That Special Light

There’s something almost tangible about the light in Italy sometimes.  It’s hard to capture in photographs, but here are four examples:

It’s as if you could actually slice through the light and, if you were very careful and lucky, bring it home with you.  There must be something in the atmosphere – smoke? magic? – that makes whatever you are looking at absolutely delicious.  Yellow light in Italy becomes golden; clouds are silver; roads seem to be bronze ribbons.

Arizona specializes in light too, but it’s a completely different kind of light, hard and hot.  The best time to see light in Arizona (or anywhere, I suppose) is early in the morning and in the evening; during those hours, even here, everything one looks at becomes softer.

It seems to me that the cacti catch the light very dramatically.  It’s not the soft light of Italy we see here, but the sharp western light, held for a moment, reflected in the many spines of the plants and transformed into something more benign and gentle.  They seem to glow:

Cholla

Hedgehog

Teddy Bear Cholla

As evening falls in the desert the air above gets very clear, but down below the smog from the nearby city is evident.  It’s almost the same effect as a smoky evening after a field has been burned as happens all over Italy in the autumn. But, lovely as it is, knowing it is the result of smog and construction dust makes it so much less romantic.

In the built-up areas and neighborhoods around the Valley of the Sun there are plenty of non-native trees, and they can be pretty spectacular in the waning light.

You can almost imagine yourself in New England in October, can’t you?  But no, this is Arizona, land of sharp things (about which more in the next post).

One thing Arizona has that we don’t have in our little corner of Italy is Big Sky. And with Big Sky come Dramatic Sunsets – we never get such violent skies in Rapallo, maybe because we’re on the wrong side of the Monte di Portofino.  But here in Gold Canyon, if there are any clouds in the sky we are in for a treat at sunset:

Sunset at Painted Mountain Golf Course

Gold Canyon with the first glimmers of city lights in the distance

And even if there are no clouds, the midnight blue night sky is a perfect backdrop for stars, planets and especially the moon, sights that we often don’t notice when we’re in Italy.

Photo taken by my friend Laura

And I just couldn’t resist this one because it’s fun:

Light: it’s around us all the time, but we seldom notice it.  Physicists may tell us that “light is simply a name for a range of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye.”  But it can be so much more than that: all it takes is a special moment, a special angle, an unusual tableau for us to stop and say, ‘Oh.  It is so beautiful!’

Bucket or Bellyful?

(Click on photos to get larger, clearer images)

It’s been a fiery summer in both Europe and the U.S.  We’ve had our own little bit of excitement here in San Maurizio, although nothing on the scale of the tragic fires in Spain or the numerous fires in western U.S.

It began Thursday.  Speedy was home reading in the afternoon, and noticed there seemed to be a lot of helicopter traffic.  He had a look around, and this is what he saw on the hillside behind us:

Photo by Speedy

He kept track of the action all afternoon. First the wind blew to the east, then it swapped around and blew to the west. Two helicopters carried countless buckets of water to dump on the stubborn fires which, instead of going out, seemed to simply move on to another shrub or tree.  With so many individual fires we wondered if this were arson.  We don’t know, but we have been told the cause of the blazes is under investigation.

The ‘copter pilots are real sharp-shooters with their water buckets.  I wondered, though: as they move slowly to a position above their target fire, do the rotors fan the blaze and undo some of the good the water is doing? In any event, they do some demanding and amazing flying and, more often than not, their bucketful of water lands right on the selected target.

Photo by Speedy

The thing is, it looks like such a teeny amount of water – and so much effort is required to get it to the fire. It’s hard to imagine that it’s effective, but it is. By the end of the afternoon it looked like the fire was largely under control. The helicopters don’t fly at night, so it was good to see that the flames were out.

Or so we thought. I woke up at 3 a.m. and looked at the mountain to see it all ablaze again. This was disconcerting, and instead of going back to sleep I spent the rest of the night tossing, turning, and making a mental list of things to put into a box to carry away should it become necessary. Speedy spent his wakeful hour using GoogleEarth to compute how far the fire was from us. According to his calculations it was about 750 meters from our house as the cinder flies. It was less than 300 meters from the restored rustico of some friends. That’s too close!

Fortunately my list of what to pack was unnecessary. And the reason why is because, unbeknownst to us, there was a legion of volunteer firefighters  (Vigilanza Antincendi Boschivi) on the ground, not only that night but during both days of the fire. It turned out that one of our acquaintances, who is too modest to allow me to use his name, is one of these volunteers, and he was able to give me some useful information.

