April 13, 2008

Trip highlight

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Just a "highlight" from Italy, where there is always something new old to rediscover. I went for a meeting right before Easter - and then, joined by my partner, wandered off to visit family and old friends, with a bit of sight seeing along the way. The day after Easter, we heard about and made it to the main Cathedral in Pisa just on time to see a ray of sun strike a very particular spot in the church that contains a marble egg, signaling the new year when it was traditionally celebrated, at least since the XII century, until 1749 when the city was required to adopt the Gregorian calendar. But the tradition seems to have been revived, marked also with a procession in full medieval attire (see picture below).

Not far outside the city walls, in the direction of the sea, an entire shipyard of roman ships is being excavated, buried in the sediment that long ago filled in the port of what is still often referred to as the Maritime Republic of Pisa - probably as a result of cutting down the trees used to build all those boats! Unfortunately that exhibit was closed when we peddled a few borrowed bikes over there to see it - and our visit too brief. But we did go into the Cathedral museum, which I had previously overlooked. After reading this caption about "The sculptures of the cathedral" in a room that contained samples of the different styles of carvings found in it, I started to see the place in a whole new light - lest you think of Pisa as a place to visit only to see the Leaning Tower:

"Those who go to Pisa can see monsters coming from the sea: this town is full of pagans, Turks, Lilbyans and also Parthians and mysterious Chaldeans frequent its coast" (Donizone, 12th century). At the beginning of the 12th century the monk Donizone was terrified by the infidels living in Pisa. The different "languages" spoken in the town at the time are well represented by the works preserved in this room. In fact, during its Golden Age, artists coming from all over the Mediterranean worked on the Cathedral. Romance languages were derived from spoken Latin but adopted a number of words from other languages. In the same way, Romanesque art comes form the Classic style but with the addition of elements taken from distant countries. The cultural heritage of ancient Rome is testified by the large quantities of classic marble inserted in the walls of the Duomo. The frieze of the Basilica of Neptune in Rome was used as the presbyterial screen in the Cathedral where it was completed with relief work on its reverse side by the workshop of Guglielmo, Rainaldo, and subsequently Guglielmo. These were the first known artists to take part in the decoration of the Cathedral. We can also admire three masterpieces of Islamic art: the Capital signed by Fath, the bronze basin bearing a long invocation to Allah and the famous Grifo. A combination of the lion and the eagle, the griffin was highly venerated by the Greeks and subsequently became a Christian symbol of the earthly and heavenly nature of Christ. Originally used as a perfume-burner, the griffin was placed at the top of the Cathedral until 1828, as a memento of Pisan victories over the Arabs.

The sculpture of David with the Lyre was carved by an artist from Provence and the momumental wooden Crucifix was also realised by French masters. Recent restoration has revealed the Crucifix to be the only surviving sculptlure of a group representing the Deposition, which originally decorated the main altar of the cathedral.

The trip ended back in Milan, where fashion still shows no sign of world economic trouble, pink is the new black - and a major advertising campaign, complete with pink snow, informs that it is "the color of life." Were it not for the crumbling dollar, I might have come home with a pair of pink rimmed rose colored glasses. But I did have the chance to visit with Angela Pereira - the co-editor of this blog, who will soon be reporting from some upcoming meetings on science and policy, and also with Silvio Funtowicz and Bruna de Marchi, who may yet send in highlights from a recent trip to Ecuador, along with further reflections on Post-Normal Science - a topic I'll come back to in the next post. But the more I ponder it, the more it seems like just plain common sense, which often seems lost in our feudal academic institutions.

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August 22, 2006

But what would Dante say?

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Before it gets to be September, one more post about Florence and then I promise I will get back to more normal post-normal topics in science and policy....

