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"