The Spanish Staircase (Mystery)

"Bad joke, partner. You are about as funny as twins." 

And, thus we came to the end. The final host was super friendly and a little too in my face after that long train ride, but when in Rome. He kind of made me stand there while he circled the Colosseum on a map. "There are two things you must see, the Colosseo, and my family's church. Send me a picture of the ceiling. I will friend you on Instagram and keep looking for it. The picture of the ceiling."

He may yet be looking. He was also very enthusiastic about my being a writer. He asked me what i wrote, and I said "plays," and he did not comprehend. I was like, "stage plays.." Nothing. Um, "theater?" Nope. He was starting to look worried, not about my being into something subversive but about the potential offense he might be causing by not understanding me.

I stood like Sarah Bernhardt with a skull in my hand and said "Ah haaa!" in an exaggerated actor's voice, and he was like, "Opera?" and I was like, "I'll send you some pictures on Instagram."

The plan for the day was to prepare my body and mind for the return flight with a casual day and to see The Spanish Steps so I could pay tribute to Keats. He's on my side.

Out the door. Coffee and a cornetto to go. Tiptoed over the quiet little SPQR sewer grates.

The room was a small, cheap one I had booked purely for its easy access to the main transport hub, Termini. Nice big place, easy to navigate. A lot more welcoming than, say, Penn Station. Took the A line to the Spagna "stazione". I had been here two weeks ago, and it was a little dreamlike to have it feel so familiar. Oh, right, that's how they do it here.

My favorite new Italian words are "uscita" which means "Exit" and "fermata" which means "stop" and which I had only previously seen related to music notation. Both words are everywhere, "FERMATA" being on every bus stop (and there are many).

I changed one of the character names in the play to reflect this.

Oh, I also liked a thing I read in The Octopus where someone is identified as being behind a plot, and a character says: "We see now whose spoon was in the boiling."

My final book for the trip was Voices of the Old Sea. Spoiler Warning: I finished it before I was home.

As the train hurtled toward the Steps, I reflected on all the reading I'd done. Why don't I have that same discipline at home? Part of it is I don't take a half-day train ride every morning, but another part is addictions to easier distractions (like Fortnite!). I still get a strange, almost juvenile, pleasure out of melting a huge book, as if the length indicates something. Look what I did! I ate the while thing.

I feel most like myself when I am reading the thoughts and situations of others.

The Spanish Steps were steps from the stop. Nice flock of people waving selfie sticks and kissing and posing. I took an awkward selfie (I've never been very good at it, always opening my eyes too wide at the camera, so it looks like a mugshot). I was able to get a rando Scando to take a picture of me. He knew. You don't climb those stairs without knowing someone is going to ask you.

There was a museum of Keats' and Shelley's stuff, but it was closed for what the Romans definitely don't call a "siesta" but is definitely a siesta. All the local stuff (and many of the taxis) close or disappears for two hours in the afternoon. It makes the Operating Hours signs crazy cryptograms.

I had a very nice moment on the Staircase (Mystery), my emotions in a sort of "satisfied and happy" place as opposed to "overcome" or "underwhelmed."

I really only had two "bad mood" times on the trip. Both related to feeling ripped off. The money exchange and the useless boat ride in Gozo. The former made me feel like someone who never travels, but beyond the personal, it felt like part of the large system of mechanisms designed to bleed to poor. Check cashing places, bail bond places, fees of all sorts for having small accounts, paying for services others get for free.

But, most of the trip had been the usual inspirational exercises of wonder and expressions of self-love.

This was one of them. I toasted myself with a macchiato at a Nearby (nearbyes are never far away), and walked to a pleasant open place called Piazza Popolo. Big Egyptian obelisk there, and one of the many, many huge gathering spaces. Rome is awesome for that. The density is countered so nicely by these huge (and frequent) piazzas. It must be very pleasant to always have somewhere to go.

Only a few hours remaining, so I decided to blow it heading to a neighborhood with an alternative record store. There's an ongoing quest to find a foreign Nirvana album for my buddy who owns a record store. He has a record I want, and he'll only trade it for a Nirvana rarity. I have struck out all over the world trying to find something he needs.

The quest continues, alas. I took the B Line to the cool nabe and was surprised to find the train covered in graffiti like something out of The Warriors. It was pretty awesome. The A Line goes to all the famous places, and the B to where people really live, I guess. So, it doesn't get the same... protection or care.

It was awesome to see and totally unexpected. Where has this dirty B Line been all my life?

Record store was a total dud, but it was fun to flip through the crates and think about how this is something I've been doing for thirty years, searching for nonsense in dusty old shops, chasing that wax dragon.

I'm such a hoarder. I think it's good for me, though. I look at unread books and un-listened-too records as marvelous possibilities, as worlds and situations waiting for me and just around the corner.

Walked around some actual corners and past a blocky war memorial to get back home. Nap and dinner were going to close the volume on this trip. I was sort of dreading the Ebullient Host, didn't want him to make me circle places on the map or ask me for pictures of the church ceiling.

How could I explain to him that I would crawl over sixty masterpiece basilicas just to get to one sticker on a mailbox?

He wasn't there. And there were free chocolate ginger cookies! Took a stack of them to the room. Caught up on dumb news from the dumb government at home and packed up. Bag was so light!

Laughed myself into a nap thinking about the signs that say "Pane/Sandwiches" that have been all over on the trip. Pane means "bread" and also "sandwich," and it's pronounced like pah-nay, but since it looks like "pain" I was cracking myself up thinking of Hulk Hogan telling some Italian heel wrestler that he was going to serve him a Pain Sandwich.

It was really tickling me thinking about marines saying they were going to "cater" a target with a platter of pane sandwiches. I dunno why it had me going so hard, just drunk on myself I reckon.

Final pizza in the early evening. A sign on the garbage cans said "Diversified Trash" in English, meaning I suppose you could put anything in there, recycling, compost, etc. But it sounded like a "Big-C conservative" criticism of the cast of one of my plays.

Had a shot of Averna and drifted home. And... that was it. Tiptoed out at dawn, took the "Leonardo Express" to the airport and... that was it. Binged Upstart Crow on the flight home, finished Voices of the Old Sea, watched some well-meaning but poorly made films and called it a trip.

Sara, Milo, and Ruggles were very happy to have me home. Ruggles' eyes were wide with surprise.

A really nice sabbatical in a crossroads year. Will I return before I work again? Nice to think about... "Picture It, Sicily 2018!"

I do want to return, found it very moving. And I will...(inshallah), but.... there are plays to produce, a life to live!

Arrivaderci, Roma! Mwah, Malta! You were an eternal diversion, and I am grateful.

Thanks for reading, foooools!

The Day of the Octopus

"But Presley," she had murmured, "that is not literature."
"No," he had cried between his teeth, "no, thank God, it is not."

Several weeks ago, when I was planning the trip, an outstanding question was, "How to get back to Rome from Sicily?" This was necessary, because I needed to fly from Rome to London to catch the return flight home. From Catania, Rome, is about eleven hours away by car or train, essentially a full day. There's an overnight, but then you have to get a room to agree to let you in around 6am, which they often dislike. You can fly, but by this point, I was half sick of airports, and I would have another day of them approaching. 

That said, the Rome airport and its transportation opportunities to the city... might be one of the very best. I also wasn't sure, during the planning stage where I was going to be when it was time to make the call. As it played out, I was in Catania, and I chose to take the early train and read a long book. 

In this case, it was The Octopus by Frank Norris, "The Moby Dick of Wheat!", a hard-hitting social novel about the effect of the nascent train industry on wheat farmers in California. I had previously read McTeague by Norris and loved it, and I have a friend who is a Norris evangelist, and, crucially, I would be on a train. To read The Octopus on a train?! Supreme! It would be like reading The Count of Monte Cristo in prison! 

