The olive harvest is going well. On Thursday we took three day's worth of olive harvest to the oil mill, where they weighed it and squeezed out the extra virgin goodness. We had 501 kilos of olives, which turned into 79 kilos of oil. This may seem like a small amount, but it represents a rather high extraction rate for the first of the harvest. Our hosts were expecting to collect under 60 kilos of oil at the first pressing.
The oil is a wonderful bright green color and has a very peppery flavor. I've been told that new oil is considered "hot" and after a month or two of aging the color turns more golden and the flavor mellows out. I find the flavor delightful as it is, especially on bruschetta.
In other news, Josh and I are going to spend the next two days in Cinque Terre, hiking the mountains along the coast. It is Josh's birthday on Monday, so this trip is my present to him. Also, I was lucky enough to find a couple of bottles of Irish Stout (dark beer is extremely rare here) at the local supermarket. Perhaps it won't be the highest quality of stouts, but I think it will make him happy.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Riparbella
We made it to our new farm and are doing well. We only traveled about 25 miles to a small town called Riparbella, which is near Cecina. From the front porch of our apartment, I can see the ocean and what I've been told is the island of Corsica. There are about 500 olive trees on this farm, and I have no idea how long it will take us to harvest them all. Our hosts said that the crop was so large last year that they were picking until Christmas. The trees have a cyclical production, however, and there are far fewer olives this year. This is our last farm in Italy and we will be here until the first of December. The internet connection here is limited, so updates may be more sparse in the coming weeks.
Ciao for now.
Ciao for now.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Che mangiamo
Hoot ha hum ho. We wound up picking this afternoon, when it was only sort of kind of maybe raining on us. The sky couldn't seem to make up its mind, but it was definitely damp. Ilaria says we picked close to 90 kilos, which sounds impressive, I think. Tomorrow we (the wwoofers) have set ourselves the challenge of picking 200 kilos, so wish us luck.
Tonight, for dinner, we ate spezzatino. The recipes I found on the internet are all much more complicated than what Marina cooked for us. It's so simple, I think you all need to make this asap!
Spezzatino
2 lbs of stew beef, cubed
1 bottle of good Tuscan wine (Chianti is probably what you will find most readily)
A little or a lot of garlic, depending on your taste
2 tablespoons of whole peppercorns (yes whole, don't even think about cracking them)
Salt to season
In a large pot over medium high heat, brown the beef in batches. When the beef is all done, set it aside and saute the garlic for a minute. Add the beef back to the pot, toss in the peppercorns, empty in the bottle of wine and let the whole thing cook low and slow for 2 - 3 hours. When the beef has turned into little globules of fork-tender-goodness, you are ready to eat.
If you want to be super Italian about this dinner of yours, you need a first course consisting of some kind of pasta dish. Spezzatino is your second course, and secondi are generally served with potatoes (ours were boiled and mixed with chopped parsley). Then, you can have the vegetables, or in our case, a salad. Finally, a dolce, either some fruit or an actual dessert (Marina made us chocolate salami). If you don't have the luxury of just passing out at this point, a shot or three of espresso is called for. Enjoy!
P.S. Chocolate Salami
Crush some plain vanilla cookies, add some sugar, cocoa powder and cream and mash this all together until it is smooth. Mix in some pine nuts and shape into a log. Refrigerate for a few hours and then serve to your unsuspecting guests. (I make no guarantees that your lack of specific ingredient quantities will produce the same results as Marina's supposed lack of specific ingredient quantities.)
Rain
It's raining today. It's been raining since Wednesday and when it rains, we can't harvest olives. Yesterday afternoon, the clouds parted and it was gloriously sunny. Last night, we had a perfect view of the stars. This morning: gloom again. We set out for the orchard, still with hope in our hearts. We picked through six trees before the rain started up. We packed up and now we are stuck in the house, waiting for a break. Forecast calls for clouds and rain until Tuesday and Josh and I have plans to leave for the next farm on Monday. It will be a complete bummer if we don't finish the harvest here. Blah blah blah. Rain rain rain.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Part 2
On 18 October, we decided to not bother with trying to find a safe space to stash our luggage and just went to the farm in the morning instead of late afternoon like we'd planned. Also, I think the city was wearing us out and we needed to escape. The train ride from Firenze to Pontedera was easy, but the bus ride from Pontedera to Chianni was difficult. We had to contend with the Italian word for “switch” (coincidenza), which we hadn't encountered before. Traveling to a small village on a Sunday (when public transportation all but shuts down) is a pain. We made it, bumbling through the transfers with our usual American panache, which is to say, lots of hand gestures and mis-communication with conductors.