My visit there earlier in the summer made me really wonder what it is people think they are buying when they buy GUCCI products, which is now only a trademark for a company that has little if anything to do with its more humble roots in the quality of design and craftsmanship for which the city is known, and, of course, with the Gucci family. On one side of the Arno river, there are, of course, still GUCCI stores in Florence. On the other side, in the older part of Florence, around where Guccio Gucci first started crafting leather, his grand-daughter Elisabetta, who grew up around the smell of it, and working in the family business, is now the artistic director for a gallery called Mirabili. In highschool where I first knew her, she was often referred to as "La Gucci" but I find it awkward to even say her last name now because it has practically become a figure of speech associated with fantasies that can be found in the ads in Vanity Fair, or with the power of well-heeled lobbyists in the corridors of the US Capitol - a place sometimesreferred to as Gucci Gulch.

Mirabili represents a group of artistic furniture designers whose work is on display behind a shop window that looks like no other - anywhere. At the time of my visit, they had teamed up with another art gallery for a combined exhibit of museum quality work, for which Elisabetta herself could easily have been mistaken. She is the only person I know with enough panache to wear yellow lipstick. It matched the yellow dress she was wearing on one of the days I visited with her. And when combined with a piece of jewelry made by one of the artists whose work was on display, and then the yellow wind jacket in which she left for the day - on a vespa - she is literally a self-designed piece of art work. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of that but, the next time I stopped by, she was dressed in a simple brown outfit that matched her battered leather Gucci daybook that she still has from way back when GUCCI was a just a family-owned but well-known and expensive leather goods shop in Florence. It was around that time that we spent 2 years in the same high school. She also wore her hair exactly the same way as now, pulled back in a pony tail - which accentuates an infectious smile. So I had the opportunity to have a few long talks with her about Florence past and present.

First, a bit of background. Florence is a subject of obsession also among Florentines who have a reputation of being sharp-witted disenchanted and often cynical and sarcastic, holier-than-thou snobs whose directness of expression pushes up against the borders of the offensive - and is not directed only towards the arrogant and pompous (like Mussolini for example) - for whom an ironic smile can more than suffice. Even some Florentines will tell you as much, as did Candida Vig - another high school friend, who helped me to elaborate on a less verbose description I had written. As her husband Maurizio subsequently explained (in a comment on the previous post, (Petrified irreverence) it is the immense presumption of the Florentines that God is happy to have invented them, and was himself born in Florence but does not wish to admit it. He also recalls Roberto Benigni talking about episodes with his father who, upon observing a majestic display of stars, would say "my how many stars there are!" and would go on to conclude with a heavy dose of swearing. Maurizio goes on to explain, "We Tuscans, when we love and admire a person, often kindly offend him as a way to truly demonstrate our sincere and genuine affection."

But Florentines do remain enchanted with their own history. According to an American friend who also studied there, they are living off of it like whores. But as Elisabetta G. is the first to explain, they are for the most part trapped in this history that has given them their identity. As if to demonstrate, on a previous visit she took me to visit Alessandro Riccio, director of the Tedavi '98 theater company that almost exclusively produces meticulously researched plays about the various characters in the Medici family, in authentic costumes entirely made by his mother. When I asked to take a picture of one of the renaissance gowns, she promptly put it on and modeled it - as you can see in the first picture above. Meanwhile, Alessandro put on the mask of Gian Gastone, the last of the Medici family. Some of my high school classmates were convinced that Gian Gastone haunted the school, which was situated in one of the former Medici residences on the outskirts of town.

Elisabetta also explained that, much of the innovation for which Florence is known, has come from those who have left, and sometimes returned, as did her grandfather who, while working abroad, saw possibilities he might never have imagined had he stayed put. Her most knowledgeable and appreciative gallery customers have been the Germans - she thinks this is because WWII left them with a tabula rasa, or a void to be filled. As for the city's appearance, she directs her most caustic remarks towards the shop windows across the river that look like they could just as well be in New York or Paris, new buildings that are oblivious to their historic surroundings, and the bright and noisy fairs that also clash with everything around them. Other Florentines will tell you that, in the midst of all of this tourism generated wealth, the public schools do not even have tp in the bathrooms, or even doors on them. They are also subject to a bumbling municipal bureaucracy that hands out tickets and tows cars by mistake - it still takes 6 months to get a refund.

