IN OTHER WORDS
In Other Words
A dog's day
Italian men are dogs and Italian women are cats. The statement feels so very bold that I almost fear to write it. Firstly, because one's childhood habit of comparing people to barnyard critters and jungle animals may best be left to the private sphere. And …
In Other Words
Timing and beans
Autumn is upon us. Hurried and harried, Florence's entire population is coming to terms with all that has been waiting in the wings since summertime. Deadlines are harvested far faster than pumpkins, and bosses and colleagues heartily welcome fall storms by generating them. Perhaps your stomach is …
In Other Words
A second moment,
Catherine sold her house in Leicester, intent on moving to Florence and financing her long-time professional dream: event planning in Tuscany. Villas, castles and monastic courtyards that house no clergy make great backdrops for high-end cultural events, she thought. And fino a qui, I fully …
In Other Words
Tortoise versus hare
Aesop, a slave who earned his freedom through storytelling, became a worthy diplomat for kings, which ultimately got him thrown off a cliff in Delphi for having insulted the city’s big wigs. His murder brought pestilence and many days of bed …
In Other Words
Un fiorentino DOC,
Luca, a Florentine native, has not crossed the threshold of the Uffizi since his fourth-grade class stomped through its venerable halls, thinking of nothing but the pane e nutella their anxious mothers had prepared for their four o'clock snack on the Duomo steps. And yes, …
In Other Words
Love and Roman cats
The freccia argento to Rome is a quick but expensive rail line that's worth its weight in silver, where the borrowed English bloke on the loudspeaker invites passengers to visit the dining car by announcing ‘Travelling stimulates your appetite.' Whether or not that claim is …
In Other Words
Merchant ears and movies
Every year, right around Daylight Saving Time, my friend Paola leaves a lover-and it's usually the same one. I sit on the sidelines and watch it happen, undecided as to whether practice has made this annual ritual easier or more excruciating. As background noise to …
In Other Words
True and false friends
Way back at the beginning of the second millennium, I was teaching English at a Florentine school whose floors were as scuffed as their blackboards, which-originally white-had turned gray with grammar lessons. The classes were small and the staff was smaller: Karen, a rainbow-bright gal …
In Other Words
A craftsman and a count
Inconveniences aside, there is something about a blizzard that gives you time. Unexpectedly, there's time to wait as energy-saving light bulbs grow bright enough to light something more than a Neanderthal cave. Time enough to notice how quiet the world looks while wearing white. And …
In Other Words
Buttered eels
One should never ask anything after a party. It is enough to keep a front-row corner of the couch and get full view as your hosts dissect the unfortunate guests who've already gone. Last Saturday when the last of the festa crowd pulled the …
In Other Words
A comet and a kiss
On a trip home for the Christmas holiday, I met up with a Florentine friend in San Francisco, where the rogue moved two years ago for a short-term photography gig and a girlfriend whose infatuation for him lasted much less time …
In Other Words
Full speed ahead,
Love is something cherished and rare, but for me, falling in love is as unavoidable as tripping on uneven cobblestone. And it's not my fault. For those who have a weak spot for elderly men with kindly eyes and large private art collections, Florence …
In Other Words
Four eyes to find him
There is something about Peter Pan that moves me. It may be the way he knows how to wink. Or how he can laughingly fly into a sword fight. Or perhaps I'm simply struck by the very genius of him, comforted …
In Other Words
System me
In Italy, transport strikes loom suddenly, like a sharp-toothed dinosaur in a children's pop-up book. The country's queues are waves rather than lines, forming like a tide, with surge and flow. Around here, calendars are used for counting down, not for arranging …
In Other Words
Buffalo soldiers
The whole world is full of cultural investigators, and today, it's just you, me and the fencepost trying to figure out why people do the things they do. There are tons of signs to scrutinize along the road to cultural understanding and they all point …Features
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The English-speaking news magazine in Florence
Wednesday, May 22, 2013