SABATO MUSICALE

In this song from her 1988 album Ridi Pagliaccio, the great and unconventional Mina sings in Italian and Spanish to convey the stress and tiredness most of us feel at some point over Christmas:

Mina - E Natale

THE VOICE OF THE EARTH

Photo:  Simone Aprile
Reproduced here with kind permission of Simone Aprile

Tonight I would like to introduce you to a new friend of mine, the photographer Simone Aprile and to his colleague the musician and video maker Giuseppe La Rosa.

Simone was born in Siracusa but moved to Milan with his family as a child.  There, he studied photography at the Istituto Riccardo Bauer but his greatest professional influence was Sandro Sciacca.  Simone has worked for several prestigious magazines, including Vogue.  Now he has returned to the South, where he is able to combine his two great loves, photography and Sicily, in the Lab House Studio in Modica. Simone says he feel close to Sicily wherever he is in the world.

Giuseppe La Rosa graduated in Film, Music and Theatre studies from the University of Pisa.  One of his first projects was a television programme called No Parking which was shown on over 50 channels and later he made a video on educational and social policy for Pisa City Council. He now works full-time as a video and documentary maker and his work has won prizes at both Italian and international festivals such as:  Hors Pistes 2010 [Centre Pompidou, Paris]; Sottodiciotto Film Festival 2009 [Turin]; Lampedusa Film Festival [ finalist]; Zone Video 7 [small] and Barilla Short Film Awards [special mention].  In 2009 Giuseppe founded Mojito Film Productions and began working with the Torinese director Daniele Segre.

Over the past few days people lucky enough to be in Modica have been able to see Simone and Giuseppe's exhibition, 'Nzuliddu.  The name is a dialect form of Vincenzo and the show chronicles, in photographs and sound, a year in the  life of 'Nzuliddu the countryman.  This is the story of "a man and his roots", roots that are in danger of being forgotten, for 'Nzuliddu's routines are determined by the land he works and its rhythms. We see him at work and at home, observe his energy and his tiredness, every day from sunrise to sunset. The show is an important memoir of a humanity that is disappearing and is intended as not only a "gift" to the next generation, but as a homage to Modica and the countryside that surrounds it.  It represents, quite simply, say Simone and Giuseppe, the "voice of the earth."

DO YOU KNOW IT'S FEBRUARY?

Discussing the weather in a shop yesterday - Sicilians talk about this subject almost as much as the British - I was reminded that it was "really" January, not December.  As we agreed it was a beautiful day, the assistant added , "for January" and quoted the dialect proverb,

"Ri santa Lucia a Natali 'u juorrnu crisci quantu 'n passu ri cani" - "From St Lucy's Day to Christmas each day is longer by a dog's step".

At least, that is the Modican version.  The spelling and vocabulary in the proverb may vary slightly from town to town but the meaning is the same - that the days get longer.  This proverb dates back to the sixteenth century and over the years people came to believe that each day between the feast of Santa Lucia and Christmas represents a month, with Christmas Day representing December. Thus you will realise that it is already February as I write!  The weather on each of these days, it is believed, allows us to predict what the weather will be like in the month the day represents, so a sunny 15th December means we are going to have a sunny February.

Santa Lucia by Domenico Beccafumi
Source:  Wikipedia

The following information is from an earlier post of mine:

Santa Lucia [283 - 304] was martyred in Siracusa during the Persecution of Diocletian. She is one of my favourite saints, along with St Martin and St Francis, because a feminist reading of her story would bring one to conclude that she was partially condemned for her unconventionality [though I suppose all saints were unconventional].

Lucia consecrated her virginity to God and expressed a wish to give all her worldly goods to the poor. She refused to marry a pagan, but her spurned fiancé had his revenge after Lucia and her mother, Eutychia [or Eutychiaea], visited Catania in the hope that the martyred Sant'Agata of that city would cure Eutychia of a haemorrage. Eutychia was cured and Lucia distributed some of her wealth to the poor, thus incurring the further wrath of her would-be husband, who denounced her to Paschasius, the Governor of Sicily.

