rebe no soshi

un porto

In Melbs for a Japanese Studies conference I am suddenly drawn into a whirlwind of Italian-ness.

I am staying in Carlton, the Italian quarter brought to not-so-nice celebrity by Underbelly. Carlton is way more Italian than Sydney's Leichardt or Haberfield. It's Italian-Australian in a somewhat American way; people are fat and speak in thick accents. It has a funny feeling to it.

I take students and colleagues to my fave pizzeria on Drummond st (D.O.C. pizza) and the next night I venture out by myself in search of a piatto di spaghetti on Lygon Street. The hookers outside the numerous tacky cheap(ish) restos put me off so I end up entering a more expensive, emptier place. The waiter is a middle-aged guy with a big nose and a neat white apron over an ironed shirt and suit pants.

He sits me by the window, next to a big framed picture of a port.

There's a ferry boat in the port that says Siremar so it must be Sicily but I cannot recognize the buildings; it's a small port with many little houses like any small port in the South; it could be Capri or Ischia. The waiter keeps me company; he asks a lot of  questions and I can't tell whether it's an Italian or Australian mannerism, yet I don't mind, for once. We speak Italian and it's clear that it is a bit of an effort for both, that it feels weird not to be speaking English even if a broken English; yet I think we both enjoy it, to be talking to a stranger in the mother tongue.

I ask a question back: what is the port in the picture? Sicily he says, well I guessed as much from the Siremar ferry I say. Lipari, he says. Are you from Lipari I ask, no, io sono di Siracusa; il padrone e' di Lipari. I have spaghetti alle cozze and insalata verde; the tomato sauce is too liquidy and the salad has too much vinegar on it but it's nice to be there anyway, looking at the framed picture of Lipari's port and at the people walking on the wet shiny dark sidewalk. 

"Il padrone" leaves the resto with a plate wrapped in silvery foil; how are you going he asks, very well thank you and you, I reply.

"Offrici un porto, alla signorina" he tells the waiter on his way out the door. And so he does. I sip the thick sweet wine and think that just yesterday in the pizzeria, the young waiter kept calling me signora and I kind of resented it. Ma "il padrone" Liparota calls me signorina and the glass of Port suddenly feels like my teenage years and makes me smile and confuses me a bit too.

Japan before Japan

So I am briefly in Tokyo for a conference and a sort-of-testing-the-ground trip before I come for a longer time in July.

So let me indulge also in some random observations.

First, this year's fashion is particularly bad, especially in the realm of legs. Boys: skinny jeans and pants rolled up at the ankle. A LOT of pants rolled up at the ankles, often combined with blue-and-white striped shirts or t-shirts. Girls: stockings just above the knee, sort of half falling, and leggings just above the ankle. One really has to look at people in the face to avoid major eyesores.

節電. It's everywhere, both practiced and highly publicized. On one level I must say it is a welcome change. I always felt a bit uneasy about the waste of electrical power everywhere in this city. The constant buzz and sounds and lights and the freezing air conditioning. Now everything seems more normal. It's warm inside buildings, sometimes a little sticky, well bring it on! It's summer after all? Some elevators and escalators stopped, and signs everywhere recommending to turn off lights. On the other hand, as usual the capitalist machine is jumping on it, and shops are prompting us to buy all sorts of stuff-that-we-don't-need in the name of setsuden. The genius of commerce. But alas, they do it quite well. I can already see myself buying ecological rice cookers and a low-energy android in a couple months, so I am in no position to criticize ;)

Kimi Ryokan got a lot better and West Ikebukuro a lot worse. Kimi Ryokan has a few nice innovations: they give you slippers and the towels are bigger (this was a slight source of disappointment as I loved mistrusting the ability of the 40cmx20cm mini-towel to dry up a whole human body after a shower, and loved to be proved wrong. You are sorely missed, mini-towels!). There is a terrace on the rooftop with some deck chairs, a big umbrella and a circular table with little benches; and a coin laundry with two washing machines, two dryers and a space to hang the clothes (again in the name of setsuden I guess, although with the rainy season still ongoing, campa cavallo che la maglietta si asciuga!). West ikebukuro had always been a touch seedy, but since last time the number of pachinko parlors, ayashii night clubs, スナック and strip clubs must have tripled. Girls in scanty outfits and boys in shiny suits, sunglasses and 茶髪 stand at every corner; several of them at each corner too. In a way, though I was already regretting not looking for a little tatami room in shitamachi, I am kind of glad I will be staying in a much posher area this time around.

