Two Italian Trips in Sixty Days -- Isn't That a Bit Much?

Well, no.  As a great American philosopher, Mae West, used to say, "too much of a good thing -- is just right." 

Ann and I had spent much of April on our first foray into the south of Italy: Puglia, Basilicatta, and Sicily. Then we were invited to fill in for parents of our daughter-in-law, Michele Janes, at a COVID-delayed, Fischbach family reunion. Kathy and Mike had to pass because of back flare-ups, and so in mid-June were were again in care of Lufthansa, this time to Florence. 

It's true what you read about European travel chaos: delays, missed connections, a hotel layover in Frankfurt, arrival a day late, and lost luggage on the return. But the renovated farm house finally reached in Castellina in Chianti made a lovely, quiet and peaceful base. Cam had picked a winner. We nine gathered there were Michele’s brother, David Fischbach, who lives in Leipzig, and his wife Frieda and 3-yr old Tavi, charming companions; and Michele and Cam, our son/her husband, and Max and Mollie Janes, our two adolescent grandkids.

Castellina in Chianti; a commune of 2800 souls, 45 minutes south of Florence, 20 mins. north of Siena, and 40 mins. due east of San Gimignano. The house is way out in the country at the end of a “white road”, an Italian euphonism for an unpaved, dusty, rutted track gravelled with limestone. Anyway, it was well-worth the trek – beautifully landscaped with pool, bathhouse, lovely kitchen and living spaces, five air-conditioned bedrooms (it was near 100F all the time) and four baths, and airy out-buildings. 

We did the obligatory Florence visit one day amid hordes of tourists, though far fewer than Ann and I experienced in pre-COVID times. Incidentally, on the whole, Italians were masked and cautious but the tourists must have thought they were bullet-proof. Another day, an outing to Montepulciano.

 Ann and I spent more time in Siena. Cam had enrolled us in Scuola di Cucina di Lella, which turned out to be great fun. We made our dinner of bread soup, grilled chicken, picci with a tomato-garlic-basil-pinenuts sauce, and panna cotta for desert. (We later learned that Christopher,  Ann's nephew, and AnnaMaria, his fiancé, earned spare cash working there as translators for Lella during their time at an international college in Siena: small world.) 

After five days basking in the peace of Castellina, Ann and I took a Frecciarossa, a high-speed bullet train, from Florence to Naples, which neither of us had before visited and about which we were curious because of our recent trip to Sicily. We cruised the countryside at 243km/h. After a harrowing cab ride down the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, we got to a wonderful refuge: The Art Hotel Galleria Umberto.

 I’m glad now to have seen Naples – once. Naples is all that Castellina is not: crowded, frenetic, like an anthill cut through by a plow, and the noise -- everyone lives at the top of their lungs. 3mm people, 2mm of them scooting about on 1mm motorbikes, “mottos” – loud, stinky and threatening – and 1500 historic cathedrals and churches catering to the 5% who attend on occasion.

 We were waved off climbing Vesuvius in light of my age and the heat. We walked the city and that night caught a production of Evgeny Onegin at the Opera. We were guided through Pompeii one day . We hiked about the Castel of Sant’Elmo, a 14thC Norman fortress lurking high above the city and its harbors. The highlight was a driven tour (you do not want to drive in Naples!) of the Amalfi Coast. It is gorgeous! Big Sur doesn't come close. 

Naples food was great (but we never ordered a pizza; can you believe it?) People-watching: super; the mottos: horrible: and conversations with locals in restaurants always a delight. 

Glad to have spent five days in Naples. Second prize: ten days in Naples.

The House in Castellina in Chianti

Herbs and Bees and Butterflies

Frieda Fischbach and Gustav

The Fischbach clan and fill-ins

The amazing inlaid floors of Siena's Duomo

The Piccolomini Library, Sienna

Max with Lella

Cam's panna cotta

Four Janes make picci

Ann in bathing suit. First since pre-COVID

Ann awaits an overture

The forum of Pompeii
and the destructor lurks in the background 

Ravello, high above the Amalfi Coast

Amalfi

Above Positano

                      

Galleria Umberto

                                                                             

Pasta, seafood, wine and olive oil -- what's not to love?

Not that long ago, American and German 
aircraft took turns bombing the Bay of Naples

Men Do Have a Dog in This Fight

My daughter, Amy, rashly called it “matricide”, this rush by state legislators around the country, mainly male, to put women at risk in the name of ‘pro-life’ by trading a woman’s health for that of an unintended or unsafe blastula or fetus. And more calmly, she argues persuasively that mainly men are making these decisions about what women can and cannot do with their bodies and in or not in privacy. And she’s right to observe that men are neither venting outrage, as are many women, nor even speaking up strongly about red-states’ eager embrace of the Thomas Courts’ decision.

