Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Daje Juventini!

This weekend should be explosive for the Ultras. The Juventus Ultras have for weeks now been chanting against Mario Balotelli, an Inter player, in anticipation for their game (Juve-Inter) this weekend. Why this matters:

1. Balotelli is a Ghanian orphan adopted by an Italian couple. He has dual citizenship but claims Italian.
2. He is as ghetto as Michael Vick or any low-level NBA hoodlum.
a. mocks and taunts opposing fans.
b. dresses like a 1980s pimp.
c. his own coach says he is more interested in cars and girls than in practicing.
d. thus, he is the most visible symbol of the Americanization of soccer to the Ultras
3. Every time the fans react to his provocation he cries racism
a. thus, he is the biggest symbol of Americanization of the nation (via multiculturalism) to the Ultras.
4. The Juve Ultras have been singing "a negro cannot be an Italian"(!)
5. UEFA got involved saying this is racism and that the next time they or anyone sings this the game will be stopped and awarded to the opponent.
6. The game is this weekend (saturday at 2:30 NY time).
7. Ultras all over Italia are hoping the Juventini take a bullet against Calcio Moderno and multiculturalism and sing (and monkey grunt of course) until the game is stopped.
8. this would result in thousands of euros in fines and games being played behind closed doors for the iconic Italian soccer team.

Vedremo!