Interestingly, Sifossifoco [warning: link is to a blog written in Florentine vernacular] ponders whether the displays in those stores across the river are polluting their very way of thinking. He also comments on the even more insidious chromatic pollution of the city and wonders - if chromotherapy can heal, perhaps the wrong colors can also kill. What then might be the damage caused by the loud tourist busses, publicity posters, parked cars, flags hung on balconies instead of seasonal flowers - all of which could be avoided if the city had a color manager? (him and Elisabetta need to talk...)

Not everyone else is oblivious. Over the past few weeks, in Piazza Santa Croce, Roberto Benigni has been talking to Dante - or at least to his statue, just as Dante spoke with his predecessors in the Divine Comedy. It was a warm-up to a recital of selected cantos from the Comedy which he also learned from his father, and has known by heart since long before he became Benigni the film star. Had I known of this before booking my plane tickets, I would probably still be there myself, and could also tell you what Dante had to say this time. But perhaps someone reading this blog can fill us all in?

However - I did finally find out what Dante said after the flood in 1966. At the time of that flood, I would not have been of any help had I been in Florence instead of visiting my grandmother in Pisa over a long holiday weekend. I was 11 years old, barely spoke Italian yet, and had my right arm in a cast - the result of having tried to spiral backwards into a turning jump on roller skates, as a few of my classmates were able to quite easily do. But over the years, I had heard of a song composed by Florentines during the clean-up, and was able to find it via google after asking and being told by Candida that it must be the one about the floodwaters washing the balls of David. This time I actually found a recording of it by Riccardo Marasco. Sung to the tune of La guerra di Piero (a popular anti-war song by the late Fabrizio de André), the song's unnamed protagonist swims submerged in a sea of s___ of unclear origins (man or cow?), and ends up in Piazza Santa Croce where Dante exclaims: "Oh Florentines, you sent me into exile... take this s___ that God has sent you!." It must have been an expression of sincere and genuine affection.

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July 28, 2006

The Liberty of Poetry

by Sylvia S Tognetti

OK, I'm back in Muddy Spring so, catching up on a few things I didn't have time to blog while I was away, this picture is of a statue I had go to see with my own eyes. If it has been in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence all these years, I must have seen it before... at least a few times during art history class field trips in middle school. As have many other people. Titled, "The Liberty of Poetry," it sits just inside the church between the middle and right hand main doors, on top of the tomb of Giovanni Battista Niccolini - a professor of history and mythology and also a poet and playwright whose main theme was the ideal of freedom. In her raised hand is a broken chain, which represents the defeat of tyranny through artistic expression and other forms of creative genius - which, of course, includes real science. On either side of the doors are the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo, and not far, the empty tomb of Dante whose bones remain in his place of exile. And some other well-known figures. Since it carries the mark of the water the 1966 flood, it had to have been there. Like the tombs and statues, that water line is also noted with a plaque, which makes it now an official part of Florentine history and which makes me feel old. But sometime in the past couple of years, the Tuscan-American Association, which was looking to demonstrate relationships between Tuscany and America, pointed to an obvious resemblance to the Statue of Liberty, and made a case that it was most likely its inspiration. What is known is that, although not completed until 1877, the sculptor, Pio Fedi, had completed a plaster cast for itby 1872, and that the drawings had been in circulation before that. It is also known that Bartholdi, who sculpted the Statue of Liberty, was in Italy in those early years of Italian unification, and got around in artistic and intellectual circles. More and better pictures can be found here. You can read more details at the site of the Tuscan-American Association, which also used an image of this statue for the cover of a book.

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July 20, 2006

Petrified irreverence

by Sylvia S Tognetti

If you have ever been to Florence, here is a detail you might have missed, that is right smack on the front of the main cathedral. This picture is the final in a series of carvings of angels that surround the main doors. As the story goes, the first in the series (pictured below the jump), holds a tax bill in his hands and passes it on up to the next angel, who passes in on to the next, who points to the next... until it gets to a few who can't seem to hear, until it gets to the last one, who dismisses it with this infamous gesture. According to Maurizio Ranieri, a Florentine who brought it to my attention, the series is the story of Florence - which you really can't separate from the Florentines themselves, without whom the place would not exist. A place where miracles, like the construction of that dome that sits on top of the cathedral, according to Malaparte, are not performed by saints.

