Folklore: Narrative St. Joseph

Genre: Folk Narrative
Concetta Orlando, female, 91
great-grandmother/housewife
Italian-born, Italian-Sicilian-Albanian-English-speaking
Richmond, CA
Oct. 14, 2001 

The Story of St Joseph in the American Desert

Concetta, or “Connie” Orlando was born in 1910 in the village of Piana digli Albanesi, in Sicily, Italy. She arrived in New York in 1930, when she was 20, to meet her new husband. 

Connie was a child bride, betrothed at 13. “He sent his parents to my parents to approve.” She described her wedding dress, a traditional costume in red satin with floral designs in gold thread. She said it took her years to embroider it and it weighed a ton. The bodice was in gold, and she wore a big gold belt buckle. 

She said, “There was no honeymoon, I came to America [alone]. But I had to prove he married me before I came. Paperwork! We marry in June. I come in October, by boat, from Palermo to Napoli. We lived in Bronx, now is no good. Then to Tarrytown 5 years, and to California.” Her husband, an Italian American by birth, was also an Italian citizen, and so had to serve in Mussolini’s army, it was a long time before they were reunited in America.

Connie speaks English, but Italian and Albanian are her native languages. In Italy, her father was a caretaker on the Baroni estate, she had six sisters and a brother; three grandparents lived with them. (I forgot to ask what her maiden name was.)

She says her ancestors settled in Piana digli Albanesi in 1492, when the village, the Plain of the Albanians, was founded by Albanian refugees fleeing from the Ottoman Turks for religious reasons. The village was called Piana al Greci, but Mussolini changed the name as the villagers weren’t Greek. Connie said that a cousin (she meant a distant relation), a priest, who lived in a village in the Pelopponneses—in what is now Greece, formerly Albania —came to Italy when the Turks invaded. She said “They all got into a boat and came to Sicily.”

Connie relates, “It was 1936, we were here [in America] for six years.” Vito (her son) was six months old. (Vito, age 65) takes over a portion of the story. “My father worked for General Motors. There was a bulletin board, a notice for California. It was during the Depression...” (Notice there’s a slight discrepancy of the date) 

Connie speaks, “We wanted to go to California. We had a Model A. We left from Tarrytown, Westchester County. We didn’t have much money so we came in the Model T...”(Vito says: “A, Mom!”). “There was danger. We was in the desert, the southern route. You didn’t see nothing. All a sudden I saw a man that was all covered up with a cloak. I turned to my husband, ‘Should we pick him up?’ He turn around, nobody there. That was St. Joseph. That’s the way he was walking." 

"St.Joseph, a big saint of our village. He was a protector of the Holy Family. My husband had an uncle in LA [with a house]. We rent the house, that was when my husband started working at the General Motors assembly plant.” 

St. Joseph is the patron saint of family and household needs; they were in need, and because he was their village saint, it was plausible to Connie that he should appear in the desert to look after them.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Place Name: Piana degil Albanesi/ al Greci

Genre: Place Name, Albanian-Sicilian 
Concetta Orlando, female, 91 
great-grandmother/housewife
Italian-born, Italian-Sicilian-Albanian-English-speaking
Richmond, CA
Oct. 14, 2001
Piana digli Albanesi, formerly Piana al Greci (1941)
(The Plain of the Albanians,  The Plain of the Greeks)

Connie Orlando was born in 1910 in the 500-year-old village of Piana digli (degil) Albanesi, a mountainous plateau located 15 miles south of Palermo, in Sicily, Italy. She came to the United States to meet her husband in 1930, where she learned English. Her grandparents were also from Piana digli Albanesi. She didn’t know how far back her ancestors went, but she thinks their settlement dates back to 1492.

The history of the village, the Plain of the Albanians, is interesting as it was founded by Albanian refugees fleeing from the Ottoman Turks in 1492. The Turks didn’t believe in the Greek Orthodox Church, so they fled for religious reasons. 

The village was formerly known as Piana al Greci—greche, or Greeks, but in 1941 Mussolini changed the name because "the villagers weren’t Greek." Italy had attacked Greece so it was an expunging. After Connie left home to come to America. Connie said that a cousin, I think she meant a distant relation, a priest, who lived in a village in the Pelopponeses, in what is now Greece—it was Albania then—came to Italy when the Turks invaded. She said “They all got into a boat and came to Sicily,” then eventually settled in Piana digli Albanesi.

What is amazing is that they retained their language and customs for 500 years, even though Italy, a different culture and language, was now their homeland. Connie (who lives at 653 W. “H” Street, in Ontario, CA 91762), is still very active, and her memories of her village and its customs are amazingly detailed. She was married in a traditional heavily embroidered Albanian wedding dress (similar to Balkan and southern Ukrainian/Romanian wedding dresses) in a Byzantine Orthodox church.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Italian dandle song

Genre: Counting Rhyme, Albanian-Sicilian 

Concetta Orlando, female, 91
great-grandmother/housewife
Italian-born, Italian-Sicilian-Albanian-English-speaking
Richmond, CA
Oct. 14, 2001
Genre: Dandle Rhyme, counting

Natare Natare (it begins in Italian)
(na-tar re na-tar re) 

(nonsense sounds)
cerca diu
(cheshka deeo)
Look for two [people]
cerca diu un lavandare
(cheshka puu un lav andare)
Look for 2 people
lavandare ki kiri ki
( la van dar re (nonsense sounds: a rooster)
una due e li tri
(oona dew way ee lee tree)
one, two and three
yetz ze ata di mauri (last line is in Albanian)
yets zee ata dee mauree)
Go to those two poor wretches.

