Ruth Orkin:
American Girl in Italy

Some pictures don’t leave your mind. Most often they are horrible. Not so mine: It is Ruth Orkin’s “American Girl in Italy”, more precisely Mrs. Jinx Allen, now known as Nina Lee Craig, on August 22, 1951, in Piazza della Repubblica in Florence in front of the Cafè Gilli. Nina was an art student Ruth had met in her hotel. The young man on the right stopping his Lambretta is Carlo Marchi. Ruth Orkin was 29, and had just returned from a trip to Israel. The picture is staged, but the men had only been asked not to look at her, the photographer.

This picture was first published in Cosmopolitan 9/52 with an article titled “When you travel alone … tips on money, men, and morals”. The New York Times is said to have called it the world’s second most published picture.

Which is the most published photo in the world is under debate; usually Alberto Korda’s Che Guevara on March 5, 1960, is mentioned (left), or Robert Doisneau’s 1950 “Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville”, staged as well (right, detail). Martin Elliott boasts the most popular picture to be his tennis girl, unbelievable.

Back to Ruth Orkin and Nina Craig. “The two were talking about their shared experiences traveling alone as young single women, when Orkin had the idea to ‘go out and shoot pictures of what it’s really like’”, writes Mary Engel, Ruth’s daughter. “They had a lot of fun.”

The idea for this picture had been in Orkin’s mind for years, ever since she had been old enough to go through the experience herself, but she knew that she needed to have the right crowd, lighting, background, angle, and, above all, the right model in order to recreate the situation (Orkin). Orkin described Allen as a “great natural actress” who participated in staging the scene, walking by a group of men lounging on the corner of the Piazza della Repubblica, while Orkin ran ahead of Allen and stood in the middle of the intersection to shoot. The photographer says she spoke only to the two men on the motor scooter, asking them to tell the others not to look at the camera. She took one photo of Allen passing the men, and then asked her to back up and repeat the scene, of which she took a second. Orkin’s photo was eventually published in an article, “Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone,” in the Cosmopolitan issue of September 1952, after several other magazines [had] rejected it. (John Mratz in http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/mraz/mraz04.html)

Further Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Orkin

More research, including variants and the negative strip

The official story: http://www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/american-girl/
With more pictures of the “American Girl” in Florence linke this

The oficial picture (550 × 364 Pixel)
www.orkinphoto.com/img/american_girl/american_girl-lg.jpg
Buy an original for $ 1200 …
(Or take Orkin’s Einstein, if you like it cheaper!)

The picture, a bit larger (868 × 558 Pixel) here

Nice Blog entry by Miguel Garcia-Guzman
http://exposurecompensation.com/2006/12/28/american-girl-in-italy-by-ruth-orkin/

The story as remembered by the girl in the picture
http://www.thegridto.com/culture/arts/walk-this-way-2/

The story as remembered by Carlo Marchi at 79 (Italian)
http://pentma.blogspot.com/2009/08/una-storia-italiana.html

Caffè Gilli www.Gilli.It, Piazza della Repubblica 39, Florence, Tel. +39 055 213896

The location: 43° 46' 17.89" N 11° 15' 15.69" E (64 m high), in Google Maps
In Google Earth you can look at the scene in Street View.


I end with this beautiful, slim, no-nonsense Lambretta D 125 (reminding river Lambro). Here you can see and hear one: http://youtu.be/mMBUH8Q4WMQ?t=2m37s

Link to this Blog
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010/02/ruth-orkin-american-girl-in-italy-some.html
or
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html#Orkin
or
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html#American

Ein eher zufällig zustande­ge­kommener Mail­wech­sel mit einem an­ge­hen­den ka­tho­li­schen Geist­lichen – den ich bei Gott nicht weiter kenne – hat mich ver­an­lasst, mich zu fragen, was er wohl ins­ge­heim denkt über diese, wie ich finde, un­sinnige Vor­schrift. Also will ich, ohne ihn direkt an­zu­sprechen, einmal darüber sinnieren. (Das Bild links stammt übrigens aus der Wikipedia, Stichwort Zölibat.)

