This is Emil Gelb, professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna as, to my great surprise, I saw him recently on the East-bound train between Greenwood and Coxwell. We had met a few years ago during my stay in Bologna at the Caffé Terzi, not too far from Piazza Santo Stefano. I walked up to him and said "Ciao, didn't know you were in Toronto" he looked up trying to place me eventually he said in his perfect but heavily accented English "Hello friend who's name I deliberately choose not to remember as you seemed of little importance and/or use to me" I was taken aback and could not immediately find a correspondingly acerbic comeback ... not that any/many of Gelb's one-liners ever have had a successful come-back. I decided to play it cool (the alternative would have been to hit him in the head with my foot) so I went back and sat down to where I got up from just a few moments ago looking around to see if anybody observed the exchange (and my complete and utter pulverization). He went back to reading his newspaper and I got off at Victoria Park to take the 24 bus North.
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