SENZA RADICI
This is how it works. You order another Grand Marnier on the dime of that rich old guy who says he runs the studio where Alice Mutton recorded their latest album and when you fade back in it’s foggy, you’re outside, and two violinists stand over you, recite the Nicene Creed until you, too, think you believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.
It’s when you get up and walk home you realize these guys are with you for good, and there are only so many reels your head can process before you need to sleep the sleep of the spray-tanned sailor. At the risk of being seen a walnut, you ask, in as polite a tone as you can muster, if your new friends might cease and desist, at least till cockcrow, but they just switch to a narcocorrido ballad, vocals in something that may resemble broken Spanish in some alternate universe. When Alice Mutton’s drummer pulls up, even if he’s wasted enough to see nickels on every dime, you dive in, beg him to floor it, destination Braşov, Paris, the final patch of Oblivion-surrounded earth at the end of the world, anywhere but here.
"Seza Radici" is Italian for "without roots." In 2004 Marcello Pera, a philosopher who served as the president of Italy's Senato della Repubblic, and cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future pope Benedict XVI) published a book by that title which dealt with the situation of relativism, Europe, Christianity, and Islam. According to Ratzinger, "The West no longer loves itself: by now it only sees what is regrettable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is greatest and purest."
ReplyDeleteThe Nicene Creed (Symbolum Nicaenum) is a statement of orthodox Christian belief drafted in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea (modern Iznik, Turkey).
Grand Marnier is a brand of French liqueurs, especially Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge, created in 1880 by Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle made from Cognac brandy, distilled essence of bitter orange, and sugar.
Alice and Mutton are characters in the 2008 chamber opera "Through the Looking Glass" by Alan John and Andrew Upton, based on the life of Alice Liddell and the works by Lewis Carrooll which she inspired.
Braşov is a Romanian city, part of Transylvania. Its name is derived from the Bârsa river (from the Turkic "barasu," meaning "white water"). The Castelul Bran, located 25 km (16 mi) to the southwest, is associated with voivode Vlad of Wallachia "the Impaler," the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Daracula.