The prolific novelist and esteemed motor-cycle riding (which killed him, at the age of 49), rebel upstate New York university professor once wrote that the inferior writer writes derivatively — or something along those lines.
And if I were in the mood to write a derivative post today, I would pen some moody piece about some old elephant slogging along, as he headed toward the so-called “elephant’s graveyard” that I used to read about in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books I read as a kid.
The old elephant would of course be some version of me, and there would some bittersweet remembrance of ancient battles fought and won, ancient loves won and lost, and, most terribly, the ancient memories for which elephants are famous — memories that haunt like ghosts.
The conclusion would be some Hemingway Old Man and the Sea moment, as the elephant turns back one last time to confront the tusk poachers who have been pursuing him for weeks. Then I would end it with some ambivalent finale that, while exquisitely melancholic, in reality would be no conclusion at all but just a cop out.
Well, fuck that.
Today, being the second day of the New Year, there is much to look forward to: the year is in its infancy, and hopes are renewed — no matter how useless a pursuit that may appear to the jaded.
For one thing, the crippling back pain that I suffered for four days has gone away — this happened after I stupidly lifted something heavy rather awkwardly, while forgetting to bend my knees.
Now that I am not confined to my study and the comp, I plan to go out and be up and about and take care of some things, like the car whose dashboard engine icon is now urgently on, a bad sign of expensive things to come. Perhaps I will end up on a beach, and have my wife snap a pic of me wetting my feet in the cold Atlantic — providing there’s no toxic algae bloom or flesh-eating bacteria floating in the ocean (this has become a perennial problem around Florida; moreover, there is also a mosquito Nile Virus alert in this Florida county at the moment.)
For some time now, I have looking for a place to hang my hat (I think I will wear this hat if and when I go to the beach later today). When one considers leaving America, you have to think: what is driving me to such and such a place? Is it that I am trying to escape from an America I can no longer tolerate, or is it that I am attracted to a particular place for what it has to offer?
For me, as I consider Porto, I really have to say that I have doubts. I do like Portugal, but the Atlantic is not my sea; the Mediterranean is. The truth is, that at my age — I am 67 — one does not want to waste a lot of time making the wrong move.
Supposing I drop dead tomorrow? Unlikely, as I am in excellent health (for my age), but if I were to, where would be a suitable graveyard? Florida? Not on your life. Porto? Uh, no. Someplace along the Mediterranean? Now you’re talking!
Don’t get me wrong: I really like Portugal, especially the Portuguese people: I think the coolest moment there was when I went to that hidden, back-street after hours place in Tavira and had a long conversation with a local — artsy, 40s, spoke English and French — about Fernando Pessoa and Tavira in general, and when he slipped me a piece of hash, shortly before he left to disappear into the night, I thought now that was pretty cool.
I learnt much about Tavira and Portugal from that meeting; but I’m not that interested in hanging out in the Algarve, despite the fact that my English cousin lives there; nor would I favor hilly, cold, damp Porto, that is completely infested with Birkenstocks as well as bucket list young people who spend a day or two or three taking in the sights and moving on with their young lives, as I remain behind, shivering in some ratty apartment with no heat.
What, exactly, would I do there. Go to the Livraria Lello and hope lightning strikes twice? It is good to remember what the pipe-smoking John Garnder said (in one of his On Writing books) in that regard, when one is tempted to do something moronic like that.
Instead, I really ought to focus on the why would I go to part of my quest, as opposed to the running away from trope.
This, in fact, is the subject of today’s post.
Let me get at what I want to say indirectly, as meandering along the back roads is usually more interesting than an on-the-nose, straight drive to the point.
I remember watching a movie in 1975 called Swept Away, directed by that formidable Italian Marxist, Lina Wertmuller (who is 90, and still apparently vigorous, as of this writing), that I remember seeing at the Cinema 11 Theater, on Third Avenue and 59th Street. That cinema, unlike many I used to go to in the 70s and 80s, when I lived in various studio and one-bedroom hovels throughout Manhattan, is still around.
Swept Away (I never bothered to see the Madonna remake) has remained in the back of my mind since then, especially for the classic comedic North/South “class” interplay between Giancarlo Giannini and the late Mariangela Melato, a movie that included an extremely funny ass fucking scene (which no doubt would be frowned upon by present era reviewers, unless they realize that the director is a fierce feminist), but also, and perhaps more importantly for the purpose of this post at least, the extended, idyllic scenes along the golden sands of the Sardinian eastern coast, in the province of Nuoro, before the Agha Khan and his successors had completely turned he Costa Smerlada into the obscenity it is today.
Who would not want to have an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (the movie’s ellipsed subtitle), especially in the company of beautiful firecracker like Raffaella?
Okay, now let’s cut to the point.
About twelve years ago, when I became restive in Florida, after a series of marital mishaps and career disasters and near financial ruin, I happened to find myself in Tunisia.
It is there that I first heard about the island of Tabarka, and its ancient relationship with the island of Carloforte in Sardinia. I was intrigued, as I invariably am, by points of historical connection along the White Sea, el bahr el abyad el muttawasat, as the Arabs call it, the sea of my now near mythic childhood summers.
Time passed, and I continued along my random travels, mostly along the French Riviera and Dahab in the Sinai, until I suddenly fell quite ill, almost died in Times Square, then almost went blind, had an eye operation, began to see again, and, about 15 months ago, resumed my quest, first going to Nice, where I spent a year once, and then El Gouna, where I wondered if the Red Sea could ever replace my beautiful Mediterranean.
Alas, no.
But… after coming across par hazard this blog a few days ago, I wondered, what if Sardinia, yes, windswept, cold and rainy in the winter Sardinia, rugged hills Sardinia, nuragic Sardinia that is still empty over much of its interior surface (it’s about the size of Maryland, and has a million-and-a-half plus inhabitants, most clustered in cities, towns and villages along the coastlines), Sardinia that has ferries that go to all the Medi ports and rocky islands I love and know so well, Sardinia that is infested in summer with cruise ships and by Germans and Northern Italians and probably Brits too; Sardinia, Sardinia, Sardinia, whose language — a favorite of e. e. cummings and Eliot and Joyce! — I understand more readily than Portuguese, as it is closer to French than the former, and because so many Egyptian loan words in Arabic are of Italian origin; Sardinia, where if you wanted to be a hermit and write a book and do the retired writer thing in the sun thing might be financially doable, someplace perhaps around the tiny village of Nebida, or thereabout, not far from Carloforte, not far from Africa, not far from Corsica and the South of France, and not far even from a ferry that takes you to Barcelona in the summertime, where a childhood friend of mine has a place.
Something to think about (though Alghero does have its merits, too, not the least would be possibly far better housing opportunities for a writer’s garret at an affordable monthly rate). I have put out some feelers on the matter with the owner of said blog, and will wait and see what develops.
Stranger things have happened, as the phrase goes: but one thing I am sure of is that slogging through the upcoming nightmare between the Dems in the House and the mafioso Cyrus the Great charlatan occupying the White House is a tedious freak show that I would rather not endure.
Plus tôt que plus tard, on verra bien ce qui va’sse passer, avant que l’éléphant s’endormit pour la dernière fois et oubli tout.
Leaving Amerika 