I have added a few more of these angels below the jump so they don't slow down the loading of the page any further. I am on a high speed connection at the moment but, while on travel these past few weeks, I was reminded just how slow dial-up internet can be - particularly when there are pictures... And prices for high-speed wireless access in hotels that have it is highway robbery.

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July 9, 2006

CAMPIONI DEL MONDO!

by Sylvia S Tognetti

This time I started drinking coffee earlier in the game - it didn't keep it from going into penalty kicks but they earned this one. Once I venture out of the house, I'll try to get some pictures of the madness that is sure to be going on for the next several weeks. Last time Italy won the world cup (1982), I arrived here a few days later....

These last few posts have been somewhat of a digression from environmental science and policy - the main subject of this blog - but not entirely. As a geographer, I am intrigued by places and what makes them special. This is a source of conflict between science and policy because science is fixated on finding generalizations that can be applied anywhere. This also has a lot to do with European reluctance to accept genetically modified organisms, and might just become the subject of another book about Tuscany, but not like anything you might have read or heard about. This one will have to pass the laugh test in Tuscany - a high bar. According to the writer Curzio Malaparte, who wrote a book called "Those Cursed Tuscans," (1958) Mussolini never could have come to power had he tried to make those speeches from a balcony in Piazza Signoria in Florence rather than from the Palazzo Venezia in Rome because he could not have said those things and kept a straight face before an audience of Florentines (like Oriana Fallaci for example...) What makes this particular place special is a question I have been asking myself since long before I became a geographer. It all started when my father burst into uncontrollable laughter while reading that book. He tried to explain what was so funny but I was only about 7 or 8 years old at the time. He grew up dodging the draft under Mussolini and American bombs at the same time, and then got the hell out of Italy with a scholarship but sent me here to school. I'm not sure if anyone here actually read Under the Tuscan Sun but the film drew guffaws for using outdated stereotypes from other regions of the country.

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On the trail of real formaggio

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Last summer about this time, Arianna Huffington wrote a post about cheese-gate and the trail of phony formaggio that I always intended to blog something about. Now I'm hot on the trail of real formaggio, here is my two cents. A few days ago, on a day trip north with a few relatives, we stopped in Parma for the real thing and I learned the difference in taste between parmesan made from the milk of cows grazed in the mountains from that made from cows grazed in the valley and in the hills. But if it isn't from Parma, it isn't Parmigiano. There are big signs on the road that let you know when you are entering into the zone of origin of Parmigiano Reggiano. Cheeses from neighboring regions made in the same way, are not called Parmesan. Instead, the proper name for the type of cheese is "grana" as in Grana Padano and Trentin Grana.

Now I'm sitting by a window that looks out over a grove of olive trees at the base of the Pisan Hills, said to be inhabited by wild boars, but I haven't seen any yet myself. I also ate a few plums, right from a plum tree, and two days ago, in the nearby town of San Piero, picked up a big bag of the pine nuts for which this place is also known, because they come from a species of pine that can be found only along this narrow coastal region and are tastier than any you can find anywhere else.

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July 4, 2006

Must have been the coffee!

by Sylvia S Tognetti

I almost fell asleep watching the Italy/Germany soccer game, but, as the game went into overtime, determined not to see the game end with penalty kicks, accepted a cup of coffee and sat up straight, just in time to see Italy make two goals in the last two minutes of the second period of overtime. Now that I'm fired back up, here are a few pictures from another game, "Il Gioco del Ponte" - i.e., The Bridge Game that is played every year in Pisa, by teams from opposite sides of the Arno river - the side on which the sun comes up - the Mezzo Giorno, and the side on which it sets - the Tramontana (the side I was rooting for because it is where most of my relatives live and I visit, as often as possible. It all starts with a medieval parade that makes the US marines look docile but its all drama. Following which, a challenge is sent from one side to the other, following which, the biggest men from either side of town battle for the main bridge, by pushing on a large cart until the flag is knocked over on one side of the bridge or the other. The Pisan and the neighborhood flags wasn't the only ones flying - below the bridge was a boat flying the Red Cross flag, ready to rescue anyone falling from it. It has happened.... but everything remained rather civil this time. Tramontana won again, as they have since 1998. But what makes it even more worthwhile is that the entire downtown area is closed to traffic and, after the game is over, there are a lot of people walking around in medieval dress, as if they dressed like that every day. Also, sitting on the wall along the Arno river at sunset, one could also feel a maritime breeze coming in from the Mediterranean.

