Category: Travel

B-sides: Beatles to Berlin

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

Lying in bed, listening to music, the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” comes on, and I’m entranced anew. What a weird, wondrous thing it is, this John Lennon tune from 1967. Not quite rock, not quite orchestral, the four-minute track is something like psychedelic balladry meets woozy dreamscape. Yet it grooves and sways. Lennon’s cryptic poetry garlands the song’s kaleidoscopic effects — strings, horns, Mellotrons, tape loops — arranged by studio wiz George Martin. The result is marvelously sui generis. Listening in a nocturnal haze, it hits me that “Strawberry Fields,” a late-period masterpiece, may be my favorite Beatles song, a strong statement considering how many stone-cold gems the band produced in a mere seven and a half years together. I love so many Beatles songs — “Here Comes the Sun” to “Blackbird”; “I Am the Walrus” to “In My Life” — that I’d be here all day typing titles I can hardly live without. I’ll take “Lovely Rita” and “Norwegian Wood” over “Across the Universe” and “Come Together,” but that’s like saying I’ll take oxygen over water. Impossible. Their music is that gloriously essential.

The wonder boys.

In Berlin, where I’m headed this fall, I’ve signed up for a whack-sounding tour called Get in the Van! DIY & Subculture City Tour, in which you board a classic 1972 Ford Econoline van and “explore Berlin’s subculture and all things DIY, past and present, from the 1970’s until now: the bars, the squats, the venues, the backyards and the basements.” David Bowie’s heralded Berlin years, with pals Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Brian Eno, are covered, as is the post-Wall cultural efflorescence of the ‘80s and ‘90s. The tour is run by the planet’s only legit Ramones Museum, a punk paradise bulging with artifacts and more from the fugliest band ever. The Ramones, who I saw live twice, were deep-dyed New Yorkers. A museum in Berlin? Besides the fact bassist Dee Dee Ramone grew up in Berlin, another reason for its existence there is that the so-called biggest Ramones fan resides in the city and opened the shrine to all things Ramones. I hear he shouts “Gabba gabba hey!” unprovoked. One can hope.

Back in black

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After an unintentional hiatus of chronic brain farts, here are a few bite-size entries:

Tripping over trips

I bought a flight to Chile. And scrapped it. I bought a flight to Toronto. And scrapped it. Fickle? Right. Even after planning and paying I decided neither destination would slake my thirst for culture, art, food, action. So I scotched them in favor of the capital of the European Union’s most populous nation, that mad beehive of historical and cultural abundance, Berlin. Chile would have happened this month, Toronto last month, and Berlin, well, it’s a ways off — October. Yet as with any trip, I’m already committing vigorous reportage, booking tours and meals, boning up on the history and italicizing gotta-see sights, from the fabled Reichstag and remnants of the Wall (now vibrant murals) to Hitler’s bunker (that fetid suicide pit) and the enticing Museum Island — five museums colonizing a mid-city isle on the lovely Spree river. Sounds great, I think. Equally terrific: I got full refunds for the Chile and Toronto trips. Did I mention my brother is coming along? Fine company, he’s also a crack navigator, which is perfect for me who gets hopelessly lost the second I step out of the hotel. I’m the guy holding a huge, creased paper map upside down, battling fluttering winds.

Doggy style

I don’t laugh out loud very often while reading, but I did, a lot, soaking in Miranda July’s new novel “All Fours,” a warm, warped, touching, unashamedly naughty and riotous love story that goes places you’re never quite prepared for. It’s a joy. The story follows the romantic zigzags of a 45-year-old artist who’s a married mother but stumbles upon unlikely love with a much younger man who likes to dance. Sex, perimenopausal panic and motel redecorating ensue. It’s conventional until it’s not, both bawdy and bizarre, with just the right touch of July’s signature kookiness. Never has the writer — who’s also an actress and filmmaker — been more in control of her habitual twee impulses. And never has she been so seamlessly funny.

Doggy style part II

Cubby the magical mutt is, I’m afraid, getting old. The guesstimate age for this chipper rescue pup is seven to eight, solid middle-age in human years — paunches and ear hair, janky joints and jowls, gray and grumbles. Yet while he can be a bit creaky scrambling up the stairs and some tiny warts have mushroomed on his compact body, Cubs still plays chase with his stuffed Yoda and barks with shattering verve at the random car horn and rumbling UPS truck, more than ever in fact. But he’s also more neurotic than he was in his slavering, carefree youth. Sometimes if landscapers are extra noisy or the wind rustles the trees in violent whooshes the dog will quiver and hide under my legs or behind a chair. Also, his outside duties (doodies?) seem harder to coax out of him. Otherwise Cubby’s a hale old boy, snapping up treats and begging for belly rubs. He sleeps well, too, though his snoring can register 7.5 on the Richter scale. Those little earthquakes are a thing of most assured comfort.