Monday was spent working the olive trees. Our host didn't want to start harvesting because there were weather forecasts of rain later in the week, so we spent the day doing maintenance. I was working with the small trees, replacing the worn or missing ties that were holding the trees straight against wooden poles. I think olive trees would rather be tangled olive bushes, so the plants have to be trained against poles. Josh was once again pitted against his old enemy, the evil thorn bush. Which is to say, he was cutting down weeds.
Tuesday morning we seeded 330 lbs of beans over the field. Ilaria, our host, wants to get more nitrogen into the soil. I have no idea how well this particular tactic will work, but it made me think of my high school American history class and George Washington Carver. We had the afternoon off and our hosts convinced us to visit Volterra. Knowing nothing about this town, we set off. The mountain top upon which Volterra is situated has apparently been continuously inhabited for the last 3000 years. We picked up a map from the tourist office, which contained a brief history of the city. My favorite line is, “One of Volterra's last historical events, the revolt against the Florentine Republic, took place in 1530.” The town certainly looks like a place where nothing has changed in the last 500 years: narrow, cobblestone streets between rows of medieval, stone buildings. It has apparently been a center for alabaster production during this whole time. Every other store front was a place selling alabaster carvings, from chintzy mass produced tourist crap to artists' workshops with sculptures selling for thousands of euros. There were also a couple of cool sounding museums, but we were constrained by the bus schedule and didn't have time to check any of them out.
On Wednesday the bad weather arrived and our hosts said we had the day free. A new wwoofer joined us Tuesday evening and the three of us traveled up to Lucca, a medieval walled town about 20 km northwest of Pisa. Once again we were constrained by an awkward public transportation schedule that meant we spent about as much time traveling to and from Lucca as we spent actually inside the town. It looked like a really cool town with some really cool museums, but we didn't have the time to devote to them. I would love to get back to Lucca, armed with an itinerary and a map, to see what the city has on offer. The walls were especially neat, well preserved and with a tree-lined walking path on top that circles the old city. Our next farm is close by, so I think we will have the opportunity to try again.
On a final note, we found a wonderful bookstore in Lucca with a decently sized English language section. The largest and cheapest book for sale was Joyce's Ulysses. Even small trade paperbacks start at the equivalent of $16 and go up from there. Large paperbacks sell for $30 or $40 each, which is ridiculous. For those prices, it's a wonder that anyone in this country reads at all. Ulysses is a large book, but it was selling for around $17, so I bought it. Why not? Owing to its dense and complicated nature, it will probably last me until the end of this trip. Seems like a $17 well spent.
More pictures!
The wall around Lucca.
A cool lion with a big mouth.
Lucca's buildings all look like they are bearing silent witness to centuries of changing architectural whims. This one is particularly egregious. 
Ruins of an amphitheater from Volterra. It was hard to get a good picture of the whole thing, but this is my best try.
A peek into an alabaster workshop.
Now on to writing all the postcards I've promised people...
Fun times and long updates Part 1
Thanks to a poor internet connection at the hostel, we've rather fallen behind on our blog updates. Let's see...what have we been up to?
On 17 October, we visited the Archeological Museum first thing in the morning. It was smaller and less well organized than the Egyptian museum in Torino. Only about 20% of the exhibits on the first floor were translated into English, but there they were mostly keeping small artifacts dug up from various ancient people's tombs. The second floor was devoted almost entirely to Etruscan pottery and had very good English translations. We know a lot now about Etruscan trading, artisan, and burial habits, but very little about who they were. This is something I think I will pursue more once we get back to the states and I can find a book or two on the subject.
For lunch we had a local specialty: tripe sandwich. Josh hated it, but I think it was the texture and appearance more than the taste. I neglected to pull back the bread to get a good look at what I was putting into my mouth and I thought it was great. I think they cook the tripe in broth for hours, so it just tastes meaty and soft. We found a really good gelateria across from the Pitti Palace, which made up for the bad gelato we had near the Ponte Vecchio.
Here are a few pics of Florence. The next update will contain post-Florence activities.
Found the panorama function on my camera. Have been [ab]using it with gusto. Here's a shot of the city from Piazelle Michalangelo. Maybe clicking on the photo will get you to a larger version? If not, then you'll just have to wait for us to show you when we get back!
Perseus with Medusa's head!
A copy of the statue David trying his best to ignore the tourist throngs below him. The original costs 6 euros to see, so we settled for this one instead.
A well preserved Stela from the Archeological museum. These things are covered in prayers and symbolic offerings for the dead.