Earlier in June is another festival that I missed when, in addition to closing the streets to traffic, all electric lighting is turned off. The river and the entire downtown of Pisa are lit up entirely with candle lanterns - this is done for the Night of San Ranieri, the patron saint of Pisa, known elsewhere in the world as the Night of the Shooting Stars, the English title of a Taviani brothers film that tells the story of an incident that took place on that day in 1945. I also missed the boat races among the "4 Maritime Republics" - Pisa, Genova, Venice and Amalfi - which were hosted here this year. Pisa won that too. Before I leave, maybe I will get a chance to see the boats that were used....

This is Sylvia Tognetti,aka, The Ronin Geographer, reporting from the Tramontana, in the Marine Republic of Pisa...

Note: I have a painfully slow connection - so there is a lag between writing and posting.

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July 3, 2006

Una vista di una camera con una vista

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Giá che sono in Italia, una traduzione in Italiano del´ultimo post. Se arrivano commenti interessanti, forse traduceró anche quelli:

Firenze, 23 Giugno, 2006. Firenze appare di essere diventata una bella scena per il fondo del palco mondiale. La mostruositá nella foto sopra é la vista dal tetto di un edificio nel centro di Firenze, casa di un amica dagli anni di scuola (medie e primi di liceo) che ho fatto in quella cittá, esito a dire quanti anni fa, ma ho avuto una lunga interruzione dalla scuola durante la grande alluvione del 1966, e poi ricordo bene i tempi subito dopo, quando fango usciva dai rubinetti. Ero in partenza per Firenze da Pisa quel giorno che é successo ma fortunatamente, fu cancellato il treno (dopo che ero abordo). Insomma, il quartiere é cambiato. Nella direzione opposta si vedono grandi macchine da costruzione, fino almeno alla distanza a cui si riesce a vedere con gli occhi. Ai lati, i paesaggi iconici di colline, includendo i telescopi di Galileo, ci stanno sempre. Pure rimane il Ponte Vecchio, che peró era chiuso per usare come pista per una sfilata di Roberto Cavalli, per vendere quello che é diventato il piú notevole prodotto Italiano da quando Marcello Mastroianni si é buttato nella fontana di Trevi nella Dolce Vita - l' immagine maschile. La sfilata era parte di "Pitti Immagine Uomo" che, secondo Il Firenze (nuovo giornale locale), ha confirmato l' immagine del uomo contemporaneo di essere "sportivo-vanitoso" - che vuole essere esclusivo e ricercato a tutti i costi. Con la eccezione peró del' uomo di Cavalli, il quale si é pavoneggiato in un foulard multi-uso, portato come cravatta, vestito in colori rosso e viola, una camicia con rifiniture in pitone bianco e chissá cosa. Io non ho direttamente visto questa faccenda, e non ho idea se era pitone vero. Cerco solo di fare senso di come é descritto nel giornale e il mio Italiano é un po arruginito ma ora comincia a tornare....

