Massa Marittima and the Phallus Tree · Feb 25, 05:37 PM by James Martin
Tuscany is a hot, swinging place. If you were to be poking around the medieval piazze of Massa Marittima, you might come across a frescoed fountain. The fresco, made reasonably brilliant from restoration in recent times, is a harmonious composition featuring a huge tree and women below, reaching for the fruit of said tree.
How quaint, I hear you whisper, ever so softly.
Look at the tree closely though, and your puritan hackles are in danger of being raised up. The tree bears phalluses. Lots of them. Big, too.
I like the medieval, especially around the 12th and 13th centuries, when pilgrimage was rampant and sexual carvings were being hammered out in droves inside Romanesque churches along the routes. It’s so not the stuff of the 21st century.
In any case, folks close to the mural want the tree of phalluses to represent a pagan wish for fecundity, a desire that isn’t passing through the modern population of Italy like wildfire for sure. It is likely to have politics attached to it, as explained in Negative Campaigning, Medieval Style, which also has a great picture of the fresco.
And if you want to sit back and hear about Massa Marittima’s phallus tree, here’s an NPR report
Unusual fruit indeed.
Filed in: Italy Travel Italy News
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TSA and Excess Baggage: Hiring Convicts Is Good · Feb 5, 09:12 AM by James Martin
I’ve always wondered how long an outfit like UPS or FedEx would last if they “lost” packages with the regularity of the airlines. Nobody seems to care that airline luggage seems to go missing, least off all the US government agencies in charge of looking into such things. I wonder why that is. Could be the TSAs fixation on shoes, but who knows for sure? The thing is, if nobody cares about missing baggage, can that fact be exploited in an effort to kick-start the economy?
If recent news of the TSA’s insistence that an new hire with a conviction for stealing get full access to your baggage is any indication, I’m suspecting that the Feds have determined that not enough baggage has gone missing in recent times and they have a clever fix in mind. (see: TSA Tells Richmond Airport to Give Convict Full Airport Access)
Before you call me an my idiotic ramblings ridiculous, let’s do something different. Sure, the media is picking up the TSA story and clucking their tongues over it with the fervor of jolly religious dingbats convinced of their own moral superiority while running off with a random selection of foreign children. But, I’m always trying to think along the lines of my anthropology mentor Marvin Harris. Marv wrote a bunch of books analyzing apparent cultural oddities. He could explain, for example why Indians don’t eat cows and why it was good for Indian society as a whole that they didn’t—even when protein was scarce (Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches; you should read it). Let’s put on our Marvin Harris Thinking Caps ($29.95 at geeks-r-us).
The economy is in a slump. New products aren’t moving. American jails are bulging at the seams, threatening to explode. The unemployment rate is high.
So, it is entirely logical and good that we hire convicts, especially if we can get them at bargain-basement salaries. It relieves the pressure on the US crack prison system (few countries can come even remotely close to the participation level of US prisons) and employs the unemployable.
Now, if you can travel today, especially to a foreign country like Italy, you are, by definition, flush with cash—mainly because so few people outside of Goldman Sachs execs have any. What if we hired convicts, pay them little, but allow them authorized access to all the cool stuff we’re smuggling into the country from Europe, like our Salame Toscana?
So, despite the fact that the pay is so low that the newly hired folks can’t afford food, we can rely on the fact that the resourcefull among them can get boundless energy from the prime preserved pork that nobody could reasonably expect to get into the country anyway.
As we know and many have experienced, every once in a while a whole bag is stolen for its cash value. You can’t get around that.
But that’s good for the economy, too. You lose your bags. You need new luggage. You buy it. The economy jerks spasmodically into action. People in China start stitching for a nickel an hour, making $400 bags by the boatload. Travelers buy bags they lack. Corporate baggage barons buy yachts. Middlemen head back to their “offices” and start stuffing countless dollars into pole dancers’ bras again! Money flows, especially to crack pushers. Good times are here la-di-da!
So, to summarize: low TSA pay to convicts with cost-free benefits is a cheap way to move the bowels of a stuttering economy while at the same time giving travelers the warm and cozy feeling of increased security. Relieving the economy of excess baggage creates demand for same and renewed economic strength.
