I'm sure the posts will gain some more structure as the course progresses and the work develops, but in the meantime enjoy the arbitrary observations...
Regarding the veracity of Mauricio's "Italian culture" handout
[1] "Don’t mop up sauce or olive oil with your bread. You may use it to gather a little sauce, but not to wipe the plate clean." False. Do it. Especially if the bread is the saltless Tuscan variety which -- impossibly -- has a subtractive taste.
[2] "Italians never cut lettuce. They fold it into a small parcel with their knife and fork." True. The Italian instructor asked us with sincere interest how one could eat lettuce without folding it.
[3] "A passionate and eloquent speech will produce better results than cold reasoning as Italians are guided by their emotions rather than by their intellect and rules." Irrelevant. Our Italian skills do not allow for any form of speeches, eloquent or otherwise. Simply say, "Va bene!"
A pair of superlatives
Favorite Italian personality -- waiter at Bologna's Trattoria Bel Fiore who refreshingly refrained from conversing with us in English and instead spoke at length in Italian about the city of Bologna. And the food was excellent.
Least favorite Italian personality -- produce vendor at the Mercato Centrale who miscalculated -- I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt -- my change by five euro and then angrily waved me away after I insisted he correct the error. But the food was excellent.
Some quotes
[1] We watched "L'ultimo Bacio" in Italian Cinema this past week and will watch the American adaptation this coming week in an attempt to compare Italian and American culture. Two lines: "Normality is the true revolution," and "I don't know what to do with my freedom."
[2] An amusing coincidence of quotations (from separate sources) from this week's core readings: ". . . we have become so individualized and conditioned to experience ourselves as separate, we now have an actual fear of community" and "We have been strenuously conditioned against solitude. To be alone is considered to be a grievous and dangerous condition."
[3] "No, it can't be Swiss cheese! Why would they serve us Swiss cheese in Italy?" -- anonymous
Some challenges
[1] Conceptual coursework as opposed to requests of the "please design this for me" variety. Art -- with its capital "A" -- is a bit of a foreign concept.
[2] Drawing (well) without freezing one's fingers off.
(I absolutely guarantee that this is the longest post I'll write... TL;DR!)
theme sequence
obligatory tourist
past work
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