Spooky in Italian would be...

For Halloween this year, I’m masquerading as a small-town Italian. I have many of the characteristics down pat (no pun intended): the slow bicycle rides; the affinity for gelato, cafe, and Park Club; the friend who drives a school bus; the other friend who runs a sports store with his wife; the friend who goes bird hunting just after the sun has risen; scarf wearing; a local watering hole where... well, everybody knows my name.

The Penguin Cafe has become our Cheers only it has more style and panache, decked out as it is in simple, Modern furniture and art; it serves much more wine than beer, and tasty aperitvo instead of peanuts and pretzels; you cannot watch the Red Sox or Patriots on the TV; and... right, it’s in Italy. And I don’t think anybody works for Poste Italiane, which is fine because the last thing those people need is anything else slowing down their infamously leisurely post service.

Mark met the owners, Mario and Paula, through an American who stayed here briefly over the past two summers. Now, Mark and I are greeted warmly when we arrive. We often end up staying past closing time, chatting away with a revolving series of characters. Personaggi. Just like in Cheers, the Penguin attracts many types: the longer haired charming suitcoat; the barkeep who laughs a lot and keeps everybody guessing; the wild-eyed sage on the corner stool. At a recent festa del vino, we even had the opportunity to rub elbows with the director of a vineyard. (Maybe that would be like sharing a pint with Jim Koch?)

All of us are drawn by the place and especially the penguini, as the staff are known. And the wine is excellent. Of course. [In truth, as inquiring minds might want to know, I have consumed nothing bad here in Italy. Even the strips of pig back, while far from kosher, were tasty.] As with the baseball team, it's nice to be included. To feel part of something larger than myself. Even if it is a bar... especially if it's a bar.

Happy Halloween to you and yours, wherever you may be. I’m sure that among the lot of you there are some mighty costumes. Maybe even a Sam Malone? A Papajima? Daniel LaRussa remains tough to beat, on and off the mat, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a go.


Oh, and if you’re in Boston seeing the tourist sights, you can skip the Cheers bar. ‘Tis a silly place.

They eat horses, don't they?

For better or worse, I will never be the Alexis de Tocqueville of 21st century Italy. I think better because I really like electric refrigeration and don’t much care for wigs. Nevertheless, I shall find it necessary from time to time to try to put into words some of the observations I have made of Italy and Italians. This is more than a cottage industry and many already do it quite well.

Beppe Severgnini, an Italian journalist who spent many years in England and the US, has written a small collection of books on the subject, including La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind. He writes, “Italy is far from hellish. It’s got too much style. Neither is it heaven, of course, because it’s too unruly. Let’s just say that Italy is an offbeat purgatory, full of proud tormented souls each of whom is convinced he or she has a hotline to the boss. It’s the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or the course of ten minutes.”

If the following pieces of Italy were slips of paper that I could fit into a manila folder, the tab would read: Offbeat.

• The 2001: A Space Odyssey air lock at the local post office. This contraption is closely related to the package window, familiar to residents of New York City and other safe places. That relative is common at such institutions as the pawn shop, the liquor store, and the post office. Like a magician’s puzzle box, the package window has interdependent, bullet-proof sliding doors designed to foil terrorists and to confound postal service employees and customers. Here in Codogno – and I suppose elsewhere across the Italian postal landscape – the package window has become a customer door: a glass-enclosed closet that a you must pass through to conduct business with PosteItaliane. On each end of the portal there is a glass door that opens with an appropriately space-age hushed foosh, sliding into a cavity in the wall. But here’s the rub. The door in front of you will not open until the one behind you has closed, leading to a moment of suspended disbelief, pocket existentialism – will I be left here for all to mock? Will everyone know that I am not worthy to send mail? Will the oxygen in here run out before Bruce Willis and his crack team arrive to save me? Or maybe that’s just me.

• Italians eat horse. There I said it. As with a tongue twister, perhaps my brain will adapt to this idea through frequent repetition. I have recently learned that not only do many Italians eat horse, certain cuts and preparations are highly prized and priced.

• This photograph needs no introduction: