rest of our lives trying to solve.

And his obsession with perennially reconstructing his childhood mirrors my own, though he is careful to point out in Pedigree that he does so without nostalgia. His father was a shadowy figure -- on the run during World War II because of his Jewish heritage and willing to get his hands dirty to stay free -- and along with his mother, who performed in theater, frequently left Modiano in the care of friends.

If you, too, are mesmerized by this French fiction master, here are some good articles about Modiano:

From France Today:

https://francetoday.com/learn/books/patrick_modiano_literary_giant/

From The New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/patrick-modianos-postwar

AND

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/the-unforgotten-books-alexandra-schwartz

From Slate:

https://slate.com/culture/2014/10/patrick-modiano-wins-nobel-prize-these-are-his-three-best-books.html

From 3:AM Magazine:

https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/patrick-modiano-in-and-out-of-silence/

From the Paris Review:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/02/24/lamplight-and-shadow/

From the website of Yale University Press (which has published some of Modiano's English translations):

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/12/18/a-conversation-with-patrick-modiano/

I had a ridiculous thought this past week -- we'll see if I follow through: perhaps I will try to read one of Modiano's books in the original French (with the English version close at hand; it would make sense to read a book I've already read). It's something I do when I am conducting translational research for my Italian translations -- comparing the English version to see how it matches up against the Italian original.

In this case, I will really be shoring up my High School French but small literary adventures like these make life truly rich, especially during those final hours of the day when a mother of a 10-year-old is looking for a small treat.

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The Little Artist Whose Mother is Addicted to Post-it Notes

Post-it art by our Leonardo. Leonardo d'Atlanta.

Now on display in the Gallery of the Master Bedroom.

Oh I know Marie Kondo wouldn't approve. But what does one do with these little scraps of paper? You are not meant to preserve something to show that while you were reading bedtime stories to your son he was whiling away the time doodling on post-it notes? Doodling in ways you never could. Or did.

So for now the show is still up in the gallery.

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Fall grief

One day in Atlanta, circa 2015

Lost diary entry 

It feels a bit like grief, the first warnings of fall -- that sudden chill in the morning air when until yesterday, there was nothing but heavy, humid, hot air mugging every breath out of me.

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Pilgrimages I made in Italy (Il Libraccio -- Milano)

I visited as many bookstores as possible when I was in Italy, and had the joy finally of shopping at Il Libraccio (Milano branch), which I had heard about for a long time.

What I bought:

*A back issue of Granta Italia ("Sesso") that I'd wanted for a long time (and at a good price -- better than Amazon, of course; I can now take it out of my Amazon cart!)

*L'Arminuta by Donatella di Pietrantonio

*La Malora di Beppe Fenoglio (largely because I became obsessed with the word 'malora' while translating one of the Bruck short stories and spent hours in the Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library poring over the big Italian-Italian dictionaries with extensive, historic entries on all of the major literary iterations of the word)

I spent a lot of time at the Mondadori store in the Prati neighborhood in Rome. I also spent lots of euros at Libreria Edison in Florence, kind of my "home" bookstore when I am in Florence.

But Il Libraccio is famous in a special indie kind of way.

Plus, because I bought two Einaudi books, they gave me a free backpack!

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Who we were

 

Who were we? We were girls who stretched out, seatbelt-free, in the spacious trunk of our noisy green station wagon, reading, writing in our journals, sharing thoughts. Little girls who fell asleep together even when one of us begged for her own room (not me!). Kids whose headquarters were the swing set in our backyard, a blessed magnet for our neighborhood friends. Two out of a total of four girls with stock phrases like, "Let's not and say we did."

Today we are women headed to my parents' house to pore over artifacts such as this photo (taken by my Uncle Larry at my beloved grandmother's house at the lake in what we then considered Upstate but what was really simply Westchester). 

And we -- I! -- will be forced to part with some of the evidence of a happy childhood, lest we build museums to ourselves (and man am I tempted to do just that).

There are many items at my parents' house that no one needs.

But this artifact? Nah, not going to part with it (which will surprise no one who has read my letter to Marie Kondo).

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World domination -- from the Leo Journal

Aug 14, 2020

Leo looks at the geese in the school field behind our house and says, “Geese are totally close to world domination.” 

