A lot has changed since I last lived in Rome. Fewer cars are found parked on the sidewalks: the result, I am told, of more community spirit but also mainly more tickets being dispensed. And there are cops everywhere, and not only the gorgeously dressed and totally useless cops in cerulean capes and hats trimmed with gold braid, swords dangling from their hips, astride dumb horses. But real cops, lots of them. Terrorismo, terrorismo, terrorismo.
The other day I was walking through Piazza di Popolo, and there were a bunch of them: male cops gazing into the eyes of female cops in their copmobiles; cops dazed after large lunches, hanging about the two churches. And a phalanx of stern-faced, muscled cops in dark jodhpurs and matching berets lining a side street that leads to Piazza d'Espagna.
Facing these serious cops was a crowd of 130 gazing worshipfully at the pink brick of the Hotel de Russie, a place that, despite its tsarsih name, is actually exquisitely simple with exquisitely lofty prices and exquisitely rude personnel. I know, because in the days when Vanity Fair was rolling in cash, or pretending to, they put me up in the Hotel de Russie, and what you got for a $50 breakfast was amazing: a lovely spot in their outdoor garden, 1 cornetto, 1 oj, and 1 cup of coffee.
Anyway, the reason everyone was blocking the street and preventing any Roman from getting to his destination, was not -- as I had first suspected -- because Brad Pitt or anyone important was actually staying there. Even some lovely skinny Italian babe with shiny hair skimming her ass, wearing black high-heeled boots and a matching raincoat didn't get much notice as she exited.
Silvio Berlusconi was inside. 40 minutes....and we all waited for....some squat prime minister who is constantly being put on trial for fraud, tax evasion, and corruption. And yes, of course I was among the idiots who stood around and blocked access to the rest of the street.
So at first naturally, I assumed Silvio was inside one of the bedrooms of Hotel de Russie with perhaps a twin of the lovely skinny Italian babe in high-heeled boots, and that's why everyone was hanging around. To catch a glimpse of the latest 18-year-old or prostitute in his life. That's his usual m.o., more flagrant now that his wife Veronica Lario (whom he first met years and years ago when she appeared topless on stage) has promised to divorce him. Italians are divided about him. In theory. In practice they love him.
But no. It turns out Silvio was inside the hotel actually working. I know this because the first person to hit the sidewalk after the gorgeous babe, was Gianfranco Fini, of the neo-fascist party -- a thin, ascetic man who is often allied with Berlusconi. No one gave a damn about him, and he was forced to pile into his grey limo, uncheered.
But then, huge screams!! Silvio, Silvio!! A large black limo backed up to the hotel revolving door, so the great man wouldn't have to walk a single step. The stern-faced cops looked nervous. The crowd went nuts.
And sure enough: Out of Hotel de Russie came this little guy, about as wide as a door, his face sprayed an orangey-brown courtesy of some inferior tanning product. He should murder his plastic surgeon, by the way -- and here I'm not talking about the surgery necessary after his nose was smashed the other week by some nut in the crowd wielding a statuette. Not at all. Silvio's entire face has been stretched tight across the brow and cheekbones. It looks like a dark wet sheet wrapped around a plump mummy.
Anyway, as a journalist for la Repubblica told me the other day, Silvio is a guy who above all wants to be loved. He cannot understand it when critics trash him. So for about a full minute, nuts in the crowd or no nuts in the crowd, he stood and waved at all his fans, making the cops in jodhpurs even more nervous. Then he got into the black limo, indicated to the driver he wasn't to start the engine just then, and waved for another 3 full minutes through the windows. Only then did he drive off.
I am told that when he got his nose smashed, lots of Silvio's critics, especially intellectuals, wrote piles of columns about how this was the greatest day ever in Italy's long and august history -- and others, less intellectual, wrote that anyone who suggested such a thing was a barbarian.
But actually, from what I saw in front of the Hotel de Russie, Silvio has nothing to worry about. When I first interviewed him for VF, about 14 years ago, he told me straight out that he had no idea why he should be singled out for tax fraud, since that was the norm in Italy: "Everyone does it!" He looked puzzled and annoyed that I had broached the subject. Why, he asked, should a prime minister act differently from those he governed? For years he made sure that he couldn't be prosecuted for corruption, etc while he was in office -- had a law passed by Parliament, in fact, to keep him safe. And now it's his aim to stay in office forever and ever.
