In White Pigeons Vera and Chris sat next to a family of Basques at a Burger King near 14th and 6th in Manhattan and decided that the word is "knowledgeable" rather than "knowledgeful" because true knowledge is nothing stable, it exists in a state of flux and lust.
If I'd moved to Italy before I wrote White Pigeons my tempo would have changed and that book would have never been written; conversely, it would have been impossible for me to move to Italy until that book was written. Two working titles for the book were "A Stroll with an Explosion" and "Can't We At Least Sculpt This Purge?" so you can see how you'd have to dive deep into a Napoletano or Calabrese dialect to find suitable translations in Italian. I opted to sculpt those explosions a little.
If these two versions of me somehow did manage to coexist though that passage would have been ever so slightly longer. Chris would have said something to Vera like, "Yo! How much you wanna bet that "noleggio", "to rent" in Italian, and "knowledgeable" are related words. We're just summer renters, aren't we babe? I mean, if we weren't we'd get this seasoned life over with and move to the tropics once and for all, ne? Wait! wait: "to season" and "seasons"?! The seasons are assassins the like French assaisoner!"
Vera, "Chris, yuck, don't...and anyhow the word "assassin" comes from a different land where there were never any seasons to assassinate."
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