Altre cose non hanno cambiato proprio per niente. Ulisse Sifossifoco, un blogger Fiorentino, per cuil il Ponte Vecchio é anche la strada per ritornare a casa dal lavoro, non ne volle sentire. Quando gli hanno detto che il ponte era stato "acquistato" per la sfilata e che perció era chiuso per la sera, gentilmente offrí "un rap di moccoli a colonna sonora per questa sfilata di brubbrú" (cioé, cafoni vestiti da festa). Un modo di parlare che, nella mente di altri Italiani, é associato con la Toscana quanto lo é Dante. Peró forse infondo é anche la ragione perché Danta é diventato famoso. Dopo di avere scritto in Latino della eloquenza della lingua volgare, cioé, il vernacolo Toscano, e dopo di essere stato mandato in esilio, ha scritto La Divina Commedia in quella lingua che piú tardi, in una forma piú pulita e uniforme, é diventato ¨Italiano.¨ Sifossifoco poi prende il suo ¨nom de blog¨ da una poesia di Cecco Angiolieri, che era un compagno di battaglia verbale di Dante. Questa poesia presenta un immagine di uomo piú archaico - uno che, invece di essere cercato, cerca, non donne ma,¨donne giovane¨ ' esclusivamente! Ma tornando al problema di traversare il Ponte Vecchio per ritornare a casa, Sifossi ha anche offerte la scelta di farlo passare, e fu subito dato una scorta da due poliziotti. Come lo descrive lui, era come quando Pinocchio fu portato a case dai gendarmi.

Questo incidente non lo ho visto direttamente o preso fotografie - ho solo la parola di Sifossi, il quale ho finalmente avuto l´opportunitá di conoscere in persona. Sifossi, autore di un blog che leggo da un paio di anni, ed un´altra blogger Fiorentina, La VisContessa, hanno organizzato una rimpatriata blogger a Firenze in Piazza Brunelleschi. E siccome, per caso stavo facendo la valigia quando fu annunciato, e non era molto fuori del mio itinerario, decisi di fare la inviata per il Post'Normal Times.

Quando siamo arrivati alla fine di una bella serata con aria fresca in piazza, sono stata scortata alla casa di un amica - cioé la camera con la vista della camera con la vista, sopra un´altro grande prodotto del disegno della Toscana di Pisa - la vespa. Solo per poi essere svegliata ed imbarazzata da una colonna sonora, presentata da Americani ubriachi che cantavano cercavano di cantare, America the Beautiful. Siccome molti di questi vecchi edifici non hanno aria condizionata, non ero certamente l´unica a dormire con le finestre aperte. Deve essere stato le 3 di mattina. Almeno avrebbero potuto cantarlo bene - una cosa che forse potrebbe anche migliorare le relazioni internazionali, almeno al livello personale. Alle riunioni scientifiche internazionali, dove, duranti periodi sociali, i participanti spesso cantano qualcosa dal loro paese, Amercani hanno anche una reputazione di non potere cantare.

Sylvia Tognetti , aka, la Geografa Ronin, inviata al Post-Normal Times, da una camera con una vista di una camera con una vista di Firenze.

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Grazie a problemi di connezione internet, altre foto della rimpatriata dovranno aspettare che torno a Muddy Spring (Sorgente Fangoso - il nome che ho dato al quartiere dove abito, parte di "Silver Spring" (Sorgente Argentato)

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July 2, 2006

A view of a room with a view

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Firenze June 23, 2006. Florence it seems, has become the ultimate backdrop for the world stage. The eyesore pictured above is the view from the rooftop of an apartment building in downtown Florence, home to a friend from the years I spent in there in middle and high school - I hesitate to say how many years ago but I had a long break from school during the big flood in 1966, and then witnessed the immediate aftermath, when mud flowed from the water faucets. I was actually on my way to Florence from Pisa when it happened but my train was fortunately cancelled (after I was on board). The place has changed. In the opposite direction are building cranes as far as the eye can see. Sideways, in the iconic hillside landscapes, Galileo's telescopes are still there. So too, the Ponte Vecchio, though it was closed off for the evening for use as a runway for a Roberto Cavalli fashion show, to sell what has become Italy's best known product ever since Marcello Mastroianni jumped into the Trevi fountain in La Dolce Vita - the male image. The show was part of "Pitti Immagine Uomo" - which, according to the local newspaper, Il Firenze, confirmed the image of the contemporary man as "sportivo-vanitoso" i.e., a vain and sportive type, who wants to be exclusive and sought after at all costs. With the exception of the Cavalli man of course, who strutted his stuff in a multiple use scarf worn as a tie, red violet colors, a shirt with finishing touches in white python, and what have you (I didn't actually see it and have no idea if it was real python skin - I'm just trying to make sense of the description and my Italian is a bit rusty - but its coming back).