A shot of the Duomo. My crappy little camera has trouble with close up shots of large buildings and this is the only picture with minimal warping.
A copy of the statue David trying his best to ignore the tourist throngs below him. The original costs 6 euros to see, so we settled for this one instead.
A well preserved Stela from the Archeological museum. These things are covered in prayers and symbolic offerings for the dead.
A shot of the Duomo. My crappy little camera has trouble with close up shots of large buildings and this is the only picture with minimal warping.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Uffizi
After wandering the streets of Florence for several hours, we decided to stand in line for the Uffizi. The museum is one of the more expensive in town and it can take over an hour of waiting in line to get in. I'm definitely glad we checked it out, but I suppose Renaissance art just isn't my thing. The portrayal of baby Jesus occupied a majority of the paintings we saw, and some of them were hilarious, creepy or both.
For example:
Baby Christ looks on in disbelief at the wackos with whom he has to work.
This one doesn't need help from me. It's already subtitled "Madonna with the Long Neck." Also, baby Jesus looks like he just went through chemotherapy?
This one looks like he'd give that 19lb Indonesian baby a run (waddle?) for his money.
Tabloid Headline: Baby Jesus actually a shriveled alien crash landed on Earth! Read all about it!
These old dudes are pondering the fashion statement being made by putting Baby J in a pink dress.
See what I mean? The whole upper floor of the museum was filled with these things. By the time we got through this, the museum was closing in half an hour and we were too tired to even consider looking at the special exhibits on the next floor down. Too bad it's a pain in the ass getting in or I would try to go back tomorrow. Anyway, we have the archeological museum to peruse tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a learning experience.
For example:
Baby Christ looks on in disbelief at the wackos with whom he has to work.
This one doesn't need help from me. It's already subtitled "Madonna with the Long Neck." Also, baby Jesus looks like he just went through chemotherapy?
This one looks like he'd give that 19lb Indonesian baby a run (waddle?) for his money.
Tabloid Headline: Baby Jesus actually a shriveled alien crash landed on Earth! Read all about it!
These old dudes are pondering the fashion statement being made by putting Baby J in a pink dress.
See what I mean? The whole upper floor of the museum was filled with these things. By the time we got through this, the museum was closing in half an hour and we were too tired to even consider looking at the special exhibits on the next floor down. Too bad it's a pain in the ass getting in or I would try to go back tomorrow. Anyway, we have the archeological museum to peruse tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a learning experience.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Postcards
Are you one of those lucky people with a mailing address??? Do you want a postcard to arrive at said mailing address??? Then send me an email with your favorite contact information and I (or even Josh!) will send you one (1) postcard for your reading pleasure.
alexis (dot) close (at) gmail (dot) com
Florence is a city of many memorable postcards! You won't be disappointed!
:D
Farm pics
We shoveled horse manure for 5 hours today. I'm quite tired, but I managed to get these done for your viewing pleasure!
The Three Musketeers in Pinerolo!
A peasant showing us how to do something peasant-y.
The Man in the Iron Mask. Supposedly a famous Italian is playing the role.
The view of Pinerolo from a church at the top of a hill.
All the crap we cut down and moved into piles.
Josh, framed by a shit pile. This is what we had to look forward to every morning.
Lexy making fried dinner!
Josh eating fried dinner!
Crazy Mario mushrooms we found on our walk in the mountains.
Josh and Dante doing the Dante's favorite dance, the waltz.
The two horses and a mule. The one I rode, Furia, is in the middle.
The main church in Cumiana, the town near the farm.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Little Bull
Today we woke up at 6:15am so we could catch a ride with Matteo into Torino. He was going there to set up Cascina Frutase's weekly stall at the organic farmer's market. Both Josh and I were still quite tired from our long hike yesterday up in the mountain behind the farm, so we probably did a lot less than we could have.
* We started off the morning by navigating the Torino bus system from the west side of town to the city center. Then we trekked through the streets in search of the Museo Egizio, the Egyption Museum.
* We spent over two hours wandering the halls of the museum, looking at the massive collection of ancient artifacts. The collection includes pre-dynast pottery, Greek-influenced funnerary decorations and EVERYTHING in between. The coolest parts, in my opinion, were the many versions of the Book of the Dead on display and the complete contents of the tomb of a certain Kha and his family. There were bunches of statues, sarcophagi, and even a few mummies. The museum in Torino is apparently one of the largest of its kind, so it was a treat to see it.