Photo courtesy of vab-arcetri.org

The Corpo Forestale is in charge of organizing the fighting of fires outside of cities and towns. They decide which aircraft will be used (if needed) for each fire, and where and when the volunteers will go. There are two sizes of helicopter (ours was the smaller one) and the famous bright yellow Canadair airplanes (about which more shortly). The small helicopters carry what look like rather small buckets of water, though our friends says that when the water is mistakenly dumped on the volunteers it does not feel like a small bucket. The Canadairs carry a belly full of water, much more than the small buckets. We were told that the larger helicopter carries even more water than the plane, but we’ve never seen one. There are fires that don’t require aircraft, but forests in Italy tend to be on steep mountainsides; more often than not a plane or helicopter is the only way to get water to the fire.

The volunteers often work more on fire containment than actual fire-fighting; our friend said, however, that they did both with this particular fire. They hump in some heavy equipment and somehow manage to keep the fire from spreading. That is why, on Thursday night, the fire burned up the mountain instead of coming down towards the houses below and why, even though I watched, and heard, tree after tree go up in flames, the fire slowly abated so there was less of it as the sun came up. Thank you, VAB volunteers!

Daylight brought us a Canadair.

It is so exciting to watch these planes fly. They swoop down over the sea and fill up the plane’s belly with water, which they they carry back to the fire and release. There are moments, watching them, when it seems certain there is going to be a terrible mishap.

They use the plane’s inertia to propel the water where they want it to go. The pilot might, for instance, fly right at the side of the mountain, nosing up abruptly just before hitting, and releasing his water at the same time. The water goes straight into the mountain, and the plane, thank goodness, does not. Other times the pilot is able simply to drop his water as he goes (watch out, volunteers below!). Retired old pilot Speedy says it is no doubt very scientific, that the pilots are able to compute when to release the water based on air speed and altitude above target.

The Canadair, joined briefly by a second, grey plane, flew back and forth all morning. After lunch one small helicopter came back, and by the end of Friday it seemed the excitement was over. Our friend said he had been called to go back Saturday, but we saw no activity at ‘our’ fire. Perhaps he was out putting out other fires. Sadly, there’s no shortage of them at this time of year.

There are some more photos of the fire here, and I tried, for the first time, to make a video, which you can see here. (Sorry that it’s a little wobbly – next time I’ll use a tripod.) The most exciting part of the video is that you can hear the cock who can’t tell time (1 a.m., dawn, sunset: all the same to him), you can hear the loud sound that water meeting fire makes, and you can hear a short conversation between Speedy and myself. Very exciting. Unfortunately you won’t see the plane actually dumping water as that happened behind the mountain – but you can hear it (as well as the lovely low grumble of the twin engined plane).

The systems the Corpo Forestale have developed for fighting the numerous fires in Italy are admirable. The timely arrival and expertise of all the firefighters has surely saved millions of euros over the years (although the cost of fire-fighting with aircraft is extraordinary.  The small helicopter, the 412, costs E 2,200/hour; the larger, the Ericson S64, costs E 7,000/hour and the Canadair costs E 10,000/hour.)  What did they do before airplanes were invented? I suppose lots more forest burned. How lucky we are that we have helicopters with their little buckets and planes with their great big bellies. Given the choice, I guess I’d always choose the plane, just for the drama. But there’s an elegance to the helicopters, and a delicacy of approach which is also very appealing. Actually, I guess if my house/land were on fire I wouldn’t care who came, as long as he brought a lot of water with him!

La Cervara

Photo from helicopter courtesy of http://www.parks.it

Monasteries in Italy have had a tough time of it.  La Cervara, a monastery constructed in 1361 which sits above the road between Santa Margherita and Portofino, is no exception. When France invaded at the end of the 18th century the monastic orders here were suppressed and the resident Benedictines had to abandon La Cervara.

The monastery has been in a state of loving rehabilitation since 1990; the present owners report that the work is 50% complete.  It’s hard to believe there’s as much to do as has already been done.  It looks perfect to the casual visitor.  In fact, when a friend and I recently took the tour I was reminded of nothing so much as the exquisitet restorations that one sees all through Tuscany, and which are not as common here in Liguria.

The first building was erected by Ottone Lanfranco, a Genovese priest, on land owned by the Carthusians.  Around 1420 ownership was transferred to the Benedictine order, who stayed until the above mentioned troubles.

As was the case for Montallegro, bad weather played a role in La Cervara’s history.  Pope Gregory XI was returning the papacy from Avignon to Rome in 1377 when a tempest arose, and his ship took shelter in the harbor near La Cervara.  The Pope rested with the monks there for a while, and got to know and respect them.  Upon his return to Rome he showed favor to the monastery, eventually elevating it to the status of Abbey.

