Author: Thomas Fleming

Kenneth Patchen, in his novel Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer, created a hapless character whose greatest ambition in life was to write a Perry Mason novel.  Although an extremely ordinary man from nowheresville—Bivalve, New Jersey—and although endowed with  a quintessentially nondescript name:  Alfred Budd, it was his name that kept on landing him in bizarre adventures.  Walking down the street, some shifty character would say, “Hey bud, come here, and, thinking he was being called by name, he stopped to listen to the con.  I know how he felt.  I lived like this for decades, and when I ended up...

After a bit more than a week, we are beginning to feel ourselves comfortable, if not exactly at home on the Viale Glorioso.  The neighborhood was already somewhat familiar but from the perspective, first, of the Piazza dell Scala (not far from Santa Maria in Trastevere), where we had the tinies and, as we thought, worst apartment in Trastevere, second, from walking down from the Gianicolo.  My favorite goat-paths often  landed me at San Cosimato, where they have the open market a few blocks from our apartment. Our little two-bedroom apartment is not far from the Scalea del Tamburino—several flights...

On Monday, we got up at a decent hour and had the simplest of breakfasts.  I needed to work in the morning, but in the afternoon, after a very light lunch, we planned to walk to the Capitoline Museum—about two kilometers if all the shortcuts were taken—and spend a few hours there before returning. Walking up the Vico Jugario, however, we began to see ominous signs—yellow tape blocking off the parking spaces—and, when we turned up the winding Via di Monte Tarpeio, the entrances to the pathway up to the Capitol were also taped off.  Since the gates were left...

I’ll try to write more on Naples and weave it into my Rome diary, but to avoid getting too far behind, let us return to Rome, which we did in a geographical sense last Thursday, 20 January 2016. The train ride was uneventful, and we wisely avoided all the taxi-hustlers who greet you as you come out of Termini station and took a regular white Rome taxi.  It was still 20 euros to our apartment in Trastevere, though we have paid more on occasion. The driver was a wit.  He started in on politics.  “Are you following the elections,” he...

I had only been to Naples perhaps twice, once on my own for a day in order to see the Museo Archeologico, and then for New Years with most of the family 7-8 years ago.  Apart from the Museum and the pizza, I cannot say that I much liked the city for all the usual reasons: It was dirty, there were too many beggars, and the whole place seemed sinking in crime, corruption, and sycophancy. This time, I decided, I should give the city one more chance.  I picked a hotel in the Centro Storico, the Albergo Palazzo Decumani.  The...

Rome AMT 16 Part 2 What do I say about Rome, after a brief visit of three and a half days, that has not been said before by everyone including myself?  What could be more tedious than one of those breathless travel pieces written by visitors to famous places who have faithfully followed their master Rick Steves or The Blue Guide?  If only the gushers would adopt the blank-screen strategy I have recommended, and look at Rome with the fresh eyes of a Martian visitor!  But no, they have to say something significant, which means, in the end, they get...

Rome 2016 I I left Rockford with the best intentions.  I was going to write and post a diary of our six weeks (plus a few days) in Italy, even including the boring details of transatlantic travel post -911 or, as I prefer to call it, in the Age of Muslim Terrorism, as in “we left home on January 7, AMT 16. Our brief escape from the Midwestern Winter and presidential politicking seemed doomed from the start.  Jim Easton was kind enough to take us to the Van Galder bus station, where we soon learned that the departure schedule had...