This article is published in Vanity Fair issue 18-19 on newsstands until May 11, 2021
Curfew is the least divisive issue in current politics. Everyone thinks it should be canceled, everyone believes that it will be impossible to force Italians to keep coming back early in the evening: summer arrives, and the Italian is an animal that must go out in the evening, you know. It is anthropology. Do not argue. Would you take the water out of a goldfish? “You think about the evening of June 29 in Ponza”, a friend of mine from Rome tells me, meaning St. Peter and Paul, for him the peak of desire to get out of space and time (I’ve never been to Ponza, but now I imagine it as a place teeming with life, at least on June 29). In short, Ponza or not Ponza, everyone wants to swarm. But then there is a minority, perhaps silent, of which I belong. With Covid we have discovered more bears than we thought. We don’t like going out at night anymore. Above all, we found that the curfew was a resounding social self-defense. Those dinners where, especially in Rome, you arrived at 9pm, sat down at the table at 9.30pm, got up at 11pm, moved to the sofa, and returned home no earlier than half past midnight, furiously looking for Gaviscon, and the next day you said “never again”. And then you accepted another invitation, you went back to it. For many of us, in short, the curfew has been a fantastic gastro and socioprotective. “It’s almost ten o’clock,” was the wonderful phrase you said and heard after a couple of hours at the most. Not “it’s benign”, but “it’s almost ten o’clock” was for a while the most beautiful phrase in the Italian language. As long as it lasted.
To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
