Neil Armstrong, 1930-2012

Photo from NASA

Parasols

Countryside

We spend the afternoon with Costantinos and Mirella, whose house in the countryside always filled with people, laughter and cheer (Says Mirella: "Better a noisy home than a lonely one"). This afternoon it is Costantinos parents, Mirella's work colleague Alesandro from Milan .. .another couple I don't quite place and, of course, the bambinos... a few cats and the five dogs, which Madeleine feeds under the table, and Penelope the pig (who Eitan names).  This also means amazing food - Costanatinos father a retired restaurant chef while Mirella - umma mia! - and, for Eitan and Madeleine, 5 kg of .. . Nutella.

Tuscany draws the attention but Abruzzo the same rolling countryside with similar white beaches (that still have fish).  A 30 minute drive takes one into the mountains. There is no Florence but far fewer tourists, too. Certainly no Chinese which the Italians now complain about.  Costantinos shows me a villa with 360 panoramic views of olive trees and sunflowers; he notes: "half the price".

Below, Abruzzo countryside:

Middle Age

This is what it looks like to turn 50 in Italy.

The Republicans, whose party argues global warming a farce, cut their Tampa convention one-day due to Tropical Storm Isaac (NASA reports that the Arctic ice caps summer surface area reached its lowest size ever in 2012).

Republicans want to entirely repeal Obama's heath insurance making health care available to 30m working poor; a constitutional amendment to ban any legal recognition of gay rights, including civil partnerships; a commitment to more Jewish settlements in the West bank . .. a war against Iran's nuclear facilities .. the return of torture as an instrument of war .. . assualt rifles on our streets, a ramping up of the Afghanistan war . .. immediate confrontation with China over trade and Russia over, well, everything.  The "Arab Spring" envisioned by George Bush seen as a radical threat to American interest .. and Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" defines the party's views towards women reproduction , ie, women.

No, the real amazement that Republicans own half of the United States. Each party so entrenched and filled with hatred for the other, there is no punishment for catering to the extremes. 

"I oppose the attempts of homosexual activists to treat homosexual activity as a civil right to be protected and promoted by the government."
--Todd Akin

Baywatch

I send Madeleine off to take some pictures from the beach seeing how the sun has set and the hazy glow near perfect for photos. She protests vehemently.  A chore : the lifeguard, and eventually I give her a hand as I watch our gal stalk the booth pretending to take shots of the sea etc.  I march up, point at my camera to get permissions, snap-snap, then a thumb's up and "California, dude" which gets a large toothy smile. All I have to do is say that word, "California", and we are all part of the club.

White Shades

Eitan buys himself some new sunglasses this morning at the local market which runs down the block outside our hotel.  They go with his pink Converse high-tops and I note: the kid is putting some style on.  Given he will be wearing the same monotonous wardrobe for seven years, I am down with this (Hampton school's colours BTW are black and gold; coat and tie).  Madeleine, for her part, purchases a magnet with a molded plastic platter containing a wine, prosciutto and melon dinner plate, hooks in the shape of garlic and a bunch of tomatoes, and a T-shit for Auntie-Katie.  Me, I get two pork sandwiches.

From there it is more gelato and the beach.

Madeleine: "Dad are you going to go on the paddle boat with us?"
Me: "No. .."
Eitan: "Come on, Dad. All your troubles will disappear."
Mom: "That's quite a proposition."
Madeleine: "Mine didn't.  Two years ago they multiplied because I cut my big toe on the propeller. And then I got sand in it."

Helter Skelter

Since the hotel stations in Italian we listen to music from on line : the kids fire off songs including Maroon 5, Rihanna and other such junk which I veto (Dad's computer).  We hit a good vain with the Beatles: "Here Comes The Sun", "The Long And Winding Road," "A Day In the Life" and "Lucy In The Sky Of Diamonds" which was banned by British radio in '67 for its reference to drugs (Lennon says: no).  Any case, The Beatles impact on people's lives cannot be under-stated : even now, doing a quick Internets search, I come across heartfelt letters thanking the band for saving their lives . . .

Sgt Peppers in my parents living room stack (of course) and one of the first albums I recall (also: "This Is The Dawning Of The Age of Aquarius" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" ).  That would have been around age seven or eight.. a good introduction to pop culture and its positive vibe , which must have influenced me then and so now. How remarkable that two of the greatest lyricists of all time , Lennon and McCartney, should be in the same band.

The Fab Four, pictured, in '68 or 69 , memorable for the My Lai massacre, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and "Abbey Road" with quintessential songs "Helter Skelter" and "Come Together", when the band produced some of its best music , as if sensing their time together soon to end : A year later, "Let It Be" (my favourite ) would be their last. And what fashion ! Gone the good-natured outfits of Sgt Pepper's , replaced with four distinct fellows each having a unique style to showcase,  presumably, their increasingly disparate personalities.

