Tag: Rome

  • ODDS and ENDS: The NYC Christmas Myth, Cookies, and Mass from the Vatican

    (Midnight is when the day begins…)

    One of my family’s Holiday traditions is for us to watch an episode of Hawkeye each night leading up to Christmas Day. It’s a fun miniseries, that is silly enough, and also plays the right emotional notes for the Season. But one thing that I have noticed watching it year after year is that the production designer went out of their way to make New York City look as Christmas idyllic as possible, especially in their use of snow. There is snow on the ground and falling all the time in the show, which hasn’t happened in NYC in close to twenty years. I think I had one Holiday season, maybe 2007, where there was snow on the ground, and fun snow showers that would pass through. I’m not knocking the designer’s choices with snow, as if you want to make the City look Holiday picturesque, that’s how you do it. It just makes me miss, maybe mourn a little, that the world has changed enough now, that even up in here in the Northeast, snow at Christmas is a rarity.

    Does anyone else think of a chocolate chip cookie as a Christmas cookie? Not that you’re wondering, but I do. My Ma didn’t do a ton of baking, but around the Holidays she did, and that was pretty much the only time she’d make chocolate chip cookies. Yes, she would do sugar cookies, and scotch cookies, and sometimes oatmeal as well. But the chocolate chip was the winner in our house.

    I’m not a very religious person. I was raised Catholic, but as soon as I could get away from the Church, I did. I have many, many issues with the Church, and as I have gotten older, and had a daughter, the more I am sure that I won’t be returning. Yet, every Christmas Eve, I can’t help but watch Midnight Mass from the Vatican. A deep through line of Catholicism runs in me, and for that reason, the traditions and history of the Church still are interesting to me.

  • Short Story Review: “Long Distance,” by Aysegul Savas

    (The short story “Long Distance,” by Aysegul Savas, appeared in the January 31st, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Sometimes it’s nice to read a love story. And sometimes it’s also nice to read a love story about “relationships where you get jerked around,” to quote the Fortune Teller from The Simpsons. When it came to Aysegul Savas’ story “Long Distance,” it’s a love story about two people who try not to jerk each other around, but might be jerking each other around.

    This was a story that seemed like it could have been published in Collier’s back in the 50’s, as it sort of had the casualness of a Post-War world where American’s came and went in Europe, like visiting a farm upstate – free of the burdens the rest of the world is dealing with. The story is basically about Lea, a student doing a semester of research in Rome, and her male gentleman friend (I don’t think he is ever referred to as a boyfriend) Leo, coming to visit her from California. Their relationship is new, starting just before she left for Rome, and has consisted of phone calls and emails. There is a large anticipation on Lea’s part, and when Leo arrives, the two never seems to line up their intentions, especially when it comes to a story about an elderly woman Leo met on his flight to Rome.

    I am a fan of the short story with subtle and small events that have impactful ramifications to character’s lives, even to the point where the reader understands the importance though the characters may not. That’s what I think this story was aiming for, and I feel it succeeded at that goal. I understood Lea’s high expectations for Leo’s visit, and how when each miscommunication occurs, she feels more insecure that the trip will be a failure. The story is from her point of view, as she is the only character we get internal thoughts from, so we have to take Leo’s words and actions, and figure out what is his truth. I like that Savas structured his story in that way, as it doesn’t make Leo’s true intentions the focus, but rather Lea’s decision on what she thinks is Leo’s true intention are. For that reason, I feel the story stuck its landing.