The Bay of Naples waking up, from the terrace at Villa Monica
We're back. I seem to have dropped the blog ball. It might have been Hasan Elahil's fault. I got pretty weirded out by the surveillance issues, but that's not the real reason I didn't post during the trip. Part of it was inconvenience--as in, when we did laundry in Florence and I had planned on visiting one of 2 internet points in the block with the lavanderia, but both were closed. I might have ventured further and left Gary to monitor the machines, but it was too interesting to chat with the Australian couple and the German guy who were there while our clothes tumbled around. Every time I had an opportunity to go online it seemed to come at the expense of real encounters--none of them earth-shattering, but every time I thought about sitting there by myself spewing words into the electronosphere, a deep malaise about it seemed to take over. In Acquapendente Michelle, Jim and I spent an hour at an internet point but all I did was read email, most of which depressed the heck out of me. Then I discovered I had left the paper with all my passwords back in Proceno, so I just gave up. I suppose if I'd brought the laptop I would have been a better blogger, but I didn't want to haul it and all the trouble of finding connections with me. I think now I just needed to be unplugged for awhile. Maybe it was just laziness. If so, it felt good to be lazy. In the Communication Studies world I think sometimes we carry around an underlying presumption that communication is always a positive thing (that's understandable--are there any academics studying, say, French literature because they think it impoverishes them from time to time?). I just sort of shut down. Heck I couldn't even get the cell phone to work properly most of the time, but instead of figuring it out, I just turned it off. I took some pictures--actually quite a few, but I didn't enjoy taking them so much--I just wanted them to look at after. Taking the photos seemed to begin to narrate my experiences, or to forecast their narration, and that seemed to be a betrayal of the experiences themselves. I spent 2 hours one morning on a balcony in Sorrento with an unopened book on my lap just staring into space. It was lovely space, partially occupied by Mt. Vesuvius, but it was that kind of unfocused staring that might be caused by thinking deep thoughts about Pliny the Elder or something. But if I was thinking, it was non-narrative, just sort of letting the shapes and the odd scale of things up there on the terrace of Villa Monica take over. If I turned my head just so, one of the red geraniums would just about cover Mt. Vesuvius. There are no conclusions to be drawn from such thoughts. It is just letting the world pass over or through one.
But the time to recollect, narrate, and communicate is here, and I did of course take some notes and collect postcards and brochures and whatnot. Next entry I will try to begin at the beginning, but for now just a few highlights of our journey, maybe a few lowlights, in no particular order:
Our Virgils, or kind, generous Italian men who guided us: we kept running into them. Giansilvio at Avis in Chiusi (and therby hangs a tale I'll save for later); the amazing Pasquale of Villa Monica in Sorrento (and thereby hangs a forthcoming glowing review), the courteous and wonderfully strange Salvio of Benvenuto limos, Giorgio, our guide at Pompeii who led us through a really amazing game of "let's pretend we're tourists 2000 years ago," et al.
Realizing that the University hall in which our conference in the well-heeled city of Aix was held was in worse shape than Coates Hall at LSU.
Exquisite breakfasts served on real china and silver on the terrace by our extraordinary hostess at Maison de Carlotta in Aix, chatting politics with the other guests.
An image: the same hostess, ironing linens, prompting me to speak in French and patiently helping me as I fumbled around for the right words.
Getting drenched on the boat at Cassis, and shaking off like a happy wet dog.
Beggars, homeless people, in Naples, Paris, Rome, Florence, putting one's privilege and grumblings about the weak dollar into sharp perspective.
Beautiful French children everywhere in Provence. I mean, even the ones with grimy faces were somehow stylishly, sweetly grimy. The urge to kidnap one.
The duck paté in Arles. The richest thing that has ever traveled through my digestive system. Decadence on bread. Fat smoothness condensed to white hot dwarf stage. Consumed while a parade of seemingly every citizen of Provence not preoccupied with bringing us delicious things to eat paraded by the door in costume, playing instruments, riding horses, leading livestock, etc.. Asking a waiter what the parade was for, and his answer that implied somehow that the whole pageant was--all evidence to the contrary--merely spontaneous: "Ils sont heureux."
Running into Kathy (Kaydee) at "her cafe" in Aix. Okay, I didn't want her to think we were stalking her, but we cruised by hoping she'd be there, and there she was.
A very nervous car ride through Provence. Thereby hangs a cautionary tale.
An unnecessary bus ride in Tuscany. Ditto.
Sitting in front of Notre Dame one evening watching a performer juggle fire, calling Mom just to describe this, and then the fire became fireworks. Juggling fireworks.
It didn't get dark until around 22:00 in Paris. This amazed me.
Breaking down and weeping in front of a Renoir painting in the Orsay, quite to my surprise.
Getting horribly fussy in the Louvre because nearly every visitor seemed to be involved in some obsessive-compulsive need to make digital photos of everything without even really bothering actually to look at what they were photographing. Realizing there is still enough magic in cameras (or in the space between the photographer and the photographed) that one tries to stay out of the photographers' way and then deciding phooey on that, so the back of my head is probably being cropped out of a lot of photos this month. The Louvre has something like 35,000 images of its horde of stuff digitized online anyway, so what was up with that? Grrr.
Picnicking along the Seine, swigging really good wine out of the bottle and waving at the batobuses.
Meeting the lovely Vicky and Ralph in Proceno--fellow Slow Travelers! And then repeatedly running into them in Sovano, Sarano. Honestly, we were not trying to do this, but it was funny.
Finally making it to San Clemente in Rome when it was open, and getting lost in its bowels.
Gary trying on straw hats at Borsalino in Florence, the salesman and saleslady and I all squinting at him, shaking our heads, until he put on the one that we all thought was "perfetto."
Tuscany seeming comparatively devoid of tourists. Where was everyone? who cares, having roads to ourselves was lovely.
Waking up at 5:30 AM on the Artesia train watching Italy fly by whilst lounging about in our underwear.
The sardonic oarsman in the Green Grotto near Amalfi which we were more or less compelled to visit, singing O Sole Mio badly off-key and proclaiming, "Lookee lookee it's a miracle!" at various cheesy underwater installations.
White truffles in Orvieto. I wish I hadn't such expensive tastes in sauces. But it was right up there with the duck paté.
Acting like bratty children with my colleagues at the pool in Proceno. Watching Jim steal pool toys from a German child.
Realizing midway through it that our conference panel was kicking some serious butt, and feeling full of those old scholarly oats, in the complany of some Killer Gothic Scholars. Very happy to have had the honor to be the moon borrowing some of my co-panelists sunlight.
Gary deciding he was going to behave like a native and jaywalk a lot on our day of walking in Rome, scaring the crap out of me, and Michelle taking over the task of holding my hand to cross streets.
Narration soon, but first, laundry.