Connie, who was born in 1910 in the 500-year-old village of Piana digli Albanesi, Sicily, Italy, came to the United States to meet her American-born husband in 1930, where she learned English. 

She learned this counting baby dandle song from her own nonna, her grandmother, who was also from Piana digli Albanesi (Plain of the Albanians, founded by Albanian refugees fleeing from Ottoman Turks in 1492). She says that she first learned this dandle rhyme in 1912 when she was two or three. She had six sisters and a brother; three grandparents lived with them. They all grew up with the dandle.

Connie lives at 653 W. “H” Street, in Ontario, Ca., 91762, and is very active. She is a great-great-grandmother so there are always plenty of babies around to dandle. Using a pillow, she showed me how she rocked the baby who either drooped over at her knee, or sat on it, depending on how big it was, and how she patted his back, saying the dandle, her hand keeping time with each syllable of the dandle rhyme. 

Like many rhymes, this has a chant-like quality, almost a song. She said that many of the words were nonsense words, but when pressed, she was able to translate many of them. I suspect that the Albanian line is written in phonetic Italian. 

And I wonder if Natare has anything to do with natal—as in birth, as it does sound like a real word. 

Another Albanian dandle, Neo neo na, which I wasn’t able to get the complete version from Connie (but we have it on video-tape), translates something like this: Neo neo na (nonsense words), we’re all going to Lacabau (a make believe place), we went there, didn’t want the ???, they took the meat, two rams ate them up, two elves grabbed them by the horns, and the little girl has two eyes. Connie says that it’s a fairy tale dandle. 

Neil O'Neill said that he collected Neo neo na ca. 1999, so the Albanian dandle should be in the Folklore Archives in Kroeber Hall.

To dan·dle, a verb, dan·dled, dan·dling.
To move (a baby, child, etc.) lightly up and down, a son one's knee or in one's arms.
Origin: 1520–30; dand- (obscurely akin to the base of French dandiner to dandle, se dandiner, to waddle, and related Romance words)

In my family we sang a few English dandles:Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John

Went to bed with his britches on.

One shoe off, and one shoe on;

Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John.

Deedle, deedle dumpling, my son John,

Went to bed with his stockings on

One shoe off, and one shoe on,

Deedle, deedle dumpling, my son John.  

(And off came the shoes. An undressing dandle?)

(Roud Folk Song Index number of 19709. ca.1797)

To market, to market to buy a fat pig.
Home again, home again, Jiggity jig!
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog.
Home again, home again, Jiggity jog!

( Another shoe undressing dandle? Followed by This little piggie went to market...)

(Roud #19708, ca. 1611)

And there was one about a hobbity horse that I can't remember. But it would be interesting to trace the subject matter of the Albanian dandle: meat, elves, eyes, sheep, and compare it with other dandles.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

List of English nursery rhymes

Fartist retort while waiting in line to score tickets to see Dylan

Neil, a prodigious fartist, was thinking he could rip off a quick fart while standing in line while waiting for Dylan, but the guy behind him overheard, and complained loudly to his teenybopper girl girlfriend, What's that smell? Neil turns and says, Hey my asshole maybe prolific, but it knows when to keep its mouth shut. The young guy responds with a punky, Oh yeah? Neil says, No shit! Thinking there might be a brawl in line, I said, And yeah, he can't keep the other gobshite shut either. Neil said, I know when to open my gob. I retorted, He'd talk the legs off a chair, vaccinated with the gramophone needle he was, and now he's just a cheapsnake, meaning cheapskate. The young guy, perhaps defending his oblivious girlfriend's honor, is way in over his head, can't make heads or tails of any of it. We laugh, the line shuffles forward, dissipating the problem.

10 /13/2001

STARVING BABIES

STARVING BABIES

The little boy's mother kept hounding him

over and over again to eat his pasta. 

Mangia! Mangia! she said, twisting his ear.

Think of all the starving pagan babies in China,

she said. One day she went to the mailbox, 

inside there was a large manila envelope 

soaked through with oil and tomato sauce, 

addressed to the starving babies of China.

10/2001

Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO 5

9 AM London time, 1 AM California time

10/8 Monday 8:45 AM: I'm going to arrive at SFO at noon aboard United flight 955 Heathrow to SFO. Landing last night from Lisbon, we learned that the US and Great Britain had just completed a five-hour bombing of Afghanistan. I am seated in business-class wondering if this might be my last few moments on earth, at least in this format.

Having had a déjà vu sequence, while in line to board, I was suddenly struck with fear, and burst into tears as I sat down in the waiting room. A British woman put her arms around me which really got me going, and now I'm continually on the verge of tears.

Having started the day sampling whiskey, a first ever before breakfast, I joked with Linda the shopkeeper, saying I might need the whiskey. She said come back later for the really good stuff… But the two thimblefuls I tried sent me over the edge, I've had so little sleep these past few nights. Everyone is so kind to us because of 9?11. I was not expecting that.

And as I boarded the plane, the elevator music became an unconscious dialogue. In my business class seat, I listen to Will you go, Lassie go? I thought: is this it? And are you ready to leave? My exit pass… it is highly possible the Taliban might retaliate with an airstrike on a US airline, and United has already been in their sights twice…

So many people seem to be leading normal lives, sitting reading the newspaper or pulp fiction – but at this point even the news is pulp fiction… I am profoundly saddened by the turn of events, but not surprised. As Bush did warn us that he'd strike… But this time, not alone. Great Britain too is joining in…

Tim, the taxi man, or Grandpa, as he preferred to be called, from Maidenhead, said, "It's the only way. I was in World War II. Like with Hitler. We should've taken care of it in '32 and not in '45. Better to kill 6 million now, than 10 million later," he said.

