Feb 2006
Shakespeare and Company
Sylvia Beach up and died
And lost the lease where her business thrived.
Gone, where Joyce was well supported,
Gone but not entirely forgotted.
A man who claims to be
The grandson of Walt Whitman, he
Bought old Beach's library
and moved it to a Seine-side quay
And opened what you see today
with the original name and
company.
Three times we set out for this place
And twice returned in sad disgrace.
The first search ended carefreely
The second, soaked and melancholy.
The third, a charm, on Metro train,
We found the place in spite of rain.
Both outside and inside the place
Sylvia's library's in disgrace
With water pouring over books
Written and signed by expatriates.
I bought a Joyce, a Blake or two
And spent less time than I'd planned to.
Yes, I was cold and slightly damp
and holding that dripping umbrella had given me a cramp,
But nothing like the cramp that time
leaves the library left behind.
In my life I admit that books
Have somehow given me friendly looks.
At Kilometer Zero I realized
That if my books are really alive,
Then they may keep me company
While I am here, then follow me.
|
Arriving In Trastevere
The guide books all agreed that it
is unwise to visit Roma in August. Not only is the heat oppressive,
but many of the best restaurants and attractions are closed for the
month as Romans escape to the countryside for their annual holiday.
Our plane landed mid-morning on Saturday, August second, a day that
promised both heat and humidity.
Our cab circled Trastevere for a half hour, seeming to end up in the same dead end alley way, retreating to a small piazza two or three times before the cab driver, after asking three different people, found himself pointed in the right direction to find the tiny opening to Vicolo Moroni. The cars parked on either side of the lane had their side rear view mirrors either pulled back against the side of the car or in some degree of being torn off. I saw a truck backing into this lane later in the week. A man on either side pulled rear view mirrors out of the way and guided the driver with barely millimeters to spare on either side. Our driver unloaded our luggage, heavy with the anticipation of a month's tour, and left, presumably to circle for another half hour searching for the way back out of this labyrinth.
After showers and a change of clothes, we emerged into this foreign place in search of a bakery and adventure. We found the bakery a few blocks away, along the Via del Moro. The bread was heavy and thick-crusted and had the consistency of an old boot sole, but we bought a Ciabatta anyway. We munched as we sauntered along the alleyways. It is a rare sight in Rome and indeed in all of Italy to see an Italian eating while walking. Our explanation of this phenomenon is that Italians revere their food too much to pay it so little attention. A munching walker is a sure sign of a non-Italian.
We found a small grocery just off the Via San Francesco a Ripa and ogled the cheese. Nancy was particularly taken with the fresh Ricotta, which was displayed in the window in little plastic draining baskets. We made note of the location so we could return on our way back to our apartment. We stopped in a little green grocery just off the Piazza di San Cosimato and ogled the zucchini blossoms and the fresh tomatoes. We annoyed the proprietor but promised to return to buy later, after we got the lay of the land. This street opened up into the piazza which on this Saturday morning was about half full of tents. It looked like a country circus or a hastily constructed revival meeting, but it was a farmer's market. We swooned.
This was our first encounter with a wonderful Italian tradition, the farmer's market. This one, we were to learn, was a minor example. Still, we were transfixed by the freshness and the variety of the soft white and violet eggplants, the peaches and plums, and the tomatoes; the tomatoes. We bought some tiny blackberries, some tomatoes, some peaches, and some wonderful grapes, but only after visiting every stand twice and learning the lineage and recent history of each fruit and every vegetable.
It was noon and the market was folding up its tents. Many stores and, as near as I could tell, all farmer's markets close at noon. The early afternoon is siesta time, a time to retreat from the high heat of the day and eat and talk and perhaps nap until three or four o'clock. No farmer's market is open after noon. The morning's the time to buy produce, the afternoon is when you prepare it.
We wandered laden out of the market plaza and began walking through a series of narrow lanes near the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, a hot and foreboding place, with the heat of the day reflecting off the golden mosaic front of the ancient church, in spite of the fountain.
