Fauna, Fauna Everywhere

Class time consisted of a walk on the Aventine Hill today, and every place we went, we encountered busy little animals either hanging out in their habitats or eager to interact with all of the people infringing on their habitats. I figured a gratuitous photo entry was in order. You may want to shield the kiddies' eyes from the beetles pic.

Friendly kitty at the Protestant Cemetery.



Snail that almost met its end at the sole of my sandal in the Protestant Cemetery.


"Busy" beetles at the Protestant Cemetery.


A rather tame herd of humans at Giardino degli Aranci.


Happy dog and his pine cone in Giardino degli Aranci.


Curious kitten in Giardino degli Aranci.


The bee does its part in Roseto Comunale.

MU-JI-Oh(!)

There's a tempting little store on Via del Tritone called MUJI. I'm a little bit in love with it, but I also cannot make a solid argument to myself in favor of actually making a purchase there. The Japanese company's "philosophy of 'no brand quality goods'" is reflected in the minimalist packaging and store design. I'm a little perplexed, however, how they maintain a reputation for earth conscious production and packaging when most of their appealing little products (and I do mean that they are actually wee little things) are mostly plastic and kind of unnecessary.

I think I might hold out for one of the MUJI stores in the States, since the prices in euros seem to differ greatly from the prices in British pounds (both are printed on the tags), and I don't think it's simply a matter of currency conversion. So the next time I make it to the Big Apple to visit my girl Jenny, I think a little trip to MUJI SOHO might be in order.

*Google tells me that today, this is the euro-pound equivalence: 1 Euro = 0.866634158 British pounds.

A Man and His Dog . . . and the Maid

I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats wondering what this week's film selection was for CAS 415 in Rome. Lucky for you, the wait is over. Today, we watched Umberto D, another neorealist staple directed by Vittorio De Sica. Critics love this movie, which succeeds in so many ways in spite of it's fundamentally trite premise (did you catch the title of this post?).

Maria-Pia Casilio plays Maria, the maid in the boarding house where Umberto rents a room and from which he is soon to be evicted. Although it has the potential to develop as maudlin and exploitative, empathetic is the way in which I would describe the relationship between Maria and Umberto. She seems to have no significant ties to family, but she does not seek out Umberto as a surrogate father or grandfather, nor does she wish to be his caretaker. This might have been an easy move for De Sica to make, but he is appropriately restrained in the presentation of Maria and Umberto's friendship (which might also be stretching it).

Maria is rather no-nonsense, but then, she must be, as she is three months pregnant and on the verge of poor, single motherhood. However, De Sica does not neglect her the complex character portrait that such circumstances require - she cries quietly over her situation as she makes the morning coffee, alone in the kitchen, but she does what she can to help out with Umberto's dog when he requests it. The stereotypical notion of the Italian mamma who feeds others' problems with a heaping plate of pasta in red sauce is lost on De Sica and neorealism generally. Maria has her own business to worry about, after all.

Umberto D poster found here.
Maria-Pia Casilio image found here.

02.06.2009

Today is a national holiday in Italy, folks. I blogged about it a touch last time around, but I've got a very different perspective on it this year. Part of that different perspective is based in geography. This year, we're living in an area that is directly in line with the parade route, and today's parade route is, on most days, the most efficient way to walk to our classrooms off Piazza del Collegio Romano. As Una and I walked along Via dei Fori Imperiali this morning, however, we were trapped like rats - forced to watch the parade of endless segments of the Italian military marching in all their masculine, uniformed, glorious lock-step. I didn't think I'd be up for it, and especially not without at least one cappuccino under my belt.

The point is, we beat a hasty retreat out of there, roundabout though it was, and did the more sensible thing - hung around a group of military folk just off of Piazza Venezia in white riding pants, gold chest plates, and patent leather riding boots. It was their beautiful horses rather than the sharp dressing that drew us in, which to us, did seem more sensible.

Okay, so aside from the way in which today's parade makes the navigation of a chaotic urban center feel even more chaotic than usual, I am uneasy about the show of military might (warranted or not) that is Festa della Repubblica. There have been alternative parades for peace in previous years, especially during the 'W' years and the height of the Iraq war, but I found no information on any alternative celebrations this year. The symbolic purchase of flexing the national muscle in the June second parade has somehow become less significant to peace movements in Italy, or in Rome at the very least, in this, the year of Obama. As with the declaration of a 'post-racial' era in the U.S., I have to imagine/hope the lack of alt festivities does not necessarily prove this to be true.

