More on the Medieval bridge... Archive post September 4, 2019
A little hiatus. Sorry. An August vacation. It was necessary. I felt I deserved it. You too. I did not do vacation things, however. Nope. Too hot for that sort of stuff. I did not need to work on a tan, unlike a certain person I know. He’s now black, if you are at all curious. You never misses a beat to sunbathe. If I followed his lead, I would be a prime candidate for skin cancer. Anglo-Saxons are prone to this. Burn, freckly, cancer. Meanwhile, every sunny afternoon, You would religiously saunter down to the river…
with 2 green plastic patio chairs…
there is this architect/professor, Witold Rhsycincki, who wrote a book entitled Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History. Yep. A real history. On chairs. Thrilling reading. The last chapter of the tome was on the plastic patio chair. A global item. Undeniably. I got the very distinct impression he is HORRIFIED by plastic patio chairs. Its global reach. Bali to Bournemouth fright. Yep. A snob. A chair snob. He adores the Barcelona Chair. Have you ever sat in one of those? How about the Breuer Chair? Both killers on your back and butt. You & I think plastic patio chairs are comfortable & chic. Of course, plopping batik pillows helps them achieve those two qualities.
a striped beach towel…
one I bought in 1998 in Florence and made from the heartiest of Egyptian cottons, resistant to untold numbers of washings over the years…
his smart-phone and a book he could have cared less about. You is a fast reader. And, never does he not finish a book. I ask him what he is reading and 3 out of 5 times he replies… Something rather tedious. OK.
I remained barricaded within the confines of la Casa Grande… cool, quiet, calm, and accompanied by two spoiled Weimaraners. One a convicted Kat Killer. Ahime’…
There were more important things to fret about. Such as the attempted resurrection of Codiponte’s Medieval bridge. What a botched affair.
Since my last installment…
The People have rebelled. Outraged. Over the bridge in its new resurrected state. Often Italians lose themselves in outrage. They become mired in excessive & constant conversation and thus, inaction. Not the Citizens of Codiponte! Several banded together and circulated a petition. Of course, I signed it. I like unity with others who have done the Math too though I did it way before anyone else. But, alas, I was not consulted. Neither were The People. Thus, outrage. Italy is actually a bully state. An authoritarian entity in sheep’s clothing. Hiding in isolation from the very folk it is supposed to govern… democratically. The bane of Our Times. The Citizens launched their salvo. The petition stated in typically Italian bureaucratise but, fairly concise, calling for the authorities to immediately address the grotesque defects of the Medieval bridge… fatiguing arches to trip down and clamber back up… twice!… bye-bye to lugging groceries or, your own body… annoyingly uneven & dangerous stone pavements, lethal stone projections of no purpose, eliminating an ugly plastic tube running across the balustrade from one end to the other, inadequate drainage, ditto for lighting sorely required to navigate the treachery of the bridge’s pavements at night. To repeat… old folk cannot cross the bridge, nor families with small children on foot or, in strollers, women in high-heels or, platform shoes, and ambulances cannot cross to enter the village. There is actually A Law on the books stipulating ambulance must have complete accessibility to serve its citizens. Not any more.
You know, as My Father would always say… There was a good reason something was the way it was.
Pretty much everyone in Codiponte and elsewhere nearby is pretty keen to have the bridge flat and with regular, even pavements and the rest. If the authority can do the pavements in stone, OK. If not, do something practical, safe, nice to look at.
We shall see.
The latest scoop is…
The Culture Police now want to re-do the pavement of Codiponte’s piazzetta. Any bets they will botch this up too? If they do, there’s going to be another p-e-t-i-t-i-o-n.
Piazzetta in Codiponte, Tuscany Italia… its future will be repaved in stone.