I cannot work my mind around these abstractions. Of what is right or wrong, or ultimately better in the long run? I just know my heart hurts.

I left 1,000 escudos with Marria in Lisbon to buy to heart milagros at Fatima, so whether or not I survive this fligh,t at least there will be a remembrance for me, of me. The other heart is for Canice's heart. Maria said, "You have to believe in something, why not Fatima?" The maid singing Fatima adios to because she doesn't believe. Ultimately, what do I believe in?

The message email I tried to send Neil last night wouldn't go through. Dave Challis, our knight in shining armor, sent my email for me—brief and to the point, and signed it, the temporary landlord. Dave is a stranger who slept on my cousin Dave's couch, and is returning the Pay it Forward favor.

At the airport, I run out of time to call either Neil or Sinead. Is this the exit pass, not enough time? Or not the right coinage to call home? Nature is indifferent; the chaos theory is fully operational.

It is a relief to know that daylight will follow us all the way to California. At this point, I'm afraid of the dark. I wonder where night will occur? Are we flying into the light or do we chase the darkness across the globe?

I'm sorry I didn't take the free champagne from the flight attendant.  I'm in a muddle as to whether or not to be clearheaded, though I suspect no amount of alcohol will have an effect on me if something were to happen.

Here we go… The stars and half moon over Maidenhead, a beautiful surprise. Liftoff… We are no longer creatures of the land, but of the air, having joined the birds at their own game – hopefully not that of angels. I think of Wim Wenders angels walking the earth, wanting human emotions – to love. And the woman…

The flight attendant plies me with endless port the rest of the way home.

8 PM Great Britain time, noon California time. Dank you well dear, crew for safe journey. I cried when I saw the land of my birth, blowing kisses to Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, and Double Point, naming each landform and lake, as if in benediction, realizing how much the metaphor of Christianity is embedded within me.

The flight attendant, equally moved, though she be British, thanks me for my words of thankfulness—for within their job, within their duty, they have performed herculean tasks, they have restored bits of humanity to me. Touchdown on the hot sleek surface of the runway, we all spontaneously applaud the captain.

Here it is noon in California and 8 PM in Great Britain or Lisbon, time to day goodbye. The flight attendant Derby Walker's friend was Finnish. Kitos, she said, Thank you. Kitos, I reply.  Thank you.

Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1

Folklore: Stairs & bad luck

Genre: superstition, Irish
Adrian McGarrity, male, mid-40s
electrician, golfer
Irish-born, Irish-English speaking
Oct 6, 2001
Collected in an airplane enroute, Lisbon to London
somewhere over Galicia, Spain

“Crossing someone on the stairs brings bad luck.”

Adrian is an electrician from Belfast, Northern Ireland, whom I met on a turbulent plane ride enroute from Lisbon to London. Adrian said, “My mother wouldn’t cross you on the stairs, Every day she’d yell down from the top or bottom [of the stairs], ‘don’t you cross me on the stairs!’ And one of yous would have to go back up or down the stairs. She’s the boss.” When I asked him why, he answered, “because it would bring you bad luck.”

The first instance Adrian remembers the stair incident was when he was very young, it was in the ‘60s. Adrian continued, “it was a daily occurrence. If she was in the toilet, she’d shout down, and you’d have to go back down the stairs. In general, even though you might have a mishap, you’d never try to bring it [bad luck] on yourself.”

I (the interviewer) wonder how this superstition might tie in with the complexities of giving direction in Irish. Embedded within the Irish language, which is a very specific, exact language, are numerous wods regarding direction. Irish is highly inflected, and is also one of the oldest and conservative of the living Indo European languages.

Many Hiberneo-Irish sayings are direct translations of Gaelic, or Irish speech patterns.

To explain in Irish that someone is about to go, is going, or has already gone up or down the stairs, requires a complex verbal circumlocution of no less than six separate words—depending on the position of the speaker and on the position of the person descending, or ascending the stairs. In irish up is not always up, and down is not always down. It's about relativity. BBCs Upstairs Downstairs wouldn't translate easily into Irish. Hudson!

The words suas (up) and síos (down) and anuas (come from up); and aníos (come from down) and the reverse direction: thuas/ thíos all differ if both people are at the top of the stairs, or one or the other person is at the bottom, and vice versa. Or if both people are at the bottom, versus one or the other is at the top—going up or coming down. It's sort of like are you for or against? When I was learning Irish, I never could keep it straight—literally both coming or going.

The four directions: north, south, east, and west In Irish also carry this complex linguistic paradigm.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections

Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Common Sense

Genre: Folk saying, Irish

Adrian McGarrity, male, mid-40s
electrician, golfer
Irish-born, Irish-English speaking
Oct 6, 2001
Collected in an airplane somewhere over Galicia, Portugal

“Common sense isn’t so common.”

Adrian is an electrician from Belfast, Northern Ireland, whom I met on a turbulent plane ride enroute from Lisbon to London. He was on holiday in Lisbon to play a golf tournament. Adrian was often told that “Common sense isn’t so common.”

Adrian said, “When I was a boy [in the ’60s], my mother would tell me, ‘it’s only common sense to do it that way...’ especially when you thought you were being pretty clever. It was a way of keeping you in your place. If you were doing something really stupid in the house, my father would say, ’or God’s sakes, use your common sense!’ and my mother (Eleanor) would say, ‘common sense isn’t so common.’”

