—Pino Daniele
(photo, right) continues to amaze. He gave an
outdoor concert last night (July 8) at Piazza Plebiscito
and drew 30,000 fans (!), most of whom were half
his age (he is 53), many of whom were one-third
his age, and all of whom would in another age
have been part of the "Peace, Love & Music"
crowd. Daniele has become an icon of Naples,
even in the sense of Totò,
Eduardo de Filippo and
Massimo Troisi, which
is to say that there is a timeless quality about
him. Many of his songs have become "classics"
—for example, Napule è, Terra mia,
and 'A città
'e Pulecenna. The last one is so
rhythmic and infectious that if Neapolitans from
1700 could come forward in time to listen to it,
they'd dance and tap their Baroque little feet
like crazy. Daniele is a fine guitarist with a
pleasant singing voice who inevitably surrounds
himself with fine jazz/rock fusion talent. He
writes in Neapolitan dialect and is, at the
moment, the most internationally acclaimed
Italian cantautore—singer-songwriter. (see R.I.P. January
2015)
—Room at the the
top. Illegally building on your own
property is quite common in Naples, usually in
the form of a small out-building, maybe a garage
or shed, built without a permit. A newspaper
article has commented on the great number of
such structures on the roofs(!) of
buildings. Surely, this must have started in the
early 1900s when most of the splendid new
four-story office buildings and apartments along
the Corso Umberto, a product of the risanamento urban
renewal project, sprouted extra floors on top.
Some of them were legal and seem nicely done.
Others are not so nice. The further out you move
from the center of town, the more evident they
are. Some are hastily thrown-together
cinder-block structures and make no attempt to
even look legal The police claim they will now
be checking into permits and building code
violations.
—More illegal
activity. The recent nation-wide train
and bus strike left Naples paralyzed. Since the
strike included all public transportation, you
couldn't even get a cable-car (the best way to
move around Naples if all you want to do is go
up and down —which still beats going round and
round). Many people just stayed home for the
day. If you drove to work, the traffic was
believably unbelievable. Still, there was a way;
as on past such occasions, private mini-vans
acting as buses made their appearance, charging
3 euros for the same run as the corresponding
bus. The enterprising drivers of these vans
point out that, in their considered legal
opinion, they are not doing anything wrong; it's
a private contract between them and a passenger,
a fee for service. What's the problem?
—"Nessun
dorma." "Let no one
sleep" is the opening line and title of the
best-known aria from Puccini's Turandot.
(Since the last World Cup, when it was played
incessantly behind TV commercials for the
matches, it has also been known to cultured
soccer-hooligans by its final line, Vincerò—"I
Shall Win!" It was also the title of a recent
newspaper article pointing out how noisy Naples
is, particularly in the warm summer nights out
along such waterfront areas as Bagnoli, where
the many clubs and bars stay open very late and
cars gather like flies on fly-paper and honk
until they are set free or die. The 113
switchboard, the emergency police number, gets
dozens of complaints on a weekend and even on
week nights about the noise. There's not
much you can do if the condition is chronic, as
with the clubs. You can sue to shut them up or
close them down. That has happened. The suing,
that is. Not the shutting up or closing down.
Civil litigation is so tedious in Italy that
most plaintiffs just give up and buy ear-plugs.
—Details, details.
A recent version of the official website that
promotes culture in the Campania region of Italy
dedicated some photography to the sights to see
in the historic center of Naples. It included a
link to Palazzo Penne,
a building from 1406. It's worth a look, except
that the photo accompanying the article was of
the slightly better-known Colosseum in Rome. One
paper ran an amused commentary on the blunder,
recalling the film Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina,
precisely the scene where Totò
and Peppino de Filippo,
playing two hicks from the Neapolitan outback
and having just arrived in Milan, remark that
since they are in Milan this might finally be
their big chance to see the Colosseum.
—Eduardo de Filippo.
The city of Naples has finally got around to
establishing an official Eduardo
de Filippo Foundation, the goal of which
will be to promote and preserve the works of one
of Italy's great twentieth-century playwrights.
The foundation will be housed on the premises of
San Ferdinando Theater, known to most as
"Eduardo's theater," a theater that Eduardo
restored at his own expense after WW2. This
official recognition of someone who needs no
official recognition comes 24 years (!) after
the death of the great playwright. Still, it's a
nice gesture.
—Garbage In,
Garbage in. When the US Naval Support
Activity (NSA) moved out of Agnano (a western
suburb of Naples) to new digs in Gricignano
d'Aversa, it left behind an enormous piece of
property, not to mention some impressive
buildings such as a high school and hospital.
With the garbage situation being what it is in
Naples, the city was hard-up for a site to build
a rubbish incinerator; they decided that the
property once occupied by the NSA base exchange
(shopping center), miscellaneous buildings, and
adjacent parking lot would do the trick. After
all, it's out of town. Not really. That nearby
high school is now used as an Italian school (no
one knows what is to become of the hospital),
the area is adjacent to a large recreational
zone that includes a thermal bath and a horse
racing track, and the area is seismically very
iffy. The original decision to build an
incinerator in Agnano was so misbegotten that
city fathers, mothers and cousins are now
engaged in an orgy of finger-pointing. The mayor
has said, "I was responsible for that decision.
I'll be the scape-goat," apparently unaware that
by declaring herself a "scape-goat," she is
denying any responsibility. The other two areas
under immediate consideration for the
incinerator are San Giovanni a Teduccio at the
east end of Naples and Scampia to the north.
They can put it anywhere they want as long as it
is NIMBY.