ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 231

So.

When I was thinking about my great uncle christopher it made me remember about father Barrett. He was a Jesuit priest in Rome who was a friend of the family and he often came to our house to play cards. He used to be a prison chaplain and as I remember the story, inmates were allowed to spend time with him and they could have spiritual guidance if the so wished but otherwise, they could spend the time playing cards.

Because of that, he had been taught so many card games and he used to teach them to us. I remember a really good one called “Machiavelli”. I thought that it would be a great idea for a book; a book of card games where each chapter would be about a prisoner telling his or her story and teaching a different card game. So in every chapter you would read a short story and learn the rules of a card game.

Anyway, it made me remember how much we enjoyed playing cards and it’s a pity we don’t play anymore.

Out of all the games, my favourite game was Canasta. This is a game that my grandparents used to play and I would love to play it again. It’s a game my sister and I learnt very young and in that game you could end up having to hold many cards, something that proved difficult with small hands. My grandparents used to tell us to hold the cards properly.

I remember once, at my grandparents’ appartment, there must have been a dozen elderly (maybe not much older than I am now but at the time they seemed very old) friends of my grandparent sitting around the dining table about to play Canasta. I remember everybody smoking and maybe drinking home-made Marsala all’uovo. I remember asking if I could play and one of the ladies patronisingly told me that that wasn’t a game for children but for grown-ups. Then someone said that we knew how to play and they let us join in.

You can play the game using three decks of cards but it’s better if you have specialised Canasta cards. The best cards were jokers (Rotelle) and twos (Pinelle) and then Aces, Kings, all the way down to fours. The threes were special, a “tre rosso” would be worth 100 points and you would swap it for another card and the “tre neri” were very useful because you could use it to block someone taking the “Mazzo” but if you had one in your hand you wouldn’t be able to close the game. If anybody in southeast London plays Canasta, I would love to organise something once this covid palaver is over.

Actually, I also like Briscola and Scopa (especially with 4 players) and the cards for that are just beautiful, (Piacentine, Napoletane, Triestine) and if I find them, I could use them for another photo of the day.

And this reminds me of a great film with Alberto Sordi called Scopone Scientifico.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069235/

I AM STILL ALIVE

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