His head looks enormous.

Nature calls. Take a message.

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As I read about Chile — the country that curls like a tongue down the Pacific coast of South America — it seems more and more to be a platonic ideal for naturists, hikers and outdoorsies. Mountains, snow, rapids, ocean, flora, fauna, all doused in a magenta sunset glow that shouts once in a lifetime experiences — that’s what I see. Alpacas! Elephant seals! Avian abundance! Maybe a merman, or a yeti! The whole thing is almost mythological in its exotic, boot-trekking glories. Binoculars mandatory.

Here’s the thing: I’m not going to Chile to hike or ski or bird watch or scale anything that’s not human-made or shaped like stairs. Or, for that matter, anything that doesn’t have numbered buttons in a metal box with sliding doors. 

More than 12 minutes of hiking reduces me to a gasping heap of implacable boredom. Snow skiing I absolutely adore, but I haven’t done it in eons and I’m afraid at this late date I’d put on my skies and immediately crash into a tree, snap untold bones and forever reside in a wheelchair, speaking with a keyboard and a pencil between my teeth. 

During my Southern California childhood, I was a fiend for the forest, creeks, lakes, waterfalls, trails and, of course, the crashing chaos of the ocean and its silken beaches. We’d roll up our Toughskins and splash in pools looking for frogs and pollywogs, snakes and lizards. We always got poison ivy, always. Beyond the Santa Barbara area, we made Yosemite and Sequoia national parks paradises of youthful plunder. It was majestic.

Today, my idea of a jaunt in the wilderness is a day trip to the countryside — like a  winery. That sounds pitifully fuddy-duddy, but I counter that impression with my love of the ricketiest rollercoasters, the loudest Metallica, a good late-night tipple, hip sneakers and an innate aversion to Adele and Hootie and the Blowfish.

What I’m saying is that I have approximately zero nature planned for my approaching trip to Chile. For one, it will be winter when I go in June and I’m not packing boots or a beanie, and I am defiantly indifferent to spotting penguins in their natural habitat. A winery or three will be the gist of my wild country safari.

That’s not to say Chile’s outdoor offerings aren’t uniquely attractive. Glossing my guide book, I note three regions that more than tempt this tent-resistant traveler: 

“Norte Chico: Beaches, Stargazing and Verdant Valleys”

“Sur Chico: Ominous Volcanoes, Pristine Waterways and Outdoor Adventures”

“Northern Patagonia: Mountains, Rivers, Glaciers and Fjords”

Wait. Maybe I …

No. 

I am an urban creature, a pavement pounder, a museum roamer, a wannabe epicure, a streetwise wiseacre — whatever. I simply don’t like rocks in my shoes, rattlesnakes or hauling a backpack the size of a Kia up craggy hills.

Take me to Tokyo for the wild nights and neon sizzle. Paris for the boulevards and bouillabaisse. New York for the noise and neurotic hustle. Istanbul, Madrid, Berlin, Montreal, San Francisco … In none of those cities do I need a walking stick or a can of Off!

I’m headed to Santiago, Chile’s capital, a metropolis of turbulent colonial and Pinochet-era histories, creative hives of Nobel poet Pablo Neruda, a patchwork of neoclassical, art deco and neo-gothic architecture, museums, grand parks and hills and the rushing Mapocho River, all backdropped by the Andes Mountains. 

I’ll take day trips to the aforementioned wineries, as well as to Valparaiso Port and Viña del Mar, which provide access to the countryside, coastline and beaches, about as nature-y as I’ll get. (No, I don’t own flip-flops or sandals.)

With a population of seven million people, making it one of the largest cities in the Americas, Santiago promises a breadth of urban sensations. Really, who needs the sanity of the great outdoors when you’ve got dinner reservations at a downtown restaurant called Dementia?

Travel burnout? Ah, grow up

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Fanned out before me are four travel books about Chile, my next destination — if, that is, I can get over a bruising bout of traveler’s fatigue. 