650 pages and eleven hours awaited me as I left the Pupi Room and headed to the station. 

I had a bone in my throat from the previous night's frightening fried fish fest. It wouldn't cough out and I could not see it. It was far back, and attempts to blindly fish it out with a toothbrush felt like bulimia practice. Just before I left I used the wifi to see what the internet suggested, and they said "drink olive oil." Cracked me up.

The Pupi Room came with nothing. No toilet paper, no soap. No kitchen in which one could cook. It was bare (fish) bones, but there was, hilariously, a small bottle of olive oil. I remember seeing it and remember wondering why, with no stove, it was there. Now I knew! Ripped off the cap and took a deep draught. Felt it coat my throat and snag the bone at once, but it didn't quite dislodge it.

Headed out to let it work its magic. Tossed some apple cores in the public trash on the way (The Pupi Room didn't have a waste basket).

While I tried to work at it with my tongue, I also felt I had a bone in my mind. I was wondering why I responded so quickly to the "natural" line in the Lawrence thing. Had I fallen victim to one of the classic blunders? It was sort of equivalent to calling them "primitive."

Like, sigh, our High Western sense of culture has taken us too far above our "natural state. Oh, well, there's no turning back for us, we've seen too many paintings, but these charming rascals must be like the First Men. Can always dip down here to see what life would be like if I'd never read the Bronte sisters."

One of those double-sided complements like, "oh, these hip hop lyrics really boil down our essence, you know, into the simple things: The need for shelter, finding a mate, and a good source of food. Oh, and the violence one must employ in order to gather these things. This is how we were once, a fine reminder of what we've moved past."

How do we use the tools of culture to "other" people? How do we use the symbols of "civilization" to elevate ourselves? And why? For power? It's like the sick and cowardly way people correct other people's grammar or "tone police" their "vulgarity" on the internet when they can't fight the argument. The big news story that morning was about a group of young men in the US taunting a Native American at a political rally. The smirk of the leader seemed to embody this.

These thoughts and questions were too much to tackle in the cool air on the walk to the stazione (or here), but it is a faithful record of where my mind was at this stage of the trip and how I was processing my physical and mental responses to this incredible place. I loved Sicily and the way it challenged me and made me feel and think.

Every day a festival! Every night a feast!

Long walk, but my pack was light. Reading the books had really worked! Got a bottled water and boarded with no trouble. The seat I was in was where I would be for a very long time. Pull that cord, conductor! Pull it!

Turned back the cover of The Octopus, and we were off. 

 

Small crowd, and I had a lot of room to stretch my legs. I wondered how many of the faces I was seeing I would see again in Rome and how many would get off along the way. An old man with one eye blue from cataracts, a woman wearing a gomesi, an intense football fan with a well-oiled beard. It looked like it could peel a lemon, this beard. He was as gorgeous as a gangster, as handsome as a hooligan.

The train moved north, past Taormina, toward Messina on the northeast coast.

Everyone watched videos on their phone at full volume, a wild intrusive cacophony of sound. No one seemed to mind, and in any case they were watching their own loud videos. It's just how they do here. 

Despite this, the pages of the Octopus flew by. It occurred to me how easily he made it seem to establish and identify individual characters, something so difficult for the author of the last book I'd read, and I was very quickly angry at the capitalist villains pretending it was "market forces" that drove them and not personal greed or malice. Some, it seems, are better able to see and ride these "natural forces" of profitable energy and some are not. 

If it felt a lot like the natural vs. unnatural argument, it's because it was. The theme of the trip! 

The song of the trip, alas, is "Crying" by Aerosmith. I heard it everywhere for some reason. Taxis, train stations, restaurants. It's having an Italian (and Maltese) Renaissance. Why? A deeper question than the others! I was crying when I met you, now I'm dying to forget you. 

And then, oh, and then and then and then, I was una sposa sposata con stupore. The train had reached Messina and was being BOARDED ONTO A FERRY! The entire train was taking a boat ride! I don't mean the people getting off the train and getting onto a ferry, I mean THE CARS OF THE TRAIN DROVE ONTO THE FERRY.

It swallowed us up like something from a 70s Bond film. I had thought maybe there was a bridge between Sicily and mainland Italy, but there is not a bridge. 

You could get out of the train and walk around on the ferry, so I did. A man was selling arancini on the deck, so I bought some. Though I spoke only Italian to the merchant it was easy to tell I was not a native speaker, and a man in line asked me where I was from. When I told him Seattle, he said, "Ah, North of New York." 

I wondered if he had thought I'd said Syracuse, but I sort of drew a map of the US in the air, and showed him where it was. "Ah!" he said, "Near California. I was once in Miami!" I smiled and held my arancini in the air to toast his health. He smiled back. A very friendly encounter and a good parallel to when the guy in Bari had told me he was from Hungary. I was like, "Ah, Budapest!" and he was like, "Nowhere near Budapest, but you have a great time here in Bari, ok?" 

Ate on the deck and watched Messina disappear. The cold, cold sea air was much appreciated. Farewell, Sicily! For real this time. Got back on the train, train was dragged off the ferry and reassembled itself, and we were off. 

And we never stopped again for more than a few moments. Naples took a few minutes because of the bigger crowd getting on. A family of three sat with me for about two hours. Parents with a son in his early 20s. They ate homemade sandwiches, drank beer, and ate chocolate. Whenever the mother would speak to the son, he would roll his eyes, and she would smile. Then.... and then and then and then, he said it... he actually said: "Mamma Mia!" 

My Italian bingo card was complete!  

They were pleasant enough. At one point the father massaged his son's hands. I didn't speak to them, though. Better to be thought an American than to speak and remove all doubt.  

I stayed true and disciplined to my task, rarely looking up from the book. It was like the invisible hand of the marketplace was turning the pages! How they melted! There was a funny line about a woman with low stamina. It said "she easily obliterated herself." There were many relevant speeches about worker's rights and capitalism. I used to think of books from the 30s as being the authority on this theme, but this is from 1901. He, Norris, died at 32 from a goddamn burst appendix. A great loss. I wonder what battles he and Sinclair Lewis may have had on the bestseller lists, he and Dos Passos. 

We were stuck briefly in Somewhere. A guy with a cigarette in his mouth came over and kicked the side of the train a few times while another guy with a cigarette in his mouth watched him. They worked for the railroad. There must have been some magic in that old leather shoe they found, because the train sprang back to life. 

And then Rome! The man with the cataracts was still with me. With delays, the trip had taken almost twelve hours. I had read 600 pages and had fifty to go. I was starving. The first place I saw was called The Guiliani Cafe, so I kept moving to my apartment. My host checked me in, and I ran to the closest pizza place. Ripped off thirty more pages and stuffed myself. 

At home I finished the last twenty. I had done it! I had read The Octopus in a day! The Day of the Octopus! One of my greatest accomplishments! 

I obliterated myself all over the sheets and slept like a righteous man. Sometime in the night, the bone in my throat must have dislodged. I no longer feel it. 

Taking Taormina by Strategy

"And that is how Sicilians are. So terribly physically. They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips. They catch each other under the chin, with a tender caress of the hand, and they smile with sunny melting tenderness into each other’s face. Never in the world have I seen such melting tenderness as between casual Sicilians on railway platforms."

Powered through and stayed up past seven so I could have a proper dinner. The streets were alive. It was like Carnival, though just an ordinary Saturday. I suppose when you grow up in the shadow of an active volcano, you decide to live while you can. Everyone was out and dressed and going wild. Old men with tight, grey mustaches doubled over in laughter, children's mouths giallo with gelato, clowns tipping invisible hats, Senegalese selling neon wands.