The monks at La Cervara were not uneducated simple men; rather they were cosmopolitan, well-traveled and worldly wise.  La Cervara was a prestigious abbey and its inhabitants, usually about twenty in number, were frequently looked to for counsel in the great houses of Genova and throughout Europe.

The 15th and 16th centuries were the high points of La Cervara’s history. More buildings were added to the complex, including, in the 16th century, a tower from which to watch for the raiding pirates from Africa, those pesky Saracens.

In 1525 poor  King Francis I of France was defeated by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at nearby Pavia.  He was brought to La Cervara where he was imprisoned in a different tower, one with a lovely view looking out to sea.

During the suppression, most of La Cervara’s beautiful artifacts and art works were removed.  The Polyptych, painted by Gerard David was separated.  Four panels are now in Palazzo Bianco in Genova, and the other three are in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Louvre in Paris.

Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the beginning of the 19th century La Cervara again became a religious house, passing through the hands of several orders (Trappists, Somaschi, Carthusians) and eventually it was placed under the Diocese of Chiavari.  Finally in 1937 it passed into private hands.  The first private owner added a long hall and built a grand double stairway and a very large room.  More interested in sport and socializing, he did little to preserve or augment the chapel (but neither did he do any damage).

The present owners have been painstaking in their restoration of La Cervara.  The work has been under the direction of architect Mide Osculati and the art restoration has been overseen by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, who restored the famous painting of The Last Supper in Milano. A private home, La Cervara is also available to rent for conferences, weddings, parties and the like.  A fortunate friend has been to several evening events there and describes how  the soft candlelight inside echoes the twinkling lights on the coast across the bay.  No electric lights – only candles; it is, she says, ‘magical.’  Her favorite place, she says,  ”is the cloister at night with only one single shiny jet of water ….not a big splashy fountain, one single jet is all it takes to create beauty.”  You can see the fountain, elegant and eloquent in its simplicity in two of the photos above. Thank you for sharing that lovely image, fortunate friend!

An example of the care taken in the restoration:  it was thought the original floor of the chapel was ardesia, the dark slate indigenous to this area, because that’s what was there, albeit in deplorable condition.  The architect was reluctant to use that material again because it is so dark.  Further digging  revealed, though, that before the ardesia was put down, the floor had been brick.  Unable to find hand-made bricks that matched the light original color, the architect procured the new bricks from Spain.  They look just right, too.

Photo by Roberto Bozzo, courtesy of http://www.fotografi-matrimonio.com

Instead of trying to recreate the missing sacred art in the chapel the owners have installed four enormous tapestries – not religious in theme, but somehow absolutely appropriate for the setting.  You can see just a wee bit of one in the photo above.

In an extraordinary and successful attempt to save a 150-year old wisteria, the owners used a crane to life the ancient branches from where they had fallen on the ground, one or two inches every week.  It took over a year to get the vine into position, but the wisteria survived and is splendid.

Center pole supports some of the branches, which also grow along the wall on the left.

Ancient branch, now well supported

Unfortunately one is not allowed to take photographs inside the buildings, but the gardens (formerly the monks’ orchard) are fair game.

La Cervara is open to the public on the first and third Sunday of each month  from March through October; guided tours are run at 10, 11 and 12 o’clock.

A(nagrafe) to Zed

Anagrafe (an-ah-gra-fey) is the office in each comune that keeps track of who’s who and the status of each inhabitant: births, deaths, marriages, divorces, that sort of thing.  This is true, it seems, for both Italians and resident expatriates  (Anagrafe issues our Carte d’Identite).  I’m sure they do other things of which we’re completely unaware.

One such thing was brought to our attention last week when we received a visit from the very affable Piermanlio (a roman name, he told us) who spent two and a half hours grilling  interviewing us.  He works for the Statistics Department of Anagrafe (who knew?) and spends a good part of his life traveling from one expatriate domicile to the next interviewing people.  Then he spends some more time transmitting his data to the main office in Rome (without identity information attached) where it is all, presumably, crunched up and turned into important reports of some sort, which in turn lead to enlightened social policies, new laws and more bureaucracy.

Here are two things you might not be able to tell about Manlio from the above photo:  he is probably one of the most patient and kindest guys in the world; it is hard for him to find shoes because his feet are large.  For this reason he takes exceptionally good care of the shoes he wears. ( I guess that’s three things, but since the last two are so closely related I’m counting them as one.)

The last time the U.S. took the census we won the long-form lottery, and spent about thirty or forty minutes filling in the form with information about our race, gender, education, income and what kind of house we lived in.  Well.  Italy could certainly teach the U.S. something about long forms.

