Sunrise with Castagno and Máté
by Richardo

“Play me a fiddle tune, sing me a song, banish misfortune, my time is not long.”

– words from a Gaelic Boat Song which I came across at the head of Ferenc Máté’s “Dawn” chapter in Ghost Sea.

Sounds of songbirds.

Forty-seven years ago, midst one traumatic morning hour for an Ozzie and Harriet eighteen-year-old, my mentor George W. Weber, Jr. — arguably the world’s expert respecting The Ornaments of Late Chou Bronzes (1), and crack(up) pool shark — gently lifted my head from his downy pillow, and asked me whether the birds awoke and serenaded sweetly because the sun rose, or whether the sun came up because the birds sang. The birds I could see through the window. And others.

I am obliged to resuscitate The World. To make all forms of dehumanization difficult. (2) To make a dent in some of our pervasive, insidious degradation. And to help my family and friends and select strangers in very mudane ways, whilst all the while celebrating. So that the sun will rise again.

I can imagine what the melody in one of Ferenc Máté’s hamlets (3) might sound like, and what authentic harmony could emanate from a day in Tuscany with Dario Castagno. (4) Do they know each other? Would they get along? Get on with something together? What music they might make.

So… while Sylvie awaits the promised call from Ferenc (along with her upcoming operation), and I look forward to hearing back from busy Dario… we sing.

“Where are we headed?” she softly asked.
Nello looked at the sails, then down at the compass, then,
without looking at her, said, “West.”
Kate smiled. She reached out her hand and cupped my face.
“What’s west?” she asked.
Nello eased the jib before he answered. “The East.”

I didn’t read the whole book that that’s from (Ghost Sea). Nay, I simply flayed it, and then held it up to my window, letting the sun bleed through it… into the warmth of my chanting heart.

Footnotes:

(1)The actual title of his monumental work.
(2) “…the sheer, mad folly of war — anywhere, at anytime — overwhelms me….” That’s just one example, of course. Dario Castagno and Robert Rodi are very courageous to put such sentiments in the kinds of work that they publish. The sweet thing is that I know that they are incapable of having it any other way. Their chapter “Intervallo: Death and Life in America” (Too Much Tuscan Sun) is a “must read” for one and all. A stance against our Capital Punishment in a travel/memoir book? Applaud them up the kazoo, please. There are no words of appreciation that will measure up to such beauty.
(3)See Máté’s A Reasonable Life. Ciao, Candace. I look forward to meeting you and Ferenc.
(4) See A Day in Tuscany: More Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide by Dario Castagno and Robert Rodi. Singularly superb! I’d love to ask The Globe Pequot Press what they’re doing with Dario’s third book (Too Much Tuscan Wine), but I know that Dario and his colleagues care to push that point at present. Visualize a rendezvous with one and all?
UPDATED NOTE (July 11, 2008): Came across an article in Italianicious: Essence of Italy which was titled “Cheeky Chestnuts.” A description below the title now — since Mr. Castangno (means “chestnut” in Italian) let me down, became unreachable — seems worth pondering. It reads “Hidden behind a spiky casing, a shell and a very thick skin, chestnuts are difficult to access, to say the least. So why bother cooking with them? Because now there’s an easier way….” The much easier way for me at the moment is to do without either “disappointing” author. One doesn’t know how to grade one’s fantasies or one’s ratings of others… unless some kind of life test is created. That’s what I do best.