Watertown, MA. October, 2010

Why is Halloween my favorite holiday? Maybe because even as a child I looked forward to changing identities for one evening and running around in public, being rewarded for my efforts with sweets. Or because of the silliness of it, even among otherwise staid adults. The license it offers. For several years I was in Montreal on the days around Halloween (dressed each night in my standard costume as an altar boy, a big hit in the bars of this largely Catholic city) and the shopkeepers, the parents walking their kids to school, people on the bus...so many were in costumes. I loved it. I’ve heard it called “The Gay National Holiday,” but I think it’s bigger than that. Seen here, seasonal decorations from my youth. Three papier maché pumpkins that I treasure. Originally they had paper inserts to indicate eyes and teeth behind the holes, but those papers disintegrated years ago. Actually, I prefer them this way because they look creepier, which is what the day is all about, no? [I look forward each year to spending the holiday with my friends Vinny and Linda. But, alas, not this year. If all goes as planned, Jay and I will just be flying back from Rome -- via SWISS airlines not broomsticks -- on Halloween night 2011.]

Rome. October, 1980

My late friend Dali had some wonderful ideas when it came to taking travel photos. She introduced me to the seminal concept of “jumping pictures,” which are covered elsewhere on this blog. She also was a proponent of having a friend stand near interesting strangers whom she wanted to photograph, shifting her aim from the friend to the strangers at the critical moment, also featured elsewhere. Here, an example of her enviable power of persuasion. Not that I gave much resistance. We were walking through the Villa Borghese one morning, very few people around, and this opportunity, well, just presented itself. Snap.

Rome. October, 1984

Grandeur. I see it every time I visit a European capital. It’s there in the architecture, the ornamentation, the history as backdrop to modern day-to-day life. London, Paris, Istanbul, Madrid and here in Rome. Every opportunity for a flourish taken. You’ll be waiting for the bus and suddenly realize there’s an angel looking over your shoulder. In the center of Rome, for example, it’s not unusual to find a sweater store or laundry shoulder-to-shoulder with a ruined temple. The small store where you buy toothpaste sits next to the ancient Teatro di Marcello. You’ll turn an ordinary corner on the way to the post office and find yourself in a piazza flanked by buildings designed by Michelangelo. Or on a wide set of marble stairs built to a scale so grand that you wonder if you might need an invitation to be admitted. Istanbul native Cenk Sönmezsoy, who maintains the excellent Cafe Fernando blog, once told me he aspires to abandon digital photography and cultivate the beauties that only film can deliver. I thought of him and his remark when I came across this slide recently.

Grottaminarda, Italy. September, 1984

Talk about slow food! I love this woman making tomato paste the old-fashioned way. I saw her as I was walking through this small town where I’d come by bus from Naples to visit with Nick’s cousins. She was out in the street in front of her home, spreading the ever-thickening paste over these planks, allowing it to evaporate further in the warmth of the late-summer sun. I suspect she learned this from her mother, who learned if from her mother. (She wasn’t given much to conversation so I didn’t ask.) Imagine how good this must taste, especially when winter descends on this hilltown, when summer is just a bygone time whose memory stirs up the taste of, well, of tomatoes.

Urbino, Italy. October, 1986

“I am standing in the most beautiful place in the world,” said art historian Kenneth Clark in his TV series Civilisation as he stood here in the cloistered courtyard of Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Clark was referring to the perfect measurements, the symmetry, the balance and peace of this space. And even if you don’t agree with him, there’s plenty in Urbino that you’ll find most beautiful. The Palazzo itself houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche with its works by homeboy Raphael, its Piero della Francesca Flagellation, its Titian Resurrection. This was where I got a wonderful, cheap hotel room “con vista” at the centro’s Albergo San Giovanni. Where I found the delicious pizza at everybody’s hangout, Il Buco. Where I connected with local hero, sculptor Fuffi, a relative of a Ravenna pal. (Years later, when I asked my new Urbino-raised friend Paolo if he’d ever heard of Fuffi, he smiled and said, “Of course, I know of Fuffi. He’s one of the great characters who bring Urbino to life.” Who knew?) At the end of my short stay, I was waiting for the bus to my next stop. Also waiting, a young man on his way to military service and his pals who, kiddingly, kept urging him to stay. In the end, he wound up staying, waving the bus goodbye, squeezing one last bit of dolce far’ niente from his beautiful hometown.

Siracusa, Sicily. May, 1988

There are so many things I love about Sicily. High among them, the wide range of approaches to problems and official situations, completely dependent upon individual whims. When I approached a watchmaker in the old town section of Siracusa for a replacement battery, he took my wristwatch apart, tried a few batteries he had in stock, realized none fit and said, “Time has stopped for you here in Siracusa.” Poetry in commerce. Another example: When Nick and I were about to leave Siracusa early on a Sunday morning to continue the Great Italian Desserts research, we were delighted to read in a guidebook that the abbey of the Church of Santa Lucia, containing Caravaggio’s Burial of Santa Lucia, opened at 9am. We arrived, found a parking space on the deserted streets, knocked on the bolted door. Nothing. After trying a few more times, a custodian appeared and announced that the abbey would not open for several hours and seeing the painting was impossible. Oh, too bad, we explained, because it was one of the few Caravaggios we’d never seen, we were leaving Sicily this morning, etc. He smiled, shrugged, unlocked the door and escorted us to the painting, waited, then escorted us out again. Grazie mille. This photo, a souvenir of our whimsical private viewing.

Plaça del Pi, Barcelona. November, 2010

Isn’t it great to have a meal outside? Even when the calendar tells you it’s impractical? I remember a great al fresco lunch with Patti in Rome in mid-November at Vecchia Roma: fettucine with white truffles, roast lamb, mmmmm. I also recall a New Year’s Eve lunch in Paris at Le Comptoir where patrons were so eager to eat there (on the last day before the resto shut for vacation) that they sat outside, with blankets on them, under an awning to shelter them from the falling snow. (We waited for an indoor table and loved the pied de cochon.) Here, some diners in Barcelona on a mild November night around 10:30, prime time for dinner in Spain. No Los Angeles-style heaters for these Catalans. Just some good food, some good wine, some good company. Some good music, too, as guitarists practiced nearby. Lovely.