First sentenced to become a prostitute, Lucia literally could not be moved, so then her persecutors unsuccessfully tried to burn her. Finally she was decapitated with a sword and the story goes that her eyes were gouged out first. One legend has it that only her eyes remained of her, but there is also a story that her body lay undisturbed in Sicily for 400 years. 

In art, Santa Lucia is often represented with her eyes on a plate and church-goers in Italy are given tiny pieces of pasta representing her eyes on 13th December.  Other symbols of Santa Lucia are the sword and the palm and she is the protector of electricians, eye specialists and the blind.  She is the patron saint of Siracusa.

Mario Lanza - Santa Lucia

ITALIAN LOGIC PRIZE 2011

Sicily Scene's 2011 Italian logic prize goes to a twelve-year-old student of mine who, when I explained to the class the British habit of giving houses names, deduced,

"Oh, so when you come home you say 'Ciao, Michael' to your house?!"

My former house in Cardiff, which I named Le Bateau Ivre

AN OLDER NATIVITY SCENE

Writing about the crib inside the Church of Santa Maria di Betlem yesterday, I was reminded that you can see another nativity scene along one of the exterior walls of the church.  This is the lunetta del Berlon, so called because it was originally part of the Church of Santa Maria di Berlon, one of four churches which the larger Santa Maria di Betlem replaced. The lunette dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century and was sculpted by unknown local craftsmen.

GIFTS

I am writing this post in response to the Italy Blogging Roundtable group's invitation to post on Italy-related gifts. 

In Italy this is the Christmas of sobrietà or austerity so I wonder just how many people here will be echoing the words of one Josephine March in those oh-so-famous opening lines of Little Women:

" 'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."

Well, it depends, I suppose, on what you mean by austerity and how you think of gifts.  If austerity means not going mad at Christmas, Italians tend not to anyway:  Sure, the children receive presents but not by the sackful and the festival is not regarded as a contest to be won by the family who can provide the biggest, most expensive and greatest quantity of gifts.

No one worries weeks or months ahead about the task of feeding their relatives, as that is something they do most Sundays and the task of producing the festive meal is not turned into a kitchen marathon which leaves the poor hostess in need of valium, a gallon of gin and a spa cure lasting at least a month.  

When you are invited to someone's house over the holiday, you take along something to eat - usually a dessert -  and a pensiero or small gift if you like.  [Pensiero = thought; telling, isn't it?]  But your Italian host will already regard your company as a gift and all he or she really wants is for you to relax and enjoy yourself.

Next year marks the twentieth anniversary of my association with Sicily, the region which I now call home and over these years I have received many gifts from my Sicilian friends:  Every Christmas, when I was in the UK, my friend Gina used to send a package of the white torrone [nougat] that I like and other friends would send little mementoes of Sicily that I treasured:  an ornament, a book, a candle scented with orange blossom.  And at Christmas 1994 two friends gave me a Sicily map pendant which I wear nearly every day.  "We want you to always have Sicily close to your heart", they said and so it is.

The little girl who gave me this tree decoration in 1993 is now a confident woman of 26 and I don't suppose she remembers that Christmas at all.  But I do and it is enough:

Recently a friend gave me this bauble from Caltagirone, the pottery town and as I look at it on my tree this year I am reminded of my first visit there:

Two years ago my friend Lucia, scandalised that I didn't have a crib, brought me these figures:

Every Sicilian home displays a crib at Christmas and often the figurines are family heirlooms.  Sicilians like to place typical figures from the recent past in their cribs and we have a famous and beautiful example of this tradition in Modica's Church of Santa Maria di Betlem:

In Sicily you learn that the past is also the present and I am so grateful to my friends here for that lesson, at no time more evident than during the Christmas I travelled to Segesta with Irma and her family.  As we walked through a Greek house, Irma and I mused upon the women who had lived there and wondered what their dreams had been - not so very different from ours, we concluded. 

Christmas, as the March girls discovered, is about finding joy in the company you have and the most precious gift I have received from my Sicilian friends is the love with which they surround me.

The Italy Blogging Roundtable blogs are:  ArtTrav, At Home in Tuscany, Why Go Italy, Italofile and Brigolante.  I'm sure you'll enjoy their posts on this subject and many others.

PEEP-OH!

Hi, folks.  Simi here!

