Good Lucky Baby, and Other Famous Quotes

Our Italian summer has had a surprisingly American vibe to it. Almost everywhere we go, we come upon something American, from music, to movies, to crowds of sweaty tourists blocking the narrow streets near our apartment. Some of these have been nice encounters, such as visiting with American friends and seeing a classic American movie in a novel way. We've also had some reminders that because we are American, we're limited in understanding the local culture. As we head deeper into the summer season, we're finding ways to get into the local rhythms.

Americans Abroad

In June, our DC friends Steve and Irene passed through Lucca on their way back to Milan for a flight home. They were our first visitors in Lucca! We've had a number of friends pass nearby this summer, but Steve and Irene were the first we got to see in person. They also visited us in the midst of our pandemic exile in Maine, so extra bonus points for them!

We've befriended some nice Americans who either own houses here and/or spend part of the year in Lucca. We've also recently met people from other parts of the world who have moved here, including Australians, Britons, and South Africans. Inevitably, we swap stories about what brought us to this place. The reasons for moving vary greatly, and have been revealing. There is much about world struggles that Americans, including us, are ignorant of.

Lucca, Rock City

At the end of June, the annual Lucca Music Festival began with a ridiculous number of explosions. KISS was the first band to play at the festival. The summer stage is set up in Piazza Napoleone so that the musicians directly face a statue of the Duchess of Lucca, Maria Luisa of Bourbon. What would she have thought of these elder glam rockers in face paint and ridiculous costumes preening in front of her? Given the propensity of the locals to enjoy getting dressed up, maybe she'd have approved of and wanted to hire their costume designer. We wandered around town during their show, and from the first notes of Detroit Rock City, they punctuated almost every song with an excess of unpleasantly percussive firework explosions. After KISS, a steady stream of well-known American (and other international) musicians have passed through, from Bob Dylan to Norah Jones to Lil Nas X.

Good Luck Baby, Quoth Bogart

One of the historic villas here, Villa Bottini, shows nightly movies outside all summer long. It's a beautiful place to see a movie. Old walls snuggle the grounds with gorgeous old trees framing the movie screen. We went to see the classic American movie, Casablanca. Oddly enough, I think the last time we saw Casablanca might have been in Baltimore's Little Italy, where it was projected onto the side of an apartment building, many years ago. But this time, the classic movie was a little different. Italy might be the only country still stubbornly committed to dubbing movies. So every character in the movie had been dubbed--skillfully we must say--into Italian. Aside from being a challenge for our novice Italian, this was also a head spinner because it's a movie about people who speak English, German, French, and other languages!

Sam knows the movie by heart, so she got a bit more out of it than I did. Is there a movie with more classic lines than Casablanca? (Note: according to the AFI, the answer is no!) We anticipated these famous lines and were curious how they would be translated. "Play it, Sam" is straightforward. But during the ending scene when Rick tells Ilsa, "Here's looking at you, kid," we were shocked to hear this translated as basically, "Good luck, baby." What?! But then how do you translate--and synchronize with Bogart's lips--this phrase which means so many different things and conveys to many conflicting emotions? The film has a lot of subtle humor in it and, we also noted that the almost entirely Italian crowd didn't pick up on such. Translating subtleties is a challenge. We would get our own lesson in language translation very soon.

Puccini and Politics

This town loves music and summer is replete with musical performances. We got to see three separate performances by students attending a summertime Lucca opera school. Each excellent free performance was in a lovely setting, like a hidden Renaissance garden or in a palazzo. We wondered how this cosmopolitan group of singers ended up in tiny Lucca. But upon a little internet research, we learned that this melting pot of singers was almost exclusively from the American melting pot! The school, apparently, seeks to help (mostly American) singers with their Italian pronunciation when singing Italian operas. The graduation event involved the class members singing an aria in front of a statue of local patron saint, Puccini. Puccini sat in judgment as each brave singer performed and tourists and locals consumed gelato and aperitivi.

Italy kicked off a year celebrating the centenary of Puccini's death and since he was Lucchese (born 3 blocks from our apartment), the year of festivities launched here. We managed to snag tickets to the SRO performance, where a full symphony and three Italian singers performed classic Puccini songs in the same piazza where KISS made their racket. It was a pleasant summer night and the musicians were great. Can you tire of hearing O Mio Babbino Caro or Nessun Dorma? I don't think so, although, maybe it's best to focus on melody rather than lyrics because opera contains so many creepy, often misogynistic plot details.

Towards the end of the performance, we heard those great songs, and then the conductor gave a little speech. We could only get the gist of what she said. Her speech was punctuated by a peculiar burst of applause from a subset of the audience, and then the orchestra played the final song. Sam heard the couple sitting behind us, mutter "sono fascisti" (i.e., "they are fascists"). We couldn't fully understand what was happening but clearly something political transpired. The next morning, I read that Puccini composed the music for this song, "Hymn of Rome," in 1919 at the end of World War I, and in subsequent years, fascists adopted the song as a sort of anthem. The conductor had said something about trying to put aside politics in choosing to play the song despite pressure not to do play it. Was this an act of free speech? Was it an attempt to promote an rightwing agenda? In the days after the performance, the typical culture wars have ensued in newspapers, with commentators arguing both sides of her potential motivations. As with these so-called culture wars, it's mostly filled with provocative statements rather than trying to have a constructive conversation about a complex issue.

And with that, we see yet again the pros and cons of being naive in a new culture. As we've talked about with our international friends, it's sometimes nice to not understand the local language and let it be background noise. But sometimes you want to understand things with greater depth.

Garden Volunteering

Sam joined a community garden here a couple months ago and she's enjoyed getting to weed and water in a lovely Italian garden space in the heart of Lucca. She's also in the garden e-chat group and it's proven a revealing way to see how Italians interact with each other. As with many volunteer operations, it's not without struggles and conflict, but the garden is more joy than hassle. Sam's garden expertise is in demand at this garden. Despite the locals being devoted to the space, few seem to know much about the care and life cycle of garden plans. Recently, she proposed setting up a worm compost bin in the garden and she explained the benefits of this in Italian to some of the gardeners. A year ago, would we have ever predicted she'd be speaking in Italian about worms? Maybe worm composting is slightly more straightforward for an American to translate into Italian than classic lines from Casablanca, but still! Go Sam!

A Brief Postscript

In closing, we want to extend long distance hugs to many of our friends and family who are dealing with significant health issues, recently lost loved ones, or both. It's been an especially difficult time for many people we care about and we're thinking of you. We hope this inconsequential letter provides a little diversion if nothing else.