Some things haven't changed at all. Ulisse Sifossifoco, a Florentine blogger, for whom the Ponte Vecchio is the shortest way to walk home from work, was having none of it. Upon being told the bridge had been acquired for the fashion show and was therefore closed for the evening, he kindly offered to provide a soundtrack for the "brubbrú" parade (boors all dressed up in party clothes), in a "rap di moccoli" - a rap of colorful cussing - which, in the mind of other Italians, is associated with Tuscans as much as is Dante. Though perhaps it is the reason Dante became famous to begin with. After writing in Latin about the eloquence of the vulgar tongue (i.e., the Tuscan vernacular), and after being forced into exile, he wrote The Divine Commedy in what later, in a more polished form, became known as "Italian." Sifossifoco actually takes his "nom de blog" from a poem by Dante's verbal sparring partner, Cecco Angiolieri. This poem presents a more archaic male image, as one who, rather than being sought after, seeks after, not women but, younger women - exclusively! But getting back to the problem of crossing the Ponte Vecchio to get home, Sifossi also, of course, offered the option of simply letting him cross it, and was promptly escorted across by two police officers. As he put it, it was like when Pinocchio was brought home, dangling from the arms of two "gendarmi." (armed guards).

I didn't witness this one myself or get pictures so I had to take Sifossi's word for it when I finally had the opportunity to meet him in person. Sifossi, who happens to be the author of a blog I have been reading for a few years, together with another Florentine blogger, La VisContessa, organized a repatriation of bloggers, in Piazza Brunelleschi. And since I just happened to be packing my suitcase when this was announced, and it wasn't far out of my way, I decided to cover it for The Post-Normal Times

As a delightful evening drew to a close, I was escorted to my friend's place - i.e., the room with a view of a room with a view by "Volpe", on the back of that other great product of Tuscan Pisan design - the vespa. Only to be awakened and embarassed by a soundtrack provided by drunk Americans in the street, singing trying to sing, America the Beautiful. Since most of those buildings don't have air conditioning, I surely wasn´t the only one sleeping with open windows. It must have been 3 am. The least they could do is get it right. It might even improve international relations - on a personal level anyway. At international scientific meetings, where participants often sing songs from their own countries, Americans actually have a reputation for not being able to sing.

For the Post-Normal Times, this is Sylvia Tognetti, aka, the Ronin Geographer, reporting from a room with a view of a room with a view - of Florence.Italy.

Postscript: The delay in posting this is because I went off radar shortly afterwards - this time, Italy was on the way to Nairobi, where I went for a workshop, and didn't have much time for the internet at times that it was accessible - once I finally found a decent connection. I also didn't have enough time to explore Nairobi enough to blog anything interesting about it, or to go on any safaris, but I did actually notice a man wearing a scarf as a necktie - actually, a french participant in the workshop I was attending. He swore it was nothing new. Italy is also on the way back from Nairobi, And there are a few other stops on the itinerary before getting back to DC, so stay tuned.

Since I'm having internet conection problems, I'll put additional pictures of the Florentine blogger repatriation, in a trip report, after I get back to Muddy Spring.

Also, in order to content the Viscontentessa, who claims to have lived happily ever discontented, an Italian translation, in the next post

Nel prossimo post, una traduzione in Italiano, per contentare la Viscontentessa - che Visse felice e scontenta... Siccome ho problemi di connezione internet, altre foto della rimpatriata dovranno aspettare il mio ritorno a Muddy Spring, quando scriveró una cronaca di viaggio.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 9:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 9, 2006

