Wake up and smell the incense

I am the opposite of a hypochondriac, whatever that is. Same goes for my husband. We may be suffering from delusions of immortality, the thing is we ignore pains and symptoms until we literally can't function, we don’t bother visiting physicians at all, we can safely watch House and Grey’s Anatomy without shouting "I have that!", and happily embraced a “I must be ok 'cause my heart's still beating” philosophy.

Maybe this explains why I was dumbfounded when last Sunday in church my fellow parishioners refused to share the sign of peace. The woman in front of me, hands firmly anchored to the back of a bench, turned and spit out “Peace be with you” in such a way that if I were deaf I would have thought she told me to go to hell. When my husband stretched out his hand to the man behind him, the guy withdrew in disgust.

Later that day I learned that, over swine flu fears, various Archdioceses around the country invited parishioners to refrain from taking Holy Communion from the chalice and sharing the sign of peace to avoid close contact with others.

Three reasons why I think things are being blown out of proportion:

1) There have been 12 fatalities of swine flu in the US. Considering that there are over 300 million Americans, my fellow parishioner’s chance of catching the flu by shaking my hand is 0.04 in a million.

2) Dear fellow parishioner, are you a germ freak? If you live in the city, then sorry, you signed up for this filth. A germ-free New York is like, say, a noodle-free Shanghai. This city is a goulash of bacteria. You may avoid my hand at church, open the church door with elbows, punch the elevator buttons with knuckles, carry wet wipes to disinfect the bench, and in the end you take the subway, used by 7 million people daily. Seven million people eating, spitting, scratching, touching their feet, rubbing their noses, picking up bacteria and then leaving it on that handrail, on the change, in the gym… Yes, that reminds me, if you work out at Crunch Fitness in Midtown, then be aware that a spot check of health clubs revealed that your gym has fecal bacteria hanging around the water fountain.

Now my favorite: no one knows how many rats live in the city, but the estimates are anywhere from one to 10 rats per person, which in the best case scenario adds up to a quarter of a million ratti norvegici, i.e. the species living in the city that, incidentally, has been known to gnaw on concrete. In addition, they seem unlikely to pack up and move to Jersey any time soon. In a study recently conducted by the University of Tel Aviv, researchers developed mini models of city layouts to see what type of city a rat could easily navigate its way through. The finding: rats prefer New York City over New Orleans and Jerusalem.

The problem had gotten so bad over the last decades that in 2000 the city hosted the first Rat Summit, cosponsored by the Daily News and Columbia University. Mayor Giuliani was represented by Joseph J. Lhota, his top deputy mayor, who presided over a rat control task force of health and sanitation officials and whose office door at the City Hall had a sign reading ''The Rat Czar: Allied Command Headquarters.''

In an effort to keep up the good work, last year the health department created a rat map available on their website which is billed as “a one-stop resource website for New Yorkers' rat prevention needs." (Fascinating. Where would Abraham Marlow and his school of psychology place “New Yorkers' rat prevention needs” in the hierarchy of human needs?).

3) Last but not least, the sign of peace is a gesture intended to communicate that the peace of Christ extends to the unity of the church and of all humanity. It recalls the passage from Matthew 5:23-24 about being reconciled with your brother before presenting your offering at the altar. After all, aren’t you, my fellow parishioner, and I both going to church because we believe in a blue-eyed Jew who, on a hill near Rosh Pina, said love thy neighbor, and that bastard of your enemy too? And correct me if I’m wrong, but when the leper went to Jesus and said “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”, Jesus DID NOT ask “Wait a minute, did you wash your hands?”

Storage deluxe

The rule is: if you have to walk 10 blocks or more in high heels to get to that party, bring extra, more comfortable shoes with you so you can change shoes if necessary.

Problem: clutch is too small for your flats.

Solution: stick them into your husband's coat pockets.

Back from or to the jungle?

