Anam's Story of What Really Happened to Iva Zanicchi

I've met Anam at the check-out counter of my supermarket. In her basket were two stakes, a large bag of raisins and a small bottle of Gin. We went for coffee and she told me she is the grand-daughter of Iva Zanicchi and was very surprised when I said I knew who that is: she won the San Remo three times.

But do I know the real true story of Iva she asked. Here it goes: Iva's husband, Antonio, was abusive and when she couldn't take it anymore, on a Sunday when he and the entire male population of the country  were at the soccer stadium, she packed a suitcase, took her jewellery, all the money in the house and her daughter Rita (3) and went to the buss terminal. They boarded the bus to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Upon arrival, a kind young man whom they asked for directions to the church San Nicolò ad Ospitale, offered to take them there and even carried their suitcase. He said his name was Pietro. Three days later Pietro came to see how they were and took them for Gelato. Three weeks later they moved in with him into a big house that he shared with his old aunt Ilse, the local witch who did spells, curses and love potions for a fee and his uncle Hansi who belonged to the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee who wanted the area to belong to Austria. (Hansi was in jail for blowing up a carabinieri post, killing three). A week later, when Ilse heard Iva's story, she offered to put a death curse on Antonio for the minimal fee of 20,000 Lire (about twenty bucks). Five days later the newspapers wrote that the husband of Iva Zanicchi died in a car crash. Ilse said "Già fatto, e fatto". Four days later Pietro and Iva got married at San Nicolò, Iva became signora Ivona Ganser. Four days later an official letter told them that Hansi was shot and killed trying to escape. Four days later Ilse died peacefully in her sleep. Three weeks later they sold the house and four weeks later Ivona, Rita and Pietro landed in Toronto. Ivona taught canto and flute and Pietro was a successful mastication consultant who trained people how to chew food to lose weight. Rita studied the science of imaginary solutions and is a professor of Pataphysics. She married the local barber, a Hungarian by the name of István Szilágyi. He is Anam's father. Anam runs a Pilates studio and is the lead singer of the all-female band "Le Vampe". They play hip-hop versions of sixties and seventies Italian hits and always start with "Ciao cara, come stai?".

Anam set down her coffee cup and looked at me. I said "That's cool and all, but according to the internet Iva Zanicchi is 84 and lives in Brianza, northwest Lombardy". Anam said "Yes, there is that".

Gentle reader, please read the paraquel published as the next post
 

MAIM and the Careless Use of Social Graces

I met Eduardo Pontos (Eddy) years ago at a Rick Von Schmidt concert (friend of Bob Dylan). We kept in touch over the years. Anyone knew that Eddy was a genius of engineering but "pas de manières". He asked me to come visit him. I went and Raffaella (Raffa), his long suffering partner, opened the door: "Ciao bella!". "How is he?" Raffa just shook her head and rolled her eyes. She had long lost count of how many jobs, assignments, investors and opportunities they missed with Eddy's temper. He would make a brilliant new invention/gadget/method and Raffa would write and publish a technical summary. They always had many inquiries and requests for meetings and demos. Eddy would do the presentation but insult anyone who asked questions telling them that they were too stupid to understand. He would lose his temper and walk out. On his way home he would stop by La Senza to buy expensive lingerie to show he was sorry. Raffa would ask "Why can't you be nicer?" he'd always say "I'm not a nice man". They did OK with money from maintenance, royalties and the few clients who put up with him because whatever he built was exquisite. Raffa told me that eventually she convinced him to make a machine to enhance social graces, and he did.

He was on his way back from the first test run with live public. I noticed a copy of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" on the desk and asked "AI based? Is this for training?". Raffa nodded just when the door flew open and Eddy rushed in. "How did it go?" he ignored us and connected the contraption he was carrying to the big screen on the back wall. I could see an array of cameras and microphones. "This is my Manners AI Monitor (MAIM). Watch!". Great name, I thought. The screen showed Eddy in a meeting room with an older man (a tag said Bob) and a younger woman (a tag said Tammy). A timeline ran at the bottom of the video and it would turn gray, green, amber or red as MAIM analyzed the conversation. Eddy pressed PLAY and clicked on a green portion, we heard the audio: "Thank you for taking this meeting" Eddy was beaming. He skipped some grays saying it's just technical stuff and played the next green "I like your tie, Bob". We couldn't believe our ears. Eddy would proudly play all the greens: "That is a very interesting comment" and "What great questions". Towards the end there was a green turning amber and then a huge red blob. Eddy went there and we heard him say: "Tammy, you have a very nice smile" Tammy mumbled "Thank you". Eddy quickly added "and really magnificent breasts". Tammy, white knuckles, red face walked out the door. Raffa and I looked at each other and Eddy said "She really had great boobs, I show social graces. WHAT?". That is when I noticed the bag by the door, it was pink with white stripes: the colors of La Senza.

 

It is All About the Big Man with the Little Dog

It was, undoubtedly, luck and not skill that brought me to Caltagirone. I didn't even know how lucky I was until I saw Don Bepo sitting smoking outside a bar, by the Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte. I greeted him with the traditional "Baciamo le mani, Don Bepo!" to which he replied "Salve amico, ma hadash?" We talked about the weather and sipped espresso and I asked the courtesy question of how the rossoazzurri are doing this season. A young woman walked by and made Don Bepo freeze with his cup in midair ... she truly had a formidable ass. Finally he put his cup down and turned to me: "You know I have the last two last pieces, right?" I looked at him and said "right and left, right?" Don Bepo smiled and ordered more coffee and Amaro and we sat there watching people going by listening to their respectful greetings. It was late, maybe gone eleven, when he reached into his pocket and put the two segments in front of me: "Tanta merda, amico. Ora vai via!" 