At first we thought Speedy would be the only one interviewed, which was fine by me, as it took ages.  To the surprise of all three of us Manlio was instructed by his computer to interview me when Speedy was done.  What response triggered that, I wonder?  Most of the questions were the same, but there were some amusing differences.    They were all multiple choice questions and all answers were entered immediately into Manlio’s laptop.  If an answer was wildly out of the norm the computer might give Manlio a query sign.  If it was totally ridiculous the system was blocked til a realistic answer was put in.  How do we know?  Speedy answered 8 years old when asked at what age he began working (happens to be true).  Turns out the question meant when he stopped being a student and began to work as an adult.  ’8 years old’ caused a delicious block.

Here are some of the topics Manlio covered with us during our time together, other than the obvious of age, heritage, race, religion and education.

Do we have relatives living in Italy?  Do we have relatives living outside the US but not in Italy?

In our family, who makes the decisions?  Who does the housework, do we share the burden? Who does the marketing?  Who cooks?  Is it up to the husband to choose who the wife’s friends will be?

Do we like Italian food?  Do we eat it often? Do we eat food of other cuisines?

Are we healthy?  Smoke? Weight? Height? Do we take medicines? (polite Manlio: ‘oh yes?  They’re prescribed, I would assume.’  Us: ‘Of course!’)

Curious omission noted here: no questions about drinking and/or wine!

Do we have a car?  How many TV’s? Motorini?  A video camera? (why a video camera?)  When we watch TV, do we watch in English or Italian or ? Do we have a satellite dish?  More than one?

Do we have a telephone  land line?

Why did we move to Italy?  Who decided that we would move to Italy?  How did mother feel about it (Really!  This was a question for me, the only one of us with an extant mother when we came.)

What language do we use when speaking to each other?

Do we read newspapers, if yes in hard or virtual form? Magazines? Books?  In what language(s)?

Do we follow Italian politics?  Do we talk about politics with friends? Do we feel knowledgable about Italian Politics?  How often do we discuss politics?  Same questions again vis-a-vis the U.S.

What do we do for entertainment: movies? sports? concerts?

I guess one can catch the drift of the kinds of questions being asked and the kind of information they are trying to gather.  There are so many people from all over the world living in Italy now, there’s perhaps not unreasonable concern that the ‘national identity’ might erode.  At the very least there is also interest in knowing if the basic ‘rights’ generally recognized here are being observed by one and all.

I guess my favorite question, one directed to both of us, was: Has anyone in Italy made you feel uncomfortable because you are a foreigner?  How lucky I felt at that moment.  Italians like Americans; they do not necessarily like all the other nationalities represented in the immigrant population.  No.  No one has ever made us feel uncomfortable, I’m happy to say, though I’m certain others have not been so fortunate.

My favorite unasked question: Does your husband still beat you?

I guess it’s not just a cold, hard, statistical office after all.  They care about us, they really care.

Tragedies Natural and Man-Made

I was sitting on our bed this morning about 9 a.m., finishing the chapter in the book I was reading, when I heard the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of small objects moving, and a millisecond later felt the bed swaying beneath me.  Uh oh, I thought, that sure sounds and feels like an earthquake.  I shouted down to Speedy who was working out on the terrace, but he had felt nothing, so I went back to my book.

Later in town, the friend with whom I was having a cuppa in her apartment near the top of a seven-story building asked me if I had felt the earthquake.  Oh yes.  And no sooner did we start discussing it than we felt an aftershock, much gentler.  This was certainly alarming, as an apartment building is no place to be for an earthquake.  Fortunately for us, that was the end of it.

But the north/central part of the country was not nearly so fortunate.  The 5.8 quake was centered near Modena, right near where the last one occurred, and more buildings, many already weakened by the previous quake, came tumbling down.  Early reports indicate ten people have died, and more are trapped under rubble.

A week ago Sunday morning a 6.0 earthquake centered between Bologna and Mantova killed seven people and did untold damage to buildings.  Italy is no stranger to earthquake; a rocky country covered with ancient buildings made of stone, the effects are often catastrophic.

#1 is Rapallo, #2 is where the 2nd quake hit, and #3 is where the first quake was centered (roughly)

Meanwhile in Brindisi, just a day before the first quake, a bomb went off  outside a girls’ vocational school, killing 16-year-old Melissa Bassi. An only child, she was at the top of her class. I think of her as she might have been earlier in the morning, getting up, getting dressed for school, fixing her hair, putting on make-up, making plans, maybe day-dreaming a little.  And then bam, gone before her life was truly under way.