Monday, October 26, 2009

RG in Perugia 2007

June 28, 2007
Vacanza del Giorno - a Perugia per la prima volta.
Part One - La casa del mio nimico puo’ essere anche casa mia.
One of the best things about Italy is that you can go two hours from Rome and find an environment so different that it might as well be in another country (or time). Rome is unique among Italian cities because it lacks a medieval quarter. There are three important reasons for this. One, its size and layout as a huge ancient city ensured that it would not develop as a small enclave. It was over-1 million people well before it fell to Christianity in the 4th century. And, it had classical walls that acted as barriers to invasion, lessening the need to build medieval ones. Two, the transfer of power to the popes ensured that Rome would maintain an heir of monumentality. Not that they didn’t do their most to destroy nearly every inch of the city the inherited, but they still had their own monuments to build. And three, what areas that did develop in the middle ages - characterized by high walls and tiny passage-ways with very little light at street level - were destroyed by Mussolini in a bid to liberate Rome from its only ‘decadent’ period. That it is so devoid of the medieval makes it rare in a land of medieval cities, many of them built on the remains of the classical Roman cities that were unable to avoid losing their Roman character. Genova, Venezia, Firenze, Palermo, Pisa, and literally hundreds of others have a character that post-dates the style of Rome by some 1000 years. (And we must admit, pre-dates by 500 years or so the city Mussolini succeeded in liberating.) Perugia is another of these medieval cities. It exists, then, in another time than Rome. It also exists in another place, because Perugia was never a Roman city. In fact, it has existed in dire opposition to Rome for the majority of its existence.
Perugia began its life as an Etruscan settlement. Located in present-day Umbria, it sits atop a mountain overlooking the Tevere, which begins north of Perugia in the Appenines and flows through Rome on its way to the Mediterranean. As other Etruscan settlements nearer to Rome fell under the force of its citizen armies and were incorporated into Roman territory, Perugia held-out. Romans were its infidels! It held out in spite of its position near the Tevere, which the Romans could easily navigate to arrive below the city. Its successful resistance is in part due to its culture in opposition to Rome’s, its elevated position, and also the huge Etruscan walls that still encase the city. These are said to predate Rome’s 753 BC birth by 100 years. Nevertheless, Rome was inevitable, and Perugia fell to Octavian soon after he became Rome’s first emperor in 40 BC. It remained in Roman hands until Rome itself fell. However, it was never a very good Roman territory and anti-Roman inscriptions in the walls and their doors are still visible. By the 12th century it was the dominant power in its region and remained so for two-hundred years, even fighting the Papal armies to a standstill in 1543 before surrendering. Thus began 300 years of Papal rule, reinforcing the hatred of the Perugians for Rome. Like the walls that bear the scars of resentment, Perugians are proud to have resisted Rome and to have been largely removed from its sphere of influence. They still boast that ‘when Rome was a series of mud huts, we had 7 doors in our walls’.
Being a walled city on top of a mountain, the only way Perugia can be entered is through one of those 7 doors. Once entered, the town is an immediate vertical maze of tiny alleys between homes either built into the walls or three feet opposite what was next to them. It is shaded even at mid-day, quiet, and mostly grey - the color of the world without the light of classical Rome. And vertical is only a slight exaggeration. Its streets are literally stairs (even if one is an escalator!). You climb up or down, rarely finding level ground. But, it makes it all the more satisfying to see the city to have to work for the honor. I might have mentioned in the past the ire provoked by Mussolini when he destroyed the medieval neighborhood that filled the area between San Pietro and the Tevere. If not, their anger was at the disappearance of the awe felt when arriving in the piazza from a tiny dark maze. This awe is capable of being felt in Perugia today when its vertical maze occasionally spills into the light of one of Perugia’s ten or so piazzas. And when it does, it is breathtaking. Maybe it’s the light-headedness you feel from climbing or the brightness of the sunlight, but stepping into Piazza della Repubblica from any street is unforgettable. This piazza, though, is like three piazza’s in one. It sets between Piazza Italia and Piazza IV Novembre, and all three are connected by Corso Vannucci which is nearly as wide as are they. It makes for a seemingly gargantuan space when compared to the rest of the city. The architecture of the piazzas, churches, and government buildings is almost Venetian in its Byzantine embellishments. But what really stands out are the massive arches and vaulted ceilings on almost all public spaces. And, because it is a city on a mountain, of course there are spectacular views to be had from the wall’s various vantage points. Simply the ubiquitous rolling green and field-spotted hills and mountains that you assume only exist in Toscana (or movies).
Umbria is one of the few Italian regions not bound by water. This makes its cuisine taste of the earth. Olio di Olive (Olive oil), tartufi (truffles) (only in winter to early spring), funghi (mushrooms), pollame (fowl), suino (pork), manzo (beef), coniglio (rabbit), and cinghiale (wild boar) are its staples. Umbria is beloved in Italy for its cured meats, which tend to be much less subtle than those of Friulli and Emilia. Cinghiale, wild boar, is the main ingredient in the Umbrian diet, or so it seems. It makes a unique salame that is widely available in other regions, and it is roasted, like we would a hog or pig in the south. Still within eyesight of the train station the air was already filled with the smell of roasting meat. The perfume struck us as odd only because Perugia is home to Perugina chocolate (the most famous in Italy but alas now part of Nestle) and we had been told the air would smels of chocolate. As we have a bakery below our house that often fills our street with the sweet aroma of chocolate, spices, and baking pastry, the meats were a welcome change!
