Rome Journal III - Of All the Joints in All the World

I have to record an amazing encounter in an incredibly funky bar--not the usual Italian bar but a classic American one. Yesterday afternoon, after I had finished everything I needed to do at the AAR library and thanked the staff, Ron and I went out to run errands and have dinner. The errand running is worth a mention by itself. Ron is worried that my suitcase (cheap Italian one picked up years ago to hold extra purchases, and pressed into service because my expensive Rick Steves carry-on broke)will not make the return journey--it's already lost a handle and the wheels are coming loose. At the very least, he urged me, get a wrap-around strap. Where do you find such a thing in Trastevere, and how do you ask for it? Well, I remembered the word for "belt": "cintura." And I knew "suitcase": "valigia." As for where, I tried a hardware store: "cerco una cintura per la valigia." Amazingly, the proprietor knew what I was asking for, and from a box above the register he pulled one that works perfectly. That will never happen again, under any circumstances. Purchases made--soap, two mystery novels for the plane--we had a really nice dinner at a trattoria right on the main street and decided on a limoncello after dinner to top off the evening. On the corner of Via Mameli there is a storefront, and through the plate glass window you can see a bar with stools, couches and small tables. We thought it was attached to the restaurant next door, but there's no connection--it's a separate place called the Big Star, and though it doesn't serve limoncello, it offers six beers on tap, good inexpensive wines, and atmosphere. The sound system is amazing, and a fantastic collection of jazz CDs lines the walls--together with posters of Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz greats. That's it. The whole place is tucked in between that restaurant and a veterinary clinic, and it can't be much larger than our apartment. Most astonishing of all, we were enjoying the music and drinks when another couple walked in. The woman looked at me and said, "Marilyn Skinner?" She was a former Classics major at the U of A, one of my students, and now she and her partner are running a private tour-guide service in Rome, where she uses her Classics background to give in-depth lectures on the ruins. I've run into ex-students in some very odd places, but I think this incident sets the record for coincidence. Today was really nice, too. First I had coffee with Anna Jackson, who is a professor of English at the University of Wellington in New Zealand, but also a published author currently writing a cycle of poems where she speaks in the voice of Clodia Metelli. Jeff Tatum, a colleague of hers at Wellington, introduced her to me by e-mail. If nothing else, she's consulting a team of experts--Jeff is the world's authority on P. Clodius Pulcher, and, given my own work on Clodia, there isn't much we can't tell her about that rather strange pair of siblings. In the afternoon, we saw the Ara Pacis, housed in the new and apparently still controversial museum designed by Meier. Lighting allows excellent photography. Sadly, the Mausoleum of Augustus is still next door, forlorn and locked up. I doubt it will ever be opened to the public, at least in my lifetime.