* We wandered the streets for a bit in search of a cheap cappucino. The caffès near the museum wanted to charge €2.50 for a plain shot of espresso, which is ridiculous. We eventually found a caffè on a side street where we got cappucini and two croissants for €4 total.
* We found the famous church in the center of town, with its iconic high spire. They charge something like €6 to go to the top, so we took a pass, though I'm sure the view of the Alps from up there is phenomenal.
* We walked west along the Po to the Valentine Park, where there is a castle and a medieval village. It was not as cool as my guidebook led me to believe. At least it was free!
* We took a bus back to the western part of town and spent the next few hours exploring Eataly, a giant food store sponsored by the Slow Foods movement. Actually, we spent most of our time down in the basement where the beer section is located. They probably had the most extensive collection of Italian beers on the planet (given that we're in a wine country, this is probably an unrecognized accomplishment) and a good selection of Belgians to boot. I grabbed a saison and dubbel and Josh stocked up on some dark beer, a beverage which has been greatly lacking in our diet recently.
* We spent the rest of our time in the caffè, sipping gourmet espresso and experiencing Torino's famous beverage: Bicerin. What is this, you ask? Ooh, you're imagination won't do it justice, but I'll tell you anyway.
Bicerin:
1. Start with half of a coffee cup filled with sipping chocolate. Not the super sugary kind. The dark, lucious, I-want-to-kill-myself-this-is-too-good kind of sipping chocolate.
2. Add two shots of espresso.
3. Top with a shot of heavy cream.
4. Stir together.
5. While you are drinking, try not to embarass yourself by moaning in ecstasy too loudly.
And that, dear readers, was our day in Torino. Tonight for dinner we had the leftovers from our host's restaurant. They are only open once or twice a week, so it's always a treat. The highlight was the baked pears with a melted gorgonzola cheese sauce for dessert.
* We started off the morning by navigating the Torino bus system from the west side of town to the city center. Then we trekked through the streets in search of the Museo Egizio, the Egyption Museum.
* We spent over two hours wandering the halls of the museum, looking at the massive collection of ancient artifacts. The collection includes pre-dynast pottery, Greek-influenced funnerary decorations and EVERYTHING in between. The coolest parts, in my opinion, were the many versions of the Book of the Dead on display and the complete contents of the tomb of a certain Kha and his family. There were bunches of statues, sarcophagi, and even a few mummies. The museum in Torino is apparently one of the largest of its kind, so it was a treat to see it.
* We wandered the streets for a bit in search of a cheap cappucino. The caffès near the museum wanted to charge €2.50 for a plain shot of espresso, which is ridiculous. We eventually found a caffè on a side street where we got cappucini and two croissants for €4 total.
* We found the famous church in the center of town, with its iconic high spire. They charge something like €6 to go to the top, so we took a pass, though I'm sure the view of the Alps from up there is phenomenal.
* We walked west along the Po to the Valentine Park, where there is a castle and a medieval village. It was not as cool as my guidebook led me to believe. At least it was free!
* We took a bus back to the western part of town and spent the next few hours exploring Eataly, a giant food store sponsored by the Slow Foods movement. Actually, we spent most of our time down in the basement where the beer section is located. They probably had the most extensive collection of Italian beers on the planet (given that we're in a wine country, this is probably an unrecognized accomplishment) and a good selection of Belgians to boot. I grabbed a saison and dubbel and Josh stocked up on some dark beer, a beverage which has been greatly lacking in our diet recently.
* We spent the rest of our time in the caffè, sipping gourmet espresso and experiencing Torino's famous beverage: Bicerin. What is this, you ask? Ooh, you're imagination won't do it justice, but I'll tell you anyway.
Bicerin:
1. Start with half of a coffee cup filled with sipping chocolate. Not the super sugary kind. The dark, lucious, I-want-to-kill-myself-this-is-too-good kind of sipping chocolate.
2. Add two shots of espresso.
3. Top with a shot of heavy cream.
4. Stir together.
5. While you are drinking, try not to embarass yourself by moaning in ecstasy too loudly.
And that, dear readers, was our day in Torino. Tonight for dinner we had the leftovers from our host's restaurant. They are only open once or twice a week, so it's always a treat. The highlight was the baked pears with a melted gorgonzola cheese sauce for dessert.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Happy times
I was going to use today's post to rant about coffee in this country, but then I went horseback riding and I can't muster the anger any more. It felt really good to be in the saddle again. I think it's been over six years since I last went riding, but it felt totally natural to do it today. We took a loop around the mountain that the house is perched on. The name of the horse I rode is Furia, which I'm pretty sure translates to "fury." I was nervous at first to be on him, but I realized that my nervousness was causing me to tense my legs, which translated into "go faster" for the horse. I forced myself to relax and had a much easier time controlling him afterward. Simone, one of our host's sons, was all about gallopino (cantering) and pretty much had us charging down every flat-ish section of the trail. It was exhilerating, to say the least. Hopefully we will go again at least once more before Josh and I leave.