You’ll think my analysis is pretty amazing when the good times start rolling. Soon.
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Is Flying Safe? · Jan 4, 03:08 PM by James Martin
Those of you who’ve read Never Trust a Thin Cook will realize the playfulness of the above title. According to author Eric Dregni:
The word safe doesn’t really exist in Italian. Sicuro is just “secure.” My students suggest non pericoloso (not dangerous) but add that everything has a certain amount of danger, so “safe” is a paradox.
Now, I’m still contemplating the meaning of salvo in Italian, but I agree with Mr. Dregni’s students entirely. In the US, when we indicate that we want “safety” bad enough, a government agency inevitably emerges with its greedy hands already in our pockets. It’s viral opportunism at its best.
Said agency will be headed by a bunch of PR guys whose job it is to cover up the idiotic adventures of whoever has been assigned the impossible task of providing this ethereal concept we call “safety.”
Take President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser. Please! When interviewed about security lapses that allowed one Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to set his leg afire on a jet bound for Detroit, John Brennan repeated a laundry list of government screw ups, then made sure we’d all understand that the nearly tragic event wasn’t their fault:
“There is no smoking gun,” Brennan said. “There was no single piece of intelligence that said, ‘this guy is going to get on a plane.’” ~ Obama adviser: No smoking gun in airline bomb plot-
Dang if Mr. Brennan doesn’t seem to be looking for a swarthy dude with a forehead anointed with blinking neon lights spelling out “I’m a terrorist about to try to blow up a plane flying over city with a doomed economy!” The president’s adviser insists upon a single piece of intelligence that explains the whole terrorism universe before taking action? Yes, let’s wait for that! It’s cheaper than actually doing something!
Without that sublime and compact little packet of knowledge that Mr. Brennan desires, his subliminal message trumpets: we (the hapless traveler) will just have to depend on Dutch tourists to squelch any attempts at blowing up planes. Not only that, but to make us feel “safe” we will be made to forever chase the (other) last known attempt at blowing up a plane, removing our shoes like pious lemmings before the stainless steel xray shrine. (Those of you who are hockey fans know that chasing (the puck) is the only sure way of losing a hockey game. A good hockey player is more intelligent than most government agency wonks. Doesn’t that fact just stun you?)
In the absence of Brennan’s sublime nugget of perfect intelligence, something needs be done that costs oodles of money. (You have to spend the government’s (our) money before they give you more. Everybody knows that, right?) I’ve got it! We shall be forced to stand in long lines fronted with government paid gorillas whose gigantic meathooks will gleefully fondle all comers, right down to the last colostomy bag.
This we shall do until those nifty scanners arrive. Then we’ll all diet before getting on a plane, eh? You don’t want to look fat for that “best of 2010” semi-nudie compilation tape they’ll be splicing together in the back room next to the stolen luggage, do you?
All in good fun. All in the name of safety, you know? Can’t beat that with a stick.
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Two Things You Must See in Italy in 2010 · Jan 1, 06:23 PM by James Martin
Ok, so the new year has been rung in and you’re probably rung out. I know I am. Why my neighbors need to shoot bullets into the air deep into the night the calendar runs out I’ll probably never understand. I hope none of the bullets fell to earth near someone who wasn’t shooting off a gun. America. You got to love us when we’re defending our right to be stupid with handguns.
In any case, for those of you planning vacations for spring or early summer, listen up. There are a couple of things on display you don’t see very often.
First off are the Stone Age Venus Figurines on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Ancona:
All were uncovered in the Marche region but date from different cultures and times, with the oldest figure created some 25,000 years ago and the most recent around the fifth millennium BC.
Well, unless you’ve been staring too long at a picture of me, you won’t be able to gawk at many compelling objects that old.
While you’re looking at these obese, nude female figures, think of how much stone age fecundity depended on being fed well. Think of how successful a small scale society could be if it efficiently created abundance. Fat was different then. There were no pilates, not even on the foreseeable horizon.
