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day eight, story eight, Boccaccio way ahead of his time...again?

Wife swapping. Wow! I wonder how this story went over in the fourteenth century. I think that the important thing to take away from this story is that fact that we now have incontrovertible proof that Boccaccio is the inventor or reality television. Personally, I always knew it was true, but it’s really nice to have proof. I’m sure that now people won’t think I’m some kind of crackpot.

I guess we can probably assume that swingers existed before Boccaccio’s time, so he probably didn’t invent that. But it takes a genius like Boccaccio to come up with the scene that we find in day eight, story eight. Here we have a man locked in a chest, forced to listen quietly while his best friend has sex with his wife on top of the chest. He is forced to bear silently the buffets of the chest while his friend causes it to bounce through the movement of his hips. But once the joke is up and the chest is opened, does he strike out? Nope. He knows he is guilty of doing the exact same thing to his friends wife. So instead of being outraged for his honor, Spinelloccio admits his failings and agrees that what has been done to him is only fair play. In this way, the entire group benefits because they all decide to have sex with one another in whatever combination they choose. Hmmm did Boccaccio invent communism as well?

Boccaccio is badass

It has finally happened. After being a “professional student” for a good twelve years or more, I finally have a class where we will study, in part, Boccaccio. Tomorrow evening, we will devote an entire class to my beloved Giovanni. Oh what joys shall be mine.

This morning, I was rereading the Author’s Preface and Introduction as well as a couple of tales and I have to say...What genius!!!!! Boccaccio’s writing has an elegant simplicity. Boccaccio’s work has the elegance of an apple computer while Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales resembles nothing so much as a microsoft program: fat, bloated, prone to breakdowns, and just plain not very good. Reading Chaucer is like using windows XP; at first you think you can do all kinds of stuff with it. Then you realize that it’s a completely worthless turd that doesn’t work.
        

Boccaccio and cigars

I love cigars. I wonder if Boccaccio loved cigars. I don’t think they even had cigars back then. I picture him strolling across the piazza after a hard day of working on the Decameron. He nods politely to some gentlemen passing the other way. for a few moments, he stares soulfully at the figure of a rich woman’s face as he watches her carriage pass by him. Then he takes out an H. Upmann or maybe a Maria Guerrero. No doubt Boccaccio would have a nice Colibri jet flame lighter with a cutter attached. He would put the flame to the tip and roast it gently. Then he would smoke it standing alone in the piazza, or maybe sitting at the base of some statue. He would think about his stories. About half way into his smoke, it would occur to him that what he is doing with his Decameron is creating a new way of thinking, a new paradigm. He would probably decide that creating a new paradigm feels a little like making love to a woman for the first time. After a while, he would stop thinking about anything important and just enjoy the rest of his smoke. When he was done, would walk home through the setting sun. Maybe he would have a Bombay Sapphire martini. Then he would eat a snack and go to bed.