Gedanken zum
Zölibat

Ob und wie sich der Zöli­bat aus Bibel und oder Über­lieferung her­leitet, das ist mir einerlei. Als alter Inter­nats­schüler, der neun junge Jahre unter Aufsicht von »Er­ziehern« (Lehrern) war, weiß ich, wie wir jeden Erzieher für uns verloren gaben, sobald er heiratete. Besonders die jungen hörten auf, mit uns in die Berge zu gehen oder Blumen zu botanisieren, Sport zu treiben oder abendelang herumzudiskutieren, wenn sie frisch ver­heiratet waren. Ehelosigkeit – möglichst auch Verliebtlosigkeit – lässt einfach mehr Hingabe zu für den Job, sei es als Erzieher, Lehrer, Meisterschachspieler oder Soldat im Krieg. Also: Zölibat – bestens!

Die Frage ist nur: Muss das sein? Und da meine ich, und wohl mit mir die Mehrheit der Gläubigen: Nein. Es geht auch ohne, also mit Frau, mit Familie, mit anderen Sorgen als bloß um die Schäfchen der Gemeinde. Die Protestanten beweisen es alle Tage, mein seliger Großvater war Prediger. Und die Protestanten finden leichter Nachwuchs. Die »Qualität« protestantischer Pastoren ist, meine ich, einfach besser. Denn es gibt Wichtigeres für einen Seelsorger als Enthaltsamkeit.

Dennoch: Die Kirche verlangt’s, jedenfalls bis dato. Eigentlich eine Gemeinheit. Wer zum »Gottesdienst« berufen ist, sollte ihn – ohne römisches Wenn und Aber – leben können. Doch dieser zornige Gedanke hilft unserem Priesteranwärter nichts, im Gegenteil. Gleichmut habe die Seele vor Gott.

Als Trost darf ich anbieten: Es geht auch ohne Sex. Die Vorstellung, Sex sei so etwas wie Verdauung und müsse regelmäßig stattfinden, sonst sei man konstipiert und unpässlich, ist Unsinn. Es geht auch ohne die Entspannung in der Hypophyse, oder wo auch immer. Rauchen ist schwerer aufzugeben als Sex – sage ich mal als Nichtraucher. Wenn also die katholische Kirche Zölibat verlangt, und wenn einem die Berufung wichtiger ist, sollte man’s in Kauf nehmen. Oder zur Konkurrenz abwandern, konvertieren zu den Protestanten.

Soviel in aller Peinlichkeit und Kürze.

Nachtrag: Das Zwangszölibat gibt es seit 1022. Dazu die Wikipedia: »Im Jahre 1022 ordnete Papst Benedikt VIII. auf der Synode zu Pavia gemeinsam mit Kaiser Heinrich II. an, dass alle Geistlichen künftig nicht mehr heiraten durften. Da es für Priester üblich wurde, die Heilige Messe täglich zu zelebrieren, spielte dabei vor allem die kultische Reinheit eine Rolle, aber auch die Tatsache, dass sonst Kirchenbesitz an die Kinder der Geistlichen vererbt worden wäre. Verstöße gegen den Zölibat wurden mit Kirchenstrafen belegt, und bereits verheirateten Geistlichen wurden Amt und Besitz entzogen. Zur Zeit von Nikolaus II. wurde durch die Lateransynode von 1059 jenen Priestern die Zelebration der Heiligen Messe verboten, denen ein notorisches Konkubinat nachgewiesen werden konnte.«

