Mimetic Monday: August 30, 2021

Meriggiare, Anti-Racism Racism, The Power of Criticism

People and things worthy or unworthy of imitation.

Positive Mimesis 

I lived in Rome for three years where I learned the fine art of what the French call flâneuring—strolling or wandering around cities. In Italy, it has a very specific counterpart. There's a tradition of the evening

passegiata:

you take a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood before or after dinner (my favorite one being on the Bay of Naples). More important than the passeggiata, though, is another thing I learned how to do: meriggiare. 

Meriggiare is a word coined by the poet Eugenio Montale in his poem of books Ossi di Seppia (Cuttlefish Bones), published in 1925. It comes from the Italian word pomeriggio, which simply means “afternoon.” Montale transformed it into a verb. It means something like “to lazily pass the afternoon,” which I often did by taking 2-hour lunches with friends new and old—complete with intermissions to smoke half of a Garibaldi-brand cigar outside—discussing life’s important questions and enjo…