Has Italy Lost Its Flavor?

 

il gusto - noun (Italian) - taste, flavor, gusto, relish (specific).

il sapore - noun (Italian) - flavor, gusto, taste, spice, relish, gusto (general). (Italy Explained)

I'm not Italian, but I do have cousins who are half Italian as well as close friends who are a hundred percent Italian. As I'm a fortunate one, I've visited Italy four times over four decades: the '70s, the '80s, the mid-2000s, and just last week. Based on empirical data, I can say that the country has changed a great deal in fifty years. Although not all of its colorful, delectable flavors have changed, it has lost a bit of both il gusto and il sapore.

First off, there is il gusto, highly specific, literal tastes one can experience. Before I mention what has changed, I will mention what has not. Gelato. If you aren't lactose intolerant, most likely you have tasted it. In short, it is a creamy, dairy delight presented in a cone or a cup. Heavenly ice cream for the taste buds to enjoy at a relatively affordable price. It can be bought here in the U.S., but the best is in Italy, and it is ubiquitous there. Seriously, the competition is so fierce in touristy areas that I don't know how some of the smaller, modest shops manage to pay their rent. I'm sure they pray to Italy's own St. Homobonus, the patron saint of commerce, incessantly during the peak traveling season, which has spread into the fall months. Because I have a weakness for anything pistachio, I treated myself to a generous cone in both Genoa and Vernazza (Cinque Terre). Both were divinely scrumptious–what I had traveled nearly 8,000 miles to experience. (Also, the pesto and pasta were to die for!) On the other hand, some of the other Italian staples, such as the pizza, lost a bit of flavor. Yet as a native of New Jersey, I might be biased. N.J. boasts 5,000 Italian restaurants, most of which have awesome pizza. I will say that pizza is, in fact, Italian bread, so perhaps it is not as important in Italy as it seems to be in the States? I have no idea.

Secondly, in terms of il sapora, what came as a disappointment to me was the Italian people. The first time I had visited the country was back in 1979 while on a concert tour with my university's chorale. As a young person (20), I noticed superficial things, such as the fact that my Italian peers were strikingly beautiful to the eye. They were so stunning that they could have been torn right out of the pages of Vogue. Two weeks ago while in Genoa, I made sure I took a good look around just for reasons of comparison. I didn't see one severely attractive young person. I tried to find one. I honestly did. I didn't. It's not as though they were ugly. They weren't. They just were no longer modelicious. I suppose the American grunge influence in terms of fashion might have been partially responsible? 

Another disappointment (albeit some won't agree with me on this one) was that the Italian men no longer seem to have a penchant for women, either attractive or unattractive. If you have ever seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), you might recall that Diane Lane's character Francesca encounters aggressive Italian men who follow her through quaint alleyways of an Italian village until she can latch onto an innocent bystander, a male stranger with whom she winds up romantically involved. In 1979, as well as in 1981, I was pretty much Francesca, except more so. I can recall assorted Italian men chasing me down the Spanish Steps in Rome, surrounded by an audible chorus of "Belle, belle, Americano!" Okay, it was a bit much, but I felt appreciated, celebrated, seen. 

On the flip side, while I was just in Genoa, I saw that the contemporary Italian men were so preoccupied with their phones or whatever was on their minds that they weren't even noticing the women around them. They were completely detached. How this happened, I don't know. Thinking it must have had something to do with the Me, Too Movement in the U.S., I did the research. According to NPR, the movement was "muted and polarized" in Italy, dismissed as "American puritanism." Well, if that was the case, why have the men lost their sexual gusto? Don't ask me. Could it be that the unofficial movement, Me, Just Me, Only Me, has been more impactful? In any case, I felt invisible there, but I guess that given today's world and its complicating factors, it might have been a good thing. 

I will say that what hasn't lost its relish at all is the Italian scenery. The generous helpings of natural beauty, architectural antiquity, and vast history are still very much stimulating, a feast to be held while moving on foot, on a train, in a bus, on a ship, or in a car. Hopefully, they will always be omnipresent exactly as they are so that future generations can behold and appreciate them. 

