granita from the heavens
- artistforaday
- Sep 19, 2014
- 4 min read
it was a florentine who invented ice cream. in the late 1500s, not in the 1800s, unlike the ice cream story in america would have it. i guess that it was then the americans re-invented the wheel. the wheel's original creator was buontalenti ("good talents") and his talent for dessert emerged with the help of a little push from a special occasion hosted by the most important florentine family/empire-building bankers: the medici.
though the medici were not actually "doctors", as their name literally translates from the italian, they indeed lived up to this title perhaps, in the sense that their artistic vision and patronage were midwife to the birth of the renaissance and indeed to its birthplace as florence.
in addition to gelato stops on every block here, you can find the slushy, flavored italian icey treat called "granita" that also always makes me think that the word for hail, "grandine", but be just another way of saying that it's god who invented the first slushy.
it was this sky-falling granita that literally poured down in chilled-air gusts from heaven in an end-of-summer tempest, a word stronger than "storm", which makes one associate words like "tantrum" and "tempestuous", which is the striking way it felt to be whipped by its winds even if only from an open doorway of a protective palazzo. the fury's orchestra of sound intensifying while it pounded terra cotta tile roofs and sent its granita-pebbles bouncing and off playfully before falling to polkadot themselves all over the ground.
just when i thought it couldn't get more intense, the granita serving would about double in pour power, making my mouth literally gape open in awe and fascinated wonder. and, like a tantrum, the tempest also destroyed a bit in its path, and similar to a fit, passed as quickly as its awesome intensity had appeared out of dark skies: all in a mere 10 minutes. just like the beautiful sudden thunderstorms here, it's usually enough just to pause in the shelter of a doorway and watch, and then after a few moments, she'll lift and let you back out on your way.
the best thing about this particular september day's delicious granita-grandine is that when it was all quiet again, it was a delight to re-toss the icey treats up in the air overhead and let it fall all over you (the only way to feign the experience of it, but it in a way that couldn't hurt). pushing my fingers into its unbelievable little piles of pebbles was the stuff of giddiness.
i watched tourists in summer clothes wade into white pools of the heavenly dessert where it had accumulated in low places on the paving stones next to the cathedral, and i admired the few people who still knew how to hear the innate call of wonder, especially ome teenagers, who squealed and laughed with delight as they tossed handfulls onto each other.
others paused with their sense of wonder ignited but tightly tamed into respectable formulas, merely squatting down or at most picking up a handfull for a picture as most did, probably to be posted later to pages to tell the tale.
like in seeing striking work hanging in museums or standing before famous monuments, i always think we need to be reminded to respond first, document later. first, let myself be moved. moved emotionally, moved in body, in soul. and then, the photo is an afterthought. a true document, because something has actually happened to be documented. because i've lived the moment now. and then, only then, do i have time to or think to want to share it with someone else, or be able to look back on it.
it was sadly unlike that when, as an undergraduate on a blessed summer art history study abroad, after winding along hours by bus on top of thousands of other miles and days of travel to come to this distant land, our group at last arrived at a medieval monestery in the greek countryside to admire antique mosaics. we were then given only 20 minutes post-lecture to explore and absorb the place. a few of us ran eagerly on through the church and its cavernous hidden places, at last free to find and savor everything we might discover, gazing around, taking it in, opening a door to discover an outdoor roof area, and then, with the clock ticking down the last seconds remaining to us before the bus departed, i ran hurriedly out to the parking lot to rejoin the group. there, i discovered to my surprise and confusion that all but a few of the students had already long been back, and were either already sitting in the air conditioning insulator of the coach or spending the time to leisurely buy postcards at the outdoor stall to send back to show where they had been.
so, have i been there only if i document and someone else knows i've been there? or have i been there only if i've actually BE-en there?
to be, or not to be, isn't that really the best question?
to ask instead of, "when a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?," i ask, if grandine-granita falls from heaven and no one is there to stop and play with it, has the dessert been truly savored?
after savoring, i recorded, so that i can invite you to enjoy a taste of the granita that fell from the heavens....just click on this artist for a day facebook page link to see & hear the slushy tempesta:
