A Modest Proposal both serious and humorous: the euro and the dollar through the roof in the cellar, why not a holiday in the U.S.? If you believe, for example, that Rome or Paris costing too much, you could plan a trip in the state of Ohio: There are six town called Rome, a New Rome, two in Paris, a New Paris, Vienna, New Vienna, two Berlin and West Berlin - all at moderate cost. Just do not expect the Colosseum or the Eiffel Tower (that, as noted, is in Las Vegas).
Northern League of possible supporters and Po is also given the opportunity dell'agognata revenge: Parma (Ohio) is the largest and most important of all of that was Rome. And for the brief moments of acute nostalgia is always Nuovaberna (that's right, everything attached: Newbern, Ohio). Now, thanks to German director Wim Wenders, most people know that Paris is in Texas - but it is also in Kentucky, Iowa, Idaho, and a dozen other states in the Union. How, moreover, Rome, Vienna and Berlin (by the United States stubbornly resist, in spite of the fall of the Berlin Wall, at least five incarnations of East Berlin, including two in one Pennsylvania - but it would obviously be wrong to read any regrets about the late Communist Germany).
(Cuba, New Mexico) The highlight of the walk is reached, however, going in search of Lake Como, with or without branch aimed at noon. The first one discovered in Pennsylvania, but is not a lake but a village of two hundred souls drowned between green hills. A similar creature, a tiny and unlikely, is in the Deep South: Lake Como, Mississippi (no lake, two ponds to half a kilometer), together with more substantial Como, Mississippi: thousand three hundred inhabitants, one quarter and three quarters white blacks (but please call them "African Americans"). Then there is the great sea on Lake Como: Lake Como, New Jersey, a charming resort overlooking the Atlantic with fresh water pool of the same name about fifty yards from the ocean. And finally - wonderful masterpiece of understanding between Italy and Switzerland - that's tick Lake Como, Wisconsin (town and adjoining lake share the name), just half a mile from Geneva and their body of water: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It stings consult the spirit of the vagueness of Manzoni to hear that you think of quest'ardito combination with the city of Calvin ...
But why - dear reader, dear reader - I'll tell you all this nonsense? Obliquely to remember that America, the young daughter of your continent, you can not offer the splendor of that Old World who wanted to leave behind, reaching below the labels in the hope of rifarne content. Wonders of nature at will. But nothing Acropolis, Pompeii, Baths of Caracalla, the Loire castles, palaces of Versailles (the spread between Connecticut and Missouri, there are nine Versailles, but I fear it is better to let it go).
(Monument Valley, Arizona) Seen from here, from the botched suburb of Washington that has your humble reporter, Europe looks like a huge and amazing museum town, a beauty almost obscene, certainly provocative - to discover, enjoy and savor every corner in the same spirit with which it is, precisely, to the museum. But the United States is quite another thing, especially for tourists. The big cities are worthy of interest, attractive, tasty and enjoyable, very few are at the bottom: New York, Boston, the center of Washington, the French Quarter of New Orleans devastated, the skyscrapers of Chicago, the incomparable San Francisco (some suggerisce d’aggiungervi Seattle). Le altre sono suppergiù tutte uguali, schematiche, prevedibili, non appagano, non gratificano l’occhio (se insisti, eccoti un paio di perle meno note: Charleston nella Carolina del sud e Savannah in Georgia). L’America, terra dal passato intenso ma brevissimo, non ha – e non può avere - le qualità museali dell’Europa, il suo sfacciato splendore, il suo fascino immediato.
(Offerle, Kansas) L’America sfoggia un patrimonio naturale grandioso e impressionante, certo, ma la vera bellezza del paese va colta nel suo spirito, nei suoi sogni emigrati fin qui dall’Europa e più tardi da ogni angolo del pianeta, nella sua storia fatta di grandi aneliti, grandi errori, grandi conquiste, e piccole reliquie poco appariscenti. Solo così è possibile digerire, e magari persino apprezzare, le volgari arterie commerciali, i neon rutilanti, le pance obese esibite al barbecue del sabato pomeriggio, i quartieri in falso stile colonial-neo-tradizionale che sembrano usciti dall’irresistibile Truman Show. Andare a zonzo per l’America significa visitare un’idea più che un territorio; significa fare il turista in un grande progetto, un immenso e disordinato laboratorio, spesso francamente bruttino: meglio saperlo start.
But if July 4 if you had to find you impoverished and decayed in Philadelphia, city of the Declaration of Independence and the first capital of the Union, sit on the curb and watch the parade: parade before your eyes you will see representatives of all peoples of the world, united under the same flag in the name of ethnicity, religion or language, but by virtue of a project. Born on the genocide of the Native American population and marked by the terrible sin of slavery, America today is this anyway, like it or not: an idea that barely limps, repeatedly betrayed and always raise, a bit 'confused and scared, but fortunately has not yet thrown in the towel.
I hope.
(© VASCO DONES;
published in the weekly Swiss ACTION summer 2007)
(Washington, DC, January 20, 2009: Inauguration Day)
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