It's nearly Santa Paws time and I've been helping my mummy decorate.

Mickey Moose and Chris Moose have been moved into the lounge for Christmas,

my friend Leonardo has some sparkly flowers to hold

and our tree is ready:

Our stockings are up as well!

But the best part was when my mummy brought out this nice, soft throw to make our old settee look a bit posher:

"That must be for me!" I said.

That's all for now, fans.  See you nearer Christmas.  Be good like me, so that Santa Paws will bring you lots of chewy treats!

Love,

Simi xxxx woof!

SABATO MUSICALE

Time to get seasonal, methinks.  In this catchy little song, Francesco De Gregori is missing someone:

Francesco De Gregori - Natale

A RESTITUTION

In September I reported that Daniela Zuccoli, the widow of Italian TV presenter Mike Bongiorno [26.5.1924 - 8.9.2009] was, on the advice of the police, to appear on the television programme Chi l'ha visto?  ["Who Has Seen Him / Her?"] in an attempt to find her husband's body. This brave  decision did not lead to the hoped-for result but it now seems increasingly likely that the body will be restored to the family within the next few days:

In a crime so sick as to be utterly incomprehensible, Mike Bongiorno's coffin and body were stolen from the Dagnente Cemetery in Arona [Piedmont] on the night of 24th - 25th January this year.  The distressed family received several ransom demands and there were even some arrests but these did not provide the police with the information they needed.

Then, yesterday afternoon, events took a dramatic turn when a man walking his dog near a church in Vittuone [Milan Province] found a coffin behind a ceramics factory on the outskirts of the Parco Sud.  Police were alerted and later Mike Bongiorno's two eldest sons were able to identify the coffin - which still bears its plaque -  as their father's.  Forensic tests are still being carried out on the body but the family are optimistic.  Police believe that the coffin had lain where it was found for only a short time as it was in an area which is popular with joggers and dog walkers.  Latest reports say that the coffin had not been opened during the interval between its disappearance and yesterday.

Mike Bongiorno was born to Italian-American parents in New York City but emigrated to Italy as a young man.  He fought with the Italian partisans during World War 11 and went on to become Italy's most famous and popular TV presenter ever. His ancestors were Sicilian and the small towns of Campofelice di Fitalia and Mezzojuso in Palermo Province both claimed to be their birthplace.  In 2007, when Bongiorno stated on television that his ancestors were definitely from Mezzojuso, the inhabitants of Campofelice di Fitalia took offence and declared him persona non grata. [However, it turns out that both towns have a legitimate claim as Campofelice di Fitalia was, when Bongiorno's paternal grandfather emigrated to the USA, a district of Mezzojuso.]

Here we are all thinking of Mike Bongiorno's family, who have suffered double bereavement, and hoping that they will be able to obtain closure this Christmas.

ABC - CHRISTMAS!

Raffaele the hairdresser always comes up with an original idea for decorating his Christmas tree and this year is no exception.

LITTLE LIBERATION FRONT

I like this notice in the Sisley shop window.  It tells us that, in the new year, all the dwarves will be set free in the woods - one less problem for Mr Monti, then.

TAKING A SECOND LOOK - A "LET'S BLOG OFF" POST

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "Taking a Second Look".

When I saw the theme for this week's Blog Off  - changing the way in which you perceive someone or something - I tried to think back to my early days in Sicily and the things I found strange.  Believe me, there were plenty, even for someone like me who has spent most of her life studying Italian culture and who is fluent in the language.  When you change your country, the things that disturb or worry you are not always the "big" issues in your life but seemingly trivial occurences which can throw you off-balance.  It is, of course, a manifestation of "culture shock", which is a known psychological condition.  The good news is that it does not last forever and you look back with amusement at your former self and the assumptions you made.

Modica  - Corso Umberto, di notte

I've mentioned the signora I call "Eleonora" before but for those of you who are new to my musings, she is an elderly, very elegant lady who takes her passeggiata at the same time every evening and her fashionable, expensive attire never fails to turn heads.  The first time I saw her , from a café terrace one Sunday, I stopped eating my gelato mid-scoop, so striking a sight was she.  As I watched this senior citizen gliding  along the Corso like Marilyn Monroe, I wondered if she was, indeed, playing a part in some film and I actually looked around for the cameraman.  This was because the lady's makeup, clothing and hairstyle would have been considered "overdone" back in the UK, where she would probably have attracted laughter rather than admiration.  And so it was that I began to change the way I judged people's appearance: elegance is always "in" in Italy, whatever the occasion, and the concept of overdressing simply does not exist.