My money's on him.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
JUDIT'S ROMAN HOLIDAY, WEEK 2
'Miss Bachrach claims she is 49, but the visible wrinkles around her eyes and lips say otherwise... She is a pastiche: firm like Germans, poised like the French, speaks like a liberal American, and uses hand gestures like the Italians."
"During the interview I had some time to overlook Bachrach's syllabus for her Journalism class. Though she claims to have spent 4 years in Italy, the 'attendance' aspect of her syllabus seemed to suggest otherwise. As someone who has lived and worked in Italy over an extensive period of time, one would assume a more accurate knowledge of Italian beurocracy (sic) and the unreliable transportation system, as well as the strikes and protests that occur quite often and may severely hinder the students from arriving in class every single day...One would expect more lenience (sic) from someone who has claimed to live in 'the eternal city.'
Well this is all my fault, although I am certainly considering suing Dr. Ronald Perlman after all that botox. I told my 18 students during my first Investigative Journalism class that their job was to interview me. (Thanks Karen, great idea.... I think...)
Except, I added, some of what I told them would be a bald-faced lie. And it was their assignment to go online, check out as much as they could, use their common sense and their instincts, and then write up the story of Bachrach, and figure out exactly what in the skewed narrative of her life was true and what was very likely not.
(Most, but not all, figured out that I never had been a private detective while living in Rome, and that most likely, following an adulterous CIA agent all around Italy and reporting back to his disillusioned wife was possibly not in my normal line of work. And lots and lots of students made up my quotes, which is the norm in many Italian newspapers, but still....)
What I like best about my students is how Italian most of them are. Almost every sentence is a direct translation from lonnnnggg run-on Italian sentences with Italian nouns, verbs, idioms and adjectives basically left intact. For example:
'Although she may have been stretching the cord in explaining her interview experiences, it still remains that her extensive knowledge on how to attend an interview, how to ask questions, how to dress and how to approach the situation prove that she clearly has undergone many interviews.'
and
'When asked if she only speaks Italian decently how was she able to be an efficient detective in Italy, she responded that the stories she was assigned were only American...Bachrach appeared to be telling a lie and when her detective profession was researched, and this specific story, there were no results.'
and
'Judy Bachrach... outwardly a normal professor ... what she hides behind her blond hair and sly look though is an enviable journalistic career and a temperament of a woman who wears the pants and who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.'
But what pisses everyone off the most, even the most charming in the class, is the list of commands in the syllabus. Namely:
THEY HAVE TO BE ON TIME. ALWAYS. NO UNEXCUSED ABSENCES. NO CELL PHONE USE DURING CLASS. (Thanks Avery.)
(On-time arrivals are practically non-existent in Rome. On the other hand: Cell phone use while simultaneously smoking, applying lipstick and driving during rush hour is de rigeur)
Thus, lots of anguished asides, all of them contained in 4-line sentences:
'Prof. Bachrach, around 170 cm, thick red hair wore (sic) loose, wide blue eyes and a simple clothing, didn't waste time and went straight to explaining her expectations, as well as clarifying the aims of the course and a few unquestionable ground rules such as 'turn off your cell phones,' 'respect due dates' and 'no talking in my class.' Damn it."
Then we talked about the First Amendment, and what it lets you do. Burn the American flag. March through Skokie's Jewish community packed with concentration camp survivors even if you're a neo-Nazi. They knew all about the latter, interestingly, and were appalled at our license. Even more shocked when I defended the rights of Nazis. One of my students (actually the brightest) will no longer speak to me...
...And so it goes....
