(3) Reportage (Week Four)

Bologna is graffiti and good food--late night bottles of wine in the laps of teens out on Piazza Cavour. I lost myself to the club, lost my moneys to the same. I'd never been underground, never partied in the mouth of a city. But I trusted a guy named Christian, a local who took our group around town. One man tells me the kids around here don’t work, just live. And I wonder what that looks like, living. Back home I know it’s something like sunglasses in the rain, the smallest taste of mint and the first red, bottled-gold leaf of fall. When I walk down University Street, shop doors wear someone’s art: heads, one out of another, a man nosed into Bologna news, naked coffee and boobs. I notice a print that gives me warning; big brother is watching you—next to a suited body and camcorder head. That’s not the strange thing, though, not even the unidentified big brother—it’s the perfect English. This isn’t Florence, but the graffiti seems more American than tourists. Though I know that’s not true. Even still, the streets make your feet harder to stand, make you more aware of yourself and somehow less aware of yourself all the same. In a year I’ll be this city, in a year I’ll steal Italian from these Bolognese vendors, their markets and quaint hubs.