A few days later he asks me what ‘domination’ means.

Lost diary entry

Walking the dog to the sound of Italian news

I hear Mike chuckle as I grab my quilted LL Bean vest on my way out the door to walk the dog one morning last summer.

“You’re not going to need that. It’s already 80 degrees,” he sniggers.

Oh, I’ll need it, I think, as I slip my cell phone into one of the front pockets.

That's because often while walking our dog, I catch up on Italian news by tuning into RAI radio programs. Walking the dog, in other words, to the sound of Italian news streaming on my phone.

As I meander through the familiar streets of my neighborhood, I become embroiled in crises half a world away. I’m getting up to speed on the latest COVID precautions. I am hearing about the current crisis facing Mario Draghi or whoever has the misfortune of being Prime Minister. (The photo above is of Draghi as his administration was falling apart; he needed a quickie espresso right on the floor of Parliament to cope). 

The usual, in other words. 

Fact is, I’ve been embroiled (happily so!) in Italian news for more than two decades. Two decades of reluctant exile. 

All because of a study abroad program in Siena, Italy, too many years ago to specify.  

Once you've heard and understood Italians speaking their native language, I don't think you can go back to the English-only world. I couldn't. 

(I often counsel friends who are about to embark on an Italian vacation to study some Italian -- honestly, nothing beats understanding what the barista is saying to a local at the counter of a caffe while he/she gets the coffee orders ready).

So while Caramel tugs at her leash, I'm enjoying the program "Prima Pagina." Or "Il Libro del Giorno," (The Book of the Day). One day, there was the radio documentary on Lucio Battisti, one of my favorite Italian singer-songwriters. (My favorite song, and the song that initiated me into the joys of Italian pop music, is "La Canzone del Sole" by Battisti).

I've written about "Prima Pagina" before because it's one of the ways I keep in touch with Italy, and the daily radio show is both novel and thoroughly novecentesco (something out of the 1900s). A different journalist each week comes into the studio to read the headlines and summaries of stories on the front pages of ALL the major Italian newspapers. But not only: minor papers, too! Weeklies! 

He or she comments on the stories, compares the way the various publications play a particular news item and fills in back story in the event the reader may have forgotten (or her dog is tugging a bit too hard on the leash). Where he or she is a seasoned journalist -- it's like a guided tour of the Italian newsscape at any given moment, in the company of an expert.

I think it's brilliant! I am a committed newspaper-reader but I only read one newspaper whether I am in Italy or America, and yet sure, I wouldn't mind knowing how other newspapers tackled the big stories of the day. I also love that I can "read" the newspaper while walking the dog -- or doing the wash (hypothetical, that last one).

As a (part-time) journalist, I have the vague notion that it reinforces the value of journalism and of newspapers, even if I can also imagine many Italians might skip buying the paper after listening to the day's episode.

(It also reminds me that knowing a foreign language is the key to a secret world. Yes, I am walking my dog in the prosaic streets of suburban Connecticut but my mind has flown, is flying, is in ecstasy). 

Perhaps what's wonderful about it all is that it has a value and provides a service even if the return on the investment is dubious. That describes a lot of Italian life -- a service exists, a flourish is provided, the extra mile extended, whether it "pays off" in the near-term or not. Because in the long term, that bit of extra always pays dividends. 

(I am thinking of the work done especially by those bariste in Italy -- the personal touch extended to each patron with a nary a tip in sight such that the Italian coffee bar remains a beloved fixture in cities, big towns, small towns, train stations, shabby neighborhoods on the outskirts and anywhere else an Italian might need un caffe).

In my case, that extra bit takes the form of a giratina through my neighborhood, listening to a seasoned journalist in a RAI studio in Italy explaining at great length the news of the day to me while Caramel sniffs around (then sniffs again) without my spending a dime for it.

So yes, I'll take that quilted vest because it holds my cell phone, which helps transport me far, far away to Italian news land where all my various selves converge.

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The Italian trip memento group photo

How did it start? Why would you do it? Who can say? But as far back as when I lived in Allentown (at least), I've been gathering all the wonderful items I collected during my trips to Italy and snapping a photo of them.

