Archive for November, 2007

Anyone who has traveled on the Toronto subway system or visited New York’s Grand Central Station recently could not help but see a sophisticated ad campaign about Italy. With the slogan “Italy for life” the two dozen different posters go beyond the usual photos of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to portray everything from spas to locations for business meetings. The posters sing about “landscapes where emotions come alive,” “culture that inspires” and “artistic beauty that fascinates.”

You don’t need to convince me. Still, I wanted to find out more about the campaign so I called the Toronto office of the Italian Government Tourist Board, told them about my book, and was offered a meeting the very next day with media officer Salvatore Basile and Enzo Colombo, Director for Canada, who’d been in the job less than a week.

As someone who has spent a professional career as a journalist and author trying to arrange interviews, I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to be received so expeditiously and with such enthusiasm. One of the themes of Fantasy in Florence is how much we can learn about life and how to live it from Italians. Here’s another lesson: when someone asks to see you, say yes.

So, on twenty-four hours notice I had a delightful 45-minute encounter with my two new friends. Enzo Colombo has just arrived in Toronto, but he knows Canada well, having been posted to Montreal in a similar role in the past. They were happy to hear of my book. Indeed, Enzo had met author Frances Mayle when he was working for the Italian Tourist Board in San Francisco. That office arranged several events with her until her book, Under the Tuscan Sun, became so famous that she had no more time for such undertakings.

Enzo has kindly invited me to attend a Tuscan workshop December 6 at the Columbus Centre where people from Tuscany who work in hospitality services will meet with Toronto-based individuals in the same business.

I have been swept into this family as if I had been born into it. It’s a familiar feeling. Sandy and I were made equally welcome when we lived in Florence. Sal and Enzo, thank you for making me feel at home in my home, Toronto. Only an Italian could do it.

The strike by the Writers Guild of America offers a glimpse into the future of intellectual property and how people get paid for cranial creativity. At the moment, 20 per cent of all U.S. homes have TiVo, which means TV programs can be downloaded and watched whenever the viewer chooses - without having to bother with the commercials. A recent New York Times article flat-out declared this means the end of television and drew a parallel to how vaudeville performers must have felt when talking movies arrived. If there are no eyeballs watching soap ads, why should Dove bother spending the money?

If that revenue dries up, the writers worry, how ever will they make money from digital distribution, downloading, filesharing, etc. of their work? The same sea change has hurt recording artists and record labels because most under-30s steal music so there is no revenue to share. CD sales are down one-third since 2000. If it can happen to television and music, it can also happen to books and their authors.

The first book I wrote in 1983, The Moneyspinners, fetched a retail price of $26.95. The Icarus Factor, published in 2004, cost $37.95. (I’m using the Bronfman book as the comparison, not the more recent Fantasy in Florence, which is smaller and costs less.)

Even if a book is discounted by the retailer my 15 per cent royalty remains measured from the list price. So over two decades, my per book royalty rose from $4 to $5.70, a 42.5 per cent increase that has not kept pace with inflation. Still, I don’t complain, because digital copies are not available for the taking. No one has been ripping books; e-book machines have not yet become popular.

This will not continue. There will come a time, likely within five years, that demand will grow for digital versions. No matter if my contract includes payments from e-books, who’s going to collect my royalties from the book brigands?

When that day comes, the published book as we now know it - with good cover design, a spine that cracks with joy when first opened, pages with vellum heft - will be available only in small-run artisan-style printings. Publishing, already a tough business in which to make money, will become even more difficult. Authors will join bootblacks as an endangered species. Maybe it’s just my own self-interest, but I’d like to think the world can do without another foolish reality show but would be the worse off if the next crop of young writers goes unpaid for producing the twenty-first century equivalents of To the Lighthouse, The Great Gatsby or Fifth Business.

Of all the people we met in Florence, the one with the most impact was Peter Porcal, the resident art historian for the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD). Now in his early sixties, Peter has led his “children” for more than two decades. That’s Peter pictured at the top of the blog adroitly holding a spray of peppers. Click on the photo to enlarge it for a closer look.

