{"id":410,"date":"2008-03-09T11:04:19","date_gmt":"2008-03-09T11:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/wp\/?p=410"},"modified":"2013-03-07T17:35:51","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T01:35:51","slug":"umberto_ecos_intern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/umberto_ecos_intern\/","title":{"rendered":"Umberto Eco&#8217;s Intern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/887355_bd6961ca2a.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"328\" alt=\"photograph of barn\" \/><br \/>\nI walked up to him across the lawn of the stable, near the old red barn, and shook his hand. And Umberto Eco replied &#8220;You talk too much. In the car you were gossiping and gossiping with that man.&#8221; Then he looked away, but in a manner that said he didn&#8217;t mind me. He would tell me more soon, I knew.<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t know what Umberto Eco sounds or looks. In this dream he spoke a broken English but with a clean American accent, not Italian; he was wearing a brown corduroy professorial jacket that, if I had seen the elbows, probably had patches on them. Under that, an aged and checkered off-white shirt with red grid lines. And green pants, I believe.  He hadn&#8217;t shaved in a few days and he appeared to me with the face of the distinguished though weathered actor James Cromwell, with a bit of Paul Newman.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;d spent a long autumn drive in one of those extended Nissan \/ Toyota passenger vans. Eco had sat in the passenger seat; myself and another man, who I can&#8217;t recall despite my &#8216;gossiping&#8217; with, beside me. I could see the top of Eco&#8217;s head and part of his bushy left eyebrow from my position at the back but little more. But I knew I had to talk to him. I wanted to be his pupil, his intern. That was the real reason I was on this field trip. I wanted to learn&#8230;I&#8217;m not sure what. Philosophy I suppose. Signs. Meaning.<br \/>\n<em><a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/parl\/887355\/\">Farm in the Berkshires<\/a> by user parl on Flickr.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I walked up to him across the lawn of the stable, near the old red barn, and shook his hand. And Umberto Eco replied &#8220;You talk too much. In the car you were gossiping and gossiping with that man.&#8221; Then he looked away, but in a manner that said he didn&#8217;t mind me. He would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[8,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1059,"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/1059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffwerner.ca\/testa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}