Coffee, Campari and Cash

We were packing up to leave our apartment in Palermo when the sound of a brass band, crisp and tight, wafted in through the shutters with the morning sunbeams. Down in the narrow streets, an itinerant band of around a dozen smartly uniformed musicians were playing seasonal tunes in what I imagined to be a personal sending-off ceremony. But it was a fond imagining and, besides, we didn’t want to leave. A week in Palermo is barely enough to visit all the sites of historical interest, especially when numerous coffee and/or Campari breaks are factored in to the schedule.

I have not yet adopted the Italian way of standing at the bar to knock back espresso, preferring to sit comfortably and savour cappuccino. Nor have I the fondness for sweet pasticceri that seem to be a national obsession though I was persuaded, on one occasion, to try a little specialita, a cake filled with ricotta. I imagined it would taste of cheese but, in fact, it was so heavily laced with sugar that I had to put it aside and order more coffee to cleanse my palate. I have since noticed that ricotta – a versatile substance – is used universally in all manner of recipes. I suspect it even comprises the main component in the stucco that is applied to most building exteriors – which would explain why it is always falling off.

There are many grand historic buildings in Palermo, so many that it is evidently quite a job to utilise and maintain them all: even some of the enormous churches are closed up. As for the abandoned palazzi built by wealthy families in years gone by, private enterprise has stepped into a few, converting them to hotels, while others await their fate. One of them, Palazzo Mori, remains fully furnished and open to the paying public, in the manner of a British National Trust project, though it is apparently under-funded and could do with a little State aid. But, as an Italian acquaintance once told me, “Italy is a poor country, full of wealthy people” and so it falls to the EU to step in and re-distribute some of its massive wealth to the poorer regions on its fringes. (Wales, Cornwall and other deprived parts of the UK, eat your heart out.)

The museums and galleries that we have visited bear the EU plaques that tell where the money for their establishment came from, as well as those other hallmarks of kick-starter funding – lavish and perfectly executed renovations, staffed by disinterested jobsworths for whom there is no on-going revenue to pay for training. One exception to this was the Galleria d’Arte Moderne, where there is a shop, a cafe and – unusually – a card payment facility. Elsewhere, the typical experience is that admission fees have to be paid in cash – whether or not credit card logos are displayed – and, mysteriously, there is never any change. Payment in cash is a practice so alien now to daily life at home, that I am out of the habit. Nevertheless, even I can work out that if cash is common currency, change should be readily available.

We may go back to Palermo, though it won’t be to look at any more grim paintings of religious devotion and suffering: there is no joy that I can detect in that art form. The glittering gold mosaic interiors of the Palatine Chapel and La Matorana, however, are an exception: they tell the same religious story in an exuberant and visually stimulating fashion that transcends the misery. For now, however, we are in Syracuse, having driven through the mountains on the futuristic autostrada-on-stilts (part-funded by the EU). Our host ushered us into our rental apartment and presented us with a welcome gift – a ricotta cake large enough for a family gathering. “Thank you so much,” I said. “We look forward to eating it later.” 

Club Rules? What Club Rules?

The ruling party in Poland – the shamelessly named Freedom and Justice Party – is in the process of curtailing both freedom and justice by politicising the country’s judiciary and taking other steps to ensure it gets re-elected, such as silencing dissenters and attempting to control the country’s electoral commission. Listening to this on the news at breakfast, I was already choking on my toast when a British Conservative politician popped up to defend the Polish government with platitudes such as “important trading partner”, “local democracy” and “taking back control”. He sidestepped the real issue – that yet another national government is taking those first steps along the road to totalitarianism – with such blatant disregard that he must think we are uncomprehending idiots; which, to be fair to him, many of us are. Nevertheless, the plain fact is that nobbling one’s judiciary is wrong. It is also against the rules of the EU, of which Poland is a member, yet its government presses ahead, outraged that the EU should presume to have a say in the matter.

We have spent this last week in Sicily where, because my Italian is so rudimentary, I can detect no discussion of EU politics except by tuning in to BBC Radio 4 via the internet. To be honest, however, I am not presently all-consumed by the issues, since we are here mainly to savour the food, drink and history of the island. In order to cover as much ground as possible, we hired a car, pre-dented so as not to draw attention to ourselves, and fitted with a sat-nav to de-stress the experience of driving through unfamiliar, sprawling towns. Unfortunately, the hire firm did not alert us to the fact that the sat-nav was programmed in Italian and knew only one destination – The Vatican. Maybe it’s a joke they inflict on tourists, but I had to execute a factory re-set to get the device to recognise the rest of Italy. As for getting it to speak English, we chose the voice of an Australian called Ken who has a ‘sense of humour’ and a vocabulary to match, in preference to Janet from the Home Counties, whose po-faced delivery is somehow at odds with the unruly traffic hereabouts.

Arriving in Catania and, later, Palermo, we were relieved to park the car and walk. Historic city-centres such as these were not built for cars, but the locals who live in them have little choice but to squeeze their minis through the streets and thread their teetering motorbikes around the pedestrians, which they do with consummate skill and consideration for each other. Road rage is reserved only for other drivers, in particular those who dare to proceed more slowly than the permitted norm, i.e. ‘full speed ahead’ at all times.

