Il Mondo, 35 years

 

There is a special delight to hearing a song one particularly loves in public, perhaps over a grocery store's speakers, or playing in a cafe, or maybe even walking down the street and hearing it from an indeterminate source. But this delight is doubly intensified when the adored song seems obscure enough, aged, forgotten, or so particularly idiosyncratic, that one would never imagine in a million years that it would be randomly playing in a mall or something.

And so what an exquisite little pleasure I had today!

Oh world! I don't know whether to tell you about the song first, or the hearing of it! Both seem important to go first, and both seem better going second.

And you thought these things just write themselves!

Well, not you, but some of the other people. The ones who aren't quite as good at clerkmanifesto as you are. No shade on them. It's a real skill. Look how hard this one is already!

One of my darling wife and I's favorite romantic comedies is only sort of a romantic comedy. Indeed, it might be the best not fully a romantic comedy romantic comedy: About Time. It is also a very poorly constructed time travel movie that nevertheless works beautifully. It may be the best time travel story that is so poorly constructed. 

Stories are mysterious. 

Anyway, in this movie Bill Nighy plays one of the nicest fathers ever put on screen and...

My darling wife and I were over in the Liberation neighborhood. We were having coffee at a volunteer run church courtyard cafe that was a delightful find. Pleasant courtyards are a bit rare here, and frankly so are the sort of smiley friendly people who might volunteer at a church cafe. We were heading over to check out a somewhat distant ceramics shop my wife was interested in. And after our incredibly reasonable cappuccinos and a bit of walking we were almost there when I noticed an Italian grocery store.

Yes, as you read this we will be in Genoa, Italy. But as of this story, and as I write it, we are still in France. I have seen (and shopped in!) quite a few Italian Delis here, but a full Italian grocery store? No no no. Or as the French say: Non non non! Grocery stores here are either:

a. Giant French/International chains

b. very very small possibly, hopefully independent French stores

c. small giant French chains

So seeing a rather full sized Italian grocery store seemed pretty novel in a number of different ways. Naturally I wanted to go in. So we did.

I could tell you about the product lines and differences of an Italian grocery store, how many more jars of pistacchio crema there was, for instance, but I would have to talk about what French grocery stores are like first. But what I should first talk about is...

In About Time, the lovely father and the main character, his son, are the two time travelers. But that's oddly not all that important because it is more a romantic comedy personal development movie. So they can travel in time but only back in their own lives, where they can change the past only in their own lives. But again, really, if you're interested, I highly recommend it, but there is no need for me to explain it here because the important thing is they love each other and like to play ping pong together. And in the delightful private world of their relationship they also share a love for a slightly eccentric, but fully passionate Italian song by...

And so there I am in the Italian grocery, examining the pocket espressos and gluten free beer that was unfortunately barley malt instead of rice malt. I don't know if there is such a thing as rice malt, but I was clearly mistranslating. They also had these kind of giant half wafer cookie candy bars that looked really interesting when the song playing over the loudspeakers of the grocery store suddenly seemed... familiar.

Oh  my god!

I am actually hearing, in an Italian grocery store in France, the immortal Jimmy Fontana singing

IL MONDO!

I raced all about the store looking for my beloved wife. Finding her I cried "Listen. Listen to this."

"Wait." She said. "I know this." 

And then a small glow of surprise and delight came over her face, the best face in the universe. 

The face I was born for.

Here I offer two ways for you to hear Il Mondo. This first is pretty straight up, Jimmy Fontana singing the song in 1965:

https://youtu.be/woIc2gS4JPQ?si=O4zxarQNKYWIfR0v

The second really is a masterful bit of filmmaking, a scene so complete it could stand for the whole of the movie, so many of the essential characters in the film are so briefly and beautifully sketched here in a few minutes, the music used perfectly and counterpointing the overall themes of the movie. It is wonderful. But it also serves as all kinds of spoilers for the movie About Time, so you might want to make sure you see the movie first, if for some reason you haven't.

Although on the other hand this is an amazing introduction.

https://youtu.be/8j4dMWY11y8?si=zI-APSByyddIRtYf