As I made my way to the cocktail district, I was met with a similar scene to that of the old town in Ostuni, teens and tweens everywhere! Kissing on motorcycles, kissing in corners, faces greasy with kebab meat. Professors rode their walking sticks like witches and women swung their helmets in wild circles. It all seemed to justify the morning markets, They need blood and protein in huge amounts to fuel these ecstatic nights!

Ducked out of the crowd and into a bohemian bar. It was the sort of place that won't serve you until you've undergone an "interview" with the bartender, who must first determine your "palate" and then apply a "Sicilian twist" to a classic drink. It was absurd, and it took a long time, and my interlocutor had a curly mustache. But I bought in, and god damn if it wasn't one of the best drinks of my life, a kind of Mandarin Orange Rye Thing with a Basil Leaf.

I had brought the script of the play with me and I read and edited while I drank. I couldn't remember if it was "write drunk, edit sober" or "write and edit drunk," so I had a second cocktail. I resisted the third with tremendous effort.

At the table next to me, an Irishman was discussing a friend of his. He said:

"He was an excellent dungeon master, could tell a story that would have you riveted, loved playing with him. But he would ruin you at darts, out-think you. And he threw so hard. I still hear the sound. I couldn't compete. 

He shot me once. In the kitchen. We had been hunting, and we brought our kill and our rifles into the kitchen. His went off and got me. I was bleeding. And when he saw it, he fainted. And when I saw him pale and on the ground, I thought, 'got you at last, you bugger.'" 

I was amazed by this tale.

The place was very crowded by this point, many people lined up for their interview. I asked a server to find my bartender, so I could pay. She told me she knew what I had had and told me the price. 

It seemed too intimate, somehow, that she, a total stranger, knew my palate.

Outside, the crowd had grown even thicker. Thankfully, I was well greased with mandarin-infusions, and slipped easily home. I navigated the ladder to the loft with a practiced ease. Slept and slept. 

I was awakened by the sound of a screaming child, a shouting adult, and the sounds of violence. Perhaps the nun from yesterday had caught one the slower kids. it was terrible to hear. I thought of my stepson. I thought of the children in my life. I thought of myself. I suppose when you grow up in the shadow of an active volcano, you don't have the time for sympathetic parenting. 

I took a shower to drown it out, and when I emerged clean, the world was at peace. For the moment. Got my day-bag together and went out to photograph a mural of Clint Eastwood fighting Darth Vader. I had seen it the previous day when it was too dark to capture.

On the walk, I saw men setting up the market, and a man in a white apron was unloading thick slabs of "carni equine." Horse meat. All around me, butchers were prepping their tables as they have for centuries. 

If history has a sound, it's the endless ring of cleavers striking marble through meat and bone. 

There wasn't a shower around to drown it out, so I hurried to the alley and got the shot. Hilarious and strange. Made my way to a neighborhood called "San Berillo" a former red-light district the police handed over to artists. Happily snapped murals and paintings on brick walls while a group of Tunisians warmed themselves over a fire they'd built in an alley. 

A women croaked "Ciao" from a doorway completely hidden in shadow. I jumped and "Ciao"ed back. A good fright! On the road to the train station I saw a strange park statue of a man poking out of a book. I don't think I've seen one like that before. They usually have the author reading to people or holding a book. This guy was like, "Hey, it's me! Betcha thought it'd be words in here, but nope! It's me." 

Station was easy to navigate. The rail system here is excellent. Simple to buy tickets, and the trains go everywhere. Taormina was only an hour away. The part in the Odyssey where the Cyclops loses his shit and hucks rocks at our boys is said to have happened around here. 

Got very close to the end of The Historian, which I was recognizing to be a bad book. But.. it was my only friend, so I kept reading it.   

Taormina! Such a place! Nestled in the hills and charming as a cocktail interview. Fabulous, finely manicured mountain town with a marvelous main pedestrian road carving through a welcoming collection of shops, cafes and plazas with tremendous views of the sea. 

And an ancient amphitheater from antiquity! And it was here I learned the little fried teardrops I've been enjoying are called "arancini." A new favorite to rival burek! I had one stuffed with pistachio risotto! The "typical product" of this city is porcelain, specifically porcelain heads, sometimes called "Moorish" heads. They were everywhere and often gloriously beautiful (and expensive). 

I priced some salt and pepper shakers and instead of telling me the price, the old shopkeeper said, "One thousand year ago, Arab here. Arab! You understand?" He drew his thumb across his throat and made a sound like a busted bicycle chain. "They cut off heads. But now we sell their heads. You see?"

And fill them with pepper. 

I was disinclined to buy one after this, but not even that tale could darken the Delights of Taormina! An absolutely charming place with spectacular vantage points for marveling at the hills and the Ionian Sea! Sorry, Adriatic, you had your turn. Behold the glistening green of the Ionian!    

A read a plaque about a famous hotel where, it is said, many famous authors stayed. It made a point of saying Oscar Wilde told Andre Gide to take a room there. Those dudes only wrote to tell one another places where the man wouldn't hassle you for "the love that dare not speak its name." But the plaque didn't say that. 

The amphitheater was no Plovdiv amphitheater, but it was very nice. And as active as Etna! They still do concerts there with regularity. The views were... incredible. Deep green hills and villages hidden in the clouds, seascapes extending to forever. I had hesitated to pay the entrance fee, but it was the right choice on a perfect day. I lingered for an hour, sat on a marble bench and finished the book. Into the trash with you, buddy. You were disappointing, but you were also with me when I needed you. And there was a chapter in the Rila Monastery, and I've been there! So... I have complicated feelings where you are concerned. 

As I do with this vital, magical, terrifying island. Such beauty, such savagery! Such humanity! So thrilling and uncomfortable and rewarding at once.

The town center featured a little fountain with a centaur missing her two front legs. So, she became a sort of satyr in my mind. There were sprays of purple flowers and juicy prickly pears. Just for me the church bells rang.

It took a long time to get a taxi to the "stazione." But I did. 

Back in Catania I packed my bag. We have come almost to the end. It's mostly going to be two long travel days with a pilgrimage to the Spanish Steps sandwiched between. I take an eleven-hour ride to Rome in the morning.

Went out for one last Sicilian meal, and though Sunday evening the streets overflowed with families pushing strollers and shopping for bargains. Loud arguments over quiet espressos. I hadn't had fish yet, so I went to a place offering a "fried mix."

It was... all heads and spines with a light breading. Eyes and fins. Everyone else was just sluppering it up, waving gills around, spraying scales from their mouths as they laughed. I did my best to eat as much as I could. A beer helped.

While I ate, I read DH Lawrence's "Sea and Sardinia" and by some sort of magic, the section I landed on describes being on a train trip almost identical to the one I took this morning. He is going from Messina to Palermo.

On the train, a little girl is unwell. She walks between cars to throw up. Nobody holds her hair or goes to see if she's all right. She just pukes and comes back. 

He says, "They (the Sicilians) just quite naturally leave it alone to its convulsions, and are neither distressed nor repelled. It just is so. Their naturalness seems unnatural to us."

That passage, which I read over the cone of fried fish guts, seemed to capture it for me. I read into it the beaten child, the kissing in the street, the porcelain heads, the blood-soaked markets of horse meat, the shrugging at the volcano.

It's a bit reductive, this word "natural," but I felt like I knew what he was suggesting. I responded to it.

I came here to read and think and have new experiences, and the beauty of Taormina and that moment at night with the Lawrence passage seemed to encapsulate the purpose all at once. A beautiful day, one of the very best. 

Elephants of Clay, Elephants of Lava

"You know it makes sense, don't even think about it. Life and death are just things you do when you're bored."