She piqued my curiosity about gender roles in this issue. First, I’ve learned that the majority of anti-abortion activists are women – college-educated, often Catholic or Baptist, predominantly white women. Studies as far back as the 1980’s showed that women were over 60% of dues-paying members of the National Right to Life Committee (cf. D. O. Granberg.) Studies in the early 2000’s found women in the majorities of both anti-abortion activists and non-activist pro-lifers (cf. C.J.C. Maxwell;  cf. Z. Muson.) As one of my (male) friends put it: “women can’t stand the thought of killing a baby” -- as if that morula or blastula or embryo were a person. 

Overall, of course, the anti-abortion folks are in the minority. Recent Gallup and AP/NORC studies showed most Americans did not want Roe overturned and a majority believe that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. More Americans believe in choice and privacy than in control by the state.

That women’s bodies are the immediate issue doesn’t mean men don't have a stake in this. We men must engage with this issue and its broader implications. First, because we owe support to our daughters, wives, sisters, and mothers in anything they care so passionately about. Secondly, because our rights are on the table, too.

The majority on the Thomas Court are thrilled to earn a footnote in legal history by overturning a half-century old precedent – stare decisis and confirmation testimony be damned. And surely more to come, as Thomas has pledged. Their originalist logic used can be widely applied: to gay marriage, to the morning after pill, to contraception; to in-vitro fertilization; to trans-gender and trans-sexual choice; to inter-racial marriage (in state courts, since Ginny Thomas is unlikely to allow Clarence to bring that one forward); to physician-assisted suicide. And yes, to privacy itself.

In Roe as in many other rulings former courts’ underlying assumption was that despite “privacy” being nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, a “penumbra” of privacy is embedded in our right to Liberty. This is foundational to keeping government out of our bedrooms, out of our phone records, out of our e-mails.

A lawyer friend of mine points out that the state has always regulated to some degree domestic and seemingly private matters: to wit, polygamy, marriageable age, married license requirements and so on. These provide ample grounds from which either true believers or a malignant government can launch attacks on our other rights. These jurists, especially Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett, have earned our distrust. We must not accept on its face Alito’s “assurance” that the Dodd precedent will go no further.

Do men have a stake in marriage equality? Gay men and fathers of gay men certainly do. In the morning-after pill or contraception? Of course. In inter-racial and race equity? You bet. In privacy of other sorts? Of course we do, and we should be alarmed.

En garde! Engage. Add your voices to those of women who are leading the way. We, too, have a dog in this fight; stand and be heard.

We Need a New National Anthem

Fletch: there’s a war going on, man! Why are you talking about a national anthem? The pandemic is still on; autocrats are threatening; inflation is rampant; America is polarized as it hasn’t been since the 19thC. Who cares about a new National Anthem?

That Polarization is the Reason we need a new National Anthem.

 Of what use is a national anthem? Hell, most people can’t even sing ours.

    ~ Was it the perilous fight or the perilous night through which Francis Scott Key o’er the ramparts watched?

    ~ Was it amid the rocket’s red glare or And the rocket’s red glare that gave proof through the night -- or was it through the fight? -- that our flag was still there?

    ~ And was that rocket’s, singular, or rockets’, plural?

Why should you care? Because a national anthem is a useful device for creating a moment of comity. It symbolizes something citizen’s share, in our case, both liberal and conservative, young and old, Democrat and Republican, big city dweller and small town folk, we all share our citizenship in these United States of America. To sing together the national anthem is a moment to proclaim together a patriotic statement of our common identity as Americans.

 

I think the Star-Spangled Banner makes a terrible national anthem. Not just because few can sing it right. We only sing the 1^st verse, after all, but in fact it has four. And they are next to impossible to sing. Here’s the 3^rd: (mentally sing it to the tune.)

 
        And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
        That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
        A home and a Country should leave us no more?
        Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
 
        No refuge could save
        the hireling and slave
        From the terror of flight
        or the gloom of the grave.
        And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
        O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

What in the world did Key mean – “their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution?” and “No refuge could save the hireling and slave . . .”? Key was claiming that the blood of British wounded and killed washed away their footprints which “polluted” our homeland. Well, in fact, there was damned little blood: the British took few casualties in their march across the Chesapeake region. Their capture and burning of the White House and Capital was virtually unopposed. Their withdrawal from the attack on Ft. McHenry was more a matter of logistics than casualties.

