When they arrive we chat again for a bit. I say something that he’s heard many times before. Why doesn’t his machine make pre-rolled and cut pizza dough or fresh pasta?
Moving on, I pass more recycled cardboard benches. Somewhere the founder of Ikea is screaming in horror as he sees a future where he’s too expensive. At the end of the summit hall is a velvet rope with security personnel. Here every 20 or 30 minutes a different speaker talks about the future of food. And here is where President Obama will give a 2 hour speech.
I’m debating whether to attend. How often does one get to attend a live speech from a President, let alone this one? The answer is apparently as often as someone has 350 euros to blow. People around me mention that the former President personally made $400,000 for today. In addition, his foundation received over $2 million.
The deciding factor is that I’m cheap and Youtube is free. A wall behind the velvet rope blocks seeing the speakers from the main pavilion. But you can watch one of the giant TV screens showing the speech live. And you can hear everything. With a small crowd of young innovators, I hang out and listen for a bit.
Rah rah rah environment, blah blah blah climate. Having given a bad speech myself yesterday, I appreciate how good a speaker he is. Though the content seems like boilerplate from his election platform. “Hope” was changed to “environment.”
After only a few minutes, the President ends his monologue. The rest of the two hours will now be a Q&A with his friend moderating. Really?!? $2.5 million and he’s phoning it in. The Q&A starts with questions that are a plug for his new book, then what he’s been up to (charity endeavors, etc). His answers are concise, well-spoken and almost mathematical in their precision. Maybe part of President Obama’s appeal is his lack of relatability. People don’t want to hear about the mundane that saturates their daily lives. They want demi-gods with altars of edible, albino figurines to worship.
I run into an older gentleman; a mozzarella producer that I know. He’s wearing a bright red satin jacket and smoking a cigar. I dub him Mr. Ferrari for the rest of the night.
On that note, I leave and head over to Sforza castle near the center of Milan. Castello Sforzesco was built in the 1400’s by Duke Sforza. There is a dinner party being held in its outdoor courtyard and I’ve been invited. Its’ square and round towers are connected by faded, red stones. An empty moat lies before it. Inside the castle are rows of curved arches separated by empty fields of cobblestone. As darkness falls, the arches light up and dinner is served.
I run into an older gentleman; a mozzarella producer that I know. He’s wearing a bright red satin jacket and smoking a cigar. I dub him Mr. Ferrari for the rest of the night. His two sons are with him. The older, Luigi, runs their cheese business and the younger (with a bouffant of black curly hair like an afro) their wine business. From then on, I introduce the younger son as Black Jesus.
Near the end of the night professional models in costume perform for the crowd. Never forget that this is the fashion capital of the world . The entertainers wear elaborate outfits with wings and 5-foot-tall stilts. The men and women have an androgynous look. Bright spotlights shine as they stroll up the runway. They are elegant fairies, larger than life.
Mr. Ferrari, despite the fact that he is not 10 feet tall, dances with a female model. And he never stops smoking his cigar. Somehow Mr. Ferrari pulls it off, portable smokestack in one hand and alien beauty in the other. For the rest of the night Luigi and Black Jesus have a tough act to follow.