Articles by: Benedetta Grasso

WASHINGTON – Encounters between Presidents, the moments in which nations come together, are always charged with great symbolic value. The first official visit of Giorgio Napolitano to Washington can hardly  be an exception : a former Italian Communist leader in his 80s meting the first African-American US President, who anagraphically could be his grandson. But regardless of their very different personal and historical backgrounds, the two leaders seemed to get along very well, as if they had something in common.

The two men  have had other chances to meet, the  most recent being after the terrible earthquake  in  L’Aquila in 2009, but this was the first time Napolitano was received at the White House. This official visit means a great deal for both Italians and Americans. The issues at stake range from the several wars that are  going on around the world to the current global economic crisis, from the domestic politics of both countries to the role of Italian culture and language abroad.

The political roles of the two heads of state are very different. In Italy ,  the President is elected by Parliament and has virtually no executive powers: he must ensure the country’s “institutional equilibrium” and places himself above the politics of the day.

As such, Napolitano embodies a less known Italy for Americans and for Obama himself, who has often met in the past with the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Giorgio Napolitano is a calm and highly educated man with a rich and fascinating personal history. He  was a prominent leader of the Italian Communist Party until the party was dissolved at the end of the Cold War to give birth to different political formations including the Democratic Party, the largest oppostion force in Italy today. President since 2006, Napolitano has been a great supporter of Obama. After the latter’s victory in 2008 he expressed his enthusiasm for the election of the first African-American President, an event he saluted as a revolutionary moment in history.

The meeting comes at a moment in which Obama is struggling to implement his program, from last month’s Health Care reform to the recently passed Financial Reform, which Napolitano publicly praised after their meeting. As of today, Obama was also busy removing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military, which allows gays to serve in the army on condition that they do not declare their homosexuality openly.

Both Obama and Napolitano described their  meeting  as very  cordial and intimate, in the spirit of friendship, a friendship that in Napolitano’s own words “ was expressed even in  our handshake, in the deep exchange of our gazes”.

The visit combined a lot of appointments and events. After his arrival, the Italian President was taken to the National Gallery of  Art, where he was received by the Chief of Exhibitions Dodge Thompson and the Chief of Protocol Carol Kelley. He visited the museum and the Italian collection, and later in the Italian Embassy he had the chance to express his appreciation for the social and cultural role played in the US by millions of Americans of Italian ancestry, the descendants of early immigrants who are now  an integral part of the connective tissue of the American social fabric.

As the sun was setting behind the modern-looking embassy (among the great design names are Carlo Scarpa, Achille Castiglioni, Renzo Piano, Luciano Baldassarre, Ettore Sottsass and many others.), the president greeted a group of journalists, professors, scholars, and entrepreneurs with a brief speech that also emphasized the alliance between the two countries in the field of scientific research, trade and business.

The day after, on a gloomy morning that turned into a beautiful  spring day, the meeting at the White House took place “in perfect continuity with the previous one in Rome,” Napolitano said. It also touched upon “the relationship between Europe and the United States in  the  light of the financial crisis.”

For both presidents this crisis also means new opportunities. Obama stated that it is in the United States’ interest to have   a  more cohesive, united and assertive Europe. Napolitano responded that even with the present crsis, worsened by the Greek national debt, the Euro  and  the European Union are not at risk. He advocated “a jump forward” towards more discipline in the Union’s budget  and more effective co - ordiation in several fields, from economic policy to the environment.”

As American diplomacy seems to focus on new actors  on the  global scene—like China, India and Brasil —both presidents emphasized that this doesn’t detract from  the  transatlantic relationship. The military alliance embodied by the NATO remains a crucial pillar of peace, and Napolitano emphasized the important role played by Italy in Afghanistan, as well as the importance of the meeting between Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and Senator Mitchell on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Napolitano also invited Obama to visit Italy again in 2011 and take part to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the country’s unification.

The presidential visit continues with a host of other meetings, including a private discussion with the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Napolitano will also meet Justice Antonin  Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court, former US President Bill Clinton, and the Order of Sons of Italy in America (OSIA).

Over 200 years ago George Washington said that “Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.”
Without Europe there wouldn’t be the United States, but nowadays the dependance is mutual and it’s also through these political encounters that one makes the other stronger. 

The best intellectual exchanges among writers, philosophers, politicians and artists are often triggered by the simplest, most personal, conversations. Lectures, academic treatises or books can enhance and spread their ideas, but - much like true friendship - it's the back and forth between two people, the way a topic shifts if challenged immediately in a lively chat, in a real "live" symposium, that often brings out the deepest thoughts.