Speaking of leaving, we have to vacate the premises by the 15th, but our next farm can't take us until the 18th. We've decided to spend three days in Florence, which is the closest large city to the next farm. So far our plans include visiting the Uffizi gallery, the archeological museum and trying to pick one of the other dozen or so museums in the city for our third day. The choices are difficult, as at least three of them have really famous works of art and the others just sound cool. And there's some Roman ruins on the outskirts of town, neighborhoods filled with artisans' shops, beautiful churches to peek into, and restaurants galore...In three days, we'll probably just barely scratch the surface of what Florence has to offer.
I will miss the food on this farm, but not the work. Our mornings generally consist of shoveling horse shit and our afternoons are spent cutting thick weeds on steep hills with scythes, which sounds a lot more epic than it actually is. Tomorrow, however, our host is making Frita Mista, FRIED MIXED DINNER. She has promised that every course of the meal (meat, vegetables, and dessert) will be fried. I await this experience with mixed feelings of delight and dread. The regimen of traditional Piemontese food on this farm is making us fat.
Speaking of leaving, we have to vacate the premises by the 15th, but our next farm can't take us until the 18th. We've decided to spend three days in Florence, which is the closest large city to the next farm. So far our plans include visiting the Uffizi gallery, the archeological museum and trying to pick one of the other dozen or so museums in the city for our third day. The choices are difficult, as at least three of them have really famous works of art and the others just sound cool. And there's some Roman ruins on the outskirts of town, neighborhoods filled with artisans' shops, beautiful churches to peek into, and restaurants galore...In three days, we'll probably just barely scratch the surface of what Florence has to offer.
I will miss the food on this farm, but not the work. Our mornings generally consist of shoveling horse shit and our afternoons are spent cutting thick weeds on steep hills with scythes, which sounds a lot more epic than it actually is. Tomorrow, however, our host is making Frita Mista, FRIED MIXED DINNER. She has promised that every course of the meal (meat, vegetables, and dessert) will be fried. I await this experience with mixed feelings of delight and dread. The regimen of traditional Piemontese food on this farm is making us fat.
Monday, October 5, 2009
"It's where I learned the Unheimlich Maneuver!"
For your information:
Italian meals, for those of you who haven't had the benefit of experiencing them, generally come in 2-4 courses. I primi (the first course) is generally pasta or risotto. It is intensely easy to fill up on these without realizing that there is almost certainly i secondi to follow, which is often carne (chicken and pork seem to be the most common) although verdura (vegetables) are also widely deployed. If your host likes you, you will probably be treated to dolce, which might be dessert in the American sense (torte, which could have attributes of either pie and/ or cake) or simply fruit. And of course sometimes you get zuppa (soup) before i primi, so you could be looking at four full courses without even accounting for the fact that bread and cheese tend to litter il tavolo (the table) at all times. Luckily, the digestive system tends to be greased with espresso afterwards, so it's seldom (in our experiences thus far, unheard of) to encounter the peculiarly awful feeling of knowing one has eaten so much beef that one will in effect be reliving the experience for days to come.
Now.
I have told you about food so I can tell you about pop culture here in Italia.
LA ZUPPA (my qualifications to talk about pop culture)
Arguably, anyone has the right to talk about pop culture, but in this case I believe I am particularly qualified to do so. After all, I used to write for an "underground" music magazine in New York - one so "underground" that no one who "lived there" had ever "heard of it" (yes, those quotation marks are dripping irony on your eyes. Get a tissue). Even if I hadn't, my entire generation is so steeped, immersed, drowned, etc. in pop culture that even people who purposefully insulate themselves from it (i.e. Lexy) can recognize its artifacts (i.e. when I recite the lyrics to "Baby Got Back"). But more to the point, I can talk about Italian pop culture because it's not that different from ours.
I PRIMI (movies and television)
Hollywood, the major TV networks and even certain syndicated shows have insinuated themselves into the popular culture here. The list of examples that follows should gross you out.
1. Repeated - I dare say pervasive - ads for the movie "Knowing" (renamed in Italian as something like "Sign of the End," I'm not really sure) plastered all over the walls of Roma Termini, central train station of the central city of the country. Everywhere I looked, there was Nick Cage looking wracked with foreboding, followed by shots of natural disasters or plane crashes or something. I guess Jerry Bruckheimer has a summer home over here or something.
