L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021 L'Italo-Americano NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS "Fate offers luck to the vir- tuous." Both of them had these virtues. And in this t a l e o f f r i e n d s h i p a n d Italian-American literature, art and culture, both gave s o m e t h i n g t o a n d t o o k s o m e t h i n g f r o m o n e a n o t h e r : i f y o u w a n t t o understand what one has been in the past 6 years, you n e e d t o k n o w t h e o t h e r , because they enlightened each other, pollen falling in the middle, leaving a trace, creating something. E v e r y t h i n g h a p p e n e d because there was a sparkle, a spiritual and cultural affi- nity, a profound interdisci- plinary approach. That is to say, the train could travel, b e c a u s e t h e r e w e r e r a i l s underneath going the same direction. W i t h C i t y L i g h t s , Ferlinghetti had the same essential role for the Beat Generation: he changed the s o c i o - c u l t u r a l e c o s y s t e m and gave value to pocket books, something that may have seemed "B-literature" back then, but in reality was the equivalent of a tear in a F o n t a n a ' s p a i n t i n g , t h e wound that revolutionized art. He was and still repre- sents the reference point for American counter-culture in the world. Aprile Zanetti has been j u s t l i k e f r e s h a i r o n t h e canonized image of the poet- bookseller-pacifist-literary man: "I did storytelling with Ferlinghetti. This was my job, too. Building another (image), different from the one he and his entourage h a d b u i l t t h r o u g h o u t t h e years. No one, before I star- ted collaborating with him, would have dared saying he and City Lights were ante litteram startuppers, becau- se they created here, in the l a s t f r o n t i e r o f S i l i c o n Valley, the mother-word for the tech revolution: disrup- tion, that is, interference with a more traditional way of doing things. Ferlinghetti started doing it in 1953, both by keeping the bookstore open until midnight, and as a p u b l i s h e r , p r o d u c i n g p o c k e t b o o k s o n l y , a n d d i s t r i b u t i n g t h e m i n a n increasingly democratizing m a n n e r . T h e b o o k s t o r e became a place for under- ground literature, not in the sense of inappropriate, but creative, quirky. This attrac- ted talents with crazy ideas, it became a magnet for the Beats (the blessed and the excluded alike) and their world. A world that wouldn't h a v e e x i s t e d , a n d h e r e I quote Lawrence, without the presence of Ginsberg, the great poet of How." "He was the first one to experiment with the 'out of the box' concept, he tested ideas, concepts, he revolu- tionized culture. City Lights has been, therefore, an acce- l e r a t o r , a n i n c u b a t o r f o r heterodox ideas that no one had the courage to explore before." Aprile Zanetti managed to p e r s u a d e F e r l i n g h e t t i t o register at the VA, the hospi- tal for war veterans: the poet had spent four years a n d f o u r m o n t h s a t w a r , between Pearl Harbor, the D-Day, Nagasaki, the atomic bomb, Korea. He's been part of some of the most funda- mental moments in the last, exceptionally creative years of Ferlinghetti's life, like when he hosted in his house G e r a l d H o w a r d s , Doubleday's executive direc- tor and vice-president, to celebrate the poet's 100th birthday and the launch of h i s l a s t n o v e l , w h i c h t h e l e g e n d a r y l i t e r a r y a g e n t Sterling Lord had managed t o s e l l . P e r h a p s , t h o u g h , what Aprile Zanetti is more proud of is the way he hel- ped "mending the relation- ship between father and son, in the name of care and ten- derness." Here, though, we should say another relationship got m e n d e d , t h a t w i t h o n e ' s r o o t s . B e c a u s e t h r o u g h Aprile Zanetti's Italianness, enriched with the lilt of the f i r s t o f o u r v u l g a t e s , t h e S i c i l i a n o f F r e d e r i c k I I ' s court, and fed with interna- tional literature, Ferlinghetti somehow reappropriated his o w n o r i g i n s a n d A p r i l e Z a n e t t i , p e r h a p s , m a d e s o m e o f F e r l i n g h e t t i ' s Americanness his. One last point to make. L'Italo-Americano is 113 years old, just 11 years older than Ferlinghetti: both sai- led through the same cen- tury, two pieces of American a n d I t a l i a n - A m e r i c a n h i s t o r y . " I n t h e e n d , speaking about Lawrence means speaking about an Italian-American, a son of immigrants, a first-genera- t i o n c h i l d w h o l e a r n e d Italian with an IIC course. H e d i d s e e k h i s p a t e r n a l ancestors in Brescia, but he never really identified with his Italian roots. Nor did he, when you look at it, real- l y i d e n t i f i e d w i t h ' b e i n g American.' He loved nord- biccese, the lingo and world o f N o r t h B e a c h , b e c a u s e that's where he lived. But — Aprile Zanetti concludes — his recipe to live well, he a l w a y s s a i d i t i n I t a l i a n : mangia bene, ridi spesso e ama molto. For him Italy and Italians were the beauti- ful side of life." Continued from page 6 Lawrence Ferlinghetti with Nancy J.Peters, co-owner of City Lights, and Mauro Aprile Zanetti in the City Lights offices (2015). (Photo courtesy of MAZEL) He was the first one to experiment with the 'out of the box' concept, he tested ideas, concepts, he revolutionized culture Ferlinghetti in 2015 at the Fluxare — The European Connection exhibition, on occasion of the ICC's grand reopening (Photo courtesy of MAZEL)

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