Italy is in mourning.  These tragedies, perhaps small in the Grand Scheme of Things, are large in the national psyche.  Both instill a sense of fear: on the one hand for the Big One, like the quake that destroyed Aquila in 2009 which killed over three hundred people; and on the other for the return of the ‘years of lead’ in the 1970′s and ’80′s when the Red Brigades terrorized the country.

What these events all have in common is their utter randomness, meaninglessness and ultimate uselessness.  Is that what makes them tragedies?

Already beset by a worsening economic crisis, the recent tragedies have only added to the sense of unease abroad in this beautiful country.

What Would Be the Dumbest Thing in the World to Tax?

Pets.  That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

Real Luciano

Speedy sent me an article he came across  from Reuters (reported by Philip Pullella; edited by Andrew Osborn) about the yahoos in Rome considering a tax on  family pets.  Evidently a parliamentary commission felt that this would be an excellent way to give a little boost to the nation’s diminished coffers.  The outcry was immediate and loud; the proposal was dead by the end of the day.

It got me thinking, though.  Didn’t Italy once tax house windows, and isn’t that why there are so many trompe L’oeuil windows painted on the houses of Liguria, where people are famously tight with their cash?

Tax Evasion Luciano

Probably the idea of taxing pets is not the silliest tax proposal ever made.  A quick Google search turned up an amusing list of the ten most ridiculous taxes ever, written by Jamie Frater.  It turns out that Rome is no stranger to bizarre taxes.  The emperors Nero and Vespasian taxed urine.  Poor Romans fortunate enough to have a pot to piss in paid a tax when they emptied their pots in the common cesspool.

Go ahead, tax my dog Rover – just get rid of the tax on my hat and my beard.  I think my favorite is the one called the Crack Tax: drug dealers in Tennessee were, before the law was declared unconstitutional, supposed to pay a tax, anonymously, on the illegal substances they sold.  If they got caught dealing crystal meth, say, and didn’t have the tax stamp… well, can you imagine?  They’d have been in pretty hot water!

It did give me an idea for another tax the Roman legislators might consider:

Photo courtesy of thedragonpages.blogspot.com

The Intergluteal Cleft Tax would either raise a lot of money or send fashion careening in a new direction.

Not all strange taxes are so amusing.  The poll tax in America was a de facto method of denying voting privileges in the southern states to recently freed slaves.  It was not repealed until 1964.

Anti-Poll Tax sentiment from the U.K.

The way things are going in this election year they may have to pay people to come to the polls instead.  Especially here in Rapallo where only 16,000 of 28,000 possible voters turned out two weeks ago to elect the Mayor.

There will always be taxes, I guess.  And I guess there will always be some silly ones.  I’m just glad that, for the time being anyway, there will be no taxes in Italy for owning a pet.  Speedy suggests that instead of taxing pets perhaps the legislators could tax vegetable gardens….

A nicely laid out garden on Via Betti in Rapallo

Taxi!

Quick!  Take me to the Pharmacy!

Photo courtesy of italyfromtheinside.com

An article in the English edition of ANSA describes a wildcat strike by taxi drivers in Rome.  They are unhappy because the Monti administration, in its package of reforms, wants to loosen requirements to become a cabby.  This is just one of many measures aimed at boosting Italy’s flagging economy and making it possible for young people to find work –  all of which are being offered in tandem with severe austerity measures.

Photo courtesy of tuscantraveller.com

Back in 2007 the Roman taxi drivers were angry, too.  At that time the city wanted to add 1,000 cabs to the stable.  Rome had, at that time, 3 cabs for every 1,000 residents, the fewest of any city in Europe, according to a Marketplace report.

Prime Minister Monti, photo courtesy of The Guardian

Another of the proposed Monti reforms calls for relaxing the regulations around opening a pharmacy.  As things are now it is almost impossible to open a new pharmacy.  A young person can go to school and become a pharmacist, but without family connections to an existing business, finding a position will be difficult (not impossible, but difficult).  But the entrepreneurial pharmacist who wants to open a new drugstore is just plain out of luck.  The number and opening hours of pharmacies are regulated by law according to about.com.  It is also true that if you want to get aspirin or vitamins you will have to go to a pharmacy where you will find them hideously packaged on foil covered cardboard.  Last time I forgot to bring aspirin from the States I paid € 6 for 30 aspirin.  Speedy says that often when viewing the painkiller section of a Walmart store and seeing 500 Iboprofen selling for $6.28, he thinks an Italian seeing the same shelf would need a cardiologist rather than some pills.  Until recently the only place you could buy prepared baby food was at a pharmacy.  Imagine!