The ferry from Malta lands at a port city named Pozzallo, where a small mini-van (suspiciously marshrutka-like) takes you to Catania. It was a pleasant ride, and I ripped off another hundred or so pages of The Historian. May the lord love and keep this compelling block of book-cheese. I used my mustache scissors to cut it in half. It's 700 pages long. The goal with this trip (and all trips) is to bring a bag heavy with books, leave them wherever I finish them, and head home with a light bag. So far, it's going very well. A hacked half of a vampire novel lays undead in a net behind an Italian bus seat. 

The first glimpse of the city was a strange industrial area where famous street artists had been allowed to decorate some chemical silos. I recognized several styles. My favorite was painted to look like a Campbell's soup can of "Minotaur Stew." I thought never to have a chance to photograph them, but the bus dropped us off only twenty minutes later. The station had a strange, crucified Batman hanging over the entry-arch. What is this place?

The trip was supposed to take seven hours but took only four, so I couldn't get into my room yet. Decided to double back and try to capture the silos. After a long walk, I was chased off by soldiers. So, a long walk back. Such is the pursuit of these things. Sometimes you drink the Minotaur Stew and sometimes it drinks you. Explored for a while, but my pack started to feel like too much (despite all the reading I'd jettisoned). I'd been up for a long time, that early early Maltese cab ride was a lot. 

It's Italy, so I quickly found a place to grab a "cappuccino" and some kind of roll stuffed with hot dogs and peppers. 

 

Town made a nice first impression, kind of a colorful Eastern Europe-vibe to it. A little shabbiness, a lot of faded grandeur, lively people talking with their hands. It's like if Miss Havisham shook off the dust one day and was like, "What have I been doing in this moldy old room? Time for this old bird to stretch her wings once more." 

In the shadow of a volcano, Mt. Etna, this place has seen its share of destruction over the centuries. Lava flowing down and trashing the place. They just take all the lava rock and make sidewalks out of it. And gates. And elephants. The symbol of Catania is the elephant. There's a very pleasant one made of black lava stone holding up an obelisk above a fountain.

It's a big deal, this fountain, and it was an unplanned pleasantness that my coffee shop was quite near it.

Once you know to look for them, you see elephants in curious places as diverse as "no parking" signs and woven into the logos of local businesses. There are many theories as to why this is so, but my favorite is an old legend about an 8th-century wizard who had business in both Catania and Constantinople. He had a pail filled with a special clay he would shape into the form of an elephant, which would then come to life and carry him where he needed to be. An elephant made of clay that comes to life. It's like The Golem, Genesis, and Hannibal all at once. 

Gobbled up a about fifty more pages of this delightful book and moved along. 

I still had an hour to kill, so I walked up Via Etnea and looked for something that wasn't hot dogs. Broad avenue with a lot of boutiques and activity. I made myself laugh thinking "Saldi" was a chain of discount stores, but it means "sale." A group of workmen were dismantling enormous holiday displays lining the avenue further than the eye could see. Miles of white frames with colored lights being slotted into trucks for storage. 

Found a little broccoli place and ate some broccoli and some kind of fried teardrop filled with rice. I would see these things everywhere, filled with... everything. I don't know yet what they're called, but they're a nice alternative to a roll or puff pastry. Stretched my legs and ate slowly, the taste of olive oil dominating everything on the plate. 

Eventually, I got a message from my host telling me her husband Mario would meet me to let me into the apartment in ten minutes. Paid and hurried over there. A group of Italian men stood in front of the building, and I was slow to just start yelling "Mario" at them. One of them guessed who I was, though, and saved me the embarrassment. I was let into a very tiny but very sweet loft called The Pupi Room. 

Pupi means "puppet" and said puppet was a large marionette of a soldier in the corner. It didn't stop me from cracking up at the name, though, (after Mario left). I made puppets in the water closet and took a long nap.    

Popped out for a quick dinner of "macaroni" and "fernet" with some pistachio gelato. All very fine. I haven't really been feeding myself very well on this trip, and a lot of it is because the places with good food don't open until 8 or 9 pm. They eat late here. I've been waking up at 5 and going to sleep by 7, so.. it's just the shameless places available to me. I'll need to rectify that before I leave and have one really good meal. 

Back to the room for writing, reading, and sleeping. It came slow, since the plumbing here gives a terrifying shriek every nine minutes or so, some kind of hydraulic pipe refilling a tank or something. It's the sort of thing a traveling companion would demand we change rooms over. It sounds like a power tool. Oh, well. It's only three nights! 

Woke up to a bunch of kids being yelled at by a nun with no discipline. She had lost all authority, and they were going wild. It wasn't so bad. Washed my face, my hair and proto-beard still crazy, and got out into it. Early morning; men played dice in front of a church. They were intense, humming as the dice were being rolled, suddenly silent as they settled, and roaring at the result. 

A man was almost hit by a car. It honked at him, and he hooted back. Though early, the streets and piazzas were filling up. I ducked out of the crowd, and behind a fountain discovered I was in a crazy fish market. It was a painting. Bright fish, many still breathing, arranged in fans and piles, glistening, gasping. Boys with bowls of seawater refreshed them at intervals. 

I was amazed and sickened, a confusing mix of revulsion and desire.

Blood stained the hastily written cards telling the market price.  

I've been in many similar markets, but this one was unique for its size, variety, and the almost sadistic effort to prolong the life of the fish. Shrimp of a kind I've never seen moved their legs with a kind of feeble defiance and arched their backs. Mussels pulsed. Life is murder. 

I moved through it to the meat area where clean bifurcated lambs hung from hooks. Ah, the meat section. They looked like anatomy posters, red and white half-creatures with their organs removed with the exception, I could not help but notice, of the liver left in its place. 

And those tables went on forever as well, as far beyond my range of sight as the holiday frames on Via Etnea. If you live here, you eat fresh food every night, and you belong in jail. The cell next to mine.

It affected me to the degree that even the vegetables, when I reached them, seemed like viscera to me. The bell peppers bladders, the cucumbers intestines, the beans giblets. 

It was one of those moments where what you're witnessing moves you to to change your life, to change the world, but you feel helpless. You feel like you spend most of your waking hours suppressing the concept that nothing lives without the corresponding exploitation or slaughter of something else. A trade of life for life. 

I reached the end, found a cafe, and had my first coffee of the morning. And a croissant. The guilt and disgust slowly fading. I read some more of that dumb, awesome book and went back out. 

The croissant was created to commemorate the defeat of the Turks by the Viennese in 1683. It's a crescent you destroy, said crescent being the symbol on the Turkish flag. When you eat one, you are celebrating the death of the Ottoman Empire. 

Did my favorite sort of wander, just looked for something on the horizon and headed for it. I'd left my phone and all maps in the Pupi Room. A black and white gate was far ahead, so that was the way. Long meander through a sort of urban area zoned for small shops. Most sold conveniences, many sold puppets, several sold magnificent porcelain heads. It's a much-prized art here. I was quite taken with them. 

When I reached the gate I was rewarded with a quiet plaza and a sign telling me it was The Porta Garibaldi. Made of lava and striped like something from a Tim Burton film. Random alleys and cul de sacs and a sudden view of Mt. Etna spewing smoke! I gasped. A moment of wonder. Looking down the next alley and the next, there was no view at all. Choosing that alley had been a marvelous instance of random fortune!

Further down were the remains of a giant lava stadium with curved arches, a kind of burned-out response to the Colosseum. Street cats, pimps, and piazzas. And then I had somehow curved back to the elephant fountain. How about that. A healthy walk and not yet noon. I wasn't quite ready to head back home, so I bought a fancy coat from a fancy store. I need something to take the place of all those books I've left on buses.  

