her best to warn them against coming down here. Nobody had paid a bit of attention to Popper’s warnings.
Gavin glanced at his wristwatch. “Look, I hate to say this, but I need to leave this place right away. There’s a major panel this morning, sponsored by LOXY. Fabio Mascherati of LOXY is chairing that panel. Fabio’s a personal friend. He would take it badly if I didn’t show up.”
“All those Futurists are sure to start late,” Farfalla told him.
“I’m already late. You ladies can sort this out. I have no choice here, I really have to go.”
Gavin Tremaine vaulted up the stairs, jumping them two at a time. He vanished from the dungeon, as if he had never existed.
Farfalla looked at the other women. Well, here they were. Three women in the dungeon of pain, where no woman ever wanted to be.
Three women? No, four women. Because a woman had owned that suitcase.
8 I speak Portuguese
9 “I’m sorry, but Dr. Malaparte is not here. She is in Anacapri, and will not be here until tomorrow.”
Chapter Seven: Tomorrow’s Trends in Web Couture
Gavin had assumed that preaching in a chapel would be easy. But the acoustics in the medieval chapel were dreadful. It had something to do with the host of display screens.
Gavin sat in the front row, but still couldn’t follow the rapid Italian of the panelists. He slipped translation headphones over his ears. Most of the other Futurists were also wearing headphones. Everyone alone together, in his or her own private world.
Fabio Mascherati was this panel’s moderator. Fabio had personally picked the guests for LOXY’s major panel on future fashion trends. Fabio’s favorite fashion “thought leaders” did not look very fashionable. They wore neat, black European intellectual’s clothes, and looked like cut-out cartoons.
There was a philosopher on Fabio’s panel, because every Italian cultural panel had to have a philosopher. There was a television host who made Italian fashion documentaries. There was a sober female politician from Brussels. Her European committee handed out grants to “centers of regional excellence.” Centers like Milan, for instance, the home of LOXY.
There was also one Paris fashionista, sitting on stage like a hostage. In European high fashion, Milan and Paris had it in for each other. They were like Apple and Microsoft.
Europeans could be scary people. They said such nice, sweet, guarded, phony things about one another in public. Intellectual European panels like this one were about Europeans assuring themselves, over and over, that they wouldn’t massacre each other anymore.
The European Union was a huge empire where the lambs walked around on the lions’ backs. There was a suppressed violence to European life that got on Gavin’s nerves. You never heard Europeans address deep, dark issues in a frank, honest, way: “Hi, I’m from Italy and you’re from France! Remember when you French guys bombed us in World War Two?”
Europeans had their ghosts to remember things like that.
Italians were supremely good at hiding facts. Nobody could match them at this. A ceremonious people, the Italians. The public appearance, the live human presence, gesture and speech, the human breath, the flesh and blood- - that strongly appealed to Italians. Italian listeners were never bored by empty speeches. Italians loved a warm, positive, high-toned performance.
It wasn’t all just pleasant blather, either. Every once in a while, there would be a good stinging insult in an Italian speech. Just one good elbow-swinging zinger, to show that Italian life wasn’t all peaches and lemon meringue.
The Italian philosopher was talking about the loss of middle-class aspiration and the emergence of new forms of material culture. Gavin took this opportunity to open his computer and pretend to take notes. Actually, Gavin was catching up on his Twitter stream. “Twitter” was the web service where the Internet people in the audience were passing their
Gavin glanced at his wristwatch. “Look, I hate to say this, but I need to leave this place right away. There’s a major panel this morning, sponsored by LOXY. Fabio Mascherati of LOXY is chairing that panel. Fabio’s a personal friend. He would take it badly if I didn’t show up.”
“All those Futurists are sure to start late,” Farfalla told him.
“I’m already late. You ladies can sort this out. I have no choice here, I really have to go.”
Gavin Tremaine vaulted up the stairs, jumping them two at a time. He vanished from the dungeon, as if he had never existed.
Farfalla looked at the other women. Well, here they were. Three women in the dungeon of pain, where no woman ever wanted to be.
Three women? No, four women. Because a woman had owned that suitcase.
8 I speak Portuguese
9 “I’m sorry, but Dr. Malaparte is not here. She is in Anacapri, and will not be here until tomorrow.”
Chapter Seven: Tomorrow’s Trends in Web Couture
Gavin had assumed that preaching in a chapel would be easy. But the acoustics in the medieval chapel were dreadful. It had something to do with the host of display screens.
Gavin sat in the front row, but still couldn’t follow the rapid Italian of the panelists. He slipped translation headphones over his ears. Most of the other Futurists were also wearing headphones. Everyone alone together, in his or her own private world.
Fabio Mascherati was this panel’s moderator. Fabio had personally picked the guests for LOXY’s major panel on future fashion trends. Fabio’s favorite fashion “thought leaders” did not look very fashionable. They wore neat, black European intellectual’s clothes, and looked like cut-out cartoons.
There was a philosopher on Fabio’s panel, because every Italian cultural panel had to have a philosopher. There was a television host who made Italian fashion documentaries. There was a sober female politician from Brussels. Her European committee handed out grants to “centers of regional excellence.” Centers like Milan, for instance, the home of LOXY.
There was also one Paris fashionista, sitting on stage like a hostage. In European high fashion, Milan and Paris had it in for each other. They were like Apple and Microsoft.
Europeans could be scary people. They said such nice, sweet, guarded, phony things about one another in public. Intellectual European panels like this one were about Europeans assuring themselves, over and over, that they wouldn’t massacre each other anymore.
The European Union was a huge empire where the lambs walked around on the lions’ backs. There was a suppressed violence to European life that got on Gavin’s nerves. You never heard Europeans address deep, dark issues in a frank, honest, way: “Hi, I’m from Italy and you’re from France! Remember when you French guys bombed us in World War Two?”
Europeans had their ghosts to remember things like that.
Italians were supremely good at hiding facts. Nobody could match them at this. A ceremonious people, the Italians. The public appearance, the live human presence, gesture and speech, the human breath, the flesh and blood- - that strongly appealed to Italians. Italian listeners were never bored by empty speeches. Italians loved a warm, positive, high-toned performance.
It wasn’t all just pleasant blather, either. Every once in a while, there would be a good stinging insult in an Italian speech. Just one good elbow-swinging zinger, to show that Italian life wasn’t all peaches and lemon meringue.
The Italian philosopher was talking about the loss of middle-class aspiration and the emergence of new forms of material culture. Gavin took this opportunity to open his computer and pretend to take notes. Actually, Gavin was catching up on his Twitter stream. “Twitter” was the web service where the Internet people in the audience were passing their
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