Miscellany
#82
started in early July 2021
to all Miscellany entries
to bottom of this page
rear terrace Lodge
the island of Ischia is in far background
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the
Lodge at sunset
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3 photos above-Opus Continuum-top
aerial photo-comune of Bacoli
Eros
is Loose! -- Armed & Amorous!
A few scenes of the goings-on
at the Eros exhibit — The Roman name for the Greek
'Eros' was 'Cupid'.
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8 photos - Opus Continuum
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2. July 6
The
Torch Has
Passed to a New ...what? .... You
Dropped it...?!
Last
Saturday (June 26) the Greeks re-opened
post-pandemic Naples as the never-never
semi-functional city (mayor, Don E. Brook) of yore
and evermore by holding a Lampadedromia
(Torch Race) starting at Cuma.
That is just north of the Gulf of Naples and was founded by the Greeks as a colony by
other Greeks from Pithecusa (now
Ischia). It's all Greek. If Greek
is Greek to you, go read
all about it in some fine translations of The
Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer and
Homer, respectively. (Back then, you got only one name; it made phone books
much thinner.)
The
runners finished at a square (image, right)
on the sea-side of the
Chiaia section of the city, not far from the small
port of Mergellina. If they ran the whole way, they're still in good shape, those
old-timey Greeks. At the finish they were met by a
local actress in the guise of siren, Parthenope. (And by yours
truly in back of Parthenope. Space-Time travel
really makes you younger!) All of this was
meant to revitalize the memory of Naples as part
of Magna Graecia, Greater Greece, the many Greek colonies spread beyond
the Aegean, yea, even unto the pillars of
Hercules (Herakles). Indeed, the
mayor of the province of
Matera way down yonder in the land of palm trees
wants to rename the Ionian Road, also known as
highway SS 106 . (Don't worry. It's not German. It
means strada statale [state road].
He wants to call it The Road of Magna Graecia. The current road crosses
the entire Ionian Arc, stretching 500 km (300 mi)
along the Ionian coast from Taranto to Reggio Calabria (image). (Note: Reggio
Calabria [a semicircle with no label] is on the
mainland. Messina is on the island of
Sicily, a strong swim across the Straits of
Messina. Problem? No. Modern Italian mumbo-jumbo
covers them both as the Straits of Messina
Metropolitan Area, not a single city, but wishing
and pixie dust can make it so. Cue music.
Cut.)
(The main page on Magna
Graecia is here.)
3. July 12
Post-Pandemic
San Carlo
The San Carlo theater has a new
artistic director, Stéphane Lissner. He has plans
for the current 2021-2022 season (Yes, it has
started!) It will be difficult, but he says he can
do it.
Here
is a very good interview with him on the
Bachtrack website.
“I'm no
stranger to controversies: they make me laugh,”
he says.
4. July 14
Some boats are
back!
This little
sweetie, Fleurtje, was here in Naples in August
2015. I don't know if she was here
in the 6 years that have passed until til this week.
Looks exactly the same: sleek, good looking vessel.
A real sailing ship amidst the steel and plastic
yachts. What a pleasure to see. Nothing has changed.
"Wait...
that's odd, Holmes. Why...the call sign is
different. So are the vessel ID numbers.
You don't suppose..."
"I'm afraid so, Watson. When you elimentrinate
the sublime, what remains must be ridiculous. She
has gone over to the dark side."
Indeed, we note that 6 years ago Fleurtje
was sailing under the flag of Malta,
the glorious historic island Republic not far from
Sicily. Now? How dark side can you get? Panama.
O the humanity!
5. July 15
They sure are.
If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
That
is, how much is this and that? This one came in last
night under cover of darkness, stealthy and sneaky
cowards that they are. This thing is never a "she".
It's an "it". This is the RISING SUN, a
luxury motor yacht built in 2004 (currently sailing
under the flag of the Cayman Islands (of course!).
IMO / MMSI: 8982307 / 319011000
Call sign: ZCII7
Length: 138 m (452 ft 9 in)
Beam: I don't know. Plenty of Jim Beam
aboard, though.
Installed Power: 4 × MTU 20V 8000 M90
diesel engines 36,000 kW (48,000 hp)
Propulsion: 4 propellers
Speed: 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Rising
Sun is owned by David Geffen. He doesn't know
his aft from his elbow, but he sits at the head of
the captain's table. Starboard shmarboard — how many
stars are on board is what counts. The guests are
housed in 8 cabins that hold 16-18 guests
comfortably. With chromium-plated hawseholes and onyx
countertops, I should hope they're comfy!)
Rising Sun has a crew of 45, housed in 30
cabins. No, you, celeb, don't pay extra to
use the gym, basketball court, pool, sauna, wine
cellar or watch a movie that you are maybe starring
in. There are 82 rooms. Geffen is a real piece of
work. We both went to Santa Monica City College.
Same year. I remember him. He dropped out, but when
asked to show his college degree, he forged bum
papers from U.C.L.A. He was very good at making
money. A select band of scuba-scugnizzi (street
kids) are planting magnetic mines on Rising Sun
as we speak. Stay tuned.
6. July
16
Friday the
16th!
Don't worry.
Nothing happens on Friday the 16th. It's not
lucky. Not unlucky. It's nothing. Well,
there is this one thing. All the real
boats have gone — nice sail-boats, ugly
super-yachts, what have you. All gone and
left us with this (image). It's a
motorized gondola. I don't think it came
down here from Venice (not Italy and not
the real one in the city of Los Angeles,
California, although that would be quite a
tale to tell. I have never seen this thing
before. Never. It has to be a ploy, a
gimmick, a really good bad idea by a local
beach or hotel somewhere not too far away.
