Schopenhauer, On Noise

One half of Travelmarx (the one hogging the electronic pen so-to-speak) is interested in noise and the seemingly plentiful abundance of it when it doesn’t seem necessary. Therefore it was with great pleasure I happened to stumble across an essay on noise by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860). Honestly, I haven’t read all his positions or works and I can tell that some of his thoughts (e.g. on women) just seems plain strange and wrong. I do have to say though I like his essay On Noise which is part of a larger work called Studies in Pessimism (crushing-pessimism some might say) which are selections from yet another work. There is even a YouTube video that reads about 80% of this essay. The essay is quick read (10 minutes). Here is the text on Gutenberg. The quote I include here is dedicated to the famous via del Canneto green door (my emphasis added):

“It does not disturb them in reading or thinking, simply because they do not think; they only smoke, which is their substitute for thought. The general toleration of unnecessary noise -- the slamming of doors, for instance, a very unmannerly and ill-bred thing -- is direct evidence that the prevailing habit of the mind is dullness and lack of thought.”

Thank you, I think, Mr. Schopenhauer.

Via Del Canneto Blow Up - Noise

 

It was like a time bomb waiting to explode, just that the fuse was not what I thought. The setup: young family in their small walled courtyard making a fair amount of noise past 10:30 pm. It’s warm, they are banging around, planting something in their courtyard, and their 2 year old is yelping with excitement. Via del Canneto (really more of an alley) is such that you can hear everything up and down it. 

I thought, Anna of the Green Door would be for sure the first out of the gate screaming “Che casino!”. But, it was the old man who leans out the second story window every morning (for a smoke) who was the first to crack. His window opens down into the alley near the courtyard. He started screaming and soon heated words were flying back and forth for about 10 minutes. I caught, “punch you in the nose”, “go ahead, call them” (the police?), “shame on him”, and others. Did I open the window to listen better? Why yes I did, it’s about the language after all. (I put Philosophy of Language on pause and darted upstairs for a look see and listen.) 

We hear the noise from this family (husband, wife, 2 year old) all the time since we are close, but it doesn’t bother us because we keep the same hours – plus it seems like “natural” noise (if you can define that). The noise of Anna of the Green Door and company is a different beast, an intentional, punctual and worst of all, slamming type of noise. 7:00 am door slam, son leaves. 7:30 am door slam, dad leaves. 8:00 am door slam, Anna's morning sweeping completed. 8:15 am swoosh and slam, a mysterious bucket of water is flung out followed by a resounding slam to make sure the door really shut well. 8:30 – 10:00 am random door slams depending on if Anna decides to accost a dog owner in the alley and if the dog left a present in the alley. If the dog owner retraces steps with no chance of getting accosted you can hear her muttering “Cane sporca” or something to that effect. Each of these door slams for me is like someone coming over and kicking me. (I know, it’s my problem.) At least the family with the kid sleeps to 10am. I can deal with that. 

I’m not glad someone else was irked at noise, but watching the situation helped me understand my own reactions and put them into perspective better.

Firenze Com’Era – Florence How it Was

There is a lesser known museum called the Museo Storico Topografico “Firenze Com’Era” which translates to the Historical Topographical Museum “Florence As it Was”. If you have been in Florence for a while or you are really interested in what Florence was like before what we see today this is the museum for you. The museum is located at Via dell’Oriuolo 24 – there is a courtyard with large trees that marks the entry point.

The museum has a couple of Etruscan items, but Florence wasn’t really an Etruscan settlement, nearby Fiesole was. The museum really starts with the original Roman town founded in c. 59. There is a nice scaled-down version of the first Roman settlement that really gives a sense of how it looked. The bulk of the museum is pictures of what Florence looked like during the ages. We found an old watercolor(?) of “our street” and the famous arches of Via del Canneto taken toward the end of the 19th century (a guess). Included is a recent photo. The view is looking west on Via Canneto.

Around town (in major bookstores and book stalls) you’ll find books similarly titled Firenze Com’Era. Each covers a different time period. For example Firenze, Com’Era – Dal Dopoguerra agli anni Settanta (Florence as it Was from After the War to the 1970s) or Com’Era – Firenze 100 Anni Fa (How it Was – Florence 100 Years Ago). Obviously the title is a common one, but look before you buy to make sure you are getting the time period you are interested in.

