Sardinia Journal II: A Tree Grows in Alghero

watercolor by Hallie Cohen

Emily Dickinson once reputedly said something to the effect of,  “I know Amherst well.” It doesn’t take long to realize that three of the items that are most characteristic of Alghero are caramel, coral and octagonal shaped structures and that sunbathers like to nestle themselves into the rock formations that lie all along the shoreline—finding little plateaus of comfort in seemingly precarious spots like birds do when they find their perches. Alghero, known as "The Coral Riviera," actually had its own  Musee della Corallo. Though it appears to have been recently shuttered, if you look through its iron gates you can see tree branches in its courtyard painted red to imitate the way coral looks. A version of medieval Catalan is still the indigenous language the way Ladino is in the Tyrol. When you walk down into the town you will actually see many remnants  of the medieval era, one of them in the l7th Torre di San Giacomo (Tower of St. James) whose architecture is mirrored in the Villa Mosca or charming house, another octagonal structure that is set on a promontory above the main drag. Nature has unusual and inventive ways of accommodating itself to the rocky terrain. You may see a branch jutting straight out of rock and when you walk down into the old town you will note a solitary oasis amidst the old stone buildings. Yes a tree grows in Alghero, and one other thing, unlike many other towns in Italy, the toilets have seats.

Sardinia Journal I: Alghero

Torre Dello Sperone (photograph by Hallie Cohen)

If you want to see a carousel that’s propelled by a bicyclist who  high fives screaming children as he pedals then visit Alghero one of the two main cities of the Island of Sardinia. On the same main square, Piazza Sulis, you can also watch a puppeteer who delights onlookers with the delicately exquisite movements of her marionette and this right under one of the ancient stone towers (the Torre Dello Sperone) that populate the town and that at one point provided defenses against invading armies. There are streets named after the famed romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi and the Marxist Antonio Gramsci about whom the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote a poem, “Gramsci’s Ashes.” When you arrive at the airport there's a colorful mural of the city illustrating its battlements and a poster advertising, "endless island," which is, when you think of it, an oxymoron. During the summer Alghero is teaming with tourists who gravitate towards the art nouveau newpaper kiosk with its L’Unione Sarda” on top. Oh yes and if you’re in doubt, sardines are definitely a Sardinian speciality. There's something garish about Alghero with its late night bazaar, which sells all the cheap memorabilia you will never need and street musicians wailing forth in a folk rock style derivative of American pop stars of the 70’s and 80’s. But Alghero is a place where memories are made and  where many of the supernumeraries who populated Fellini classics like 8 ½ probably learned their tricks.

The Power of Positive Thinking

photo of Norman Vincent Peale by Roger Higgins, World Telegram

A recent NPR piece revealed that Marble Collegiate Church was Donald Trump’s spiritual home. The piece also described the influence one of the church’s famous pastors, Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, had on Trump's thinking ("How Positive Thinking, Prosperity Gospel Define Donald Trump’s Prosperity Outlook,” NPR, 8/3/16) The NPR story goes on to quote Michael Hamilton, a historian of American Christianity at Seattle Pacific University thusly, "Peale got very interested in the notion that the Gospel could unleash power, that having a divine relationship with God could unleash power within a person for success. And he defined success pretty broadly, so it partly included material success. God didn't want people to be poor." One might note that this is a little different from the description of Protestantism offered by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism where the importance of values like hard work and frugality lay in the fact their possessor had received God’s grace. The Peale notion is a little more raw and relates to the juggernaut of willfulness that’s characteristic of salesmanship and success while that espoused by classical Protestantism emphasizes the spiritual side of things. When Trump commented about his campaign after a fractious week when his own Vice President broke ranks to endorse the House Speaker Paul Ryan that “It’s never been so well united” (“Trump Says campaign ‘never been so well united,'" LA Times, 8/3/16), he was exhibiting the power or shall we say the delusion of positive thinking. Salesmen rarely tell the truth. Their product is always great. You have to buy it. A good salesman could sell you manure or the wall that Trump is not only going to build but make Mexico pay for.  One wonders what Norman Vincent Peale or his student Donald Trump, would think about Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, one of the masterpieces of modern American literature, that deals with a tragic character who can’t talk himself out of his fate and who buckles under the weight of circumstances.

Shit or Miss

Horse Feces (photo: Basotxerri)

Have you ever had a public toilet flush before you're ready to get up? Have you ever worried that an overzealous electric eye will result in someone else’s excretions landing in the wrong place and giving you an STD?  What guidelines govern feces? What weight and size excrement manages to sneak under the wire? What sets off an alarm in an automated toilet? What guidelines are put in place by the Bureau of Weights and Standards? In the old days going to a public bathroom was no party, but you manually flushed when you were done. It’s a little like what goes on with sinks and soap dispensers today. In a technological advanced roadside bathroom, it’s shit or miss whether radar will pick you up and you’ll be able to wash your hands where in the past after flushing the toilet  and maybe feeling a little proud of your healthy deposit, you walked over to the sink and either turned the handle or pumped the water and then soap dispenser. Life was easier. There was no mystery and you didn’t run into the danger of getting too much water in your butt and too little on your hands. Automation has its positive side. You don’t often walk into the stall of a public bathroom anymore to seeing someone else’s big angry log daring you to sit down. On the other hand if you’re going to depend on facial and voice recognition, you’re going to want something that’s a bit more exacting than what you’re sometimes offered in this mechanized age. Smart phones are now taken for granted. What is needed are equally smart toilets.

Jason Bourne

The character of Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) poses some interesting questions? Are outsiders the true patriots as both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have argued in their campaigns? Can a patriot be someone who works totally outside the order of a democratic society? Is Bourne a more violent version of Edward Snowden. Do the means justify the ends? The current sequel of the Bourne saga, entitled simply Jason Bourne, and directed by Paul Greengrass is loaded with this and many timely issues. The CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee-Jones) presides over a secret project called Iron Hand in which everyone will be bugged. Perhaps he would more fittingly have directed the NSA. And the character of Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), the head of an internet giant called Deep Dream who refuses to play ball with the government, recalls the recent controversy in which Apple refused to give government agents its encryption codes for the smart phones of the San Bernardino jihadists. Jason Bourne is a thriller whose suspense actually relies not so much in the improbable imbroglios with their glamorous James Bond like settings (Reykyvik, Rome, Athens, Las Vegas, London), but on issues which possess an almost journalistic veracity. At the end the question that this latest episode leaves viewers with is: will “the spy” come in from the cold? The answer is: not if he continues to be shot at in the movie's almost laughingly ubiquitous crowd scenes--which all take place during demonstrations and riots. In any event, as the curtain goes down on this current chapter in the Bourne story, the CIA threatens to be taken over by a beautiful Stamford grad, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) who's a classmate of the internet billionaire. However, in terms of our prospects for a better world, it’s hard to tell if the filmmakers regard the presence of these eggheads (or their real life Harvard educated counterparts, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg) as crocking up to be a positive or negative thing? Will good looking Ivy educated geeks who treat reality like a computer game save the planet?