Every Wednesday morning, he takes successive classes of students somewhere in Florence to see Renaissance art. He also leads day trips and weekend excursions to the antique sales in Lucca, the wonders of Rome, the contemporary art fair in Bologna, and on and on. Fantasy in Florence would be a poorer book without Peter’s encyclopedic knowledge of art history. He also speaks six languages but until I visited OCAD this past weekend I never knew how well Peter could write.

Peter penned a farewell to the most recent group of students at the time of their final exhibit in Florence in April 2007. When the show was remounted at OCAD this fall, his words were again associated with their art. Read these four paragraphs, titled “Angels Without Wings,” and marvel at his feeling and the phrasing.

“You may already not remember, but we have seen this year two famous examples of angels represented without wings. The first image was the beautiful Byzantine mosaic from the late sixth century in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna. In this mosaic we see Abraham surprised in his home by three beautiful young men. Without hesitation he sits them at his table and treats them with lamb and wine. He does not yet know that these three young men at his table are angels. They do not have wings.

“The second example of angels without wings we saw is famous: they are Michelangelo’s angels in his Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican; but now that you are leaving, I am thinking rather about Abraham’s angels. Young, gentle, beautiful as you all are.

“It has now been more than twenty years that I have been with OCAD students in Florence. Year after year, hundreds of students. One can not remember now all their names even if I would like to remember them. One can not remember all of their faces even though some of them suddenly surface in my mind’s eye. Although what I do remember is that they were equally young, gentle, beautiful.

“They say here about Abraham that when the three youngsters left his house, not having any visible wings, Abraham, suddenly and for a long time still, did hear in the silence of his home, flapping of wings. Good flight, children!”

Prior to going to Florence, I knew there were two stories I wanted to tell: the pressing of olive oil and the tasting of vintage wine. In November, when the olive harvest was in full flight, the opportunity arose for us to see how olive oil was made. It was our landlord, Roberto Bianchi, who made the arrangements for us to visit Villa S. Andrea in Montefiridolfi, 20 km. south of Florence. In addition to harvesting their own olives, Villa S. Andrea also acts as a co-operative. Signor Bianchi takes his olives there for pressing, so he was able to make the introductions for us.

As with a lot of food-related processes, picking, preparing, and pressing the olives is a labor-intensive effort involving many steps. In this case, it seemed to me that the key was to plunge readers in, then step back, and try to simplify matters while keeping things interesting.

That’s why I introduce this section at p. 94 with the instruction I received, “Stick your finger in.” This moment is well along in the production because the oil exists, but hopefully, it intrigues the reader and focuses on the taste - which is what olive oil is all about.

After that, I backtracked, and in the words of our host, we followed the path of the olives. And admired the property that was used by the Romans as a lookout across the valley. You can see the view in Sandy’s evocative two-page illustration on pp. 96-7.

Italy also introduced us to olio nuovo, the “new oil” that becomes available about this time of year and and has a short shelf life of about three months. Grass green in colour, olio nuovo is so fresh, so piquant that it spoils you forever for any other olive oil, no matter how many virgins were involved.

In Florence, a one liter bottle of olio nuovo cost ten euros, the equivalent of C$16 at the time. Once we were back in Canada, I sought it out, and found it, frozen. Frozen? Yes, they explained, freezing the contents in Italy permitted shipping and storage to occur without cutting into the shelf life. I could buy it, take it home, let it thaw, and have the benefit of the full three months.

That makes sense, I thought. How much, I asked? “$45 for 500 ml.” Almost six times what it cost in Italy! For all I know that little bottle is still sitting there, frozen. I sure didn’t buy it.

It doesn’t matter. Anytime I want, I can reread that section of the book, feel again that olive oil on my finger, and recall that first taste of the spicy ambrosia touching my tongue. If only books had scratch and sniff. Meanwhile, words will have to do.