Huge protest with no one over twenty filled the street and halted traffic. Signs written on sheets. Songs, laughter, youth. Teenagers with plastic megaphones led the children in call and response. Was it related to the morning chaos that had woken me up?

Siesta at home, then up in the early evening to do laundry! Laundry!

Found a place that does it in a neighborhood I hadn't been in yet and... discovered another fish and lamb market! As big as the first! What fierce appetites this place must have to support two such vast markets. I was amazed, but less depressed for some reason. Resignation? 

Did my laundry and melted more of that book. Ate another fried tear drop. It had spinach in it.

When I returned to the washing machine and removed my clothes they smelled pleasantly of soap, but I had used none. 

Rainstorm in The Silent City

"Soon the room had that desolate look that comes from the chaos of packing up to go away and, worse, from removing the shade from the lamp. Never, never take the shade off a lamp! A lampshade is something sacred."

Last day in Malta. I slept in a little, since the early hours were a little grey. No hurry to rush out into that. When I woke up, I took a nice hot shower and ate an orange. Like a person. The instant coffee my hosts had provided had run out, so I boiled milk in the kettle and drank it hot and foaming with some brown sugar. The home had a little open-air balcony, which I climbed to. From that vantage I could see the horizon showed some blue promise, so I got my act together.

No one was home as I crept down the stairs, but Bones the family dog came running up with a huge blanket in his mouth. We played tug of war for a while. He snapped and growled with delight. I gave him a few affectionate punches and headed out.

Walked down to the ferries area where, my guide book swore, I would be able to catch a bus to Mdina, known as The Silent City, in the center of the island. Had breakfast at an hilarious "football club" bar on a skinny side street. Men smoked and played a casino game. Men drank amaretto for breakfast. Men binge-watched Homecoming, getting very excited at any abduction scenes or any scenes featuring a "murderous Arab."

It was almost liking watching cartoons with children. When I asked for food, the exchange went like this:

Do you have a menu?
"I am menu. We have hamcheese sandwich."
Haha. Ok, one ham cheese sandwich, please.
"With butter?"
Haha. Ok. With butter. And a latte, please.
"No latte. Only coffee."
Ok, and a coffee. "Two euro."
Ok. Thank you.

The sandwich arrived cold, buttered white bread with ham and cheese. It was delicious, as was the coffee. I sat in my plastic chair, read The Historian, and listened to the old men cry out at the sound of electronic coins "falling" after a big win. The book is good, cheesy and charming, with great cliffhangers. 

Finished up and paid. Some...things lay suspended in liquid in a jar on the bar's surface. I couldn't tell if they were eggs, mushrooms, or chestnuts.  I wondered how drunk you would need to be to reach into that jar. How many breakfast amarettoes. It was getting close to bus time. 

I'd thought before about how much like a British colony this place felt, but never more so than on the bus with all the elderly British tourists. It was like being on a little cart from Ambleside to Barrow in Furness. Muttering and cooing. They were a perfect ambient guide for me when the rain came. The bus windows fogged up, so I couldn't see, but when they all got off I did too. Surely they were all also going to Mdina. 

They were. Wet little village area led to a small park leading to a marvelously peaceful and impressive walled city. The entrance was used as a surrogate for King's Landing in Game of Thrones. Ah! I tried to imagine being a location scout, seeing this place and making a panicked call to the producer. "Book it, book it now. I've found it." Old stone and seclusion. Romantic and ancient-seeming. 

As I entered, the rain came down in earnest. I couldn't pretend it wasn't dangerous for my camera and books. Ducked into a gift shop and bought some hilarious, tacky souvenirs (including a Maltese Falcon!), and swam over to a quiet "trattoria" for a coffee and hamburger. Just like the ancients! Read more of the buttered ham and cheese charm of The Historian and waited out the rain. 

Which soon stopped.

And then the day was perfect. Clean, cool air, and everything sparkling and new. An absolutely peaceful walk on the old stone roads of a twisting, magical place. Mdina is highly recommended. It's like a tiny Dubrovnik without the population of war criminals. I was seduced by its demure charms. 

The guy who got rich writing Six Feet Under moved here and has the "most Instagrammable doorway in Mdina." I could not find it immediately on my own, but a guide in a little info booth helped me get my bearings. Hilariously, he had a sign on his desk reading "I do not help with treasure hunts." 

It was nice, the door, as was this whole place in the post-rain, pre-spring air. I would have been very happy to have spent more time there. Bused back and marveled at the dome of a city called Mosta. It looked like another dazzler to visit, but since I was... mosta the way home already, I didn't disembark. 

Some thugs boarded around Paceville, Malta's crime and club district!, but mostly just menaced one another. Their muhers took selfies and crowded one another. I took a great liking to the cove of St. Julian with its small, colorful fishing boats. The sky was huge and the Adriatic reflected a pink, glittering bridge of sunset. 

Around a turn, Valletta bristled with invitation. Come back, come back to me. 

At the ferries in Sliema, I got off and made my last walk from the shore to my room. Farewell, Malta. You were an interesting place with many strange influences.  

Bones greeted me again, the long trailing blanket in his mouth. A barky, wrestling reunion. 

It was still very early evening, but I packed for the morning ferry. My beard and mustache are a frightful pair of Paceville rogues. The former growing in like a Detroit herb garden and the latter resembling the lazy, drooping teeth of a carnivorous plant. I looked like a fly-eater. Went out for scissors to trim with and a final meal. Brought the book with me. I'd ripped off 200 pages already today. Really responding to its "intelligent beach book" flair. 

Found the scissors at an hilarious mini-mart overflowing with fruit and maxi-pads, celery and shampoo. Rotisserie chickens turned and spat in a little oven on the floor. They were selling very briskly.  I considered it.. but went for tortellini at a nearby cafe. Quietly reading and eating. 

Then home where the host family all waited in a peaceful scene with Bonesy at their feet and little blankets gathered around them. We had a very nice long conversation about the world and everything in it. The hostess noted that Malta was shaped like a fish. I agreed that it was. They begged me to come back. I pledged to return. Supremely friendly people in a very beautiful home. I hope Brexit doesn't cause them any difficulty. 

Early sleep, which came easily. 

A taxi collected me in the dark and took me to the remote ferry pickup. It was pretty far away, but we made it. No traffic at this unearthly hour. The radio played Tina Turner and not a house cover of Tina Turner, for which I was grateful. 

The ferry itself is an enormous floating shopping mall, a Duty Free Shoppe of the Sea. And yet it had its charms. I was bound for Sicily, the tail of Malta's fish slowly disappearing behind me. Thank you, old Maltese Knights for saving it from the Saracens. I return now to Italy many books lighter and one falcon heavier. 

They are showing a short film on the ferry and the passengers, strangers to one another, are laughing and sighing as one, touched by the same moments.  

Clipped at The Blue Lagoon

"Economic depression seems about the only reliable note of hope in the matter of saving the countryside. It is too late now, for instance, for Malta to recall the Saracens to defeat those who are building condominiums. Famine and plague, which worked wonders in the past, are also hard to find (unless one travels to the East at great expense). The major hope can only be a stupendous, world-wide economic catastrophe which would certainly make sun-bathing seem frivolous and quickly reduce the new buildings of Malta to ruin."

Had a quick drink at a local place before bed. I was influenced by a number of airport advertisements to try the "Game of Thrones-themed" Johnnie Walker whiskey. The bartender had to crack the seal. I was the only one, it seems, susceptible to the billboards. It was just fine. The bar's owner showed up and sort of hovered by everyone's table in turn, not saying anything, just sort of being there. 