2. On a less offensive note, clips from Pixar's recent "Up" on the television at our current farm.
3. On a far more distressing note, episodes of a certain 80s show peddling twisted notions of both martial arts and law enforcement on television sets first at a restaurant in Porto Ceresio and, our first night here, on the TV near the dinner table. Yes, I am talking about "Walker, Texas Ranger." We spent at least ten minutes clumsily trading Chuck Norris jokes with our host family, an experience which, if I think about it too much, becomes faintly nauseating.
4. And finally, yesterday, "Magnum, PI" on daytime TV. confronted with the image of a young Burt Reynolds toting a snub-nosed pistol, driving a red convertible and making eyes at svelte blondes, I found myself briefly paralyzed. "Really?" I asked the universe. "Are you sure? You're not, like, pulling my leg or something?" No. It was not.
I SECONDI (Music)
There is also an MTV-style music channel showing music videos, and today I was treated to two bands well-known in the States: Green Day and Shakira. Now, those of you who know me well might imagine that I produced a shotgun from... somewhere... and destroyed the TV for its impertinence. Sadly, as a former co-worker once informed me, I am pushing 30 and now I no longer do stuff like that. Instead I felt a little sad - not even sad enough to vomit in protest - and went downstairs.
Let me just tell you that the craptastic, played-out Top 40 drivel they've imported from our side of the ocean is not even the worst. Music here is AWFUL. I have not heard a single good song that didn't come from my own equipment since we got here. I haven't even heard a song that didn't piss me off. Acutally, that's not true - we did overhear, in a restaurant in Asti, a weird cover of Radiohead's "Creep," sung in Italian by a dude who was roughly 6000% more masculine than Thom Yorke - but other than puzzled amusement or oblivious disgust, my only response to music I've heard in Italy has been the kind of seething, bone-deep contempt and loathing I usually feel back home when I listen to the radio. So in a way, it's comforting. I can get just as pissed at the media management types who sling crap music, the mediocre "artists" who assemble crap music from their petty lives and the crap-eating idiot masses who shovel themselves happily full of crap as I do at home!
I DOLCE (fun facts about famous people)
Thus far we have heard George Clooney's name at three of our four farms. He was first brought up at the dinner table at Casa Rossa, when our hosts were complaining about some of their guests. They were a German couple and they were obsessed with seeing a house Clooney apparently had somewhere in the area. We of course joked with them about this as best we could. It was cute at this point.
Then, at La Monda, one of the villagers, a 19-year-old girl called Betty, expressed her admiration for him. I was inclined to forgive her for several reasons, the least of which is that I don't actually dislike George Clooney at all. More to the point, she seemed to have a sort of general interest in American stuff, as reflected by her possession of a Powerpuff Girls notebook and the fact that she was studying English. So, you know, no bigs. Whatever. Twice was funny.
I heard his name a fourth time and had a moment of idiot panic similar to the sensation you get when some conspiranoiac first runs up on you with one of those factoids about how every president but Kennedy has been a Freemason or whatever. On TV tonight, some blonde comedienne was apparently making fun of him for marrying a supermodel (?). So either I'm a tool for mentioning this at all, or we are destined to save George Clooney from choking to death on a bite of over-rich frittata or accidentally steal his shoes or something.
CAFFE (the internet)
It's the same. Exactly. Our last host was on Skype all the time to her friends in the city, showed us funny clips on YouTube and had the best wireless signal I've ever used. Matteo, the youngest member of our host family here, showed us a Flash video posted on his Facebook profile about how Italians are different from other Europeans and I'm pretty sure he was suggesting to his dad at the dinner table tonight that it would be useful to start a Facebook group for their agriturismo. Even Francesco, our host at Casa Rossa who allowed us to use their wireless once a week for twenty minutes, was on Facebook.
I suppose once could summarize this over-long ramble as follows: if we just spoke the language, we'd feel right at home. Sort of. No, that's not really the point, either. Maybe it's more like: the monoculture beat us here, and in a sickening way we were glad to see it..? Or it could just be that being in a country, a culture like this, that's totally different in many ways and nearly the same in others, and where we sit at the dinner table in the midst of emotional conversation and understand maybe 3% of it, is sort of like living in the Uncanny Valley.
Which is perfectly fine with me.
