L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2022 www.italoamericano.org 22 L'Italo-Americano Y o u n g e r G e n - X e r s ( n o , I d o n ' t l i k e t h e " o l d m i l l e n n i - a l s " l a b e l ) – and every generation before – r e m e m b e r t h e t h r i l l o f walking with mille lire in their hand to buy five pac- c h e t t i d i f i g u r i n e , o r t h e c o m f o r t t h a t s a m e w a l k would give when it was the t i m e o f t h e w e e k t o buy Topolino or Il Corriere dei Piccoli. And so, with a crisp note in the pocket, or a h a n d f u l o f c h a n g e , w e children of the 1980s would b e t h e r e , i n f r o n t o f t h e local e d i c o l a , our news- s t a n d , e a g e r t o g e t w h a t we'd been queueing for. It was the best of times, childhood. D u r i n g a d o l e s c e n c e , sports fans would buy the daily to see what the story w a s w i t h t h e i r f a v o r i t e team, while angst teens like me would get their weekly fix of grunge culture from a b a c k - t h e n f a m o u s m u s i c m a g a z i n e t h a t c a m e o u t every Wednesday with one o f I t a l y ' s m o s t p o p u l a r dailies. You know, the edicole of my life haven't changed one bit. The one in my village, w h e r e I u s e d t o b u y figurine and Il Corriere dei Piccoli, is still there, near o u r m i d d l e s c h o o l , j u s t beside the old hospital. The g i r l w o r k i n g t h e r e i s n o longer a girl, she is a mid- dle-aged woman now, her hair much lighter than the deep, dark brown shade it had during my childhood. T h e o n e i n t h e b e a u t i f u l , Medieval square where my h i g h s c h o o l w a s i s s t i l l t h e r e , t o o , a h a l f - c i r c l e kiosk under the portici, set against one of the large pil- l a r s t h a t s h a p e a n d h o l d each and every arch. A n d h o w I l o v e d t h e l a r g e e d i c o l a – t h e r e a r e t h r e e , n o w a d a y s – a t the Porta Nuova station in T u r i n , w h e r e 1 9 - y e a r - o l d me could buy the Sunday T i m e s a n d d r e a m a b o u t being in London, or Dublin or Edinburgh: even when getting it became part of my weekend normality while living abroad, I always kept that memory, that late-ado- lescence dream of which, very prosaically, a newspa- per was a simple, tangible embodiment, into my heart. Today, I admit I am no longer a daily visitor of edi- cole as I used to be all those years ago. All my magazines and dailies are quickly and wirelessly delivered every morning to my iPad, also because they are all non- Italian: the Irish Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post… only my beloved his- t o r y m a g a z i n e c o m e s i n I t a l i a n … T h e b u z z around edicole, however, r e m a i n s t h e s a m e . O l d e r people still like to buy their newspaper and read it at the café while having the f i r s t e s p r e s s o o f t h e d a y ; children still do what I used t o d o : t h e y b u y f i g u r i n e , they wait for their comics religiously, with the same c r i s p n o t e o r h a n d f u l o f coins in their pocket, just it's no longer lire now, but euros. A f e w y e a r s b a c k , w i t h the popularity and ubiqui- tousness of tablets, e-read- e r s , a n d s m a r t p h o n e s o n the rise, it seemed like the fatal end of edicole' s cultur- al and social reign was near. B u t t h e y s t i l l s t a n d a n d , apparently, pretty solidly. Let's not be fooled, paper dailies and magazines' sales h a v e p l u m m e t e d a s y o u would have expected, but I dare say that the reason edi- c o l e a r e s t i l l p a r t o f o u r daily lives isn't only because o f t h e n e w s p a p e r s t h e y sell. Edicole, in Italy, are not that different from the "bar," when you think of it. First of all, they tend to be always in a very busy part of the village or, in cities, of the block. They are on the main square, near the bus stop, at the train station, or under portici's vaults: they are exactly where they are supposed to be, wherever people like to gather. B e c a u s e e d i c o l e , f o r decades, fulfilled more than a commercial duty, they had a s o c i a l r o l e : t h e y w e r e t h e l o c u s o f i n f o r m a t i o n exchange, of political com- m e n t a r i e s a n d , w h y n o t , even of a bit of gossip. Il g i o r n a l a i o w a s t h e l o c a l CIA agent, he knew every- thing but would dispense t h a t k n o w l e d g e o n l y t o w h o m h e t r u s t e d … s t u f f you'd expect to find in some o l d E n g l i s h n o v e l o r i n a black and white movie from the 1940s. Old-fashioned? Perhaps, because in their 140 or so y e a r s o f l i f e – t h e f i r s t three edicole in the country date back to 1882 in Manto- va, 1884 in Forlì and 1887 in Salerno – edicole didn't really change much; in fact, many of them didn't even change the way they look. But why would they: in the end, they are among the few t h i n g s i n o u r o t h e r w i s e modern country that truly d o n ' t c a r e i f t h e w o r l d t h i n k s t h e y a r e o b s o l e t e : b e c a u s e t h e y , o u r i c o n i c newsstands, transcend the very reason they were creat- e d f o r . I n t i m e , s e l l i n g newspapers became a sec- o n d a r y r a i s o n d ' être, because their first was, and still is, that of being a community hub. T i m e s c h a n g e . A n d f o r p e o p l e a p p r o a c h i n g t h e dreaded "middle age" just l i k e m e , i t ' s b e c o m i n g e x c r u c i a t i n g l y s i m p l e t o find memories in our minds of once common things that are no more: phone booths, the red, "Poste" mailboxes on street corners, the honey cereals with the frog on the box… yet edicole are still there, looking the same and doing the same: an unfad- i n g m e m o r y , a s t u b b o r n memento of the past, that still have plenty of things to say. An elderly man sitting by an edicola. Edicole in Italy often become a social hub (Photo courtesy of Kalos Eidos) LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Long-life to Italy's edicole GIULIA FRANCESCHINI

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