My Two Italies by Joseph Luzzi

To my great delight My Two Italies is as good and fascinating as its premise. With much warmth and human feeling, Prof. Luzzi weaves two particular strands of Italy: the Grand Tour, Ruskin-in-hand, sprezzatura (genius) Italy and the hardscrabble, sun-scorched, Fourteen Years as Age of Consent south. His parents and older siblings were born in the mezzogiornio (midday sun south) - geographically of course the same country as the cultural trinity of Venice-Florence-Rome but somehow a universe away. When the parents escape to the States for a better economic future they are neither former Italians nor future Italian-Americans. Instead the parents remain steadfastly Calabrese.

The good side of this would be the exquisite-sounding, pre-movement Slow Food meals. Their quotidian dinners today would be the cover story on a glossy food or travel magazine.

The bad side, though, is a tough, old-school father who ostracized his daughter because she dared to want to move out and have her own place - at age 27.

Given Prof. Luzzi's ancestry it seems to surprise even him that he develops such a passion for northern Italy art and literature. Yet he reminds the reader that there's a tremendous legacy of culture in the south as well; he describes a Naples museum in which he was the only visitor in a room filled with important works of art. Memories of scrimmaging through the Uffizi make the solitude alone sounds enormously appealing.

On an early student trip to Florence he's taken aback when a northern girl says of his parents' region, "That's not Italy - that's Africa!" The (intended) putdown made me wonder what the father thought of African-Americans. Was he sympathetic to their plight as a fellow outsider, or did he believe that they should just work hard like he did and quit whining? In short, did the old man realize that no matter how poor his English or olive his skin, being not-black offered a slender strand of advantage in the United States?

The author makes self-deprecating remarks about his academic chops, claiming to lack both the work habits of the A students and the free spirits of the C students. In fact he's a wonderfully gifted writer with a lovely sprinkling of sprezzatura of his own.

Eyes on Immigration

We ate dinner out on the Fourth of July. In the booth in front of me was a family of four: a woman and a teenaged girl wearing scarves on their heads, and two boys, the older if which may have been twelve.  If I absolutely had to guess I might say they were Egyptian, but really have no idea.  

Across the aisle in another booth was a tall, lean, kind of  Dennis Weaver-looking guy with his wife.  Cowboy.  Is it racist to say he looked like he watched Fox News?  How about, I wouldn't be surprised to find out he watched Fox News?

Instead of facing his wife, the man turned ninety degrees, leg on the booth seat, and watched the "Egyptian" family in front of me. Actually he glared at them. Not sure what the thinking was there.  "If I give them dirty looks then they'll leave the restaurant?  Leave Los Angeles?  The country?"

The family seemed utterly indifferent, even unaware, of the man staring. The girl was texting, and the boys were making each other giggle by trying to mimic the waitress's way of saying "hash browns".   (Neither could quite pull it off with their (let's say) Egyptian accents.  

How did he react to their refusal to be intimidated?  The next time I looked, he had fallen asleep, leaving his poor wife to gum her scrambled eggs alone. Asleep!   Where's the vigilance, Mister?  While you were dozing these four could have imposed sharia law on the joint, condemning my BLT to the ashbin of history.  

Finding Your Inner Tablet

With tablets now commanding 50% of the computer market the main players are getting competitive in the their advertising.  On the one side is Microsoft with its "Honestly" campaign for the Surface; on the other, Apple with its "Poetry" advertisement for the iPad.  

Of course it's all a rematch of the Mac vs. PC commercials of a few years back. In those, as you may recall, Apple's young, hip-but-not-hipster spokesmodel ran metaphoric cool circles around the awkward, ineffectual, PC fussbudget.

You'd think Microsoft would have learned something from that. Instead, the current ads seem to be doubling down on the "I'm a hardworking grind" theme.  

This was hinted at in the spots a year ago showing baseball scouts competing for a recruit.  The ineffectual, whiny iPad-wielding scout (turnabout is fair play) couldn't show his boss back in the office the video of the player while looking up the pitcher's stats and keeping the audio going.  The scout with the effortlessly multi-tasking Microsoft tablet was walking to the mound to sign up the pitcher, leaving the iPad scout pathetically tapping his screen.  

In the "Honestly" series we meet a schoolteacher who warms up to the idea of his  students using a tablet because it makes them more productive. We see a man scrunched up in coach trying to get some work done ("This is my office").  A young woman concedes that she likes the versatility of the Microsoft tablet because it can be used for her "me" time (i.e., fun), but first she assures us the computer is for school.  

Dutiful. Hardworking.  Increased productivity.  Neither the high admirability of the occupations nor their necessity in society doesn't distract from their conventionality. 

"Honestly" strikes one as being less effective than the previous side by side ads, the ones where the iPad's voice Siri gets her comeuppance over, again, the tasks one can get done on the Microsoft tablet that "she" can't handle.  When the commercial closed with the price differential one can only think, Advantage, Microsoft.  It seemed only a shallow, status-hungry snob would prefer the Apple tablet when a less expensive tablet that could outperform it was available.  

There's only one problem.  The iPad consumer believes there is nothing it can't do, which is what keeps the plastic swiping at the Apple Store.  

