The Latest from Rome... The Heat is On!

The heat has come on in our building (the law here says you can't have it on until November 15) and none too soon. The past few days we've been showing up at dinner in our sweaters and jackets.

During the day, though, the weather is pleasant, sunny and cool, with no rain. Last weekend, I met my friend Marco who said this last gasp of summer often happens right around November 11, a saint's festival which is popularly known as the day of the henpecked husbands.

Here at the Academy, we're getting ready for Thanksgiving--I am head of the pumpkin pie committee--and Christmas. Every year, the Fellows are expected to put on a show in Italian for the Italian staff, a performance that climaxes with the appearance of Santa Claus, bearing gifts for the children. I'm sidestepping the show by volunteering for the Christmas tree committee, because every Christmas tree needs a good Jew to help make it look beautiful. Actually, I've heard a story that Christmas trees were popularized during the 19th Century by Jews in Germany who wanted to blend in with their Gentile neighbors but couldn't bring themselves to put up a creche in their windows.

My major news is that I've joined a gym called "La Fitness," tucked into one of the dense alleys of Trastevere. Gyms here seem a bit different than those in the States, in that with your membership you get access to a trainer who will lead you around and tell you what to do. My trainer is Realdo, a short, highly muscular man with a craggy face and a shaved head. There's a picture of him in a spangled bikini (and nothing else) as he flexes his muscles and accepts a trophy for natural bodybuilding. Realdo (who teaches in a warm-up suit, not a spangled bikini) explains to me in a slow clear voice exactly how to position myself in front of the weight machines, how to pull the weight, how to breathe. As a result, I've now learned how to say "weight," "three sets of ten reps," and "biceps" in Italian.

My language skills have been improving rapidly. Last week I went to see the Jodie Foster movie Flightplan dubbed into Italian (all movies are dubbed here), and I understood just about all of it. Then again, it wasn't a terribly complex or interesting movie. Jodie spent most of it running up and down the aisles of the airplane, screaming, "Dove mia figlia!" (Where's my daughter!) Now that I think of it, most American movies these days could probably benefit from being dubbed into Italian.

There are times, however, when my Italian completely fails me, usually when it's someone giving me directions over the phone. For example, last weekend Marco was trying to invite me to do something and I had no idea where he wanted to take me. I got so confused I couldn't even understand where he wanted to meet beforehand. Finally, he said, "Meet me at Termini train station, track number 7. That way there'll be no confusion."

So I went, and then followed him to a highway, where we waited about twenty minutes and then a car picked us up (driven by Marco's roommate Ludovica). Off we drove to a neighborhood called "Centocelli" which means 100 jails in English. There we drove in circles, asking directions from passersby who couldn't help us, until we parked illegally beside an abandoned military fortress that had been taken over by a commune of anarchist squatters. By then it was dark, and a light fog had settled over the fortress grounds, which were lit with torches, like an outdoor carnival. After paying three and a half Euros each, we passed through a graffiti-painted tunnel into an underground network of brick and stone catacombs. Inside there were art exhibitions, a cinema, a theater, a display of common household products that were bad for the environment, political action stands, and a market selling organic wine, cheese, olive oil, and other foods. Each stallkeeper offered free tasting and explanations of how his or her wine, soap, cheese, salami had been made without any additives or chemicals.

The crowd was a mix of young people, many of them with dredlocks, a smattering of piercings, leather jackets, and dogs. "Today if you want to be in the punk style, it's necessary to have a dog," Marco explained.

After sampling some putrid cheese, some very flavorful wine and cheese, and a chewy tasteless cake sweetened with organic fruit sugar, I came home with a bottle of organic apple juice and a pot of organic red currant jam. I drank some of the juice last night, but I have yet to use the jam, though it looks pretty in my refrigerator.