A group photo of my souvenirs.

I even wrote about it for Catapult!

So here's this trip's memento group photo. There's not much that I do that's unique -- there are even other hair-twirlers in the world. There are certainly other pushy, petite broads around (to the Franciscan brother who tried to tell my mother that I was refreshingly outspoken when I arrived at St. Anthony's, my mother said, "She's very pushy!").

But so far I haven't met anyone else who ritually poses her purchases for a group photo after trips abroad.

(I did it when we visited Montreal, too. So foreign souvenirs occupy a special spot in my psyche).

It may stem from a habit I have that's connected with Christmas: I leave the gifts under the tree for as long as possible. That's what we did, growing up. God Bless Pat: she was not one of those mothers who was snatching the wrapping paper from your hands and socking it into a trash bag as you were  still unspooling it from the gift. Nope! You got to revel in opening the gifts and also gaze lovingly at them, day after day during your school holiday.

Similarly, I leave the Memento Shrine (TM) intact for as long as possible. It's an unusual ode to conspicuous consumption for me, not because I am virtuous but simply because I am not a shopper. I still have the lacy jacket-like shirt that I bought in a London thrift store in 1995 as well as the black-and-white scarf my sister, Denise, gave me in high school, because to replace them, I'd have to enter a shop. And not one that sells cutesy Italian paraphernalia. Which brings me back to my point.

Items of interest this trip:

*New Bialetti Moka AND coffee AND mug; I guess the Bialetti company figured they should begin roasting coffee to go with their signature stove-top coffee makers

*Spaghetti definition place mat (it says spaghetti is something you must never go without in your pantry)

*Tins of Callipo tuna

*A picture frame swathed in traditional Florentine paper (and various journals, pencils and notecards -- singlehandedly keeping the Florentine paper industry in business)

*Books, of course, including a back back back issue of Granta Italia, which I had been searching for since on Amazon it costs a zillion dollars

*And the edition of the Corriere della Sera with the headline, "Addio al governo Draghi," which I wrote about already.

I linger over these items because the time in Italy is so precious. And so different. Another Jeanne emerges when I step off the plane. Indeed, all of these purchases reflect the habits of this other person -- going about on foot, making acquisti, collecting mementos (this time: packets of sugar from the coffee bars I visited --- shhh! Don't tell Mike. For some reason, he thinks the house is full of clutter). Oh and also moments. Collecting lots of moments.

It helps that I never have to step inside a big box store. It helps that I don't have to traverse a parking lot to examine the Spaghetti place mat or obsess over the gorgeous paper goods.

Also, that when I am done, I can repair to a bench in a piazza to revel in what I've bought. La dolce vita, in a nut shell.

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Indo ttuvai (Firenze!)

Quante volte avrò sentito questa domanda? Comunque sia il conteggio, non basta, ora che non abito più a Firenze.

Quando arrivai a Siena tanti anni fa per studiare -- la prima volta che venni in Italia -- l'accento toscano mi era difficile. Entrando nei negozi, facevo confusione subito, e mi chiedevo, 'Come mai non riesco a capire quello che dice il proprietario (o la commessa)?'

Ora so che la gente che incontravo nei negozi e i ristoranti e i bar di Siena parlava con un accento forte forte. Per una ragazza americana che stava in Italia per imparare la lingua, parlare con i Senesi a volte mi faceva sentire come se qualcuno mi avesse preso in giro, visto che avevo sempre sentito che in italiano si pronunciava ogni lettera a contrasto della mia madrelingua (inglese).

E invece no!

Spesso a Siena (e Firenze e Pisa e ...) non si pronuncia la C! Viene aspirata dopo l'A, per esempio, come tutti gli italiani sanno. E ci sono altre lettere che subiscono una modifica, tipo la Q e la T. 

Difficile quanto, che so, cinese? No -- ma quando arrivi in Italia per la prima volta dall'America con una conoscenza molto limitata della lingua, e nessuno ti dice, 'O guarda questi qui a Siena fanno un macello con la C!' ... qualche difficoltà si pone. 