Alla prossima!

#travel, #Italy, #Italians, #personal essay, #blog, #blogger

Heeding the Signs: Actual and Intuitive

intuitive - adjective - knowing or understanding something right away through feelings or natural instincts without needing facts, proof, or conscious reasoning (Cambridge Dictionary)

The older I get, the more I get it. This life is composed of patterns: figurative, repetitive road maps that we either understand and follow or ignore out of ignorance, the inability to open our eyes wide enough to comprehend what stands before us. God or the Universe–whatever force we believe is hovering above us–shares with us metaphorical, enigmatic, ambiguous placards (not always discernible) that we can attempt to interpret using our intuitive powers. Some of us are just more tuned into them than others because, after all, we do not all trust our feelings or natural instincts until it is often too late. No matter what, if we are aware of them, we need to heed the signs, actual and intuitive. 

I have to admit that for the most part, my intuition is spot on. For example, right before the pandemic, I read the writing on the wall that intimated that something unprecedented was heading our way. I was teaching high-school English at the time and was contemplating whether or not I should retire sans my full pension or instruct another few years in order to qualify for the maximum benefit. For whatever reason that school year (2018-2019), I kept encountering one negative harbinger after the other in secession, what I intuited as a signpost, a.k.a. the Get-Out-of-Dodge-A.S.A.P. bumper sticker. The last was actually a fortuitous billboard: I would be able to collect my deceased ex-husband's social security so that I would have enough to pay for my monthly health benefits until I qualified for Medicare. Taking every clue into consideration, I retired the June before COVID struck the following March. Whew! By paying attention to the indicators, I saved myself a lot of stress and agony as an educator who would have had to manage teaching almost one hundred students a day via Zoom, a most miserable fate according to my colleagues who had to endure the uncharted, technological territory. I could not help but wonder, though: If they had been similarly forewarned, would they have noticed? 

But like everyone else, sometimes I disregard blatant signs and get myself into trouble. For instance, last Saturday, Bond and I took a bicycle ride from Carlson Park to downtown Culver City, his home turf. We came to a fork in the road, a back alley used by pedestrians. Just before the entrance was a physical alert sprayed onto the concrete walk that read: "Walk your bike from this point on" or something to that effect. Bond, pretty much oblivious to alarms as most Evel Knievel types (testosterone-charged men) are, did not dismount his bike but continued riding. I saw it. My intuition told me to get off my bike, but I did not listen. What happened? I wound up with a very painful, severely sprained left pinky as I used my hand to keep me from crashing into a wooden wall that was waiting for me just through the door well. OUCH! Of course, my fate could have been much worse, but my crew of angels upstairs were taking notice when I was not. Thank God. 

We tend to learn from the pain of our mistakes. Ergo in the future, I will remember to heed the signs, actual and intuitive, so that I do not wind up losing more than partial use of my left hand. I hope you will concentrate on keeping safe as well. 

#intuition, #warning signs, #personal essay, #blog, #blogger

Portable Erudition: Dostoevsky at El Porto

 

erudition - noun - profound extensive scholarly knowledge acquired through intense reading and study (Merriam-Webster).

There is no contemporary American equivalent to Russian literature. There is no 21st century writer, artificial or otherwise, that can compete with the talents of Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoevsky. There is no American under 35 today interested in what either of the twin Russian literary giants of the 19th century has to say.  

Wait a minute. I have to take back the last claim.

Last week, as Bond and I had not seen each other in a month (he had Covid; I had the cold from Hell), we decided to wax nostalgic while revisiting the location of our first date: our favorite food stand at El Porto, the surfers' beach in Manhattan Beach, L.A. Second in line about to order guac and chips, we eyed the young man (approximately thirty years old) in front of us. Most unusually, he had with him a paperback copy of Dostoevsky's The Idiot (1868-69), a challenging novel depicting the ins and outs of protagonist Prince Lev Myshkin inside of the corrupt and cynical high society of Russia during the late 1800s. As a retired English teacher who took seven years to get through Tolstoy's War and Peace (or as I like to call it, Too Much War and a Little Peace) and five summers propped up on various beaches to finish Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (don't ask me if I even recall a paragraph of either), I was astonished. I just had to ask him, a construction worker who had never been a student of Russian literature, why he had chosen such a difficult tome as a beach read. His answer went something like this: "I've never read anything by a Russian before and wanted to try." I questioned his erudition pertaining to Russian literary figures and their fiction. He had none, but ostensibly, he was working on getting some. 