My own grannie, Jane Walsh Reilly, who was from Bantry Bay, Co. Cork (b.1893), would often say something similar to me, “You’ve no more sense than the man in the moon.” The first time I heard it was in the mid-50s, when I was six or seven. 

The Man in the Moon is annotated with many variations in Archer Taylor & Bartlett Jere White’s “American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880,” (Harvard, 1958) (p. 236), but my grannie’s version is more succinct.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections

Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4

10/6 Saturday, Lisbon.

Our concierge, Maria Santos Pinheiro, of Pensão Residencial Estrela do Mondego, walked to Fatima, she said it took her four days. She slept in pilgrim hotels along the way. She said she went because of a promise she had made. She wouldn't say what.

I asked how the custom began, the walking on the knees. She doesn't know how, or when, but said that when people make promises because something bad happened in their lives, and then they just do it. They fall to their knees and walk.

She said there's a big (holm oak) tree on 93 Azinheira, near there where the Lady appeared there at the Capelinha das Aparições (Chapel of the Apparitions, where three shepherd children saw the Virgin Mary in Cova da Iria, Fátima), in 1917.

She said that people took bits of the tree, they even took the land, until there was nothing left. The faithful finished off what the anticlerical liberal factions couldn't destroy, when they cut down the wrong tree in 1922.

On 13 May, when Our Lady first appeared, and every month until October 13, people walk from all over Portugal for the Peregrinación to the Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima. She said "I like it better on the 12th at night, because of all the candles. And everyone waving white handkerch1efs. There's a song the people sing when they go there." 

The  maid begins singing El Adeus de Fátima, as she makes the beds. It's a very touching, if droll, song, perhaps it is a fado, and I am moved to tears.

Ó Virgem do Rosário, da Fátima Senhora. De Portugal Rainha, dos homens protectora. Ó Virgem do Rosário, da Fátima Senhora. Do Vosso Santuário, forçoso é ir-me embora. Uma prece final, ao deixar-Vos Mãe de Deus. Viva sempre em minha alma este grito imortal: Ó Fátima, adeus! Virgem Mãe, adeus!

On 12 June, Maria said, "On my birthday it's very joyous. And when you're there when you see Fatima, it's very touching. I cried and I cried," she said.

Thousands and thousands of people attend the services, and most of them have walked to Fátima on foot. The Virgin is paraded around the courtyard on a raft of white flowers, and everyone singing O Fátima, Adiós! while waving a sea of white handkerchiefs. Even the rosaries are white.

"The house where the shepherd children were born, is still there", she said. Milagros, the candles... You've got to believe in something." she said. "Heads legs children—that's what the Milagros are made for. You make a wish and you throw it in the fires that burn day and night."

Maria said that sometimes when people get married, they leave their flowers at Fátima for no special reason, other than for a blessing.

She said there's a lava-pés, a place where you wash your feet, and then the nuns will bandage your feet. She said that it's a recent custom, not an old one.

She explained, Our lady was brought to the Basilica on 13 May and was there until 13 October. When she was brought back, we sang a special song, Fátima, adeus! because she went around the world.  People pray with the rosary, they pray for whatever they want, there is no set thing that they pray for. Whether or not they believe, it doesn't matter.

Now the maid is singing it too because she doesn't believe. I left 1,000 escudos with Maria to buy us two heart milagros at Fatima, next May, one for me and one for my aunt Canice, whose heart keeps rhythm with the help of a new pacemaker.

Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal

Pilgrims line up at the square, wearing kneepads, commercial, and homemade, Some pilgrims wear towels wrapped around their knees others wear polyester pads. Brown, to hide the dirt, and the blood.

It's raining. Men hold umbrellas over their wives, or mother's heads as they shuffle their way down the hill to the fountain. It's called an indulgence. Mostly Portuguese women. The sight is so bizarre, and so moving, we too want to join their ranks. Fall on bended knee. But I wouldn't last long. Too many falls from horseback.

They traverse the courtyard, a half a mile, perhaps three quarters of a mile on their knees, then up the steps to the church, praying all the wile. Everyone fumbles their rosary beads. Some wail, and beat their chests. Pull their hair. I have never see the outpouring of so much collected grief. People praying for a miracle, or divine intervention.

There are several altars to choose from. The one to our left, is situated before a perpetual flame of indulgence candles. it's a huge vat, an Inferno smelling of honeybees. I ask, do the fires ever go out? Nothing prepared me for this.

People toss in armloads of candles—40 to 500 at a time into the flame. Some people light them first, most do not. The beeswax, drips and hisses like snakes. It is so hot, the rain has evaporated from this station of indulgence.

My aunt Canice lit her candle first, with her cigarette lighter, but it went out. Probably from a profound lack of oxygen. My candle wouldn't stay lit either. It probably means bad luck—or too many wishes. When the candle goes out, your wish is not granted, it's like a vast birthday party for the dead.

10/5/2001
10/15/2015

Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3

10/5/2001 Lisbon-Fátima: We took the metro to bus station to Fátima where we're on the blue line, things aren't clearly marked and it isn't easy negotiating as there's so much lack of information etc. We miss the bus to Fátima. 

My cousin and aunt are too slow in the morning and again we missed a significant portion of the day. It's raining and we're wet and miserable.

Yesterday was a total waste in that they all were so late getting ready, it was noon before we even got out the hotel door. I said to them previously, if you want more time in the morning, just tell me and I'll go out by myself but as usual it didn't happen.

Then my aunt wanted to go to the bank. Sinead had to go with her. So Sean and I went on ahead, only to get caught by the trolley inspector, who insisted that my 24 hour pass, which I just bought, was no good. We been told so much conflicting information from the information people were beginning to feel ripped off.