Umbria’s wines are an unknown quantity. I noticed a parallel between wine and food research and what I write about the places we visit. Usually, the less I know about wine and food, the more I write. The exception was Torino in Piemonte. Since I last wrote about a place away from Rome, we have visited Palermo, Milano, Verona, Parma, Udine, Frascati, Cagliari (Sardinia), and Amalfi. Sicilia’s wines are almost 100% knowable from the US (not that anyone would bother - see below). I have nothing good to write about Milano. Verona deserves a book, and perhaps it will get one for the reasons I will talk about today in Part Two. In short, quality over quantity. Parma, Udine, and Frascati have been covered. Cagliari was our greatest adventure, but I already knew too much of Sardinian wines to do research. Amalfi was absolutely beautiful but in Campania, a region in which there are 4 native grapes growing at this very moment (that I can name) - readying themselves for an early harvest because of the extreme heat. The Umbrian white of note is from Orvieto, a Trebbiano based blend that drinks like ice water, long a favorite of popes and Duces. The reds are considered higher in quality (as California and its cookie-cutter [being part of America] mass consumption wines has destroyed any human ability to enjoy subtlety) and quiet rare. The most respected grape is the Sagrantino di Montefalco, which makes a smoky, tar and tobacco red - not exactly summer-time drinking.
There are a couple of reasons we chose red. One is that we came to Umbria to eat Umbrian food. Roasted meats and funghi lend themselves nicely to the kind of reds that have low sugar and alcohol levels. The other is that, having suffered heat in Rome that made us dread leaving even our un-air-conditioned house, we found aria fresca (fresh/cool air) in Perugia that made us feel the giddiness of fall or spring - times ripe for vino rosso. We chose our lunch destination on the advice of a pottery shop owner (and because the Gambero Rosso restaurant we hoped to visit was not in the center of Perugia). Greeting you at the door of Ristorante del Sole is an antipasta selection that melts any resistance or indecision. We sat in their dining room, an open air salon overlooking the Perugian mountainside and all else to the horizon. We ordered a 1995 Rubesco Riserva from Lungarotti, the benchmark traditional Umbrian red but had to settle for the even-better 1997. Jodie started with antipasta di verdure miste while I went straight to pasta - umbricelli (long fresh pasta) with aglio (garlic), olio, peppercini (red pepper), and pomodorini (tiny tomatoes). Light fare to make room for the secondi: cinghiale alle mele con cipolle al tegame (roasted wild boar with apples and cipolle) and stinco di suino al forno (roasted pork shin). The cinghiale was a perfect blend of sweet and hearty, with the apple and sweet onions offsetting the stew (as designed). The stinco was too literal - a shin with bone that had been roasted. Our disappointment was only prompted by Lupa’s pork shin, perhaps the single greatest plate of food in North America. We finished with a torta di pesca (peach pie), grappa, and caffé. Not our favorite meal ever but the wine was amazing and we needed something to eat with it.
Part Two - Petition for Divorce (On Independence Day!)
Unfortunately we were not the only people who decided to eat del Sole, as midway through our meal a section of the normal hoard that makes Rome uninhabitable showed up. Six people with fanny packs, bucket hats, cargo shorts, Hawaiian shirts, sport sandals, and only one language. After complaining about the table that was offered them they decided to remake the center of the room to their liking. While they were moving tables and chairs around our server looked perplexed but oddly casual - as if it weren’t the first time he had seen this happen (maybe a smug but disgusted satisfaction at expectations being met). Finally the restaurant owner arrived to guide their project. Its always great to have the paradisaic mix of silence, Italian, birdsongs, and general appreciation of the importance of a quality meal (inclusive of its environs) spoiled by the rabble that is expectorated by our pathetic excuse for a culture. The worst part about it is that the server, who had said not one word of English since we walked in, began speaking English to us as if we had strayed from the herd (since it takes the same effort to stumble around blind in or out of a group). Luckily, an Italian reply to an English question re-booted his computer.
We found our way back to the pottery shop after our post-lunch explorations. Most of the ‘Italian pottery’ sold in the US comes from Umbria, but Campania and Toscana also have well developed pottery traditions. I usually cannot be bothered with it as most of it screams ‘cliche’ or ‘I was made in a factory for a moronic tourist to buy’. But what we found in Perugia was a different animal. The epitome of an artisan-based culture. One in which it is understood that price is not a determination of quality. That quality is a symptom of a deep and worthy culture and will be evident in every action at all levels of its subjects’ behavior. It starts with an inculcation from an early age that everything you do or say reflects on you, your family, your city, and your culture. (We like to think we teach our selves the same lessons, but what our culture really teaches is ‘don’t get caught’.) Further, you are taught that work is something in which to take pride - not something of which to be ashamed. Work is the basis of having a craft and a skill. The ability to create something of quality takes time, care, patience, and diligence. Quality is created by honor (I know it’s a strange word, but any common dictionary should have it. If not seek one out from the 1930s.) It is not created by 4 million idiots enamored with a no-talent nitwit who pay to vote for said nitwit and then partake in a week’s worth of public discourse about it. In the case of our pottery shop, the owners are a husband and wife. The pottery maker and painter is the father of the wife. He learned to make pottery from his father. His father from his grandfather. Each generation apprentices from the previous generation - sometimes waiting 15 years to make their first piece of pottery. Not to make a dollar to blow on Chinese-made garbage that no one will ever care to remember next week, but to inherit the ability to maintain a tradition that defines, in every detail, the way of life in the town and region in which they live. Every piece was exceptional to the point of ceasing to have any value at all. For if I had made any one of them, not only would I have not sold it, I would have never felt the need to make anything else.