My eye was drawn into an alleyway shaded by an overhanging vine, and we entered. Down this lane was an arch and, on one side some tables were set, shaded by large umbrellas and a scruffy privet hedge. I noticed that the hedge's planter was full of bottle caps and cigarette butts and that no one was seated at the tables. It was, Nancy said, only just twelve, and the noon meal wouldn't start until more nearly one o'clock. We peeked into the door of the restaurant across the alleyway and saw that the staff was seated around a large table, finishing their lunch. A small man in a starched white coat got up from the table and came out to greet us.
We exchanged buon giornos. He then engaged in some Italian patter with Nancy, asking her to be sure and come back for lunch. He shook our hands and extracted another promise as we excused ourselves and headed back to the apartment to stash the morning's purchases and to take yet another cold shower before lunch. On our wayback, we encountered our first watermelon stand. If the guide books were wrong about anything, they were wrong about the livability of Rome in August. I forgive the gourmet restaurants their holidays and I can compensate for the daily heat and humidity with a half-dozen or more cold showers, but do not ask me to live in Roma in August without watermelon. Slices are artistically arrayed in these stands, and your slice is handed to you with the intent that you will eat it while standing there, and that you will extract the seeds with a one of the knifes thoughtfully provided. We, being newly arrived, walked away with ours, spitting seeds as is our tradition (an unconsciously sure sign of our not being Italian). We were made human and whole by the cool, sweet crispness. We sauntered along the Tevere, shaded by the enormous plane trees.
An hour later, freshly showered and wearing our third shirts of the day, we found our way back to the restaurant in the shady side street. Mario, we learned, was the waiter's name, and the Arco de San Calisto was the restaurant. Mario asked if we wanted water with big bubbles or little bubbles, and we ordered our first of many big-bubbled bottles of acqua frizzante. A mezzoliter of drinkable vino rosso (red wine) was served in an Arco de San Calisto pitcher, and decent bread and tiny grassini appeared with a bow and a "Prego". Mario leveled our cobble-wobbly table with a few of the bottle caps from the privet hedge. So that's what they were there for! Mario guided us through the menu as a skilled horseman guides his team. We quietly surrendered our free will and let Mario suggest and nudge and lead us to our best choices. (Later in the week, we overhead an American at an adjacent table order olive oil for dipping bread, and Mario flatly refused to deliver it. "Bread," he told them, "is not for dipping into oil.") Nancy ordered grilled vegetables, asking Mario to select those best for her. I chose the pasta fagioli to echoes of "Molto Bene" and "Prego" from Mario, as if I had chosen for myself and I had chosen right.
The food was as wonderful as the atmosphere. A caged bird, perched on a windowsill down the alleyway near the Arch, sang sweetly. The ivy rustled occasionally by wandering breezes and the afternoon heat melted away into a fuzz of sweet conversation, semi sweet wine, and warm service. My pasta course was a linguini with shrimp and squash blossoms, hers the house special. She was jealous. My pasta fagioli had been perfection, with small, fresh pasta rectangles properly balanced with beans in a light, delicate broth. Nancy's grilled vegetables were not as beautiful. Now, with the first course, my pasta showed better than hers. We traded tastes and stories, punctuated by ruckus of the occasional passing scooter and the murmer of potential patrons making the wrong choice and passing this quiet corner by.
Nancy's veal was heavenly, as was my pesce, grilled whole then boned and reassembled with great theatrical style at our table by Mario. Nancy order baby biscotti, and Mario brought a platter full, explaining that these were usually only ordered for children. We crunched playfully. After two sweet hours, we emerged from this dream to accept heavy crystal glasses of liquor. Grappa for me, Sambuca for Nancy. We paid the bill after an appropriately lengthy wait, and floated toward the Church in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, then back to the apartment, where, after showering off the latest accumulations of sweat and grit, we retired for that nap we'd longed for the night before as we flew eastward across the Atlantic. We decided as we cozied in to the sounds of the neighborhood waking up, that August in Roma would be wonderful. And it was.