On a lighter note, do check out Joe Augello's blog for the most surreal experience that any of us CAS in Rome folks had on Festa della Repubblica this year. You won't be disappointed.

Top: Firefighters scale/hang out on the Colosseum.
Middle: The horses . . . with distinctive haircuts.

Perugia and a Railway Education

I spent this Friday into Saturday in Perugia, a lovely little hill town with gorgeous views and lots of those little picturesque archways and cobblestone streets that one expects to find in Italy.

I made my way back to Rome yesterday, due to the fact that I was feeling a little under the weather and in need of some Benadryl and a little time to sleep off the ickiness in my own bed (tiny and cot-like though it may be). My route home was a touch annoying (I did a lot of waiting around in train stations yesterday), but as I waited out the train to Termini in Terontola, I noticed a plaque on the wall devoted to a one Gino Bartali. What I could decipher from the Italian text on the plaque was that this guy was a cyclist, and an accomplished one at that. I wondered what kind of cycling legacy earns someone train station plaques, and while nosing around for some info on 'Gino the Pious,' I realized that not only is my Italian icons-of-sport history a little shaky, so too am I un-savvy regarding contemporary cycling. In all of our football fervor, we've been ignorant to the Giro d'Italia, which has been in progress since we arrived in Rome. The race ended today(!); Russian Denis Menchov is the winner.

Top left: Kids playing football in Perugia.
Bottom right: Gino being not-so-pious. Image found here.

Caught Red-Handed (Snouted?)

Una and I have taken to sleeping with the doors open - that is, there are doors in our room that open onto a very small terrace, and because we've been on the verge of heatstroke lately, we do whatever it takes to encourage even the tiniest breeze as we settle in to catch some ZZZs each night (what, you thought there would be AC?). The problem with the open door (and it probably wouldn't matter much if we closed the stinkin' thing either) is that all of the sounds of the streets below and apartments beside us drift in without regard for our beauty sleep.

I've been trying to sleep with earplugs in and sometimes my iPod on, but there is one noise that breaks through seemingly any barrier I attempt to put up. That noise comes from this little guy or grrrl:

Can't you just see the guilt in his/her eyes? His/her posture? He/she was fully aware that I was snapping this photo of the booming bark in action, and so the he/she turned away in shame!

This dalmation lives across the street and below us (hence the bad angle on the photo), and the owner seems to leave it outside throughout most of the day. This isn't necessarily bad dog-owning practice in Rome - plenty of animals are more of the "outside" than "inside" variety. We've taken to calling the pup 'Vega Due,' after the ill-fated animale domestico in Tim Parks' Italian Neighbors.* The clear difference between our Vega and the original - this dog will continue to bark all day long, long after we've departed Rome.

*Parks, Tim. Italian Neighbors. New York: Grove Press, 1992.

This Week in Film . . .

Lo sceicco bianco - Fellini's debut as a solo director. Although a "logical" narrative can be culled from film overall, there is much in it that is whimsical, nonsensical, and reliant upon spectacle, making it hard to make sense of in the midst of our neorealist undertakings. One thing that I think is clear, is that Lo sceicco bianco is fraught with questions about feminine identity and agency, and although the protagonist, Wanda, takes her fair share of missteps, it is her husband, Ivan, and the object of her desire, the White Sheik, who inhabit buffoonish roles, perhaps to the ends (arguably progressive within the historical context) that Virginia Pichietti describes:

"Because it problematizes femininity, Lo sceicco bianco stands as an insightful reflection of the dilemma that women faced in the gendered performances advocated by 1950s popular culture. At the same time, it cleverly unravels this performance to expose the contradictions on which it is built. While Wanda is not a protofeminist character, her movement between roles subtly reveals the wilful interpretation of the self's position in social intercourse. Unfortunately, within the conventional, institutional universe of Fellini's film, her vision must ultimately be confined to the role that guarantees a moral euphoric ending for her to participate as a functioning member."*

The ending, considered by Pichietti to be 'confining' and 'conventional' for the main female character, is often the one that our small audience of CAS in Rome finds the most comforting, as it is the closest we'll get in our film class to a happy Hollywood ending. Hmmm . . .

*Picchietti, Virginia. "When in Rome Do as the Romans Do?: Fellini's Problematization of Femininity (The White Sheik)." In Federico Fellini: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Frank Burke and Marguerite R. Waller, 92-106. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.

Image of Fellini found here.