September 17, 2010
“Can I take your picture?” I ask the phalanx of guys warming themselves in the sun.
“Sure,” says the baby-faced man in the foreground. “But hurry up. We’re all on our way to the cemetery.”
That’s Sicilians for you. Curious dark humor.
History’s to blame. Tyranny. Plague. War. Famine. Earthquake. Poverty. Excellent cadavers. Having survived all that, you’d be telling black jokes, too.
***
For some more black Sicilian humor, read Camilleri (if you like mysteries), or Pirandello’s “The Oil Jar and Other Stories” (see my review here), or see the wonderful (long) Taviani Brothers’ film Kaos (Chaos), based on four of Pirandello’s short stories. The village scenes in Kaos were filmed in my town!
***