Italian meals, for those of you who haven't had the benefit of experiencing them, generally come in 2-4 courses. I primi (the first course) is generally pasta or risotto. It is intensely easy to fill up on these without realizing that there is almost certainly i secondi to follow, which is often carne (chicken and pork seem to be the most common) although verdura (vegetables) are also widely deployed. If your host likes you, you will probably be treated to dolce, which might be dessert in the American sense (torte, which could have attributes of either pie and/ or cake) or simply fruit. And of course sometimes you get zuppa (soup) before i primi, so you could be looking at four full courses without even accounting for the fact that bread and cheese tend to litter il tavolo (the table) at all times. Luckily, the digestive system tends to be greased with espresso afterwards, so it's seldom (in our experiences thus far, unheard of) to encounter the peculiarly awful feeling of knowing one has eaten so much beef that one will in effect be reliving the experience for days to come.
Now.
I have told you about food so I can tell you about pop culture here in Italia.
LA ZUPPA (my qualifications to talk about pop culture)
Arguably, anyone has the right to talk about pop culture, but in this case I believe I am particularly qualified to do so. After all, I used to write for an "underground" music magazine in New York - one so "underground" that no one who "lived there" had ever "heard of it" (yes, those quotation marks are dripping irony on your eyes. Get a tissue). Even if I hadn't, my entire generation is so steeped, immersed, drowned, etc. in pop culture that even people who purposefully insulate themselves from it (i.e. Lexy) can recognize its artifacts (i.e. when I recite the lyrics to "Baby Got Back"). But more to the point, I can talk about Italian pop culture because it's not that different from ours.
I PRIMI (movies and television)
Hollywood, the major TV networks and even certain syndicated shows have insinuated themselves into the popular culture here. The list of examples that follows should gross you out.
1. Repeated - I dare say pervasive - ads for the movie "Knowing" (renamed in Italian as something like "Sign of the End," I'm not really sure) plastered all over the walls of Roma Termini, central train station of the central city of the country. Everywhere I looked, there was Nick Cage looking wracked with foreboding, followed by shots of natural disasters or plane crashes or something. I guess Jerry Bruckheimer has a summer home over here or something.
2. On a less offensive note, clips from Pixar's recent "Up" on the television at our current farm.
3. On a far more distressing note, episodes of a certain 80s show peddling twisted notions of both martial arts and law enforcement on television sets first at a restaurant in Porto Ceresio and, our first night here, on the TV near the dinner table. Yes, I am talking about "Walker, Texas Ranger." We spent at least ten minutes clumsily trading Chuck Norris jokes with our host family, an experience which, if I think about it too much, becomes faintly nauseating.
4. And finally, yesterday, "Magnum, PI" on daytime TV. confronted with the image of a young Burt Reynolds toting a snub-nosed pistol, driving a red convertible and making eyes at svelte blondes, I found myself briefly paralyzed. "Really?" I asked the universe. "Are you sure? You're not, like, pulling my leg or something?" No. It was not.
I SECONDI (Music)
There is also an MTV-style music channel showing music videos, and today I was treated to two bands well-known in the States: Green Day and Shakira. Now, those of you who know me well might imagine that I produced a shotgun from... somewhere... and destroyed the TV for its impertinence. Sadly, as a former co-worker once informed me, I am pushing 30 and now I no longer do stuff like that. Instead I felt a little sad - not even sad enough to vomit in protest - and went downstairs.
Let me just tell you that the craptastic, played-out Top 40 drivel they've imported from our side of the ocean is not even the worst. Music here is AWFUL. I have not heard a single good song that didn't come from my own equipment since we got here. I haven't even heard a song that didn't piss me off. Acutally, that's not true - we did overhear, in a restaurant in Asti, a weird cover of Radiohead's "Creep," sung in Italian by a dude who was roughly 6000% more masculine than Thom Yorke - but other than puzzled amusement or oblivious disgust, my only response to music I've heard in Italy has been the kind of seething, bone-deep contempt and loathing I usually feel back home when I listen to the radio. So in a way, it's comforting. I can get just as pissed at the media management types who sling crap music, the mediocre "artists" who assemble crap music from their petty lives and the crap-eating idiot masses who shovel themselves happily full of crap as I do at home!
I DOLCE (fun facts about famous people)
Thus far we have heard George Clooney's name at three of our four farms. He was first brought up at the dinner table at Casa Rossa, when our hosts were complaining about some of their guests. They were a German couple and they were obsessed with seeing a house Clooney apparently had somewhere in the area. We of course joked with them about this as best we could. It was cute at this point.