The "Poetry" ad shown during the Golden Globes exploits that belief, that fervent wish, within an inch if it's life. 

First of all, the images are gorgeous. While the Microsoft ads are several steps above Exasperated Mom With a Mop commercials they don't stand out remarkably from what's seen before them and after.  Poetry, however, loops from a wide, gray sea to a snow-covered peak to a bird's eye view of a touching-the-sky turbine. There's a Japanese Noh actor preparing then performing in full dress; a bright-eyed backpacking couple beneath a strand of fluttering Himalayan prayer flags; and a guy at the side of the road, chasing a storm.  

Not all of the images are dramatic.  My favorite, being a scribbler myself, is of a young man working the night shift at a parking lot, tapping away at a screenplay or novel.  Or a poem.  

And then there's the copy. It's actor-comic Robin Williams, his voice long stripped of all silliness, reciting his stand on the chairs speech from the film The Dead Poets Society.  

"Medicine, law,  business, engineering - these are noble pursuits, necessary to sustain life.  But poetry, beauty,  romance, love - these are what we stay alive for."   Not, he doesn't need to spell out, filling in cells on an Excel spreadsheet while on a flight, not obediently inserting ourselves in pre-fabricated employment slots. 

"The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.  What will your verse be?" It leaves the viewer with an invitation to contribute something of her own, his own, to a great Whitmanesque tapestry.

Ultimately, it probably does not really matter which machine can do more stuff. As with our brains, most people will probably only tap into a small percentages of either tablet's capabilities.   

To be sure, there's a no-nonsense demographic that would be perfectly content with a Microsoft tablet; Android sales continue to outpace iPad's.  Still, the iPad folks are banking on there being a more passionate demographic to whom the Apple ad will appeal - creatives, young people, boomers in their sixties who remember the '60's.  It's that implied compliment of the viewer having the talent, soul, and intelligence to bring Into being something worthy of Walt Whitman that will continue to shift iPad units.   

Honestly.   

The Golden Globes - I Would Like to Thank...

Apparently winning an award isn't as difficult as knowing what to say after your name has been called.  Everyone who worked on the project seems to need a Thank You that's specific...and public; the latter most assuredly, because it doesn't advance the caterer's or costume director's or agent's career to simply receive a charming, handwritten note atop a beribboned box of truffles.  

If a person assisted the winner but was not thanked at the podium, does he make a whimper?

Obviously it takes busloads of talented people to pull off $25-, $50-, $100-million or more film projects. It's just that the thanking is almost a parody of the Tea party "I Built This" nonsense last year wherein proud entrepreneurs neglected to be grateful for the "collectivist" roads, schools, and postal systems that made their enterprises possible.  

That being said, I would like the Hollywood Foreign Press for Leonardo DiCaprio winning Best a Performance (in a musical or comedy!), even if the equally gutsy  Martin Scorsese was not even nominated for Director.  

I'd like to thank them also for U2 winning in the  Best Song category for Ordinary Love" from the Mandela film.  (Not having seen the film nor fully knowing the song pose no obstacle to my biases.)

I thank the Golden a Globes seating committee for placing SNL's Lorne Michaels at a front, center table to raise an eyebrow should any nominee or presenter get too precious or preening or pretentious.   

I thank the Golden a Globe producers for hiring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host.  Tina's LDC introduction, the Clooney joke, Amy getting Bono to massage her neck during her nomination category...good stuff. 

Mainly I'm thankful for being reminded that pop culture isn't all commercialism and coarseness and nonsense, that there's a reason we hold certain directors and musicians in our hearts:  Because when they're creating, they're holding something special in their hearts.  

(As the SNL tables gives me a look.... )

The Wolf of Wall Street

 Phil Dunphy:  I'm all about taking it to the next level.  
Claire Dunphy:  Really? I thought you were all about keeping it real.
Phil Dunphy:  Yes, but the whole point of keeping it real is so you can take it to the next level.  Did you really not know that?

As we swerve from America's kindest TV dad to Hollywood's incarnation of unfiltered, throbbing id in the film The Wolf of Wall Street we must ask a similar question - Do people really not see that the film is not - emphatically not - a glamorization of the character upon whom the film was based, Wall Street bad boy Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio)?  To even the consider the idea that the film tries to glamorize this man indicates how much greed has corroded the culture.  No, director Martin Scorsese does not superimpose a big red arrow atop DiCaprio's brow with a caption saying  THIS IS A BAD GUY, but surely anyone young enough to be  so distracted by the fast women and faster cars would not be allowed in the theatre without adult supervision.

We should know better by now.  The director of Mean Streets reminds us that his role of the artist is to be true to the characters, not to the demands of the self-righteous scold of your choice.
Jordan Belfort was a hotshot Wall Street broker who started humbly in an established brokerage but soon enough struck out on his own.  Stratton Oakmont (a gloriously BS name; there were never any such principals named that) made money the new-fashioned way - sweet-talking dim-witted 98%ers into making investments and then just pocketing the money.  Belfort made millions which he spent on a grand house in Long Island (reasonable enough), super sexy cars (not my thing, but to each his own), and women and drugs (as Gielgud said so wonderfully in Chariots of Fire, This is where our paths diverge.)