Alas, that's it for now, and the rain seems to be clearing. And Shinjuku Gyoen is still my favourite urban park.

Yareyare.

I have a strange reaction to horror movies. The moments of tension and fear bring tears to my eyes. Copiously. It is rather bizarre; as if I found fear sad, moving. Come think of it, I do.
My friend Alessandro was interviewed recently for our alma mater's online magazine, and he described his young self as a "fearful Neapolitan child." That, and recent memories of the discomfort I felt walking around the streets of Palermo, watching out for my wallet and dodging children on motorbikes, made me realise that I have lived in fear for the greater part of my life. And also that I am not that terrified anymore. It was a bit of an epiphany; a nice warm feeling, that brought a different kind of almost-teariness. Clearly I am a crybaby. But more on that another time.
I was lucky enough to be spared the experience of grandparents lecturing me on the horrors of war, that "you young people cannot understand." My grandparents talked about the war in a light-hearted way; as a harsh reality that they survived with humor and resilience. My grandmother used to tell us about the one-hundred-plus stairs that she used to climb down and back up from the house where they were evacuated during the Naples bombings and a nearby beach where they went to swim; about the two skeins of yarn, one baby blue and the other white, that she knitted into a new sweater every few days, undoing it and redoing it with different patterns so that it felt as if she had a vast wardrobe.There was no fear in their words, which thinking back is quite impressive.
But the news were full of it. One of my first memories of childhood are the words "Aldo Moro"--the Christian Democrat ex-PM kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades. Certainly later knowledge of what that was actually all about colours my three-year-old perception, which could have been at best blurred; but I think that the subtle fear was real even then.
And certainly it was throughout the late seventies and early eighties; when in primary school with a certain regularity we were all made to leave the building for a bomb scare--granted, we did not take refuge in stinky underground shelters, but in the nearby church, which happened to be Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper fresco is. Perhaps that best describes the bizarre combination of ridiculously easy access to artistic masterpieces and constant fear that characterises my relationship to my homeland. Standing in front of Leonardo's painting with a couple hundred other kids in their overcoats and backpacks, half terrified half exhilarated to be missing a few hours of class.
Then there were the eighties and the AIDS scare, the heroin scare, the urban legends about drug-filled candy distributed to make kids addicted, bullshit that you did not believe yet somehow made you unsettled. What if it happens to me? Walking around among car-bombs and infected syringes.
And thieves. Fearing for your life, perhaps you got over, but fearing for your property, that you simply had to do. I still get into that mode, instinctively, as soon as I go back: I watch out for my wallet, my camera, lock the car doors, keep my handbag where I can see it in a restaurant. Blame myself if I have something stolen. I think a lot of Italians somehow pride ourselves in being street smart that way; I certainly do, which might be silly. And sure, I've had things stolen in other countries too. And sure, there are worse places than Italy.
But, what a relief it has been to live in places where feeling safe is the default mode, and watching out for your life and your things something you do once in a while, on special occasions. It is a priceless feeling, one that has not lost its veneer of wonder yet.