The missing Puccini factor

by Sylvia S Tognetti

In this earlier post, among other things, I spoke about what I call the Puccini factor, which you can only find in lettuce from Torre del Lago, but I'm also using the term to describe the unique qualities of a place, and of things that come from such a place, that you will never find in Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and that science will probably never be able to quantify. For example, grapes that are genetically the same, grown on different soil, do not produce the same wine. Like people, places have identities made up of unique constellations of the basic stuff. Unless, as in these Post-Normal Times, they are made to look like someplace else. I once read that a favorite way to pass the time in Los Angeles is to drive around looking for real neighborhoods. Even in the Washington DC area, you can find a place in Gaithersburg called North Potomac and a place in Rockville called Chevy Chase View. And in Chevy Chase, you can find a decontextualized Tuscan Villa - i.e., without the idyllic landscape. Where I live, a place I call Muddy Spring, one of the historic landmarks is the Tastee Diner, complete with parking lot. I'm not kidding. To be fair, there is also a postage stamp sized park at the spot of the original "Silver" Spring. But I digress.

Coincidentally, on the same day as I wrote about the Puccini factor, Ulisse SiFossiFoco (my favorite blogger and now co-author on a work in progress), put up a post that describes the missing Puccini factor, as he imagines it, and for which I felt compelled to provide a translation, below. For the missing SiFossiFoco factor, i.e., to read it in its original Florentine vernacular, click here.

I can imagine an American soldier in Iraq. As I imagine him, I ‘m certainly not thinking of a boy from New York or Los Angeles, but rather a boy who lives in one of those many parts of America cultivated with genetically modified corn that one passes through at two hundred kilometers an hour to arrive in a small town of few souls that has a commercial center, a small church, a sheriff ’s office and a bar where one can get drunk in the evening - as the sole evasion. I imagine him in Iraq, as one who renounces his own thought for the virtue of ready-made collective thought, manufactured for him by war-mongered (is there a better word?) experts of psychology, sociobiology and marketing.

I imagine him to be very ingenuous and, because of this, disposed to obey any order because that is how things are done, because everyone does it.

I also imagine him to be shrewd, because I don’t see this American boy as stupid. His shrewdness consists of wanting to earn a little money for himself, to count a little bit more in society, to have a house and remove from his back a pre-fabricated destiny as a worker of genetically modified corn in the enormous expanse of genetically modified cornfields that, for 18 or 20 years has been not only his whole panorama, but also that of his family throughout it's entire history.

I imagine a military professional, like those emerging also among us here in Italy after the abolition of obligatory military service. A boy or a girl of this new Italian “professionalism”: the only profession in our economy that does not make use of flexi-time, day-labor, contracting, and temp work. The only profession that promises adventure on a fixed salary, as long as there is peace, and then, at a select level of compensation, or in exchange for a state funeral and a medal if the extraordinary is called for.

If I were to hear him speak, this American soldier, I’m sure that in between the folds of the slang of his cornfields beyond the ocean, it wouldn’t be hard to pick up on some accents of Calabria, Sicily or Abruzzo that fill the Italian military barracks of today: who knows why?

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 7:23 PM | Comments (1)

November 10, 2005

Civics 101 - a bit of history

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Laura Rozen recalls, and describes, a visit to an actual torture chamber - one recently active. I too once visited a torture chamber, except that it was empty. The place was in a fort, the Rocca di Vico Pisano, just outside of Pisa, designed by Brunelleschi in 1435. Giovanni Fascetti, who took responsibility for its restoration and who also leads tours, proudly explained that the instruments of torture were destroyed in 1786, when Tuscany, through the penal reforms of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, became the first state in the world to outlaw torture and the death penalty, which had come to be regarded as acts of barbarism - "Italy", and the characters of the 20th century, did not yet exist. So when the fort was recently restored, this room was deliberately left empty. The Fort itself, once used by Florence to conquer and rule over Pisa, now flies the flag of peace.

It also used to be by a lake that formed where the Arno once met the Serchio river, and was surrounded by wetlands - until the Arno river was straightened in 1599 to improve navigation. In another room - that was restored, underneath several layers of paint, they found a fresco that depicted the landscape as it once was - it was a rice farming area! Next maybe they can restore those wetlands...

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