[CPM-SPIRE-L] the ultimate Raconteur

Wed Jul 29 03:13:15 PDT 2015

Dear all,
these are my 2 cents of contribution to the Apostolico tales: a story 
and the two attached photos.
This is actually I joint work with Ugo Vaccaro (who helped me to recall 
the story and gave the concert photo), ad with Zsuzsanna Lipták (for the 
other photo).

The first time I heard Alberto talking, I immediately recognised his 
southern Italy accent, even if he was speaking in english. As a daughter 
of two napolitan parents, I loved it. His accent was intentional, or at 
least so it was in my opinion. Sure enough, he had this accent when he 
told us the following story a few weeks ago at CPM in Ischia.
In was evening, after some Ischia good food, in a beautiful garden of an 
Ischia hotel, with the perfect weather of an Ischia summer night. 
Alberto started saying “One can really be stupid when he is young… I 
don’t know whether it gets really better when one is old, but for sure, 
one can be really stupid when he is young!"

Nadia
__________________

_"One can be really stupid when he is young!"__
_
The story starts some forty years ago, when Alberto’s uncle (the brother 
of his father) passed away. The two brothers owned together a pastry 
[production and/or shop, we don’t really know, nor we recall 
whether/where this was precisely located in Ischia]. It was a small but 
valuable family-ran enterprise. Or, at least so it was until then, 
because to Alberto’s father surprise, the half owned by the defunct was 
sold to a big and very famous pastry chef and entrepreneur named 
/Calise/ [now by far the main pastry production and sale in Ischia]. As 
a result, Alberto’s father was left with a business that was no longer a 
family one, and as such it had lost most of its interest as a job. 
Nevertheless, he made lots of resistance to selling his other half to 
Calise, whose offers were making a certain pressure.
One day - and here Alberto was present - there was yet another session 
with Mr.Calise trying to convince Alberto’s father to sell, and 
Alberto’s father sinking in his armchair having more and more trouble to 
resist to the insisting attack. Mr.Calise was a clever man, and 
therefore he soon understood that it was not a money issue, but just 
that Alberto’s father did not want to give away a family business he was 
proud of. Then he came up with the following offer:
“I can build you a villa wherever you want in Ischia, just tell me where!”
Alberto’s father was then clearly tempted, and turned to Alberto who was 
sinking even deeper in his armchair.
“You know”, he told us, “I was already quite regularly in the US, wasn’t 
really interested at that time in a house in Ischia….”
Then the half-pastry was sold with another deal, which included that 
from then on, every Easter and every Christmas, a package full of 
Calise’s pastry was delivered to them. Mr.Calise never forgot his 
promise, and the package kept on arriving twice a year as long as 
Alberto’s father was alive. But… no villa in Ischia after all, said 
Alberto. And he added: “One can be really stupid when he is young!”
________________

On 27/07/15 03:12, Laxmi Parida wrote:
> _Alberto, the perfect gentleman_
> I formed an  indelible bond with Alberto ever since his  visit to the 
> IBM Research lab, in 2001-2002.  He spent roughly six to eight months 
> at the institute and I got to know him at many different levels: a 
> collaborator, a friend, a mentor, a confidant.  He helped me buy my 
> car. Quickly realizing my ignorance on the subject, one fine afternoon 
> he drove me to the dealer and did all the negotiating. The result: I 
> drove home a brand new BMW. He warned me not to wiggle in my car since 
> the BMW, being the fine piece of engineering that it is, would wiggle 
> with me.
> Later, during that visit I once invited Alberto and family home for 
> dinner. In the foolishness of my youth, I made the error of serving 
> some Italian inspired dishes (I remember what I had cooked but will 
> spare you the details). Few days later two Italian-Cooking magazines 
> mysteriously appeared in my mailbox. I now shudder to think that I 
> even served him some local wine. It was later that I was to learn 
> about his taste in wine (and food). And,  somewhere along the line, 
>  like David Sankoff, I have also become a regular consumer of Prosecco.
>
> The year 2008 was special. I missed the celebration in CPM at Pisa. I 
> organized a small surprise birthday party for Alberto at the Trieste 
> School (attached picture). And, I had the good fortune of staying at 
> his place in Padova during my birthday, where he had a surprise cake 
> for me (attached picture). Sometime, between the two celebrations,  I 
> was on his boat (attached pic with Rosa).
>
> _Penchant for positivity_
> I have never ever heard Alberto say a negative thing about anything. 
> He had this uncanny knack for giving a positive spin to all.
> Once I had worked for weeks on a proof of a theorem, but, as luck 
> would have it, it all collapsed. I was very disappointed and when I 
> told Alberto about it, he said, again in a style that only he can say, 
>  "a lot can be salvaged from the rich debris of a wreck".  Sure 
> enough, he joined me in the rescue effort.
>
> Here is a hilarious one, that always brings a smile to my face.
> Once after a week in DIMACS, where we had co-organized a workshop, I 
> came home to a very tall pile of dishes in my kitchen sink. Later I 
> was complaining to Alberto about this and he said  "You are lucky 
>  that the dishes were not all over the house-- under the sofa, behind 
> the TV, on the bed, etc etc where they could very well have been. At 
> least, they were neatly placed in the sink for your convenience."
>
> Well, there is one exception. Even Alberto could not get himself to 
> say something nice about yogurt. He did not like yogurt. He was only 
> too happy to give the credit for inventing yogurt to the Greeks (or, 
> Indians when I so insisted).
>
> _Simply funny_
> Alberto loved to spend the month of August sailing. I have heard great 
> many boat stories from some of you and from Alberto.  Here is a little 
> one of mine:
> Once I had to reach him during the month of August and needed his 
> signature urgently for a document. Given his location, he said that I 
> should feel free to replicate his signature (let me assure the reader 
> that this was for a very innocuous purpose) and so I did. A few more 
>  times as well. Then later he came back to me saying if I could send 
> him a copy of his signature, so that he could study it and replicate 
> his own signature, for the future.
>
> _The Perfectionist_
> People who know me also know of my strange desire to get one in a real 
> or fake tango pose for a Kodak moment. Alberto always dodged my 
> request, perhaps because the perfectionist in him didnt like the idea 
> of faking, and pushed someone else to oblige me. But finally, he gave 
> in at one of our Dagstuhl workshops (maybe because Titti silently 
> insisted- attached picture).
>
> As I recall and write these, I realize how he touched our lives in so 
> many ways.
> Unquestionably, a great scholar with depth as well as breadth- almost 
> an impossibility to achieve. I continue to work closely with many of 
> his academic descendants. At a personal level, he was a perfect 
> gentleman and the nicest man I have ever known. I will always miss him.
>
> Laxmi
>
>
>
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