March 16, 2007 Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona Daoibh !! Happy Saint Patrick's Day To You All !!

I found the pic above in a young lady's blog who was showing her readers around her home town ..... Cork or Corcaigh .... in Ireland. Unfortunately I have never been able to find her site since then so that I might ask permission to use it in today's salute to everything and everybody Irish...... so I shall simply presume her approval for such a good cause.

For me this wee pub , An Teach Beag or The Little House , symbolizes the warmth of the Irish way of life as well as the Irish people itself .......... small , clean , inviting , quaint...... and the fiddle and " bodhrán " ( winnowing drum ) repliqua hanging on the wall suggesting that it is a place for " ceol " ( music ) or perhaps even a " céilí " or social evening / gathering .......... and who knows ? Maybe also a few pints of Guinness as the sign would suggest " Guinness Gach Lá "..... Guinness every day ! The flowering window box likewise adds a bit of personal charm. The oldtimers always said that if the conditions and mood were right ..... an epidemic of friendliness and mirth could break out at any moment..... and it was highly contageous to all trapped ....... yeah quarantined .......inside.

So I would like to raise my glass to my enemies' enemies and especially to you , a chairde (my friends ) and may you cross the threshhold of the Pearly Gates at least a half hour before the devil finds out you're dead.......... and may the latter not happen in the near future .

Seo mo sheal ! Caith siar é agus ná lig aniar é !! So this is my round..... now throw it back down and don't let it back up !!

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat
Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl
Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d'aghaidh
Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna
Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

P.S. Go raibh míle maith agat , a cuisle mo chroí... Fluff.... and a big thanks many thousand times over to you , oh pulse of my heart.. Fluff ... for the new Irish background theme design.

Entry for March 02, 2007 Those Parking Lot Blues !!

We had driven down to Madrid that very morning from Segovia...... a good two-hour ride at normal speeds. Once in the heart of the capital city I signed us into a five-star fleabag ...... a clean , no frills room some four storeys up with balcony overlooking inner courtyard parking lot. Since it was a scorching hot day and I was quite tuckered out I decided to go fetch a bottle of rhum along with a litre of quality orange juice and set up shop out on the balcony in the shade. The photo above was snapped that afternoon and represents the sight I beheld from my fourth-storey vantage point.

While sitting there imbibing the local elixir and recharging my batteries I could not help but witness the very animated " goings on " unfolding before my eyes at ground level in the courtyard . People coming out of the restaurant or hotel would find their cars hemmed in by idiots , raise their fists to the skies calling upon all the devils of hell to punish the " cabrones " in the finest fires of the netherworld..... then head back into the establishments in search of the owners........ sometimes with success ....... whereas more often they came back emptyhanded since the guilty ones had set out on foot to see the sights of Madrid .

After about one hour and a half of this live entertainment there came a sudden lull in all activity below ...... the parking lot was partially empty here and there........ peace and quiet seemingly ruled the moment. Then the little white car ( green arrow ) pulled in and driver went into the nearby hotel. Soon afterwards the two red cars drove onto the lot and parked , one beside the white one , one behind it .... thereby partially hemming it in. However , there still remained enough wiggle space for " whitey " to back out of there.

At that precise instant an old familiar voice I knew so well piped up out of the blue......... it was the wee conniving troublemaker leipreachàn inside me , L'il Athol , who suggested I go down and move my rental car ( blue arrow ) to the space indicated by the yellow arrow ....... thus blocking off all possibility of "whitey's " exiting at all !!! And then sit back and watch the outcome !! Now just as I peered into those tiny beady evil eyes and was on the verge of giving L'il Athol a real verbal thrashing for his evil proposal I noticed some movement down below . A silver-coloured car had slipped into the very spot under discussion.... thereby fulfilling Athol's malicious wishes.

