An Abortion: Test 1

 First uploaded on 9 April 2019

Burn Baby, Burn!

On the 20th we posted about monuments which can only be seen from above or from afar, including geoglyphs such as hill figures, effigy mounds and the Nazca lines.  What started it all were a few examples of monuments made of living trees.  One was a benign Celtic cross, a few were celebrations of Lenin's birthday centennial, and then there were the swastikas.  Three of them!  (See Forest for the Trees, Stones for the Mountain)

But we neglected to include another fascist monument.  In this case it's a monument to Hitler's pal Benito Mussolini, aka "Il Duce".  The tree memorial in questions spell out "DVX" ("leader"). But we'll get back to that in a moment.

Mussolini was officially the Prime Minister of Italy from 1922 until he was formally dismissed by King Victor Emmanuel in July, 1943, then promptly arrested.  Ensuing events are too complex to summarize here, but as the Allies began to advance into Italy in April, Mussolini and his girlfriend Clara Petacci decided it was time to flee.  As they were heading to Switzerland to catch a plane to Fascist Spain, he and Petacci, along with some of his closest cohorts, were captured by Communist partisans on April, 27th.  A day later, the couple and most of their cohorts were shot in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra -- only two days before Hitler and his mistress killed themselves just outside their bunker as the Russians advanced upon Berlin.  The bodies were then brought to Milan.  The long-suffering Italians were none too happy with their former leader, to whit:

After being kicked and spat upon, the bodies were hung upside down from the roof of an Esso gas station. The bodies were then stoned from below by civilians. This was done both to discourage any Fascists from continuing the fight, and as an act of revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader was subject to ridicule and abuse. (Wikipedia)

His corpse had an active afterlife.  It was buried in an unmarked grave, then dug up a year later by Fascists.  It was found months later after being constantly moved around in order to avoid being discovered.  The body was then stuffed into a trunk and hidden in a town near Milan.  There it was kept for another decade before the authorities agreed to allow Mussolini's body to be re-interred in the town of his birth.  Here he was accorded the courtesy of a crypt, flanked by marble fasces and topped with a marble bust.  

Hitler's remains also had a curious afterlife, but the Russians weren't taking any chances and the exact fate of his remains, erm, remains unknown.  Like the US did when they hid the corpses of Che Guevara and Bin Laden, the Russians kept the location of their burial unknown from preventing it from becoming a pilgrimage site (See No Body Home)

Il Duce derives from the Latin word dux (leader), and gives us the word "duke" in English.  The title had been used outside the traditional noble usage to refer to Garibaldi in 1860, although he never used it himself.  King Victor Emmanuel III was called "Duce Supremo" during WWI, and Gabriele d'Annunzio used the title as dictator of the Italian Regency of Carnaro in 1920.  Incidentally, D'Annunzio was an untranationalist who, though he never self-identified as a fascist, is often "credited" with partially inventing Italian fascism and was an influence on the ideas and Fascist aesthetics (the Black Shirts, balcony speeches, etc.) of Mussolini.  D'Annunzio was critical of Mussolini, and the latter saw him as a rival and a threat to his leadership, especially his alliance with Hitler.  It is said Mussolini supported D'Annunzio financially as a kind of "bribe" to keep him out of politics.

Of course, Mussolini is who we usually think of when we hear the title Il Duce, just as we think of Hitler when we hear the title Der Führer, which, incidentally, also means "leader".  Indeed:

This position was the model which other fascist leaders adopted, such as the position of Führer by Adolf Hitler and Caudillo by Francisco Franco.

Mussolini actually was first called by the title as early as 1912, after he was appointed editor of Avanti!  This paper, founded in 1896 "as the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party," still exists, although in 1976 its political alignment shifted to social democracy  (a socialist tradition, it promotes a gradual and democratic, as opposed to revolutionary, move towards socialism within a capitalist "mixed" economic system.  I'm sure that's a bit simplistic but you get the idea).

Enter the "fascist forest".  On Monte Giano, about 100k from Rome, cadets at the Scuola Allievi Guardie Forestali (a forestry academy) in the aptly-named town of Cittaducale ("ducal city") planted about 20,000 fir trees in 1938-39 to honor Il Duce by spelling out "DUX." 

 

A first attempt to eradicate the forest took place in the 1950's, and in 1998, after years of neglect, the center-left regional government allocated over 100,000 USD to both revitalize the forest and obscure the letters.  But in 2004, the neo-Fascist leader of a by then far-right regional government started to restore them.  Then in 2017, a motorist passing through the area was cooking tomato sauce (can't make this stuff up) accidentally (?) started a forest fire which did what earlier, human-led attempts failed to do.  