Cuddles with my great aunt Mabel
Xmas Day, 1950

In the six years I have been here, and especially since an illness in 2008, I have become very aware that my attitude to ageing is changing. How can you explain to a younger person how it feels to grow old?  The answer is that you can't so you might as well save yourself the bother.  When I remember my mother in her sixties, I am amazed at her physical energy and I often find myself thinking of my lovely grandad and great aunt, who lived with us when I was a child.  They seemed so old to me but when I was adopted in 1950, they were not much older than I am now.  How I wish I could talk to them today and apologise for my youthful impatience! 


Ageing was, perhaps, the one thing that I hadn't bargained for when I moved to Italy:  oh, I knew it would happen, but I had no idea what it was like!   I ponder the fact that, although I am covered by the Italian health service, hospital patients here do not routinely receive non-medical care;  this means that, if you need help to go to the bathroom, for instance, it will not be forthcoming from the nursing staff.  Yesterday I heard of an elderly female hospital patient who is paying her cleaner € 100 per night to help her in this way and it worries me.


However, it is as useless to fret about the next illness as it is to live in a constant state of angst over the next wrinkle, as there is nothing to do but "keep buggering on", in Churchill's words.

My slightly tanned, Modican Santa

                                                                

My final reflection on the theme is a seasonal one for, over the past eighteen years, I have completely revised my attitude to Christmas:  After my dad died, I hated this period because I missed him so much and Ebenezer Scrooge became my hero. I have my beloved Sicilians to thank for teaching me, after my mother's death, to love Christmas again and one year, back in old Cardiff, I decided that it was a betrayal of my parents, who had given me such wonderful Christmases, not to at least try to enjoy the festival.  So now I decorate like crazy, bake Christmas treats, play seasonal music for a month and I even get upset when it's time to take the decorations down!  

I have come to the conclusion that, if you are brave enough to admit your mistakes and are prepared, at any age, to learn and have your mind changed, you might just stay young.  And signora Eleonora has taught me that, whilst beauty may fade, glamour doesn't have to.  Now, where are my false eyelashes?

profile editor

Frank Sinatra - Young at Heart

Below is the complete list of blogs participating in this theme:

TO SEE A FINE LADY

Ever since the Venere di Aidone or "Aidone Aphrodite" was brought back to Sicily in March, I've been longing to go and see her and on Saturday, reader, I made it.

Aidone, a town of 5,176 inhabitants, lies peacefully in the hills of the Province of Enna beyond Piazza Armerina.  Nearby is the Greek site of Morgantina, from which not only our "fine lady" but many other precious statues and objects have been stolen over the years.  The Venere was returned under an agreement signed by the Aidone and Getty Museums in 2007 and it must be emphasised that the Getty Museum's administrators have always denied acquiring the statue illegally. It was also in 2007 that experts proved that the statue was sculpted from "Ragusa stone".

Museo Archeologico di Aidone

My friend and I expected the little town to be crowded but, despite the presence of a goddess in their midst, life seemed to be going on as usual for the citizens and we were the only people in the specially renovated Museum.  

We passed through two rooms of other interesting antiquities before coming upon the Venere and in one of them a pair of smiling Acroliti, representing mother and daughter in Greek mythology, are displayed.  Only their faces, hands and feet remain but a mesh frame represents their bodies, they are seated and have been tastefully dressed.  These two figures were returned to the Museum from the US in 2009 and I have beside me a booklet which shows their faces as the box in which they travelled to Aidone was opened there.  I am sure that, upon their homecoming,  they are smiling more than usual. 

In the centre of a third room stands the Venere and I must say she is breathtaking:  So fluid are her robes, so majestic her pose and so calm her gaze that I have no doubt that this is a very confident goddess.  The body is of the famous Ragusan limestone though the exposed flesh is of marble and the lady's hair was probably of bronze.  Archaeologists have dated the statue to 420 - 410 BCE.

