Felix (Fra Bertoldi) Cantiriani

This is Fra Bertoldi as I met him at the ancient church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie. He lived for 28 years as Felix Cantiriani, a quiet, bookish slightly religious young man with obsessions and fears (mostly of fear itself) on via Melloni, in a small apartment on the fourth floor of a five-floor building. His door had two locks and two deadbolts that could only be worked from inside, the windows had solid iron bars. Felix always made sure he took the elevator alone or only with neighbours he knew and, once at home, he shut both locks leaving the keys in and pushed the deadbolts in place. One late night, about four and a half years ago, Felix woke up and only half opened his eyes, his bedroom was cold, there was a faint smell that he could not identify. In the corner he could see a tall dark shape, like a man with a hood. He quickly closed his eyes again and pretended to be asleep but still peeked. The shape moved closer, he felt the air move and heard a deep voice, more like a grunt, saying "I am dangerous". Felix shut his eyes tight and lay there for a long time prepared to die. The dawn broke and nothing further happened. He got up and checked the apartment, windows: locked, door: locked! He was even more terrified now than he was when it happened, in the night - he knew it had not been a dream. He got dressed and ran to see Padre Paolo. The father heard him out, was silent for a long time and then told Felix to go pray and come back the next day. Not many of his friends and relatives were surprised when Felix became a novice for the "White-Robed Monk of St. Benedict" and was ordained a year and a half later as Fra Bertoldi. Now he gets up at the 3:10 wake-up bell and has a small cup of coffee followed by prayers followed by more readings and prayers and cleaning and cooking and his general purpose in life is to let the world be a more compassionate place, inviting peace and joy. He sleeps well. 

Mina, Rina and Tina

These are Mina (9) and Rina (7), their mother Tina (38), was so upset that it was impossible to take her picture; her younger sister, Simona (Sysy, 36) was getting married today to Stefano (Fyfy, 37) at the ancient church of Santa Prassede, Rome where we all were waiting for the last 48 minutes. What is known is that Sysy and Fyfy decided against tradition and planned to come to church together. What is not known is that while dressing, Fyfy holding one cufflink, asked Sysy if she knew where his other cufflink is, Sysy said that it is called your cufflink because you should know where it is; Fyfy said he did not ask for attitude, Sysy gave him more attitude and Fyfy, angrily, threw the one cufflink against the wall, it fell on the floor (the cufflink, not the wall) and rolled under the sofa. Sysy ran into the bedroom and banged the door shut. Twenty minutes later, Sysy opened the door to give Fyfy some more attitude and found Fyfy on his knees crying, so Sysy went down on her knees too and they kissed after which, being on their knees anyway, they scuttled to the sofa to look for the one cufflink. They found two cufflinks next to each other cozy and happy, as cozy and happy as inanimate objects can be. They finished dressing quickly and got a cab to be only 64 minutes late ... all frowns and raised eyebrows and knowing nods vanished, Mina and Rina threw petals most expertly and Tina smiled again. The cufflinks also smiled (as inanimate objects can, sometimes, smile too). 

Gianni and Tomasso Barbaini

These are the Barbaini brothers as I met them in the Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle the other day. Their surname comes from their forefather, a Greek ship Captain called Barba Iani, who sailed to Genova, Italy in the mid-thirties and stayed because his ship was confiscated by the Mussolini fascists. Their fortune also comes from the Captain who had great skills in cooking fish and started an extremely successful restaurant in a suburb of Milan. The restaurant is still doing very well to this day and the brothers prosper mostly due to the special sauce they serve with their fried fish, nobody can make the sauce like them (the secret ingredient is nutmeg). After they studied the diner's traffic carefully, they noted that the lowest day occupancy is on Wednesdays, so that is when they keep the restaurant closed and everybody takes their day off. Gianni and Tomasso Barbaini relax by dressing in women's clothes, go shopping and hang around in bars. They have great success at it.

Vanja (Five-Strings) V

This is Vanessa (Vanja) Heinz from Boston, MA, a busker in Milan, at the Duomo, where we met. You look closer and see that she plays an Ibanez SR505 5-String Electric Bass, which is definitely, not her first choice instrument as she struggles to keep up with the stupid drum machine. Vanessa actually plays the harp (42 strings more) but she was left high and dry by her bass-playing boyfriend, who took her to Milan and then, one night, disappeared without a trace. She shrugged it off, picked up the abandoned guitar and figured: Kismet, "V" as in Vanja and the Roman numeral ... you gets the gig, you plays the gig. It is enough money to pay the rent and buy groceries until Jimmie finds his way home ... Vanja was always a great one to roll with the punches. Passers-by threw her  few Euro coins as she got her fingering straight and plunged into a soulful rendition of Gaėtano Bottesini's Andante sostenuto, she brought down the house! 