A Room With a Smell

 

Okay, there have been way too many Room with a View references popping us these last few days. Here they are: 

Reference 1: Our apartment on Via del Canneto may not have a room with a view, but boy does it have beautiful smell. There is a garden (here, approximately) full of roses and jasmine and the smell cascades down the wall to our windows. It seems to go all day long. We are literally below the garden. It truly has been a pleasure to smell for the past two weeks. (Okay, tangentially related, but the references get getter.) 

Reference 2: The other day I was touring the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels in Santa Croce and the teacher says, you guessed it, “these chapels were in Room with a View.” 

Reference 3: At the bike shop, a person working there was telling us about the Fattoria de Maiano and said, you guessed it, “part of Room with a View was filmed there.” (Not sure about this.) 

Reference 4: Today on our bike ride, we were riding through the Tuscan countryside on a small dirt path through waist high grass full of red poppies and just for a second I was Lucy Honeychurch, but then thinking about how slow and cautious I was going I thought Charlotte Bartlett (the rain-on-your-parade chaperone) was more appropriate – darn. 

Wow, was this movie really from 1985? Yes.

Kate Bush – Aerial and Via del Canneto

On the post Via Del Canneto Sounds we forgot to mention two important other bird sounds heard on this tiny street: blackbirds and mourning doves. Maybe they went somewhere for the winter or maybe our windows are open more or maybe we are just listening more, but these bird sounds are more obvious now than in the winter. Every time we hear the blackbirds and doves in our mind Kate Bush’s double album Aerial gets switched on. On this album she uses these bird sounds. The mourning dove sound can be heard for example in Prelude, the song that starts the concept part of the double album. The blackbird sound can be heard on the sixth song of part two, Aerial Tal. The sound wave of the blackbird is in fact the album cover art. Travelmarx’s pick on the albums: Sunset.

Via del Canneto Sounds

The sound of church bells that waifs over the street. The muted sound of opera practice: a teacher playing piano scales and a student following in voice. The click-clack of a pair of heels. The banter of a mother and child on their way to or from school. The swoosh of the neighbors broom (she is dressed in a smart black and white wool dress with yellow rubber gloves ). The sound of the mailman shoving letters through the slot. The sound of an electric scooter – which has a more pleasing sound compared to a gas-powered scooter. The raising and lowering of tiny garage doors – highly prized on this narrow alley/street. The sound of the dog (who watches from one of the little “bridges” across the alley) as he barks to alert the alley that another dog is approaching. People are not of interest to him. The chatter between the man who cleans the street and a man leaning out the window. The sound of the baby in the tiny courtyard across from our house and the mother saying “amore – attento!” The cooing of a dove that is on vacation from the city center. The chirping of a sparrow building a nest somewhere under an eave. The giggling of lovers slowly strolling up to where Via del Canneto meets Costa Scarpuccia and where they can sit in the tiniest of parks (one bench in an indentation in the street) and makeout for two hours. The sound of rooster (yes), again where Canneto meets Scarpuccia; behind a sliver of a garden that isn’t visible. The bone-jarring slam of a door (the woman in the yellow gloves again).

Anna Anna Bo-Banna!

Anna, Anna, bo-banna (*)
Banana-fana fo-fana
Fee-fi-mo-manna.
Anna!

Thank you Shirley Ellis and The Name Game video.

Okay, we’d be remiss to not mention what’s up with the neighbor (“vicina di casa”), Anna. Well, let me say Mark has the longest fuse of anyone I know and Anna lit it. Boy oh boy. Then I jumped in trying to swear at her and called her crazy (“pazza”) and rude (“maleducato”). (The latter insult she uses when she yells at people passing by.) The confrontation wasn’t pretty. In the heat of the moment we asked her if she stole our plants and we think she confessed to it. It was odd.

The incident that caused the blow up is so strange that I don’t even think I could describe it accurately. Our landlords (both the owner of the house and the property manager) have confirmed to us that her behavior has always been this way. What’s really sad or interesting is not that she is that way but the way we reacted. We wished we acted different and just ignored her. It would have been less energy.

Lights Out!