Next class: How to write a complete sentence about Roman life without using the phrase "Eternal City" or even "Bel Paese"
"During the interview I had some time to overlook Bachrach's syllabus for her Journalism class. Though she claims to have spent 4 years in Italy, the 'attendance' aspect of her syllabus seemed to suggest otherwise. As someone who has lived and worked in Italy over an extensive period of time, one would assume a more accurate knowledge of Italian beurocracy (sic) and the unreliable transportation system, as well as the strikes and protests that occur quite often and may severely hinder the students from arriving in class every single day...One would expect more lenience (sic) from someone who has claimed to live in 'the eternal city.'
Well this is all my fault, although I am certainly considering suing Dr. Ronald Perlman after all that botox. I told my 18 students during my first Investigative Journalism class that their job was to interview me. (Thanks Karen, great idea.... I think...)
Except, I added, some of what I told them would be a bald-faced lie. And it was their assignment to go online, check out as much as they could, use their common sense and their instincts, and then write up the story of Bachrach, and figure out exactly what in the skewed narrative of her life was true and what was very likely not.
(Most, but not all, figured out that I never had been a private detective while living in Rome, and that most likely, following an adulterous CIA agent all around Italy and reporting back to his disillusioned wife was possibly not in my normal line of work. And lots and lots of students made up my quotes, which is the norm in many Italian newspapers, but still....)
What I like best about my students is how Italian most of them are. Almost every sentence is a direct translation from lonnnnggg run-on Italian sentences with Italian nouns, verbs, idioms and adjectives basically left intact. For example:
'Although she may have been stretching the cord in explaining her interview experiences, it still remains that her extensive knowledge on how to attend an interview, how to ask questions, how to dress and how to approach the situation prove that she clearly has undergone many interviews.'
and
'When asked if she only speaks Italian decently how was she able to be an efficient detective in Italy, she responded that the stories she was assigned were only American...Bachrach appeared to be telling a lie and when her detective profession was researched, and this specific story, there were no results.'
and
'Judy Bachrach... outwardly a normal professor ... what she hides behind her blond hair and sly look though is an enviable journalistic career and a temperament of a woman who wears the pants and who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.'
But what pisses everyone off the most, even the most charming in the class, is the list of commands in the syllabus. Namely:
THEY HAVE TO BE ON TIME. ALWAYS. NO UNEXCUSED ABSENCES. NO CELL PHONE USE DURING CLASS. (Thanks Avery.)
(On-time arrivals are practically non-existent in Rome. On the other hand: Cell phone use while simultaneously smoking, applying lipstick and driving during rush hour is de rigeur)
Thus, lots of anguished asides, all of them contained in 4-line sentences:
'Prof. Bachrach, around 170 cm, thick red hair wore (sic) loose, wide blue eyes and a simple clothing, didn't waste time and went straight to explaining her expectations, as well as clarifying the aims of the course and a few unquestionable ground rules such as 'turn off your cell phones,' 'respect due dates' and 'no talking in my class.' Damn it."
Then we talked about the First Amendment, and what it lets you do. Burn the American flag. March through Skokie's Jewish community packed with concentration camp survivors even if you're a neo-Nazi. They knew all about the latter, interestingly, and were appalled at our license. Even more shocked when I defended the rights of Nazis. One of my students (actually the brightest) will no longer speak to me...
...And so it goes....
Next class: How to write a complete sentence about Roman life without using the phrase "Eternal City" or even "Bel Paese"
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
HOW I EVOLVED FROM JUDY TO JUDIT
JANUARY 21, 2010
So yesterday I spent an entire day -- 8:35 Am until 4:30 pm -- first getting a piece of paper from the Italian government giving me the right to work and after that, 2 1/2 hours getting an Italian bank (Banco Nazionale di Lavoro, (once translated, correctly in my opinion, as the Lavatory Bank) to accept the Italian Government's permission and then another 2 hours getting John Cabot University to create a fantasy document that would allow the bank to allow me to open up a checking account.
And me a newly baptized Kraut in gut standing! And a citizen of the EU!!
But I learned lots of stuff in the process.
Rule No 1: After sitting 3 1/2 hours waiting for a weary bureaucrat to hand over a crummy piece of paper swearing that I am a newly baptized Kraut and therefore employable, ALWAYS double-check their fine work. I didn't of course. I was so thrilled after 3 1/2 hours of waiting to actually get the piece of paper it wasn't until I got outside the hideous government office building at the far edge of Trastevere that I read what it said:
JUDIT BACHRACH SEIFMAN. The missing H on Judith was, as it turned out, a disaster. Everyone said so.