There are some who believe that she is not Venus but Demeter or her daughter Persephone, who both feature prominently in Greco-Sicilian myth, and there are others who believe she is Hera.  But I am sure she is a voluptuous Venus from an era before Botticelli brought misery upon Western women by portraying the goddess as tall, blonde, long-legged and slim.  

A reminder of our own era came as I spotted, among the ancient Greek hair ornaments, links from chains and fragments of pottery in one display case, a 100 lire coin from 1978.  This was found as illegally excavated land at Morgantina was being refilled.  In my opinion the Museum staff have done well to preserve it, for it is likely to be worth far more than all our euros soon!

On to lunch and, on the recommendation of the Museum staff, we repaired to the Vecchia Aidone restaurant:

The zucche must grow well in Aidone!

Would you like some grappa?

I hate ironing but I'm sure I would hate it even more if I had to use this!

There were homemade strozzapreti ["priest-strangling" pasta] with a sausage, wild fennel and tomato sauce

followed by veal stew for my companion

and rabbit braised in white wine with fennel and herbs for me:

Then there was a delicious mousse of fichi d'India [prickly pear] ....

...  all of which set us up nicely for our journey through the Enna rains back to Modica.  We were quiet as we travelled, thinking of "our" goddess and the tales she could tell.  Bentornata, dea.

SABATO MUSICALE - NOSTALGIA TIME AGAIN

Italian television programmes are often criticised and it is true that there are many endless, senseless game shows which make me, at any rate, lose the will to live.  But there are some excellent talk shows, dramas and the kind of sparkling variety show that the UK just does not produce any more.  One of these is I Migliori Anni, which goes out on Friday evenings and in which presenter Carlo Conti takes us back on a musical journey through the years.   The last episode of the current series is next Friday and I shall miss the show.

Original cover of 1969 45rpm vinyl

One of my favourite Italian singers is Orietta Berti and I was delighted to see her on I Migliori Anni two weeks ago, when she sang a medley of her 1968 - 1970 hits.  I have featured one of these, L'Altalena ["The Swing"] here before as I first heard it during my fateful first trip to Italy in 1969.  Little did I imagine that, 42 years later, I would be sitting in my Sicilian living room watching the same artist perform it!

Orietta Berti ai Migliori Anni - 2011 - Medley

ANOTHER TREASURE RETURNS

The Prosecutor's Office of Enna has taken into possession a Greek vase - a polychrome lekanis - which dates from the second or third century BC, it was revealed today.  The vase, found in a private collection in Lisbon, had been illegally excavated and removed from Italy, then seems to have travelled to Portugal via Australia.  The date of its disappearance from Sicily is not known.

It has been emphasised that Italian police had the full cooperation of the Australian and Portuguese authorities and it is likely that the vase will be returned to its rightful home, the Museum of Centuripe in the Province of Enna.

Welcome home, beauty.

PECORICCO

Pecoricco is a flavoured sheep or goat's cheese from the Nebrodi.  I've seen it flavoured with pepper and rocket before but I'd never seen this version before this week:  it is flavoured with red chilli pepper, rocket, capers and stuffed olives and I like it!

A STREET FOR A HERO

On Sunday Modica named a street in honour of Giuseppe [Peppino] Impastato, the anti-Mafia campaigner from Cinisi [Palermo Province] who was murdered at the age of 30.

Giuseppe Impastato was born into a Mafia family but, traumatised by the Mafia murder of an uncle, began to ask questions and campaign against the criminal organisation during his teenage years. He became estranged from his father, who threw him out of the family home.  As a left-wing activist and writer, Peppino used humour to criticise both the Mafia and politicians and, in the year of his death, became a candidate in local elections.  He was brutally murdered on the night of 8th - 9th May 1978 and his body, with TNT beneath it, was tied to a railway line, either to make it look as if he had been involved in a botched terrorist attack on the line or to simulate his suicide.  Two days later the people of Cinisi symbolically elected him as a town councillor.

