Anti-Flag wasn’t allowed into Ramallah. Malpensa airport gift shop, 12/17.

The most in-depth review of Israel vs. Utopia to date was published in The Forward yesterday. Combined with reviews of brand new books by Yitzhak Laor and  James Horrox (the title I edited for AK Press), its an honor to keep such company.

Enclosed at the end of the article is an audio interview with yours truly, about IvU, conducted by arts and culture editor Dan Friedman. We recorded it in New York at the end of November, just before I got on my return flight to Milan.

Searching for an Edward Hopper exhibit on Sunday, we happened upon a stage being prepared for Silvio Berlusconi.  Several hours later, the Prime Minister was assaulted within two or three meters of this location.

Watching the news over dinner, the proximity of the event felt especially unnerving. Relatively private, without many local acquaintances, it was a visceral reminder of where we are, and how deeply we’ve become tied to it.

Inside the Christmas market. Milan, 12/12/09.

Imagine being able to think about history the way we want it to be imagined. That is, interpreted, reacted to, summed up in ways that make it all better. Compiling lists of favorite books, music and literature at the end of every year is one way to do this. Hence my eleventh annual editor’s top ten.

I was surprised to see the visage of a US president other than Obama. That is, a portrait of the only American head of state of equal iconographic significance. Painted on the surface of a section of the Berlin Wall, positioned outside the entrance to the European Union’s Brussels headquarters, Kennedy’s distant look particularly stood out.

The Elders of Zion have been quiet for the last three years. I’ve been the culprit, as I’ve had to focus on writing Israel vs. Utopia. With the exception of Basra Memorial Orchestra,  our contribution to the fourth edition of Fifteen Sounds of the War on the Poor (2009), we haven’t issued anything new since our Twilight War EP in December 2006.

On Friday, however, the Elders published their first DJ mix in Zeek. Longtime fans of Turkish psychedelia, we pieced together a forty minute jam, featuring our favorite tracks by artists such as Erkin Koray, Mogollar, and 3 Hürel. The audio is hosted by Soundcloud. You can listen to the mix on this page, or download an MP3 directly.

The death of Claude Lévi-Strauss last month came as a shock. I thought he’d live forever. I was equally surprised by the ambivalence with which his passing was observed.

So much so, that, seeing this display of his works last night, in the brightly lit basement of our local Feltrinelli store, I felt strangely relieved to be away from America.

“There’s no ambiguity here,” I thought to myself, as I repeatedly snapped pictures of this display, hoping to get the perfect shot.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by an image of Mussolini appearing out of nowhere. Appropriated for god knows what, this Shepherd Fairey-like portrait (could Il Duce be the next Andre the Giant?) on Broome Street was an awkward way of telling me that I was getting closer to the so-called old country. My teenage stomping grounds, Manhattan, and, quite literally, home. In three days I’d be on a plane, flying back to Milan.

Live anywhere long enough, and you’re bound to encounter references to it wherever you go. When I arrived in DC on Monday, my cab driver turned out to be an Eritrean from Milan. “You  ever go to the Africa Restaurant?” he asked, name-checking my favorite dining spot in town. “Milano, I have lots of family there,” said the Dominican driver of the taxi I took to JFK on Friday. “Its the one place in Europe with Latinos, like here.”

These anecdotes wouldn’t mean anything if it weren’t for the fact that much of my book is dedicated to demonstrating that the distance between “here” and “there” is never quite what it seems. Even more so now, in reference to the movement of Arabs and Jews back and forth, between the Occident and Orient, between San Francisco and Tel Aviv.  Perhaps its the war that makes my version of this seem so much more important.

Pardon me if I seem a bit surprised. Having just gotten used to the sight of Italian army vehicles patrolling our neighborhood in search of illegal immigrants, imagine returning home after two weeks in the US to find the circus camped out instead. Corso Buenos Aires, 11/21.