We ate lunch at the Arco de San Calisto almost every day of the week we spent in Roma. On our last day in Italy, we hopped the bullet train down from Firenze to lunch one last time at this most wonderful place. The heat had left and it felt strange eating the pasta fagioli without periodically wiping sweat from our foreheads. Mario was overjoyed to see us, and we drank grappa together, promising to return for Christmas in Roma.
Our cab circled Trastevere for a half hour, seeming to end up in the same dead end alley way, retreating to a small piazza two or three times before the cab driver, after asking three different people, found himself pointed in the right direction to find the tiny opening to Vicolo Moroni. The cars parked on either side of the lane had their side rear view mirrors either pulled back against the side of the car or in some degree of being torn off. I saw a truck backing into this lane later in the week. A man on either side pulled rear view mirrors out of the way and guided the driver with barely millimeters to spare on either side. Our driver unloaded our luggage, heavy with the anticipation of a month's tour, and left, presumably to circle for another half hour searching for the way back out of this labyrinth.
After showers and a change of clothes, we emerged into this foreign place in search of a bakery and adventure. We found the bakery a few blocks away, along the Via del Moro. The bread was heavy and thick-crusted and had the consistency of an old boot sole, but we bought a Ciabatta anyway. We munched as we sauntered along the alleyways. It is a rare sight in Rome and indeed in all of Italy to see an Italian eating while walking. Our explanation of this phenomenon is that Italians revere their food too much to pay it so little attention. A munching walker is a sure sign of a non-Italian.
We found a small grocery just off the Via San Francesco a Ripa and ogled the cheese. Nancy was particularly taken with the fresh Ricotta, which was displayed in the window in little plastic draining baskets. We made note of the location so we could return on our way back to our apartment. We stopped in a little green grocery just off the Piazza di San Cosimato and ogled the zucchini blossoms and the fresh tomatoes. We annoyed the proprietor but promised to return to buy later, after we got the lay of the land. This street opened up into the piazza which on this Saturday morning was about half full of tents. It looked like a country circus or a hastily constructed revival meeting, but it was a farmer's market. We swooned.
This was our first encounter with a wonderful Italian tradition, the farmer's market. This one, we were to learn, was a minor example. Still, we were transfixed by the freshness and the variety of the soft white and violet eggplants, the peaches and plums, and the tomatoes; the tomatoes. We bought some tiny blackberries, some tomatoes, some peaches, and some wonderful grapes, but only after visiting every stand twice and learning the lineage and recent history of each fruit and every vegetable.
It was noon and the market was folding up its tents. Many stores and, as near as I could tell, all farmer's markets close at noon. The early afternoon is siesta time, a time to retreat from the high heat of the day and eat and talk and perhaps nap until three or four o'clock. No farmer's market is open after noon. The morning's the time to buy produce, the afternoon is when you prepare it.
We wandered laden out of the market plaza and began walking through a series of narrow lanes near the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, a hot and foreboding place, with the heat of the day reflecting off the golden mosaic front of the ancient church, in spite of the fountain.
My eye was drawn into an alleyway shaded by an overhanging vine, and we entered. Down this lane was an arch and, on one side some tables were set, shaded by large umbrellas and a scruffy privet hedge. I noticed that the hedge's planter was full of bottle caps and cigarette butts and that no one was seated at the tables. It was, Nancy said, only just twelve, and the noon meal wouldn't start until more nearly one o'clock. We peeked into the door of the restaurant across the alleyway and saw that the staff was seated around a large table, finishing their lunch. A small man in a starched white coat got up from the table and came out to greet us.
