Passing Comments

This week Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote an informative and interesting article for the New York Times about official efforts underway in Venice to persuade the locals to drink tap water rather than bottled (”City Known for Its Water Turns to Tap to Cut Trash” June 11, 2009).

Italians are the leading consumers of bottled water in the world, drinking more than 40 gallons per person annually…

My translation

Questa settimana Elisabeth Rosenthal ha scritto un articolo molto informativo e interessante sul New York Times riguardo sforzi ufficiali in corso persuadere i veneziani bere acqua dal rubinetto invece dell’acqua in bottiglia.

“Gli italiani sono i consumatori principali nel mondo dell’acqua in bottiglia, bevendo più di 151.6 litri per persona annualmente…”

Franco’s correction of my translation

Questa settimana Elisabeth Rosenthal ha scritto un articolo molto informativo e interessante sul New York Times riguardo agli sforzi che il Comune sta facendo per persuadere i veneziani a bere acqua di rubinetto invece che dell’acqua imbottigliata.

Gli italiani sono i principali consumatori nel mondo di acqua imbottigliata, con una media annuale procapite di più di 150 litri…

Related article on Ariannaeditrice.it here (“Acqua in bottiglia: la vergogna dei canoni di concessione”
by Claudia Pecoraro, April 2, 2009).  Italian only.

Last week our Conversation class reading was an excerpt from Federico Fellini’s 1993 book, “Fare un film“:

“‘Che cos’è Roma?’ Tutt’al più posso tentare di dire che cosa penso quando sento la parola ‘Roma’. Me lo sono spesso domandato. E più o meno lo so. Penso a un faccione rossastro che assomiglia a Sordi, Fabrizi, la Magnani. Un’espressione resa pesante e pensierosa da esigenze gastrossessuali. Penso a un terrone bruno, melmoso; a un cielo ampio, sfasciato, da fondale dell’opera, con colori viola, bagliori giallastri, neri, argento; colori funerei. Ma tutto sommato è un volto confortante. Confortante perché Roma ti permette ogni tipo di speculazione in senso verticale. Roma è una città orizzontale, di acqua e di terra, sdraiata, ed è quindi la piattaforma ideale per voli fantastici. Gli intellettuali, gli artisti, che vivono sempre in uno stato di frizione fra due dimensioni diverse — la realtà e la fantasia — trovano qui la spinta adatta e liberatoria delle loro attività mentali: con il conforto di un cordone ombelicale che li tiene saldamente attaccati alla concretezza. Giacché Roma è una madre, ed è la madre ideale, perché indifferente. E’ una madre che ha troppi figli, e quindi non può dedicarsi a te, non ti chiede nulla, non si aspetta niente.  Ti accoglie quando vieni, ti lascia andare quando vai, come il tribunale di Kafka. In questo c’è una saggezza antichissima; africana quasi; preistorica. Sappiamo che Roma è una città carica di storia, ma la sua suggestione sta proprio in un che di preistorico, di primordiale, che appare netto in certe sue prospettive sconfinate e desolate, in certi ruderi che sembrano reperti fossili, ossei, come scheletri di mammut.”

This week in class, we’ve spent a couple of days studying the Italian verb form Passato Remoto. The conjugation of the verb essere (to be)  in present tense, as an example, is  sono, sei, è, siamo, siete, sono. In Passato Remoto, the conjugation transforms into fui, fosti, fu, fummo, foste, furono.

When and how to use Passato Remoto?

Well, I did try and write a paraphrase of what the teacher told us today but, with only a half-formed understanding, I failed miserably.  Looking for help,  I did a quick online search for Passato Remoto (English-language websites) and discovered I had a lot of company in my confusion.

So, I decided the safest thing to do is post an excerpt from an Italian textbook I’m using: (”Grammatica avanzata della lingua italiana” Alma Edizioni - Firenze, 2007 edition )

“Il passato remoto, rispetto al passato prossima, ha la caratteristica di essere più utilizzato nella lingua scritta. Per quanto riguarda il parlato la sua diffusione é piuttosto alta nel sud, scarsa nel centro Italia (a parte la Toscana) e praticamente nulla nell’Italia del nord…

“Al di là delle sue caratteristiche stilistiche e geografiche il passato remoto rende un discorso lontano non tanto nel tempo quanto nella sua percezione psicologica: una favola, una novella, un racconto, anche il testo di una canzone o di una ballata, al passato remoto collocano la narrazione in una dimensione epica, lontana dalla realtà di tutti i giorni.”