This is the third time it's happened and so I began to holler and scream and we missed our bus stop and had to walk two miles back to the Monastery of Jerónimos and we missed Sinead. 

Sean was tired, and I wound up carrying him on my back for blocks. I was exhausted by the time we got to the monastery I wanted to cry, but I had to maintain face, and not have a meltdown, for Sean's sake. 

I sat in the hot sun waiting for them for 4 and a half hours. They'd ignored our Plan B to meet at the information booth and went on inside. I was pretty upset.

The upshot is that I ran through the monastery and cloisters, through the back door, so I didn't have to pay, I managed to get to the Museum of Archaeology, but the Celtic stuff was in storage so that was a waste of time.

There were two stone Celtic warriors with torcs, shields, and bigotes. I asked a docent about them, and he took pity on me, and guided me to the library. I looked up and cross-referenced some postcard photos. There was lots of gold, but mostly plain gold. No La Tène culture, I slogged through Portuguese anthropology books, and discovered it was easier to read Portuguese, than to speak it.

Then we went onto the Torre Belém. By this time it was 4:35PM and the guard wouldn't let us in so I guess I won't get to see the inside. Altogether, it was a shitty day. The very two things I wanted to see most. I hope today improves. Blame it on the full moon.

It's 115 km from Lisbon to Fátima. At Fátima, believers board the bus. Imagine plays on the radio. We are sardines, soaked through to the skin. A young cancer survivor, with the bug-eyed beauty of Sinead O'Connor, boards the bus. Was she one of the lucky ones?

At Fátima, I gazed into the eyes of a young boy, olive skinned, and old before his time. My indulgence, for all the living and the dead of the World Trade Center, I buy candles to light their way.

added, rev. 9/17
the story continues:
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
see also Fatima Notes
AFTER READING BROWNING’S SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO 5
Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2

2
10/3–4 Wed. Lisbon: I can't sleep – that chocolate mousse after dinner was too much. My mind was racing. There are cockroaches in the bathroom, and I can't reach them. One jumped on my leg trying to hide from the light.

They're all snoring in the other room—even the baby. Not the cockroaches, my family. The baby Sean nearly got burned in the shower this morning. It was a rough start.

Suddenly the time is running out and there is still so much to see. Lisbon is growing on me. The trolley pass finally did it. It gave us wings, and the city with its seven hills became friendly, not like that crazy taxi ride from the dive that we spent the first night in.

There was no lift (elevator) and I thought Canice was going to die going up all those stairs. Five flights. The first floor begins above the reception desk. Which was already one flight up so the fourth floor was really nearer to the sixth floor then the fourth.

I had to exercise my Spanish or Spanglish in order to survive here. Sinead and Canice can only achieve rudimentary communication as most people don't speak English here. But I'm able to prattle on, and get the nuts and bolts out most of the time. Except for today at the castle.

The castle WC was in the lower depths of the ramparts and I thought my bladder was going to burst. The WC guard wanted valuta and I saidI was desperate throwing down some escudos but still she screamed at me. How much did she want. I eventually understood that she was saying: too late too late. And pointed at the symbol of a man.

It was the men's room. I ran down the hall like a crazed woman, and the little old ladies took pity on me. I was wild eyed and they let me go in first.

Linda was right, at times the Portuguese is is different from Spanish as Chinese is to Russian, though I think that's an unfair analysis. I can understand a fair bit but the Brazilian soaps on the TV don't help much. The women with painted eyes look as silly as the retro 60s woman in the airport. Elizabeth Taylor's paint job on Cleopatra come back to haunt us on late night TV. All the TVs in this hospidaje, or pension (pensão) happen to watch the same canal, or channel as there's only one satellite receiver so we flick the channels—all forty-something of them to the same inane game show with men lounging around, dressed in skins and bad makeup jobs. Big Brother it's called, a talk show of sorts, I guess. 

All the azuelos, the tile buildings, surprise and delight the eye. The trolley is a magic ride. We took the number 15 trolly down to the recently restored Torre de Belém (or Torre de São Vicente, the patron saint of Lisbõa) and we saw the Gothic Manueline monastery of Jerónimos (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) by moonlight.

Both are Unesco world heritage sites. Torre Belém in the distance, like a wedding cake confection, surrounded by water. Hard to imagine something of that beauty inspired by the art of war.

At Vasco da Gama's monument, (Padrão dos Descobrimentos) we traced our route on the stone map of the world. I wasn't too sure I wanted to celebrate Vasco's discoveries as Europeans in the New World (or India) weren't too good for the local populace—no matter how you reassembled the history. Vasco da Gama is buried at the monastery of Jerónimos. A faint odor of pepper and cinnamon in the air.

All the gold and silver altars we've seen, are mind-boggling. On Praça 25 de Abril, a woman shows us a back room at the Igreja Convento da Graça, one of Lisbon's oldest churches, made of azuelos and painted ceilings. Last night's downpour took its toll and a portion of the ceiling vault fell through, and I realized that much of the ceiling detail is based on illusion.

Wondrous interiors to fool the eye into believing the fabulousness of their new world and wealth has no end. All this gold from the Americas what extraordinary artifacts were melted down so that we may celebrate religion?

I saw a submarine traverse up the Tagus River with a couple of military ships. From Vasco da Gama Square I could see the far shore was comprised of oil tanks. I can't seem to escape them. The tragedy of 9/11 seems to be fading a bit, but today as we come down from the castle or the citadel, I found myself in in tears once again.

Sinead, in the bank this morning, was talking to a Portuguese man about 9/11, and later a newspaper tumbled down the street and stopped at my feet. Even in Portuguese the headlines were perfectly clear.

