VI.v. Martedì Grasso
"Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left."
- Victor Hugo
The centre Bologna today had erupted into a strange sort of children's paradise, unusual for a city that is normally quite devoid of anyone below the age of majority. Naturally, no parent in his or her right mind would allow children, at any time of day, to wander the university district, but the rest of the city is curiously lacking this segment of the population as well. The real reason is that most families with children have moved to the media periferia, the "mid-burbs" as we would be wont to call it, for better schools, more recreational spaces (as Bologna's city centre is nearly devoid of parks), and stronger neighborhood ties.
In any case, Bologna within the walls presents an atypical view of Italian demographics, one that is totally dominated by people in their twenties. Bologna is a magnet for youth, and distorts the true image of one of the most rapidly ageing countries in Europe. In more provincial towns, especially in the wealthy, comfortably settled north, retirement homes far outnumber faculties and university departments. There was never a true baby boom in Italy, which compounds the social problems that face most of Western Europe as well. Nevertheless, the dire predictions of economists and social demographers were far from anyone's mind as a huge, grotesque parade made its way down Via dell'Independenza, showered with more confetti than central Palermo on liberation day.
As night fell, however, the gaggles of children in costume gradually disappeared and were supplanted by the more usual late-night types. Even they took the event seriously, and at the entrance to a nightclub a dark-skinned Pope was accompanied by a Franciscan with a nose ring and a male nun, like a living quotation from an Erasmus proverb.
Carnival, even in its distilled twenty first century form, is still an escape valve for European society, albeit not in as absurd a manner as Breughel's peasants or Bosch's haywain, More than anything, it is another excuse to dress up and act in an even more nonsensical manner than usual.
2 Comments:
A living quotation, indeed. But bear in mind, back here in the wasteland of Southern Ontario, we have our own Pope with a tongue ring (not to mention a lot more Speed in his Pope-mobile; though his health is pretty good).
In fact, apropos the distilled twentieth-century carnal carnival escape valve, I recall a shining beacon of my youthful formative years, when, beneath the camera-lens gaze of Asian tourists and amongst the hordes of lolling minimum-wage student employees, you and I and a certain other (let us call him D.G.) braved the summer heat, the harbourfront ducks and other fauna to undertake a venture so bold, we scarcely made it out with our lives.
Ay, the Seas were angry that day, my friends. And the torrents of water [of hitherto undetermined origin] that rushed perilously downward out of Dead Man's Pipe were appealing only through the danger we sensed in them. Two paddleboats, three men. We didn't really need the second paddleboat, so we offered it as sacrifice to Neptune. Yes, it was taken by Mother Earth.
Closer, closer and finally -- with a deft and skillful ramming manoevre -- caught beneath the anthropogenic Niagara of the Pipe!
"Jump, Nick!" Quickly and deftly you landed upon our still-afloat bow, and we all breathed a collective sigh of simultaneous relief and excitement: And down she went! -- the great plastic whale easing below the rippling pond scum surface of the water like a once-dry salted cracker slowly sinking into a bowl of Tim Hortons soup, but under the force of a Pipe so awesome that no culinary analogy is apt to be drawn by this humble author.
We later returned to the scene of the shipwreck -- no remaining witnesses except the ducks and pigeons who call the godforsaken place their home -- gracefully and good-heartedly towing the battered hull of the vessel back to the safety of the port. "Uhh, yeah, that one looks like it needs a bail." A quip from another minimum-wage student summer worker, like a living quotation from a Margaret Atwood opera.
We partook in a sweet repast of approximately thirteen donuts (though we were offered more than we could possibly eat in one sitting). Even though such plebeian pastimes and base pursuits of adventure are now in our past, my musing thoughts still return to Dead Man's Pipe sometimes when I paddle around the barren, inhospitable, frozen lakes of this place we hordes of Ameuropeans call Southern Ontario, and occasionally whilst drinking my extra large double double and thinking of how much better the weather must be around the Mediterranean.
2005/2/18 Toronto, -13 °C
Indeed, Akos, indeed. I too remember the adventures of our youth. Oh how green we were, how green. The gush of water, the boats, the cries of "man overboard!" that almost were: you recall them in such vivid detail that the true significance of that fateful day returns crystal clear before my eyes. Your account errs on just one detail. There were four men onboard that day; with just three our fates would certainly have been sealed.
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