We should all be so fatigued. A first-world ailment if ever there was one, this is a disorder of the chronic whiner, that big burbling inner baby who’s pooped pulling his roller carry-on through oh-so-crowded airports and having to locate the gate for his flight. Poor little travel boy!

Fortunately these are library books.

Writing the above was cathartic. It puts matters in perspective and places my pathetic buffoonery, my puerile moaning, in high relief. I’m not suffering chronic traveler’s fatigue, wherein I actually can’t pack my bags and go. This isn’t a medical issue. This is an earth-rattling brain fart.

I know the drill. For one, I’m quite agile negotiating the human/zombie slalom course of international airports. And while getting to one’s destination may be maddening, once you’re there — be it Chile, San Francisco or Naples —  the steady delights begin to flow. (Theoretically. Technically. So they say.)

Perhaps I’m not really fatigued after all. Yet I am definitely a little worn-out from the jostling logistics of multiple back-to-back trips: the sleepless nine-hour redeye flights, the four-hour layovers, and the sleepless 12-hour redeye trains. (“Sleeper Car,” with the clanging rickety-rack all night? Refund!) 

Not to mention the extortionately priced airport food (much of it prison-grade), snaking airport security lines, and the endless stop-go choreography of the Uber circuit. Yet, as frustrating as they can be, the Uberthons are worth it.

As are other tricks of the trade. I’ve started to pay for small conveniences, like “priority” seating on United (around $40 a flight) and, better, $78 for five years of TSA PreCheck, which zips you through security, sort of like the 15 items or less line at the grocery store.

But lately, after crammed-together trips to Budapest, Poland, Sicily and Washington, DC, I thought: This is enough. Too much, too soon. Breathe. Rest. Slow. Down. After Sicily, I almost kiboshed DC. After DC, Chile seems foolhardy.

Chile, booked and all, is 10 weeks away, plenty of time to recharge and rejuvenate. Right? For now, though, I’m tired — tired of airports, planes, trains and automobiles. Hauling my junk around. Dealing with strangers. Wah-wah.

But here’s what just happened today. After a good sleep, I shook off my doubts. I was even jazzed, wide-eyed, flipping through a Chile guide book, taking notes, figuring out what is … next.

Dorothea Lange’s luminous despair

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Last week I choo-choo-trained to Washington, D.C. to scavenge through its bulging bounty of museums. (And also to get all gourmandy and eat at delish restaurants like Josè Andrès’ Mexican palace Oyamel; do order the guac and the tacos.) The US capital boasts like a billion halls of paintings, history, culture, science and more, and I visited seven in two days. Not a world’s record, but I was pacing myself. Huff, puff.

Tops for me was the National Gallery of Art — more on that in a bit. A close second was the transformative and seam-bursting National Museum of African American History and Culture, where everything from slavery and “Sanford and Son” to the Harlem Renaissance and “Harlem Shuffle” are gorgeously limned. Go.

While the National Gallery’s Rembrandts, Turners and Vermeers made me one of those vexing viewers who stands too long in front of a painting, till other patrons wonder crankily What’s he gawping at?, it was a special exhibition that really got me and did what great art can do: split open your world. 

The show, “Dorothea Lange — Seeing People,” presents some 100 black and white photographs by the great, socially astute 20th-century shutterbug. Her most enduring photo, part of the show, is probably this one from 1936, “Human Erosion in California (Migrant Mother)”:

Gaze at that picture. A little harder. Its masterpiece status is unshakable.

Steeped in jagged beauty and more (prematurely) creased flesh than a dozen old folks’ homes, the exhibit “addresses Lange’s innovative approaches to picturing people, emphasizing her work on social issues including economic disparity, migration, poverty, and racism,” the museum says. 

Alright. Uplifting it’s not. It unfurls a timely, tattered tapestry of naked despair and down-on-your-luck dignity. Yet it’s so filled with shuddering pathos and raw humanity it’s hard not to be moved, shaken, taken. 

Lange’s photos are untouched authenticity — keep your Photoshop sorcery — real people with sun-baked skin and hollowed eyes, capturing the American experience of a time, the 1930s to ‘50s, and places, the Dust Bowl to San Francisco. They don’t let you off the hook.

