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Home > What's New > Peter Weller's Cigar Paradise
Peter Weller's Cigar Paradise
Posted: Monday, May 19, 2003
"Stop!" he cried silencing the entire tiny eatery. I turned at the door. He, sheeplishly, "My teenage son will kill me if you do not eat here."
The fish was splendid and the chap let me crank up a Ramon Allones Gigantes right at the table. I finished that beauty (I am now down to four smokes) during the walk back to the hotel and the writing of this article in this tiny sitting room.
So you must come to this town. But you will probably never come again. I probably will not. I cannot think of a reason, other than a film, to bring me back. And yet, I had to come. And I am happy I came. Because it is the strangest city on earth. Yesterday, while observing an Art Deco theatre façade sporting one of the aforesaid chesty nudes, I met a very funny, diminutive and elderly German man who has come back. First time since 1945 when, as a soldier, the Allies ran him out. This afternoon, in the hotel café, I met a very tiresome, diminutive and elderly American man who has come back. First time since 1945 when his regiment ran the Germans out. A remarkable coincidence, you think? Not in this city. The lobby of this "cute" hotel plays Fifties Euro Rock about hula hoops with baritone sax addition. (Not Gerry Mulligan). My room has a small terrace where I look at gargoyles. I have come under pretense of searching cigars while really looking for the epiphany in Brightman's book/gift. Perhaps I have come under pretense of looking for epiphany while searching cigars. In any case, I am here under pretense. Because, at this point in time, having found no cigars and feeling completely unhinged by the book, I have no clue as to why I am here. Not unlike the city itself.
Consider the neo-Baroque buildings with all these female nudes that foreshadowed Beverly Hills. Having taught Renaissance Italian Art History in Italy as a master's degree fellow and, subsequently, as a teaching assistant on field trips for the likes of Dr. Robert Hatfield (pick up his new book The Wealth of Michelangelo, for one of the cornerstones on Renaissance deconstruction of icons), and having just finished a lecture two days ago on Mich's Biblioteca Laurenziana (the Laurentian Library at San Lorenzo in Florence), and having written a paper on the century-long dearth of female nudes after Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," I am certainly not the first to say that the visual Humanist movement in Italy had the male nude down pretty well (from antiquity) but was a bit out of touch with a physical context of the female nude until, perhaps, Corregio. (See next article on Parma). But the early 20th Century guys got it right in this town. (F.Y.I. the gorgeous face on everybody's favorite Botticelli babe is Lucrezia, the wife of Botticelli's teacher, Filipo Lippi. However the torso in "Birth of Venus" is Gothic. If you look at it long enough, you will observe the strange incongruities.)
This is also the burg where Freud looked for that great secret of biology… how eels mate. It is where Stendahl was, for his liberal views, sacked as French Council, whereupon he promptly moved to Florence, got depressed, and, two weeks later, wrote "The Red and The Black." Where James Joyce came with his wife, and soon left for Paris with no reason stipulated. Where Napoleon's sibling, Jerome (Jerome!?) kept returning with a new title, every time his ubiquitous brother reinvented himself. (I am biased. The Corsican bastard wasted a quarter of a million lives in Russian snow and brought down the oldest standing republic and my favorite city in the world, Venice). Yes, this is a town where I have yet to find a cigar, but am here under the pretense of…cigars. Which is perfect. A town of strong handshakes and a terrific fish restaurant. A town of mountains immediately behind and sea in front. A town of Roman ruins atop the city hill, a marvelous Baroque church, a city of more cafés than Prague, and more shops than Vienna. Opera? Yes. A town where another emperor's brother, Maximillian, fell in love with Carlotta and built a beautiful love castle on a land spit. Before it was even finished they proceeded to leave the place and sail to Mexico, having been convinced by Max's brother and by Spanish Royalist culprits that Max would make a great emperor himself. Revolutionaries promptly put him against a wall and shot him, leaving Carlotta to return to their beautiful castle here where she promptly went mad. You may have guessed where I am at this moment.
