August 8, 2026 We were treated to a performance by the Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta last night in Rovigo’s handsome Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, part of a concert called Rossini nel cuore, held in honor of Rossini, a much-loved local cat who had recently died. The program naturally leaned toward the music of Gioachino Rossini, the composer whose name …
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Tim Parks stands out from most expatriate writers on Italy by choosing to write about the daily realities of a life lived among regular people. Lesser writers are enchanted into irrelevance by the cultural, gastronomic and sartorial consumption opportunities afforded to them by the bel paese, but not so Parks, who divines trenchant observations on family, …
It’s been a long time since I’ve stayed up late to finish a book. But Tim Parks, with his impeccable rural Veneto credentials, has long fascinated me, and I finally got hold of his Italian Neighbors. To his credit, I could not put it down, although I was at times unsure what to make of …
It’s been awhile and no updates. Yet, in the US we’ve had the midterms, which happened pretty much as predicted, and here in Italy Berlusconi again dominates the headlines with another sex scandal. At this point I’m so fatigued by his scandals that I’m withholding comment until I figure out just how much of a …