Ergo, I took the opportunity to recommend my personal favorite Russian literary achievement, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which he notated on his iPhone. For me, this young man's willingness to jump into yet another complicated book written by yet another complicated Russian was something along the lines of a personal triumph. Hmm. Clearly, this was not an ordinary, thirty-year-old male. After he had left with The Idiot and a smoothie in tow, I, another idiot, pinched myself for not inquiring as to whether or not he was picking up on any modern-day political likenesses in The Idiot, especially since we are surrounded by so many (idiots, that is) of late. I wish I had remembered anything about Dostoevsky's Demons (Possessed), his political novel about the rise of nihilism and radical movements (not that I had read it myself) just to impress upon the receptive construction worker the fact that people (or their causes) don't change over time. 

The takeaway? 1. Never stereotype. Don't automatically think that construction workers have no interest in Russian authors, or for that matter, in literature, period. There could be an entire movement of literary laborers out there that has simply gone unreported. 2. Don't automatically think that Gen Z isn't book smart just because they seem to prefer their phones over paperbacks. There are always exceptions. 3. Be open to the element of surprise as you never know when or where you may find it. The world is vast and unpredictable because of its inhabitants. And finally, 4., be open to the professorial treasures of the past. Just because they might have emanated from the 1800s doesn't mean they are antiquated. (If today's authors did more close reading of literary classics, their writing would be much better than it is.)

Just sayin'. 

#RussianLiterature, #GenZ, #Dostoevsky, #Tolstoy, #blog, #PersonalEssay

The Importance of Pronunciation

 

pronunciation - noun - the way a word is spoken or sounded out (Wikipedia).

Juliet Capulet in William Shakespeare's ever-enduring Romeo and Juliet emotes, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Naturally she is referring to her lover Romeo, whose last name, Montague, is abhorrent to her family. She even suggests (as far as I remember) that he drop his last name altogether. Okay, I get that. But let's say that Romeo were a unique name back then, hard to remember. For the sake of argument, let's also say that Juliet decides to start calling Romeo, Romy, a similar sounding, yet more common name in the present day. Do you think he would correct her? Or do you think he would let it slide, especially since he is blindly in love with her? (He might taken to the name. Love is a powerfully potent potion.)

Personally, I think pronunciation is important, particularly of names, the first, the middle, and the last. A name is identification. A person is born with one and grows up into adulthood with the specific identifier. Yet what if a person cannot relate to his/her/their given name? Well, the person has the option of changing it. A friend of mine embraced her parents' choice of Jacqueline until she was in her twenties. At which time, she changed it to Arianna. She was a New York cabaret singer; ergo, the name change worked as the latter is more musical than the former. 

Let's return to my initial point, though. What if the person is assigned a rarer moniker that is close to a more common one? What if the two are separated by only one letter, but the pronunciation of each is different? For example, there is "Lisa" and then there is "Liza," two names that fall into this category. The "s" in "Lisa" does not sound the same as the "z" in "Liza," so therefore, the two names are not interchangeable although people think they are. Poor singer, actor Liza Minnelli, a victim of perpetual mispronunciation, went to the trouble of having a television show produced (Liza with a Z), a song written, and an album made ("Liza with a Z") just to get fans to stop mispronouncing her name. Ugh. How frustrating!  