Peppino's mother and brother fought for justice for him for many years and in 2002 Gaetano Badalamenti, the head of the Mafia in Cinisi, was sentenced to life for the murder by an Italian court.  However, Badalamenti was already serving time in a US penitentiary and he died in America in 2004.

The house where Giuseppe Impastato was killed is to become an anti-Mafia museum and exhibitions of documents, photos and art have already been held there.

BOOK REVIEW - AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY REBELLION

I have in front of me a little book of 58 pages, 33 of which are filled with reproductions of historical documents.  Yet the story told on these pages is none the less interesting for that.  

In Concetta e Francesca Grimaldi - due donne modicane nel XV111 secolo, Teresa Spadaccino recounts the extraordinary tale of two young Modican noblewomen who, destined to be dowryless, were sent by their father to live out their lives in a convent in 1785.  This was not an uncommon fate for women of their class and circumstances but these two rebelled, first in small ways and later by making a formal request for their freedom, which was granted in 1793 by the Ecclesiastical Court of Siracusa.  The Court found that the ladies had no religious vocation and had been secluded against their will.

As I read the tale, I came to like these two sisters and the ways in which they asserted their independence:  on the night before they were to take their final vows, rather than pretending to enjoy a firework display organised by their father to celebrate the occasion, they hid in their dark room and sobbed.  Afterwards they were more fastidious about their appearance than the other nuns and wore, we are told, cleaner shoes.

Once "released", Concetta and Francesca were the talk of the town for a while.  Later they both married but neither had children;  instead, they became benefactors for their city.

Many women, of course,  were sent to convents "against their will", both before and after the Grimaldi sisters, but few had the courage or determination to contest their fate.  And even if they had, what kind of life would have awaited them outside their convents?  As Teresa Spadaccino points out, it is possible that, by Concetta and Francesca's time, rumours of some of the ideals of the Enlightenment had penetrated even convent walls and it may have been this that encouraged them.

I salute you, brave sisters in every sense, from the twenty-first century and I would like to thank Teresa Spadaccino for telling this tale.

Concetta e Francesca Grimaldi - due donne modicane nel XV111 secolo by Teresa Spadaccino is published by Editore Video Mediterraneo.

A LIGHT LUNCH WITH IRMA

My friend Irma can always be trusted to create elegant, light new dishes from simple ingredients so it was a pleasure to have lunch with her on Friday and taste these:

For a light pasta sauce for two, brown a garlic clove in 1 tablesp olive oil, then take it out and add about 500 gr unpeeled cherry tomatoes or medium-sized, peeled and chopped vine tomatoes.  Season and cook them slowly over a low heat for about 20 mins or until they cook down.  Then stir in 1 tablsp Robiola  or Philadelphia cheese and cook for about another five mins.

Then there were thin pieces of veal - not quite as thin as scaloppine - cooked in olive oil with rosemary and capers.

Grazie, Irma.

ANOTHER FLOOD IN MESSINA PROVINCE

At the end of another week, it is with great sorrow that I bring you news of another flood in Italy, this time in the Province of Messina.

Torrential rain hit the area on Tuesday, causing horrific damage in 21 small towns. The worst affected were Scarcelli di Saponara, Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, Villafranca Tirrena and Rometta.  The ensuing mudslides claimed four victims, all at Scarcelli di Saponara and among them was a ten-year-old boy.  Whole streets, bridges, business premises and homes were destroyed and 830 people, of whom 480 are from Scarcelli di Saponara, have been evacuated. Some of these have lost their homes.

This weekend a massive clearing up operation is under way and evacuees are being helped by local, regional and national organisations and volunteers.

But there is also anger and the inhabitants of Rometta, in particular, have said that they feel abandoned:  their Mayor called for help on Tuesday night but no police or civil protection officials came to the aid of the hamlet's citizens.

Raffaele Lombardo, the Governor of Sicily, has visited the stricken area this weekend and has said that his first thoughts, of course, are with the families who have lost loved ones.  He has also promised an enquiry into the safety of buildings in the area.  The Monti government has unblocked funds intended to help the people of Giampilieri and Scaletta Zanclea and it is unclear whether some of this money will be used to help those affected by this new disaster.  People in the area are worried that they are less "visible" nationally than the citizens of Genova and may therefore receive less media coverage and help.