Many people in Lisbon certainly have Moorish ancestry, but here and there, the Celt is still visible, though more so in the Azores.

I'm getting a bit tired of being sidestepped all the time as tourist bait but we have taken to fighting with the kiosk ticket sellers and taxi drivers who insist upon cheating us on on every turn. Usually usually we pay, but not without a fight.

Lisbon is definitely a bit rougher, but we are, for the most part, left unmolested because we are three women traveling alone with a small child.

I collected lots of folklore, but mostly from my family. It's been hard collecting from the Portuguese. You need to build a relationship first, and that takes time. When we haven't got a lot. Also, we're not meeting the Portuguese in Lisbon it's not as friendly as the Azores.

As Sinead said, yesterday her palm is still itching that means give it away, not a good sign in that yesterday a lot of money part parted itself from us unwillingly and hopefully that's in the past but her palm still itches.

I'm sitting in the hall listening to everyone snore behind closed doors in the middle of the night. Wired and allergic to all the cigarette smoke, I'm sitting on the floor, an ignoble midnight studio.

I'm certainly seeing lots of things. First time away from home in five years. Hard to believe it's been that long. I've always had such a travel bug and now I'm not used to all this stimulation. I think travel requires a certain fortitude. Certainly with family. 

We absolutely hated Lisbon when we first arrived. We almost packed it up and left town. I'm glad we're giving it another chance because it really is an extraordinary place.

At the castle, the opidda, where Roman, Visigothic and the later layers of history are visible too, but not much of the 12th-century castle is original. Zealous restoration and re-Christianization creates a Disney-like effect. But I love walking along the ramparts with Sean. White peacocks and sickly cats added a surreal effect. Gone is the bustle of a medieval city, though the Alfama surrounding it, is a warren of streets enticing one onward.

Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1

Tuesday October 2, Pensão Flor dos Cavaleiros, near Praça Largo de Martim Moniz. It ain't beautiful but at 4500 escudos it's a port in a storm. We are in the underbelly of Lisbon, or Lisbõa. We find out too late that there's no lift, Canice has a pacemaker, her heart can't take the stairs, we're on the 4th floor, which really means the 5th floor, and there are only two beds, a double bed which Canice and Sean snag, so Sinead and I sleep head to toe in a tiny twin bed.

10/3 After much scouting around, we land new digs Estrela de Montenegro for 9000 escudos a night, not bad divided by three. It has a lift and three beds. Survival on the wrong side of the plaza, a difficult proposition.

So our wanderings, in we stumbled into O'Gilin's Irish Pub (not an Irish name), on Rua dos Remolares, off Praça Terracina, near the armory. We're eating tapas and drinking Guinness in Lisbon! An Irish ceilidhe instead of a fado? No Irish food though. Before that there was a poetry reading. About the only word I understood was the word poesia.

Today we rode the number 28 train along the Tagus River, glimpses of it between buildings and city canyons. It's so big, it's like San Francisco Bay. Amid the blind musicians and the deformed James Merricks on the streets of commerce, we wandered not quite tourists, on Rua Agustus, Julius's heir, on the street of banks and Cartier. Eiffel's protégé built the elevator to nowhere. We overlook the city. Lisbon is as seedy as Lima, but less dangerous.

Van Morrison on the tape deck, or on the other side of the world they would be shocked to know that he's a neighbor.

I'm so behind on my writing. I expected to be writing much more but survival is too difficult. Sinead and Canice were out of escudos for days, so I'm the local bank.  I was afraid we wouldn't get off the island. it's a hard transition from the Azores to the bustle of Lisbon I keep calling it Lima. And for good reason. We are in the underbelly of the beast.

• Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO 5
• Folklore: Stairs & bad luck
• Folklore: Common Sense
• Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4
• Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
• Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
• Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
• Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
• Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Folklore: Water, strength

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 
Urbano, Prereirada da Silva, male, 19
English student, electrician
Azores-born, Portuguese-speaking
Terciera, Azores
Oct. 2, 2001

Agua mole em pedra dura
(‘agwa ‘mo-le em pedra durya
water weak the stone strong

tantu bate ate que fura
tantu ba’te ke ‘furya)
but weak that hole


Water may be weak but it can wear down the stone.

“My father said to me when I was six or seven, when I was a student, when I didn’t understand my homework,” said Urbano, my flatmate on Terciera Island in the Azores, Portugal. Urbano is studying English, and also studying to be an electrician, he is from one of the distant outer islands, Flores. His address is Rua do Quartiero, P. Delgada 9970, Santa Cruz, Flores, Azores.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are very isolated, the islands spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite channels. However many are connected by a cell phone, a program subsidized by the government.

When I asked Urbano what he thought the proverb meant, he answered that water was soft but it was constant and if you continue to try to work at something as hard as stone, you can wear down the obstacle. It reminded me of a similar Chinese saying. 

It was interesting trying to collect folklore from Urbano as he was just learning English, and wanted a chance to practice. That's how we met, in the hotel lobby. We used a lot of intermediary methods of communicating, as I speak a passable Spanish, and can say a few phrases in Portuguese. But I am not fluent in either language. We often spoke an admixture of Spanish & Portuguese peppered with English—including pantomime and pictures. So it took three languages, and then some, to collect Urbano's folklore.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Shopping & weekends

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 

Urbano, Prereirada da Silva, male, 19
English student, electrician
Azores-born, Portuguese-speaking
Terciera, Azores
Oct. 2, 2001 

Todos as dias vão a feria menos o Sábado e o Domingo.
(Todosh osh dias vanyo a feria menosh o Sabado ee oh Domingo.)
[all the days go to for buying without except Saturday and also Sunday] 

Every day is for shopping except Saturday and except Sunday.