Earlier in the day we bought a modest bowl painted with a peacock feather pattern. We were not interested in the meaning of the pattern, just simply mesmerized by its complexity and proud that someone cared enough to make it. At that time, we saw a framed painted tile of the Madonna. For three hours we thought of her and she drew us back to the shop for another look. We met Mario, the husband, and he explained the shop and its history to us. And that the Madonna was particular to Perugia. During our conversation about the particular features of the hand made frame, the dangers of shipping pottery, and the cost of coming back to Perugia (in case we decided not to buy our Madonna today), Mario remarked that we spoke Italian well, something rare for Americans, and asked for our story. With no need to tell him about Curva Sud, we mainly talked about living in Rome, studying, and speaking the language. We agreed that you speak Italian in Italy because IT IS ITALY AND ITALIANS SPEAK ITALIAN. All the while he was creating our package for us, in that lovely Italian way which explains ‘your Madonna (or chocolate tort or anything else you purchase) deserves to leave knowing that its creator cared for it until the very end’. I remarked innocently that he undercharged us by 5 euros, and he smiled, saying he gave us a small discount. I thanked him. And thanked him again, explaining that 5 euros is 3 days of caffé for us.
Then, of course, because this is what they do, he asked if we wanted to take caffé now. Two seconds later the shop was closed and we were two doors down being introduced to his friends. One of them, Zio Enzo (uncle Enzo), saw that we were Americans and sure as hell (reading their non-verbal communication becomes easy after a while) had no positive expectation. But, when we began speaking he exclaimed to Mario, ‘parlano Italiano!’ who responded that, yes, we were Americans, but we lived in Rome. He was so genuinely thrilled that we spoke his language (the most beautiful in the world, I assured him) and enjoyed his city that I was embarrassed - not for him, of course. Not that Americans should be required to speak the language while on a short vacation here (although I’m not sure why not). It’s the arrogance with which they speak English that makes us ashamed. We read reviews of hotels when we travel and these idiots have the nerve to complain that either the hotel staff or the city had few people that speak English. “Well, we were lost and called the hotel for directions and they had no one that we could understand.” “No one that we could understand!” Or, “if you are planning to come to Le Marche you should consider that very few people spoke English and we had a rough time of it”. Oh, just for you, you finest specimen of rabble, a region of 6 million people should take English lessons. Arrogance, ignorance, disrespect. Always. Everyday. Always. Everyday.
Romans/Americans or not, we were now part of the family and Enzo scurried around behind the counter looking for pieces of Perugina chocolate to give us. We settled for caffé freddo, our first. (We have only seen it being prepared - by pouring caffé after caffé into an empty wine bottle [always, whether in Rome or Palermo] and then chilled.) We asked ‘guante caffé fanno un caffé freddo?’ already knowing the answer was plenty. My guess is three. Spiked on caffé and melted sugar we said ciao (bye) to Mario, Enzo, and Perugia and ciao (hello) to two hours of roasting the landfill that we escaped in October 2006. That and admiring the endless sea of girasoli (sunflowers).
I have been fed-up with Americans since we got here. I never liked us as a people anyway (hence my necessary decision to do my research in Italy - not that it helped), but now I utterly and completely detest everything to do with America. We are the most degraded, ignorant, mediocre collection of people on earth today. So bad that we gave away the last vestiges of quality that existed in our litter-box to the Mexicans and Chinese without even batting an eye. But that is not the worst of it, oh no. It wouldn’t be so bad to be so pathetically ignorant and mediocre if we weren’t also convinced that we are the standard of value in the world today.
Part Three: PVLCHRVM EST PAVCORVM HOMINVM
“What could be more painful than the sight of a deformed man pluming himself before the mirror like a cockerel and exchanging admiring glances with his reflection?” Friedrich Nietzsche
What Nietzsche describes is the ‘cultural philistine’. The philistines were Greeks who modeled themselves in opposition to artists and creative thinkers. They were the antithesis of the ‘sons of the muses’. Cultural philistines, instead, fancy themselves ‘sons of the muses’ and creators of culture and value but are and do no such thing. But that they are convinced that they have a valuable culture when they do not is what was important for Nietzsche and for us. I am at a point in my time away from the states where I no longer feel even the slightest tinge of Americanness. James Baldwin said he only became American when he moved to France. For me, the opposite happened. Always being on the outside from many forms of popular culture (I don’t go to movies, don’t listen to popular music, don’t care to watch tv for entertainment or news, don’t eat in popular restaurants, don’t engage in conversation, don’t talk to anyone), I moved to Rome and embraced becoming a Roman. For the first time ever, I am at home beyond the four walls of whatever room in which I am reading. For me, being an American now is summed up in the faces Jodie and I encounter everyday. The disgust or hostile indifference we get from strangers and the warm embraces we get from those who know us. They despise us for what we once were. And love us for what we are trying to become. Not out of ‘prejudice’ (that is our concept) do they judge us but from sound judgement in a cultural system that still allows them to protect what is valuable to them. We are no cultural ambassadors. We are not ‘making Rome better for other Americans’. If we had our way their corrupting influence would have a short memory here. I hear that it is popular right now to compare the US to Rome. I assume because the rabble watched HBO’s Rome and now, through the magic of public opinion, that superhighway of triviality that makes everyone think they are either valuable or worthy enough to comment, sits in judgement of greatness. Is it their fault? A year ago I would have said no, it is the fault of our cultural system which esteems mediocrity and frivolity. Now I say yes and no. So today I judge America and Americans as one and the same. As for the US being compared to Rome, the fading power, unpopular wars, the lame leadership, the hyper-immigration (concepts which did not have equivalents for Rome and which then cannot be used to properly compare - but, public opinion being what it is [popular and petty] one cannot expect debates on epistemic or even aesthetic systems in decline), I ask only this: what has the US EVER done to be worthy of comparison to Rome in any way?
