Zino Francescatti

Henri Rondel, Red-Headed Lady

(Image from Zino Francescatti Website)

Yesterday evening, I learned of Zino Francescatti.

Not the French violinist with the Italian name whose life spanned the twentieth century. About that fine fellow, I'm still relatively ignorant.

No, I mean the Seoul restaurant Zino Francescatti, a lovely place offering "the best delicacies of Italian cuisine with French culinary influence," or so says the website. It also offers a wine list of fine wines, and we enjoyed a nice Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon -- a 2003 Carmen Carménère, I think (but I'm not certain that I've got that information correct).

The meal was excellent, and I enjoyed the company of two other scholars, Hi-kyung Moon and Julie Choi. Hi-kyung was one of my colleagues during my Korea University days, but Ms. Choi, I was meeting for the first time -- though I blogged about an article of hers nearly one year ago.

This was a business meal, for the two of them are editing the Korea-based journal Feminist Studies in English Literature, and I'm helping again with my proofreading skills, so yesterday's meeting was for agreeing upon a sequence of times by which to finish proofing each article.

Despite its being a 'business' meal, the dinner was one to savor, and not only for the fine food but also for the decor. Upon the walls hang French and British paintings from the 17th through 19th centuries. The original of the image posted above also hangs upon one of the restaurant's walls, and at first, looking at it from across the room, we were wondering if it were a Pre-Raphaelite painting -- one of those red-haired beauties that Dante Gabriel Rossetti liked to portray -- but when we checked in a 'guidebook' to the restaurant's collection, we discovered that it was by the relatively obscure French painter Henri Rondel (1857-1919).

You can see more of the collection at the Zino Francescatti website, as well as at this flickr site.

Or just go to the restaurant, situated between the back gates to the Yonsei and Ewha campuses, and see the collection directly as you enjoy a fine meal with a glass of wine.

Poetry Break: "This Warmth I Feel"

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, La Pia de' Tolomei (1868-80)

(Glorified at R.S. McCain's The Art of Being a Redhead)

In the sultry heat of a Seoul summer, the poem below might feel inapt, but I wrote it in a chilly Berkeley during the autumn of 1985. I had just met a Russian Jewish woman with flaming-red hair and intellectual brilliance -- and found her passionately attractive.

Nothing came of that other than this poem.

For which ... I am immensely grateful. Otherwise, I might not have met my good-lovin' Sun-Ae (선애), who provides plenty of warmth and brilliance.

This Warmth I Feel

This smoldering passion that you bear,
Though hidden by your verbal grace,
Erupts by virtue of your hair,
Whose flames offset your sculpted face.

This warmth I feel beneath your skin
With every pulse originates
In racing fires that burn within,
And soft suggests your inner traits.

. . .

The chill night air has shivered me.
This cold, damp fog has swirled around
And in its vortex circled free
By stealth to steal what warmth it's found

That yet remains within my limbs.
My breath engages with the mist --
Ensnared, it's merged into that film,
Which heavy, finds itself condensed

To cool still more what heat has stayed.
I'm closer drawn to warm my bones
Beside the fires you generate,
Much better than to rub alone

My palms, or arms, against the cold.
Draw closer then, dispel this chill,
Lean close yourself within my fold
To share with me the warmth you feel—

You'll feel that I can smolder too,
Through passion radiate desire,
And shine with brilliance just for you,
Engendered by your burning fire.

Sounds enticing, doesn't it, but fire burns, even to ashes, as this other poem warns ... or also entices?