VIII.xiv. Cin-Cin

"It is unjust that Italy should claim musical pre-eminence, even forcing Italian on music as its international language, when Italy’s genius is so visual. No nation can build towns as beautiful nor claim a better right to regard nature as a shapeless substance to be redeemed by urbifaction. The Italians are not Wordsworthian. Man fulfils himself in the town. There is too much wild nature in music, and it has to be tamed into simple four-square patterns, as in Verdi and Bellini. The tenor does not proclaim Byronically to the woods and hills: he is a kind of sexy politician for the town piazza. The Italians would listen to Aaron, but not to Moses."
- Anthony Burgess

Rebellion is in the air in the streets of Bologna. Not political in nature, at least not overtly, this latest unrest stems from a recently introduced, profoundly incongruous by-law preventing outdoor consumption of alcohol after nine o'clock in the evening. This new piece of legislation, coupled with the indoor smoking ban that has been in place since January, is so completely anti-Bolognese that it has taken even the punk population by surprise. Deprived of the ability to engage simultaneously in their two favourite pastimes, the grossly underachieving children of children of '68 have finally rallied to the cause of nicotine and blended ethanol.
    Fuming and unjustly parched, the proletariat has taken control of Piazza Verdi and the traversing section of Via Zamboni. A large banner inciting the people to rebel immediately and take back the square has been suspended between the opera house's portico and a flatbed truck fitted with speakers blasting continuous reggae music. Somewhat sheltered from the exterior din, the twin busts of Verdi and Wagner look on from inside, scowling. No performances have been cancelled, yet.
    Keen to raise the level of the debate, a group of implicated wine merchants and Pakistani grocery store owners has spearheaded a poster campaign which tells the city that now, in light of this latest affront to intoxicating freedom, the time has come to decide. The proclamation reads as follows:
    Whom shall we toast? Are we to drink to an open city or a closed one? Are we to toast to a landscape of work and private life, or to a city that is an organism, alive twenty four hours a day? To be of the opinion that true citizens are only those of the historic centre, and that all others are intruders, vagabonds, and idlers, shows a marked disregard for demographics, urbanism, and diversity. To think that ideas are only born only in offices, not in streets or squares, to consider leisure and social life optional, of lesser importance than work, is an outdated way of thinking. We can share our dreams with each other through dialogue, not avoidance. Don't kill off, with propaganda and prohibitionism, a city aiming for European status. It's springtime; let's recommend some fresh air to everyone. The cup is brimming. Cheers.
    Having seen this polemical assertion reproduced everywhere, written in quite eloquent Italian, one would almost think that the East Indian alcohol sellers were fully integrated into Bolognese society. The declaration, though it is a poster, follows in the proud tradition of the commemorative plaque, something dear to the heart of every true Italian subject. Marble, glass, metal, or card, there is scarcely a building here that lacks an affixed public oration. Brown, oval discs mark noteworthy architecture; marble rectangles eulogize a once present historical figure; large glass panels mourn war dead; huge towering granites record the speeches of Vittorio Emanuele II, or Napoleon. Public eloquence is the veneer of unity for the Italians, and the small black and red drinking poster is just its latest manifesto.


Piazza Verdi in protest