L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 6 took down the café's aged shut- ters and opened. Its unconventional business hours are s urpas s ed by the eccentricity of its interior, a throw back to ano ther era. Decades old top-loading coolers, their generators long expired, are filled with water and soft drinks, stacked irregularly. On the back wall, is a shelf tilting at a per- ilous angle as if any minute all the w ine bottles it s upports would fall and smash on the floor. It has been in this condi- tion for many years. In front of the bar there is a Godzilla pinball machine, out of order, that juts obtrusively into the space of the café. To the left of the entrance, half of one wall is a chaos of aged posters, one pinned over the other, the most recent from 2013. Next to the posters hangs a 2014 calendar. I suspect that in time its days and corres ponding dates w ill be accurate again, perhaps in the next millennium. Above, it is a small clock stopped perennially at 6:30—AM or PM? At least it is correct twice a day. The capolavoro of its eccen- tric décor is the 800 empty Italian soda cans on the wall stacked to the ceiling behind the bar. Yes, I surreptitiously counted them over my caffè. They have been there for all the years I have frequented the café.When the older lady of the family served me my caffè that morning, she was typically reserved. After all, I was a stranger. One local wandered in while I was there, whom she served without his having to order. She unceremoniously served me a caffè al vetro, with- out my asking. The classic ser- vice was somehow appropriate. Here in vicinity of the Campo and Piazza Farnese, among near- by upscale food bars and waves of tourists, the café endures, retaining its own peculiar identi- ty. There is yet another café I frequent that also speaks to Rome's uniqueness. It is only steps from Ponte Sant'Angelo, not at all hidden. Rivaling the 800 soda cans, an old, scarred carousel horse dangles precari- ously above the bar. In a back room, several years ago there was a neon sign that spelled out in bright white light: VOTA COMU- NISTA. But for some reason it is now gone. Perhaps because the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista has all but dropped from sight behind Italians' most recent forms of political protest:Casa Pound and Movi- mento 5 Stelle. The bar's con- vivial clientele all appear to be from that generation of penniless Italian youth with which Carole and I once rode third class trains in the 1970s as they traveled from one summer concert to another sponsored by Enrico Berlinguer's Partito Comunista Italiano. The bar often features small ensembles and vocalists regular- ly, usually around 10PM. One evening, when I stopped for a visit just before the music began, a gray haired lady walked in and was followed by a bearded man, each carrying two large bowls of fettuccine alla bottarga. They passed out paper plates and everyone present feasted on the pasta. The pasta was fol- lowed by large slices of bread with anchovies. When the music began, people on the s treet stopped to listen and someone invited in about ten F rench tourists. The otherwise sedate café suddenly became raucous, almost unruly with the accompa- nying s ing-along chorus of French tourists. Long before it was all over, I had to make a retreat to bed to be up early for our morning Italian lessons. Near our apartment there is another of those cafés passed everyday by hundreds of tourists who form long lines at the near- by famous Frigidarium. Like the other two, this unassuming café has not been remodeled for decades. But its shelves are in order, none sloping at a danger- ous angle nor is there anything dangling precariously over the bar. However, there are several shelves on a back wall that, not unusual, contain dozens of bot- tles of wine. But on one of my recent vis its in A pril I grew somewhat suspicious at the con- dition of some of the bottles'dis- colored labels . U pon clos er ins pection I dis covered that many of the wines dated back to the 1970s, rare bottles of Barolo and M ontepulciano among them. For more than forty years they have all been just standing straight up in the bar, that does not have any climate control. Many of the wines had even evaporated through their dried out corks. When I asked la sig- nora about the wine, she just shrugged and said that they are not for drinking.You think! But that is not all. From the bar's door, there is a curious but sad site. For a number of years now a homeless man has been living in the doorway of Palazzo Nardini, an abandoned fifteenth- century palace, right in the very center of Rome. According to a recent article in La Repubblica, Rome's self-appointed guardians of the city's architectural her- itage have shamed Mayor Raggi into committing funds to restore the dilapidated palace and its frescoes. In the meantime, the home- less man lives there before the palace's rotting door. He has become well acquainted with the local business people surround- ing his encampment. He visits the nearby grocery store asking for food and scavenging card- board. He also receives some- thing to drink and a cornetto from the family that runs the bar and the nearby restaurant. As I watched this scene, I wondered if I was watching Levi's Rome? Would Levi have elected to write about the three cafés sites that continue to resist the new conformity threatening to level Rome's uniqueness: franchises and mass tourism? Starbucks Coffee just opened its first shop in Milan, and McDon- ald's and Obicà Mozzarella Bar continue opening new sites.Obicà added to its franchise locations in Rome by disgrace- fully displacing the long-estab- lished Vineria Reggio in the Campo. After eighty years, Café P ace in P iazza della P ace is gone, a victim of a new develop- ment. Of course, I have not fol- lowed the conventional form of the travel essay by citing the names and addresses of the three cafés. That is by design. Discov- er your own Rome. Put away your cell, guide book, and GPS. Suffer even the frustration of getting lost. In diverse Rome you will for sure discover something unique. I am reminded of some- thing that the ancient Chinese philos opher, Lao Tzu, once said:"If you do not change direc- tion, you may end up where you are heading." Don't bother with chain restaurants: why should you go somewhere you'll find at home, at your local mall? Among the many cafés in Rome, seek the less touristy and you may discover little gems LIFE PEOPLE PLACES TRADITIONS Continued from page 4

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