Atlantis by Carlo Piano

Author:Carlo Piano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2020-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Giobatta the Humanist

Meanwhile, inside the rattling subway car, entertained by acrobats twirling in the aisle, we reach the 116th stop. At stations like this, the racket of the train is remarkable: a rumble that keeps churning, interrupted only by the more deafening screech of the brakes. Luckily, by the exit, an a cappella group is singing Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and collecting donations for a “Singing under the Streets” initiative. A Chinese man plays the violin, Mozart most likely.

Legend has it that a shadow community lives underneath the city, in the nooks and crannies of the defunct tunnels. The destitute, the insane, and the crack-addled have taken shelter underground, transforming the tunnels into campsites. Some people swear they have seen them going in and out of the grates in the early morning hours, while Manhattan is still sleeping. But I have my doubts.

When Lee Bollinger became the president of Columbia in 2002, he contacted my father almost immediately. I believe he was looking for a humanist eye, hoping to yoke the growth of the university to the growth of the neighborhood, and mindful, perhaps, of past mistakes. This wasn’t just any place. It was Harlem. The cradle of street culture.

Here, everything takes place on the street: food, music, crafts, art, sports. Even business is conducted on the street. Vendors own the sidewalks. They sell food, clothes, books, even jewelry. They wheel carts and fridges out onto the street, carry bags and crates over their shoulders. They shuttle in and out of La Marqueta, the neighborhood marketplace on Park Avenue. Bodegas selling tropical fruit sit next to stalls frying hamburgers and kebabs. Pharmacies stand shoulder to shoulder with botanicas that peddle miracle medicinal herbs and religious objects. The kind used by Santerians, voodoo priests.

The boatswain looks puzzled as he struggles to light his cigarette in the wind. Something has escaped him, a subject not covered at the Maddalena Noncommissioned Officer Academy. “What do you mean ‘humanist’?” he asks. I try to answer. It’s an uncommon word, one hardly spoken anymore.

What is a humanist? Essentially, a humanist is someone who knows how to marry, say, the world of science with that of art, memory with invention. Leon Battista Alberti was an architect, but he also wrote about childhood education and drew up codices about cryptography. According to my father, being Italian helps you grasp the larger story, gives you the perspective you need to see the bigger picture.

He says that he feels like a humanist, even if he doesn’t have a literary or artistic background. He said it himself: at school he was a dunce. When he was in third grade a priest swore on the cross that little Renzo was a lost cause. My grandmother Rosa took him to a psychologist, who diagnosed him as a child of normal intelligence. He couldn’t study and got distracted in class, but he was not a fool.

I remember once, many years ago, an exhibit for my father at Palazzo Tursi in Genoa. One of

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