Venice. In San Pantalon a seagull is yelling as it lands on an eaves of an house near the bridge. Soon as it settles the yell is morphed by the gull into a sort of meowing lament, so strikingly similar to that of a cat that an old man, crossing the bridge ahead of me, mumbles "here, kitty kitty" by himself. On the other side of the small campo another seagull has started meowing the same way now, apparently answering to the first one.

A little boy and his father enter the picture crossing the bridge, directed to school.
"what's that!" says the boy.
"A seagull, mona", answers the dad.
"what's he doing!"
"He's just bragging that this is his territory and all", explains the dad. All the documentaries are working. "They do this with their voice all the time", he says.

Down the bridge we enter the large campo Santa Margherita. Few market stands are setting up their display of foods here, the air smells like chimney smoke and is damp-- above the gray gray sky is rugged and broken.
Behind our backs the church bells of San Pantalon start blaring, and halfway to the other side of the Campo, the bells of Carmini start blaring too, very loudly.
I don't know if the little kid is ever going to ask his dad what's that, even thought it is, not metaphorically but literally, exactly what the seagulls were doing.

Recently, there's been a little more talking about the (supposedly imminent) construction of the bridge over the strait of Messina. Ignoring the fact that magistrates are already investigating on contracts bids, and that the construction has not even started yet, Berlusconi declared that the bridge is going to make Sicily "100% italian" (whatever that means).

Dismissing fears of Mafia infiltration and environmental damage, the premier highlighted that the bridge would greatly boost the island's economy.

He said construction site alone would bring thousands of tourists to the island, drawn by the prospect of seeing the world's longest suspension bridge going up .

"It'll be like a huge cinema set," the premier told local journalists .

Tourists will come all the way to Sicily to see, however long it might be, a suspension bridge? Sure, Mr. Berlusconi, sure. Someone hand me the straitjacket, please.

This story made me remember a short note I read on one of the most beautiful books about literature and Italy I ever bumped into, Nero su Nero ("Black on Black") by the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia¹ (finally resumed by the cardboards where my books were in).
Nero su Nero is a book, in fact, all made of sometimes dramatic, some other witty and ironic notes, records and observations. Like the following.

The commendatore G., man of wit despite being a commendatore, is used to punctuate the tale of his troubles with two quips accompanied by irresistible mimic. The first one: "When God the Father wants to cheat someone?" (and he mimics God the Father in the Highest scanning below, shielding his eyes to pick on the earth the place were the fraud is certain). "Dang: he makes it to be born in Sicily"² (the gesture of someone who lets a thing drop by, the satisfied look that watches a fall that will explode in a firework full of joy). The second: "The remedy to Sicily's troubles?". A pause that presses the anxious attention of the listeners. "It does exists". Another, longer pause. "The airplane".
I am not getting on the plane. But I have to confess, these days I feel that I have been awfully and irreparably cheated. (Leonardo Sciascia, Nero su Nero, 1979. Translation by Italy is Falling)

Tomorrow, I may add, the one-hundred-percent-italian, cheated-as-always sicilians will have another remedy for their troubles: the bridge.

<sub>1. I am not linking Wikipedia in english here, because the article about Sciascia is so completely wrong I don't even feel like editing it (lawyer?! For chrissake he was a schoolteacher!).
2. Later Sciascia coined this expression: Sicily as a metaphor. Metaphor for the whole Italy, of course.</sub>