And what of the ”hireling” and “slave?” By “hireling”, Key was claiming the British were using mercenaries as they had during the Revolutionary War 30 years earlier. Not so; they did not use mercenaries during the War of 1812. And “slave”? As the British swept through Eastern Maryland tobacco plantations they promised to set free slaves who would take up arms and fight for England.

Now we are getting close to the crux of Francis Scott Key. Who was this amateur poet whose work was set to the tune of a popular British drinking song.

Wait! What? Our National Anthem was a British drinking song?!

Francis Scott Key was a lawyer, not a poet. The scion of a wealthy Maryland tobacco plantation family, Key, in fact, owned slaves. Moreover, he was a leader of the American Colonization Society which called for shipping freed slaves back to Africa. And as district Attorney of Washington DC, he indicted and prosecuted Abolitionists. He was, simply put, a Southern racist from my home State of Maryland. 

I now have some sympathy for Colin Kaepernick’s taking a knee during the Star-Spangled Banner.

The Star-Spangled Banner became the National Anthem by Act of Congress in 1931 despite its racist authorship, despite its glorification of war and violence, despite its fanciful version of history. By the way, we did not win the War of 1812.

In the fall of 1938, as fascism and war threatened Europe, the Roosevelt administration asked Irving Berlin to write a peace song. He retrieved an unpublished score he had set aside and shaped it into "God Bless America.” Kate Smith did the rest:

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above

This past April, by the way, when it was revealed that Kate Smith performed racist songs in the late ‘30s, the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers both dropped her arrangement of the song from their organ playlists.

My objection to God Bless America as a candidate for our National Anthem lies not in Smith’s racism – that’s beside the point. Irving Berlin was a Russian-born Jew brought here as a dreamer at age of four; what could be more American than that?

No, my concerns are first, with its overt appeal to an intercessionist God; I don’t believe God takes sides and intervenes, and second, my 1^st Amendment concern about separation of faith and state. We don’t need an official God as a Searchlight to guide us.

My candidate for a new National Anthem is, as you might have guessed, America, the Beautiful, a poem written by Katherine Lee Bates, a feminist professor at Wellesley, who was inspired by her climb in 1893 of Colorado’s Pike’s Peak. Her “America” was set to a hymn by Samuel Ward and published in 1910, becoming an immediate and lasting hit. Even more so after Ray Charles recorded it over and over.

I favor it because it’s

•        aspirational and uplifting,
  
•        it looks forward not backward, 
  
•     calls for brotherhood, not glorifies war.     

       She is calling us to become, not praising us for what we supposedly are.
    · She calls for us to accept “God’s grace”;
    · to “amend our every flaw” (of which we have many);
    · to adopt “self-control”;
    · to enact “our liberty in law” (the voting rights act?); and most pertinent, 

• to "crown thy good with brotherhood.”

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Well Fletch: there you go, tilting windmills again. This Congress isn’t about to change the National Anthem.

True. But wouldn’t it be grand if they would? Wouldn’t it be grand to have an anthem we can all sing? One that is uplifting and positive? One that expresses aspiration to improve our country? One that calls for brotherhood in these dis-United States of America?

It would be one small step toward the healing we so badly need. Tilting windmills? Maybe. I am but one, but I’m going to add my voice in any way I can. Will you join me?

Who is a Sicilian?

South of Rome was terra incognito for Ann and me. In mid April, we embarked on a thrice-postponed trip -- COVID-19, you know -- to Basilicata, Puglia and Sicily. Basilicata is the arch of the Italian boot; Puglia, its heel; and Sicily? Well, Sicily is part of Italy but arguably not Italian at all. We discovered how little we knew, know, about its history, its arts and foods, its role as pivot around which spun and clashed the Mediterranean religions, cultures, and civilizations. 

Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Svevians, Angevins, Aragons, Spaniards, Piedmontese, Austro-Hungarians, Bourbons of Spain -- wave after wave came and ruled leaving behind a mélange of people with the most convoluted DNA imaginable and an unique language. And the question: Who is a Sicilian?

Three weeks does not an expert make. But our readings (Lampedusa, Durrell, Norwich, Auci, and more), listening to our guides, and observing lead us here:

      Who is a Sicilian?