The exhibition, which runs until March 30, is called ‘‘Donne o Dee? Le figure femminili preistoriche nelle Marche’‘ (Women Or Goddesses? Prehistoric Female Figures in the Marche). Read more
Here’s information in Italian from the Museum.
Turin Shroud on Display
Did you know that they only put the Shroud of Turn on display every once in a while? In fact, it’s been about 10 years now. If you’re planning a spring vacation, you’re in luck:
In 2010 the Shroud of Turin will be on display in the Turin Cathedral from April 10 to May 23. While there’s no cost to view the Shroud, you must have a reservation. ~ Shroud of Turin Visiting Information
Have a happy 2010.
Filed in: Italy News Italy Travel Tips
Pranzare! Or Not. Lunch in Italy · Nov 24, 08:25 AM by James Martin
A few weeks ago we made a discovery while doing some shopping in Fivizzano’s Tuesday open air market. It was noon. We noticed folks buzzing around a pizzeria with the unlikely name of Vladimir opposite the bus yard, where cooks had evidently been spending the morning churning out pizza, focaccia, and other delights from their forno a legno or wood oven. On market day they also produced a rather amazing farinata, a chick-pea pancake-like deal. Farinata can taste a bit like compacted sawdust if you don’t make it right, but Vladimir evidently knew all the secrets. We bought some. It was the best.
Today we got to Vlad’s at just after 11. The nice lady said the farinata wasn’t quite done—come back in 10 minutes. So we walked around Fivizzano a bit and returned. There was a crowd. Gray haired old ladies were walking out with packages cradled in bony arms, faces aglow with pride as if their packages contained stacks of freshly printed Euros won in the lotto.
Yes, food is like that in Italy. We had come across a farinata frenzy. We had lost. By the time Martha had inched up to the counter there was no more.
“You can wait ten minutes…”
Ah, well, no thanks. Hunger knows not the clock.
Vlad is evidently as much from the old school as he is from the old country. He makes the best farinata in the land. He charges a reasonable price for it. People flock to his store. He sells out in a matter of minutes.
It used to be this way in America. Things have changed. Now ten million dollar a year industry executives sit around a big table discussing the best ways to water down their product, or, in the case of airlines, devising ways to make such a complicated mess of pricing that folks can no longer compare the cost of different airlines running the same route and so can be tricked into paying too much.
But alas, I am on the verge of losing the point. Here it is: Italians take their midday meal seriously. It is the backbone of the modern Italian culture.
And the government wants them to stop. Eating lunch I mean.
Lunch breaks are a wrench in the workday gears, according to Government Programme Minister Gianfranco Rotondi on Monday who asked Italians to keep them short or skip them entirely. ~ Minister tells Italians to skip lunch
Can you imagine? Don’t eat, just work? The gears of industry want all of you. Who gives big biz a pass on such blasphemy? In the old days there’d be blood in the streets—or at least a sciopero of several weeks. Italians would be mad even if told other people do it—er especially if told other people are idiotic enough to do it:
The minister gave Germany as a good example, where he said employees working nine hours a day took 45 minutes at most.
Let me tell you a story. We were sitting in a restaurant we like very much called Dal Mi’ Cocco in Perugia, just outside the Etruscan wall. It’s near the University. Next to us was a German researcher working with Italians on a University project. We struck up a conversation. He said he found it hard to break away from the project.
“Italians are nuts! They work all night! They never take a dinner!” he lamented. “I was famished. I had to sneak out and eat something.”
So you see, if this government idiocy comes to pass, not only will the hard working folks who run restaurants and provide worker’s lunches to hungry working folks be out of a living, but the Italians, who aren’t eating lunch or dinner, will obviously die out—the first culture ever to die from voluntarily never eating in order to grease the gears of industry.
I’m not trying to be a Negative Nelly here. There is a bright side. Property values will go down.
Then you can go to Italy and buy a house and not eat, too.