"Accidentally?"  According to The Local, -- "Italy's News in English":

...forestry police....found paper balls and inflammable liquid on the mountain believed to have been used to spread the fire deliberately, according to Rome-based daily Il Messaggero.

That report was on August 29th.  I like the way Italian newspaper Il Messaggero put it on the 25th, a few days before police discovered the evidence of arson:

No revisionism, no carelessness, no chainsaw:  in the end tomato sauce was enough, a pummarola (tomato sauce) that was stronger than the delusions of grandeur of the Regime.

According to the same article by The Local:

In clear weather, the letters – which are 630 feet tall and 1,360 feet across – could even be seen from Rome, some 50 miles away, but due to fire damage, only the 'D' has been left intact.

It also states that:

....Alessandra Mussolini – the granddaughter of Benito and an MEP with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party – said she would visit the forest.

 She said that she would talk to local authorities about the possibility of repairing the homage.

The far-right group CasaPound has already launched a fundraising effort to restore the   forest as well as a call to farmers to help with the restoration, under the slogan 'You can't erase history'.

So, I'm not sure of the exact state of the letters today, but Italian Wikipedia, citing Corriere Della Sera, says:

In February 2018, a group of CasaPound volunteers planted 1000 pine trees on Mount Giano in order to restore the writing.  The operation was deemed unnecessary by members of the local community, due to incorrect timing.

The original article quotes the VP of CasaPound as writing that up to 200 people from CasaPound, the Salamandra civil protection group, and the ecological association La Foresta che Avanza planted "a thousand Austrian pines, similar to the old ones destroyed, purchased thanks to the fundraising in which many Italians participated."

Not quite sure why the Wikipedia article mentions "bad timing" because the original article doesn't mention this at all.  And anyway, what a weird objection.  When would any time be "good" timing? 

So, those final days of Mussolini, and Italy's turnaround vis-a-vis Germany, is fascinating stuff.  As is the story of D'Annunzio.  Makes me think I should do a bit on ultra-nationalist poets and artists with political pretensions.  One example being Japan's then-most famous novelist Yukio Mishima, a right-wing nationalist who wanted to restore Japan to its former imperial glory, even forming his own private militia reminiscent of the Black Shirts and Brown Shirts of the Fascists and the Nazis.

Mishima formed the Tatenokai for the avowed purpose of restoring sacredness and dignity to the Emperor of Japan [something Hitler and Mussolini evoked endlessly].  On 25 November 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took its commandant hostage, and tried to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to rise up and overthrow Japan's 1947 Constitution, which he called "a constitution of defeat".  After his speech and screaming of "Long live the Emperor!", he committed seppuku [ritual suicide].

I looked briefly at Mishima's Wiki page and was struck immediately by a photo of that speech, from a balcony; you may recall that speeches given from balconies was one of the influences D'Annunzio had on Mussolini's Fascist aesthetic.  (Follow links for images of the rival "Duci" doing just that.)

There's a great photo of Mishima's balcony speech here.

Anyway, here's a cool collection of (non-political) 8 Extraordinary Pieces of Architecture Grown From Living Trees.

Aucamville Project 9.5: A resolution of sorts

The human forearm discovered two weeks ago in a wooded area near the chapel of Notre Dame de Boisville has been matched to its owner (see A gruesome discovery).

La Dépêche du Midi reports that the methodical search by gendarmes and military personnel yesterday has turned up a body.  The badly decomposed cadaver was found 500 meters away from the arm on a slope covered with dense underbrush.  A loaded pistol was at his side and a bullet was lodged in the skull.  The arm appeared to have been carried off by a wild animal, which the reporter adds parenthetically:  was "surely a fox."  How he knows that I'm not sure.

The identity of the man hasn't been released, but he is said to have been an 85 year-old who disappeared from Toulouse on the 28th of August, 2010.  He was known to have been depressed and  suicidal.  Before his disappearance he left a note:  "You will never find my body."  The only mystery left now is how he ended up in this relatively secluded spot.  Did he know the place?  How did he get here from Toulouse, 40 kilometers away?  Good questions.

This area has been inhabited since time immemorial, so it's no surprise this macabre story is not without precedent.

As I mentioned before, a religious hermit who had taken refuge in the chapel was murdered here by two brothers.  According to a monograph on the chapel in my possession, the chapel was guarded by a recluse by the name of Frère Paul, who lived from alms.  He had already been robbed of some money and two chickens when he was found murdered a few days before Easter, 1754, his body thrown into a ditch.

But there is a more recent and similar case.  In May, 1999, a group of schoolchildren and chaperons were doing Spring cleaning on the banks of the Garonne near this chapel and found....a human leg and part of its thigh.  And they were only looking for soda cans and other detritus.

