American Fez

Italian For Beginners

I'm currently brushing up on my Italian as I'm visiting that country in a few weeks. Alas, when comes to understanding the romance languages, Cupid's enabling arrow missed me by a mile. I have no facility with foreign grammar whatsoever. My plurals are singular and vice versa, my tenses are never present, my cases are interminably oblique, and as for my gender assignments, well, I'll have to go with neutered.

To tell the truth, I've never come to terms with the idea of words being either masculine and feminine. Why can't the Europeans speak a unisex language like ours? It's probably even more difficult for a transgendered person in Rome to ask for the bathroom than it is for them to do so in the Bible Belt of the United States. 

On those rare occasions I do cobble together a few fragmentary phrases that a patient native listening very carefully might interpret as a rudimentary sentence containing an iota of actual meaning, I still cannot comprehend what is said back to me, no matter how slowly my interlocutor speaks, making the whole effort at communication a pointless exercise in futility.

Fortunately, Italian is a language that relies as much on physical gesture as it does diction, and I'm very good a physical gestures. So if I need to ask where the bathroom is, I say nothing but simply shape my body like one of the marble cherubs standing in the middle of a fountain in the piazza. The owner of the bar then points briefly in the direction of the darkest and filthiest corner of his establishment and everyone is happy.

Foreward

The used bookstore on the north-west corner of Grede Street has been demolished. It was a pleasant stucco and glass faced store-front from the nineteen-thirties.

I once bought a John Cowper Powys novel from them: Porius, I remember it well, as unreadable as the shop that sold it is irreplaceable.

There's nothing there at the moment but an empty lot showcasing a big hole in the ground and bits of earth-encrusted piping. I wonder what sort of building the developers will erect in the bookstore's place?

A triumphal arch through which customers who've avoided being short-changed at the Greek Deli across the street can pass? Unlikely, although there is much need for such a feel-good structure.

Maybe a working model of the mayor's office and town hall with re-enactors and explanatory video screens so local residents can gain a better understanding of how these decisions are made? I doubt it.

Perhaps they will not build anything at all, but create a Japanese garden suitable where employees of neighboring businesses can meditate upon their imminent redundancies. Alas, there is no money for fripperies. 

The vacant lot will eventually be filled by condos, of course, with banking offices on the ground floor and parking in the subterranean level. That's the sort of urban layering that modern architects seem to think provides the best return on investment. 

Sure, the brusque servers in the Greek Deli always try to overcharge me, but I will miss them when they're gone, replaced by a Quick Burrito, Beef-In-A-Box, Salad Queen, or whatever God-awful fast-food chain usurps their address.

Beer And Its Discontents

The inventory of available beers at modern restaurants is quite extensive these days, often requiring two sides of an A4-size menu to describe the various ales, lagers, stouts, saisons, and so on that can be ordered from your waiter. Then there is the huge, leather-bound dossier detailing the contents of the wine cellar to go through. And finally, a colorful brochure featuring all the specialty cocktails offered by the restaurant's resident "mixologist."

In fact, it usually takes me much longer to decide what I want to drink than it does for me to choose an entree. After all, compared to the interminable drinks menu, the very brief food menu reads like the limited options served on a budget international plane flight: meat or fish, except at modern restaurants it's either pork belly or squid in its own ink, both served with artisanal Brussels sprouts and a sprinkling of purple rice.

I was eating at a trendy local bistro recently when an evidently unsophisticated diner at an adjacent table requested "a Coors Light." From the look on his face, I don't think our hipster waiter had ever heard of such a thing; or else he regarded such low-brow beer with the horror he'd normally reserve for a dead insect discovered floating in a bowl of vichyssoise.

"I'm sorry we don't have Coors Light," the waiter informed the diner, with the same imperious tone of voice a Lamborghini car dealer might use to tell a customer that he didn't sell pick-up trucks. The waiter then proceeded to recite the list of cask-conditioned craft beers the establishment did carry, including flavor notes, alcohol content, and city or country of origin.

It was a prodigious feat of memory but the unsophisticated diner was not impressed. "Just fetch me a beer," he grunted dismissively, turning all his baleful attention to the long suffering countenance of his Sauvignon Blanc (the cheaper of the three listed) ordering partner.

Personally, despite finding the gourmetfication of beer somewhat ridiculous, I'd have brought the unsophisticated diner a glass of the sourest Belgian ale I could lay my hands on. "Here is a beer that many connoisseurs regard as light." I'd announce. "Drink it and learn some manners." 

I had paid and left before the diner ordered his meal, so I'm unaware of how he responded when told the kitchen was unable to supply the burger and fries he probably wanted. "Just bring me a plate of meat," no doubt, his usual mode of blunt communication.

Then again, perhaps he was not as unsophisticated as his drink choice made him appear. Perhaps he was only there for the pork belly. It's said to be the best in town although I've never tried it. Given the choice of pork belly or squid in its own ink type entrees we just get a bunch of apps.