Filed in: Food Italy News
Parma Duomo Belltower Fire · Oct 23, 01:06 AM by James Martin
We’ve just been through a huge storm in Italy that rattled windows with bursts of thunder and left us with standing water everywhere. This morning we’ve heard of lightening striking the belltower of Parma’s Duomo or Cathedral Thursday morning, a belltower we took photos of just 12 days ago, shown here (click on the thumbnail to see a larger picture). The top of the Duomo belltower is on the left in the picture; the Baptistery is shown on the right.
The lightning bolt apparently hit and travelled down the metal cross held by a statue on top of the tower, the ‘Angiol d’Or’ (Golden Angel), the thunder from which was heard throughout this northern Italian city. ~ Bell tower fire reveals 1st roof
Under the dome’s copper panels more lightening resistant, older ceramic tiles were revealed after the fire was put out. The belltower will be restored to its 13th century state.
There’s nothing like a disaster to allow you to look a little further into the state of oft-restored structures.
The Duomo itself underwent recent restoration to its facade and to the artworks within, and the pictures I took 12 days ago are found on Europe Travel: Pictures of the Duomo di Parma
This copyrighted post, called “Parma Duomo Belltower Fire”, first appeared on Wandering Italy Blog.
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I So Don't Want To Live Like This · Sep 17, 10:41 AM by James Martin
Word is out. Tuscany Tourism has spent un sacco di soldi on advertising with the theme “Voglio vivere così”—which happens to be the refrain of a song that means “I want to live like this”.
Before I put on my curmudgeon cap, let’s get something straight: I do want to live like a typical Tuscan, or at least like one in my village in the Lunigiana. Trouble is, the advertising I’ve seen so far has featured an Italian actress prancing the Tuscan countryside in flamboyant frippery not seen outside of an Opera House stage since the time of the plague. You can see one ad here.
How can they miss a point so badly? I know many expats and I’m in daily contact with tourists who want to go to Italy so bad it hurts. Not one of them is very much interested in prancing the countryside cosi, like this. (I’m sure the film crew had a good time, but I don’t think that’s the point either.)
You see, I have an old calendar that’s still open to a month featuring a very simple but powerful scene. It’s spring; the light is strong but slanted. An old farmer is taking out a rickety table to place under a grape arbor. The ground is strewn with a layer of white stone. You can practically hear the crunch as the man walks out of his stone house and sets the table down, wiggling it to set it tightly amongst the stones.
This is our vision of Tuscany. It’s not hard to imagine a crusty old woman in her housedress bringing a heaping platter of spaghetti al pomodoro to the table as the man retreats into the house to get a couple liters of his homemade wine. Shoot, we can smell the sauce as we sit at our computers, typing away.
Of course, this campaign is not meant for us. We know what we want. Here’s something interesting:
The Tuscan region is not expecting results in the short-term, especially due to the ongoing economic crisis, but is investing over the medium-term to increase the numbers and quality of tourism in Tuscany. ~ Tuscany Shoots for Big Numbers
So maybe they want a better quality of tourist, someone with a big wallet—and prone to frippery perhaps.
That would explain such a waste of Euros. I think. But I’d still suggest a way to get better return for all that tourism money. Send out a bunch of bloggers and let them find those little places that exemplify the spirit of Tuscany most of us crave. It’s in the little things, the details of the good life that everyday people can lead. We’d be glad to poke our cameras there. You’d be surprised how cheaply we’d work.
Just a self-serving thought. I gotta go before I get more of them.
Filed in: Italy News Italy Travel
Roman Art: The Peeper · Sep 16, 08:36 AM by James Martin
I’ve always liked Roman art. It as least shows that people weren’t so prudish about such things as nudity, and they actually had a sense of humor about sex and the human body. The picture over there to the right appeared in Pompeii, the Roman’s hedonist retreat in the shadow of Vesuvio.
In any case, I’ve displayed this bit of salacious Roman art to alert you to an exhibition in Rome that sounds mighty interesting:
Entitled ‘Roma. La Pittura di un Impero’ (Rome: The Painting of An Empire), the exhibition can be visited at the Scuderie Quirinale from September 24 until January 17.
Read more: Painting the Roman empire
Oh, and you can click the picture to see all the creamy goodness of the nudidity.
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