It was never matched to a body.  The police speculated it had been washed down following the annual high waters of Spring resulting from the runoff caused by melting snow in the Pyrenees.  A week later all that could be said was that the person was between 1.69 and 1.76 meters tall, between 35 and 65 years old....and wore a size 44 shoe.  The leg was wearing a black one.

But it gets weirder.  Three months later, in Moissac, a spine, three ribs and strips of flesh were discovered near the river.  "WTF?" I ask.  The Dépêche noted at the time that "Nature regularly exhumes human remains.  Last May 29th a leg was discovered at Verdun.  The only certitude is that it was a man's leg.  Other than that, the coroner isn't able to give any more clues that might help investigators."  It furthermore noted that the leg had not been identified....I don't know about the Moissac remains.

That is definitely some weird shit.  I mean, a vertebral column?

And there is another story, this time in Aucamville proper.  Just across the road from where I live there is a handsome house which has been empty since I moved in, and is falling into disrepair.  It was a tavern named the "auberge de Tail."  The full story is a bit hazy, but apparently the owner Altobella Capelleri had "hired" a homeless guy by the name of Georges Haurdin.  Now, this guy was a bit slow and was subject to the worst abuse.  He was eventually beaten to death after having been kept like a slave for an unknown period of time.  During this period he was beaten regularly and also raped and filmed by a "family friend" on several occasions.  His body, however, was never found.  As the story goes he was beaten and left for dead by Capelleri herself.  She then had her husband and son bring the body to the pigs, then afterward to a well, where it lay rotting for 6 months.  Unhappy with the progress of decomposition, they retrieved the body, burnt it in the tavern's kitchen chimney and then disposed of the ashes in various trashcans in Toulouse.  (Full story here).

No wonder the house lays falling apart.  Cursed forever.

Although Capelleri concocted an elaborate tale of an "accident", a son from her first marriage testified to her sadism, which included burning his penis with a cigarette.  What horror for this poor boy and his siblings, revisited upon a hapless vagabond years later.  The exact date of the murder is unclear, however; sometime between October, 1993 and July, 2004.

People began thinking of this when the arm was discovered, despite the years separating the events.  In any event, Capolleri was sentenced to 20 years in prison last September.

So.  A dismembered forearm, a floating leg, flesh, ribs and spine....and then this horrifying tale.  Long-time readers of LoS will see many familiar themes here, but I'll leave that for you to ponder.

Let me stand next to your fire

LoS friend Jon Frankel on the evolutionary effect of FIRE.

Weenie roast

Lay where you're laying, don't make a sound

I know they're watching, they're watching
All the commotion, the kiddie like play
Has people talking, talking

You, your sex is on fire

--Kings of Leon: "Sex on Fire"

Sheeyit! Them wimmins is gone plum loco I tellya!

But seriously folks, when we posted about some modern furies a few days ago we never suspected that there were so many other cases of genital arson in recent history.

February 28, 2007. A Montréal woman was sentenced to four years in prison for pouring fondue fuel on her boyfriend's penis and torching it, while he slept.

The man later died of unrelated causes; in the incident he suffered 3rd degree burns and serious psychological trauma.

Attacker Andrée René got four years of prison, mandatory counseling and a court order to stay away from guns and combustibles for ten years. She was 44 years old at the time of sentencing.

August 22, 2007. This couple was divorced, but the high cost of apartments kept them roommates for three years. Apparently fed up with her philandering ex, our frustrated Muscovite set her ex's penis on fire as he sat in front of the TV. Naked. He'd been drinking vodka and fallen asleep.

Police made no predictions about his recovery. Perpetrator "Anna" was 41 years old at the time of her arrest.

December 8, 2008. "I just wanted to burn his penis so it belongs to me and no one else, I didn't mean this to happen." So stated the tad jealous Rajini Narayan, an Australian woman who poured a flammable liquid over her husband's crotch as he slept and then set it alight. Understandably shocked awake, the poor bastard knocked over the bottle of whatever product it was and caused the fire to spread, burning himself more in the process.

The man later died and Narayan was charged on January 6, 2009 with murder, arson and three counts of endangering a life (her kids were in the house it seems). She's also being ordered to have counseling. She was 44 years old at the time of her arrest.

* * * * * * * *

So. There is a lesson to be learned here. If you are a philanderer or even thinking about philandering--and your wife is of a certain age--don't leave anything easily flammable in the house. Hide the spirits, the fondue fuel, sterno cans, lighter fluid, gasoline, whatever! Throw away the candles the matches the tinderbox! Hell, don't watch TV naked, don't hug a friend and whatever you do, for God's sake man, don't go to sleep!!