I took them and left only wondering what the hell happened to the big man with the little dog.

The Unintended and Tragic Consequence of not Thinking it Through Thoroughly

He woke up, as usual just in time to stop the alarm from going off, and went to the bathroom to pee and brush his teeth. He decided to dress in the brown outfit today. He got his brown shoes out and bent down to tie his laces ... it somehow didn't work, his fingers didn't know what to do. He tried again and failed again. Panic set in, there was sweat on his forehead. He sat down and tried ujjayi breath ... it calmed him down enough to search on his phone "Tie Shoelaces". There were 680 hits of which the first two pages tried to sell him neckties and/or shoelaces. On the third page, he found  "Inability to Tie One's Shoelaces" and followed the link. It described exactly his symptoms and recommended brewing a tea from cumin seeds, turmeric, nutmeg shavings, black peppercorns, and white vinegar: boil it for three minutes and simmer it for twenty ... and drink it cold. He followed the instructions without any thought. About an hour later he put on his brown shoes and his fingers danced a precise ballet finishing in superb symmetrical bows on both shoes. 

"The last thing he remembered, was running for the door, had to find the passage back to the place he was before" He looked down and saw that all his fingers had fallen off. 

 

The Sudden Halt of the Linear Progression (a Love Story)

 

 

It happened long ago, I did not a witness this event, but it must have been a magnificent occasion when M. Carbon first met a bunch of bouncy, giggly, light mademoiselles Hash. It took just a fraction of a second and he selected the first four closest to him and they bound calling themselves Methane.

  

 

 

 

 

                  

The picture above shows Carbon atoms in traditional black bound to Hydrogen atoms in white. After a short while, a pair of Carbons grabbed a bunch of H and took the name of Ethane. Then everybody went wild ... the threes (Propane) and the fours (Butane) and the fives (Pentane). You see them here in order of seniority, then, when they already dreamed of Hexane, Heptane, Octane, Nonane all the way to heaven, some unknown and not understood force intervened. Nobody could explain it except, maybe, some German physicists with strange eating habits and proclivity for bizarre sexual practices. The thing turned on itself and became round (actually hexagonal) but who gives a hoot when the linear progression stopped being linear and progressive.

 

The sun still came down like honey on "Our Lady of the Harbor" but people were disillusioned to learn that when they had something which they thought they got it, the Universe told them that they "ain't got it!"

A Simple Knick (Twist) of (Time) Fate

This is Camelia Clara Wanda Chelu, she was born on March 25th 1921 at 8:25 AM in Berlin. The second time she was born eleven minutes  earlier in Tegucigalpa.

This bizarre event was caused by an extremely rare inconsistency in the fabric of time a "Knick" which scientists cannot fully understand yet. Clara lives now in Toronto and is twenty eight or thirty two years of age (she ages normally for a couple of years and then the Knick reverse-ages her to balance it out). She is a talented composer (classical and pop, she wrote "Norwegian Woods" among other hits) but cannot publish anything for fear of taking away a piece that may be written later. She has a brilliant technical mind (she invented the trans-lateral Pistio mechanism for fruit and veg and many other things) couldn't patent them for the same reason. She told me that the time brigade (ultra-secret authority watching that things that shouldn't happen don't happen) drops in on her inopinantly. Suddenly she said "Are you crazy? It's just wrong, the Knick will knack" (which was an answer to a question I asked her later). This is the thing with her: she remembers things that happened in the future: five minutes, two hours, a year and a half, she has no control over it and she cannot predict what she will predict. The rule is, she told me, that she cannot change the future. That's when I asked her "Why not?"  

The Surprisingly Simple Return to Form

This is Martha Karolina Imogen, Baroness von Schlauch, known as Ayleen B. She is highly intelligent, talented and has a piercing curiosity. Until the age of twenty-two she lived a life of opulence and  privilege in the ancestral castle of the Barons von Schlauch in Pichelswerder. It is not known why (some say she couldn't stand the brass orchestra for which the town is renowned) one day she flew to La Paz, Bolivia. Apparently she wanted to prove that she can thrive in a life of penury in an environment of economic and political instability (rather than opulence and privilege). In La Paz she met, fell in love and married Francisco Gonzales Bernardo (Bernie) Rubin, poet and playwright. Bernie was in equal parts talented, left wing and alcoholic. They had two children Heloise and Abelard. In La Paz two equally fatal forces competed for Bernie's life: Cirrhosis and the secret police. Cirrhosis won.

Ayleen B, now a widow, started a theater to promote contemporary Bolivian Dramaturgy. She named it Teatro Babylonia, after her favorite aunt, but the registration clerk, a recent Greek immigrant, wrote down Teatro Bubulina. The name stuck and the theater became famous. At a recent Sunday brunch, her two kids, now 19 and 20 told her that they will return to Germany as they preferred a life of opulence and privilege. She cursed horribly and threw her coffee at them.