The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio

A muezzim's cry over bass, drums and violins? Or a Tunisian counterpointing with a Senegalese singer sided by sax trumpet and some kind of Brazilian ukulele? I guess this could happe in NYC, and indeed this happened last night as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

But I would have never guessed that this could have arisen from the Roman Sq. (Piazza Vittorio) where my grand-mother used to lure my 5 year old self
with Hungarian salami and other forbidden foods, and where the Russian emigrees, who had dubbed the place "round market," used to shop on the cheap. The market was disbanded in the early nineties and the area soon became. Rome's China town.
The area was and still is considered relatively unsafe and grungy. From the crucible of ethnicities the space for new sound appeared.
Last night I heard World Music, if there was ever anything representative of the genre this was it. I have ofted styled my native country as provincial. Last night I was proved wrong!
And happily so!
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

The day after π-day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_day) let me celebrate the other, unsung hero of transcendental numbers, I mean the number e, of course. If π is the poet of numbers, e is their workhorse, straddling pure and applied math, bearing the burden as the ... base. Let me propose an e-day! Let's see possible candidates: Obvious digital patterns: February 7 (with e-minute at 6:28 PM) July 2 (European) April 15 (Euler's taxing b-day) April 4 (Napier's death day---grim!---his b-day is unknown) Shall we vote? By the way, if MIT bakes the πs, Wall St. should foot the e-party's bill given that e is the foundation stone of quantitative finance ...

And after that we can establish Transcendental Day. I propose February 3 with trans-minute at 2:06 PM. (e^π ~ 23.1406926327793... the simplest function of the two giants of transcendence that has been proven transcendental, aka Gelfond's constant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_number)

Today (March 7, 2007) Izvestia (after ITAR-TASS) revealed that Jenna Bush signed a contract with Harper Collins to publish Anna's Story: a Journey of Hope http://www.izvestia.ru/news/news128867/ The contract is worth 300K to her. (Radar had caught the news in late January, but the Russian details have more ... pulp and perhaps less friction) According to Izvestia the book is a fictional journey of edification of a 17 year old HIV-positive single mother (anything else?), apparently inspired by Jenna's relief work in South and Central America. Its title and contents remind of (and hearken back?) Obama's Audacity of Hope One can't avoid speculating that this is another step into the making of a Bush Dauphine. She still has ten years to be eligible for a presidential ticket. Precocious campaign! (Talking about overworked kids, can you imagine a politico toddler fighting for a minimum play-time, or against quotas in minority dolls?)

Among the many absurdities that our Western comsumeristic society encourages the "wrong pursuit" is archetypal. To flesh up this sweeping and seeming moralistic contention, let me expound with an example.

Cappucinos. Or any frothy coffee beverage for that matter. Long ago I stopped buying such beverages at Starbuck's, and not only beacuse I perfected the art of frothing with my humble espresso maker. The main reason is actually the ease of extraction of the froth, none. Such beverages are served in paper cups that despite their Italian sizes (grande, venti, ok making "tall" sound Italian is a tall order) are just like any good old paper cup. But what makes the enjoyment of the froth a a near impossibility is the dutiful plastic lid with its small orifice. Now, praytell, what fraction of the froth can you manage to drink through that opening? And even if you are brave enough to lift the lid that protects you from the hot, law-suit-friendly liquids can you drink froth?

In the country where "cappuccino" and "latte" mix with "senza crema" or "chiaro" and a homogenous flow of kin words before the counters of hectic baristas, the solution is and has been threefold. The good ole ceramic cup, supported by its companion saucer, and (roll of drums) the tea-(or should I say "coffee-")spoon. Properly equipped with these implements, Italians can either mix the froth and reasonably drink it, or, as I suggest and like, eat it! It should be noted that Italian cappuccinos are usually smaller than the smallest size you order in the US and the froth is even a smaller fraction of the total. Froth, in my opinion, is not even the chief reason why most drink cappuccino in the Bel Paese. Some even dare order frothless cappuccinos (adding the aforementioned "senza crema" as "crema" has recently replaced the more literal "schiuma").

Instead, here in the US, it's a safe bet that we like it frothy. I was nearly allways able to get a plastic spoon (blame me for wasting for hedonism's sake) to scoop up the precious milky air, but I was the only one to do so and sometimes even told that doing so was weird. Well, certainly Starbuck's like it so. Think about the additional cost of providing all cappuccino and latte drinkers---not to mention the full fledged dessert beverages that sport whipped cream and other very "spoonable" delights on their tops--- with a spoon? And they do not seem to like the "Italian model" after which you would encourage staying customers to drink from ceramic cups, which are supposed to enhance the taste of such beverages. But do we like it so?

After all this criticizing you would probably think I do not patron Starbuck's. I do. I cannot easily find comparable quality on my hasty way to work in Manhattan. I do order drips, just plain coffee, usually choosing the more exotic blends, which they rotate every week, and I am grateful for this reasonably good quality. I seize my hot cup by the sleeve and with my free hand push the door open. As I step out into the morning bustle I turn toward the trash bin and think to myself how many cups half full of froth lie in there!