Hirtenbrief vom 4. August 2009 Kardinal Meisners über den Zölibat: »Zeichen von Gottes Nähe und Treue« (Druckansicht). – Meines Erachtens den Zölibat mit schönen Worten höchstens lobend, nur nicht schlüssig in der Aussage, dass ein Priester nur so ein Priester sein kann. Als dieser Brief im vorigen Jahr vorgelesen wurde, war bei uns gerade passend ein Priester der Ostkirche zu Besuch mit seiner Frau. Ich bin dann einfach weggegangen. (Meisner: »Freilich gibt es auch verheiratete Priester, etwa in den Ostkirchen. Doch auch dort wird die Lebensform unverheirateter Priester hoch geschätzt, so sehr, dass nur Zölibatäre zum Bischofsamt berufen werden.«)

Link zu diesem Blog-Eintrag:
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html#Zoelibat

Weitere religiöse Themen bei mir:
Gottesglauben – Strenge des Gottesbildes
Sondern erlöse uns von dem Übel – Kein Jammertal mehr hier! (3. 2. 9)
Beten, wozu? (22. 10. 7)
Soft-Gott (27. 4. 8)
Für euch und für viele – oder alle? Pro multis (8. 3. 9)
Der gute Mensch von Saratow – Bischof Clemens Pickel (15. 2. 9)
Billig und heilsam – verschwunden
Es geht bergab mit der Kirche (12. 9. 7)
Die Namen-Jesu-Kirche in Bonn (27. 12. 8)
Sonntagsstimmung (26. 8. 7) und weitere Geschichten
Zu Gott, der mich erfreut von Jugend auf – sprachliche Gedanken

Permalink, Permalinks, Permanent Links,
Permanentlink, Dauerverweis, dauerhafter Link,
fester Anker, Permanent Anchors for Blogs, etc.
in Blogger

Blog entries are archived after a while. – This means: The original HTML file under, say http://blogabissl.blooger.com, is moved elsewhere. Tough luck for addresses and links that used to directly point into a specific blog.

I may criticize—in this case Google—that it cannot make a simple list of entry points and find them for you in the archive files; but this complaint won’t help. We have to live with the vanishing, treacherous links. Links like http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/#label work at first, later on no more.

There are two methods to apply permanent links, “permalinks”, in blogger.

Here is the official way. Note that all this applies to blogger only. You write your blog. You publish it. Then you look at it, and you’ll see a little pound sign # at the very end of the blog, left side, where it says # posted by … Now if you move the cursor to this pound sign and click right, you’ll get a pop-up menu with the possibility to copy the link address hidden under the # sign. Aim precisely. In this case here you’ll get

http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010/02/permalink-permalinks-permanent-links.html (try)

which is the official permalink to this one blog entry. You see, it contains the year and month of publication, and a somewhat unpredictable text as entry. This link will work while the blog is fresh and not yet archived, and it will work as well after automatic archiving. The reader will get to see exactly this one blog entry.

And this is the other way. You put a name tag into your blog. When writing your blog you switch to HTML for a moment, and you enter the HTML command <a name="Permalink"> into the flow of words, best at the beginning. You may choose whatever entry name you like, instead of Permalink here, which is just an example. Because the HTML code of your blog is examined by an unforgiving HTML teacher within blogger’s software, you must have a finishing </a> tag closing the <a name="…"> tag. The correct form is <a name="nameofchoice"></a>. The </a> may come later, but it must come. When the blog is published, you’ve got an entry point there. Naturally you can put as many entry labels into a blog as you like, very practical with long entries.
In order to use this self made entry point as permalink, you use exactly the format

http://blogname.blogspot.com/yyyy_mm_01_archive.html#nameofchoice

yyyy is the year, mm the month of publication, 01 (zero one) is 01 always, and nameofchoice is your label name. Don’t forget the underline characters. Make no slash after html. In this case here I’ve added Permalink and Dauerlink as name tags, so you will be able to address this blog either by

http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html#Permalink (test)

or by

http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html#Dauerlink (test)

Again: this link will work both during the month of writing and later after archiving, it will start the page exactly with the (naturally hidden) label. It will bring in all the month full of blogs, but that’s ok. The advantage: You’ve got a self chosen, simple entry label, a simple permalink. You choose the name, not blogger (blogspot). And you choose it while you compose the blog, no waiting for blogger to come up with its name. And you can use multiple entry labels.