Just came back from Mexico. Eleven days traveling throughout the Yucatan peninsula and all the way down to Chiapas, a couple of which spent in the jungle with swarms of mosquitos who mistook me for a taqueria, plus the last three days spent in Tulum where electricity is limited to nighttime use, from 6 to 10. You get back home and you think what a great, unforgettable vacation, but I’m glad to be back to the comforts of home. Then you turn on the tap in your NY apartment and… have the water come out black? Gee… que viva Mexico!

Election night

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

I haven’t been writing anything lately because I was overwhelmed by all the things happening on this side of the world. The credit crunch, the bailout saga, Sarah Palin and the bridge to nowhere, Sarah Palin and her glasses, Sarah Palin and moose stew…

These events do have an impact on everyday life, as I experienced in my own small way.

I was shopping at Whole Foods the other day. Looking for the #1 item on my grocery list, garlic, I strolled up and down the vegetable aisle four times. Eventually I had to ask for help. One shop assistant tells me to follow him, but we end up staring at an empty basket. “No te preocupe” he goes, “I’ll go get it in the cellar”. Good, go. And while he’s after my holy graal, I’m left contemplating this successful business that freed rich, health conscious people from feeling guilty about their consumption, a psychological absolution of our excesses.

My thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of the shop assistant who reemerged from the cellar and was standing across the hall with his arms wide open and a sorry expression on his face as saying, "Holy crap! Do you believe we run out of garlic?”. I replied to his Latin non-verbal signal with a Latin non-verbal shrug and a facial expression of disbelief as saying: “The world’s leader in natural and organic foods, with more than 270 stores in North America and the UK, with $ 6.6 billion revenue, on the index of the 100 largest non-financial companies traded on Nasdaq run out of garlic? We want change, dude. And some garlic with it.”

9/11 Remembrance

The Interfaith Floating Lantern Ceremony reflects a Buddhist tradition to comfort and honor the spirits of the deceased. Floating lighted lanterns were released on the waters of the Hudson River, accompanied by the chanting of Buddhist priests.

Un Venerdì a Brooklyn

e sembrava Mea Shearim.

Downtown walk

Downtown is not a place where we go often. Overall, three things are worth the trip:

1) Century 21, a bargain-hunter’s dream, insanely crowded and inappropriately dubbed ’NYC’s best kept secret’;

2) taking your guest for a walk across the Brooklyn bridge and, despite your husband’s recommendation not to give his visiting friends a lecture on landmark buildings because they don’t give a damn, bring them to the Woolworth building, Customs House, Federal Hall and Trinity Church until they drop;

3) getting married at the City Hall before Carrie does.

This last Saturday at the Financial District was a little different:

- we walked around with a US History PhD student who offered the ammunition to finish off my future guests,

-then we wandered around for an hour or so, looking for a decent place to have a bite. We ended up in a diner where evidently someone is paying off the health inspector. I sat at the sticky counter, asked my waiter what was that bird whistle. It’s the cook, he said, the cook is a bit nuts. All right, as long as he can fix a ceasar salad. Where can I wash my hands? Hmm…. He turns to the other waiter: ¿Dónde está el baño? They start a discussion. Outside, inside, upstairs… They didn’t seem to know. Well, where does the parrot cook wash his claws, then? I passed on the salmonella salad and we left.

-we came across an Italian hole-in-the-wall type of place where the cook and owner was half Italian and everything was fresh and cooked from scratch. A little Italian paradise.

-after lunch we headed over to an electronics expo held in the Winter Garden lobby at the World Financial Center. The expo was disappointing. Moreover, although the Winter Garden is a lovely place, there is always this somber feeling of the sorrow that hangs over the whole area when you look out those $3.5 million new front windows facing the giant hole and agonizing construction.

Something's rotten in Chinatown

I love Chinatown. I love Chinatown because it’s pure Blade Runner, except there are no camels. Everyone else hates it. When I take my guests to Chinatown I can read the disgust on their face.

