Oltrarno Guerillas

The more uptight residents of Oltrarno (the neighborhood across the river) are upset about counterculture incursions into what was -- and still is -- the alt part of the city:

At the end of April, a group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of Poetry plastered amateur prose throughout the Santo Spirito neighborhood: odes to "Arianna," for example, or the line above-- "I'm wonderful. Everyone else is crazy."

Then, May 3, police discovered vegetables, camomile and fruit trees planted in the planters around the church. According to The Florentine, authorities also found a small pot plant. (Oh the humanity! Marijuana found in an artistic enclave!) The guerilla gardeners pledged (threatened) to retake the piazza this summer.

Residents complain that the poetry will damage the historic buildings. MEP guerillas claim the paper is attached using a mixture of water, sugar and tonic--all it needs is a good rainstorm, they say.

They may be wrong about that: Where the poetry has been scraped off, it seems to take the first layer of paint with it.

I guess we'll see if there are lingering bad feelings about that "all-natural" glue....