Cinque Terre, vaffanculo

Before we begin, first allow me to apologize to our more sensitive readers (hi, Dad) who don´t particularly care for obscenity. The following post will feature numerous swear words in at least two languages.

That being said, this is also about my birthday. I turn 27 today and I am pleased to report that everybody has been quite sweet about it, especially Lexy, who bought me beer and took me (well, us) to Cinqe Terre for some lovely hiking, sightseeing and dinner.

That was the plan, at least.

And then the gods - or at least the weather - shit on us.

We first encountered the Italian equivalent of the f-bomb at Il Cuccio. Our hostess told us about a comedian named Beppe Grillo whose pointed political satire only became more so after he was denied a journalist´s license and banned from all forms of Italian mass media by the government he derided. Grillo has apparently organized a number of "V-day" events targeting political corruption, cronyism and capitulation. The "v," we learned, is for "vaffanculo," which Grillo himself, in a BBC news video, explained as the equivalent of "fuck."

Now, I´m not stupid, okay? In fact I tend to be rather sharp, at least where language is concerned. I noticed the "va" at the beginning of "vaffanculo" and I made the connection with the imperative form of the verb "andare," meaning "to go." So when, at our next farm, I asked our friend Davide what the literal meaning was, my suspicions were confirmed. While one can use "vaffanculo" to mean, "fuck you," "fuck off," or the simple "fuck!" of pure frustration, the literal meaning is closer to "go cram it up your ass" or "go take it up the ass." It is for this reason that yesterday, when we sat down in a cafe in Corniglia to enjoy an espresso and a twelve year old boy walked in off the street to talk to the owner, I nearly lost my drink when he answered a shout from the street with a casual, "VAffanCULO" over his shoulder and continued talking. Imagine a younger sibling casually shouting, "How about a nice game of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself" at somebody in front of two adults you didnt know and you can probably imagine how amused I was.

In any case, as I´ve tried to explain to Lexy, the beauty of vaffanculo isn´t simply in the vulgar meaning - it´s the poetry of the way Italians say it. One doesn´t simply drop it on the ground like a "Shit!" after stubbing a toe, or fling it at passersby like a New York, "Fuck you." It has a topography, an arc of peaks and valleys that transform it from just another cuss word to an eloquent expression of deep dissatisfaction with the inadequacies of life. Properly stressed and savored, it expands beyond the immediate target - a rude stranger, an out-of-order machine, a tool that breaks in your hand while you work - and affects the whole world. "I come before you expecting splendor," you tell it, "and this is what you give me? Then, to the ass with you. Up it, in fact."

We decided together, this morning, on the title of this post, but it was not an easy decision, for Italian has many great cuss words and phrases. I am sure we only know a few of them... in fact, our previous hostess, Marina, claimed that in the south, particularly Napoli, inventing new vulgarities is something of an art form. But we have learned a few, and I present them to you now in a scale, from least to greatest level of offense given.

Porca miseria - literally "piggy misery." Said often in a sarcastic fashion, similar to a dismissive, "Poor BABY!" in English. Also used in the aggrieved fashion of a "Jesus CHRIST," as in, "I know I have to go back out there and shovel more horse manure up the mountain, porca miseria, but let me enjoy an espresso first!" This is about as bad as "damn," which is to say not bad at all really unless one is old-fashioned or prudish. This is how Lexy and I looked this morning, as we struggled down the 365 steps from Corniglia proper to the train station, soaked, admitting defeat. Miserable little piggies.
Stronso - insulting noun that at first we thought was quite mild, much like "jerk." We have now learned that it´s more like, "Asshole." Luckily we haven´t had occasion to embarass ourselves with this difference in severity, but in other cases it has almost led to trouble, such as the expression, "Che figo!" which we were told is an "informal" way of saying, "That´s great!" or, "How cool!" Actually "figo" is the masculine form of "figa," which apparently means "vagina," so I suppose "figo" means "cool" in the same way that "the shit" does, which is to say, in a way that you wouldn´t use in front of your grandmother. In any case, I was searching for somebody to call "stronso" this morning, but in the end kept it - and the following epithets - to myself.
Porca putana - I like to think an accurate translation would be "pig whore." While hilariously evocative of certain unwelcome mental images, however, "porca putana" is not as bad as Madonna putana, which is a blasphemy against the holy mother that can get you into trouble, at least if you´re someone like Marina who moved to her farm in the country afer living in Rome and dropped this linguistic bomb in front of her new, much less libertine neighbors in a Cumiana supermarket once and was almost ostracized for it. I also almost let this one fly this morning, but the steps were steep and slick and I didn´t dare profane the mother of Christ when she had a little shrine right at the top of them, from which she might have gazed down in pity and sympathy as I fell and cracked my skull after calling her a whore. Anyway, it wasn´t her fault.

So. Instead of a nice walk, a good meal and a fine birthday trip, we got soaked. And we didn´t even cuss anybody for it (not really). We sat huddled and shivering on trains, read books and smiled at each other, because when your spirits are down or about to fall, it´s better than sitting around stewing in your own poison. A day is just a day, distant birth or not, and a kindness is a kindness regardless of any calendar. We saw the sea and the beautiful, terraced mountainsides where generations of hard work and peasant ingenuity have brought forth wine and food from what could have been bare stone, and in the end we were only wet and cold for a while. Nothing ruined; little lost. We are not cursed, so we did no cursing (not much, anyway).

So Lexy: mille grazi, amore, for a birthday I will never forget.

And Cinque Terre: go shove it up your ass.