It stinks, they say. The sanitation standards may sometimes be dubious, I say. Moreover, it may stink in absolute terms, whereas in relative terms it’s just slightly smellier and filthier than the rest of the city. Plus, according to French standards, "the stinkier the better". Finally, in the grandeur of New York, a stinky neighborhood is not just a stinky neighborhood. It’s a place for discovery and celebration, where you can take a walking-tour of Chinatown's illustrious garbage.

They say it doesn’t give you a real taste of China, and China itself is way more progressive than Chinatown is. There's no denying it, but this is an immigrant neighborhood. Just like Little Italy. Naples, case in point, is more progressive than… Nevermind.

I go to Chinatown at least once a week to buy fresh produce. The moment I’m out of the subway, I’m like Leonard Zelig in Woody Allen’s movie. I immediately chinatize myself. My self-chinatization includes not giving a damn about getting bumped around by old asian ladies, speaking pidgin and masterly dodging spit. Plus, I feel shorter. And I walk faster. I don’t argue semantics with Chinese who aren’t fluent in English. Sometimes you see these girls at the nail salon asking complicated questions like “Do you have sun-dried cherry tomato nail color?” With a puzzled look, the pidgin speaking manicurist systematically repeats the last word: “colol?”. Instead of simplifying it, the girl repeats the question, this time shouting “DO YOU HAVE SUN-DRIED CHERRY TOMATO NAIL COLOR?”. Needless to say, they don’t get too far.

I don’t do that. I’m a result-oriented, one-word communicator. Like the other day at this no thrills no frills back rub place. I wanted a receipt, so I asked: “Receipt?”. She asked back: “Sipt?”, I nodded: “Yes, sipt”. No, of course she can’t give you a sipt. You think you are at the Four Seasons Hotel? I learned my lesson. In Chinatown less is more and never ask for a sipt.

Some of my favorite shots of Chinatown:

This is what I mean by pure Blade Runner. Stall selling cherries in the snow, February 2008.

Store cat. The odd thing is that this is a fish store.

A couple of ideas for China's Olympics

This morning we went to the Union Square market to buy new plants for our terrace. While looking for bay laurel plants, the following surreal conversation took place between my husband and a vendor:

husband: do you have laurel plants?

vendor: laurel? I don’t think so… what is it like?

husband: it’s green [bravo, great hint], it’s used to marinate meat [right, unlike all other herbs that we normally use to wash the scooter]…

vendor: ….?

husband: [with his fingers around the head] like the laurel wreath that Roman emperors used to wear on the head…

vendor: ….?

husband: like those branches used to crown winners of olympic competitions…

vendor: parsley?

Manolo vs Duane Reade

I took this pic last weekend in Union Square where hundreds of people lined up to see Sex and the City.

This gal I saw walking with plastic bags wrapped around her feet is living proof that not every woman in NY has a shoe fetish.

Sometimes life confronts us with hard choices

I would very much like to attend a lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. The guy is a Gambino-family insider who spent eight years in jail for committing some of the most lucrative robberies in US history, refused to cooperate with the FBI against former associates of the Gambino family, wrote a book (From Prison to Proust) and converted to Orthodox Judaism. There is nothing overly exciting about a Queens born mafiaman who resolved that, as if eight years waiting for freedom weren’t enough, he shall wait another 2000 years to shake hands with the Messiah. What struck me instead was the picture accompanying the article in Time Out about the Non-Motivational Speaker Lecture Series of which Ferrante is guest. The photo portrays a speaker giving his presentation with a tampax tampon stuck up his nose. At least I suppose that’s a tampon. The caption says it was a demonstration of ‘how to alienate your fellow passengers’. Would I feel alienated by sitting in the train next to a man with a tampon stuck up his nose? Is there anything a fellow passenger could shove up his nose without stirring feelings of alienation? A nasal spray, for example, which is thematically pertinent and thus rationally acceptable? His metro ticket, in case he's got no pockets (functionally understandable)? These are some of the existential questions that stirred my enthusiasm for the event.