“My uncle in Flores said it to me when I was four or six years old, because I was jumping on the bed,” said Urbano, my flatmate on Terciera Island in the Azores, Portugal. Urbano is studying English, and also studying to be an electrician, he is from one of the distant outer islands, Flores. His address is Rua do Quartiero, P. Delgada 9970, Santa Cruz, Flores, Azores.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are very isolated, the islands spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite channels. However many are connected by a cell phone, a program subsidized by the government. As a result of isolated island living, the people are gregarious and helpful, if conservative. And many old customs are well preserved, some dating back as much as 500 years, when the Portuguese first settled there.

When I asked Urbano what he thought the proverb meant, he said that his behavior wasn’t appropriate (it must have been on a weekend). Saturday and Sunday are a very quiet day in the Azores, with everything closed up. In fact, it’s very hard to shop in the Azores as most business don’t open until ten, and then there’s the noon to three PM siesta, and most shops close by five or six PM. Some places may open after dinner, but don’t count on it. 

It was interesting trying to collect folklore from Urbano as he was just learning English, and wanted a chance to practice. That's how we met, in the hotel lobby. We used a lot of intermediary methods of communicating, as I speak a passable Spanish, and can say a few phrases in Portuguese. But I am not fluent in either language. We often spoke an admixture of Spanish & Portuguese peppered with English—including pantomime and pictures. So it took three languages, and then some, to collect Urbano's folklore.


UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Talking & Keeping silence

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 

Urbano, Prereirada da Silva, male, 19
English student, electrician
Azores-born, Portuguese-speaking
Terciera, Azores
Oct. 2, 2001 

"Quem tem boca vai a Roma."
(kejm tem ‘bo:ka va; a Roma)
Whoever has a mouth goes to Rome


“My father said to me when I was a little boy, I was talking too much. I was three,” said Urbano, my flatmate on Terciera Island in the Azores, Portugal. Urbano is studying English, and also studying to be an electrician, he is from one of the distant outer islands, Flores.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are very isolated, the islands spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite channels. However many are connected by a cell phone, a program subsidized by the government. As a result of isolated island living, the people are gregarious and helpful, if conservative. And many old customs are well preserved, some dating back as much as 500 years, when the Portuguese settled these islands. 

For example, while we were there, the islanders were readying for the ancient annual festival of the running of the bulls, where bulls are literally let lose in nearby Praia da Vittoria, to run the streets. Everybody chips in to spruce up the town. They paint their houses, board up windows and doors, and most important, they move their cars out of town at the last minute, and the festival begins.

When I asked Urbano what he thought the proverb meant, he answered with: “because the Pope lives in Rome.” This explanation didn’t help me to understand it, so I asked again and he elaborated, “Because we believe in the Pope.” 

Could it be related to Silence is next to holiness/Godliness? 

It's similar to Alberto Santo Amaro's proverb that I also collected:

"Boca calada diz tudo."
(boka kaw’lada, di:z tudo)
[A] mouth shut says everything.

And to an Irish proverb: 

“A mouth is sweet in its silence”
“Is binn béal ina thost”
(iss binn beyal eena host)
it’s (a) melodious mouth in its silence/lull 

(From “Seanfhocail,” M.F. Ó Conchuír, Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1997, Ireland; p 35, #615). 

Someone else thought that those who talked too much were sent to Rome to be executed, which gives this proverb a medieval twist. Rome was the center of power. This proverb could represent sedition agains the state or authority (parental). 

There is a Russian saying: To keep silence—that runs along that same vein—to stay under the radar of the authorities, the Soviet police. I don't have the Russian aphorism, as it was always translated to me. But this saying is similar: "In the company of strangers silence is safe."

It was interesting trying to collect folklore from Urbano as he was just learning English, and wanted a chance to practice. That's how we met, in the hotel lobby. We used a lot of intermediary methods of communicating, as I speak a passable Spanish, and can say a few phrases in Portuguese. But I am not fluent in either language. We often spoke an admixture of Spanish & Portuguese peppered with English—including pantomime and pictures. So it took three languages, and then some, to collect Urbano's folklore.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folk Speech: “[not] behind the 8-ball” folklore

Genre: Folk Speech               

Canice Santos

Oct., 1, 2001

Terciera, Azores, Portugal (restaurant)

“[not] behind the 8-ball”

We were in Praia da Vittoria in the Azores and the hotel owner was late, slow in setting up breakfast and we had a ferry to catch on the other side of the island. MyAunt Canice impatiently said, “she’ not behind the 8-ball.” I asked her how else the saying could be used and what it meant. She said it could mean, “you’re late, you’re slow, or you haven’t met your tasks. It could also mean that you’re unsuccessfully trying to meet a deadline.”

I asked her where she first heard it. She said, “I was seventeen or eighteen, working at EBSCO Industries on 515 Marked Street in San Francisco. The 8-ball is from billiards. It was my first job, I was a ditto [machine] operator. It was 1956-57. EBSCO was a military mail order club. Toddy (Canice’s sister, my aunt, and her husband), John, and your mother, Maureen all worked there.”

I’ve heard my aunt Canice use this expression most of my life. She used it a lot when she was a waitress and I was a salad girl at the Rancho Nicasio restaurant (Canice got me my first job). I was 16, it was the year Man walked on the Moon. For some reason, I associate 8-ball with that Rancho Nicasio. I remember all of us sitting at the bar watching that first giant step for mankind on TV—and we were all on company time too. Normally they were a skinflint organization. Since it was a bar, there was craps and dice, maybe even a pool table. And when playing pool, you don’t want to sink the 8-ball before you’ve sunk all your other balls. There’s a definite, progressional order to things. I thing the message is to finish first things first, and on time, and you won’t foul up or run out of time later.