I am not a pathfinder. I will never help a stranger find anything at any time in Rome or Italy. The knowledge Jodie and I are amassing here is for an extremely select few. We choose to discriminate, because we live somewhere where the world is not saddled with unfortunate leveling overtones. For too long Americans (and all liberal humanist cultures) have believed that we are unable to pass judgements on other people. You wouldn’t believe how liberating it is to be free from that bit of morality. So I am here to say once and probably not for all that Payment for services is not worthiness. I repeat, payment for services is not worthiness. Certainly in the US it is. Not here. Not for me. One cannot buy their way into quality.
I wont even beat the horse dead to look back through my files for incidences since we got here. Nonetheless, here we have some recent examples of truly American behavior:
New York Times, June 26, 2007: “Later, around 3 a.m., an American tourist is barking through a megaphone asking a woman he is with to pull up her skirt and expose herself, eliciting laughs from his friends and, surprisingly enough, the woman herself. The place is soaked in booze, and a growing number of Rome’s residents are fed up with what they see. ‘It is unbelievable,’ said Flaminia Borghese, president of a homeowners’ group in the historic center that is demanding greater noise control measures and police patrols. ‘There is a total lack of control.’”
(ANSA) - Florence, June 21 - “An American tourist accidentally poked a hole in a painting by a Baroque master in Florence's Uffizi Gallery Thursday. The woman was caught by security cameras as she leant on the painting, La Menzogna (The Lie), by 17th-century Neapolitan great Salvator Rosa.”
(ANSA) Venice, June 1 - “Seven female 'guardians of decorum' went into action in Venice on Friday in a bid to stop tourists going about bare-chested, lounging around in doorways and eating sandwiches in St Mark's Square.”
E’ sempre cosi. It is always like this. I would not have been so tempted to write an essay such as this if what I was escaping had not found me here in spades. There is a reason Disneyworld is so vulgar. It is one of the greatest mirrors our culture has created. We think they we are in a Disney park when in Italy. We want American food, American TV channels, and employees who exist only for us that we can boss around and look down our noses at (because to an American everyone is just an employee, no? We own nothing, we care for nothing, we wonder at nothing, we value nothing of value.). ++
As much as it might pain people to hear it, there is a difference between high and popular culture. It is odd that I thought about this division in Italy because it is a place without a sharp division between the two. People here enjoy and are knowledgeable about, from a young age, things that Americans dismiss as boring or pretentious. We are taught, especially in universities that this is a false dichotomy, this division between high and popular. But that is only because our universities house only communists and other liberal humanists who despise the very thought of distinction and hierarchy of value between humans. We are subjects of an intellectual regime which makes us afraid to embrace the distance between the worthy and unworthy. You doubt it? The New York Times for 4 July ran a follow-up to the obituary for Beverly Sills with this head and tag: “Taking Opera Down To Earth: Beverly Sills showed Americans an approachable face of a sometimes-forbidding art form.” Forbidding for who? Do you think it made opera, one of the most valuable forms of musical, lyrical, and theatrical art in the history of our species - one that tells us about our brightest lights, instead of the buckets of garbage pulled up by those who mine our popular culture - any stronger or valuable? No, it weakened it. Just like we are all weakened by our Lowest Common Denominator approach to life. “No Child Left Behind.” More like, “No Child Allowed To Become Exceptional.” Children are left behind for reasons we cannot allow ourselves to believe. If they are not, our culture produces merely sweet smelling herd animals. Unfortunately liberal humanism and its truth that all people are equal is not solely an American phenomenon. (Luckily Italy is still a battleground.) One front-line is Venezia.
(ANSA) - Venice, July 3 - Three women who are keen to break into the male world of gondoliering have failed to make the grade, the Venetian press reported on Tuesday. The women, two Italians and a German, were admitted last month to a course to find 40 substitute gondoliers for the lagoon city. One of them, Giorgia Boscolo, failed by a whisker, coming in 43rd out of the 125 would-be gondoliers who took part in the test. The German candidate Alexandra Hai, who has been battling for the last decade for the right to steer a gondola around Venice's canals, placed 53rd. A bitterly disappointed, Hai, who has taken the test four times, told local dailies: ‘This just shows what I've been saying for years, that the competition is rigged and the posts have already been assigned’.
Or, maybe it shows that cara Sig. Hai is just unable to do the job in a manner that centuries of gondoliering have deemed honorable. No, of course not. It is no fault of their own that anyone fails at anything anymore. And what is it to this woman if all gondoliers are male? Just like with dumbed-down opera, is a woman going to add anything positive to gondoliering? No, and yet our moral-ethical and legal system convinces us that we are all worthy of everything. None of us know three people who can name three operas, yet we are worthy of opera. None of us know more than four people who read above a 10th grade level and we are worthy of telling the world about itself. None of us evidently bother to learn two words of Italian or to learn anything about the place, yet we are worthy of making demands on Italians. We are not even worthy to step foot on its soil.
And then there is this gem from NYT 1 July: ‘To many Americans, it's somehow seen as a shortcoming that all the good Venetian restaurants specialize in fish, and use less butter and garlic than in much of northern Italy, almost no parmesan or prosciutto, and but a few spices. Yes, the cooking is limited in scope, intensely regional and seasonal; but Alice Waters has been proclaimed a genius for cooking this way.’