Unfortunately we also have an invitation to an advance screening of a movie for tonight. My husband told me the other day that he couldn’t make it because the movie starts at 6.45 and he’s got a meeting at 5.30. So this morning I came up with the Gambino plan:

me: “You know, we could go to this lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. It’s at 8.00, which leaves you with plenty of time…”

husband: “Who’s Louis Ferrante”

me: “I don’t know, but look, he’s got a tampax shoved up his nose!”

Well, I guess my husband has been sitting in one of those useless we-can-save-the-world-you-go-first meeting this morning, absorbed in some tampax-themed soul searching. He called an hour ago to let me know that after all he’s not supposed to speak on any of the agenda items and thus he can make it for tonight’s movie.

My friend the TV advice guy explained to me that an advance screening is usually a longer cut of the movie, where the consulting firm organizing the event asks the audience for feedback, sometimes they hand out surveys and –quote- ‘you fill in whatever bubble you think is appropriate’. Having been denied the thrill of a lecture by a Jewish mafia man with a tampax stuck up his nose, I’m resolved to take full advantage of my advance screening experience and I have prepared a couple of answers such as “I think this scene best reflects Schopenhauer's nuanced differentiations of the universal substratum, propounding the nonrational, phenomenologist will as the ultimate reality’. I can see those Nielsen folks reading my inappropriate bubble and going “what the f---k?? Who does he think he is? Louis Ferrante?”.

Lower East Side Camel Caravan

I hate dogs. But I would have never dared to tell this black camel that I saw walking his owner on leash around the Lower East Side the other day.

Veni, vidi, velcri

According to state law no vehicle with a license plate can be parked on the sidewalk. Many garages won't rent space to scooters and motorcycles. There are no on-street scooter-designated parking spots in the city. These are some of the reasons why many Vespa riders in Manhattan fasten the license plate to the scooter with velcro (see pic), and just pop it off after parking illegally on the sidewalk so that there is no way to identify them. Oh, this neapolitan attitude feels like home… I just wish I had put that heavenly wisdom into practice at the time I was the parking ticket queen of Rome.

Anyway, there is reason to believe the velcro trick has its days counted. With scooter sales in New York City growing 120% per year, the cops can no longer ignore the issue and in some cases they tow scooters parked with their plates removed, treating them as ‘abandoned vehicles’. On the other hand, last September Piaggio Group Americas has paid for parking for scooters at four lots in NYC as part of a campaign to position two-wheel vehicles as a solution that could greatly reduce this nation’s energy consumption, while helping to preserve our environment and reduce traffic congestion. Not only that. With gas prices rising what is most appealing to scooter riders apparently is the joy of ‘pulling into a gas station behind an SUV and seeing them pay 75 bucks’.

I engaged in a little sociological experiment. I registered on a couple of Italian scooter riders forums and posted a comment on the velcro trick, candidly asking wether the same infamous practice takes place in Italy as well. I’m giving my fellow Romans a couple of months to spread the word. And the Ministry of Interior should thank me I didn’t give the hint to a forum of Naples-based riders.

Between Dante's Inferno and the Moskva River

Colin Farrell gave an interview to GQ magazine where he revealed his current passion for Russian baths:

"Hollywood hellraiser Colin Farrell has admitted he is hooked on taking Russian-style steam baths while covered in honey. He was a daily visitor to the 10th Street Russian and Turkish Baths where guests are smothered in honey before steaming." Said Farrell: "There's something very basic about rubbing honey on your skin and going steaming with a bunch of strange Russian men."

I found out about Farrell’s fascination with the 10th Street Russian baths only after I went. I wasn’t expecting to see any Hollywood stars. That’s what I anticipated instead: in the worst case scenario, we would go back home with a newly adopted family of E.coli bacteria or with a sixth toe growing on my foot, in the best case scenario we would see a two-on-one gangster fight between a Viggo Mortensen-looking guy dripping blood and sweat while struggling with knife-wielding Chechnyan assassins.