Ormai ci sono abituata -- infatti aspiro la C anch'io! Come affetto per la regione che mi ha accolto. E quando leggo uno scritto come quello che ho inserito quassù, mi sento quasi coccolata perché posso ben immaginare una persona mentre dice, 'Indo ttuvai?' Con una voce che mi fa ricordare tanti amici fiorentini che parlono cosi.

Elena Ferrante scrisse, "Le lingue per me hanno un veleno secreto."

Nel mio caso, non si tratta proprio di veleno ma invece forse una specie di droga.

Se mi capita di dover pensare della mia vita, concludo che il periodo trascorso a Siena in cui sono diventata bilingue -- cioè, una persona che sa esprimersi non solamente in una lingua ma bensi due -- ha cambiato tutto. Il momento in cui la vita si divide in due -- prima, parlavo solamente inglese, e dopo invece ho capito che parlare solamente in inglese non mi avrebbe più bastato.

Chiudo con questa guida geniale al parlato fiorentino:

https://www.girovagandoioete.it/dialetto-fiorentino/

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Italy is Italy: Chiuso per ferie (Coco Lezzone) -- Fave photos/Italy trip

I often worry that Italy is no longer Italy (like maybe they need the Italian equivalent of 'Keep Austin Weird' bumper stickers everywhere). 

This is for many reasons, including globalization of industries and companies, but tourism, especially from America, is also one culprit, even as it bolsters the Italian economy.

Signs Italy isn't Italy to me: English is everywhere in Italy, often for no good reason. In other words, what at first was used to accommodate tourists has now spread to content/slogans/informational texts that should be in Italian alone.

(As I blogged earlier this year, Paul Auster wrote of his father's visit to Holland where he was disappointed to find everyone spoke English and hence "were denied their Dutchness." Arguably, that's a different situation, of course, because the Dutch were/are using English to communicate with Anglophone people whereas English in Italy is often used, as I said, to communicate with Italians!)

There are also alarming messages everywhere that give you an idea of what some brazen tourist has already tried and what Italian authorities have had to now attempt to rein in (we were visiting one monument where we saw a sign on a high railing in English only: "No climbing.").

I also know the American schedule (and perhaps the English schedule or Japanese schedule) has made its mark. My old friends at the factory where I taught English ( and which is owned by Americans) don't seem to have the choice anymore whether they work to live or live to work.

Not to mention, it's odd to see foreign tourists zooming around on the same kind of scooter we bought Leo for his birthday or in modified golf carts. This wasn't available when I first came to study. Theoretically, it could be progress.

But I always look for a bit of an anthropological strain to my Italian studies -- I want to see how Italians do and say things naturally, without any outside influence.

And they don't zoom around Dante's city in a golf cart. 

But then I see signs like this one at the Florentine restaurant Coco Lezzone (famous for its appearance in the film "I Laureati") and I think, "Italy is still Italy." Chiuso per ferie = closed for vacation. In this case, for an entire month.

I saw similar signs on the doors of other establishments -- in some cases, they had been posted in late July and the businesses wouldn't reopen until sometime in September. That's an Italian-style vacation. Hard to imagine any business in America, save a purely seasonal operation or a family-run ag coop, closing for more than two weeks IF AT ALL. 

Maybe Italy is still Italy.

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In Italy the streets are my lab (Seconda volta)

The first morning in Milan (which is to say the first morning of the trip), I wake at 6:50 a.m. and head out subito -- immediately -- on foot while Leo and Mike sleep. 

Left out of the hotel, and left onto Via Turati (where Mike is delighted to discover the San Carlo potato chip HQ is) to find the perfect caffe for a cappuccino & una ciambellina. I did OK – a small corner job, workman-like but some of the paste (pastries) I bought were still hot! And fancy isn't always the ticket. 

I begin collecting information immediately because in Italy, the street is part of my lab -- language lab, culture lab, architecture lab. The coffee bars, too, and any surface that contains Italian writing. They are my beat.

So I notice the massive macchinetta for the coffee is giving the barista trouble and the building that houses the American embassy is also home to Radio Monte Carlo (the station name, when I read or say it quietly to myself, is broadcast in my head in the original Italian that you would hear on the radio).

