Are you too tired of living to have downloaded the sexy interactive version of “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean” available on iBooks, Kindle, Nook or as a .pdf?
Are you still too worried about the environment to have purchased the paperback edition for your bookshelf?
Naturally you could easily rectify this state of affairs by one click on Follow The Idiot.
But The Idiot is also excerpting some selective and seductive snippets from the second volume in his trilogy (the first book was “The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean” which was published in 2008 and is available at amazon.com for historically low prices) before he returns to Turkey to resume the MedTrek in April.
Let’s start with the tantalizing preface to “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean” when The Idiot is confronted by gypsies south of Naples, Italy.
“The Idiot and the Odyssey II” kicks off with a seaside confrontation with Gypsies.
Here’s a more readable version of “Gypsies Take Me Down.”
“Sometimes I run into trouble during my ongoing 16,000-kilometer walk around the Mediterranean Sea.
After strolling 34 kilometers on the Italian seaside south of Salerno (or along “the shore of the tumbling clamorous whispering sea” as Homer so sweetly put it in The Iliad), I decide to abandon the sunny sandy beach and saunter through a dense and shady pine forest scented with wild thyme.
Big mistake.
When I encounter a small tribe of noisy nomadic Roma, three of the younger gypsies start cackling at me. Playfully attempting to bond and network with my fellow vagabonds, I retort with my patented Tule Lake goose call before realizing that I’ve put myself alone in the middle of the woods with a trio of taunting and intoxicated thieves.
“Domadoro, domadoro, DOMADORO!” they shout in a much-practiced threatening chorus as they approach me. “Give me gold, give me gold, GIVE ME GOLD!”
I realize immediately that, as Homer also pointed out in The Iliad, the shouting was “no invitation to dance but to a fight.” I visualize the largest gypsy and me imitating Trojan warriors, scrapping in the sand “like two mountain lions over the carcass of a buck.”
Their six glaring eyes look thirstily at the glimmering gold bracelets on my wrists and a white-and-yellow gold yin-and-yang pendant around my neck.
I instinctively remove two of these flashy ornaments when I saunter through urban areas and cities like nearby Naples, but never thought of taking them off on this rural stretch. “Not very smart for an experienced MedTrekker,” I reflect as I make a buzzing beeline towards the beach and scream “Watch out!” in Italian. “I’ve got some friends with guns on the seashore!”
That ruse doesn’t confuse the greedy gypsies for long. They know, much to my chagrin, that they’ve encountered, and are close to trapping, a solo peripatetic jewelry store.
“Domadoro, domadoro, DOMADORO!” they screech again and spit in unison when they confront me at the edge of the tranquil sea and stare, fixated, at my right wrist.
That’s the wrinkle.
The gold bracelet on my right wrist is a permanent fixture. It’s been there since I had it made in Vermont by jeweler Guy Cheng when I turned 21 in July 1969. That was when gold was still worth $32 an ounce and a few weeks before I wrote my first decent front-page newspaper story from the Woodstock Rock Festival, which was billed as “three days of peace and music.”
To get the bracelet, they will have to cut off my hand.”
“The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean” then begins in Rome where The Idiot ended “The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean.” There’s much more detail about the encounter with the Gypsies in the body of the book and The Idiot concludes that vignette with “Five Helpful Hints To Would-Be Gypsy Robbers On A Beach South Of Salerno” to encourage the thieves to be a little better at their day job.
Five helpful hints for would-be gypsy robbers on a beach south of Salerno, Italy.
Following that incident, The Idiot runs into the goddess of Athêna at the Temple of Athêna in ancient Paestum against a backdrop of Doric columns and Corinthian vases.
Meeting serene Athêna in Paestum after the frightening encounter with gypsies.
Next week: Twelve Mediterranean Labors Conceived by Cunning Circe lets you in on the list of a dozen tasks that The Idiot is given to accomplish in Italy, Greece and Turkey by Circe, rhe enchantress who turned Odysseus’ crew into swine.
Follow