Soooo we both poured ourselves another rhum and watched......... and waited !! Finally out comes the owner of the white car , reaches for the heavens like the others before him once he sees his predicament ... then goes from one car to the other to check for keys maybe as seen in the pic above. Then he looked up and saw me on the balcony .... asking me whether I had seen where the drivers had gone....... to which I simply answered , " Soy extranjero.... no vi nada .... nadie !" .... " I'm a foreigner... I saw nothing.... noone !" Then I felt sorry for the poor guy and invited him to come up to my balcony for a drink and wait for the car owners to come back....... which he did. His name was Francesco ...... a shoesalesman from Valladolid. We chatted for about 40 minutes until the silver car's owner appeared ..... at which moment Francesco shouted down his appraisal of the other's main brain components....... shook my hand thanking me for my hospitality and good taste in rhum .... and then went down and drove off.

P.S. First of all there is much more to do and see in Madrid than sit on a balcony and watch a live performance of the Binary Arts Corp's game " Rush Hour" unfolding before your eyes. I had seen this same parking scenario all over Southern Europe but had never taken a pic of it before that afternoon and simply wished to share it with you all.

Entry for February 26, 2007 Mourning Language Loss !!

Whether you believe that God infused language into mankind in the Garden of Eden and later diversified it in the Tower of Babel or , like the Montagnais creation tale , where Wolverine ( Kwekwatshew or Carcajou ) invented different tongues on purpose to foment havoc and conflict among both humans and other animals...... is not discussed in this blog. However , I personally believe that mankind has forged its own languages to satisfy its own innate cravings and necessities to communicate and interact socially.............and spiritually.

What we do know .... for a fact .... is that from the beginnings of historical records until today language has always been and still is systematic , multiple and complex. Most authors associate the figure 3600 with the number of languages still in existence and spoken in the world nowadays. History is a solemn witness to those lost and gone forever ......... many hundreds of them having already given up the ghost among us here in North America...... and many in the throes of death even as we write these lines.. both on this continent and elsewheres around the planet.

Back in 1970 when I was a young buck in the academic world I published my first wee work.....a grammar of the Montagnais language ( launching pic above with university dignitaries and my Montagnais assistant , Marie-Jeanne Basile ) . I wrote the preface in three languages .... Montagnais , French and English ..... the following quotation being drawn from the latter version. Needless to say I still feel as strongly passionate about agonizing languages today as I did 35 years ago..... maybe even moreso now after so much firsthand involvement in the fate of minority languages during my career.

" Kill a man and you kill a person. Snuff out a language and you wipe out a people. This is the difference between murder and genocide, a favourite pastime with all great powers ever since the first caveman discovered he was stronger than his neighbour.

Governments are great providers. They grant fabulous amounts of money to universities and museums every year for the purchase of pottery collections and other artifacts unearthed throughout the world. With the aid of these relics from the past the professor explains to his students the artistic and practical trends of a more or less remote period in the history of man and the personal characteristics of the author. One Greek pot alone may cost $20, 000.00. Moreover, governments are ready to spend thousands to preserve a species of animal or bird from extinction. However, these same governing and financial powers turn a deaf ear whenever it is a question of preserving and propagating man's greatest creation, his language, and more especially, Amerindian languages.

This short grammar has several aims. Because of the ever increasing number of students enrolling at Laval University and elsewheres for courses in Montagnais, I thought it high time to publish my class notes. Secondly, this short work is an attempt to demonstrate on paper the harmonious workings of the Montagnais intellect as revealed through a study of the language. Thirdly, this little grammar is being published mainly in the hope that the Montagnais themselves will use it to initiate their children in the workings of their mother tongue."

I'll close up shop this evening with a wee word about another of my great loves.......Irish Gaelic ........ the first official language of Ireland , and yet a minority language....... a tongue as tough as nails which outlived two and a half centuries of oppression under the "Stranger"and likewise the ravages of An Gorta Mor or Great Famine in 1847-48 and the ensuing immigration of over a million of its starving speakers across the Salty Pond into the American melting pot .....the following poem is an ode to and a plea for its survival ...... author unknown !!

An Ghaeilge
Is mise an Ghaeilge
Is mise do theanga
Is mise do chultúr
D'Úsáid na Filí mé
D'Úsáid na huaisle
D'Úsáid na daoine mé
is d'Úsáid na lenaí
Go bródúil a bhí siad
Agus mise faoi réim.

Ach tháinig an strainséir
Chuir sé faoi chois mé
Is rud ní ba mheasa
Nior mhaith le mo chlann mé
Anois táim lag
Anois táim tréith
Ach fós táim libh
Is beidh mé go beo.
Tóg suas mo cheann
Cuir áthas ar mo chroí
Labhraígí mé
Ó labhraígí mé!

The Irish Language
I am Irish
I am your language
I am your culture
The poets used me
The nobles used me
The people used me
and the children used me
Proud they were
And I flourished

But the stranger came
He suppressed me
Something worse than that was
my own people rejected me
Now I am weak
Now I am feeble
But still I am with you
and I will be forever.
Raise up my head
Put joy in my heart
Speak me
Oh speak me!

Thank you for your patience !!

Getting My Bearings!!

Since I arrived around the 15th of September and courses started up only at the end of the month we spent all the intervening time harvesting grapes in the Val di Chiana or Plain below and putting them through the huge wine press in the cellar . The juice was then poured into 12 gigantic 1000-gallon oaken vats  for fermentation... some of which was reserved for domestic use... meaning us !! ... whereas most would be sold during the coming year at the "mercato" or market in Camucia thereby bringing revenues  to the community for the purchase of other goods and necessities.

During this whole wine-making process I learned a great deal about the structure of power within our walls as well as one minor struggle for power and priveleges among the "hired" help. As mentioned before our legally appointed superior was Padre Canuto.... a big panda-pitbull ,"one of these days , Alice" kind of guys. He was also our professor of Canon Law and looked upon by most as  having  a bigger bark than a bite. However , from the very outset I learned  that any time Padre Canuto acted with authority he always seemed to run it by the balding priest at his right , Padre Natalizia ,   economist and money handler... often referred to by the students as " money bags " who held the purse strings drawn tight on the monastery's frugal financial situation. Padre Natalizia taught moral theology . Then there was our chubby , pint-sized Padre Roberto.... Socius (or friend in Latin)  to the student body.. our immediate superior .... whom I convinced early on that it was imperative that I travel as often as possible throughout the whole of Italy during my stay to get a better grasp and deeper understanding of Italian history , geography and culture . LOL. I'll deal more generously with this aspect a bit later on. Anyways Padre Roberto was a real sweet , mild - mannered character whose academic specialty was Patriarchy.. or the study of the Church Fathers. This triumvirate was the authorative hierarchy for the whole seminary. As for the other priests - professors I shall talk about each one of them in a later post .                                                                                                

Now for the fun guys... the lay brothers and the "hired" help. The role of the lay brother within the monastic framework is that of an auxiliary or aid to the priests in the carrying out of the latters'  missions or ministry... freeing them  , so to speak , from the more menial tasks so that they might deal almost exclusively with spiritual matters.  There were three lay brothers at the college ... Brothers  Valentino , Luigi and Francesco.... Valentino visibly being "numero uno "and my best friend.... the main cog in the wheel who took orders directly from Padre Natalizia , the BOSS !.... while Luigi ruled the kitchen.... Francesco simply helped out wherever he was needed and wielded no power or influence whatsoever. As for the "hired" help... well ! There were three of them.... Cecco , who lived in a room off the kitchen , who had no idea of world geography ...thinking I came from somewhere across the Pianura because  of my funny accent and whose principal job was gardener to the  tracts of arable land allotted for the growing of vegetables and spaghetti inside the courtyard walls. Cecco was a kind wee geezer .. even too gullible to be true and I spent many an hour sitting in the shade with him telling me what it was like under Nazi occupation. The next "hired" help was Nello... called the "Philosopher" by the locals because of his profound views on life in general such as the best ways to get as much out of the system while doing less and all this on a decreasing curve. In other words how could he milk the priests for all they were worth by lulling them asleep with his sweet talk  about how often he prayed to God  , etc . Nello lived with his sister in a rundown rock hut just outside the college walls. Last but not least comes Marconi , our old burly surly Facist-hating bachelor caretaker-guardian whose hut near the entrance gate looked more like a combined machine gun nest and munitions dump than living quarters . At the market in Camucia he started the rumour that he had planted mines all around his place so as to ward off possible thieves... and I for one believed the old buzzard and , as a precaution , would always stay on the main pathway and call out to him should I need to ask him something !! Marconi answered directly to Valentino... il Capo or foreman. In my next post I 'll talk about studies. Deo gratias! 

La Prima Giornata! The First Day!

After supper and night prayers in the chapel Belvedere showed me to my room and bade me "buona notte". There was one weakly lit light bulb hanging from a wire over a desk so I could make out somewhat that , apart from the desk , the other pieces of furniture at my disposal consisted of one wobbly wicker chair , a huge heavy-set wardrobe with two swinging doors above and two drawers in the lower section.... ah yes , and one horizontal slab of wood mounted on four iron legs and covered with a " paillasse" or sack full of new mown hay plus a blanket.. so I guessed this to be the bed and straightforth flopped into the latter and sped off to dreamland .

The following morning.. around 11 o'clock I surmise .. I awoke to the steady yet loud beats of distant drums from somewhere below me resounding through the corridors and into my room. I later learned that it was simply the cook , Brother Luigi , beating the hell out of dead animal body parts with a mallet... or as we politely put it nowadays... tenderizing the meat.. for the evening meal. We only got meat once a week and that day was THE day !

So feeling a bit scruffy I went out of my room looking for a toilet and there I immediately bumped into Padre Roberto who kindly indicated that the main bathroom for my floor was just across from my abode and that once I got cleaned up and had a bite to eat he would graciously take me to where the students were hanging out. So when spruced up I found my way out the front door makeshift sandwich in hand to where the chubby little priest was waiting for me beside the college limousine.. a two-seater Lambretta scooter and down the mountainside we flew skirts a flying .. both his and mine.. oh! I forgot to tell you that I was a Catholic seminarian back then.. until we arrived on level ground in the Pianura or Plains. From there through Camucia on dirt roads we meandred at slower speed for maybe one half hour until we came to a huge mortar and rock 15th century building and then Padre Roberto explained that the students were all here working in the college vineyards as it was "vendemmia" time .. the big moment in the year when grapes for new wines were harvested. He invited me to take off my habit (cassock) , roll up my sleeves , handed me a knife , fitted me out with a cone-shaped basket with straps which I was to carry like a packsack and pointed to the slave labour force off in the distance.

When the students saw me coming.. like the old phrase , " They saw you coming!".. they burst out laughing.... now they saw what I had been hiding under my cassock... North American clothes.... shoes with socks as opposed to sockless sandals , jeans in a jeanless Italy at that time plus my Bugs Bunny Tee-shirt and beret whereas they were doomed to wearing the old heavy felt Roman hats . As a child I had always wanted to grow up to be as clever as Bugs , as kind as Porky Pig without the stutter and Elmer Fudd without the lisp, as wily as Daffy Duck and much brighter and as likeable a guy as poor Sylvester Cat. So since there was only friendly laughing and no guffaws and given my "jocular" and jovial disposition I laughed along with my comrades. They thereupon told me that food was on the way and that we would be eating right there picnic style in the vineyard.

Not long after this we spotted three rather beautiful young girls coming towards us .... one bearing a huge basket brimming over with hot "homegrown" spaghetti , the second toting a big tray full of dishes and ustensiles while the third , a slightly smaller wee maiden carried an armful of loaves of bread. The spaghetti had been prepared at the main farmhouse where two families lived and worked the land for the college owners receiving a certain percentage of the harvest each crop season for their labours and the right to live there freely... almost like being catapulted back to the days of feudalism where the fiefs worked for the landlords and recieved their protection and certain rights in return. No exchange of money at all !!