It wasn't too different from the slippered man in Naples. I finished my sponsored tie-in drink and left. Arrived home just in time to see the results of the Brexit-plan vote. History! And a wonderfully old-fashioned scene in which to experience it. The family I am staying with was all gathered around the television waiting to see what would happen. It was like the cover of an old Saturday Evening Post. 

The Prime Minister is in trouble. The kids went to bed, and my hosts and I stayed up to learn more about one another. They expressed interest in my plays and told me interesting things about the furniture in their home. The Maltese tile on the floors is a marvel. It was nice and the first actual conversation I've had in over a week. 

Slept well and woke up early for a cruise to Gozo, a separate island just north of the mainland (which is also an island). The main draw was a charming little cove called The Blue Lagoon. It was on Game of Thrones. I had had the whiskey, so I felt compelled.  

Very sweet morning in a city I have become quickly familiar with. Fishermen sold the dawn catch from the back of their trucks, a barista sang "If I Could Turn Back Time" in heavily accented English. I ate paztizzi, enjoyed a latte, and read a short essay on Malta from the '70s. It was dramatically out of date, but I loved the bit in the author's bio where it said he kept food on the table during The Depression by writing crossword puzzles.

Whenever my attention flagged, I thought, "aw, this guy wrote crossword puzzles," and I pushed through. It was the same with The White Guard. I had to force myself through large sections by thinking, "aw, I saw this guy's house in Kyiv." Very susceptible to airport billboards and "About the Author" copy.

As well, I've become super interested in Caravaggio thanks to a blurb in a travel guide. I've enjoyed his style, but his biography is craaazy. All sorts of exiles and duels and papal reprieves, and a mysterious death. On top of all the awesome work. Can't wait to dig into HIS bio when I get back.

Finished my sensible breakfast and headed for the docks. Bought a ticket from a one-eyed Irish woman. She asked me where I was from, and when I said Seattle, she said, "Cull. It's a cull city to be from." I bet she says that to all the cities. I boarded the Captain Morgan Cruise ship, and we were off.

Gorgeous morning with dramatic, orange light washing over Valletta and teasing out pink and peach stones. The sea was rough, and waves crashed on the little jetties and lighthouses, high arcs of foam bright white against the dark blue.

It made me think of the first scene in Merchant of Venice where the dude is like, "ugh, my ship wrecked and my silks enrobe the waves!" and his buddy is like, "honey, your mind is tossing on the ocean."

Long, luxuriously chilly sail with the curvature of the earth seemingly visible on the horizon. It felt so remote, though land was very close. The waterfronts of the inhabitable shores here are, to be blunt, destroyed by condominiums. Violently ugly and tragically identical to one another. The Borg would be like, "Yikes, maybe some diversity is in order. Maybe mix in a new design?"

I went back and forth on it in my mind. I was like, "people need places to live," but from what I can tell these are all speculative towers they hope the wealthy will move into. Who would? Who would want to? Factories would have been preferable to these assembly line horrors. BUT, if you look the other way... wine-dark glory, the sea itself! So, perhaps the concept is: "the only way to avoid witnessing the terror of this building is to move into it!" An aesthetic blackmail.

I turned back to the blue. 

The cruise included an open bar of beer, wine, and water. Folks were loading up, getting their money's worth before lunch. I stuck to water, since none of the offerings featured a licensed HBO property, and that is all I drink now. I read a pretty lame biography of Catullus. I had thought it might give me a few cute details to add to the play, but... I couldn't get past the bad writing. And there was nothing in the author's bio to push me through. 

There was a cute bit about how a lady only liked pork from pigs fed from a strict diet of acorns. Oh, and the cover had a blurb from Boris Johnson! Brexit had followed me to Gozo! 

I liked the idea that politicians in the UK are also expected to have opinions on classical literature. Like, most of them went to Oxford and Cambridge where they make you learn Latin. So... 

It made me think of the Bush/Gore debate where they asked them their favorite books and Gore said The Red and the Black by Stendhal. That kind of high-falutin' talk will get the Supreme Court to invalidate your election win for sure. And it did. If only he'd said "The Pelican Brief" or something we'd have clean air and cool oceans.  

The breeze was penetrating my thin hoodie, but I let it. I liked being cold at this moment. People were getting drunk and taking dangerous selfies before lunch. It occurred to me there'd been no safety lecture and no signs pointed to life vests. The Maltese Lawsuit. 

As we got closer to Gozo, they made a long announcement in five (5) languages amounting to a hard sell to buy an extra ticket for a "trip to the caves." It was long and alternated between arabesque descriptions of untold wonder and gothic warnings. 

"We are about to dee-simbark in Camino which is home to the world fammis Blue Lagoon, fammis in all the world for it color and it clearness. You cannot say, ladies gentleman, that you have seen the sand through twainty maters of water, but here you can. We are partner with speed boat that will show you coral of peenk and coral of blue and take you to say-krit-a caverns where you can sweem and see your feet.

Many great film have been made here encluding the Popeye and the Gladiator, and it is the number one thing to see in all the Malta. We will be on a rock for three hours with no shops and NOTHING TO BUY OR EAT, and the rock is very small and there is no activity but the sun bathing. You may sit for three hour on the rock or you can see the peenk coral and the feesh and the blue coral and your own feet as you swim." 

This was in sharp contrast to the description of the tour which suggested we would have several hours in a charming old village on the island. But... the five-languages lady was saying (over and over again) that we would be abandoned on a rock in the freezing cold and left with nothing to buy! No shops! And we may as well pay the extra fee to see the caverns. Or, you know, we would be wasting our lives! 

I bought the ticket. Thirty minutes later, we were taken to a very nice little village with charming shops and coffee stands. A fleet of comfortably heated red vans collected us and showed us farms and figs and cheeses. I ate ravioli in a cafe, the concept of being abandoned on a rock as far away from reality as possible.   

The happy little red vans brought us back to the harbor where colorful "native" fishing boats bobbed. They had eyes painted on the bow, apparently a nod to a Turkish custom, but it had the effect of making them look like props from a Sid and Marty Krofft show. Follow me to Living Island, 

"Come and play with me, Jimmy, come and play with me. And I will take you on a trip, far across the sea." Bring your magic flute! 

The marks who bought the speed boat ticket were then asked to wait outside the main ship while the intelligent people boarded, then we were asked to walk to a different part of the wharf where some Shades pushed us onto a "speed boat" with vinyl flaps covering the cabin. They were completely opaque, impossible to see out of. 

A small opening in the back was the only viewing area. It attracted the selfie crowd who threatened to capsize us in their vanity. At least our corpses would be easy to locate in the "twenty maters of clayrest Gladiator waughtaire." It was a toootal ripoff with neither caves nor coral. Neither feesh nor feet. A homo habilus in a wool cap drove us in meaningless circles while we all cursed ourselves as fools. 

He brought us back to the cruise ship after about fifteen minutes, all of us enraged. Said ship was docked and the rest of the crowd was already climbing the rocks and getting great pictures of the blue lagoon. There had been absolutely no need to take the speed boat. 

Whuddya gonna do? A classic scam from the ancient world. God bless 'em, they need the euros more than I do. Some stayed behind to battle the pilot, who just shrugged, "Sometimes there is more coral than other times," but I counted it as a loss and tried to get up the hill before we ran out of time.  It was legitimately beautiful, and I could see the blue of the sea through the red of my anger. 

Everyone got trashed on the way back. Not me, though. I just read my bad Catullus book and thought about Brexit devastating Captain Morgan Cruises and how that may be the only positive to come out of an otherwise ruinous political action. 

At home, oranges were waiting for me. Coffee and comfort. Tomorrow I will see the interior. And I won't be anywhere near the water, and I won't spend a goddamn dime.

Unless they have nice shops. 

