Carlotta Zinaida Zampieri

This is Carlotta Zinaida Zampieri last descendent from an ancient Venetian family, as I met her the other day at Ossington Station. Her great-great-great-great grandmother was born in Venice in 1791 and was one of the most famous beauties and courtesans of the city. We had coffee and she told me her story. In 1819, the fabulously wealthy count Ostrovski, offered one million gold ducats for the courtesans exclusivity but she, free spirit (she fucked for fun), stabbed him in the eye with her ivory umbrella killing him instantly. Carlotta (all Zampieri women carried the name "Carlotta") had to flee Venice and went to live in Clichy, just outside of Paris. She married and had one daughter, who married and had one daughter, who married and had one daughter. In 1940, when France was overrun by the Hun, Carlotta and her daughter moved to Philadelphia. The daughter married and had one daughter, who married and had one daughter who moved to Toronto where she teaches Spanish Literature, Modern Dance and Portuguese language (that is the daughter I met).

Emil Gelb

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.

Rose Stoilov-Mah

This is Rose Stoilov-Mah as I met her the other day at a local art event. Her father is a Russian poet descending from a long line of the Stoilov counts, all of them poets or officers or both. Her mother is mathematician born in Taiwan.

From her dad Rose has the scorching curiosity and blazing imagination, from her mom she has the logical thinking and passionate tenacity. This makes her an extremely successful and sought after researcher of all things modern art. 

Rose told me about an wondrous thing of a few nights ago, she did not think it was a dream, she felt it really happened to her. She went to bed, was fast asleep and then she suddenly awoke and sat up. She saw herself in the mountains of Central Asia many thousands of years ago - she didn't know how she knew but she could tell it was so. People everywhere were unhappy, fighting all the time killing each other. They were communicating with grunts and shouts and threats, always hands on their daggers. Then, Rose looked up and saw a young girl in a blue dress coming down the mountain smiling with a bright red flower in her little hand. She would walk into a village, find a child, tear a petal off her flower and give it to them. Miraculously her flower would grow the petal back and the petal she gave away would become a full red flower. The children would then walk into other villages and give out petals themselves in an growing avalanche of joy and bliss. Wherever they went people stopped fighting and started smiling and talking to each other, embracing. Rose was floating above the lush green Fergana Valley following the light ... While Rose was telling me her story, she was smiling the most serene of smiles. When I asked if she knew the name of the flower she looked up and said in a dreamy tone "I believe they called it Sevgi"   

Edson Pallo

This is Edson Pallo as I met him on a westbound train between Royal York and Kipling Stations. He only agreed to this photo of him to be published and as you read on you may learn why. 

Edson lives with his uncle, two sisters and two brothers on a small farm in the small town of Shomberg, North of Toronto. The family grows goats (commercially) and chicken (for own use). 

When the family arrived in Canada in 1998, uncle Nilton (then 42) listened to a "friend's advise" to "make things easier and simpler" and filled out the forms indicating that he was father to Edson (then 8), Tenna (then 6), Girra (then 5) and Solio and Segundo, twins (then 4). The Pallos were accepted as refugees and did well, found jobs and, in time, got Canadian citizenship but always felt feel they must keep the paternity/avuncular situation secret. What they never kept secret but boast of proudly, is that their Cashmere goats won the gold medals at the Toronto Winter-fair two years running and were runners up the two previous years.
Edson showed me pictures of the goats and they are spec-ta-cu-lar, he was on his way to register for this year's fair. He called the 1-800 number to register, like every year, but heard a message saying that he must do it "on-the-website" or in person ... so he is now traveling.

 

Ayita Brownlee

This is Ayita Brownlee as I met her the other day on a Westbound Train between St. George and Bay Stations. She told me that she is Ojibway and her First Nations name is First to Dance. Ayita has a Bachelor degree in Statistics from York U and an MBA from Rotman. She finished in the top two and a half percent of her class which brought her a bunch of lucrative job offers from large and prestigious companies (one had, as a signing bonus, a five year lease of a BMW 5 Series). Ayita was flattered but declined them all and proceeded to take the exams to become a Certified Aboriginal Financial Manager. The process took her two years (faster than anybody in living memory) after which she started working for the First Nations Financial Authority (FNFA) in Westbank B.C. That had been always her dream: to have a job she liked, that she was good at and that helps her people. Ayita has two small kids with her building contractor partner, also an Ojibway. 
Her other big passion is Bridge, in University she was part of the team that won the National Sectional in Ottawa and placed third in the Regional ... she is very proud of this although the trophies were atrocious. 

Ayita told me that she is in town to attend a conference on financial management, which, so far, turned out to be dull and uninteresting, except the hidden agenda, the red thread through-out all presentations of how to maximize the profit for financial advisors and obfuscate the process so consumers would be forced to rely on professionals. This brought back memories of what her uncle Acule Benson (Who Looks Up) always said: "To fight the White Man, you must get between him and his money".
She also remembered a recurring dream ... she would meet a woman who was over six feet tall, with a huge mass of reddish-brown hair that stood up in all directions. That woman's hips were wider than her shoulders ... she could never figure if she ever saw her face or if she just forgot her face.

Pilar Mullhoney

The first time I met Pilar it was 1702, in the small Finish port of Rauma. She was a cat and I was a rat and we were aboard the HMS Chichester ready to set sail to Varna with a load of valuable fresh Moonbeam-Flower extract. We have met three more times each following our own methempsychotic routes. In 1856, on the green, mean and dangerous pastures of suburban Rotterdam she was a foal and I was a mole. In March of 1946, high up in the Atlas mountains of southern Morocco she was monkey and I was a donkey.

The last  time I saw Pilar was a few days ago on the Westbound platform of Runnymede Station, she smiled, came over and said "Hello, old Soul!" then she gave me back my bullets. Pilar told me that they are of no use to her now as she will soon turn and expire. Apparently she will drown off the coast of Newfoundland in a suspicious boating accident, less than three weeks from now ... "Adieu, old Soul!"

Lorena von Braunschweig and Ken

This is Lorena von Braunschweig d'O (31) as I met her the other day at 6:28 AM, at Castle Frank Station. Lorena (Lodo to her friends) is 6'4" and weighs 140 lbs, she started ballet lessons at age four and is an accomplished dancer and teacher. Her career was cut short by an accident: she kept growing until nobody could cast her anymore. Lodo switched to choreography with quite a bit of  success. Recently she finished her own full length ballet "Niobe" and is now busy fundraising to produce it. Last night she went to the Korean Association to meet with the Korean cultural Attaché Mr. Hyung-joon Myeong who expressed interest intrigued by the Niobe story (it seems that Koreans are fascinated by Greek mythology). The talks went well and, at the drinks after, she met Ken Keyo (23), nephew to Mr. Myeong, student at U of T (majoring in Islamic Studies). Lodo took Ken home. He turned out to be, at 5"5' and 140 lbs, a very enthusiastic, inventive and energetic lover, alas totally averse to early raising. With great effort Lodo made Ken to board the subway wit her. Lodo got off at Yonge to go to her morning class and I went on to Ossington Station. One can just hope that kind souls at the TTC woke up Ken at Kipling.