I think I'm getting sick of books/movies where the protagonist sorts themselves out by Becoming a Writer. Oh well, I guess they're still better than the ones where they sort themselves out by getting married.

same river twice

new decade, old blogging. let's see if this year i am able to be more consistent! i have a vague idea for a new format, inspired by sei shonagon's pillowbook notes, that i will try out once this trip is over. for the moment, as a warm-up, just some old travel notes. a voir si je resiste cette fois.

i spent christmas and new year's holidays in northern italy, after a three-year absence. winter in the middle of summer; the year started very quietly. it's cold all around and still. it feels like the right time for rebirth, laying low under thick blanketed skies, ending one intense year and starting another, curious to see what it will bring.

wandering around noticing random things.

people are skinny and well dressed. buildings are solid and palatial and there's heaps of graffiti everywhere, big and small, a lot of tagging in deep reds and blacks. streets are often paved and often dirty. architectural beauty calms the eye, familiar rather than exciting. so does grey light and trying to be indoors as much as possible to escape the bitter cold.

trees are all bare-branched and lined up close to each other; snow and ice are very beautiful, even little of them. and the mountains! now that is a sight.

visiting family and friends, people have changed and they have not, continuity within transformation. i am not sure if i find it unsettling or comforting. probably a bit of both.

we are moving on south tomorrow, which will be a whole other story.

i wonder how people can be so uninterested in things that have such an influence on our lives. how can they happily, even proudly be ignorant of things that can change their lives so radically. medical science and financial markets come to mind as prime examples.

'o mare

i went to visit my friend charlotte in her new apartment in bondi, which she is subletting for a few weeks from another academic on sabbatical (or away for fieldwork, or something). it is literally on the ocean and the view is really stunning. but just being there a few hours made me realise how aggressive the ocean is, once again, compared to our mild Mediterranean. The salt air eats away at everything; the windows were covered in a mosaic of salt crystals which charlotte said is just impossible to get rid of--it reforms as soon as you clean it. the whole building bore the signs of its daily battle with the elements. everything made of metal was rusting; everything made of wood, worn by moisture and wind. and the sound of the waves! it just never ceases. and it was a calm day. perhaps one gets used to it, the way you get used to the currawong's loud high-pitched call in the morning, way before dawn, eerie in the black of the night. will it lose its charm also, then? the excitement of that expanse of blue just outside your window, the thrill of the swell, scary and delicious? no, i don't think i would ever get used to it. i would probably forever feel the strangeness and the love of it instead.

marzo, si' ttu

i think mid-march to mid-april is my favourite time of the year in Sydney. summer lingers on, not wanting to end, yet it has a different feel to it, and one that puts me in happy mode. perhaps it is the closest to what summer is back home: warm and sunny, yet in a gentler, more familiar way. summer is too much in so many ways: the sun is something to beware of, lathering ourselves in high protection sunscreen at all times, seeking shade and coolness, it literally makes you feel exhausted at the end of a day outdoors, and even walking in the city one can get sunburnt. the light is awash, blinding, erasing colors under a powerful white. rainshowers, though exciting, are foreign and perplexing, as well as a hassle--remember to close your window before you leave the house or spend the night in the company of moldy smells and damp sheets.

but early autumn has nothing of this. the sun is mild, while the ocean retains a lovely warmth. the colors are amazing: the light brings out blues and greens with almost unreal intensity. kids are back to school, and beaches and parks less crowded with families. uni teaching starts again, and somehow that too makes life gentler, dealing with things that come up day by day, after months of fretting to get as much research done as possible before semester started.

then colder days will come, and those will have their charm also. but mid-march to mid-april feels so good. like italian summer but better.

 

i am often deeply upset by unoriginal thought. it's not just that i find it boring, or that i disagree; it actually upsets me, sometimes almost physically. it changes my mood, makes me nervous and angry, like too many rainy days in a row or construction work just under my window would. i wonder why that is.

oggi sull'autobus da chinatown sono saliti due ragazzi romani, una coppia giovane, avrei detto tra i 20 e i 25 anni. mi hanno chiesto informazioni e abbiamo dato a parlare un po'. mi davano del lei. sulle prime mi ha stupito e mi ha dato anche un po' noia, come quando al mercato a milano mi chiamavano "signora" generando ansiose riflessioni: saranno le rughe? l'abbigliamento? il taglio di capelli?
poi invece mi ha fatto piacere; come quando in giappone ti parlano in keigo. le buone maniere; che grande tradizione. un sorriso di sollievo.