Rule No 2: Never ever believe what anyone in Italy tells you. Even if it comes from someone who should know and sounds convincing. Especially then....
"You absolutely cannot sign your contract with us until you have an ITALIAN bank account and to get this you really should go to the Banco Nazionale di Lavoro next to us," a John Cabot U employee suggested. "It's right inside the caribinieri office across the street, convenient. And English-speaking. Just take your new permission to work to them, and there'll be no problem."
So I trot across the street, waving to assorted cops, trying to look benign and stupid. And the first thing the bank manager, whose name is S. Giavannangelo and who has a LARGE picture of a smiling Pope John Paul, and also many, many postcards of archangels with gold halos hanging from a cork board above his desk says -- in Italian because he speaks zero English-- is:
Ma disastro!!-- Your name is spelled wrong, either on your German passport or on the Codice Fiscale (the government document). This is awful !! They left the H off Judith
Me: It was your government that spelled it wrong. But Hey, it doesn't matter. Call me anything you want.
SG: OK we will. You will now be known as JUDIT in our bank documents, because otherwise the government will never allow you to open an account. (what follows are a million different phone calls on SG's 2 different cells interrupting his train of thought, and also a complete breakdown of the printer, which enrages him). Then:
Ma--- Un autro disastro!! You don't have an ATTESTATA DI SERVIZIO!
Me: Which is?
SG (annoyed): A document from the university saying you really work there. Get one! Come back tomorrow!
John Cabot U, as it turn s out, has never heard of this document. In Italy, no one needs this document. You got 3 trillion Euros? 2 Euros? You're welcome to bank anywhere you please all over Italy ! It's basically a lawless country.
Except of course across the street with SG, the caribinieri and the archangels.
The university people shove my contract into my hands and say, Here: Show the idiot this!
So I trot across the street again. SG looks really sad to see me because it isn't tomorrow. He calls out to a subordinate who, best I can see, sits behind a grill doing nothing at all, all day.
SG: Lorenzo!! fotocopia per favore!!
Nothing at all happens.
Lorenzo!!!
It takes Lorenzo 19 minutes, I'm not kidding, to xerox 10 pages of contract. He does not remove the staple. He appears not to know this would help. Or maybe he does know, but hates SG.
I leave, but I haven't taken two steps outside before SG runs after me, screaming Signora! Signora!! This won't do. It's a contract, not the proper document for a bank!
Back at the university, I inform nice Roberto, an older gentleman who speaks almost no English but is somehow or other in charge of finances at an American university, that a) I will start to cry pretty soon and b) my university contract, in the eyes of SG, the archangels and the late Pope, is not considered proof that I actually work for the university .
So Roberto invents a document at his computer, calls it ATTESTATA DI SERVIZIO and signs it. It is impossible to read his handwriting, and he doesn't bother to print his name beneath the signature.
And then Roberto's assistant says:
Ma Professoressa Bachrach -- the Italian government left off the H in JUDITH. WE CANNOT POSSIBLY HIRE YOU UNTIL YOU GO BACK TO THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE AND GET THAT CHANGED!
Which is how I learned Rule No 3.
I just said
NO! I am not going back to the government office to wait 3 1/2 hours again for another codice fiscale. I am not going to re-do the contract. I am not going to waste my time or ruin my digestion by returning to the bank with an extra H on JUDIT. I refuse to see SG, Lorenzo, the copy machine and the late Pope and the angels EVER AGAIN. Deal with it!
And actually that worked.
So yesterday I spent an entire day -- 8:35 Am until 4:30 pm -- first getting a piece of paper from the Italian government giving me the right to work and after that, 2 1/2 hours getting an Italian bank (Banco Nazionale di Lavoro, (once translated, correctly in my opinion, as the Lavatory Bank) to accept the Italian Government's permission and then another 2 hours getting John Cabot University to create a fantasy document that would allow the bank to allow me to open up a checking account.
