Giornale Pugliese V: Yours Trulli

Illustration by Hallie Cohen

I Trulli is a restaurant on 27th Street. It’s also the name of peculiar structures that dot the Pugliese countryside. The old town of Alberobello is made almost entirely of trulli, which have conical roofs and keystones that allow them to self-destruct. Puglia is an area of Italy that has benefited from a succession of invasions from nearby cultures. The misfortune of its vulnerability also allowed the region’s populace to rob ideas from its invaders. Between l000-1500 AD, interlopers from Turkey introduced these stone huts in exchange for refuge from the persecution they would be subjected to if they returned to their home country. Their crime: not killing enough Italians. From the point of view of the locals, the Turks provided a service by furnishing a novel form of self-destruction (through the removal of the keystone) as a way of avoiding the dreaded roof taxes charged by the draconian aristocracy of Ferdinand II of Spain, one of a long line of imperialists who planted their flags in the soil of Puglia. By the late twentieth century, the structures became appreciated for the way in which they epitomized the principles of sustainability and bio-architecture. Trulli have two concentric walls, which allow air to flow through the uncemented stones. Fires from within produce an upward draft that quickly exhausts the cold air. What a unique solution to heating problems at a time when we are hell bent on lessening our dependence on fossil fuels!

Giornale Pugliese IV: L'importanza di chiamarsi Ernesto

Watercolor by Hallie Cohen

The Theatro Comunale Piccinni, an imposing pink structure on the Victor Emmanuelle II, Bari’s main drag, is now staging L’importanza di chiamarsi Ernesto. It’s nice to know that Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, which recently starred Brian Bedford in a revival at New York’s Roundabout Theatre, is being produced in this Adriatic City. But it’s been decades since a great Italian classic like Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author appeared on the Great White Way. Cultural appetite is hard to fathom. For instance, there are constant surprises in the world of Internet fashion, where the greatest common denominator of taste often runs in contradistinction to what E.M. Forster called “the aristocracy of the sensitive.” Posters of Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean, which opened to record breaking box-office sales in both Europe and the United States, are already beginning to peel off Bari’s walls. Yet the lady concierge at Bari’s Hotel Palace, whose marquee is shaded by gentle palms, interjects the word “onomatopoeia” into a conversion with a guest and goes on to talk about Hemingway and Italo Svevo, a writer whose works are enjoyed by a mere sliver of Italians and Americans alike. Everyone talks about social networks like Twitter and Facebook, but the notion of a shared sensibility derived from reading great literature creates a certain magic for the wanderer. Just when life seems most chaotic and lacking in the profound connections that can link individuals, an association about a writer or a book brings two people together in a strange city. “Only connect” is something else that Forster wrote.