The Circle Of Non-Life

 

Image courtesy of Zoha Noor

I've just been editing an article to go up on a website that I work for. It didn't seem to be quite in the writer's usual style and was sprinkled with American spellings.

"Did you write this?" I asked her.

The answer was that because she had been unable to do the interview direct, she had sent the interviewee a list of questions and he had then sent back the answers "but he had put them through some sort of AI".

That explained why something felt not right to me. This man's words were somehow spirited but simultaneously seemed to lack any real spirit. I got rid of the verbiage and unnecessary adjectives and, hopefully, made the whole thing read better.

Coincidentally, I've recently noticed that this blog has had some huge spikes in readership: hundreds upon hundreds of views have been recorded in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. As it seemed unlikely that I suddenly had a huge following in the Far East, I checked with a tech-savvy human who informed me that they were all probably bots – looking for material that they could plagiarise.

Is this the way the world ends? Not Terminator-style, but with AI robots reading endless material written by AI robots?

See Naples and Live... More – 10: Life and Death – On Stage and Off

 

   Photo©Nigel Summerley

A major claim to fame of Naples' splendid opera house, the Teatro San Carlo, is that it burnt down in 1816 and was rebuilt even more splendidly within ten months. It is also reckoned to be the finest opera house in Italy... so let's say the world.

Initially I'd thought of just visiting the building to see its marvellous interior – which one can do. But when I found that Madama Butterfly was being staged, I booked tickets and had the view from a box seen here.

Like Puccini's opera, it was a bitter-sweet experience. Just as the lights were going down and the curtain was about to go up, I saw, as I was silencing my phone, a text from a musician friend telling me that my musical mentor and drumming legend, John Marshall, had just died.

Although the news was not totally unexpected, it was a tearful moment and I felt a kind of guilt for being here in this dream setting. But in an instant I could hear John's voice telling me: "Just enjoy the music – it's the best thing there is."

And it was. 

An incredibly moving night that brought the curtain down on yet another life-packed visit to Napoli...

   Photo©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live... More – 9: The Vast Picture Show

Now you see it...   Photo©Nigel Summerley

The church of San Giorgio Maggiore in the heart of old Naples has a bizarre two-for-one offer. If you venture into the area behind the altar, there is, not surprisingly, a huge but fairly gloomy painting depicting St George.

However, if you wait until a small crowd gathers, one of the church's staff will appear and perform a minor miracle, pulling back this picture by means of a giant handle to reveal... another depiction of St George. But this one is a bright and vibrant fresco by the 17th-century Neapolitan master Aniello Falcone.

As with many things in Naples, there is a strange and almost impenetrable explanation for this curiosity. Falcone is said to have executed the fresco in the 1640s when the church was being rebuilt after a fire. The building work didn't actually get finished until the 18th century (a long delay even by builders' standards), by which time the fresco seems to have been covered over and the enormous painting of St George by Alessio D'Elia was put in place. It wasn't until the 1990s that the Falcone was discovered – during yet more building work.

Why the Falcone was forgotten about for 300 years remains a mystery – as does who came up with the idea of having two paintings occupying the same wall space, thus requiring someone to operate a very long pole to make them both visible.

The one certainty is that this oddity brings a constant flow of visitors to the church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Photo©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live... More – 8: Dark Castle

Grim is probably the best word to describe La Vicaria. It certainly has a grim past... and, as I found, a grim present too.

Just a few minutes's walk from my apartment in Forcella, the Vicaria – officially known as the Castel Capuano – has played a major role in the history of Naples.

Originally a Norman castle, it was used as the Court of Justice from the 16th century until the end of the 20th. Long after medieval times, "justice" at the Vicaria included the accused being locked up and tortured prior to their trial... and then afterwards imprisoned in the basement cells there (if they were allowed to live),

Its more than solid walls reinforce the feeling that this is still not a place one would want to be inside.

After pausing to puzzle over its ornamented facade (where the arms of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V are still visible), I turned a corner to walk along the building's perimeter and saw in the distance at the next corner a furtive-looking man talking to a woman sitting by a line of rubbish bins.

As I continued, the man melted into the shadows of the Vicaria and disappeared.

I suppose that I shouldn't have been shocked when I drew level with the woman, but I was... She was slumped by the bins, emptying a needle into one of her slender, bare arms. She was young, still beautiful, well-dressed... but also looked ravaged and unaware of her surroundings.

The scene had a midnight feel to it... but this was midday. And this was a tableau of the darker side of Naples...

See Naples and Live... More – 7: The Great Lake

Lakeside walk at Avernus   Photo©Nigel Summerley

I am drawn to revisiting Lake Avernus almost as much as I am to returning to Naples.

I'm already beginning to lose count of the number of times I've done the great circular lakeside walk – around this body of water to the west of the city calmly filling an ancient volcanic caldera.

When I was here three years ago I wrote about meeting my mother's ghost as I sat down on a bench overlooking the water (see this blog 28 November 2020, An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague – 10: 8-14 September 2020). On reflection, it seemed a quite normal encounter, bearing in mind that this was the place where Odysseus entered the Underworld and did the same thing.

Whether my experience was real or imagined, it had lasting impact on me. So when I walked by that same bench in 2023, I was saddened to see that it had literally fallen to pieces. No one – human or ghostly – would be sitting on it for a while.

The broken bench   Photo©Nigel Summerley

But even this sorry sight brought to mind my late mother once more. For I remembered a while after my walk that when a bench near her home had fallen into disrepair and been removed, she campaigned to have a new one put in its place.

Some of her neighbours were not in favour of the replacement – one didn't know who might come along and sit on it, they argued.  My mum, though, had seen elderly people using the old bench as a place to stop and rest when they were halfway home from the local shops. She saw it as a social necessity – and she succeeded in getting the council to install a new one.

I wonder if her spirit will somehow bring about the appearance of a new bench by the side of Lake Avernus, entrance to the Underworld.

From this distance I can only hope so... but I am looking forward to my next visit to find out.

The water is wide   Photo©Nigel Summerley