Rough translation:

Passato Remoto, respective to passato prossimo, has the characteristic of being more utilized in written language. As regards the spoken language, its diffusion is rather high in the south of Italy, scarce in central Italia (apart from Tuscany) and practically non-existent in northern Italy…

Aside from some of its stylistic and geographic characteristics, passato remoto is used to express distance not so much in time as in a psychological perception: a fable, a novel, an account or story, also the text of a song or of a ballad, in the passato remoto place the narration in an epic dimension, far from the reality of the everyday world.

Verb humor

Our teacher also told us about the common use of passato remoto in spoken Italian in south Italy and in Tuscany. For example, if a Tuscan is talking about a trip to the beach over the past weekend, he or she likely will prefer to use passato remoto, even though in time, the trip happened only the day before.

In Napoli, our teacher said, the use of passato remoto is so favored in everyday speech, that Italians share a longstanding joke about it: In Italy when someone knocks on a front door, or rings the doorbell, the standard response from the person inside is “Chi é?” (Who is it?). But in Napoli, so the joke goes, when the knock or doorbell ring happens, the response is “Chi fu?” (Who was it?).  Because you see, it already happened… ahem… so it’s past tense.

The musicians of Playing For Change have just released a new video. “War, No More Trouble” features a surprise guest.

Just before waking this morning, I had a dream during which a woman speaking to me used an Italian phrase that I myself don’t know. Doing a quick search online after I got up, I found that people often report circumstances of speaking or hearing foreign languages in dreams.

The most interesting, and authoritative, information I found is  a moderated page on linguistlist.org –” Foreign languages in dreams” (1996).

Another page of comments related to the topic is on answerbag.com — “Do multilingual people think in different languages all the time?” (2006).

I’m sure there’s a lot more — will try and find more later.

No one is going to shoot me because I don’t understand how to use the Italian imperfect verb form.

This was my comment to the worried face looking back at me from the bathroom mirror a couple of weeks ago, as I tried to ease a minor anxiety attack after laboring through a homework assignment.

But today in class, grazie a Dio, we’re enjoying a brief respite from wrestling with the criminally high number of verb forms in the Italian language. Today we’re being pummeled by the pronouns. As I sit around a conference-size table with a half dozen other students from various countries across the globe, I’m feeling more or less relaxed. Finally, it seems to me, I’m making some headway with the usually vertigo-inducing  pronouns.

Not so, however, for a couple of my co-students. They’re struggling and I recognize the symptoms — a kind of numbed mumbling coming from their dry lips as all they think they’ve learned about Italian to this point now whirls bumper-car crazy in their brains. Oh, I know this condition well. I’ve been there myself. And I’ve not a doubt in the world I’ll be there again.

So today for these two unfortunates, no matter how many times our teacher repeats the grammatical admonition that the second person singular (tu) in the imperative negative always is formed by placing non before the infinitive, they stare back at him through glazed eyes. And they repeat, ever again, the wrong conjugation. Eventually, they will get it, eventually it will click. But not today.

Academy-award winning filmmaker Michael Moore is astounded and elated by President Obama’s firing earlier this week of the chairman of the giant U.S. automaker General Motors. In a blog post on his website today, Moore wrote that Obama’s stunning, unprecedented action has left me speechless for the past two days.

Two excerpts:

Nothing like it has ever happened. The president of the United States, the elected representative of the people, has just told the head of General Motors—a company that’s spent more years at #1 on the Fortune 500 list than anyone else—”You’re fired!”…

This bold move has sent the heads of corporate America spinning and spewing pea soup. Obama has issued this edict: The government of, by, and for the people is in charge here, not big business.

Read the full post here.

Last Sunday,  renown chef Alice Waters was featured in an interview on 60 Minutes. She talked about why fresh, organically-grown food is so important for human beings and the planet they call home.

Waters is on the advisory board for Slow Food USA, which is part of Slow Food International (see post here) founded in Italy by Carlo Petrini.

What do smart, successful, creative people do that mass murderers, felony drunk drivers, starving children, head banging caged laboratory animals, anxious overworked students, and most reptiles don’t do? They play, according to Stuart Brown, M.D., writing on a blog post yesterday on Penguin.com.

Brown is the founder of The National Institute for Play.  He has a new book just out this week, ” Play/How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul.”

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post:

So, where does play fit into the big scheme of things? An evolutionary look shows that as it has developed over the eons, it closely accompanies the establishment of a large brain and the shift in metabolism from cold to warm bloodedness. The smarter, more flexible and adaptive the creature, the more they play.

Snow leopards box, kelp-laden sea lions play tug of war, otters do most anything in order to play; bats dabble with their sonar, killer whales tease sea gulls, ravens slide down snow banks on their backs, and given the chance wild wolves and grizzly bears play with each other despite their dissimilarity in size and long carnivorous heritage. And humans - they are the champions of play!

Read more here.