However , after a copious meal we worked our fannies off until roughly 6 o'clock when Padre Canuto , the Father Superior , arrived "on" his limo.. a Vespa scooter... to signal the workday over and the beginning of the long 15- kilometer trek back up the mountain to the monastery. He was a comical guy who reminded me of Jackie Gleason.. except much fatter..and on that Vespa even looked hilarious. SO we put our knives back in their sheaves and helped load the big truck which the college had rented for transportating the grapes back home where they would undergo fermentation in huge vats in our wine cellar. Then we set out for San Alfonso.

After such a long day we were all hungry so we did justice to the meat that night along with ample servings of potatoes accompanied by a delicious full-bodied Tuscan red wine to wash it all down.. and , of course , the five fresh figs for dessert! Followed night prayers and lights out ... Deo gratias !!

P.S. When looking over the Calcinaio Church and to the right up the mountain you can see the college.

A Monk From Siberia!!

This is a short poem  to a friend of mine who actually acted out the following limerick in real life 35  years ago today. For true sound effects it must be read out loud with a Kennedy Boston accent.

                                             There once was a monk from Siberia ( or Wisteria )

                                              Who in his cell day by day got wearier

                                              So with a hell of a yell

                                              He jumped out of his cell

                                              And ran off with a Mother Superior

La Prima Notte !! The First Night !!

Valentino escorted me down a long austere dimly lit corridor ...baggage and all... until we finally came to two massive wooden doors which suddenly swung wide open from inside and I found myself stepping into a huge rectangular refectory . The students were all seated backs to the walls  around the room with the priest-professors at the  head table  to the right at the far end of this huge hall. As I entered the refectory they broke out into applause. I learned later that Father Superior had put off the evening meal until I arrived since I had called from Florence to let him know I was coming in on the 7 o"clock train. The next item on the protocol was for me to make the rounds shaking hands with each and everyone from the priests on down to the students and lay brothers. Then Father Roberto , the Socius , alloted me my place at table between Carmine Belvedere and Franco Martino which I would keep during my years there at San Alfonso.By this time I was beat.. literally pooped out and was thinking only of tucking myself into a soft bed for a long nap since this was the end of a three-week  momentuous , party-on , sleep-when-you-can trip . However , I was hungry so I sat down and dug into a humungous bowl of "pasta asciutta".... short hollow lengths of pasta covered with an olive oil based sauce... plus a big hunk of homemade bread  and to wash all this down a carafe or boccetta ( roughly a pint) of red wine.... and 4 fresh figs for dessert. During the meal I noticed a lot of commotion among the students with one guy running around with a piece of paper and a pencil .. he seemed to be asking questions and taking down notes. Finally my neighbour on the left , Carmine , told me that it was time for me to take on the best in the house .... at least that is what I understood with my basic knowledge of Italian as I had only spent two weeks studying the language just before I left Canada. When they set up a table and two chairs in the middle of the dining room it hit me at last ..... I was to sit out there and take on their best arm wrestlers one after the other to determine where I fit into the student pecking order  , so to speak. It was a tradition so I decided to go along with the flow and reap what came my way. To skip the tra la lee , tra la la nobody could beat me ... not even two of the  young priests , Velocci and Bonizzato ,who were rather sturdy fellows.  I was in excellent physical shape .. having played hockey , football  and baseball all my junior years whereas these boys were the end result of years  of suffering and undernourrishment during  the Mussolini regime and the Nazi occupation. Anyways before the evening was over the Superior , Padre Canuto , wished me "benvenuto".. welcome..... and forthwith named me to my first appointment at San Alfonso.... Director of Physical Education ( more like a glorified coaching job...lol) and I was to whip all the students and professors into acceptable shape during the Winter months.Amen for this evening.

Above is a pic of what I called the birdnest in yesterday"s blog. The outer fortifications are easily seen if you look closely. A true mountain walled-in city nestled high in the Appenines.