Museo Internazionale delle Marionette<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 In other words, a puppet show!\u00a0 How could that plan possibly go awry\u2026right?<\/p>\nAs luck would have it, there was a large group of school children there on the day we showed up.\u00a0 Now, Demetra is only 10 months old and can\u2019t yet effectively communicate verbally, but she still appreciates the company of other rug-rats\u2026I mean, kids.\u00a0 So we pushed her stroller over towards the group so that she could watch and listen with them.<\/p>\n
The teacher began with an interactive discussion.\u00a0 \u201cWho knows what a pupo<\/em> is?\u201d<\/p>\nEnthusiastic hands shot up and answers were blurted out randomly.\u00a0 From what I could hear, the consensus was, \u201cA pupo<\/em> is a marionette!\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cYes, that\u2019s right,\u201d replied the teacher, \u201cBut a pupo<\/em> is a special kind of marionette.\u00a0 Look at what they\u2019re all wearing.\u201d\u00a0 She motioned towards the line of inanimate puppets dangling by their strings along an adjacent wall.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re all wearing amour.\u00a0 That\u2019s because pupi<\/em> are all warriors, fighting in virtuous battles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The word \u201cvirtuous\u201d sent up a little red flag in my brain, and I wasn’t sure that I liked where the discussion was going.\u00a0 I shifted my posture a bit, and leaned in closer to make sure that I wasn’t missing something in the linguistic subtleties.\u00a0 In any case, my wife was there to help me out.<\/p>\n
The teacher\u2019s zeal grew as she continued, \u201cYes, that\u2019s right, bambini, i pupi<\/em> represent the good guys\u2026the Christians who were fighting a war against the pagans!\u201d<\/p>\nI knew it.\u00a0 How could this woman take something as simple and enjoyable as a puppet show and turn it into indoctrination?\u00a0 Anyway, I was now grateful that Demetra wasn\u2019t able to understand the lecture, because how would I assure my daughter that she is a \u201cgood guy\u201d (girl) even though she has a \u201cpagan\u201d name?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the teacher was just getting started, leading the children in a pep rally of sorts. \u00a0I heard her shout, \u201cBambini,<\/em> who are we?!?\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cThe Christians!!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd who are the good guys?!?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Christians!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, we left shortly after that, and\u00a0despite the unwanted lesson in catechism, the museum\u00a0was quite enjoyable and worth a visit when in Palermo. \u00a0It\u2019s not so simple to find, however.\u00a0 Again, Palermo isn\u2019t particularly easy to navigate.\u00a0 But that\u2019s part of its appeal, I think.\u00a0 You feel like you\u2019ve discovered something slightly exotic and yet very inviting.\u00a0 Kind of like the gelato con brioche<\/em> that we had after the puppet show.\u00a0 Where else can you have an ice cream sandwich for lunch and not feel guilty about it?\u00a0 Catholics are well-known for imposing guilt as method of obedience.\u00a0 But not when it comes to food. \u00a0Mangia!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s good to have friends in Palermo. \u00a0Rome is chaotic in a frenetic way, but Palermo\u2019s brand of disorder is a little harder to decode.\u00a0 With the exception of taxi drivers and motorini, nobody’s in a hurry. In fact, there\u2019s a randomness to the pace of life\u2014it\u2019s a bit vexing.\u00a0 The food markets close surprisingly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,211,94],"tags":[384,244,97,243,381,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}