Calvino playing tricks on us

Graeme Wood wrote this morning to say I needed to read a certain Italo Calvino book while here this time. I wrote back saying that I needed another book to read like I need the proverbial hole in the head.

The first laugh went to Graeme Wood, however. Everyone at the Biennale kept handing me leaflets and programs, and I wanted to keep them. But you can’t carry that many loose leaflets without dropping them often. I realized I needed a bag to carry everything in, and decided that buying a book was the best way to get one. So I walked into a bookstore, and the only book there that interested me was –behold!– the exact Calvino book that Graeme had recommended. Score a point for him.

But the next point goes to Calvino himself. Upon returning to Padua, I found that all the Biennale leaflets are in the bag, but the Calvino book alone is missing. I must have dropped it on some side-street in Venice en route to the station. Someone will have an interesting and appropriate discovery.