NavigationAnnouncementsUpcoming eventsRecent blog posts
|
NeapolimimNaples revealed a side of Italy hitherto cloaked from my gaze; some
of the people were actually shady, dodgy, suspect. Indeed I'm surprised
your credit cards' autonomous foray through metropolitan Europe never
happened upon that harbout city.Since the '50s the city's burgeoning
population of unemployed youth have sought to emulate the Camorra
(as the Neoploitan mafia is named), and it's amazing what a recent
inovation organised crime turns out to be, as newspaper anthropology
would have it an ancient genetically inhrent charcateristic of everyone
raised in the Mezzogiorno. Lads would throw shit at us as we were
going about our own business quietly! And I thought that Dublin was
unique in this. Another fella, initially conversed with in good faith
made serial attempts to part me from my cash, first by sub-standard
cunning and thereafter by outright menaces! Diplomatic skills were
leaned upon until the arrival of his frineds, who disiplined his poor
behaviour and sat us down to smoke high quality hash and drink until
5.00 am. They were most excited by our knowledge of Masianello, a
17th century Neopolitan fisherman and leader of what is widely regarded
as the first modern urban insurrection, where the city was seized
for ten days, before dusk fell over utopia and said Masianello was
decapitated on the Piazza del Mercato. Exhausted we were deposited
a the hotel and numbers were swapped with the promise of further meetings.
The streets are narrow like the carrugine of Genoa, and peppered with
the most extravagant shrines to the Madonna. Tranny prostitutes carry
out their trade around one of the most splendid, fluorescent-blue-haloed
Mary presiding, with a pond of water which reflected the water beautifully
underneath. But beyond all this rough and tumble the people were really
caliente and kind, without that weariness which typifies the Romans,
their curiousity and enthusiasm remians intact. If euphoric resignation
describes Italy, then Naples must be the home of cheerful desperation.
|
SearchAnalysisNewsReviews |