This is the end
Of you and me
And everything I used to be
Back then it meant something
But you're living a lie, you just can't hide from me
--The Doors

Tonino

Tonino, born in Tortoreto and from Naples, spent his career at Pirelli on a boat laying cable. Tonino's boss, Captain Monti, met Stan in Alaska, in '65, when Stan a member of the Anchorage Junior Council.  Later, following Marcus's operation, Stan asked Monti for a place to stay in Italy "with the people" and Monti suggested Tortoreto, where Sonnet's family spent two summers and here we are now.

Tonino long retired and scoops up the bambinos in his fat arms, pinches Eitan's cheek several times and marvels at Madeleine's beauty.  He yells at his wife Delia on the top floor of the building, who leans over her balcony and yells back "Ciao! Ciao !"  Delia, learning that we share an interest in tomatoes, gives me thirty seeds held in newspaper  : her vines fill the backyard with giant red fruit. A precious gift indeed.

The Shakespeares roll with the attention. They have no choice, really.

Prick

The US Anti-Doping Agency will ban Lance Armstrong for life for using drugs to win the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005 - charges that Armstrong denies, noting he has not failed a drugs test. USADA said in June it had evidence, including information supplied by former teammates, that Armstrong had used banned substances.  This is the Madoff of sports frauds and yet another American. WTF? Next (my guess) will come the improprieties with Armstrong's foundation, Live Strong, which has raised ca. $430 million for cancer survivors.  Where have the heroes gone ?

Wally World

"Hell is other people" -- Jean-Paul Sartre

We head for the Aquapark along with every Italian in Tortoreto and maybe Abruzzo. My life has become an episode of The Simpsons.  On the plus side, it is ca. 40-degrees and the kids love splashing about and daring each other down the long slides, which drop six or seven stories. It ain't California.  

Still, the Italians are a sexy people :

Prega

The church open 11PM and we sit for a moment and listen. It is a warm night perfect for strolling about this 14c villa. Locals sit outside their homes, which spill onto the cobblestone, smoking and chatting.  I do not have religion in my life and how simple it would be - to believe it is all taken care of somehow.

We finish dinner with some Goccia di Genziana "Liquore Tipico D'Abbruzzo" which, Costatinos tells me, is from the roots of the Ginzino flower only found in the Grand Sasso mountains of Abruzzo. The original 'formula', once produced at home, is now found in restaurants or local stores; otherwise it is moonshine (which Costantine has often made before). A wonderful digestive however prepared.

Centro Storico

We are at L'Antico Portone pizza al metro primi piatti close to the best I have ever had and right up there with Napoli in '92 with Katie (one remembers these things). 

Madeleine: "Are you taking pictures of me?"

Me: "No."

Madeleine: "Dad! You just took one."

Me: "Must have slipped."

Madeleine: "Well stop."

Me: "OK. Hey, what about the 20 pictures you owe me for getting you on 20 questions?"

Madeleine: "You've taken loads already. What about the Christmas photo today? That was way more than 20."

Me: "That was so outside the arrangement. We never agreed the Xmas photos reduced your number."

Madeleine: "That is completely unfair. If you want to take more pictures then give me your pillow."

Me: "Sleep without a pillow? Are you mad?"

Madeleine: "Just negotiating Dad. You can use a towel."

Me: "Nice try kid."

Madeleine: "Fine. No pictures. See how far you get then."

Me:

M: "See? And no trying to take them when I'm not looking."

Me: "You got me kid."

Madeleine: "Can I have the pillow?"

Me: "Dream on. "

And Now

back to the Royal Family. Prince Harry takes a holiday in Las Vegas following some hard work at the London Olympics.

Self Portrait XXVII

hotel capitano tortoreto lido

Madeleine: "I just read that 'the more a French man knows, the less he talks.'"

Me: "That's a good one. Or 'The less a man knows, the less he talks.'"

Madeleine: "Yeah."

Me: "The worst combination is 'the less a man knows, the more he talks.'"

Madeleine: "What about Richard?"

Me: "Richard ?"

Madeleine: "He sure talks an awful lot."

Eitan Reads

Eitan reads 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' on his Kindle, which is ongoing from summer's beginning at my command (Eitan notes : "70% finished" which, for us old-schoolers, is page 205 of 293). Leave it to Dad to steal the joy from one of America's greatest novels.

I read Huck the first time post college (Eitan: "What!? You said you read it when you were seven!") then again a few years ago when I really enjoyed it. Given Huck 13, it seems the perfect vacation book, er, download - whatever - but Eitan prefers 'Holes' by Louis Sachar which is about "a boy called Stanley who is wrongly accused of .. what are you doing ... . nothing. .. ." My blog stops there.

Stanley Yelnats was given a choice. The judge said, "You may go to jail, or you may go to Camp Green Lake." Stanley was from a poor family. He had never been to camp before.
--From 'Holes' by Louis Sachar

Eitan: "I've had four showers on this trip."
Sonnet: "Wow, Eitan, that's incredible."
Eitan: "None of them with soap."