We exchanged buon giornos. He then engaged in some Italian patter with Nancy, asking her to be sure and come back for lunch. He shook our hands and extracted another promise as we excused ourselves and headed back to the apartment to stash the morning's purchases and to take yet another cold shower before lunch. On our wayback, we encountered our first watermelon stand. If the guide books were wrong about anything, they were wrong about the livability of Rome in August. I forgive the gourmet restaurants their holidays and I can compensate for the daily heat and humidity with a half-dozen or more cold showers, but do not ask me to live in Roma in August without watermelon. Slices are artistically arrayed in these stands, and your slice is handed to you with the intent that you will eat it while standing there, and that you will extract the seeds with a one of the knifes thoughtfully provided. We, being newly arrived, walked away with ours, spitting seeds as is our tradition (an unconsciously sure sign of our not being Italian). We were made human and whole by the cool, sweet crispness. We sauntered along the Tevere, shaded by the enormous plane trees.
An hour later, freshly showered and wearing our third shirts of the day, we found our way back to the restaurant in the shady side street. Mario, we learned, was the waiter's name, and the Arco de San Calisto was the restaurant. Mario asked if we wanted water with big bubbles or little bubbles, and we ordered our first of many big-bubbled bottles of acqua frizzante. A mezzoliter of drinkable vino rosso (red wine) was served in an Arco de San Calisto pitcher, and decent bread and tiny grassini appeared with a bow and a "Prego". Mario leveled our cobble-wobbly table with a few of the bottle caps from the privet hedge. So that's what they were there for! Mario guided us through the menu as a skilled horseman guides his team. We quietly surrendered our free will and let Mario suggest and nudge and lead us to our best choices. (Later in the week, we overhead an American at an adjacent table order olive oil for dipping bread, and Mario flatly refused to deliver it. "Bread," he told them, "is not for dipping into oil.") Nancy ordered grilled vegetables, asking Mario to select those best for her. I chose the pasta fagioli to echoes of "Molto Bene" and "Prego" from Mario, as if I had chosen for myself and I had chosen right.
The food was as wonderful as the atmosphere. A caged bird, perched on a windowsill down the alleyway near the Arch, sang sweetly. The ivy rustled occasionally by wandering breezes and the afternoon heat melted away into a fuzz of sweet conversation, semi sweet wine, and warm service. My pasta course was a linguini with shrimp and squash blossoms, hers the house special. She was jealous. My pasta fagioli had been perfection, with small, fresh pasta rectangles properly balanced with beans in a light, delicate broth. Nancy's grilled vegetables were not as beautiful. Now, with the first course, my pasta showed better than hers. We traded tastes and stories, punctuated by ruckus of the occasional passing scooter and the murmer of potential patrons making the wrong choice and passing this quiet corner by.
Nancy's veal was heavenly, as was my pesce, grilled whole then boned and reassembled with great theatrical style at our table by Mario. Nancy order baby biscotti, and Mario brought a platter full, explaining that these were usually only ordered for children. We crunched playfully. After two sweet hours, we emerged from this dream to accept heavy crystal glasses of liquor. Grappa for me, Sambuca for Nancy. We paid the bill after an appropriately lengthy wait, and floated toward the Church in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, then back to the apartment, where, after showering off the latest accumulations of sweat and grit, we retired for that nap we'd longed for the night before as we flew eastward across the Atlantic. We decided as we cozied in to the sounds of the neighborhood waking up, that August in Roma would be wonderful. And it was.
We ate lunch at the Arco de San Calisto almost every day of the week we spent in Roma. On our last day in Italy, we hopped the bullet train down from Firenze to lunch one last time at this most wonderful place. The heat had left and it felt strange eating the pasta fagioli without periodically wiping sweat from our foreheads. Mario was overjoyed to see us, and we drank grappa together, promising to return for Christmas in Roma.
What The Teacher Doesn't Tell
What the Teacher Doesn’t Tell
They wouldn’t understand.
Who would want to burden the subject by including the depth of their own despair and their feeble attempts to counter it?
History shouldn’t be about me, or them, or anyone alive today,
Except it is and inescapably so.
The big black dog that trotted beside Lincoln trots today.
Galileo and Bruno and every one of true genius,
Their anxiety still floats free,
attaching itself intermittently to those so blessed with that curse.
We’ve stopped burning these people at the stake,
excusing them from the faculty instead.