Recently, I learned that entertainer Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse's former wife and creative partner, was born "Gwyneth," which is pretty much my name (Gwyn), like Gwyneth Paltrow, who is also mispronounced as "Gweneth." My guess is that Verdon got so tired of correcting people's pronunciation of her name that she just changed it to "Gwen," what I consider to be a notorious domesticity for "Gwyn," an easier name to say (think "sin," "gin," "win" as they rhyme with it) than "Gwen," short for "Gwendolyn," way too Medieval sounding for words. The only word I can come up with at an instant's notice that rhymes with "Gwen" is "pen," as in penitentiary, one of the reasons why I distain the name. I like the idea of freedom. Of course, if your name is Gwen, I'm sorry. You were actually born lucky in a sense. I don't think my parents liked me very much as they could have easily chosen the more common of the two Welsh names that both mean "fair/blessed" but are never confused in Wales. Why are the two names confused in the U.S.? Here people just don't like things that are out of the ordinary, I guess. There is too much effort involved in differentiation. 

I would like to involve you, readers, in my conundrum. Usually, I do not correct people when they call me "Gwen" because it happens ALL OF THE TIME. But lately, some of my oldest friends have resorted to using the tag, and as I am turning into a curmudgeon with age–an inevitable transition–they are starting to irk me in a big way. They know my name is "Gwyn" as they have associated with me for over fifty years. 

So, what do you think I should do? 1. Should I just ignore them like I ignore everyone else? 2. Should I start calling them names close to their names, but not quite their names just to get even? 3. Should I offer them an option? (Please call me "G.E." instead. Or "G." Why not?) 4. Or should I be completely honest, lay into them, and say, "You know you're pissing me off. Why don't you pronounce my name correctly?" (I know. This is probably the worst choice of the four.) 5. Or you can come up with an idea of what I should do on your own. I'm open.

Please leave me your sound advice in the "Comments" portion of this blog. I will try to respond to all of the thoughts. And, of course, I will tell you what I wound up doing even if you could care less. (I'd conjecture that there are some of you out there in the same predicament.)

#pronunciation, #names, #mispronunciation, #blog, #blogger, #personal essay

The Friend versus the Acquaintance: Which are you?

 

acquaintance - noun - a person whom you know slightly, someone who is not a close friend (Merriam-Webster)

friend - noun - a person whom you know, like, and trust, who is not a member of your family (Merriam-Webster)

The acquaintance is the outlier of friendship, the one who hugs the border between committal and noncommittal, someone who either does not choose to rise to the high expectations of being an actual friend or is otherwise too self-centered to go the distance. 

Most of us say that we know what a friend is, but in truth, since most are ensconced in the limited microcosms of our own making, we don't. Or we have just forgotten out of convenience. ("I really don't have time for this.")

If you are continuing to read this blog, then you might be willing to reflect on the complete definition of "friend."

According to Better Up.com (and I agree), the attributes of a friend are as follows:

Trustworthiness: a friend will keep your secrets safe and remain loyal when you are not around.

Dependability: a friend will show up when things get hard and follow through on their commitments.

Active listening: a friend will pay attention to your feelings and will hear you out without judgment.

Empathy and kindness: a friend will treat you with respect, will comfort you in tough times, and will care about your well-being.

Honesty: a friend will tell you the truth with good intentions even when it is hard to hear.

Boundary respect: a friend will give you space when you need it.

To the list, I'd also like to add: 

Initiative: They will reach out to see how their friends are or to set dates with them. They will not expect their friends to take onus consistently. (There is no one cruise director.)

The authentic traits of a friend are not easy to come by in a person, making Better Up's friend a rare gem. With these in mind, just how many people who occupy a space in your life possess these characteristics? 

Am I a good friend? I would say that I might score high on all of these except for the first. If a friend does not come right out and tell me not to impart shared information to anyone, I will naturally think that if a mutual friend asks, I have the authority to tell because after all, we are all friends, or that is my assumption. I can also be a bit opinionated. I call the kettle black if that is what it is. If this level of honesty makes me disloyal, then I suppose I am. Note that honesty also comes into play. So maybe I'm coloring inside the lines as it is. The bottomline is that despite being an imperfect human, I try to work hard on being the kind of friend that I wish to have. 