We blew both the inside and outside breakers trying to run the washer and oven together. We weren’t sure at first what was going on. Resetting the main breaker on the panel inside didn't do the trick. We had some keys that looked to open a another panel outside, near our front door, but they didn’t seem to work. Mark rang Anna’s buzzer (and immediately realized she had power) but then he had to say something. It was funny as he tried to explain what we wanted. She came out and helped a bit but Mark had figured out the key situation and got the outside panel box open and we reset everything. GOOD! On with the ribollita (soup) which was cooking. He had turned on the oven to toast the bread that goes with the soup. Power failure = interruzione della corrente elettrica.

Making Peace with Anna

Anna is the neighbor who I may have falsely accused (I realize now) in a previous post of taking items off the clothesline. We were coming home from school Friday around 4pm and she was outside. We said hi and exchanged greetings (in Italian) and then she told us that she had a room to rent and did we want to see it. At first we said no but she insisted and then I realized I could see what was on the other side of the “green door” that is next to our dining room window where we see her entering and leaving. Basically I was nosey. So she took us through the door (which turns out to be a back entrance to her house and several other houses) through a small garden and into her kitchen. The back of our house is one large wall of the garden (though strangely we have no windows on that side of the house.) Then we saw the room. It was nice but I wouldn’t rent it. For 320 euro, you get a nice big room with beautiful furniture but you share a bathroom with the family. If you want to use the kitchen, then its 380 per month. I guess it would be a good deal for a student who only needs to sleep and wash-up once a day. But I like to relax and lounge around my living space and I don’t think I could do it there. Anna’s daughter was watching TV in the living room (right next to the bedroom) and that would be nonstarter for me. I hate TV noise. Anyway it was nice to talk to Anna and we told her (in broken Italian) that we would pass the information on to another person at the school who we knew was looking for an apartment. Peace with the neighbor is a good thing. The next day she was out painting something or other and was giving Mark advice about which windows to make sure were closed for safety reasons.

Hanging Out The Laundry

It's the second full day in the apartment and we've been catching up on laundry. We have the Hoover Ladytropic HX 44S / Zerowatt washer/dryer unit. It sort of dries. Clothes come out steaming and lightly damp. They definitely need more drying. We’ve been hanging them out on the line outside of our 2nd story window. They dry up nicely. It’s different than just relying on a dryer because now we have to start thinking about the weather and the timing of putting laundry out and taking it in.

The clothesline is right over an adjacent apartment entrance. The lady that lives there does not like low hanging items we were informed. Apparently some bed sheets put out by the property manager of our house went missing. Hmm. Guess, we’ll keep this in mind. Hope she can’t jump high.

Non è un cacatolo x Cani! Maiali!

Someone wrote this on a wall near our house. There were some dog droppings there and the graffiti was basically saying that it wasn't a toilet stop for dogs. The next day I went back, the worse of the droppings were removed. Cani = dogs. Maiali = pigs (really Italian equivalent of bitch). Please, Italian friends write me on this one. I think cacatolo should be caccatolo with two c's.

Addition: someone wrote to say it should be cacatoio. The person who wrote on the wall has bad handwriting.

We Moved In

We took ownership of the apartment on Friday afternoon. We spent a few hours with the property manager. Later we met the owner and his father. They were swapping refrigerators (long story). The dad was familiar with Seattle because we was a Italian (what else) clothes buyer for stores in Seattle. I'll just say the apartment (really a house) has good points and bad points. The good points are location location location and the fact that it is super quite (very important for us). The main bad point is that it wasn't quite provisioned the way we would have liked. But with a couple of small outings we can remedy that.

The location is here (actually a little to the right of this pushpin). It is up against a green belt. The street is so small that only scooters and smart cars can manage it. Therefore, it is quiet. Just a few click clacks a day from well-heeled Italians taking the street as a short cut.

The house has 2.5 stories. The first floor is kitchen, dining and living room. The second story has a bathroom and general purpose room with a small bed and armoire. The second story has a very high ceiling and you can see the beams and terracotta tiles. From this general purpose room there is a smaller one half to three quarter length stair that goes up to a loft with a bed and lots of storage. There is a skylight above the bed. It's a pretty good layout.