Archive for November 19th, 2006

How They See Us - The American Divorce Rancidity, An Italian’s Take

Published at November 19, 2006 in Geek Therapy. 2 Comments

There cannot be much more of a defining character of what distinctly separates modern American from Western European societies (well, at least those in Italy) than our divorce industry.s charateristics and strategies.

 Just stroll around in Northern Italy’s train stations and ‘bars’ as a single American guy, and the question will come up:

“Are you divorced?”

I was in the Florence a couple of weeks in the fall of ‘04 to visit my daughter Bianca. 

One evening during my umpteenth time of dining alone near my downtown ‘base station’ hotel, a tired waiter roughly my age sat at his last customer’s table across from me. 

We chatted for quite a while. 

‘ivergogna’.

 What does that word mean? 

‘disgrace’.

 Oh.  Yep.  ’tis.

 (pause)…..

Che cosa quella media?

(another pause?)  que?  (wrong language, but whatever)

I am asking you what that means.

 What what means?

’tis.

 oh.  It’s a connotation for ‘It is’.

 ah.

…and so on and so forth.  He asked me a bunch of questions about divorce, and why we don’t like women, when we have beautiful women, and whatever man who doesn’t like them must be gay or …(forgot the word he used–I’ll just say…) ’crazy’.

Well, let me tell you…

 (me rambling on like the well-rehearsed machine on this subject, the societally destroying American divorce paridigm, how it’s a travesty and so on, blah blah).

My waiter was on the money when, after a mutually long silence, he shared his discription for us:

“Barbaricos!”

 

The Burning Man

Published at November 19, 2006 in Rants. 0 Comments

It’s located in Black Rock, Nevada, a barren spot sixty or so miles north of Reno, in a barren place of desert and low elevation. 

 

Every year, for six days prior to Labor Day, the Burning Man event takes place.

 

I’m going to go this year.  Evidently it’s wild as hell.  My high school buddy lives in San Francisco and I’m going to hang with him. 

 

A few hundred thousand people converge on it initially, with numbers growing, of course, over the holiday weekend.  They build sculpture, paint bodies, watch bodies, become watched bodies, and there’s a lot of other stuff, apparently, that I don’t know yet, ‘lest I’d write here. 

 

There’s a ‘naked women’ parade with a thousand participants.  Thought I’d share that.  Would this occur in Midwest or Eastern Plains of US?  (or South or New England?)  Nope.  These are California people. 

 

The layout is a grid, N-E-S-W with basically a circular network of roads to orient one from place to place, as there’s no particular geographical or topographical features to help guide one from place to place.

 

All take food in, and all remove trash and debris, leaving only footprints, taking only memories.

 

In mid-fall, ’07, I’ll write and share profusely about it.

 

At www.burningman.com , there’s some explanatory text (a-la Southern California) and

700 or so photos archived in past years’ event.

 

 phil