While there is a lot wrong with the pharmacy system in Italy (and probably the taxi system as well), there is a lot right.  There is always at least one pharmacy open within shouting distance, and the pharmacists are highly trained, knowledgeable and able to help with minor medical emergencies, saving one a trip to the emergency room.  But the regulations against competition in pharmacies could be relaxed without reducing the requisite training for pharmacists – that would be good for consumers and for young pharmacists.

The larger problem, of which these two issues are representative, is that Italy is a country strangled by bureaucracy and regulations.  There is no place for young people to find work because all the trades and professions are so busy protecting their own interests that they are unwilling to be open, to expand or to share.  That’s bad for all concerned, it seems to me.  Educated young people live with their parents and fruitlessly hunt for jobs; the professions stagnate and suffer gross inefficiencies due to limited scope and size. Speedy reminded me that the current generation of Italians is called the NEETS (not in education, employment or training) generation (15 to 29 years-of-age), of which there are some 2 million.  These NEETS comprise 11.2 % of this age group in Italy compared to 3.6% in Germany, 3.5% in France, 1.7% in the UK, and but .5% in Spain.  All that talent going to waste!  Clearly, this is a socio-economic problem that will have long-lasting effects unless the new government, and the Italian people, can turn around their unique approach to social management.

To an American it seems ludicrous.  In the States it is relatively easy to start a business – all you need is a good idea and either money, or backers with money.  Granted, some 35% of new businesses will fail within the first two years, but at least one has the opportunity to try.  And if only 35% fail it means  that 65% succeed, giving income and occupation to more people and, because of the competition generated, giving better services and lower prices to society in general .

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the months ahead.  In the meantime, don’t get sick in Rome – it might be hard to find a cab to take you to the pharmacy.  And if you’re visiting Italy from the States, do bring your own aspirin.

Songbirds: Friends or Food?

Somehow it’s hard to think of chickens and turkeys as birds.  Sure, they have feathers, but we never see a flock of them high overhead, migrating south for the winter, their clucking stirring our own restlessness.  Nor do we startle them when we take a walk in the woods.  We don’t listen for their sweet morning calls and try to identify exactly what chicken it is we’re hearing.  Wait!  Is that a Rhode Island Red or an Ameraucana?  Hand me my binoculars!

No.  Chickens and turkeys are ambulatory food for the most part.

Songbirds, however, are not.  One of the  pleasures of being here in Arizona is watching the birds that come to our feeder every day.

Anna's hummingbird, noisy and aggressive

We don’t get anything terribly exotic (and we have yet to see a chicken) -  many purple finches, the ubiquitous Anna’s hummingbird, Abert’s towhee , Gila peckers, Cactus wrens, and, on the ground below, Inca doves and the amusing Gambel’s quail, which makes a bweep-bweeping sound, reminiscent of burbling water, while it wanders around beneath the feeder.

Male finch enjoying a seed while female thinks about it

Gambel's quail, males conveniently carry bulls eye on their breasts

It’s a pleasure we don’t enjoy in Italy.  Not because there are no songbirds – there are.  We get huge amusement and satisfaction from the merli (a sort of black robin with the unfortunate Latin name Turdus merula, called ‘merlo’ in the singular) which are curious and companionable, and which have the beautiful song typical to thrushes.  We seldom work outside in spring or summer without an appreciative audience of merli.  But bird-feeding as a hobby does not seem to exist in Italy, at least not in our part of the country.  I have never seen a bird-feeder at anyone’s house, and I have never seen bird feed for sale.

Male cardinal

Instead in Italy there is a sizable, though fortunately shrinking, trade in trapping and killing wild birds.  The CABS (Committee Against Bird Slaughter) web site has a great deal of information about the illegal trapping of birds which occurs, in Italy, mostly in the north (Lombardia), the southern Italian coast, Sardinia and Sicily.  There are a couple of good reasons why this illicit activity continues.  One is that it is a matter of long tradition to trap songbirds, and Italy is nothing if not wed to her traditions.  In earlier times songbirds were an important source of protein for hungry Italians. Another reason is that some restaurants persist in serving songbirds, though you will never see them on the menu.

Little birds with polenta, photo courtesy of CABS

Happily, CABS reports that hunting songbirds is truly on the wane in northern Italy, a trend we can only hope (or I can only hope, anyway) will continue.