Exhausting, yes, but exhilarating too …

“Migratory cotton picker, Eloy, Arizona” (1940)
“Mexican workers leaving for melon fields, Imperial Valley, California” (1935)
“Nettie Featherston, wife of a migratory laborer with three children, near Childress, Texas” (1938)
“Maynard and Dan Dixon” (1930)
“Young girl looks up from her work. She picks and sacks potatoes on large-scale ranch, Edison, Kern County, California” (1940)
“On the Plains a Hat Is More Than a Covering” (1938)

Food porn, Sicilian style

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It’s 33 degrees outside and a cold winter sun glares from unblemished skies, the deep snow melts and the tweedly doodles and musical Morse code of birdsong fills the chilly air. Even inside, my hands are numb and puckered, and I should really put on gloves. But I can’t type with gloves. The blogger’s quandary.

Here’s another quandary: I just got back from my maiden voyage to Sicily — namely, the capital city Palermo — and, writerly speaking, I am constipated, all blocked up. Ex-Lax for writers — is that a thing? Gloves or no gloves, my typing is stymied. 

Let’s try this. Let’s look at a picture of one of my many fabulous meals on the fabulous trip, like this heartbreaking pizza:

Or this exquisite specimen of pistachio gelato:

And why not this prosciutto panini with a popular Italian beer:

Or the best cannoli I’ve ever had, made before my eyes in an actual nun’s convent:

See, with most of my journeys, food takes up considerable real estate on my itineraries, at least 50 percent of why I go and what I do. Art, cathedrals, quirky museums — like the marionette and Inquisition museums in Palermo, the gruesome catacombs, plus the Mafia tour I took — are mandatory and rewarding. But nothing quite so viscerally gets the gut like, say, this succulent, perfectly seasoned chicken I feasted on:

Sicily — infamous for its Mafioso, which is actively being stamped out — is the biggest island in the Mediterranean, set just below mainland Italy. It boasts a regional flavor, dialect and attitude all its own, and its denizens are a proud people. They are also unfailingly kind, helpful, funny — and self-admittedly gesticulative and loud.

All of my Ubers were sleek black Mercedes and, as it was low season last week, non-local tourists were scarce. Booking a tour or a table was a cinch, and the weather hovered in the very comfortable mid-60s. (No gloves needed!)

Palermo, a coastal city of about 700,000, is exciting the way gritty Naples is. It pulses. It’s richly historical and traffic-choked with throngs of motor scooters; graffiti-strewn and colorfully multicultural. Pet dogs are plentiful — sidewalks are mushy minefields of poop — and street food rules. Like the Sicilian Arancini, fried rice balls, nearly the size of a tennis ball, filled with melty cheese and meat. Phenomenal.  

As I’m still a bit writer’s-blocky, I exit with these non-foodie shots of the rightfully famous Palermo Cathedral, a dazzling architectural melange of Islamic, Norman and Christian influences. I’ll share more about picturesque Palermo when my brain freeze thaws. Ciao.

The days of our lies

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“My days were pervaded by a gray drizzle of unrelenting horror.”  — William Styron

Woke up this morning mad hungry, my stomach whining like the undersea song of the humpback whale. I immediately craved French toast, or better, eggs Benedict. It was tragic. I didn’t have ingredients for either dish. Whatever. 

The dog heard me stir and scampered up the stairs and swan-dived onto the bed and stepped on my chest and licked my face. His mouth reeked of turkey dog mush — his scrumptious breakfast. For about four seconds I was turned off of food. When that passed, I remembered my breakfast predicament. Then that passed. I settled on a lowly bowl of granola. 

Mornings are rough. An inveterate night person — I perk up when the sun drops, nocturnal as a bat — “rise and shine” are curse words. While my dreams are reliably sweaty ordeals, haunted by ghosts of past, present and future, waking is almost worse, and lying in bed, eyes wide open, is immaculate torture.

That is when my mind somehow turns on me, lashing with mean, warped thoughts about almost anything, even the good stuff. For example, visions of my upcoming trip to Sicily become uncontrollably negative. I blow out of proportion everything bad that can happen, until I’m practically paralyzed with dread. I’ve nearly cancelled my trip based on these furious falsehoods. My therapist won’t return my calls.

Certain pills are meant to contain the mental carnage. I have those. And once I’m out of bed at, say, 9:15 a.m., things improve some. The “gray drizzle” quoted atop this post mostly burns off and I function like a mildly adjusted person, despite flashes of angst and misanthropy. (The self-flagellation hardly stops.)