Ancient city centres may be frustrating for drivers, but they are otherwise the saviour of a way of life that does not work elsewhere. The historic centre of Palermo, for example, has four areas of street markets, operating all day, every day and sustained by the population that lives immediately above and around them. Everything they need for everyday life is there and, with competition intense, prices are keen. At least they are for the locals: they can see us coming, so we have learned to buy only from the stalls with clearly marked pricing. And, away from the markets, many of the streets are dedicated to individual trades, as they used to be in medieval London. One afternoon we walked past a line of jewellers, then coffin-makers, then – surprisingly – underpants wholesalers.

Walking the streets during rush hour is less of a pleasure: the fumes from all those ill-maintained, bashed-up vehicles are overpowering. Still, with the traffic jammed-up, there is an opportunity to count the number of drivers wearing seat belts: one in ten is average, despite the fact that, under EU rules, it is mandatory for everybody to belt up. The Poles, it seems, are not the only ones flouting the club rules.

Feeling The Pressure?

Last Sunday I attended two musical concerts themed for Christmas, one of them performed by a big band, the other by a gospel choir with orchestral accompaniment. It was a good way to appreciate the huge repertoire of Christmas tunes – from the intensely sacred to the profoundly secular. It was also, incidentally, a chance to admire the variety of personal adornments worn by many as an expression of their enthusiasm for the festive season. I am talking of Santa hats, elf caps, antlers, Christmas jumpers and the like. These accessories, seen dispassionately, look ridiculous on anyone, but are nonetheless a light-hearted expression of the party atmosphere at this time of year. It strikes me, however, that there is a darker aspect to them – and to the jumpers in particular.

Christmas jumpers make me feel – jumpy. Their designs shout the message “Christmas is fun!” and defy anyone to disagree. It seems to me that those who sport them are throwing down a challenge to join in, get knitwear-competitive or else face being ostracised and condemned as a spoilsport, sour-faced misery-guts. The thing is that, while I can appreciate the ironic humour, the intentional tackiness and/or the naive enthusiasm of some of the designs, I see them all as endorsing the underlying vision of Christmas as a prolonged period of over-indulgence. If I like Christmas at all, it is the version remembered from my youth – a visit to midnight mass and a couple of days of treats and family togetherness – not the present-day orgy of consumerism, encouraged and sustained by the retail and credit industries intent on testing the season of goodwill to the deepest recesses of our pockets. Therefore when I came across a chap this week wearing a seriously anti-Christmas jumper I congratulated him. Admittedly, he was not at much risk of being derided, since he was selling cinema tickets at the local arthouse, a place that teems with liberals and free-thinkers: but his protest was no less noble for that. Besides, it may be that he wore it prominently on the tram, travelling home with the shoppers.

I’ve bought quite a few cinema tickets lately, being eager to keep abreast of the new releases prior to leaving the country for a prolonged and determined spell of Christmas-avoidance. I enjoyed all of them, including two that appeared to have typos in the titles: Happy End, which I thought lacked the gerundive -ing, and Good Time, which seemed to cry out for the plural. Not everyone will agree that these titles are grammatically unexpected; however, they are misleading concerning their respective plots, which are, in fact, so full of mishaps and bad behaviour that both films could be described as “disaster movies” – if only that term had not been appropriated previously by the Hollywood blockbuster industry. Another film – James Franco’s The Disaster Movie – also has a misleading title, since it is not about earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or dystopian outcomes of any sort. In fact, it tells the true story of the making of a movie that was so bad it failed to attract an audience.

Finally, there was Menache, the story of a widower stuck in a low-paying job and doing his best to bring up his adolescent son – a difficult situation. His real predicament, however, is defined by the fact that, being a member of a religious community governed strictly by its traditions, there is pressure on him to conform to the rules: he must either get a new wife or allow his son to be brought up by relatives. The widower wants neither option and argues the case for keeping his son, knowing all along that the system is adamant. His dilemma is serious – the real-life equivalent of, say, accepting that one’s choice is not whether to wear a Christmas jumper, but which design to choose.

@percywyndhamlewis

This week I went to see an exhibition of work by Percy Wyndham Lewis, a man described by some as a genius on account of his radical writings and paintings. Apparently he did not like the name Percy and tried to shake it off – perhaps its poetic association did not fit with his self-image as the hard-man of contemporary artistic ideology. However, he certainly had no image problem in the physiognomy department: judging by contemporary descriptions and the various images of him, he was a handsome, fierce-looking young man – the sort one could imagine as fearless in the promotion of his principles. I was shocked, therefore, to see him interviewed on film in 1938, at the age of 56, looking jowly and rotten of tooth, sporting gratuitous arty accessories – a Sherlock pipe, a superfluous scarf, a ridiculous hat and ‘statement’ spectacles. Even though the look may have been ‘on-trend’ for artists at that time, the perils of image-management are clear: get it wrong and you can look more pillock than genius.