Gila woodpecker atop a nearby cactus

Hunting for sport is as popular in the U.S. as it is in Italy.  In 2006, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2.3 million people hunted migratory birds such as doves or waterfowl.  Such hunting is highly regulated; hunters must have appropriate licenses and stamps, and can hunt only certain birds in certain places at certain times.  Sport hunters in both countries are generally dedicated and law-abiding conservationists, interested in protecting the populations of the species they like to hunt.  In a perfectly counter-intuitive bit of logic, sometimes bird populations must be ‘culled’ in order to protect the well-being of the species.  It makes no sense to me, but if the people at Audubon say it’s true, it must be true.  Mustn’t it?

No doubt there is illegal hunting in the U.S., but it is difficult to get away with it.  Some years ago when we lived in Connecticut a man of our acquaintance became very angry at the number of messy geese on his pond and lawn.  He got out his rifle, stood on the back porch and shot one, no doubt hoping to scare away the others.  His neighbors heard the shot and came running to find out what was wrong, so he was caught red-handed.  He did not go to prison, but he did have a reprimand and a sizable fine.  Even worse, he became known locally as ‘Goose Killer’ – and it was not the sort of affectionate and admiring nickname that, say, ‘Speedy’ is.

The illegal taking of birds in Italy is of a different order entirely.  According to CABS, ‘millions’ of birds are taken every year, hundreds of thousands of them in Northern Italy.  They are sometimes taken with guns, as in the wholesale slaughter of migrating birds videoed here (supposedly ‘legal,’ but against the very EU regulations Italy signed on to uphold), and frequently taken in any of several various types of traps, all of which are illegal (bow, snap, snare, cage and nets).

It’s hard to understand what the appeal or pleasure is in trapping or shooting  songbirds.  It’s not as if they’re particularly challenging prey, or especially meaty.  The declining number of traps in Italy attest to the gradual change of attitude towards this cruel practice; but it remains a big problem.

Male finches 'discuss' seating while a female thinks about it all

According to Wikipedia 55 million Americans are bird-watching hobbyists.  They spend $3 billion a year on seed and $800,000 million on bird feeders and other accessories.  Maybe there’s an opportunity here to help the struggling Italian economy.  Don’t kill the birds, feed them. Photograph them.   Enjoy them.  Encourage touristic bird-watching trips. And when the irresistible blood lust of the hunter comes over you, go down to Signore Marrone’s farm and bag a few chickens.

Shhhh

The Captain always teases me by saying, “You know I never listen;” and I tease back by saying, “True.  We have the perfect arrangement for living in Italy – you speak and I listen.”  (He’s much better at speaking the language than I.)

While the captain may be teasing, it seems true to me that often people really don’t listen to others (I include myself in this group). The reasons are many – self-involvement, disinterest, hearing impairment, multi-tasking, language challenges, etc., etc.

The TED website recently put up a talk by sound specialist Julian Treasure which I found fascinating. He talks about why people don’t listen, and how we can all improve our listening skills.  It’s a short video, just over seven minutes – here, take a look.

One of the things that has always struck me about Italy is the non-stop noise, at least where we live.  As I type this it’s 10:30 at night and there’s a festa down the street a way with live music – very loud live music.  Driving bass, banging drums and a songstress who is, alas, a bit flat.  It’s not my taste in music, to be honest, but I don’t really resent it being forced on us (at least not until after 11 p.m. – last night the live music went til midnight and I did get a bit cranky).  It happens only a few times a year up here. The amazing thing to me is that no one complains or seems to mind.

But if it’s not live music, there is always some other kind of aural stimulation – scooters and cycles tearing up and down the mountain; the bus slowly groaning its way up, merrily tootling its horn at every curve (a necessary precaution on these narrow roads) and then loudly sighing and chuffing at each stop; church bells from our village, from Montallegro and, if the wind is right, from the Rapallo Cathedral; ambulance and police sirens; cruise ship horns; airplanes overhead; dogs barking; cocks crowing at all hours; birds; children shouting (a particularly cheerful noise, that) and always, always conversation.  Conversation as an art form is alive and well in this courteous country.  Finding three minutes of silence daily, as recommended by Mr. Treasure (can that really be his name??) is a challenge here.  Every now and then one of us awakens at 3 or 4 a.m., and we are struck by the relative silence – it is such a rarity.

In contrast the U.S. seems much quieter in general (not the cities, to be sure).  The example the Captain likes to give is this:  when Italy won the World Cup (European football) in 2006 the racket from Rapallo was amazing – horns blasted, cars tore through the center of town with kids hanging out waving flags and shouting, ships in the harbor blew their horns – it was an explosion of celebratory sound.  In 2008 when the Arizona Cardinals (American football) won the game that sent them to the Super Bowl we stuck our heads outside right after the game.  Our Arizona neighborhood was as silent as a tomb, the town was silent; and we were a mere forty miles from the stadium where the game was played.  No one was out and about because anyone not at the game was surely inside watching it on TV – but afterwards there was no public demonstration of glee.  And if someone’s party is noisy in the U.S. it takes the neighbors no time at all to call the police and complain.