See Naples... And Die

Hey, goomba I love how you dance the rumba. But take some advice paisano, learn-a how to mambo (If you're gonna be a square you ain't-a gonna go nowhere).

     

There's a famous quote by Goethe, "See Naples and die!" which he was probably himself quoting (very few people say what they are said to have said). He meant, "It's so awesome, you can go to heaven knowing you've seen the best there is to see. It's all downhill from Naples, freunden!

I did not find much evidence of its charm in my brief time there. Mostly footpads and cutpurses trying to pry jewels from the eyes of stone idols (is how it seemed). I was there on account of it being the only place flying to Malta that day. So I had to take a train to catch a plane.

Crept out of the "cinema room" at a very early hour and took my final quiet walk through the Bari dawn. Very familiar with the route to the train station by now. Got in the line for the coffee, waved off the suggestion of an Americano (which I am consistently offered), got a croissant and a macchiato and waited for the 7:17 to Napoli.

Boarded in the rain, first of the trip, and it got heavier the further West we traveled. Three hours vanished while I finished the book about the Egyptian revolution. It was good. God bless those Ivy League kids with rich parents who travel the world as journalists. She captured a chaotic time in a very thoughtful way.

Everyone around me slept, their heavy hoods covering their faces. A train of Jawas.  Wake up, don't you know there was a revolution in Egypt? Don't you want to know about it?

We changed trains at someplace called Caserta, the new train was so tiny I almost missed it. Like, it was just two small old-school cars linked together. When we got to Naples, it was coming down hard. Stopped in a cafe, but an old dude in slippers stood right in front of my table clenching and unclenching his fists. Hard to eat with that going on. Then he sat next to me, so I got up and left.

Outside, I teamed up with some other folks trying to get the hell out, and we convinced a cab driver to take us to the airport for almost nothing. He insisted the girls sit in front with him. "Don't tell my wife," he joked.  Har!

He chatted them up the whole trip. "Did you know Napoli is the BEST city in Italy? I have never left it. There are four castles here and many palaces! What are you studying? Why are you alone? Why are you leaving Napoli when there is no place as nice?" Despite the rain and his priapism, we made it in one piece. 

My ticket was for an airline called Ryanair, which has "won" Worst Airline in Europe six years in a row. It worked out all right for me, though. I think the bad rap comes from how they nickel and dime you on everything. Like, it's: "Cheap tickets! Twenty euro to Paris. Oh, you want to bring your purse? Another five euros, it's nothing. Yikes, a bag! Yeah, that's another ten. You want a cup of water? Wow, you must be an Ivy League kid with rich parents traveling the world as a journalist."

I think most airlines monetize these things, but they don't start off pretending to be cheap. They were creeps about it too, chasing people down and taking their bags away. Oh! There was a charge of FIFTY-FIVE euros if you didn't download their app and check in with your phone.    

They actually sold lottery tickets on board. The flight attendants had to walk up and down the aisle asking people if they wanted any scratch-offs.   

Anyway, it was fine for me, but I read all the instructions. A started a book by Bulgakov called The White Guard. I had meant to read it in Ukraine, but I did not read it in Ukraine. 

Rainy in Malta as well, but it was island rain. Taxi guy blasted bad covers of "Fast Car" and a live Counting Crows concert on the way to Sliema, the Maltese town where I am staying. I made myself laugh imagining him asking me not to tell his wife. Two trains, a bus shuttle to the plane, a plane, and two taxis. A good day's work. 

My hosts are a family of four with an enormous envy-inducing home. Gorgeous marble staircase climbing up up up with marvels on every floor. My room is huge. Everyone was very friendly, and when they went out to walk the dog they showed me a nice place to eat. My hostess asked the manager of the restaurant to "take good care of me." 

I got a lamb chop and shared it with a little stray calico cat who came meowing up. The dear thing. When the waiter determined I was American he asked me if I wanted The Maltese Falcon, which was the name of the house red. I said yes. It's the Americano of Malta, but I wasn't insulted (instead, delighted). 

Had two glasses, bade farewell to Madame Calico and my senses, and drifted home. The whole family was still up to greet me. I slept hard. 

This is an interesting place, very much itself but soaked heavily in the baked-bean gravy of British colonialism They drive on the left here, which makes crossing the street an exercise in double takes. English is the primary language, with many natives unfamiliar with Maltese, and they have those red phone booths.

They also do that wicked, wicked UK thing where the liquor is poured first into a measuring horn before being added to your glass. Make sure the punters get the Queen's portion, mate! And yet!! It's a supremely magical place with history, stray cats, ruin porn, charming traditions, majestic views, and sparkling sea, on every triq. Triq means "street."

When DH Lawrence first saw it, he said: "The sun rises up in a gorgeous golden rage, and the sea so fairy blue! Rocks as pale as butter, islands like loitering shadows, heaped glitter!" A little more eloquent than "See Naples and die."

From what I could see in the morning light, it sure looked like Lawrence had it right. The rain had totally stopped, and it was just me, the laughing sea, and a hundred more stray cats. They are beloved here; I saw many crude shelters made for them, filled with food, and there was even a statue of a stray in the park by the promenade. Marvelous. I got a doughnut and jumped on a ferry to Velletta. That's the capital, you know.

It was too early to get a shot of the approach from the ferry (sun in a bad place), but I planned out exactly where I would stand on the way back. I wanted to be home again at noon, because my host told me an old woman rides up our triq on a bicycle selling bread every day at that hour. The elderly street residents lower baskets of coins by means of strings and pulleys, and the woman fills them with bread (first removing the coin).  I sure wanted to see that! 

But first, the gardens, churches, and stones of Valletta. A place of true charm! Especially on a day like this was. Teasing breezes, spiced air, bells. I leaped happily down the gangplank and into it, climbing up, up, up, stone stairs and terraced pavilions. 

Near a giant fountain, a cruise ship disgorged several hundred tourists. It was like the devil vomiting wasps. I sure disliked them, but I had to recall that great quote from Evelyn Waugh - "The tourist is always the other chap." 

Touche, Waugh. Touche. Assuming he said it.

I blended with them, and together we bought magnets and souvenirs at the charming little kiosks. Explored quite happily for hours, inspired and taking many notes and pictures. Everything was beautiful to me, especially the rough little back alleys with their ripped grandeur. Each crumbling little pied-à-terre was a duchess with typhus. I brushed back their grey stone hair and told them they were still as lovely as ever. Don't tell my wife.  

St. Paul is said to have wrecked a ship here and brought salvation to the natives. I love stories like that. His wrist bones are supposed to be rattling around in a reliquary up in a dome, but I went to a bookstore and got guilted into buying a Penguin edition of The Siege of Malta. I felt so sorry for the lady in her dusty little underground store off the path. 

She told me they fire a giant cannon at the Upper Barrakka Garden at noon, so I went on upper and sat in that many-arched garden and watched sailboats and marveled at the coves and fortresses on the horizon. At the stroke of noon, they played The British Grenadiers over a sound system, and two dudes in Grenadier drag yanked the string on a cannon. It was loud and drew a crowd. 

It occurred to me I had intended to be home to see the bicycling baker at this time. I had traded bread for artillery. Punished myself by finishing the Bulgakov in the garden. It was Russian as all hell, this book, which meant mostly impenetrable, suddenly incredibly funny, sad, meaningful, confusing again, then over. 

I left it on a trash can with the Maltese Cross stenciled on it in red and white paint. Got my shot of the skyline on the way back. Just like I planned it. If anyone asks, I'll tell them it was the approach. (Don't tell my wife). 

