In 1971 my order appeared in Malta, born of a schism within that of Bassaraba, under the exalted protection of Alessandro Licastro Grimaldi Lascaris Commenius Vingtmille, Duke of La Chastre, Sovereign Prince and marquess of Déols, and the Grand Master now is the marquess Charles Stivala de Flavigny, who after the death of Licastro recruited Pierre Pasleau, who assumes the titles of Licastro as well as those of His Grace the Archbishop Patriarch of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Belgium, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem and Grand Master and Hierophant of the Universal Masonic Order of the Ancient Oriental Rite and the Joint Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim.
I replaced the volume. Perhaps it, too, contains false information. But I realized that a man has to belong to something, if he doesn't want to feel like nothing. Italy's notorious P2 Lodge has been dissolved, while the Opus Dei has lost all secrecy and is now on everyone's lips. I have made my choice: The Italian Recorder Society. One, True, Ancient, and Accepted.
1986
How to Deal with Telegrams
In the old days, on receiving the mail in the morning, you opened the sealed envelopes and threw away the unsealed ones. Now the organizations that used to send unsealed envelopes send sealed ones, even by special delivery. You open the letter eagerly, only to find some absolutely trivial invitation. Especially irritating, because the highest-tech envelopes now have systems of hermetic sealing that resist letter-openers, teeth, jabbing knives. Traditional glue has been replaced by quick-setting cement, the kind dentists use. Luckily we are still safe from promotional schemes, as they always betray themselves with words like "free offer" on the outside, in gold letters. I was taught as a child that when you are offered something free, you should promptly call the police.
But the situation is getting worse. In the past you opened telegrams with real interest, ripping the envelopes in your haste: either they brought some piece of bad news or they informed you of the sudden death of a long-forgotten uncle in America. Now, if someone has a message of no interest to communicate, he sends you a telegram.
Telegrams fall into three categories. The imperative: "You are invited to attend important conference day after tomorrow on cultivation lupins in Apulia Undersecretary Ministry of Forests presiding please telex immediately time of arrival" (then comes a series of acronyms and numbers occupying two pages, in which naturally, and happily, the name of the pretentious sender is lost). The taken-for-granted: "As per previous agreement we confirm your participation conference regarding treatment of paraplegic koalas, please fax immediately." Of course, there was no previous agreement, or perhaps the preliminary invitation is still en route, via ordinary mail. But when the letter does arrive, it has been superseded by the telegram, already discarded, and the letter then follows it into the wastebasket. Finally, there is the third, enigmatic category: "Roundtable on computer science and crocodiles postponed as announced please confirm availability new dates." What dates? What availability? Wastebasket.
Now, however, the telegram has been made obsolete by the invention of overnight express delivery. In this method, which costs sums that would make Tina Brown blanch, the envelope can be opened only with the help of barbed-wire cutters; and once opened, it still does not disclose its contents immediately, thanks to the barrier, composed of various strips of Scotch tape, that must be overcome. Sometimes this system is employed purely for snobbish reasons (like the ceremonies of ritual consumption studied by Mauss); all there is, in the end, is a little note that says "hi" (but hours are spent in hunting for it, because the original envelope is the size of a garbage bag, and not everyone has the long arms of a Mr. Hyde). More often the envelope has a black-mailing function, and also contains a coupon for your reply. The sender is suggesting: "To say what I have to say to you I have spent an outrageous sum of money; the speed of delivery expresses my anxiousness; since there is a prepaid reply, if you don't answer you are a scoundrel." Such arrogance deserves punishment. Nowadays I open only the express envelopes that I myself have asked, by telephone, to be sent to me. The others I throw away, but even then they are a nuisance, because they clog up the basket. I dream of carrier pigeons.
Often telegrams and express envelopes announce awards. In this world there are honors and prizes that everyone is pleased to receive (the Nobel, the Golden Fleece, the Garter, the Irish Sweepstakes) and others that require nothing but acceptance. Anyone who has to publicize a new brand of shoe polish, a retarding condom, or some sulfurous mineral water, organizes an award. It is not very easy to get a board of judges together. What's difficult is to find winners. That is to say, they could be found easily if the prizes went to young people at the beginning of their career, but in that case press and TV wouldn't cover the event. So the winner, at the very least, must be Mother Teresa. But if Mother Teresa went to collect all the prizes she is awarded, the death rate in Calcutta would soar. The telegram announcing the prize, therefore, must assume an imperative tone and hint at severe sanctions in the event of refusaclass="underline" "Happy to inform you that this evening, within one hour, you will be given the Golden Truss stop your presence indispensable in order to receive unanimous vote of unbiased jury otherwise must regretfully honor someone else." The telegram presupposes that the recipient will leap to his feet, screaming, "No, no! It's mine! Mine!"
Oh yes, I almost forgot. There are also those postcards that arrive from Kuala Lumpur signed "George." George who?
1988
How Not to Use the Fax Machine
The fax machine is truly a great invention. For anyone still unfamiliar with it, the fax works like this: you insert a letter, you dial the number of the addressee, and in the space of a few minutes the letter has reached its destination. And the machine isn't just for letters: it can send drawings, plans, photographs, pages of complicated figures impossible to dictate over the telephone. If the letter is going to Australia, the cost of the transmission is no more than that of an intercontinental call of the same duration. If the letter is being sent from Milan to Saronno, it costs no more than a directly dialed call. And bear in mind that a call from Milan to Paris, in the evening hours, costs about a thousand lire. In a country like ours, where the postal system, by definition, doesn't work, the fax machine solves all your problems. Another thing many people don't know is that you can buy a fax for your bedroom, or a portable version for travel, at a reasonable price. Somewhere between a million five and two million lire. A considerable amount for a toy, but a bargain if your work requires you to correspond with many people in many different cities.