He's going home!
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He's going home!
Going home, Euromania and warm beer
It’s coming home. It’s coming Rome. I’m going home.
By the time you read this, I’ll probably be flying over the French Alps, leaving the Island behind me, slowly but steadily descending towards familiar landscapes.
It has been 346 days since I last saw my family and my imminent return has triggered conflicting emotions in me. Happiness is just one of them. The home I am going back to is very different from the one I left 300 days ago. I am happy, but equally, I am scared. Scared that I won’t be able to recognise it.
When my nonna and my two uncles died late last year, I wasn’t allowed to cross the border, in the same way the rest of my family weren’t allowed to cross the door that separated the hospital reception from the covid ward. Distances were amplified and gaps widened. We were denied the consolation of closeness at the time when we needed it most. They couldn’t comfort the dying and I couldn't comfort the grieving.
The lives of the people I lost were permanently intertwined with mine, glued together with a bond of unbreakable love… a love they dispensed with a generosity I have now come to demand from everyone, and that ultimately shaped me into the man I am today.
I am going home, but this is not a holiday. My brain is a time capsule and, if I close my eyes, the last image I recall is that of my Nonna’s house, the backdrop of my childhood, filled with music and smells and the presence of a woman who was larger than life. And I simply can’t go back there anymore.
Now that she is gone, there is a crater in the place where our home had been. Together, we’ll have to build a new home, one that our children will be able to recognise as they return from their versions of my island. Now that I’m back, I can lay the first stone.
EUROS EXTRAVAGANZA
Back to the business of the day. Despite the seriousness of the previous paragraphs, don’t fool yourself… I too made the connection. Yes, I happen to be going home (as in Italy, duh!) on the day of the much-awaited euro final between Italy and England. The irony!
This of course makes me happy for a variety of reasons. First, the chance to experience for the second time what for many is a once-in-a-lifetime event. As my dad told me in 2006 just before the Azzurri won the World Cup: “There’s people who are born, live and die without ever getting the chance to witness an event like this.”
I am not a regular football fan but I acknowledge the collective relevance of this moment, for us and for our English counterparts. I will be watching the match surrounded by my childhood friends, drinking warm Peroni and putting on a fake English accent for a bit of light-hearted, mildly offensive comedy.
I still believe it would have been fun to watch it in a pub back in the East End, surrounded by my adversaries, but I don’t really feel like being a victim of a hate crime, so I am going home instead.
Also, this turn of events has given the me the opportunity to do this whole coming home/going home bit on my social media and y’all know that wordplay is my version of foreplay. So may the best team win.
N.B - If the Italians win, I shall be gloating for the foreseeable, so feel free to mute me/block me on all social media platforms. If we lose, I am going to the beach for a few days and the signal there is really bad so don’t attempt to contact me, ‘cos I won’t see it x
ART RADAR: Michael Gurhy
Last week, I visited the Nunnery Gallery in Bow to report on an exhibition exploring the themes of empathy and distance (more on that later). I was unable to interview the artist, who was away for work (ha!) but on my way out, in the gallery gift shop, I spotted some prints from an Irish-born, East London-based artist called Michael Gurhy.
His work embraces a variety of themes, from childhood fears to the fragility of trauma in sculptural form. The prints I saw mainly consist of nude drawings of faceless men. While a superficial observer might feel inclined to dismiss them as simply erotic, a more inquisitive glare would easily disprove that claim, showing that there’s more to Michael’s work than nakedness for the sake of it.
As Michael himself told me, his art exemplifies the tension between the two fundamental instincts outlined by Freud: Eros, the life instinct, which include sexual instincts and the drive to live, and Thanatos, the drive of aggression, sadism, destruction, violence, and death. He added: “The viewer is invited to become a voyeur in a queerly charged realm full of ritual which is both sacred and transgressive.”
His art comfortably fits into the East London scene without getting lost in it, retaining its uniqueness: “East London has always been on the pulse of everything that is interesting and emerging within the London Art scene.” If you want to understand what that means, here’s some recommendations from the artist: The Whitechapel Gallery, Maureen Paley, Chisendale Gallery, Flowers Gallery, Cell project Space and of course The Nunnery Gallery, where he had his last solo exhibition Gentle & Violent back in September 2020. Check out his work on his website and Instagram page.
WHAT I WATCHED
In the Heights.
I am not a big fan of musicals - the cheesiness is often overwhelming and the cringe factor is guaranteed. Despite some lactose-heavy moments, however, I really enjoyed Manuel Miranda’s musical drama about a group of afro-latino residents of the neighbourhood of Washington Heights, Manhattan. The main theme is the pursuit of dreams in the face of adversity and the spirited defiance of what for many is a pre-written and unavoidable destiny of struggle. I appreciated the individual plots and the way they come together, but what really stuck with me is the proud display of the richness of Latino culture, something us Europeans are often oblivious to. Miralo!
WHAT I COOKED
Fluke Au Gratin
The other night I felt like cooking/eating something you would get in the type of restaurant that has crystal chandeliers, marble floors and fancy dessert trays. I was specifically looking for a recipe that required white wine, just so I’d have an excuse to drink on a Tuesday evening. This dish met all the criteria.
Fluke Au Gratin is a very old recipe from French restaurateur Henry Charpenter, adapted by the NYT’s Sam Sifton. Sifton himself describes it as an “elegant and really quite simple preparation, the fish fillets baked on top of and beneath a butter sauce cooked with chopped shallots, garlic, chives, parsley and minced mushrooms, brightened with lemon juice and white wine, and with bread crumbs, sliced mushrooms and dots of butter strewn across the top”.
I was highly sceptical of the fish/mushrooms combo. I was even more wary of the addition of white wine, lemon juice and vinegar in the herby, vegetable base. I added more breadcrumbs than the recipe required to give more texture to the fish, whose flakiness can be perceived as slipperiness by an unsophisticated palate such as mine. It shouldn’t work, but it does! And it tastes much better than it looks.
What I read
“Cat Person”. This absolutely mental essay about a woman who read a viral (supposedly fictional) essay on a national magazine and realised it was about her life, containing intimate details of the relationship with her dead ex-boyfriend that she had not shared with anyone. Important for writers and readers alike to answer the contentious question: do we really own our stories?
This piece about the unlikely stars of OnlyFans. “Where else can I make a month’s rent in two days?”, they ask. When they put it like that… it really makes you think: is it time for a career change?
What I listened to
A stunning tale of longing and resignation, masterfully told through the enchanting voice of Hannah Reid from English indie pop band London Grammar (whom I’m seeing live in August!). For optimum results, listen to it in a slight state of intoxication, while watching the sun set over Hackney South.
“And all the parties they fade
And yes, my looks, they'll go away
I'll just be left here in America
But she never had a home for me.”
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