In ancient times a symposium was also very closely associated to pleasure: the pleasures of each other's company, in friendship or in a relationship, the pleasures of food and wine, the pleasures of the aesthetic beauty of a landscape or something artistic. 

Five years ago the journalist and NYU professor Antonio Monda and Davide Azzolini managed to create an event that embodies this "ancient" spirit and delivers fresh, original "conversations" among intellectuals that are all linked together by a common theme, juxtapose ideas and people or connect them through the various days and events. This event is indeed called "Le Conversazioni" and is held in Capri, the Italian island that is a synonym of the pleasures described above. One summer day in Capri equals delicious food, tasty wine, relaxed and tan people coming together with their friends and families, and breathtaking landscapes over the shimmery light-blue water. 

Each edition has brought together famous names from the Anglo-American (and particularly New York) literary scene as well as famous Italian writers. While in New York Antonio Monda is officiously famous among the artistic intelligentsia of both continents for making the Upper West Side more "Italian" through his Sunday brunches attended by writers, film directors and actors, during the summer it is Capri, already chosen by Americans as a tourist destination, which becomes a small "big apple", where people from all over the world grab their cup of coffee to rush to the latest cultural event while at the same time relaxing and sunbathing.

Every night for two weekends between June and July, in front of two natural "skyscrapers", the gorgeous Faraglioni, majestic rocks that emerge from the sea, this festival finds a theme to discuss and develop through the various nights. Last year, in 2009, the topic was the Seven Deadly Sins, seen in various contexts: religious, secular, cultural, psychological or personal and ironic. 

The documentary shown at Casa italiana Zerilli-Marimò on May 4 2010, directed by Carlotta Corradi, linked together the conversations from last year that featured Jay Mcinerney, Nathan Englander, Salman Rushdie, David Sedaris, Roberto Saviano and Patti Smith and was dedicated to the memory of David Foster Wallace. Each "sin" was interpreted and discussed by a different participant. Patti Smith read a poem about Lust and sang "Because the Night", David Sedaris joked about the concept of greed, Roberto Saviano linked the concept of envy with a tragic political reality and his personal life, Salman Rushdie challenged the notion itself of sin while beautifully depicting sloth in his writing and Antonio Monda coordinated the discussions often offering quotes from books, movies and religious texts to give talking points to the authors. 

The documentary recaptured the most interesting moments of last year's festival, ultimately blending different conversations into one fluid symposium that entertained the audience and was very easy to follow even for those who weren't present in Capri. 

At Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò and at the Morgan Library a few days later Antonio Monda and Davide Azzolini presented in New York City the 2010 edition of "Le Conversazioni" which will start on June 25 and continue through July 4 (in Capri) and will focus on the topic of liberty and human rights. 
 

The theme of liberty and freedom in literature and philosophy is a crucial one but its implications in the social-political world expand far beyond art and imagination. Those who touch on these topics have an actual effect on the reality around them. The Marilena Ferrari-FMR Foundation and Dazzle Communications have teamed up together to support the event and work on a series of "conversations" revolving around the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Antonio Monda introduced this year's topic with a brief speech, looking at the different contextualization of freedom and human rights. There is the importance of dignity and equality, a constant in every important democratic constitution nowadays; it will be interesting also to reflect on the core American values, such as the spirit of brotherhood and the celebration of liberty itself (given that the festival ends on the 4th of July) for example with E. L. Doctorow, a writer immersed in the social and political reality of the United States; the topic will allow the authors to reflect upon words of wisdom of the past and of the present. Great thinkers like Gandhi, Voltaire and many more have poignant aphorisms one could write entire books on. Antonio Monda, in his introduction, shared some interesting starting points for a symposium. Thucydides' idea that "the secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage" or the famous quote from the gospels "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" or even the radical and provoking concept that humankind might be actually condemned to freedom. All these point of views are part of a framework that will guide the 2010 edition. 

The participants, divided in two main week-ends (June 25-26-27 and July 2-3-4) will be: the novelist E.L. Doctorow, Chimamanda Adichie, the Nigerian winner of the 2007 Orange Prize and the 2009 International Prize for Half of a Yellow Sun, Colson Whitehead, candidate for the Pulitzer prize in 2001, Joshua Ferris (Then we came to the end), David Byrne, leader of the band Talking Heads (writer, Bicycle diaries), Adam Haslett, young literary promise Paolo Giordano (La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi) and screenwriter Paolo Sorrentino.

In the case of the Seven Deadly Sins, the 2009 festival became a way to share some thoughts about the beauty of being human, appreciating the hedonistic aspects for life while maintaining an ethical and moral balance. The 2010 edition seems just as promising: a cultural occasion that is not about teaching but about sharing, that triggers imagination, human intellectual depth and personal enrichment, within a joyous and relaxing atmosphere, not an academic one. 