Should I write the title of Brightman's gift, this splendid book that was my encouragement to come here -- by an author who wrote one of the most informed books on Venice -- I should blow the answer prematurely. You should come here. Under the pretense of looking for cigars. You will find few. Or none. But you will see yourself. And, you, as I and most visitors, will never forget the place, and, as I, probably never return. Why? Because it is a city that is at the end of dreams. It lies at the end of an empire, at the end of a country, at the corner of the sea. It is the last city. No one, save indigenous, and by indigenous, I mean those raised and reared and nurtured and flowered here…stay. I will meet friends from Venice tomorrow. They will walk to the Cathedral of San Giusto and the ancient Roman forum. They will see the ancient Roman theatre. They will see the Art Nouveau sculptures and Maria Theresia's beautiful canal. They will journey to Maximillian's Miramare, the love palace he never enjoyed. They will absorb the old town and eat well and sip, with me, cappuccino on the Piazza della Unita -- Italy's largest public square. They will read Brightman's gift for my journey…Jan Morris' splendid book. You, as I, will come, see the town and know then, as Ms. Morris says, that you are in a beautiful city, but "far away. Yet far away from where? Exile is only absence and exile can take many forms."
Some years ago, during a blithering Christmas morning in Venice, Brightman and myself and others invented a game. It has no winner and, if one is over 40, it's romantic and somewhat scary. It is called:
"And he was never seen or heard from again."
It is a game of invention; of an instant biographical article concerning the friend sitting next to you who was never seen or heard from by family or friends ever again. That is to say like the poet, Rimbaud, or novelists Ambrose Bierce (Incident at Owl Creek Bridge) and B. Traven (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), one simply disappeared by choice -- as those authors did -- into an Incredible Shrinking Man astonishment, even in the Age of Info, what would be the conversation amongst loved ones? No, you don't die. And only you know where you go.
"While strolling after dinner in the fog of a Venetian winter night, his friend Brightman turned to say, 'Why don't we go to Har…hello?…where did Weller go?'"
And you make up the rest.
"Three years later, three cronies eat. 'Whatever became of Weller? He just…I don't know. I haven't seen or heard from him.' "
"No, no. The last I saw of Weller was in Venice. We were sitting in that café that stayed open on Christmas. He was finishing an article for C.A. We came out of the café, and I turned around to ask him if he wanted to pass by Harry's Bar and…
"And?" queries the curious.
"And…I never saw or heard from him again."
Twenty years later, Brightman runs into James Suckling, (once editor of Wine Spectator, now mogul of his own Brunello wine frabrica).
"Whatever happened to Weller?" muses Suckling, pouring a glass of 2010 for Brightman.
"Well," ponders Brightman, torching a 2004 Robaina corona gorda. "I gave him a book, and…phhtt. He was never seen or heard from again."
"And no one ever saw him again? Come on. He must have gone… somewhere!"
"Well, some of our mutual cronies told me thought they saw him five years ago in… nah, but it can't be true."
"Where?" plies Suckling.
"Well", whimsies Brightman, taking a long draw off the Robaina…"they said they saw him in… Trieste".
"Trieste"?!!"
"Yup…Trieste."
Fat chance.
Restaurants and Bars:
NORTH WEST
Owner: Matt Paratore
392 Columbus Ave.
New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-799-4530
PASCALE WINE BAR AND RESTAURANT
Owners: Chuck and Neal Pascale
Corner of Fayette & South Clinton Sts
Syracuse, N.Y. 13202
Tel: 315-471-3040
AWFUL AL'S CIGAR BAR
Owner: Jerry Wilson
321 South Clinton St.
Syracuse, N.Y. 13202
Tel: 315-472-4427
DINOSAUR BAR-B-QUE
Owners: John Stage/Mike Rotella
246 West Willow
Syracuse, New York, 13202
Tel: 315-476-1662
RISTORANTE AL BAGATTO
Owner: Giovanni Marussi
Via Felice Venezian, #2
Trieste, Italy 34124
Tel/Fax: 011-39-040-301-771
ANTICA TRATTORIA SUBAN
Owner: Mario Suban
Via Comici #2
Trieste, Italy
Tel: 011-39-040-54368
ENOTECA NANUT
Owner: Lucca Nanut
Via Genova # 10e
Trieste, Italy
(closed Sunday and Monday)
Tel: 011-39-040-360-642
AUDICE CAFE
Piazza dell' Unita' D' Italia
Trieste, Italy
Tel: 011-39-040-348-1078
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