L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 4 2019 addressing both SF Mayor, London Breed (asking for the proclamation of March 24 as Ferlinghetti Day, like for James Joyce Bloomsday), and the SF Public Works director, Carla Short (asking for the 2019 Sig- nature Tree Planting to be dedi- cated to Ferlinghetti) — on Monday morning March 18 we had a beautiful and very well attended ceremony in North Beach. Right in front of the homonymous VIA FER- LINGHETTI (corner Washing- ton Square and Union St.), a Mediterranean olive tree was planted in the name of Fer- linghetti. Can you tell us more about the ceremony of the olive tree and the tradition and the meaning behind it? "As I had a chance to say on behalf of Lawrence Ferlinghetti in front of a big crowd, public officials, institutions and many other notables, such as District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin (who supported the petition), former Board of Supervisors President Angela Alioto (who assigned the eponymous street to Ferlinghetti years ago), chef and food activist Alice Waters, consul general of Italy, Lorenzo Ortona, director of Public Works Carla Short (who loved the petition and sup- ported it to make it happen), and Lorenzo Ferlinghetti (the son of Lawrence Ferlinghetti who also gave a beautiful and heartfelt speech about his father): "Now we have a living and breathing monument dedicated to our greatest poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti: a Mediterranean olive tree, symbol of peace and poetry, which will be annually blossoming new gems, new seeds of 'insurgent poetry' yet to come, and will remind us about our own 'Rebirth of Wonder.' "It's also a little act of resis- tance to what Ferlinghetti named the 'autogeddon,' that is, the overwhelming presence of cars and traffic all over the city, while the poet, instead, would like to have more walkable streets and piazze, like Piazza Saint Francis / Poets Plaza he petitioned to have on the cross- road with Columbus and Vallejo. Ferlinghetti cares a lot about cli- mate change and global warm- ing. Not by chance it is a main topic of his novel, where he warns about what scientists call 'the sixth extinction of human race.' Planting an olive tree in North Beach is also a trace of Ferlinghetti's Mediterranean ori- gins, being his father from Bres- cia, Italy, and his mother from Portugal-France. "We used some 'golden' shovels to put dirt around the tree, with a very moving ritual where everyone joined in. What a simple, magical moment! An olive tree to celebrate Lawrence's 100th birthday and his new novel Little Boy, just released. I couldn't but think about an ancient ritual my family (of a conversos Sephardic ori- gin) does every time a new baby is born, back in Sicily. An enchanting Yiddish legacy, orig- inated in the night of times and spreading now in San Francisco. What about the photo-exhi- bition by Walter Pescara you curated at the Italian Cultural Center? "Tuesday March 19, we had a reception at the Italian Cultural Institute for the photo-exhibition Lawrence d'Italia — Ferlinghetti Fluxus Poetry in Italy by Walter Pescara (On show until May 3, 2019). On the same day, Little Boy was released in the US. On such a special occasion, during the reception, I also read for the very first time a Lawrence Fer- linghetti's unpublished composi- tion he wrote when he was 17 and in high school — a first taste of the voice of the Little Boy's writer in nuce. Also, we invited poet laureate Jack Hirschman to read his dedicated Ferlinghetti Arcane. Was there a dedicated pre- sentation of LITTLE BOY? "Thursday March 21, at City Lights, there was the first series of readings from Little Boy, with poets, artists and notables gath- ered in occasion of the book release. It was packed in and out the bookstore, with people in line on Columbus Ave. Can you share with us some details about March 24, the day Ferlinghetti turned 100 "And Sunday March 24, Fer- linghetti's 100th birthday cele- brations reached the acme of a truly Easter-like festival in South of Italy, with joy literally run- ning all over the streets of San Francisco, particularly in North Beach. Readings and perfor- mances took place at the same time at City Lights, Vesuvio Café, Spec's, Café Zoetrope, Canessa Gallery and so on. "Everything started early in the morning with a cake deliv- ered to Lawrence Ferlinghetti from NYC by his literary agent, legendary Sterling Lord. "Later I walked with Gerald Howard, editor in chief at Dou- ble Day – who flew on purpose from NYC to meet Lawrence in person – to Ferlinghetti's house. Howard and I stopped on our way at VIA FERLINGHETTI to also see the olive tree planted for Lawrence. After Ferlinghetti and Howard spoke for 45 minutes about some of the greatest writ- ers' funny stories and new pub- lishing projects, around 15 men, each bearing a red rose, gathered under his kitchen's windows, singing "Happy Birthday" and then, because the poet is a Giants fan, "Take Me Out to the Ball- game." I captured the moment when City Lights' current pub- lisher/ executive director, Elaine Katzenberger, led Lawrence to the window to see the Beards singing to him from the street. And Ferlinghetti waved with his red scarf thanking in Italian "Grazie." How would you define the atmosphere of such a unique day in San Francisco ? "All over Columbus Ave, from 1:00 pm on until late evening, it was a pure Festival of Spring with music, poetry, per- formances and readings in the name of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's art and poetry, independent pub- lishing and activism. Something similar was already happening across different world time zones in Oceania, Europe and the East Coast. And City Lights was the epicenter of it all, show- ing their brand-new red banners to celebrate Ferlinghetti 100 years, saying: "Paper May Burn But Words Will Escape." "This makes clearer why there's never been a more appro- priate definition of Ferlinghetti's than the one given by Nancy J.Peters, American publisher, writer, and co-owner with Fer- linghetti of City Lights Books and Publishers when she received the proclamation on behalf of Lawrence: the World's People's Poet. "Lawrence Ferlinghetti him- self shared his personal recipe for a long and good life in a video-message in Italian, saying with his special humor: 'Mangia bene. Ridi Spesso. Ama molto. / Eat well. Laugh often. Love a lot.'" Discussions with poet laureate and friend Jack Hirschman... and a good book. Ferlinghetti gives us a personal recipe to enjoy a happy and long life: "Eat well. Laugh often. Love a lot." . Source: Wikimedia/Christopher Michel Carla Short and Mauro Aprile Zanetti at the Arbor Day 2019 @ Walter Pescara Mauro Aprile Zanetti is cur- r e n t l y C h i e f E v a n g e l i s t a t C l o u d 4 W i , w h e r e h e b r i n g s humanism and lateral thinking into the tech company. In 2016 he was appointed by international philan- thropists Maria Manetti Shrem and Jan Shrem as their biographer and multimedia brand strategist. He is advisor at the Manetti Shrem Musuem in UC Davis. He has also collaborated with physicist, computer scientist and serial entrepreneur Federico Fag- gin, particularly on the communi- cation and the storytelling of his new research about the nature of a w a r e n e s s / c o n s c i o u s n e s s between living beings and robots. They went on stage together with a dedicated multimedia Q&A at the international open innovation tech-festival, Campus Party, dur- ing the first edition organized in Italy, Milano, July 2017.

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