O Dio! One, ‘parmesan’ is not a word. I am assume he means at worst parmigiana. Two, why did the writer have to write his piece for any American (the ‘to many Americans’ which should be said ‘too many Americans’) who would not travel to Venezia specifically for Venezian food? Three, who the hell is Alice Waters and why should any Venetian care that she is used here as a defender of their centuries old cucina? You have to use Alice Waters to convince Americans of the value of Venezian food? Instead, Americans should have to take an exam to visit Venezia even for 25 minutes. Four, the shortcomings, or highly local nature of la Cucina Veneziana, would only be seen as such by the type of people I am talking about in this essay. Arrogance, ignorance, disrespect. Maybe I will write a fifth book on Americans in restaurants in Rome. We get such lovely and innocent questions from Federico and Francesca about their American customers. “Marco, what is Alfredo?” “Jodie, come se dice melanzana in Inglese?” They know not to say the Amatriciana has guanciale because Americans have no idea what it is. Instead, good ol’ bacon. Never mind that it comes from an entirely different part of the animal. Like saying a foot is a shoulder. But, to Americans this is all they need to know. Will they eat it. ‘Ew, I don’t eat eggplant.’ Instead of, ‘Do the Romans eat it?’ These people aren’t even worthy of praising Roman cooking. Much less refusing it.
The Alfredo thing freaked me out maybe worse than the gangbang philosopher, the study-abroad student who gladly told her friends she didn’t know the name of the river running through Rome, or the mom who approached two obvious Americans at the Campidoglio and asked ‘what is there to do here [in Rome]. Alfredo? Someone came to this city looking for chain-restaurant American (also redundant, as 95% of American cuisine is chain based) versions of ‘Italian food’. Good for them. I’m sure they ran to Olive Garden when the plane landed. Hopefully they will never come back to a place that you actually have to study about to experience in a way that honors their hosts. Oops, employees, not hosts. Like it matters anyway. Jodie and I eat better here on 30 euros a week than we could for 3000 dollars in the States. Everything always fresh (figs in season for two weeks, cherries for maybe a month, citrus already gone, artichokes long gone, melons about finished, peaches maybe this week only), always dependent on the environment (Federico informed us once that it was too hot for them to make ravioli because the ricotta wouldn’t make it from the market), always handmade (cooking out of a can or box simply does not exist here - even pancake mix from packets got an upturned nose from Francesca). And yet, these vulgar commonalities are so vulgarly common at home. Americans eat crap, almost literally, to go along with the rest of our culture of excrement. Italians make things themselves. Do you understand what that means? They learn. They inherit. They bond. They communicate. The respect. They understand. They value. The baker at our ‘can’t-and-wont live without’ pasticceria is 24 years old. 24! And he is an artist. Because his culture is different. It is committed to quality. This is evident from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. Oh, and also while you sleep, because you don’t get inconsiderate asshole neighbors playing music and having parties with their equally inconsiderate asshole friends all night. You do get drunk screaming Americans in the streets of Trastevere, but that is why I don’t live there.
Everything ought to instruct Americans of the general lack of quality in our lives: every glance at our clothes, our rooms, our houses, every walk we take through the streets of our cities, every visit we make to a grocer, a museum, concert hall, or theater. And yet, these glances only instruct us of the normality of our ignorance. We discover people cultivated as ourselves, and all public institutions, schools, and cultural spaces (I guess I am thinking of cinemas) are organized in accordance with, and to mollify, this type of cultivation and its requirements: the steady diet of filth, vulgarity, arrogance, and ignorance that makes us feel worthy representatives of ‘the greatest country on earth’. But it is always simply a culture, popular indeed, but really, it is redundant to add popular, that reduces us all to the LCD. It reduces us all to the idea that culture is there to anyone who can pay for it. So vulgar. So material. So disgustingly at odds with a culture built around quality like one finds in Italy. We are embraced by a bond of tacit conventions - biology, physics, liberal political theory, but also popular music, films, television - that convince us that, even when we leave our shabby confines, we are still in America and still the highest standard of people.
Our popular literary culture - novels, newspapers, histories, biographies - oh wait. I meant television. Our leisure and ruminative hours, what some call our ‘cultural moments’ have been given over to television and it edifies us with the travails of normal Joes looking to be redeemed by 10 minutes of fame. And instead of popular disgust we have popular mimicry and a contentment with our limitations. (As even these are worthy in America - ‘everyone has at least one talent’. Really? Name one. Anyone. Any one.) Because the rationality of the LCD is our reality, we actually perk up to hear that ___ number of fellow herd animals did thus and so (normally watch TV or eat some previously frozen plate of gruel, since that’s about all we do) and then place more value on the popular activity. Instead of interrupting with a yawn anyone who tries to tell us anything of the mundanities of their lives, we gulp it down like so much sweet wine.
Americans are convinced that quality is irrelevant to the price of something. Especially when it comes to clothes. Beaudrillard said something 20 years ago that I didn’t understand. He said that ‘the look’ will be the death of ‘fashion’. I now understand what he meant: that ‘the look’ assumes that there is no inherent value to an item of clothing. That price is determined by label. That a Chinese made mass produced dress, lets say, is no different from one cut and sown by hand by people who feel that every garment they make represents themselves and a way of life. One is vulgar and cheap. The other is a piece of art and a refusal to reduce skill to the making of another dollar. We would rather buy a Chinese-made fake Fendi bag than one made by hand, just off Via del Corso, by the family and selected (solely on the basis of their expertise) staff of the three Fendi sisters. Artists in every sense of the word. Its not only that we would rather buy a fake, but that we feel we ‘got a deal’ while doing so, and that only idiots would buy a real bag when you can get one just like it for $50.
Every LCD ‘fashion’ or gossip magazine in every newsstand has a section on getting ‘the look for less’ as if what is important is the emulation of some piece of inebriated garbage that is less worthy of life than the Italian shoes they are wearing. Promoting also the idea that one need not respect anything ever, and that wearing quality clothes is only done by rich people because they are rich, vain, or stupid. This is part of the same lack of an understanding of quality that leads us to believe that money has anything to do with it. One look at professional athletes and popular musicians should dispel that idea. But no, instead, they only inspire us to be like them.