•  If you’re a man with mafia*

•  if you’re a woman who mainly stays at home, when in public appears modest and subordinate, but, mamma mia**, is truly in charge;

•  if you believe rules are suggestions;

•  if you’re a native Italian who thinks Italian is the others’ language;

•  if your family was last to accept and least supportive of Mussolini’s Fascism;

•  if you view nepotism as responsible, honorable care of family;

•  if you’re one for whom third cousins come before city, tribe, or nation;

•  if you’re an Italian with a persistent sense of grievance and victimhood;

•  if you automatically challenge authority and presumption;

•  if to you Garibaldi was not hero but pillager and freebooter;

•  if you value loyalty above all else;

•  if you view revenge as duty;

•  if you wink at finagling one’s way out of taxes or conscription, futtitinni***; 

•  if you budget bribes;

•  if you’re secretive around strangers;

•  if you’re the Italian who expects the worst; 

and

•  if you’re proud of coming from an ancient island always in the crosshairs of the Mediterranean,

allora****, it’s likely you are Sicilian.

And if you don't say just si, but si,si,si,si,si then for sure you are Sicilian.

*      mafia, from the Arabic: swagger 

**   mamma mia: OMG

***     futtitini: fuggedaboudit!

****   allora: so / therefore / then / OK

What follows are some of our favorite photos keeping fresh our memories of this remarkable trip.

Piazza Amerina, a base for 
Villa Romana del Casale

On the hunt for wild asparagus
which nestles amongst old olive trees

Making cavatelli on
the farm 

Catania: would you buy a used
swordfish from this man?

Seaside, fresh water spring of
Arethusa kept Ortigians alive,8thC BCE

40' monolithic column
from Athena's Temple, 
now part of Siracusa's 
Cathedral

Modica: the FIAT 500 Club
gets ready to roll

Our track

A Catanian fish merchant gives
that Sicilian-stare

The Greek theatre at Taormina
with Etna as backdrop

Matera, the troglodyte warren 
of walkways and staircases

Matera: Eggplant, pasta, seafood
and wine -- what's not to love?

Castelbuono: the Serpotta brothers
went rococo-loco

Lecce: the paper mache' sculpture of
Claudio Riso is breathtakingly artful

The tulli of Alberobello

Matera: cave homes, like a prairie dog village

Matera: Excavating a 5thC CE Orthodox
cave church, with frescos

About half-way up on the flanks of Mt. Etna

Salt evaporation ponds at Marsala

Monreale: a 12thC Byzantine cathedral built by a Norman,
using Arab architects, and decorated by Greek mosaicists. 

Monreale: 68,000 sq.ft. of mosaics

Lecce: the architect of the Cathedral. Jimmy 
Durante's forebearer?

Palermo: Angelo Provenzano, son of Bernardo Provenzano, U Trattore, head of the Corleonesi Mafia, Capo dei tutti Capi. Angelo had to Zoom with us having tested positive the day before our meeting.  

One night in Ragusa

Agrigento: Concordia Temple, 6thC BCE

Women's gym, Villa Romana del Casale,
Piazza Amerina, 4thC CE

AJW Had a Birthday

 She didn’t want a party or jewelry or things  – we’re trying to get rid of things, at least she is. She just wanted a nice experience. 

So, Mr. Cheapskate, here, gave her a sweet tooth indulgence, some bubbly, and three days at Snug Harbor in Mitchell Bay on San Juan Island. She invited me along.

San Juan Island is a recent ‘discovery’ of ours. We’ve known it for years from the sea, checking in with immigration at Roche Harbor on our return from cruising in the Gulf Islands or visiting Friday Harbor by ferry, but only in the last couple of years have we been introduced to and have begun to explore the Island’s innards. It’s a magical place of beauty, history, and relaxation. Forests, meadows, lakes, shores: cares seem to drop away or at least to shrink to manageable size under the spell of SJI (as their bumper stickers ID.)

Snug Harbor: all the name conjures. Twenty beautifully appointed units -- suites, one-bedroom cabins and two bedroom houses fronted by landscaped lawns and a marina.

 

The bay opens onto Haro Strait, facing Vancouver Island across the way. Each morning we had a pup seal exploring the marina or an adult seal working the bay. I saw their resident otter, Owen the staff has named him; geese escorting chicks all in a row; a pair of eagles working the area. 

Ten minutes south, at Lime Kiln State Park and its lighthouse, we watched orcas – a small pod of five or six and what appeared to be a transient single. Too far away for good phone-camera shots, should have brought my Lumix 400, but fun to watch them working through the kelp beds. Also saw a kit fox, old enough to be on his own but clearly a youngster. Curiously few deer; who knows? 