It’s not all dread and roses. Nor is it “unrelenting horror.” Not always. It’s something in between — a little bit country, a little bit rock ’n’ roll; sweet and savory; the holy and unholy; the ripe and rotten. In the end, it doesn’t much matter. Really, it doesn’t matter.

Don’t eat dogs. Just don’t.

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I would never eat a dog. This goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway to broadcast loudly that I would never eat a dog. Or a cat for that matter. But this is about dogs, a bit broached by a new law in South Korea banning the consumption of dogs.

In a brief from today’s newspaper: “Breeding, killing and selling dogs for their meat will be banned in a country where it has fallen out of favor. Hundreds of thousands of the animals were still being bred for human consumption.”

The first sentence fills me with joy, relief and pathos.

The second sentence renders me a clenched fist of disgust, outrage and sorrow.

The story goes on: “A person who butchers dogs for human consumption could face three years in prison or a fine of 30 million South Korean won, or about $23,000 … The breeding and selling of the animals would be punishable by two years in prison or a fine of 20 million won.”

Not nearly as draconian as it should be, but a start. 

While South Korea joins Hong Kong, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan as places prohibiting the trading of dog meat, millions of dogs are still slaughtered for their meat in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other barbaric regions.

I know first-hand about the trade in Vietnam. Some years ago, riding on the back of a ramshackle moto-bike in Hanoi, my makeshift guide decided to swing by an open-air market where cooked dog remains — whole torsos, heads and tails — were displayed. 

He then took me to a “dog restaurant,” where a trio of giggly, visibly drunk male diners beseeched me to join them for some bubbling dog stew (I waved them off). It was nauseating. (Of course later, the guide and I feasted on a cobra that was slaughtered in front of us. This was not a banner day for animal welfare.)

Thank god I saw none of this sort of atrocity, dogs caged like chickens:

The newspaper story has a link to Four Paws, an animal welfare group out of Australia, to which I just recently and coincidentally donated $100 and plan to drop more. I implore all animals lovers to do the same. Look at the site. It will break your heart, hopefully not your bank.

Sicily and beyond …

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My brother and I bought our widowed stepmom a two-week trip to France for April, which makes an unbroken streak of family travel, as my brother just returned from Madrid with his brood, I go to Sicily in February, and my brother and his wife hit Italy this spring to visit my nephew, who will be studying in Rome. 

It sounds all jet-setty, but it’s pure coincidence. We’re hardly the Roys of “Succession,” or the Kardashians of depression. We’re strictly economy — zero legroom and chicken curry meals swathed in foil. 

But it works. It gets us there. No matter if I don’t sleep a wink during a nine-hour redeye. They say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Bull dookie. It’s totally about the destination when you’re flying United. 

I go to Sicily in a month. Never been, but I anticipate the ancient splendor of Rome and the graffitied scrappiness and coastal beauty of Naples. It’s “Godfather” country, once infested with mafioso, and I’ve booked a tour that’s actually called “No Mafia.”

Yet, if you’ve seen the Denzel Washington action flick “The Equalizer 3,” which unfurls in Sicily and is operatically violent, you might think the Italian mafia, namely the homicidal Camorra, are alive and killing. “No Mafia”? How about “Uh, I’m Afraid-So Mafia?”

Harbor of Sciacca, Sicily

Though I’ve been to Italy a few times, I’m re-learning some basic words and phrases, like “Do you speak English?,” which is a big one for me. I ask that constantly in foreign countries, often in plain English, which is both foolish and boorish. In Sicily I will politely approach a local, clear my throat nervously, and ask, “Parli inglese?” (That’s: par-lee-inglesy.) And then, most likely, be promptly bopped on the nose.

I’m really not such a klutz in my travels. I tread lightly, mindfully, and rarely find myself in awkward tangles. I keep my trap shut, until I’m desperate for a small pointer. (“Mi scusi,” I might begin. “Where is the toilet?”)

We are travelers, my family and friends. I returned from Budapest and Kraków in October and I’m already greedily charting a post-Sicily trip. Where? I haven’t a clue. For the second time, I seriously considered Ireland, but research has again left me cold and bored. Besides Guinness and grass, what is there? A plethora of pubs? Some castles? Rain? Sheep? Elves?

I read an article, “20 Cool Destinations to Escape the Summer Heat” — ditching the heat is a huge selling point for me — and it includes Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Chile, South Africa and more. 

