April 2003 Archives

the other night, walking around the Vatican’s walled borders, we came across an overpass i’d noticed before, but never given any thought. there’s a flight of stairs leading to the top, which we climbed — to discover the most delightful, perfectly-manicured stretch of railroad this side of Anaheim, California. it was, of course, the last hundred meters of Vatican City’s private railway; shiny, shrubbery-lined tracks which exit from a batcave-like opening set high into a thick brick wall, sealed with a massive iron gate. it’s cool.

climb the dome of st. peter’s (again, cool) and you can see the rest of the rail line out back, a Disneyesque station and train collection, all the cuter from that vantage point, sized perfectly as it were, to a model H.O. scale.

walking back from the outdoor market at Andrea Doria, azure and i were accosted by a restaurant tout. with folded red napkins over one arm, and laminated English-language picture menus tucked into the other, these smooth-talking ‘waiters’ are actually seasoned cattle-drivers, their long days spent roundin’ up and herding bovine tourists into the (not-at-all) ‘Italian Ristorante’ joints around Vatican City.

this time around, the tout hadn’t finished the opening bars of “Hello Mister, Good Pizza For You…” before spotting stalks of fresh asparagus peeping from our bags — also heavy with roman artichokes, fennel bulbs, sage, shallots, garlic, carrots, fresh peas, and sicilian pachino tomatoes, to boot — whereupon he completely dropped his spiel and instead began to jealously ogle the produce.

meanwhile, a second tout ambled over, at first wildly waving some menus of his own, then stopping, abruptly, to also admire the inventory of our plastic-bag cornucopias.

“Man, you guys really eat well at your place!”, the one tells us, with the other nodding rapidly in agreement, putting the menus away, and adding “I think it’s always better, eating at home, anyways.”

damn straight it is. happy easter!

watching vespas jockey for position as they barrel down the Lungotevere, one realizes those fearless riders are indeed the cultural (if not genetic) inheritants of the whole Ben-Hur business of chariot racing.

equally striking are the sharp yells and shouts which pierce the din of scooter-noise: some of it is just two chatty riders on the same bike, of course, but i’ve also noticed solitary riders screaming monologues as they zoomed past.

now, drop me into that italian two-stroke Circus Maximus, and i’d no doubt wail like the best of ‘em — in fear — but never with the calculated, conversational intensity the romans accomplish: the riders i’ve seen shouting aloud instead remind me of ‘colorful’ old Berkeley, where large portions of the sidewalk citizenry are always engaged in hallucinatory conversations or debates featuring parties neither present nor real.

all of which i just discovered to be just half-true here: turns out it’s de riguer for motorino pilots to squeeze, wiggle, and jam their teensy cellphones beneath their helmets, until they’re barely visible, but right flush-up against the ear.

this, you see, lets them yap away on the cell tel. all the way to work (just like any other commuter), while it’s the ambient noise, of course, which necessitates those strange and dopplered yells that i, the odd pedestrian out, invariably hear on my morning stroll.

the most beautiful spot in Rome that i know is the protestant cemetary, a curiously silent and shaded place that’s kept hidden by the looming Cestius Pyramid, some crumbling remnants of the Aurelian wall, and a foreboding alleyway of shuttered nightclubs bordering the blue-collar Testaccio district.

the few visitors here generally arrive to see the grave of John Keats, buried, as per his instructions, under the epitaph “here lies one whose name was writ in water” . Shelley, too, is buried nearby; he had earlier toured Keats’ tomb and exclaimed, “it might make one in love with death to know that one should be buried in so sweet a place”.

azure and i mostly visit, though, to pet the resident cats, and to see, just once more again, the gravestone of Emelyn Story, a grieving marble angel that was carved by the hand of her husband, American sculptor William Story, whose own grave lies next to hers, and that of their young child, Joseph.