We hiked along the cliffs above Dead Man’s Cove, careful of our footing as we both have gotten more wobbly. We kayaked the bay, examining the beautiful homes lining its shores, nestled among the firs and madronas. Spring has sprung in the San Juans despite record cold and rain. The fresh sprouts and trees, bushes and rhodies in bloom gave every vista an Oh, Wow!

Lunches eaten in Friday Harbor. Invariably, we struck up conversations and swapped stories with interesting sailors or stink-potters, locals or visitors. E.g., two brothers, one from Austin, the other from Portland, cruising the San Jauns together w/o wives. Ann is very good at opening gambits, as “did I overhear you were from Green Bay?” or “Are those the ginger mussels? How are they today?”

Birthday night featured a sumptuous dinner at Roche Harbor’s McMillins, made doubly special by Pam and Jim’s gift of a 20-year old Delille Cellars D-2 Bordeaux blend (worth about twenty-times my paltry, gourmet caramel sauces.) Once fragmented cork was twice sieved out, decanted, and allowed to breath for twenty minutes or so, it mellowed out into a wonderful, memorable wine, highlight of our meal. Thank you, P&J! 

This is written on a blustery, rainy Friday morning ferry back to Anacortes. I’ll put in pix later. All worked better than I dared hope: AJW had her birthday.

Warbirds

 

Seattle Times

Monday morning on Lake Washington, the weekend visiting B-29, "Doc", came up the lake south to north just as our crew was launching. What a thrill for me, a nine-year old would-be airplane spotter in the waning days of WWII; it had been decades since I had seen one in the air. An hour later, Doc came over the trees right at us at about 1,500’, passing directly overhead. The Doc is one of only two B-29s still flying anywhere in the world. It was thrilling for that ten-year-old warbird nut imbedded in me. I’ve been in 17s, 24s, and a 25; a third B-29 Superfortress is nearing completion of its restoration at Boeing Field; I plan on not missing that one when it’s ready.

But now, in my 88^th lap around the sun, though the 10-year-old is thrilled to see those powerful instruments of democracies’ collective defeat of fascism, the old skeptic is painfully aware that they also were machines used to destroy civilians, civility, and at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,  a civilization.

Mariupol, 2022

We castigate Russia for attacking civilians, both in Ukraine and Syria, smugly superior in our righteousness. We are shocked by the destruction, glued to network and cable news coverage, and moved by Twitter and Facebook and Instagram feeds of anguished people on the ground. 

But what of Dresden and Tokyo and Berlin? We non-combatants were then shielded in our innocence and isolated in our patriotism, assured the raids were “strategic” and on essential military-industrial targets. Had we had a Facebook or a CNN reporter on the ground, would we have been so self-satisfied?

Nuremberg, 1945

All out war was an invention of the 19thC. Von Clausewitz justified war waged on civilians. Sherman’s march through Georgia focused on destroying food supplies and infrastructure, burning farms and fields and towns, destroying bridges and roads and rails to “make young and old, rich and poor feel the hard hand of war.” Our attacks on Philippine villages in early 20thC, our fire-bombing of Tokyo, burns of Vietnamese villages later-on, were these not wars made on civilians? If General Dvornikov and his boss, Putin, are war criminals, what of Bomber Harris and his boss, Churchill? What of Hap Arnold and George Marshall and Roosevelt? And Sherman and Lincoln? 

Atlanta, Leipzig, Yokohama, Palermo, Hanoi – the list is endless.

I am not acquitting Putin. I am not indicting Churchill. I’m just asking are our hands clean? Man becomes a war criminal when s/he enters a state of ardent patriotism and smug certainty about “the enemy". Is the widow in Kharkiv any more or less human than the five mothers of a Russian tank crew incinerated in their tin can of a tank by a Lockheed/Raytheon Javelin missile made by nice folks in Troy, Alabama?

The days of mano a mano are long gone; no bare-chested Putin will be arm wrestling a Ukrainian, Jewish comedian for the Donbas. All war is total war; all war is on civilians, on civility, on civilization. Are we not all war criminals?   

How does one not become a war criminal? By not making war. 

Richmond, 1865

Jakle's Lagoon

 A swift sweeps the air

above the placid waters.

Spring buds dot pine boughs.

Salt-bleached driftwood beached

high on basalt shingle hint

at eons to come.

While we fade away,

Jakle's will refresh anew

and swifts will sweep its air.