With all of these things in mind, how many true friends do you have? Remember: family members in your microcosm do not count although you may treat them as friends. I think out of the legions of acquaintances (people who are either capable or incapable of the attributes of a true friend), I probably have maybe ten actual friends. Which is quite extraordinary when you think about just how self-centered people are these days. I would conjecture that most people only have about five friends each. And if you trust Instagram, I am right. "The average person has three to five (close) friends." ("Close" in my mind is inessential. You are either a friend, or you are an acquaintance.) 

Women tend to have more friends and larger social support groups than men because they are willing to take the initiative. They value friendship. The men whom I've encountered often view their wives' or girlfriends' or mates' friends as theirs as well so that they do not have to put in much effort. They might have one or two of their own male friends if they are lucky. But then again, there are extraordinary people out there, both women and men, who are true friends to a number of people who may return the favor. They are just hard to find. Most of mine have been my friends for over twenty years. One dates back over fifty. I consider her a sister. 

One of the reasons I decided to delve into this topic was because a close family member of mine confided in me that in order to manage her expectations (she likes to hold her friends to the aforementioned qualities that she herself owns), she has gone through the inventory of people who surround her and has organized them under two classifications: 1. Friends 2. Acquaintances. The friends have proven their worth as friends. The acquaintances may be people whom she knows well, but they do not care enough to embrace the entire definition of a friend. Fair enough. (I'm thinking of doing the same thing. Sometimes you just have to weed out the roses from the dandelions.)

So what is the takeaway? Put yourself to the test. How good a friend are you? Can you honestly say that you possess the above features of true friendship? 

I think we all could stand to be better friends rather than just acquaintances. 

Go the distance. If you do, your efforts may just be returned. 

#friendship, #acquaintance, #blog, #blogger, #personal essay 

Prophetic A.I. and Dream Interpretation

 

prophetic - adjective - related to predicting future events or to a prophet and divine messages (Merriam-Webster).

    Admittedly, I am NOT a fan of A.I. I don't like that it robs most, particularly students, of motivation, the conscientious effort needed to support industry. If learning comes too easily, most likely the facts gathered go in one ear and out the other pretty rapidly. As a former teacher, I found that my students retained what I was teaching when an engaging process was involved, i.e. gleaning via kinesthetic learning when coupled with auditory and visual. A.I. is cut and dry. A question is asked; an answer is provided. Satisfaction comes within seconds, which does not stimulate the long-term memory to retain data. And it certainly doesn't provide the learner with a valuable work ethic.

    On the other hand, at present, I don't have to involve the kids, especially as I retired from teaching in 2019. Right now, if I am looking for immediate gratification, i.e. a definition, a synonym, a translation, or an interpretation, I do rely on Google. If that makes me a hypocrite, I guess I'll plead guilty. This morning, A.I. acted as a prophet, interpreting a dream that I had right before opening my eyes. I dreamt that my deceased father, who was not visible to me in the dream, told me and my daughter to travel down a shoveled path through deep snow in the middle of the night to get to a resort hotel that had been his favorite haven in life. (Please pardon the stair-step prepositional phrases. If you don't know what I mean, Google it :).) We listened to him. Unfortunately, I woke up before we arrived at the hotel. As the dream fascinated me, I wanted to know what it meant. After I gave A.I. all of the necessary details, it immediately spat out the following:

  "When you connect the pieces, a beautiful narrative emerges: You, your daughter, and the memory of your father are all connected across generations. You and your daughter are walking through a quiet, cold, or reflective period of life (the snow and night), but you are well supported, and the way has been made manageable (the shoveled path). By directing you to the hotel, your father is reassuring you that there is a safe, warm, and comforting destination ahead for you and your family. It is a dream of deep reassurance, continuity, and ultimate shelter."

    It all makes perfect sense. I could not have come up with all of it within seconds myself. If I had called my analyst ex, he might have unearthed something similar, but being that he is somewhat tainted by subjective feelings (I broke up with him, not the other way around), his interpretation might have been tinged with negativity. Since A.I. does not know me a all, it can be totally objective, gratis. No human therapist can go that distance. 