The truly beautiful minds disgust us with their compulsion and their willful inability to be even a little bit normal.
They shock us with our own conventions, and that’s unfair.
We’re not St Francis.
We’re barely fool enough to draw a paycheck, sometimes.
And barely competent to teach the obvious,
understanding that the obvious gets under foot, in everybody’s way.
What the teacher doesn’t tell yells out from him anyway.
Most hear it clearly without acknowledging anything to themselves.
Most carry this knowledge like they carry their liver or their heart,
Unaware until some trouble arrives to bring attention where none could otherwise thrive.
And then the learning clicks.
We take a quiet moment and realize that our lives continue the lives before us,
And that those who follow after us will experience the same realization
When they become a part of the history they studied, and taught, and lived.
Call for the straight jacket now.
These acknowledgements are insanity to hold,
And insanity to disclose,
And yet an essential piece of every sane one.
How could the teacher ever tell?
How could the teacher help but tell?
What the teacher doesn’t tell doesn’t need telling.
It finds its own path into the future,
like it did with you
and me
and, will most certainly, pass to those sitting before you today.
David Schmaltz
2/09/03
They wouldn’t understand.
Who would want to burden the subject by including the depth of their own despair and their feeble attempts to counter it?
History shouldn’t be about me, or them, or anyone alive today,
Except it is and inescapably so.
The big black dog that trotted beside Lincoln trots today.
Galileo and Bruno and every one of true genius,
Their anxiety still floats free,
attaching itself intermittently to those so blessed with that curse.
We’ve stopped burning these people at the stake,
excusing them from the faculty instead.
The truly beautiful minds disgust us with their compulsion and their willful inability to be even a little bit normal.
They shock us with our own conventions, and that’s unfair.
We’re not St Francis.
We’re barely fool enough to draw a paycheck, sometimes.
And barely competent to teach the obvious,
understanding that the obvious gets under foot, in everybody’s way.
What the teacher doesn’t tell yells out from him anyway.
Most hear it clearly without acknowledging anything to themselves.
Most carry this knowledge like they carry their liver or their heart,
Unaware until some trouble arrives to bring attention where none could otherwise thrive.
And then the learning clicks.
We take a quiet moment and realize that our lives continue the lives before us,
And that those who follow after us will experience the same realization
When they become a part of the history they studied, and taught, and lived.
Call for the straight jacket now.
These acknowledgements are insanity to hold,
And insanity to disclose,
And yet an essential piece of every sane one.
How could the teacher ever tell?
How could the teacher help but tell?
What the teacher doesn’t tell doesn’t need telling.
It finds its own path into the future,
like it did with you
and me
and, will most certainly, pass to those sitting before you today.
David Schmaltz
2/09/03
Creating Currency
Part two of the planned six part
series on Free Market Project Management showed up on the
Projects@Work site late last week. Follow this link to see this
piece.
http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/229538.cfm
I finished part four yesterday instead of watching the Superbowl. But then I've never watched a Superbowl. I don't think I've ever actually watched an entire football game. Doesn't hold my attention, doesn't have any currency for me.
http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/229538.cfm
I finished part four yesterday instead of watching the Superbowl. But then I've never watched a Superbowl. I don't think I've ever actually watched an entire football game. Doesn't hold my attention, doesn't have any currency for me.
School Daze
Senator Sam Ervin once said,
"Hanglish am ma mothur taung." I know that had I home schooled, I
would have passed on so much of my mother tongue (the approaches
which I quite unconsciously employ), I wonder how my kids would
have ever gotten untangled. I gave them plenty of "my stuff"
anyway! But then, so did their public schools.
Both of my kids struggled in public school at times, yet I really felt as though there were important social lessons occurring, even when (perhaps especially when) the distractions seemed most distressing. My theory (backed up by my personal experience -- mother tongue, again) was that school was not really about learning the subjects being taught. Certainly it never was for me, and I never really had the sense following any educational experience that I "knew" a subject after taking the course. Perhaps the purpose was to gain an introduction, to find a place for further inquiry. Maybe just to see if the subject interests enough to spark further inquiry. Or maybe to develop those muscles useful for coping with frustration and apparent meaninglessness.