And me a newly baptized Kraut in gut standing! And a citizen of the EU!!
But I learned lots of stuff in the process.
Rule No 1: After sitting 3 1/2 hours waiting for a weary bureaucrat to hand over a crummy piece of paper swearing that I am a newly baptized Kraut and therefore employable, ALWAYS double-check their fine work. I didn't of course. I was so thrilled after 3 1/2 hours of waiting to actually get the piece of paper it wasn't until I got outside the hideous government office building at the far edge of Trastevere that I read what it said:
JUDIT BACHRACH SEIFMAN. The missing H on Judith was, as it turned out, a disaster. Everyone said so.
Rule No 2: Never ever believe what anyone in Italy tells you. Even if it comes from someone who should know and sounds convincing. Especially then....
"You absolutely cannot sign your contract with us until you have an ITALIAN bank account and to get this you really should go to the Banco Nazionale di Lavoro next to us," a John Cabot U employee suggested. "It's right inside the caribinieri office across the street, convenient. And English-speaking. Just take your new permission to work to them, and there'll be no problem."
So I trot across the street, waving to assorted cops, trying to look benign and stupid. And the first thing the bank manager, whose name is S. Giavannangelo and who has a LARGE picture of a smiling Pope John Paul, and also many, many postcards of archangels with gold halos hanging from a cork board above his desk says -- in Italian because he speaks zero English-- is:
Ma disastro!!-- Your name is spelled wrong, either on your German passport or on the Codice Fiscale (the government document). This is awful !! They left the H off Judith
Me: It was your government that spelled it wrong. But Hey, it doesn't matter. Call me anything you want.
SG: OK we will. You will now be known as JUDIT in our bank documents, because otherwise the government will never allow you to open an account. (what follows are a million different phone calls on SG's 2 different cells interrupting his train of thought, and also a complete breakdown of the printer, which enrages him). Then:
Ma--- Un autro disastro!! You don't have an ATTESTATA DI SERVIZIO!
Me: Which is?
SG (annoyed): A document from the university saying you really work there. Get one! Come back tomorrow!
John Cabot U, as it turn s out, has never heard of this document. In Italy, no one needs this document. You got 3 trillion Euros? 2 Euros? You're welcome to bank anywhere you please all over Italy ! It's basically a lawless country.
Except of course across the street with SG, the caribinieri and the archangels.
The university people shove my contract into my hands and say, Here: Show the idiot this!
So I trot across the street again. SG looks really sad to see me because it isn't tomorrow. He calls out to a subordinate who, best I can see, sits behind a grill doing nothing at all, all day.
SG: Lorenzo!! fotocopia per favore!!
Nothing at all happens.
Lorenzo!!!
It takes Lorenzo 19 minutes, I'm not kidding, to xerox 10 pages of contract. He does not remove the staple. He appears not to know this would help. Or maybe he does know, but hates SG.
I leave, but I haven't taken two steps outside before SG runs after me, screaming Signora! Signora!! This won't do. It's a contract, not the proper document for a bank!
Back at the university, I inform nice Roberto, an older gentleman who speaks almost no English but is somehow or other in charge of finances at an American university, that a) I will start to cry pretty soon and b) my university contract, in the eyes of SG, the archangels and the late Pope, is not considered proof that I actually work for the university .
So Roberto invents a document at his computer, calls it ATTESTATA DI SERVIZIO and signs it. It is impossible to read his handwriting, and he doesn't bother to print his name beneath the signature.
And then Roberto's assistant says:
Ma Professoressa Bachrach -- the Italian government left off the H in JUDITH. WE CANNOT POSSIBLY HIRE YOU UNTIL YOU GO BACK TO THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE AND GET THAT CHANGED!
Which is how I learned Rule No 3.
I just said
NO! I am not going back to the government office to wait 3 1/2 hours again for another codice fiscale. I am not going to re-do the contract. I am not going to waste my time or ruin my digestion by returning to the bank with an extra H on JUDIT. I refuse to see SG, Lorenzo, the copy machine and the late Pope and the angels EVER AGAIN. Deal with it!
And actually that worked.
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