Lost in New York, parts 4444 - 4447

 4444. If he had heard the word paranoia in conversation and he asked the meaning of the word, someone might have tried to explain to him how it is somehow more complicated than just fear.

 4445. But the business of how paranoia is more complicated than simple fear would have been lost on Coromo.

 4446. Here is how it came about that Coromo had an attack of fear. It was a small airport, the kind of airport that only very small airplanes can fly out from. It was necessary to take a ten-minute flight to a larger terminal to connect to trans-Atlantic flights.

4447. The resort had its own small plane shuttling groups back and forth to the airport, but often individuals, such as Coromo made the trip in an old two-seat contraption than had been in use for many years.

Lost In New York, parts 4440 - 4443

 4440. When the time came for Coromo to buy his plane ticket to New York with his credit card he ran into an unexpected difficulty. It was not a credit card difficulty, and it was not a scheduling difficulty. 

 4441. He was dismayed by the additional fees and expenses, but not enough to abandon his plan. No, he left the airport without purchasing a ticket because of an unexpected attack of fear. 

 4442. I call Coromo's reaction fear and not paranoia because, as you know, Coromo was a simple and uneducated person and so he had never came across the word paranoia.

 4443. If he had come across the word paranoia he would probably have had difficulty grasping its meaning.

Lost In New York, parts 4436 - 4439

 4436. In a film by Pasolini, it is not the teenagers in vacant lots in the suburbs of Rome that are interesting, it is the lots themselves. 

 4437. In the distance one can see cranes on top of half finished buildings, and here and there the crumbling remains of Roman aqueducts. Now those view have completely disappeared.

 4438. In their place are millions of modern apartment buildings as far as the eye can see. The old Rome of after the war, the Rome of dirt roads and Topolinos, can no longer be found.

 4439. This was the situation for Coromo as he pondered his trip to New York. He was hoping to see thing that were abundant fifty years ago. He was hoping to see elevated subway lines and men in fedora hats.

Lost In New York, parts 4432 - 4435

 4432. He imagined he could enter a world that had long ago completely ceased to exist, he knew this was simple minded but he could not help it.

 4433. A person might try to imagine what a trip to Rome is like by watching a neorealist Italian film. The actors speak their Italian in black and white, while an almost readable translation is printed across the bottom of the screen.

 4434. The person watching the film has no interest in the plot, and has no interest in what happens to the baker's wife, or her son after the Germans leave the town.

4435. The eye searches the background of the scenes in search of the fountain in the piazza, or an old car by the side of a dusty road.

Lost in New York, parts 4428 - 4431

 4428. During the month before Coromo intended to go to New York City he spent a lot of time trying to imagine what it would be like. In the small library in the resort there was a book about the city full of historic pictures of streets and architecture and he took the book home and studied all the pictures very carefully. 

 4429. He tried to imagine himself in the pictures and walking down the streets. The pictures were all black and white and from a different era, but the idea of being in such a strange place was so foreign to him that the anachronistic nature of his daydreaming did not dawn on him.

 4430. He pictured to himself walking past many a building that no longer existed, buying train or subway tickets in huge terminal buildings long ago torn down.

4431. He was like a person standing at the entrance of the subway with one of those old brass subway tokens as small as a dime, and wondering how to proceed.

Leon, parts 4424 - 4427

 4424. Once the greyhound, the rooster, and the wolf found out that Leon the old gladiator dog knew how to get the Rome, and what it actually was, they set to work to convince him to go with them. 

 4425. At first he was reluctant to join them, as you might well suspect, but in the end he slipped his cage, something he could have done at any time in the past, and ran off into the night with his new companions.

 4426. The problem of the cats being in control of Rome was set aside, they knew that when they got there they would have to deal with it. 

 4427. Where they would go and what they would do, for that you must wait until later till find out.

Leon, parts 4420 - 4423

 4420. It was said that Constantine was not a true Christian. Throughout his career he seemed to vacillate between Pagan views, and those of the true church.

  4421. It is said that his pronouncements were driven by political considerations rather than religious conviction. Nevertheless, at the end of his life he finally took the sacraments and allowed himself to be baptized.

 4422. The same vacillation of belief could be observed in his dog Rufus. 

4423. But I am getting off the track. I was only trying to say that Leon knew where Rome was and how to get there. The fact that cats controlled the city makes no difference to our story.