So, is it harder to listen in Italy, where there is so much more ambient noise?  Though the Captain might well disagree,  I don’t really think so.  But as we know, he doesn’t listen anyway…

Election Day

Faithful readers will remember that the Captain became an Italian citizen about a month ago.  As luck would have it, there was an election yesterday, and he is now eligible to vote.  It wasn’t an election for political office, it was referenda on four questions: 1) should the law allowing privatization of the water company stay on the books?  2) should the cost of water be increased?  3) should the law exempting politicians currently in office from being tried in court stay on the books? and 4) should the plans to re-institute nuclear power plants in Italy go forward?

Will it surprise you to hear it was not a simple matter to get into the voting booth?  The Captain started two weeks ago, when he went to the Comune to request his voting card, without which he could not vote.  They were too busy to take care of him that day, and in fact tried very hard to discourage him from voting this time. But as a citizen it is his right to vote, and they were more or less obliged to take care of him, although not at that exact moment.  They grumblingly instructed him to come back a week later, which he did. They were even busier and once again they tried to put him off.  He wouldn’t give up, so they promised they would do the necessary work and then call him to let him know when he could pick up his card.

The polls were open on Sunday and Monday.  Late Sunday afternoon the long-awaited call came, and first thing Monday morning the Captain went back to the Comune where he found… that his card was not ready.  But there was a document that would allow him to vote and it was lacking only one signature.  Fortunately the hand that had to affix the signature was actually in the building, so without too much more delay the Captain received a handsome paper on Comune letterhead, signed by the man in charge of elections, and officially stamped, attesting to his right to vote.

Going to the polls turned out to be one the pleasantest experiences we’ve had in quite a while.  It began outside the former elementary school (now a Catholic social club) where we were warmly welcomed by the secretary of the polling section, Enrica Pedrasi, to whom the Captain explained his mission.

Inside we encountered the genial Gianluca from the Forestiere service. He was one of the people taxed with guarding the ballots from the time they arrived on Saturday until the polling was over on Monday afternoon. There is an armed guard on site at all times to make sure no one monkeys with the ballots.

There was a bit of confusion over the Captain’s document, because it was not the usual voting card, but the President of the polling section, Alberto Tumiati, made a quick phone call to the Comune, and all was well.

Renata Castagneto, one of the scritore normale of the polling section, entered the Captain’s name in the ledger of eligible voters.  Please note, he has been entered on the ‘maschi’ side.  Women’s names are entered in a different book kept at the other end of the table.  We’re accustomed to seeing alphabetical groupings in the States – it was a surprise to see the gender separation.

Then the Captain was given his ballots.  There was a separate color-coded ballot for each question.  The referendum question was on a strip of paper glued on the top of the paper, instructions were glued below, and two large boxes, one for Si and one for Non were glued at the bottom.

Into the booth he went, and, for the first time, voted as an Italian Citizen.  You can see his shoe in the picture below, peeking out from beneath the voting booth.

Moments later he emerged with his marked and folded ballots, and deposited each ballot in the appropriately colored box (he reports that it was complicated to fold the ballot correctly – many folds, and one section had to face out).


You can see from the expressions on the faces above that we received a very warm welcome.  In fact a cheer went up when we first walked into the room.  We were told that with the Captain’s appearance the percentage of people voting of those eligible at this voting station now stood at 51% (Rapallo, with its population of 30,000+ has 30 polling districts, each with about 1,000 voters.  Voters must vote at their own polling stations).  Well, that’s nice, we thought.  Then we learned that for the referenda to be effective more than 50% of the eligible voters in the nation must vote.  Little San Maurizio did its part.  There are about 330 eligible voters in the village, and at least 165 turned out.

As I write this the final results are not yet in.  But the evening news indicated that it seems all four referenda were passed – that is, that the laws already in place allowing for nuclear power plants, privatization of the water companies and immunity from prosecution for politicians in office, have all been overturned by popular vote.

Hurray for democracy!

Addendum:  It is the first time in fifteen years that enough voters have turned out to make a referendum valid.  All four popular initiatives passed convincingly (90%), which some see as the beginning of the end for Mr. Berlusconi.  See what the Italian press is saying here (in English).

Renata, Enrica, Alberto… if I have details wrong, please correct me in the comments or in an e-mail, okay?

Hi Pidge!