I also notice, much to my chagrin, that English is everywhere – everywhere. But for different audiences. In some cases, it's there to communicate to people born speaking English. In other cases, it's an absurd flourish (or whatever the opposite of flourish is) to an otherwise Italian-only public service message or advertisement (Trenitalia, I am looking at you!).

Morning #2, I go to Il Chiosco Manin, an outdoor coffee counter in Milan, just to the left of an entrance to the public gardens. A customer beside me ordered, “Un caffe per cortesia.” (‘A coffee, please,’ except that he used the form of please that includes the word ‘courtesy’ – and the order feels extra courtly. Also, for those of you playing along at home, un caffe = an espresso. If you want a cappuccino -- and I do -- you have to say cappuccino).

Another man bikes up to get his coffee. “Ciao Salvatore,” he says to the barman.

While I have my cappuccino at the tiny bancone that sits on the street, the radio is on, and it’s perfection.

Another woman arrives at Il Chiosco and the barista says, “Ciao Lorena.” It's like I'm gatecrashing a party where everyone else knows each other, but no one minds I am there.

I eye the oranges that are used for smoothies – tempting. Meanwhile someone calls out, “Buon di!” Then the garbage truck arrives – and the sanitation workers get out of the truck to have their coffees, too.

I am observing. And when I am done observing while standing still, I say my goodbyes to the barista and begin walking again to observe some more. I feel like I could walk all day and only then would I be sated, happy, fully on vacation. 

Vacation for Jeanne = walking in Italy (while someone speaks behind me, next to me, near me in Italian -- and yes, Heather D-R from St. Anthony's, also when someone speaks Italian directly to me, but I didn't want to get greedy. Those first few days, I am almost struck speechless by how thorough the change of scenery is from America to Italy).

Now I am walking through a stone gate that’s part of the old walls of the city – next to the fancy shopping street Via della Spiga – and the sidewalk ducks under a portico (do we have porticos in America? We should). 

Courtyards abound in Milan and the portoni (front doors/main entrances of buildings) to them reveal oases of greenery and sometimes sculpture.

I’ve struggled to find an open giornalaio in Milan – even the concierge at our hotel shrugged his shoulders. Victims of the pandemic, which is heartbreaking because newsstands are Italian mom-and-pop stores that double as mini-piazzas. A place for an exchange. (They also sell Pokemon cards! Ask me how I know!)

But Mike manages to buy for me at Milano Centrale:

-La Settimana Enigmistica (weekly puzzle magazine)

-Bell’Italia (most beautiful travel magazine you've ever seen)

-La Cucina Italiana (food mag)

Doing the frontpage crossword in the puzzle mag ('Settimana Enigmistica' -- you can see the word 'enigma' in there), I learn, or re-learn, that 'musicare' is a verb (clue: “Musicò Tosca.”)

I am collecting information about 1,000 tiny moments, 1,000 tiny encounters between myself and Italy. Later in Rome, I trip over myself to snap a photo of the perfect graffiti spotted as we entered the Villa Borghese from Piazza del Popolo: ‘Sei bella come Roma’ = You're as beautiful as Rome. Not sure there is a way to top that, other than -- maybe -- you're as beautiful as the Taj Mahal or a hologram of your face should be beamed permanently from the sky.

Everything that has words draws my attention (as I may have, ahem, mentioned). I walk the streets each morning silently repeating phrases from ads, billboards, shop windows (Idraulico, giorno e notte = Plumber available all hours; Traslochi/sgomberi = relocations, junk removal; Saldi = sales).  I am shopping a lot but mainly my kind of acquisti, like anything sold at the giornalaio (newsstand). Yesterday I bought La Gazzetta dello Sport just so Leo could see Italy’s pink sports newspaper (he marveled that there seemed to be 35 pages about soccer and 1 page about car racing and maybe 1 page about volleyball and that’s it). I told him that anywhere in Italy, when you see someone across the bar or piazza holding a pink newspaper, you know at a glance he or she (OR HE!) is reading the national sports newspaper.

What I bought so far:

*Il Corriere della Sera (2X)

*L’Espresso (magazine)

*Panorama (magazine)

*A new red Moka coffee pot from Bialetti (yes I now have probably 10 Mokas of various sizes)

*La Gazzetta dello Sport (see above)

*A lightweight plastic basketball for Leo (dal giornalaio!)