Yuri Herzberger

This is Yuri Herzberger (he prefers Uri) from Victoria B.C. in Canada, he was born on April 12th, 1961, and his parents, in a bout of naive and misguided leftist enthusiasm, called him Yuri (Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union flew in space that day). Uri's life (most of it, anyway) was a long string of humiliations; the first he clearly remembers was in the backyard of his first love: Florence Smith (they were both about five). Uri brought a drawing of a table he made for her in blue crayon but her older brother took it and rubbed it on his bottom laughing. That is how it all went, at school, University and later at work ... when he was invited to parties he felt humiliated, thinking it was for pity when he wasn't invited he felt humiliated for being left out. He had a string of meaningless affairs where he thought the girls went with him for mercy and he felt humiliated, but when girls rejected him he also felt humiliated. His Uriah Heep humiliations were more the pop-group type then the Dickensian sycophant version ... but still, hurt like crazy. Then, one day, about six and a half years ago, his then-girlfriend Aby-Gail took him on a free-friend-class-pass to her Yoga studio down Douglas street. What he experienced next, he could not describe, he tried to keep up with the class and thought he didn't but, when about an hour and a half later, he lay still in, what he was told is, the final Savasana, he realized that for the first time for as long as he could remember he was fine: no feelings of guilt or shame. There was no pressure, no expectation, no judgment ... just warm smiles and encouragement. Uri lives with his now-fiancee Aby-Gail and they go to daily Yoga sessions. Full of eternal gratitude, he bought her a tat of her choice and, when we met in Rome a few weeks ago, they were both seriously considering teacher training. Uri still listens to his Uriah Heep records, his favorite is "Easy Living" from "Demons and Wizards".

Kimmie Zhou 周

This is Zhou (周) Keung, a beer drinker from the Tianjin Province, Ninghe District, he lives with his mom in a small place just outside Lutai. One night, about two and a half years ago, while drinking beer on his porch, he heard sounds of breaking, screeching, impacting, and crashing. He jumped up and ran to the highway where he saw a huge white BMW rolled on its side with wheels still spinning. The driver was fine he had only some scratches, the passenger, a young woman hanging in the seat belt, was clearly dead. The young man asked him for his name and then ordered Keung to help him move the girl into the driver seat and the roll the car down into the gorge below. The BMW bumped faster and faster through the bushes and landed, almost invisible, two hundred feet below. Then the young man told Keung to take him to the train station which he did on his old scooter. Once there, the guy took out all the cash from his wallet and gave it to Keung with a business card, he said somebody will come by (it was almost 5,000 Yuan, about six hundred bucks). After a few days a lawyer came by, asked for a bank account number and Keung signed a consulting contract with the Province. The next day there were 150,000 Yuan more in the bank, so he bought a new stove for his mom and paid a guy to repair the roof. In a newspaper, Keung read about a female car thief who crashed a car and died (the car belonged, apparently, to the son of a high party boss). Keung changed his name to cooler Kimmie, quit his job and sat at home drinking beer all day. After a while, he started to travel and to drink beer all over the world. I met him in Florence on the steps of Santa Croce (we had beers).

Louis Charles

This is Louis Charles from Dijon, France, he comes from a long line of Moutardier, with his lineage made noble when a Hungarian count, Zsigmond Nagy von Zichy arrived in the city and charmed Marie Louise, only daughter of the prosperous Charles family, with his fine figure and elegant, Viennese manners. Little did she and les Charles know, that Zsigmond fled his creditors who held papers on an enormous gambling debt. The wedding was a most splendid affair and the couple settled down in the manor house on the estate that grew the mustard that grew the Charles wealth. A boy, named Joel Kálmán, was the fruit of their love, alas born after the Count's disappearance (one evening he went for cigarettes and was never seen or heard off again). There was a huge break in Marie Louise's heart 💔and a majestic hole in their bank account. Joel Kálmán is the grandfather of Louis and it was in his time that the lands had to be sold. The family held great know-how on the mustard industry and prospered again by becoming main agents in selling and buying it. Louis is famous for winning the prestigious "Grand Prix de Meilleure Dijon" nine times running: he makes really good mustard (his secret ingredient is nutmeg), but the first year he bribed the judges with thousand Euro each, subsequent years, he just played them the recording of that transaction on his phone. So the spirit of Count Zsigmond is still alive and well in Dijon, capital of Burgundy, France, where le Dijon (AOC) is now made with 80% mustard seed from Ontario in Canada.