Take the clients for a little sea stroll,
get to Mergellina harbor (150 mtrs to the
right of this image) and then put
them into a mini-van where they drive
to wherever and ... wait ....
more likely they brought them here for a
further adventure by sea via the "water
taxi" service that runs the whole length
of the Campania region and... ok, it's
intriguing, but I still don't like it.
7. July 18
The Children's
Hour
by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
Between
the dark and the daylight,
When the night is
beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the
day's occupations,
That is known as the
Children's Hour.
Here's how the wee ones in Naples enjoy
their pause in the day's occupations —
enjoying the view of one of the many
lovely lighthouses we have in the area. Really.
Tumbling
babies remind us,
When mommy sees what you've done,
She'll moan
and groan and grumble
Till you make another one.
That's
a very rough comparison —
unpolished, even crude, maybe vulgar.
The Double Eagle was a metaphor of the
dual nature of the Roman Empire, east
and west. OK, we haven't got quite
that. Ours is more like one is a
pigeon and the other is a sea-gull.
Pigeons can hurt you (especially your
car) but they can't kill you.
Nietzsche said what doesn't kill you
just gets your goat and Nietzsche
looked a lot like an old goat. (I
can't explain that.) Sea-gulls, on the
other wing, are nasty, ruthless,
rapacious killers. Now that boats and
tourists are back in the Bay of
Naples, a lot of people are out
strolling and wandering by the seaside
and beaches. Lo, there are sea-gulls
all over, cruising above, searching,
scanning for food. So if you are a
concerned parent, you'd better be
throwing pieces of bread up for them
or, better, pieces of fish. Better,
whole fish. Or they may just decide to
take matters into their own beaks.
That's what happened in this
image, and I personally heard about
the guy who says he read about it!
photo
by https://www.sadanduseless.com
9.
July 23
These are the Voyages
of the Starship Oliva O. ...
They
are boldly going, and they're in
Naples for a while. Luxury Yacht
cum Air Conditioning,
Swimming Pool, Helipad, Cinema, Gym,
and Spa. The Oliva O. —
Here are the specs: Length
88.5m / 290'4 — Builder
Ulstein Verft (Norway) — Ext.&
int. Designer Espen Oeino —
Built 2020 — Beam 16.3m / 53'6
— Draft 5.1m / 16'9 — Cruising
Speed 14 Knots — Top
Speed 15.8 Knots. I had a color
painting of
it in a copy of Mediterranean
Science and Fantasy Fact or
Fiction. Sadly, that copy was
nabbed by a sea-gull.
Designed to take up to 20 guests
overnight in 8 cabins. Can carry 30
crew. Is not available for private
charter. That means the owner is on
board right now. That would be
Eyal Ofer, a Monaco-based
billionaire, active in shipping
and real estate. He was born in June
1950. His father Sammy Ofer was
Israel’s richest man.
10. July
25
Opus
Continuum has released its
catalog of photos relating to "Eros of
the Passionate --we who have stained
the world with blood." Selene adds
that "This is the real revolutionary
little red book! Mao had no idea!" The
book is on sale at the exhibit at the
Vanvitellian Lodge on Lake Fusaro (see
top of this page). They want you
to buy a copy. It costs €6. That gets
you and your lover 1 book plus
admission to the exhibit (open Friday
30 July an extra hour, until 2100).
The book (catalog) has 28 pp. with
images on most of them. It measures
15x21 cm (6" x 8.25"). Buy one. The
proceeds go to restore and maintain
the lodge, this splendid little jewel.
If you are in Naples, this is one of
the most enjoyable sites you can see
and certainly an unusual exhibit. It's
for a good cause. (Oh, the
keyhole on the cover is a clever dirty
pun. You "fools rush in where angels
fear to tread." There is no verb from
the noun chiave/key) but it
would be chiavare. It means
what you think and is vulgar. There is
a town near Genoa named Chiavari,
which is close enough to be very funny
except to those who live there and
have heard every joke you can imagine.
11.
July 30
There is a new entry
called "Rosina
Ferrara, the muse of
Capri." It focuses
on Capri as a great
magnet for foreign
painters in the
late1800s, the likes of
John Singer Sargent, and
on one particular woman
who inspired them (image,
right, is by
Sargent).
The article is at this link.
12.
Aug
2
They
Don't Make
Them Like This
Anymore
Maybe
just for the few and fine filthy
folks like yourselves. The Atena
(or Athena) was built
in 2004 and showed up in Naples
shortly thereafter, at which time
I was unable to identify her.
Here. She was built in the
Netherlands.
Length: 90.00m (295' 3");
beam: 12.20m (40' );
crew: 18 charter
guest: 10; max
speed: 18.9 knots+;
cabins: 5; engines: 2
x Caterpillar 3516B;
builder/designer: Royal Huisman .
ATHENA is the
largest private sailing yacht of
the modern era. If you're
wondering what kind of "action"
you can expect on this tub, the
last major naval battle with
sail-powered ships was the battle
of Sinop between the Ottoman and
Russian empires during the Crimean
war in 1853. It depends on what
you men by "sail-powered" (and
what you mean by "action"). Many
steam ships still carried full
sail rigging. If you mean ships
that had only sails and
nothing else (well, oars), that is
sometime in the 1820s. You can
always watch the Naval History
Channel aboard the Athena. She has
more TV and stuff than you can
shake a Tesla hand-puppet
at. More electronics than
the Starship Enterprise.
There is also a Navel History
Channel.
13.
Aug
7
The
"Artistic
Cartography"
of Heinrich
Berran
(1915-1995)
Heinrich
C. Berran
(1915-1995)
was from
Austria and is
known as the
"father of
artistic
cartography".
It's a very
small family.
He may be the
only one in
it. On-line
and print
publications
around the
world use his
maps. Here is
a map of his
of our Island
of Capri. It
is stunning.