It didn’t turn out to be what I’ve anticipated. I didn’t even get to see the contingent of the Russian mafia having a sweat right in front of me, although Russian baths were known to be a safe meeting place for rival gang leaders, obviously because weapons are difficult to conceal on a naked body. Yet, the place is wild. And I’m not referring to the fact that last time it was inspected on April 7, 2008 four violations were cited including mice and “not vermin-proof”. Non-germaphobes will love the radiant heat stone room and the ice water pool which feels amazing once the epileptic fit stops and you manage to convince yourself that you are not going to die from pneumonia tomorrow.

And about the honey rubbing, haven’t seen any honey but it seems that Colin Farrell went to rehab to get off ecstasy, cocaine, speed, Jack Daniels and wine. Well, that explains it.

Ieri sera indimenticabile Bohème al Met

Grandissimo spettacolo, eccetto Rodolfo che mi ha rovinato il pathos del primo atto quando affacciato al balcone ha urlato "AMICHI!"

Emozioni da immigrato abruzzese

 

Trovato nel supermercato sotto casa. 

Vota Calogera

Votato. Con poco entusiasmo e poca cognizione di causa. Alla fine, un po' per esclusione e un po' per affiliazione di schieramento, ho espresso la mia preferenza. E va bene cosi'. D'altronde quando mi ricapita di votare una che si chiama Calogera??

The most clever squirrel in Manhattan

While his fellows fight for acorns throughout city parks, this guy with a sweet tooth took up permanent residency at a street stall selling roasted peanuts. (photo courtesy of my sister)

My rear window

After having systematically forgotten to bring binoculars to theatre every time I went over the last five months, my field glasses finally saw the light again since the time they spotted a giant squirrel in a forest in Southern India in 2007: tonight they received their first New York premiere at the Carnegie Hall.

I was so proud of the fact that I remembered to take my binoculars that I didn’t mind we were going to a classical concert, not to the opera or theatre, and thus in theory there wasn’t that much to see. For those who wonder how one can possibly get excited about remembering to do something that he has or wants to do, please put things into perspective by considering the person's memory failure history, i.e. all the times you take your seat at the opera/theatre and go: “oh shit, I forgot the binoculars”. Repeat 10 times in 5 months. There you go.

What I observed through my binoculars gainsay the theory according to which there isn’t much to see in a classical concert, with all due respect to the giant squirrel. Here are my orchestrical-zoological observations:

• There is nothing more out of tune -pardon the pun- and disturbing than an obese violinist. A violin player has to be slender by definition, delicate like the instrument he or she plays. On the contrary, it was ok for the kettledrums/timpani player to be obese. I truly appreciated his keeping those four huge beasts under control.
• The rear players look much more committed than the front row guys. The xylophonists spent all their time during breaks and intermission discussing the score and rehearsing, whereas most of the violins were chit-chatting, legs stretched out, sipping margaritas and smoking Cuban cigars.
• The tam-tam or gong was very disappointing. At a certain point the tam-tam player gripped the mallet and angled his body around the instrument thus signalling -I naively thought- that he was ready to strike. In fact, he kept that posture for 4 long minutes during which I didn’t dare to move my binoculars away from him out of fear of missing the one-second show. In the end it turned out that the sound was nothing like… what a gong is supposed to sound like, I mean like the Addams family’s gong ("You rang?"). I have to admit that Stravinsky’s sense of rhythm is much more articulate than that of Gomez Addams and thus the gong sound was disappointingly weak, the strike almost imperceptible. In short, I’ve been staring at a gong-hugger for 4 minutes for nothing.
• Harpists: I wanna found out how they manage to take the instrument home. No wonder I never met a harpist in the subway after a concert.

I loved Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. It bears all the powerful and evocative elements of Russian culture.

“My music is best understood by children and animals.”

Igor Stravinsky