Wyndham Lewis lived at a time when very few people had a visible public persona to consider, but these days, thanks to free, internet-enabled social media, everybody can have one – considered or otherwise. This phenomenon impinged on me recently when I was recruited to write some short pieces for an online travel guide, Spotted by Locals. Before proceeding, however, the publisher required of me a mug shot and a potted biography – presumably so that would-be readers might judge the credibility of my recommendations in the context of my perceived identity. Fair enough – but, without a professional PR consultant acting on my behalf, I had choices to make. In the end, I submitted a photo of myself in jovial mode and, for the biography, made light of my lifetime of experience and accumulated wisdom. I wanted to ensure I would not be mistaken for a polemicist with a grudge-fuelled agenda. Percy, I’m certain, would have taken me for a wimp, but tourists, after all, just want to know where to get a decent lunch.

There was yet another aspect to the writing gig that I had not considered: the requirement to tweet in order to promote the publication. I knew in theory how the medium works, but had not mastered the practicalities and, unlike Mr. Trump, was nervous of tweeting the wrong thing to the wrong people. Hesitantly, I dusted off my dormant Twitter account and dipped my toe into the shark-infested waters. I was encouraged by an early success when I picked up a tweet from a chap who had a spare ticket to a sold-out gig that I was keen to attend (Jacob Collier – highly recommended). We concluded the deal by phone, as I very soon lost the thread, but I have since become more familiar with the technique – which I do  not  find intuitive – and am working to increase the number of my followers into double digits (@joeholdsworth47, in case you are interested). My relative success with Twitter, however, is only part of the act. Next, I have to refine my presence on Instagram.

Professional marketeers consider these digital self-publicity tools essential to raising the profile of any brand, although I suspect there is a limit to the public’s tolerance of such constant bombardment. Nevertheless, I bet Percy (I know, I can’t resist teasing him) would have loved and made full use of them. He was commercially unfortunate, in that he had few exhibitions, struggled to find eager publishers and had two World Wars interrupt his career. He made very little money from his limited audience, but a marketing campaign which co-ordinated his Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts could have done wonders for the monetisation of his output – though in his later years he would have been well advised to hire a personal stylist.

The Intrepid Culture Vulture

Hands up all those who know Modigliani’s first name. I’m sure many of you do, but the point is that the style is so recognisable that he/she no longer has need of a first name. In the commercial world such a degree of recognition would be regarded as successful branding, but in the sphere of creative arts that term is probably too crass to be acceptable – assuming, that is, that the artist’s adoption of a unique style is not a cynical marketing ploy but a result of genuinely artistic exploration. In any case, being in London for a few days, I wanted to take advantage of some of the cultural goodies on offer, and the Modigliani exhibition at Tate Modern was one of them.

Some of his (Amedeo’s) works are so familiar that I assumed I knew what to expect, but I was surprised by something I had not previously noticed: many of his faces have no eyeballs. I became obsessed with this for a while, thinking it odd that an artist could disregard the “windows to the soul” yet still convey soulfulness. Eventually I made the connection between the paintings and his earlier sculptures – stylised stone busts with blank eyeballs – and the fact that artists have never really needed to treat eyeballs – or anything else – realistically in order to express the subtleties of human experience. Perhaps I should scrutinise art more closely in future, I thought, and by the time I got to the Courtauld Gallery to see Chaim (I really did not know his first name) Soutine’s portraits, my attention was focused a little too intently on his treatment of the eyes.

However, my cultural outings included more than painting: I popped into the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road, attracted by a morbid curiosity to see the exhibition of medical paraphernalia and the special display Ayurvedic Man comprising Oriental medicinal tracts, artefacts and illustrations acquired by Mr. Wellcome at the turn of the 20^th century. There, I expected merely to be amused by the trappings and mumbo-jumbo of faith-based cures devoid of empirical proof of efficacy and, to some extent, that was my experience. However, as well as the snake oil, there were long-standing traditions of plant-based remedies which, considering modern drugs are similarly derived, have to be convincing. Moreover, there was an 18^th century engraving of a patient with a new nose, evidence that Indians had by then mastered reconstructive surgery, having reportedly practised it for hundreds of years. I stood corrected, once more, on my preconceptions – though not convinced that I need to realign or cleanse my chakras.

And so to music – or, rather, to Wilton’s in the East End, the 1850’s Music Hall that has been rescued from oblivion in the nick of time. Any excuse to attend this charming and evocative venue should be grasped so, when encouraged to meet a small party of friends and relatives there, I bought a ticket for an event titled The Voice of the Violin – despite my aversion to the instrument. (I secretly hoped that the unique acoustic of the venue might flatter its sound.) The programme was ambitious: it comprised 18 pieces for solo violin, each of which was played on an instrument contemporary to the era of its composition. In the event, despite the unquestionable virtuosity of the performer, I did find the concert quite testing. The experience was rather like listening to a collection of emblematic guitar solos taken out of the context of the tunes they were intended to enhance. Not only was the prolonged jumble of showy, over-excited pieces too much for my senses, but my hopes for acoustic enhancement went unrealised and I was quietly relieved when it ground to an end. Some prejudices, it seems, are insurmountable.