Folklore: Proverb: “Actions speak louder than words.” folklore

Genre: Proverb                                                Seán Santos Dinsmore, age 6                                                                                                                                          

                                                                        Oct 1, 2001

                                                                        Fatima, Portugal (restaurant)

“Actions speak louder than words.”

My nephew Seán watched me interview my family for folklore for a month, and apparently he too wanted to get in on the act—which totally floored us. Probably it’s because he’s at the age where he thinks the world revolves around him. 

We—my aunt Canice, her daughter—my cousin Sineád, and her son Seán were in Fatima, Portugal, on a pilgrimage of sorts to the Azores in honor of Canice’s deceased Portuguese-American husband, Jimmy Santos, and we wanted to show Seán his ancestral homeland. 

The timing for our trip was very bad: it was a few days after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks and we were in rough shape in general. Canice wanted to go to Fatima, and after having visited the shrine of “Our Lady of Fatima,” we were reviving ourselves in a coffee shop after having been drenched in a downpour,  After his grandmother, my aunt Canice, had given me a bit of folklore “behind the 8-ball,” he piped up “I have one too.”

Seán said, “At the beginning of school in Miss Martha’s [MacNeil] class, she said to us, ‘actions speak louder than words.’’  Seán is a first grader in a multi-grade classroom at a tiny rural, school in Nicasio, Ca. 

I asked him what he thought it meant. He replied, “because we were screaming kids, because yellow-jackets [wasps] were landed on our burritos on Burrito Day. I slapped a couple of them.” He laughs. “She was trying to get us to stop screaming and we did. And we ate our lunch. I said it was because we were talking too loud.”

I think Seán, despite his age, understood the context of the application and the use of the proverb “actions speak louder than words” perfectly. He was a good informant, and more on-task than some of the adults I interviewed. A boy of action, he did all my work for me!

Postcard from Saõ Jorge

 

Saõ Jorge, October 1

Dear Neil, they say the past is another country and this is another country altogether. We arrived Friday night. Sinead got seasick as it was a rough crossing of 2 and a 1/2 hours, we saw dolphins. Velas, the port town, looked pretty rough, and we had trouble finding a place that was cheap, so we wound up in a dark hovel. We were looking for a cheaper place to stay, but it was a port in any storm kind of situation. Canice forgot all the guidebooks. We should’ve asked the taxi drivers who are super guidebooks here. Then, on a whim, the owner of the ferry boat canceled the Sunday boat out as there were not enough passengers, so we had no way off the island until next week. Which meant we were going to miss our flight to the mainland and Lisbon. In desperation, I approached a taxi driver and explained the situation. He gave us a fantastic tour of the island Once he realized that Candace was married to someone who came from Saõ Jorge. We were able to get a flight off the island with the help of our taxi driver, with a whole lot of arguing with the airline clerk, for a little more than the boat fare. She thought she could sock it to us because we were tourists, he gave her the what for. We leave this afternoon so all is well, after all. It rains hard here every day. But it is like Molokai. The island is a long, steep ridge, mid Atlantic kind of like Point Reyes too. It’s raining so hard, we can’t even go exploring on our last morning here. It was only an exploratory trip after all—aplace to come back to later. 

A SHORT STUDY ON SYNAESTHESIA

A SHORT STUDY ON SYNAESTHESIA

Like a writer unable to translate ideas into words,

the composer Ravel, awoke stricken with aphasia—

he could no longer translate patterns into symbols.

His new music, trapped forever in his head.

Notes descend, an angry rain piercing his skin.

La Valse, a premonition of madness coalescing

into the dimensionless existence of a Cartesian point.

We dance around the emotions.

                                                            Remnants of earlier fires.

Is it love or lust? he asks. Think of the blind man

who saw scarlet as a sounding trumpet, or the woman

who heard chromium light & turquoise when the wind raged,

and the walls between the senses come tumbling down.

Decide the dual physics of light: wave pattern

or photon particle? All shadows contain the color

of the object casting the shadow, and its opposite.

Separate emotion from logic & fully understand neither.

In a dark room, Newton reduced light to its true colors

& sought alchemical algorithms to equate the frequency of sound

with wavelengths of light, then blamed Pythagoras,

only to imprism himself: a small boy at the seashore distracted

by metaphysics of smoother pebbles & poetics of prettier shells,

while the great ocean of undiscovered truth lapped at his toes.

Aristotle wrote emotions carry their own logic.

Why was he afraid of metaphor; how did he dream?

He’d deny the music of daylight at sunrise, or the taste of sunset.

The idea of color constancy is an illusion. The artist seeks the truth

of light. Ask Kandinsky about the optics of fretted chords.

Or Nabakov of the long “O” of the alphabet at orgasm.

The logic of emotion is beyond our control.

To approach a paradox: one hand clapping with the intellect

is to either see       or to not see                        in the dark.

Try to write an objective definition of love, rearrange

memory, mix metaphors midstream. Drive Aristotle crazy.

Ask what the stars sound like.

                                                    Describe the taste of darkness.

Plato was right: we are prisoners of our feelings.

Plato was wrong: sometimes it is better to let go

the sacred chord of reason. To be lost. To surrender

            is to find your self again.

no idea when first draft was written 1999?
rev. 10/2001 2001 Transfer Magazine, #82, fall issue