Pliz vizitz Itali...

...doesn't this just make you want to jump right on a plane and fly to Italy?? Vladimir Luxuria, come rescue us!!


(F. Rutelli, Italian Minister of Culture and Tourism)

HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE...
__

Piccole perle del Road Trip 2: The Exorcist

We ended our quick visit to Washington DC with a night stroll along the streets of Georgetown, a neighbourhood in Washington known for its quaint houses, its fashionable bars and restaurants and for Georgetown University. (For the Italophones or Italo-sympathizers among you, readers, Beppe Severgnini used to live in Georgetown while working as a foreign correspondent and, as far as I know, his former house is now a must-see for Italian tourists who have read his books. I personally didn't go...but I was tempted! I just didn't remember the house number any more!!)
Well, while visiting the area, cinema-buff Mr Steve Race became firmly determined to go find the STEPS! "Which steps?"-asked I. "The steps where the priest is precipitated by the hand of an evil spirit"-said cinema-buff Mr Steve Race. Before I began seriously worrying for his mental health (it had been a long, exceedingly hot day after all!), Steve explained that Georgetown had been the set of the infamous 1973 movie "The Exorcist". At that point we had to find THE STEPS, which didn't seem to be an easy task, given that: 1-we didn't have a guide or a map; 2-it was night; 3-I was exhausted, hungry and very little patient ; )
It was only by an unexpected stroke of luck that we happened to pass by a very steep descending set of steps and I could see in Steve's eyes (pretty much like Sylvester's eyes when he sees Tweety) that we had landed in the right place.
...to me, that was just a bunch of steps...not very well-lit, to be honest. However, how very much reassuring it is to watch a kid having fun while playing on his own...

Piccole perle del Road Trip 1: The S'more Pizza

While crossing west to east the state of West Virgina we decided to stop at a supermarket (...OK, I'm not proud to say this but it was...Walmart!) to get some fruit, if you can call it so. I tend to fall for supermarkets, crappy as they might be. I can easily get lost and spend lots of time between aisles, reading, comparing prices or just attracted by unseen specimens of pre-packed food, which I won't buy anyway, but I just like to know that they exist. My grandma Elda used to want me to take her shopping for food (instead of my mum, n.d.a.) upon my returns from the UK to Italy, because she said the way I could arrange boxes and packets etc. in the trolley was unparalleled ;)
Anyway, as I was keeping myself busy at this (and Steve was grumbling because of this!), hear what I found: a S'mores Dessert Pizza, which is (for those of you who might STILL ignore what 'S'more' means...please, go and review older posts and you'll be enlightened) a pizza with chocolate, Graham crackers (something like 'biscotti secchi' in the old continent) and marshmallows! Well, I could not resist having a picture taken of me holding such a rare breed of pizza!
...and no, I did not try it!

The origin of LOVE.

[see video in "VIDEO OF THE WEEK"]

When the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms. They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them as they talked, while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love. It was before THE ORIGIN OF LOVE.

And there were three sexes then, one that looked like two men
Glued up back to back, called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon looked like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They was part sun, part earth, part daughter, part son.

THE ORIGIN OF LOVE.

Now the gods grew quite scared of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer, like I killed the giants."
But the Zeus said,
"No, You better let me use my lightning, like scissors,
like I cut the legs off the whales, and dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts and he let out a laugh, said,
"I'll split them right down the middle. Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above into great balls of fire.

Then fire shot down from the sky in bolts like shining blades of a knife.
And it ripped right through the flesh of the children of the sun
And the moon and the earth,
And some Indian god sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly to remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane, to scatter us away, in a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves, to wash us all away.
And if we don't behave they'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping around on one foot and looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you we had just split in two.
You was looking at me. I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar, but I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face; I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression that the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine. That's the pain.
It cuts a straight line down through the heart. We called it love.
We wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together. We was making love,making love.
It was a cold dark evening, such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove
It was the sad story how we became lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of the origin of love. That's the origin of love.

(Hedwig And The Angry Inch, motion picture 2001)

Hello Dolly!

Much can be said about multiple award-winning Mrs Parton (née Dolly Rebecca in Sevierville, east TN, in 1946): from big-screen actress to soundtrack composer, country music singer and songwriter....one quote for all: 'I'm a puzzle, I must figure out where all my pieces fit' (Transamerica Soundtrack: 2005, watch Dolly's video here) only comparable to Raffaella Carrà's 'La mia vita vita è una roulette, i miei numeri tu li sai' (Tanti auguri: 1978, watch Raffa's video here).

Beyond her artistic career, Dolly Parton has also crossed over into the entertainment industry with her Smoky Mountains' theme park (renamed 'Dollywood' in 1986) located in Pigeon Forge, TN....a southern American equivalent of the endlessly busy Italian Rimini together with a massive Gardaland (more than twice as large the northern Italian theme park!!) right in the middle.

On to another level, Mrs Parton is also renowned for her many nip&tucks, which have shaped her into an hourglass sporting a waist as big as a bottle neck and a pair of breasts as puffed up as a turkey on Thanksgiving...
"It takes a lot of money to look this cheap", she has reportedly glossed ; )