RG e le Vite Romane ed Americane

NYT has a brief today on a detention center in Greece that is being closed due to overcrowding and rights violations. What rights? These are illegal immigrants! This week there was an innocent heading in Il R saying that ancient Rome was already “multi-ethnic” as if that is supposed to make our Rome more palatable (in light of growing rightist action against zingari and hatred of the Chinese). No, it wasn’t! How many times in my life will I have to suffer people using our culture specific (non-universal) concepts to judge the ancients? The Romans had no concept of ethnicity or biology. You were Roman or not. You were a barbarian, a Greek, an Egyptian, or Summarian (among others). But these distinctions had no relation to the ultra-modern concept of ethnicity. Why is this so important?

Well, well meaning liberal humanists use the argument to “prove” that Rome has always been “diverse”. OK, fair enough - there have always been different people living here. But here is the difference. Whereas today we are all too willing and proud to emasculate ourselves and then give our culture and traditions away to our multicultural others (out of fear of reprisal or shame that we are in fact superior), Rome’s others were either slaves who, while not dehumanized racially, were worked to death to build this amazing city or were some other degraded “class” (another un-transferable modern concept). If you came to Rome and refused to worship Rome’s gods (as so many Muslims openly and angrily do today) you were not pampered and bowed down to in an effort to mollify your incompatibility with a place you chose to come. Instead you were hung on a cross and left to die and then rot. Or fed to lions! If you came to Rome and killed a Roman citizen (as a few Romanians and Albanians have done [murder is quite rare here]) you were either crucified or sent to gladiatorial camps that ensured for most a quick death. That is if you survived the family of the person you harmed.