The festival, held at the Hotel Punta Tragara, is free and every event is bilingual, attracting both Americans and Italians, tourists and aficionados, young and old. 

In 2009 writer George Saunders said that in addition to the seven sins, there is an 8th one, the worst one, the one that must always be avoided: the absence of intellectual curiosity. One thing is sure: this 8th sin is the one which will absolutely be banned in Capri this summer.  

 Nowadays it’s kind of funny how we literally carry music around. In our I-pods and Mp3 players there can be thousands of songs and we bring them from a place to the other. Music has always been carried around, though, in a more metaphorical sense.

Songs are something that trace as far back as pre-historical time. It’s hard to say why people sing or when they started, why people put together certain sounds, tones and vocal utterances to form a melody. Who was the first man who decided to beat two stones together and how did he come up with a certain rhythm? Entire cultures, religious ideas begin with dancing and singing. This is what is fascinating.

It’s easy to see how a song can be created rationally for a ritual, how a prayer can be put to music,  but often what happens is the other way around. It’s the spontaneous magic of a tribal dance that built a ritual, the “mystical” effect of certain natural sounds or patterns of rhythm that through time and rational progress, established a tradition. Music is part of culture and religion but it’s beyond entertainment, beyond religion, beyond a sense of something fun and communal: it’s irrational and it’s a natural instinct that has a powerful and deeper effect on us. And it’s the catharsis that music creates which allows for a strange state of trance, you could call spiritual or simply human, although the name doesn’t matter that much...

Going back on how music was taken from place to place thousands of years ago, we know of nomads, shepherds, traveling storytellers, tribal shamans, little villages moved around the Mediterranean and the surface of the Earth bringing with them not only objects and belongings, but also songs.

Eternal voyagers, among various nomadic tribes, are of course the Jews, who went from a nomadic tradition to a fate of continuous “diasporas”, exiled from Egypt, separated again after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, kicked out of Spain in the 15th century, dispersed all over the Middle-East and North Africa, persecuted all over Europe and forced to leave newly found “promised land” in Lybia, Lebanon and Yemen from where, in some cases, even recently they had to flee again.

The Jews who moved around the Mediterranean and the Middle-East or those who were first born in Spain are usually called Sephardic. This term can have an ethnic connotation but also a religious one. The Sephardic rituals are slightly different from modern “mainstream” Judaism or for example from the Chasidic Jews, from the eastern European Ashkenazi context or the Yiddish one. Although ideally Judaism doesn’t allow mixed marriages, it’s impossible not to notice how Sephardics are ethnically and culturally mixed with Arabs, Turks, Africans, Persians both in the physical traits and the traditions, the food, the clothes and sometimes even the language (many dialects that mix Hebrew and Arabic). In most cases it was a clash of cultures but sometimes - like in Spain during the time of Avverroes, Maimonides in the 13th and 14th century- it was a peaceful intellectual debate, a cohabitation of communities;  something as elaborate, mystical and fascinating as the Alahambra in Granada, a testimony of Arab culture but also of many Jewish roots and ideas.

On a rainy night in New York City, on April 26 2010, as part of the festival Divinamente New York, the Italian Cultural Institute hosted an event that for a couple of hours immersed its audience in the smell of spices, the heat of the desert, the colors of far away lands, the taste of honey-filled sweet dishes, fruit and the magic of storytelling through music.

Sephardic music was born in medieval Spain, with canciones being performed at the royal courts. It developed mixing melodies and sounds from Morocco, Turkey, Greece, Italy, the Balkans and what was once the Ottoman Empire.

Evelina Meghnagi held a concert in which all these traditions came together, combined with her personal history, a Jew who was born in Lybia and left to live in Rome after 1967 and the political consequences of the 6 day war in Israel.

Sephardic songs have a lot in common with Arabic poetry. If anyone is familiar with Khalil Gibran, his themes, ideas and poems, they can have a pretty basic idea of what this poetry represents: something in between popular beliefs, a “neo-platonic” idea of love - represented both by love seen as a constant longing, as a sickness and at the same time filled with eroticism and graphic images like in the Song of the Songs- and alchemy, mysticism and philosophy.

Usually these sung poems have certain canons: there are ceremonial poems - because weddings, births and other steps of the life-cycle are essentially linked to music - there are romance songs and topical or "dancing" songs. 