Then, at La Monda, one of the villagers, a 19-year-old girl called Betty, expressed her admiration for him. I was inclined to forgive her for several reasons, the least of which is that I don't actually dislike George Clooney at all. More to the point, she seemed to have a sort of general interest in American stuff, as reflected by her possession of a Powerpuff Girls notebook and the fact that she was studying English. So, you know, no bigs. Whatever. Twice was funny.
I heard his name a fourth time and had a moment of idiot panic similar to the sensation you get when some conspiranoiac first runs up on you with one of those factoids about how every president but Kennedy has been a Freemason or whatever. On TV tonight, some blonde comedienne was apparently making fun of him for marrying a supermodel (?). So either I'm a tool for mentioning this at all, or we are destined to save George Clooney from choking to death on a bite of over-rich frittata or accidentally steal his shoes or something.
CAFFE (the internet)
It's the same. Exactly. Our last host was on Skype all the time to her friends in the city, showed us funny clips on YouTube and had the best wireless signal I've ever used. Matteo, the youngest member of our host family here, showed us a Flash video posted on his Facebook profile about how Italians are different from other Europeans and I'm pretty sure he was suggesting to his dad at the dinner table tonight that it would be useful to start a Facebook group for their agriturismo. Even Francesco, our host at Casa Rossa who allowed us to use their wireless once a week for twenty minutes, was on Facebook.
I suppose once could summarize this over-long ramble as follows: if we just spoke the language, we'd feel right at home. Sort of. No, that's not really the point, either. Maybe it's more like: the monoculture beat us here, and in a sickening way we were glad to see it..? Or it could just be that being in a country, a culture like this, that's totally different in many ways and nearly the same in others, and where we sit at the dinner table in the midst of emotional conversation and understand maybe 3% of it, is sort of like living in the Uncanny Valley.
Which is perfectly fine with me.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Man in the Iron Mask
We are on a farm in Piscina di Pinerolo, a small smudge on the map about 20 miles southwest of Torino. The farm clings to the side of a mountain, which is the first foothill that meets the relatively flat plain below. This means we have an excellent view off the back porch. At night, it looks like a blanket of stars laid out below us, with all the lights from the towns and cities flickering in the haze. The work here is harder than on our previous farms, but they have horses and that makes everything ok for me. Not that I've personally done much work, since I spent most of the last week in bed. I'm finally feeling better, but getting over the flu has been an uphill battle.
Today we drove to Pinerolo with our host's son. He said there was a festival going on, and it turned out to be a yearly event celebrating the Iron Mask and the mysterious man inside of it. Pinerolo is one of those political footballs, a piece of territory that gets passed back and forth between two countries every hundred or so years. During the 17th century, it belonged to France, and it's prison hosted the mysterious man for several years.
The festival consisted of booths selling knicknacks and a lot of performers dressed in period costume. We wandered around the narrow streets for several hours, coming across demonstrations of period weapons, instruments and peasant life. As we walked up the steep hill to the main church, we came across a particularly thick crowd of people, all standing around the former prison. There was a man inside wearing an iron mask and of course we couldn't resist shoving our way throw the throng to get a photo. Allegedly, the actor each year is a different famous Italian. We didn't wait around to find out who, because the march down to the main square and the unveiling were not until much later in the evening.
On a side note, muskets are wicked loud. We had just picked up cups of Vin Brulee (wine with spices) and were walking down the hill when we happened upon an "execution." I wasn't expecting the gun shot when it happened (also we were only 15 feet away) and I *almost* spilled the cup of hot wine on myself. Sheesh.
Today we drove to Pinerolo with our host's son. He said there was a festival going on, and it turned out to be a yearly event celebrating the Iron Mask and the mysterious man inside of it. Pinerolo is one of those political footballs, a piece of territory that gets passed back and forth between two countries every hundred or so years. During the 17th century, it belonged to France, and it's prison hosted the mysterious man for several years.
The festival consisted of booths selling knicknacks and a lot of performers dressed in period costume. We wandered around the narrow streets for several hours, coming across demonstrations of period weapons, instruments and peasant life. As we walked up the steep hill to the main church, we came across a particularly thick crowd of people, all standing around the former prison. There was a man inside wearing an iron mask and of course we couldn't resist shoving our way throw the throng to get a photo. Allegedly, the actor each year is a different famous Italian. We didn't wait around to find out who, because the march down to the main square and the unveiling were not until much later in the evening.
On a side note, muskets are wicked loud. We had just picked up cups of Vin Brulee (wine with spices) and were walking down the hill when we happened upon an "execution." I wasn't expecting the gun shot when it happened (also we were only 15 feet away) and I *almost* spilled the cup of hot wine on myself. Sheesh.
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