Lest I be seen as advocating harsh police or vigilante measures against immigrants and criminals, I must be clear that instead I am arguing that we throw off the conceptual breaks that keep us so afraid of violence, cruelty, offending, and suffering - and thus from defending ourselves from the unworthy. Terribly, someone has been poisoning bears, vultures, and wolves in Abruzzo National Park. It is assumed to be farmers (already under suspicion for starting many of the fires that scorched Italy’s heartland this summer) tired of being harassed by the animals. WWF has suggested a 10,000 euro bounty for information on perpetrators. Closer to home, every morning we dodge zingari digging in our trash for food and clothes. For doing the same as the bears and wolves, why do we not think of poisoning them? Are they somehow a more valuable form of life than bears and wolves? I can’t really speak for bears, but I assume one zingaro (or zingara - no discrimination here!) equals less than a pile of wolf poop. While Americans are accustomed to living around filth and mediocrity, the Romans are not. And more and more are becoming active against the growing mound of human trash collecting in their city. Last week two zingaro camps were raided by Molotov and machete wielding Romans, followed by a well attended three-day event by Forza Nuova that I must assume (knowing FN like I do) pulled no punches on the changing face of Italy.

They have yet to be fully disarmed by our relativism, hedonism, and indulgences in empathy (that’s right - empathy is the problem, not apathy). Americans gave it away with a smile (we are told for the chance to pay lower prices for all kinds of goods and services). Hopefully someone will have to take it from the Italians while facing the threat of a violent struggle (in part because vulgar market-driven understandings of our species are still out-of-place here). What we are witnessing play-out here is a different meaning of being human. America was born with an idea of human equality (and hence the idea that each and all of us can be bought [Nietzsche discusses in great detail the links between trade and its need for valuation and the moral/ethical principles buttressing equal rights. I am extending his analysis a bit, in light of many Italian critiques we hear of American assumptions that the market can solve all our problems]) and now we suffer the most vulgar and simple populism and popular culture in the world. Consumerism as culture (which must by definition be popular), so that, what it means to be human is some rights-based mumble-jumble that amounts to little more than being free to buy something at a cheap price.

Italy, by contrast, understands our species from the perspective of ancient and medieval ideals. From the Roman ideals of honor, valor, strength, dignity, and passion (that became fascism) to the medieval Christian counter-ideals of compassion, pity, and meekness (that became liberalism’s socialist and communist variants), Italians tend to have little room for the market or biology when placing meanings on our time and purpose here.
Padoa-Scioppa and Prodi combined today in separate press conferences to offend most Italians by suggesting that an open door policy to immigrants is positive. P-S went so far as to say that immigrants were a boon to businesses, less skilled workers, and in care for the elderly. NA’s Mantovano got it right in response: by telling a gathering of the foreign press that Italy has open doors to immigrants is like issuing an invitation to every North African to come and settle. This also on a day when over 200 more illegals arrived in Lampedusa. Fortress Europe announced today that almost 1100 illegals have died this year attempting to arrive in Europe by boat. I’m not sure if FE wants us to cry or clap.

RG contro Liberalisti

Within the descending, decaying, chronically ill classes of the population, a doctrine and religion of love, of the suppression of self-affirmation, and of tolerance is of the highest value but even these do not suppress the feeling in the weak that his existence is something for which someone is to blame - the socialist, the democrat, the anarchist, the nihilist all find their feeling bad and ill-constitution easier to bear if they can find someone to hold responsible for it.

RG egli Ebrii

BGE 195 +/- Notebook 14, Spring 1888: The Jews - a people “born for slavery” as Tacitus and the entire ancient world say, “the people chosen of all peoples” as they themselves say and think. The Jews have achieved that miraculous thing, an inversion of values, thanks to which life on earth has had a new and dangerous charm for several millennia. Their prophets melted together “rich,” “godless,” “evil,” “violent,” and “sensual” and made of everything honored by Rome a slander against their morality. Where strength and the celebration of life once reigned, now it is weakness and the denial of life that rule:


Pride conquered by Shame

Joy conquered by Disgust

Health conquered by Sickness

Enmity and War conquered by Impoverished Spirits

Reverence conquered by Equality of Worthiness Amongst The Rabble

Beautiful Gestures, Manners, Objects conquered by Vulgarity And The Common

Strong Will conquered by Humility and Altruism

The Discipline of High Intellectuality conquered by Opinion and Herd Mentality (BLOGS)

Will To Power conquered by Materialism

Gratitude Toward Life And Earth conquered by Reveling In Weakness And Resentment


WE TAKE SERIOUSLY THE LOW THINGS DESPISED AND LEFT ASIDE BY ALL ERAS - WHILE WE SELL OFF CHEAPLY BEAUTY AND THAT WHICH MADE US A PEOPLE.


The significance of the Jew lies in this inversion of values: THE SLAVE REVOLT IN MORALITY BEGINS WITH THE JEWS.