Chile sounds aptly chilly and attractively off the beaten track. (I’ve only been to South America once, Buenos Aires in July 2022 — our sweltering summer, their swooning winter.) At a glance, Chile in July offers snow skiing, wineries and temps in the low 60s. Heavenly. I used to ski madly back in California. Though if I try to ski at this late date, I’ll wind up with two broken femurs, four cracked ribs and a neck brace. 

Meantime, Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, beckons. It’s awash in zesty history, a strange (and strained) relationship with mainland Italy, world-class cannoli, singular pizza, and a people I hope will brook a humble tourist’s blundering attempts at speaking Italian. A tourist who, spongelike, yearns to soak it up, metabolize it, then, months later, jump to the next place with almost juvenile impetuosity.

As the cliché goes, I’m like a shark: I have to keep moving or I die. That’s glib, but rather true. And if it is, I’m definitely a Great White — tenacious, voracious, and dying for an authentic pizza margherita.

This week’s astounding headlines

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‘turro de force

Onstage, John Turturro is a frothing, frenetic vortex, spewing barbed-wire invective, spittle flying, making you cringe and laugh all at once. He’s Mickey Sabbath, retired puppeteer, devout deviant, a 60-ish sybarite of unbound lusts, a Vesuvian id raging in the night (and day and morning). I recently saw this crackling Off Broadway performance of “Sabbath’s Theater,” adapted from Philip Roth’s acclaimed, notoriously naughty novel, and while the small cast is a marvel, it’s Turturro as Sabbath who harnesses the show’s electric eros, whipping us along on a ride of pathos-kissed perversion. Everyone — he too — leaves exhausted. 

‘Home Alone’ 2023

In the “classic” Christmastime movie “Home Alone,” a little brat played by little brat Macaulay Culkin — in one of the most implausible plot twists in cinema history — is accidentally left behind when his family goes to the airport to fly to Paris for the holidays. So Culkin is all by his lonesome in the big empty house, until two bungling burglars show up … and yada-yada. This year I’m that little brat, home alone for the holidays, my friends flung around the country, and my immediate family jetting to Madrid on Christmas Day. With my parents passed, I’m left with Cubby the magic dog, a pair of impish cats, and, if I get lucky on Xmas Eve, when goodies will be gifted, a tiny tank of swirling Sea-Monkeys, my Proustian madeleine conjuring the age of Pet Rocks and the Fonz. I’m a loner at heart. I spent 10 Christmases solo in Texas, so this is actually my comfort zone. Leftovers, tipples of egg nog, a CBD gummy, a great old movie. I’m set. It might even snow. And there, the tableau is complete.

Mamet’s mad

Though repulsed by his latter-day conversion to all things alt-right, I will listen to nearly anything playwright/screenwriter/director David Mamet preaches about the craft of writing. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (“Glengarry Glen Ross”) has written a zillion books about writing and directing theater and film, as well as penned movies like “The Verdict,” “The Untouchables” and “Wag the Dog,” and written and directed 10 of his own movies, from “House of Games” to “Homicide.” Mamet’s been through the Hollywood wringer, and he’s pissed. His new memoir, out this week, is “Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood.” I just got it, and though not quite a swashbuckling thrill through the fraught Hollywood jungle (see William Goldman for that), it’s peppered with Mamet’s signature biting commentary. Producers are venal scum (“Are none of you idiots paying attention?”). Race and gender are never off limits. Errant grumpiness is rampant (“If you put cilantro on it, Californians will eat cat shit”). And fascinating insights into arcane movie lore abound. Mamet can be astringent, but anyone who calls “School of Rock” a “wonderful” picture can’t be all bad. 

Packing my bags 

So, Sicily it is. My next journey is a return to Italy — no! To Sicily. For locals, the distinction is vital. I quote: “People from Sicily consider themselves Sicilians first and Italians second. Though Sicily is a part of Italy [the big island beneath the boot] the region has its own culture, traditions and dialect, and Sicilians are incredibly proud of their heritage.” I go in February, after the chilly holidays, before the heat sets in, and before spring religious rites flourish. The history-drenched capital Palermo is home base, with day trips to the ghoulish catacombs and the dazzling mosaics of Monreale Cathedral, plus food and culture tours and lots in between. Tips? Phone lines are open … 

Fido’s funk

It’s raining and the dog went on a walk and got damp and now he smells like a giant corn chip. He’s needed a bath for some time, and the drizzle has activated a slightly fetid doggy odor that happens to recall a processed dipping snack. Pass the Ranch?