January’s 31st Post

It never occurred to me until my last night (tonight) to have a look at Italian TV. It’s just like any other TV and a whole lot easier to understand than, say, Chinese. The TV is tied to the other electrical circuits in the room, obviously, and the scheme is very strange to me. A special pin on the room key ring has to be inserted into a hole in the wall in order to turn on the electricity in the room. This is a scheme to prevent guests wasting energy when they’re out. It’s a lot of fun scratching around in the dark trying to find that little hole.

Speaking of hotels, the concierge has not left the building in nine years. He lives on the top floor and is on the job at all times. His wife is dead, his mother in hospital and his daughter and granddaughter in Switzerland. He has no friends, excepting perhaps the couple that have rented the original owners’ quarters; but he doesn’t know their names. He’s a very nice guy, no nonsense, speaks English well. Takes all his meals in the kitchen, watches TV in the bar. Says he’s part of a dying breed, that people these days want weekends off and so on. Did hoteliers once upon a time literally live their entire lives in their hotels?

Speaking of fear, if we distill the worst fears of Bush’s more left-leaning domestic opponents into their simplest and most direct form, that he has sought to gain power without any checks and balances, they would still pale next to the reality granted today to their Venezuelan hero Hugo Chavez. To his credit, the opposition press has not yet been silenced.

Speaking of silence, we drove in three cars up the highway, took the last exit before Switzerland and started winding up a steep hill on a narrow road lined with neat stone walls and neater stone houses, below which Lake Como was a black surface, full of reflections, gondola lights stretching straight up the steep mountainside opposite. The silence of a distant town at night hung over the lake like an invisible cloud, a delicate fragrance, a watchful spirit. Il Gatto Nero was as beautiful as any of the houses, with a lake view that must have been breathtaking during the day. There were several beautifully-appointed rooms within, each holding a handful of tables so that every party had intimacy, even a large one such as ours. The waiter had to transfer my water from my wine glass because I’m a rube. The lamb was delicious and the spaghetti was full of subtle flavors and possibly the best I’d ever had. I almost felt guilty being there but our hosts, being Italian, knew how to do hospitality. Later we took a stroll through part of the town and found ourselves walking through Piazza Alessandro Volta, named for a hometown boy who became a great physicist and a pioneer in the study of electricity. Speaking of electricity ...