We’re often curious as to how others see us. To that end, today’s offering is composed of translations from an Italian guidebook to the USA on my home state and city. Factually, it’s largely accurate, with a couple of exceptions (the Louisville Falls Fountain was scrapped 13 years ago), but the amusement for Louisvillians and …
Category Archives: america
Thoughts on Militarism on Italy’s Day of the Republic
Italy rarely has national holidays that anyone cares about. Milan My building is pleasantly empty at the moment, with most denizens having gone away for a long weekend. Militarism is rarely on display for secular holidays here, although this year has seen a bit more than usual, with the 150th anniversary of unification. Jasmine Tesanovic, …
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Body Language and symbolism, part 2
In the era of the image, media and spin presentation is ever-important. Avid followers of Premesso will recall a post offering interpretations of an old photo of Berlusconi with a sidearm a few weeks back. This time we turn our attention to Obama’s announcement of American support in the current war in Libya. What’s interesting …
Getting Clowned
This week’s l’Espresso features Berlusconi getting ‘clowned’ (as old school hip hop might have it) by the US, via the leaked Embassy cables. Coverage is running in English as well, and the magazine promises to publish more than 4,000 cables this week. It’s interesting to see this perspective, and to read it in English, but …
I thought it was the USA…
…or just another country? I’m not sure what’s more depressing — the amount of ‘worst’ categories that my adopted country is in, or the amount of ‘worst of the worst’ categories that my native country is in. But something about the data seems off to me — was this chart assembled by the paper of …
It Felt Like a Kiss
As I said last weekend, I’ve been on a heavy Adam Curtis kick recently. Century of the Self is quite a worthwhile flick, but his latest, It Felt Like a Kiss, really pushes the boundaries. An experimental film commissioned initially by the BBC, Curtis collobarated with the Punchdrunk production company on it. It certainly has …
Obama at Tuscon
After a British colleague thoroughly exhorted me to watch Obama’s Tuscon speech, I did so. The fact that my own family wrote me in praise of it somehow didn’t provide the same motivation. It’s a fine speech; particularly towards the end where he couches his dreams of what American could be in the terms of …
On Wrestling with Angels
Have you ever wanted to do something difficult, perhaps out of frustration, or to beat fear? Maybe you ran a marathon, or took up biking, or read a long book or worked out a difficult puzzle. What you in all likelihood did not do was have men ten years your junior punch you in the …
The Trap
I first encountered Adam Curtis via 2004’s The Power of Nightmares, which I watched while I was a graduate student. It was an interesting and provocative thesis — that the rise of the neocons had a parallel in the rise of radical Islam, and that both were based in the politics of fear. His style of …
The Chains are Broken, the Knives are Sharpened, the Glock is Photographed
Morning roundup: Interesting times in Tunisia. Is it the Arab’s world Gdansk or is that too much to hope for? We’ll see. But it’s something. I was heartened to see that Yglesias also excused himself from blogging extensively on Tunisia for much the same reason that I did: ignorance. But he goes a bit further …
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