    Am I a tad intimidated by A.I.'s intelligence, its ability to get to the crux of the matter sans a modicum of hesitance? Yup. It is a definitive, scary force that even has its creators taken aback. Which is perhaps the most frightening part. Frankenstein goes through the same quandary in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and he is a student scientist living fictionally in the late 1700s. I'm thinking schools might have to consider reinserting the work into their curriculums unless it may be a little too late? I digress. 

    What is the takeaway here? Everything we experience, particularly inventions, in this life is fine in moderation. It is when we become completely dependent on these things at our own expense that we lose our way. As humans, we have free will. We have to exercise it with caution. 

    Enough said. 

#A.I., #dream interpretation, #prophecy, #blog, #blogger, #personal essay

The Summer Cold: An Oxymoron?

 

oxymoron - figure of speech that puts two contradictory words side by side (Merriam-Webster)

At first glance, the title of this blog post presents itself as an oxymoron, side-by-side, contradictory terms, as summer is generally associated with heat, not cold. However, what a foreigner who is having difficulties with learning English might question and then curse is the language's preponderance of homonyms. "Cold" here refers to the virus, not the temperature even though the two are spelled and pronounced the same. In English, context is vital. 

A staunch defender of integrity, I am strictly against anyone's catching a wicked cold in June, July, August, or September as it's not only unjust, it just isn't humane. How cruel is it to be relegated to the interior confides of one's 12 X 10 apartment bedroom as families of tenants engage in joyous banter, indulging in grilled delicacies hot off the barbecue, three flights downstairs in the garden courtyard! The mismatched chorus of voices and marinading scents of the seared menu are amplified due to the concrete structure of the building and creep up to egg the hungry prisoner into wanting to cry. Yet there is no time for useless emotion as the afflicted is too busy negotiating disruptive sneezes, jarring coughs, and periodic nose blows. Ugh! The agony of it all! 

How could this happen? Isn't the immune system supposed to be at its most functional during the summer? Hmm. Could the young man vying for the same bag of slaw as I was in Trader Joe's be the culprit? I vaguely recall his unapologetically sneezing in my face. Where was my N95 when I needed it the most? Where was his? 

One ribbon of silver in the cumulus cold has to do with Artificial Intelligence. It gives the victim time to test AI to see how accurate it is. I can't tell you how many times I Googled "average length of the common cold" just to see if the information had not been edited in the meantime to read the optimistic "three days" as opposed to the realistic "7-10." If it is indeed correct, I learned that one with an upper respiratory infection is contagious for up to ten days. The peak of the annoying symptoms is four to five days into the virus. And here's something else that isn't common knowledge: one can generously and unknowingly give the heinous bug to another three days before his or her own symptoms kick in. A truly anonymous gift. (It makes me want to err on the side of paranoia and invest in a stash of new masks.) Despite a plethora of over-the-counter remedies, one can't escape the virus. If one gets a little testy and thinks he or she can outrun a cold, it is never a good idea as it could wind up evolving into pneumonia, something I just had in March that I don't recommend. 

When it comes down to tackling the summer cold, patience is a virtue. Despite having to postpone or give up plans to do myriad fun, social things that I do in the summer, I'd rather listen to Mother Nature and ride out the miserable creature horizontally. Alone in bed. Contagious only to myself. After all, how many opportunities do I get to lose myself while binge watching any and all of the movies or series based on novels by Jane Austin on streaming? Practically none. And with my sole companion, a hefty box of Kleenex by my side, I am prepared for unlimited mucus as well as tears. I just can't complain, but I desperately want to. 

The moral of the story is stay six feet away from anyone who looks capable of sneezing in your face at Trader Joe's even if it comes down to losing the store's most coveted item, the last box of Steamed Pork and Ginger Soup Dumplings, to the culprit. As soup is what is recommended for the cold sufferer, he may need it more than you will. 

#cold virus, #common cold, #facts, #blog, #blogger, #personal essay, #humor