The same muscles that come in handy when stuck in a traffic jam or failing to escape commentators revisiting a particularly forgetfull Presidential address!
Amy (my wife) says that I don't test well. She figured out early in her public schooling how to outsmart tests, and could usually ace anything because she recognized and understood their patterns. I barely pass my driver's license renewal exam, not because I don't know how to drive and drive well, but because half of the questions seem irrelevant, and most of the answers spark curious dilemmas for me. I could make up stories explaining why any of the answers could situationally be considered wrong. And the test is administered on a computer with a Jurrassic user interface. Put a test in front of me and a part of me goes away.
I learned and honed this skill in public school. Did we ever have a class in how to take tests? Knowing something is really different than knowing how to successfully test for that knowledge. I remember taking the day off work (without pay) to take the SAT exam. Not ever expecting to go to college because I couldn't learn a foreign language (silly me, I thought that I should be able to write and speak the language after two years, so I dropped when it became clear that I wouldn't, which felt like couldn't), but someone encouraged me to sit for the SAT. Like an extended driver's license renewal test. Meaningless questions with ambiguous choices. Maybe a perfect parallel to life! I understand that some kids (or their parents) spend thousands on SAT prep courses today. Maybe those teach how to take the exam.
Graduating from high school was easily as tramautic as either of my divorces. While I was glad to be rid of the burden of unending, apparently meaningless expectations, I deeply felt the absence of an extended family which I had not fully appreciated when they were near. Still do. If I learned anything in public school, it was subtle and preconscious at the time. I learned a social order, and found my place in it. I learned to be invisible when necessary. I learned to appreciate the arts, distrust the sciences, and disobey the administration.
Both of my kids struggled in public school at times, yet I really felt as though there were important social lessons occurring, even when (perhaps especially when) the distractions seemed most distressing. My theory (backed up by my personal experience -- mother tongue, again) was that school was not really about learning the subjects being taught. Certainly it never was for me, and I never really had the sense following any educational experience that I "knew" a subject after taking the course. Perhaps the purpose was to gain an introduction, to find a place for further inquiry. Maybe just to see if the subject interests enough to spark further inquiry. Or maybe to develop those muscles useful for coping with frustration and apparent meaninglessness.
The same muscles that come in handy when stuck in a traffic jam or failing to escape commentators revisiting a particularly forgetfull Presidential address!
Amy (my wife) says that I don't test well. She figured out early in her public schooling how to outsmart tests, and could usually ace anything because she recognized and understood their patterns. I barely pass my driver's license renewal exam, not because I don't know how to drive and drive well, but because half of the questions seem irrelevant, and most of the answers spark curious dilemmas for me. I could make up stories explaining why any of the answers could situationally be considered wrong. And the test is administered on a computer with a Jurrassic user interface. Put a test in front of me and a part of me goes away.
I learned and honed this skill in public school. Did we ever have a class in how to take tests? Knowing something is really different than knowing how to successfully test for that knowledge. I remember taking the day off work (without pay) to take the SAT exam. Not ever expecting to go to college because I couldn't learn a foreign language (silly me, I thought that I should be able to write and speak the language after two years, so I dropped when it became clear that I wouldn't, which felt like couldn't), but someone encouraged me to sit for the SAT. Like an extended driver's license renewal test. Meaningless questions with ambiguous choices. Maybe a perfect parallel to life! I understand that some kids (or their parents) spend thousands on SAT prep courses today. Maybe those teach how to take the exam.
Graduating from high school was easily as tramautic as either of my divorces. While I was glad to be rid of the burden of unending, apparently meaningless expectations, I deeply felt the absence of an extended family which I had not fully appreciated when they were near. Still do. If I learned anything in public school, it was subtle and preconscious at the time. I learned a social order, and found my place in it. I learned to be invisible when necessary. I learned to appreciate the arts, distrust the sciences, and disobey the administration.
