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The Florentine
Linda Falcone, an English-speaker and an Italian-thinker, is the author of three books with The Florentine Press, and others with Jane Fortune for the Advancing Women Artists Foundation. She has lived, taught and written in Italy for almost 2 decades.
Spalla-the word for ‘shoulder'-is the term Italians use to describe the ‘straight man' of a comedy routine duo. Front-and-center comedians need a straight man to act as a sounding board for their frequent one-liners. Writers intent on understanding the ways of this
Dusty chalk is free for all who can stand to use it, but safe electrical plugs and screws tight enough to keep the chairs from losing their seats are not entirely guaranteed. Nonetheless, the principal of the commerce-inspired high school where I've just been hired hopes my regionally
From the window of my front room, one can watch the whole world wander by, but you don't even have to get near the sill to know exactly what's being told in the piazza below. No shutter can shut out the hullabaloo of everyone else's business. Nor
Italians fear inspections the same way naughty blackbirds fear a sentinel scarecrow. And from the way they nervously flit and hop while blatantly breaking the field's best rules, you'd think the whole country was in dire risk of being swiftly stuffed as supper fowl. Which means, of course,
Years ago, the Italian press published a controversial study that claimed one should enjoy ice cream only in wintertime, as June sorbets risked freezing summer-hot intestines. I remember that day vividly. It was soon after New Year's, so I far from minded the news. Europe had just become
Pietro's soccer team is right-wing and his politics are left-wing, which, in Italy, makes him a rarity good enough to stuff and keep in the Natural History Museum, next to the anatomical wax models. He would fit in fine there in other ways as well, for Pietro
Filippo knows Italy via its waterways and travels more in a month’s time than most Italians do in the course of their lifetimes. We’ll sometimes drive to the source of a river to see its flow before he races, and once there, I can’t
Every Sunday morning, a foursome of ladies in their eighties comes to squawk beneath my windowsill as if they were seagulls looking for bread. Actually, only two are seagulls. The other two flit rather than swoop-and to be fair, their comments sound much more like chirps than shrieks. Nonetheless,
The Florentine is turning 100. In issues-not years-and to celebrate the occasion, Marco, one of the four men who still begrudgingly pay for the paper to get printed, has demanded I write a fatto bello that suitably commemorates its birthday. Our conversation was not that simple, of course,
‘A marriage is not just between two people-it’s between two people and everyone else,’ my Italian friend told me a week before her wedding. And thankfully, in a sudden stroke ...
Italian singer Ligabue has set several of his rock songs in a bar called ‘da Mario', and if I ever find it, I'm stepping inside. It's where desperate people decide to either give up or buckle down and where lovers find Valentines even when February's over.
My family doctor sees no evil and hears no evil. If you don't believe it, stop by his office with a wild case of whooping cough and ask him to eavesdrop on the rise and fall of your lungs. Truly, his stereoscope won't find a wheeze in you.
Italian weddings are sorely lacking in bridesmaids. In fact, in Italy, the ladies who stand beside the bride are called ‘witnesses' and they simply wear an elegant version of their everyday clothes. Elegance is the only thing Italians understate. In all probability, however, the day I get married,
by Linda Falcone I have two mothers who happily reside in the same body. Not that my mother could be guest star of a freak show featuring the likes of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or that schizophrenia is a prominent part of her gene pool. This dual disposition
In real life, I'm much more private than I am in print. While hidden behind an ink-filled page, there is no downside to divulging one's innermost reflections. But ask me what I ate for dessert last night and I'll fidget about chocolate being far too personal
Once a week, I force myself to turn on the television. Something might be happening out there, and I might need to know about it. My fleeting desire to be ...
Geoff and I met years ago, during a training program in Florence, where I was the teacher and he was the student. Slightly younger and substantially smarter than me, he always did his assignments well and often waited for class to end to tell me I'd gotten something pitifully
Concerned that living long-term in Italy has somehow damaged my ability to set meaningful goals, my sister does her best to nurture my undernourished purposeful side'. Not that I have one. But just in case I do, she wants to be the first to feed it. Every September,
Although Italy has taught me to nurture a neurotic need for aesthetic perfection, I am not much of a scenery girl. And, while I do prefer palaces to skyscrapers, I'm seldom subject to the wide-eyed ‘wow' that gives weak knees to those who marvel at Tuscan hillsides
Do you remember Mrs. Taylor, the one who used to work at the library?' My mother wanted to know over the phone the other day. >Vaguely,' I said with a more-than-vague idea as to what she was driving at. Every time my mom starts playing the