Gnocchi in the White City

"Hey mambo, don't wanna tarantella. Hey mambo, no more-a mozzarella. Hey mambo, mambo Italiano. (Try an enchilada with a fish-a baccala)"

                                                 

I first saw Ostuni on Instagram. I had been following the hashtag #sicily in preparation for that leg of the trip, and somebody posted lots of random Italian pictures tagging them all incorrectly. But it was nice, and I wanted to see it. Hilly old whitewashed town. It reminded me of Chefchaouen in Morocco, where the white was blue.

Puglia, the region where Bari and Ostuni lay, is full of gorgeous towns and villages, many of which seem very interesting to spend time in. I tried for a long time to work out a route where I could see several of them in a kind of circle tour. Train here, bus here. But..

Puglia is a little more rustic than other areas of Italy and, therefore, has a little less "tourist infrastructure." What this means in a practical sense is that I was unable to find trains and buses that would take me from one picturesque town to another in a scenic succession on a Sunday. It meant I would have to pick one town and enjoy it.

So I picked Ostuni.
 
                                                  

Quiet walk back to the train station. I had only my day-bag, so it was light work. Said bag is a tote my mother made me with soft fabric patterned with maps and vintage camera illustrations. I stuffed it full of books and lenses, and I liked to imagine this was what she pictured while she was sewing.

Misty pre-dawn light and no sound but my own footsteps. No signs either of last night's revelry. It's a tidy place is Bari. Train station was hopping, though. Folks were aggressive about their chocolate croissants. I chose not to join them. Got my tickets and headed on down. Having finished City of Night, my new companion would be a book of essays on the Egyptian revolution from 2011.

I also practiced saying "old city" in Italian, because, though there wasn't much about Ostuni online (and Puglia wasn't even in my travel guide!), the few things I did find in forums took pains to mention the train station was nowhere near the town center. I would have to ask a taxi driver.

In any case, it was, I think, a nice scene -- me in my pea coat sounding out a phrase with a book in my lap and endless groves of olive trees rolling by, the blue line of the Adriatic a constant companion to the tracks.

Arrived and had the first real confirmation that the tourist infrastructure was underdeveloped - the toilets were free!

                                                                
No taxis. I asked a guy at the coffee shop the best way to get to the, ah, city, ah... city of old.. ah... and he was like, "ah, cite bianca! you take bus." Where is the bus? "right outside." When does it come? "Every two hours." When was it last here? "You just miss." In that case, I'll have the large coffee, please.

I learned it's called the White City and not the Old City, so I adjusted. Drank my coffee and cleaned my pockets of the various tickets I'd acquired. Organized my euro coins into "useful" and "jetsam," but that only took three or so minutes, and then, miraculously, the bus arrived. I was so excited I called it Cite Blanca instead of Cite Bianca, but the driver worked out what I meant.

I was prepared to wait two hours, but he was there in five minutes. Dear old Bianca Bus. I was the only passenger. Long, winding ride through an industrial area, where the industry seemed to be wood pellets. And then, oh and then (and then), rising up was the Old City, The White City, Blancaburgh itself!

It's a real stunner and looks, charmingly, like something a child would make out of recycling. White boxes all stacked on top of one another all crazy-like. It was one of those things where you don't understand how the locals can get used to how amazing it is. How do they get any work done? Feels like you would just sit and look at it all day in wonder. Yeah, I'll bag up those wood pellets in a moment.. I just.. I just need another look at the city.

Driver was kind about showing me which of the many twisty roads led to the center, and out I was and off I was and up I was. A silent walk up a mild incline with endless homes and offices, all painted white and decorated with colorful shutters and green plants, mostly succulents. It was a tremendously pleasing aesthetic, not quite as severe as Santorini and its white and blue theme, but more... lived in.
     
                                                               
Nothing was open. It was as silent as a short story. The path eventually opened into a large square with a tremendous, ornate column, a bishop at the top giving a big old stone holler and waving his staff. A few old men, unable to sleep, were lounging here. I explored slowly and went where whim and chance led me. At one point I lucked upon a tremendous view of the city with the Adriatic shining behind it. Snap snap. It was a real gasper.

For lack of imagination I'll describe most of the experience as being in an "open world" video game. It was just me quietly exploring a large, but contained, labyrinth with a few random NPCs dotted around.

Wandered up and up. It was all homes up here. A few folks were beating carpets or walking small dogs. No one spoke to me, but no one seemed to disapprove of me either. It was laughing thinking about an Italian in Seattle wandering around the suburbs taking pictures of people's front doors. How long before some mom called the cops? I felt very welcome and recognized it for the privilege that it was.

It wasn't on a grid, you just screw around seeing what connects. Sometimes it's a dead end, and it's just you and a cactus. Sometimes, magically, in one pocket of the labyrinth, you find a whole plaza. After a few cul de sacs and some backtracing, I found myself at some sort of Sunday flea market. Totally unexpected. The entire experience was like being in a medina where nobody accosts you. I called the place Clean Medina in my mind.

The flea market was bus, and everybody seemed to know one another. A lot of antique tea sets for sale. A lot of heartbreakingly, heartachingly beautiful old wood work benches and furniture. How dearly I would have loved to have filled a shipping container with it and floated home on top, sipping tea perhaps from an antique set.

                                                                  

A peaceful place, even in the bustle of the market. I was well and truly (pleasantly) lost but found my way back after a chance sighting of the back of the bishop's hat. Shops in the center were opening now, and I bought a magnet at a candy store. A bunch of the closed shops had signs reading "Typical Products" in English, and I cracked up all over the place. I assume it meant, "goods specific to the region," but it looked like the video game hadn't hired a writer, so they just put some placeholder text on the shop signs.

Ordered some gnocchi at a nice little cafe, made nicer by being open. The guy told me it was waaay too early for hot food, that it would maybe be two hours. I said ok, I'll have coffee instead. I had wanted a hot meal, but... when in Puglia. Sat and drank my latte and read about Tahrir Square, a strange disconnect, but it was the book I'd brought. You dance with the partner you arrived with.

A few minutes later, a hot plate of gnocchi arrived at the table, red with sauce. It was like the bus! "Two hours" means "less than ten minutes." Ostuni must be Italian for "under-promise and over-deliver." Delight! I ate it all up. Joined the clean plate club.

After, the cafe owner took me outside, put his hand around my shoulder, and pointed out a "road I must see." I thanked him, paid, got my coat back on and headed down that road.

It lead to a cathedral (which will forever remind me of the Bosnian boy yelling katt-dralla! at me), and there an old woman put the cat in cathedral feeding two fat strays. I loved seeing them eat, their fur patterns in such contrast to the white all around. And then.. it was time to head back to catch the train back to Bari.

                                        

I was in a good mood from the gnocchi, so I decided to walk. It had been a long bus ride, but I figured I had time, and maybe I'd get another view of the city to match the gasper. So... I waved farewell to the cats and headed back down.

Will sum this part up by saying: Very long walk. No pedestrian area. Very dangerous. At any moment I could have been run over or struck by an olive cart or fallen in a ditch. It took about ninety minutes, during which I expected to be bitten by a dog, smashed into wood pellets, sold in the flea market, buried under a collapsed stone wall, or tranquilized for trespassing. Several portions involved running across open highway to get behind a steel barrier.

I just kept following the signs for "stazione!" signs meant for cars and hoping I would either get there or get rescued by the cops.

I got there. Didn't really get a cool alternate shot of the city, but at one point I looked up and thought the whole thing would be awesome to project a movie on. The Ostuni Screen.

A guy in the stazione coffee shop bought a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets and tapped his wrist with an unlit cigarette. It was his luck, this tap. It was a regular pattern, the tap and the scratch. An old man lectured some women selling batteries.

The train arrived, and I left Ostuni behind, opened my book and I was in Cairo for an hour. Then home. MIA blasted out of a kebab house. It was 3pm and Bari was awake.