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Close this Ceremony.
The Italians are supposed to be the passionate ones. The lovers. The one's we swoon over. The one's that circle us with their eyes. Those deep, dark, soulful eyes of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni seducing each other in "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." However, the eyes were empty and distant at the 20th Winter Olympic Games in Torino. Empty. As empty as the fact that the world was unknowing of the symbolism behind this year's Olympic medals - the precious metal circle with a hole in the middle was representative of the center of the Italian lifestyle, the piazza. And the medal is not complete until worn on the athlete's chest and the opening lies flat over the heart. Symbolic of the passion that is at the core of the amateur athlete. Symbolic of the piazza that is located at the center of the city to bring people together. Who knew? Distant. On Sunday the 26th of February in Torino stadium and around the world we were brought together in the most unpleasant way - like two pieces of white bread plastered with anchovy paste - to bring to a close the 2006 Winter Olympic games. The closing ceremonies were smack in the middle of the week-long Italian "carnevale;" so, the games ended with a Commedia dell'Arte theme with characters entering the stage, dancing in circles, chasing one another about and evoking a history fit for a small piazza but sitting back in the bleachers, the chaos would be indefinable as the two Olympic mascots ("Neve" Snow and "Gliz" Ice) themselves. Torino is in northern Italy. Near the mountains, you know the snowy, icy Alps. In Southern Italy, no one cared where the Olympics were. I watched everyday and tried to talk about them every night. "Did you watch the games of Torino?" "No." Unless of course an Italian competed against and bested an American. That was witnessed. That was rejoiced. "How could that be, beating an American?" That was the typical response full of sneer and cynicism. It most cases, 79 other countries were represented, unless of course you are Madagascar, you probably are not competing in Curling. So, on the sad occasions when the Italians sped past the Americans for four of their 11 medals in speed skating, I had to listen to every detail about the races from everyone I had encountered. This was actually a blessing because if you watched the races on Italian TV, the announcers on RAI-2 contributed "color" to their commentary by actually cheering for the home team. And forbid an Italian to miss a mark on the Biathlon target or a split on the Bobsled run, the excuses were as varied as the wind whipping in the valley of Olympic village. Of the remaining seven Italian medals, four of them came in Cross-Country races. The last I looked, Americans weren't keen on the idea of actually having to work at skiing. Americans prefer to put themselves on top of an icy hill and let gravity do the rest, unless of course you are Bode Miller, who preferred to allow the gravitational pull of his stomach suck up glasses of vodka and soda the night before a big race. And so, on Sunday night the comedy was over. The Olympics were completed on Italian snow and ice. Here are some of the highlights of the Closing Ceremonies.... Following the Italian Army marching band there was a band of circus clowns who lead the crowd in song and dance to the Village People's YMCA. This seems less Fellini and more French to me. And when the Olympic flag was passed on to Canada who will host the 2010 Winter Games, six Canadian Indians stood center stage holding rocks and asked the crowd to come to Vancouver. Following this spiritual display, a primal, Eskimo like individual struck a twenty-first century drill into a frozen pond and broke the ice. Shortly thereafter, this Canuck pulled a fish out of the pond. Of course he was surrounded by hockey players - so, like hockey, Canadians must be good ice-fishers. Following the ice fishing hockey playing, the crowd was serenaded by Canadian, skater-girl Avril Lavigne, "who would live the day like it were her last." And then the last dance microphone was handed over to none other than Ricky Martin from Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans were scheduled to race in the Bobsled, but like their "Cool Running" friends the Jamaicans, they failed to qualify. After two house-warming songs, Puerto Rico and their representative, Ricky Martin, fell into the darkness of the Torino night as far from Canada as a busload of American tourists walking the Great Wall of China. O, Canada
Post 20 - March'06 Back to home...
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