Good luck.

PS: You don’t believe me? Try this:
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2009/06/these-three-days-of-may-in-paris-made.html (try)
or this (doesn’t it look better?):
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html#Paris2009 (try)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Wikipedia’s explanation of Permalinks, deutsch
Deutsche Erklärung von »Ankern« in Selfhtml. – Sorry, not available in English,
see for example “The name Attribute” in W3Schools or W3C.

This must be Alfredo Scarfone today.

God’s Business

Let me tell a story.
A business life can be a pious life, a good life.

Back in 1970, when I headed a small group of computer technicians in Milano, Italy, it was my job to hire more of these – at this time – quite rare animals. I even had designed an analytical test in the office bathroom. There were two washing basins with mixing warm and cold water faucets. The warm water however was unavailable, closed at a central faucet. I had set up the experiment in such a way that when you opened a cold water faucet on one basin water came out at both basins. The analyst to be tested had to explain this – after his shock to be led into the toilet as assessment.

At this time I had the good luck to hire Alfredo Scarfone. He was very gifted, as man and as technician. Later we hired his good friend Alberto Panni, who was, if I remember well, good too, but less ambitious. We had a very interesting time with Hewlett-Packard in these early days of minicomputing, debugging one of the first real-time operating systems, as well as a time-sharing “executive”, and later in Cupertino, California, and Geneva, Switzerland, the early HP 3000 mainframe. Two years later, when the group dissolved back to their home countries, Alfredo had returned to Italy, I continued in Germany.

In Italy Alfredo had been living in some sort of commune, spiritually connected with Alberto. We in the office did not notice much of this. They rarely spoke about it. I might not have understood the special circumstances, and frankly it didn’t interest me much. It was their private life. I was happy playing with computers, and still am. I lost sight of Alfredo, but I knew that he grew to be manager of Hewlett-Packard Italy for many, many years. Astonishing this stability in a top position.

Yesterday I remembered Alfredo’s religious engagement, looking for a positive example of applied piousness. So I asked Google what became of it.

First I found a short biography of Alfredo; he must have been a speaker in Abu Dhabi in January of 2009. The picture of Alfredo comes from this site.

Alfredo Scarfone is president of Centro Culturale di Milano, a title he has held since September 2004. In 1962, he worked in the computer division of Olivetti and afterward in General Electric Information Systems Italia as a specialized technician and, later, as an instructor. He worked for one year in the USA in Phoenix, Arizona, for General Electric in the technicians training branch. Mr. Scarfone began working with Hewlett Packard in 1970 in Ginevra [Geneva, Switzerland – fj] as European Specialist of Communications in the services of time-sharing. From 1978 to 1983, he was the director of staff [personnell manager – fj] for HP Italy. In that period, the staff of the society grew from 300 to 700 people. In January 1986, he was appointed general manager and commercial director, positions that he held for more than 17 years. In 2000, he founded a society of managing advisors (ALPAS S.r.l.) and served as the sole manager. Mr. Scarfone was awarded the Rosa Camuna Prize in 2003 for his work in Lombardy. He constituted small commercial enterprises in Kazakhstan and Lithuania in order to train young, local entrepreneurs. Mr. Scarfone founded the Banco Informatico, of which today he is the assistant director. He has cooperated with the “Fraternità dei Missionari di S. Carlo Borromeo” as an advisor for the missionaries’ works in the world since 2004.

When I looked for Alberto Panni, I literally hit his tombstone. Alfredo had written an obituary for Alberto, and had the generosity to allow it to be published in the Internet. I find it very touching. I don’t want to pick personal details, it would not be proper for an outsider like myself. But there is one sentence, for which I envy, ashamed, those two close friends: « Quanti progetti abbiamo fatto assieme per cambiare noi ed il mondo. » – How many projects have we done to change ourselves and the world.