In the show “From Voice to Voice” (di Voice in Voce) which Evelina Meghnagi has performed in various countries, she leads the audience in a beautiful journey from one song to another, from place to place. Before every songs she recited a poem, a psalm, a quote from the Song of the Songs, a personal story or just shared her humor and her warm smile. Evelina Meghnagi is a performer, an actress and a singer and her presence is itself theatrical. A loving and inspired gaze, a matronal figure, a gorgeous yellow-golden tunic with a red "cape" and a silver necklace, a loud voice through which she provided a context for her stories, talking in English, slightly tinged with a Roman accent.

The two musicians accompanying her, Domenico Ascione and Arnaldo Vacca (Ashira Ensemble), a guitarist and a percussionist, delivered an exciting performance. Going around with our I-pod in our ears sometimes we forget the power of live music, of being part of an audience sharing a common physical experience. In this context the heartbeat starts following the drums, the breath is regulated by the voice of the singer and the guitar's arpeggios hit strings within us that raise a strange unconscious awareness. 

The experience becomes very visceral. This kind of music is often meant for dancing, either in circles (hora) or for belly-dancing or, in some cases, twirling around like dervishes, losing the perception of the outside world. In all of these cases it is a music with few intellectual filters, it speaks to our basic instincts. 

Evelina Meghnagi managed to keep her audience under a spell, while singing songs from different cultures within the Jewish world, either from Northern Italy, Spain, or Lybia. 

The Italian Cultural Institute was packed with members of the Yemenite and Sephardic communities, Italians, Jews and New Yorkers of all faiths. The director of Centro Primo Levi

Natalia Indrimi was present and enjoyed the performance. The show is also meant to make the voice heard of certain communities that are less "famous" than others throughout Jewish history. In particular Evelina Meghnagi who was born in Tripoli and now lives in Rome speaks on behalf of a community who lived a somewhat "hidden exodus" in the 1960s and that had to restart a new life from scratch assimilating into the already well established Roman community. That particular community grew up with these songs as daily tunes and lullabies. 

Evelina Meghnagi sang various ballads that because of their similarity of rhythm and tone, reminded in fact of lullabies, something that we don't understand completely but that act at a deeper level, calming and soothing, cradling us. 

If you've ever been in the desert (in the Middle-East or North Africa) you might experience a strange feeling when you leave it. In Italian it's called "mal d'Africa" and is quite unexplainable, because it's beyond one's faith and family history: sometimes it just happens.  Having traveled a lot in that area, sitting in Beduoin tents drinking tea while listening to that same music, having absorbed stories from family friends that carried those traditions made this experience even more meaningful for me but it was a show that spoke to a general audience as well. 

Overall, what Divinamente New York is about and what this event portrayed really well was that sense that, whether you are a believer or not, sometimes religious traditions can be very powerful and culturally significant on various levels. Religion, much like philosophy, is born with awe, with amazement, with the acknowledgment of the power of life and in the deepest Jewish (but also Arab) tradition, songs, dances and the power of life are one and the same.

"You're just too good to be true...can't take my eyes off of you...", "Oh...what a night...", "Walk like a man"...lyrics and music that played on a stereo at home, or that I picked up from movies at an early age that evoked a few simple images: skyscrapers, yellow cabs rushing up and down, handsome men with a cigar singing and entertaining the audience with seductive and smooth dance moves. This was basically my dream image of New York City.
 

    When I finally got a sense of the real New York City, with its grungy and wild youth culture and hectic work life, that old-school image still stayed with me. Four years of college turned me into a Manhattan "socialite", a New Yorker before anything else, one of those people who would look at New Jersey snobbishly, as the suburban frame of a pulsing intellectual and fun island. I looked at my journey here as a social experiment. Like an anthropologist, I immersed myself, forgetting my roots in order to be completely absorbed by another culture. This allowed me to blend in and build friendships and relationships without trying to seek refuge in any sort of Italian circle in the city.

My childhood and adolescence in Italy stayed with me, as images of paradise, a fantastic treasure box of memories, a warm sense of friendship and culture. I came here to start my life from scratch, to actually build something new and not to live stuck in the middle between the two continents. I decided to give myself completely to this new land and I benefited from growing up in the 90s and the 2000s surrounded by a much more "borderless" web-based culture with very few differences between me and someone who grew up in New York.
Once here, I also discovered and started to explore Italian American culture, but it always seemed remote to me.


A few nights ago, I took a couple of friends to see the Broadway play "Jersey Boys", without knowing what to expect. I chose it because I knew it got great reviews but I walked in blissfully, simply ready to enjoy the show. When "Jersey Boys" began all these reflections on my personal history, on the two countries and the cultural references linked to Italian Americans started rushing into my brain, while the music gently swept me away; I began to forget where I was and followed the story.


What enhanced this experience even more was that I went to see it with two people: an old friend from Rome and a college friend from Texas. It's hard to categorize both of them and to fit them into a stereotype, but at least on the surface, they were to a certain extent the typical Italian and the typical American.Their jokes, their comments and the memories they shared made me reflect on the importance of an artistic success such as "Jersey Boys" as a representation of Italian immigrants.

 

Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi and Bob Gaudio, four young Italian American guys from New Jersey who in the 60s sold almost as much as the Beatles in the United States. At first, the issue is how the band will come together, how to make a name out of four turbulent fellows who share little but a growing talent. The group changes members and names. From "The Variety Trio", to "The Four Lovers", to "The Four Seasons", we follow the lives of the four Jersey boys as well as their loves, financial pitfalls and their commercial partnerships until their climatic reunion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They are enthusiastic, spontaneous and somewhat troubled kids with a very frank way of talking and a very ironic and yet passionate take on life. Going in and out of jail, mentoring each others at various stages, having small but sometimes significant connection with mob-like figures, they come of age together, living all the typical cliches of a rock band's "life": the mutual discovery of talent, the creative partnership, the rush of the beginning of success, sexual initiations, fame, #1 hits (Sherry, Big Girls Don't Cry and many more) and national triumph.

The story touches also on sadder moments such as Frankie's divorce, the death of Frankie's daughter, Nick leaving the group for his family and some tension with the mob. The focus is on Frankie: will he manage to push his talent and the musical boundaries and create the perfect hit?
The musical is hilarious at times and the songs are incredibly tender and sentimental, while also being catchy and energetic. Already in the first intermission we had a lot to comment on.

My Texan friend and I couldn't help but think about the very controversial MTV show, The Jersey Shore. Although we both don't appreciate the show's vulgarity, we were baffled by the elements of the "guido" attitude in this performance, which were similar to those in the TV show: the slang, fashion style, and philosophy of life. The Jersey boys are boasters, loud, and sometimes aggressive, and they throw in Italian words in their speech, often vulgarities.
The difference in perception, we thought, must be the context. "Jersey Boys" seems almost like the romanticized version of Jersey Shore.

Obviously Jersey Boys is wrapped in that glow of Broadway tradition, in the intellectual frame of a documentary-style story with the real life events of famous persons.
We noticed how ironic it is, though, that the "guido" style on stage is revered by  critics, while TV immediately seems to worsen the content and be more criticized. This is in a way true and the two experiences are hard to compare; but what we noticed though is that if there are things in common, there must be a sense of realism and pride within the Italian American community towards certain attitudes.

 

The Four Seasons are like any other pop band, but they meet while eating pizza, they have their first "auditions" in front of mafia leaders and their traditional Italian American family and upbringing clashes with following the American Dream.
While watching these scenes with my Italian friend, I felt both slightly embarrassed and highly entertained. "Do they still look at us this way? You know the real Italy is very far from the Sopranos" he said. As obvious as this statement may seem, it's something that matters to both Italians and Italian Americans and it makes us wonder why for certain other minorities the stereotypes and artistic representations shifted considerably through the years within comedic characterization and complexity. However, this hasn't been the case for Italian Americans.
At the same time, every dramatic characterization has within it realism and cultural projections.

Half of the audience of Jersey Boys often comes from Jersey, and they shout out when they hear their state mentioned, or when they recognize a similarity between them and the characters. Also, characters like Tony Soprano, Frankie Valli or Don Vito Corleone are cult icons that inspire more pride than resentment, by simplifying and yet exalting some traits.
It's hard to establish what makes someone a true Italian. Obviously, some of the so-called 'stereotypes' tend to reflect real life.

In my personal memories and as my Italian friend also mentioned while  laughing, "In the end it's kind of what we do...we eat well, we like to sing, we are romantic at heart, but sometimes aggressive.." 
Italian American culture is primarily American. My Texan friend was already familiar with these characters, these iconic pop stars as famous as John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever's walk and as Joe DiMaggio's home-runs. This made me realize that any kind of artistic experience, even in the "low" form of the reality show, gives the benefit of the doubt and can't be simply banned as a negative stereotype.


The more I come in touch with Italian American culture and the more I understand how important it was for the fabric of this country: how it managed to become mainstream without losing its spontaneity, but also how much there is still to be done for its authentic voice to come forth. One's Italian roots especially, which brought about certain standards and stereotypes, are something one cannot take neither lightly nor heavily: both extremes are dangerous. One cannot look at a show without some humor
. Maybe the perfect way to characterize typical Italian American "heroes" is through a musical, through ballads that uplift the spirit, snapshots of real life moments and most importantly, through a script with a lot of self-irony.