It's easy for most people to look down their noses at such a 'ludes guzzling whorehound.  I submit, however, that there are people in corporations who are every bit as greedy for money as Belfort was, but just happen to go home to the suburbs in the evenings, are (reasonably) faithful to their spouses, and are content with a tumbler or two of a good scotch.

How else do you account for people like the Koch brothers who spent millions to fight unions in Wisconsin, or the embarrassing, gruesome, fingernails-filled-with-skin battles over letting the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy expire?  Think about the adulteration to foods people in conglomerates sign off on (e.g. high fructose corn syrup) to keep share prices high, or McDonald's paying their employees' salaries with bank cards that charge the holders fees just to check their balances.

*

No surprise to see Scorsese is still aiming for the fence but tons of continued admiration.  Is he given enough credit for the energy with which he imbues these worlds he creates?  Jonah Hill plays a kind of factionalized version of Belfort's right hand man (and partner in debauchery) Donnie Azoff. Hill has a relatable, natural manner of speaking that he uses to hilarious effect when he explains how he is not / is married to his first cousin.

And of course there's Leonardo DiCaprio's performance, which as of this writing has just earned him a BAFTA nomination.  Deservedly so; he's magnificent and gives a performance  the ages.  When he's making a "rally the troops" speech to his employees he does maybe two or three seconds - blink and you miss it - of Pentecostal holy dancing.  The only reason I didn't give him a standing ovation right then was not concern for disturbing the rest of the audience but simply because I didn't want yo miss whatever he was going to do or say next. 

And I'm wondering if something else didn't animate his portrayal.  A supremely talented and successful movie star (actor, yes, but star, too) has just as much access to goodies as Belfort; probably more.  What keeps a person in line morally when they don't have to be?  What keeps any of us in line?

Saving Rome

We've all read about the glories of Rome - Caesar at the Senate, Michelangelo toiling at the Sistine. And anyone's who's ever picked up a glossy magazine knows about the sublime food, hotels, and shopping. 

What Megan Williams does in this very appealing selection of short stories, however, is introduce us to modern, everyday Rome - the Rome of a mom desperately trying to find a place to park with rambunctious twins in the back seat; a Rome of Canadian expats being attracted then repelled by Italian mores.  In short, a Rome that gives even the most smitten Italophile pause. 

The duality of appeal and disgust are most vivid in "The Funeral".  In this story a Canadian woman starts out smitten with her buddies at work, a group of not rich but not burdened thirty year olds. They dish and crack wise like a Roman trio of Jerry, George, and Elaine.  When a parent of the group passes, however, the eulogist speaks of the man having been ostracized at work because he wouldn't allow himself to be bought off with real estate developers' payola. 

The feeling of unease is compounded when she gives Pia a lift back to the city.  Pia, considered a bit gauche by the Cool Kids, confided that she, too, was ostracized at work for not falling into line.  The way Ms. Williams pivots the main character from being, on advice of the hip gang, indifferent to her little pile of unpaid parking tickets to becoming obsessed with getting them paid (and getting back to Canada) was exquisite yet perfectly natural.  

In fact "natural" is the word I would use to describe the great charm of these stories. No pretentiousness, no preciousness, just a skilled, sometimes serious, sometimes poignant look at the lives of people who find themselves in the Eternal City.  

Facing the Wave - A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami by Gretel Ehrlich

This is about the hardest book you will read. Harder than Newton's Principia, harder than the Three Laws of Thermodynamics, harder than the Book of Revelations. In surveying the survivors of Japan's earthquake and tsunami author Gretel Ehrlich uncovers every possible permutation of Shakespearean - even Greek - tragedy. Parents lose their children in the Wave. Children lose their parents in the Wave. There's at least one instance of a man losing his spouse, his children, and his parents in the Wave.

 

One reads of the horrors and thinks, Well, at least it can't get any worse. Except for those who actually saw their loved ones washed away. Except for the old people,folks in their 70's and 80's, who are suddenly homeless, living in evacuation centers til they can go to the mixed blessing of 500 tiny square feet, temporary housing.

 

It's hard and awful but one is compelled to keep reading. Instead of throwing the book against the nearest wall one realizes, at some fundamental level, if they had the strength to survive this then we should at least be brave enough to read about it.

 

So one continues, but with a rising internal wave of our own - a wave of anger. Why did the government even allow people to live in such a dangerous zone? Why weren't the sea walls sufficient? And why did the teachers dither over official procedures and protocols instead of high tailing the children up the hill?

 

The author herself doesn't escape our annoyance. At first the Asian-style nature poetry irritates instead of pleases; it's zen simplicity seems slight against the calamity it tries to describe. Even her presence feels wrong initially, almost ghoulish. When her Japanese friend and escort cries out in an especially gruesome district about sensing a ghost it's feels heartless of Ehrlich to insist on continuing.

 

But the author's instincts are correct. The story of the tragedy isn't to be old only in cesium counts; the humanity of poetry is an appropriate balm, and honest witness is an honorable tribute.

 

 

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