Monday, January 08, 2007

Romans Try to Balance Tradition and Progress...Interesting Results.

The ANNOTICO Report

Rome is shedding some of its old ways but it will never be cutting edge, thank God. We only pray Rome will continue to cohabitate the present and the past with the finesse it always has.

One tradition has changed. Formerly, on New Year's, Romans took "out with the old" literally, and jettisoned unwanted pieces of furniture out their upper story windows, making for a delightful game of survival for pedestrians.

But  the Roman pyromaniacal spirit is alive and well. To ignite something that goes boom in the night is a Roman birthright. Anytime, anywhere. Young Romans set off a staggering array of rocketry in the Piazzas,filling them full of smoke, resembled a war zone. Huge booms reverberate among old buildings and drove many under cover.

 

Amazingly, Even more striking is the absence of smokers in restaurants since the Italian government banned smoking in public places early in 2005. That the government proposed the law in the first place is stunning. That it passed is breathtaking. That the ban has held is extraordinary.

Most  assumed Italians would simply continue to smoke and swat away legislative mandates like flies, much as they dispense with irritations like taxes.Italians have never cottoned to national edicts.

That the government proposed the law in the first place is stunning. That it passed is breathtaking. That the ban has held is extraordinary.

Papal dictates are routinely ignored here, and continue to be so. Italians  are astounded that we Americans actually took what Pope John Paul II said seriously. They, in contrast, would simply nod and say, yes Holy Father.

 

A Search for Balance

Challenged by the new, Rome honors the old

 

The Boston Globe

By Sam Allis, Globe Columnist

January 7, 2007

ROME -- This Observer was shattered last week to find that the Romans no longer throw their unwanted stuff out the window on New Year's Eve. No more mattresses floating out of a third-story window like manta rays into the night sky. No more end tables arriving at speed on the cobblestones below.

It was a grand tradition that deserved eternal life. What better occasion than New Year's -- Capodanno in Italian -- to unload the detritus of the old year? And what more elegant way to do so than simply open the window and let gravity take it from there? The spirit of this disposal by defenestration is captured in the great Italian interrogative: Ma chi se ne frega? (Who gives a damn?)

It was a huge urban yard sale of sorts for those souls who braved incoming projectiles and a delightful game of survival for the rest of us.

In an earlier incarnation, I grew adept at negotiating this ancient city on New Year's Eve with one eye aimed up after spotting strange things above me that simply couldn't be explained by my grappa consumption.

It was, in the end, a charming exercise that lost its charm to everyone but tourists. It fit a stereotype Romans no longer embrace. I'd say try it in Boston except folks here would gleefully take aim at pedestrians below like members of the Addams family.

At least the Romans have maintained their insouciance toward fireworks at Capodanno.

The official city effort pales in the face of the robust freelance activity among its citizenry, whose pyromaniacal spirit is on parade that night. To ignite something that goes boom in the night is a Roman birthright. Anytime, anywhere.

Police and medical personnel yawned on the sidelines as young Romans set off a staggering array of rocketry in the Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon. I hadn't heard the report of a monster M-80 firecracker for years, but what these untrained ears heard last Sunday made an M-80 sound like a cap gun.

The piazza, full of smoke, resembled a war zone. Huge booms reverberated among old buildings and drove many of us cowards under the columns of the Pantheon for cover. There we watched as incendiaries of all stripes were set off in the middle of the square while bottles of prosecco made their way among us. Everyone was beaming.

People set things off from balconies and rooftops that would have had the Boston police at their doors in nanoseconds. Romans trampled with brio every safety regulation we hold dear, yet no one, least of all the Roman constabulatory, got worked up over the spectacle. Nor was anyone hurt, and folks happily lurched off toward home when their sound and light show tailed off.

First Night in Boston too tame for you? Suit up with the varsity and come to Rome for Capodanno.

Disposal by defenestration isn't the only tradition to have disappeared. Even more striking is the absence of smokers in restaurants since the Italian government banned smoking in public places early in 2005. That the government proposed the law in the first place is stunning. That it passed is breathtaking. That the ban has held is extraordinary.

I assumed Italians would simply continue to smoke over their osso buco and swat away legislative mandates like flies, much as they dispense with irritations like taxes. Blue air and hot air in a trattoria go hand in hand. Besides, Italians have never cottoned to national edicts. Despite its ancient bloodlines, Italy only became a country in 1870, so its sense of national unity is still tender.

Papal dictates fare no better here. My Italian friends were astounded that we Americans actually took what Pope John Paul II said seriously. They, in contrast, would simply nod and say, yes Holy Father, when he would issue a pronouncement against birth control and then blithely post some of the lowest birth rates in the industrialized world.

Their strategy is ingenious: Say I do and then don't.

And yet what the Observer observed here last week shattered stereotypes. I saw the same coils of huddled masses outside restaurants we see in Boston savoring a butt between courses. There were no protests. Everyone obeyed the law.

What's going on is that Rome, like Boston, is grappling with its sense of self. It is searching for the right balance between the old and new. This is far trickier calculus in the Eternal City, where foreigners were playing tourist in the Colosseum when we were still throwing tea into Boston Harbor.

A barber here made the signal observation to me that Rome, alone among great western cities, is not modern. The rest are cutting edge. New York and London are global financial hubs. Not Rome. Paris continues to dazzle us with new architecture. Not Rome.

Rome is shedding some of its old ways but it will never be cutting edge, thank God. Go to Milan for fashion and finance.

We only pray Rome will continue to cohabitate the present and the past with the finesse it always has. Consider the kid with an iPod atop a slab of marble two millennia old. We flock to Rome precisely because it's not modern.

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com

 

The ANNOTICO Reports

Can be Viewed, and are Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net