I’ve been in Italy a long time and am proud to speak Italian well (not necessarily a given). I speak it well enough, in fact, that when an obtuse Telecom employee who ascribed her inability to understand my (admittedly complex) problem was “because you are a foreigner,” I was able to hit back. “I may be foreign,” I said sweetly, “but I’m the only one … Continue reading Loss for Words

Recently I started traveling again. But the thrill is gone. In every airport of every country it’s the same rushing and waiting, the same routine: Shoes off, shoes on; jacket off, jacket on; laptop in, laptop out. Zippers, laces, buckles, buttons. Clearing security in Rome, a guard demanded that I undress. “I don’t have anything underneath,” I said. “Non importa,” the guard replied. “Sarò in … Continue reading Smoke Gets in My Eyes

One summer, when I was about 10, I became obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records. Together with my brother’s penchant for slot-car racing and my sister’s yearning for her new (and first) boyfriend, our obsessions turned family meals into parallel monologues. Recently, two news items brought forgotten fixations back to mind. Obituaries citing Luciano Pavarotti’s record for curtain calls (165) alerted me to … Continue reading Milan “Healthy”

I recently succumbed to one of my compulsions. It was neither the shoe nor the glove nor chocolates — whose only payback are bank-statement dismay and knee-jerk restraint. No, from the new-books table in the library I picked up “The Lady in the Palazzo” by Marlena de Blasi, yet another book about a “foreigner’s” experience in Italy. Such books make me into the kind of … Continue reading Devils in Paradise

In May, I followed a testy newspaper exchange between Francesco Giavazzi, who teaches economics at Milan’s Bocconi and MIT, and the principal of Milan’s Liceo Beccaria (May 11 and May 16, Corriere della Sera). Responding to criticism about the sad state of her school’s bathroom hygiene as noted by lecturers during an international economics forum, the principal dissembled (as Giavazzi guessed she would). She said emphasizing … Continue reading Clean Dreaming

oday in the car, I turned left from a busy street into one that was narrow and one-way. Coming the other way was a grey Peugeot with two “older” women — nonne — in it. The driver peered over the steering wheel and made frantic gestures suggesting I turn back. Sure of myself, but knowing that Italians can change street directions without informing the public, I checked. … Continue reading Nonne, Nonnine

While studying art history in graduate school, I read about something unlikely: A collection of contemporary American art — Rauschenberg, Carl Andre, James Rosenquist — equal to any in America, in a villa near Milan. It allegedly belonged to a man named Giovanni Panza di Biumo whose bank-clerk looks hardly fit with his avant-garde collection. It was all true. For 50 years, Panza di Biumo … Continue reading Light and Color

Recently, a new acquaintance asked what I do and I listed this column among the surfeit of activities that — as Italian grandmothers say — help pass the time. “Oh,” she said, “is that the magazine with all the tragic stories about how awful Italian men are and how bad Italian internet providers are?” Before you think this column is intended to prove her wrong, … Continue reading Siticibo Samaritans

Having kissed enough frogs in the categories of World War II espionage/love-story and intergenerational mother-daughter incomprehension, this reviewer quickly recognized Boyd’s book as a prince of a book. England in a late 1970s summer: Ruth Gilmartin all-around inconclusive young woman goes for a visit to her mother, a spry 80-year old who claims to be confined to a wheelchair. Her capricious — and Ruth suspects … Continue reading Restless

Some readers may remember my column from March 2006 in which I noted Milan’s origins as the Roman camp Mediolanum, “the place in the middle,” where Europe’s East, West and North South axes naturally cross. In that piece, I didn’t bother with the broader implications of geography and destiny, preferring to complain that my visitors rushed off for places whose geographic destinies offered more charming … Continue reading Milan, Ohio