Italiano

Costantinos, Moretti and Montepulciano Abruzzo

Sagre de lla porche tta Italica

We join Mirella and Costantinos who invite us to the 41st sagre de lla porche tta Italica - pork festival, dude! The celebration in a 14th century village in Abruzzo , central Italy, inside Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga with its mountain peaks and rolling hills. The center piaza surrounded by ancient buildings and, of course, a towering cathedral with Jesus Christ looking down upon us lesser mortals. The celebrations last four nights and we are here for the finali - a band sets up to play local favorties while picnic tables fill the open spaces. Ours next to a group of teens who giggle and flirt while an older couple, maybe 14 or 15, demonstrate seniority by suggesting their intimacy.   Flames are lit along the church and alleyways while stalls set up by regional butchers who carve their roasted pig for sandwiches (pork+crusty white roll, nothing else though Madeleine does put ketchup on hers to the consternation of Costantinos). Each competes for for the honor of migliore. It feels like a college campus the night of graduation.

I amuse our table with my various interpretations of Italian and two handed gesticulations learned from Bru. Mamma, mia. As Sonnet says, "you out-crazy the Italians." One would never find this spirit in England and I like it.

Summer Seaside

We arrive Sunday to Tortoreto, Italy, on the Adriatic side, for a simple late summer holiday.  We stay at the Hotel Capitano, who knows us from last time, and 30 years ago when Sonnet's family spent several summers in this beach-side town, which retains its charms from yester-year.  Roberto picks us up at Pescara for the 45 minute drive from the airport; though late, he offers to make us spaghetti while AC Milan v Juventis on the television.  The hotel staff remember the bambinos from when they were about four inches smaller, and Eitan endures some cheek pinching in that awkward way of every 11-year old.  The men kiss three times which is a custom I like.

Madeleine: "You do not speak Italian."
Me: "I do. It's second nature."
Madeleine: "Mom does dad speak Italian?"
Sonnet: "If he says so .. . "
Madeleine: "Say something in Italian then."
Me: "Like what?"
Madeleine: "Say 'can I have some ice cream.'"
Me: "Scoosi ice-a cream-a por favori."
Madeleine: "That is hardly Italian, Dad."
Me: "How would you know? Unlike me, you don't speak Italian."
Madeleine: "Say something else."
Me: "Roberto tell-a Madeleine I dis-i Italiano. Grazi bello. "
Roberto:
Me: "See? I speak so fast he cannot understand me."
Madeleine: "Mom is that true?"
Sonnet: "Whatever Dad says honey."

Madeleine And The Pooch

Almost two years into the dog and Rusty has proven himself to be a success : sure, he craps five or six times a day, scratches himself in front of our guests, jumps on everybody and occassionally pees on the kitchen floor. Sonnet generally hates Rusty but puts up with him too.  On the plus side, he gets me out of bed in the morning for a sunrise run or walk; follows me about the house silently, making himself comfortable wherever I am; is loved by the kids and gives us a lot to laugh about (Eitan: "Look, Dad, Rusty is licking his balls! Ha, ha, ha!").  As Roger likes to say about a dog:  worth its weight in middle-age therapy.

Madeleine gets full credit for pushing the dog through. Without  her persistence, it would not have happened. Now the pooch is part of la familia.

Katie In Spain!

Katie spends the last week in Espanol with her Harvard undergrad thesis advisor Bill, who she has remained friendly with all these years, and Susan, pictured, with sexy camera. Katie tells me they are in parc gruel, " with tilted pillars and building walls that aren't flat and straight but rather organic shapes -- designed by famous kooky beautiful Barcelona architect Gaudi." Sounds about right.  Barcelona a favorite city though I have been only once.

Summer Days

On Sonnet's initiative, we visit a wonderful exhibition at the Tate Britain displaying black-and-white stills of London from the 1930s to 1980.  The only requirement : the photographers non-British, looking at the city anew. I recognise many of the masters - Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier, Robert Frank, Dora Maar, Irving Penn - but my favourites by those I do not know, like Al Vanderberg's '75 shot of an inter-racial couple or Dorothy Bohm's photo of a portly dude dressed like Sgt Pepper at the Petticoat Lane Market, East London, in  the 1960s.

I, of course, have my trusty 7D and try to take e a few useful snaps using the tricks from my other-day class.  Digital cameras include everything when the only thing that matters, other than composition, is aperture and shutter speed (ISO, too, but in the good old days of film that decision also taken care of). My Pentax K1000 genius : fully manual with a light reader.  Load film, adjust two settings. Shoot. Moe's Nikon F2 the first Nikon with the reader attached to the camera : I took it to Africa in '89 when my family visited Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania where we climbed Kilimanjaro.  A photo from Uruho Peak, 19,341 feet above sea level, adorns my parents living room (back then the glacier, on the inside of the volcano, yet full and a remarkable unexpected surprise upon reaching the summit).

Madeleine non-plussed by the exhibition BTW so I ask her to find a favourite and she goes straight for the print of ten stray dogs looking balefully at the camera. Her heart is large.