*A kitchen towel

*A place mat with the “definition” of Spaghetti

*A bare midriff shirt (ma sei matta? Am shopping around now for a new lifestyle so I can actually wear it)

*A green wool sweater from Benetton like the brown one I've had for more years than I care to admit

*10 or so books (including two by Edith Bruck; when Leo saw another copy of Andremo in Città, he said, ‘Mommy, you have that one already!’ I suppose seeing it around the house for a few years will do that.)

I am no different than all the other tourists snapping photos. Except I snap photos of the 'Missing dog' flyers on utility poles and the tree stumps some cracker jack street artist has transformed into sculpture, not to mention compelling graffiti and street signs of particular relevance (I will always take photo of  the sign for Via della Vigna Vecchia anytime I visit Florence -- it was once my home).

We are taking trams in Milan and some of them are “antiques.” The #1 tram line that we took to Castello Sforzesco is just such a model. Wooden bench seats line the walls of the tram. There’s a shimmy and shake to its accelerations. Like a mobile museum that allows a step back in time in addition to a method of transportation.

One of the major streets in Milan is Via Alessandro Manzoni and that tickles me for some reason. Like, where in New York is the F. Scott Fitzgerald Boulevard?!

Italy is basically just one big Tickle-me Elmo doll. Every damn thing -- good or bad -- intrigues me.

That's all for now from Il Belpaese.

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Ritual ciambellina photo (so fresh!)

We did go to the Coliseum while we were in Italy, I will have you know, since the boy wanted to go there, and we also showed him St. Peter's; while in Milan, we visited the Castello Sforzesco, which I had somehow missed multiple times on previous visits to the city.

But I was in Italy for the ciambelline.

You know that!

(Also there for the overheard chatter at caffe counters and in the street, as you also know).

And wow they were good.

OK, no I wasn't able to share with Leo a massive ciambellina fresh out of the oven as I did last visit to Italy on the final morning of the trip when we stumbled out of the hotel and across the street of tiny Fiumicino (it's also a town) into a nondescript coffee bar shortly before our flight home. But that's possibly a once-in-a-life-time ciambellina event, as ciambelline aficionados know (ahem!). (It was nearly the size of a dinner plate and did you hear me? Fresh out of the oven!)

So yes, I had lots of good ciambelline during our trip this summer to Italy, including the one above in Rome. Actually, this time around I had some ciambelle (what I would call ciambelline) and some ciambelline (li'l baby-sized numbers), if I follow the nomenclature of the bariste. 

I also had some cornetti, including some fresh out of the oven (thanks to Caffe Portofino on Via Cola di Rienzo in Rome). (Cornetti caldi makes me think of the Jovanotti song "Gente della Notte," in which he sings about staying out all night and having breakfast at the crack of dawn feasting on cornetti caldi, hot croissant-like pastries).

Sometimes I bought them "da portare via" and we would eat them back at the apartment we were renting, or the hotel in Milan. But when I could, I lingered at the bar to watch the busy bariste at their craft. Or I saved mine for a scenic spot.

I often had to hunt around for ciambelline, going street to street and bar to bar, since the pastry cases aren't packed with them -- which is odd, because I believe they are gobbled up first since if I arrived too late there were sometimes none or only a few left (not a scientific claim, however, since I have never witnessed an Italian ordering a ciambellina but I have seen them order cornetti and other pastries like bomboloni in droves).

Anyhoo ritual ciambellina photo & ritual ciambellina blog post now in the books!

Oh before I go, any favorite Italian pastries/favorite Italian pasticcerie anyone wants to mention? (Or other favorite dishes?) I tried to branch out a bit this trip -- though I will always be a ciambellina-lover.

Yours truly,

Miss Ciambellina

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Diario di viaggio della ragazza americana

Un mese fa ero appena arrivata in Italia per le ferie. Ma ora 3 settimane dopo il rientro in USA, è come se non ci fossi mai stata. Come se il viaggio l'avessi fatto l'anno scorso o anche tanti anni fa.

Sull'uscio di casa l'altro ieri, stavo a guardare le stelle, e mi dicevo, 'Poco tempo fa guardavi le stelle sopra Firenze,' come per convincermi invece di ricordare.

Quando viaggio in Italia, viaggio nel tempo -- ritorno ai bei giorni trascorsi soprattutto a Firenze come ex-pat. Ricorro ad un modo di vivere che quando sono rientrata in USA ho dovuto lasciare più o meno alle spalle: Le giornate spostandomi a piedi o in autobus. La colazione fatta al bar. Una serie di acquisti giornalieri --  quando mi fermavo al forno, e mi fermavo all'edicola, e poi mi fermavo al tabaccaio. 

Mi ricordo che spesso quando studiavo in Italia, vari studenti italiani -- maschi, quasi sempre maschi -- mi chiedevano, 'Ma è vero che ci divertiamo di più qui in Italia?'

Non so come rispondevo allora ma ora posso dire senza dubbio, 'Si, si.' 

La vita in Italia mi sembra più vivace, più movimentata, e va vissuta per la strada, all'aperto, in compagnia. 

Da noi invece in USA, siamo tutti rinchiusi dentro casa, da soli, spesso con l'aria condizionata accesa a tutt'andare tal che poi siamo costretti ad indossare un maglione. Ci lamentiamo del caldo ma infatti nessuno di noi sa veramente quanto caldo fa perché non usciamo un granché! Passiamo da un ambiente con l'aria condizionata ad un altro.

Noi Americani non facciamo due passi in centro, non passiamo per la piazza, la giratina non va fatta -- perché spesso nei nostri paesi e nelle nostre città non c'è più un centro e certamente non c'è una piazza (gli eccezioni ci sono, certo, tipo la città di Savannah nel Georgia dove ci sono delle piazze bellissime ma Savannah è davvero eccezionale in tanti modi e non se ne parla di New York perché pure NY è eccezionale fra le città americane -- eccezionale nel senso unica, non tipica).

Forse è inutile perché la mania per l'America sembra ormai diffusa per l'Italia. Ma ogni tanto cerco di spargere la voce fra gli italiani che la bella vita si fa ancora in Italia. 

In questi giorni, spostandomi in macchina, senza fermarmi al bar per un caffe o un aperitivo, senza un salto in piazza, in questi giorni quando nessuno mi convince di fare due passi, quando non mi fermo al mercato perché non ci sono mercati come si trovano a Piazza Santo Spirito a Firenze (per fare un esempio qualsiasi), quando immagino in Italia ci siano vetrine dappertutto dove c'è scritto "Chiuso per ferie," resto a bocca aperta che un mese fa ero li, in piazza, per la strada, a guardare le stelle e l'Arno.

Un abbraccio ai miei amici italiani, pure quelli che non ho ancora incontrato!

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The photo I take every time I visit Florence (1966 flood)

A photo of one of the markers commemorating the heights the Arno River reached in 1966 when there was the terrible flood. 

"Qui arrivò l'acqua dell'Arno. Il 4 Nov. 1966."

(The waters of the Arno reached this point. Nov. 4, 1966.")

The markers are everywhere in center city Florence and in some cases, you really marvel at how high the river surged -- markers at the level of the second or third story of a building, for example.  

I was telling Leo about the markers while we walked around the city, and I said that people came from all over the world to help the Florentines recover, largely because the flood damaged countless works of art. To which he said, "Which ones?"

Yeah, Mommy, which ones?

Well, I didn't know but I've begun to research it a bit -- and there are many articles about the flood, especially since the 50th anniversary was in 2016. If you're curious, too, come along.

Take a look at this Art and Antiques piece about a Vasari work that has finally been completely restored.

Or this article from The Florentine about the damage the flood inflicted on the famed Ghiberti doors on the Baptistery in Piazza Duomo -- five of the ten panels were "ripped from their doors by the flood waters."

That was all before my time, of course. But the history of Florence, perhaps especially the modern history, which doesn't seem as remote as say the Medici era, ensnares me a bit like the personal histories of my parents. What shaped these monoliths in my life?

Good thing the kid is so curious -- I've learned all kinds of interesting things! I've also learned not to speak idly -- if I say works of art were destroyed, Leo is going to ask for specifics about which works of art I mean.

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