28 Saturday Apr 2018
Like this villa, built on Roman remains,
Each excursion brings a change in view.
25 Wednesday Apr 2018
“Do you speak English?”
A man asks the waitress.
Yet with his companion,
Our tongue he abandons.
“So where are you from?”
He asks when we’re done.
Well then, “E di dove sei?”
I have to try in return.
When he then joins us
Al nostro tavolo,
Two languages meet
Una linea alla volta.
22 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in Education
La Montagna Spoletina racchiude in sé millenni di storia religiosa.
1. The Spoleto Mountain {________} millennia of religious history.
1a. racchiudere: to contain
1b. sé: oneself; itself; himself; herself
1c. in: in; to; of; as
1d. racchiude in sé: to contain in itself; or as Bing Translate figures it:
The Spoleto Mountain embodies millennia of religious history.
Le sue peculiarity geografiche … l’hanno eletta spazio privilegiato per la vita di preghiera e meditazione.
2. Best to drop out the interpolated phrase if I hope to find the subject & verb:
2a. Its peculiar geographies … {some self-reflexive action} privileged space for the life of prayer? and meditation.
2b. Loro hanna = They have / Loro hanna eletta = They have elected
2c. Loro l’hanno eletta = They elected her
2d. Loro l’hanno eletta spazio = They have elected space
2e. Its peculiar geographies have made a privileged space for the life of prayer and meditation.
18 Wednesday Apr 2018
17 Tuesday Apr 2018
Posted in Education
With a little patience and enough luck, I have dug down to a seventeen-minute video on the ruins of the old Spoleto Colosseum.
More patience and greater learning will be needed first to transcribe the audio and then to translate it from the Italian.
Until then, the first bit of research remains in the video found here. Play the one called “ellisse [ellipse] 115 metri x 85.”
Note: I would use their other title (“Il Collosseo di Spoleto ‘In Pillole’), but then I’d have to explain the scare-quotes joke and I don’t get it.
17 Tuesday Apr 2018
Posted in Education
The sand in Spoleto falls plainly from the sky,
But where it is coming from remains a mystery.
Bumping into Umberto with his bag of groceries,
We’ve a chance to pepper him with our queries.
Scorso settimana. La sabbia? Da dove vieni?
(In terms of a mastery of syntax, not exactly
What you would call a perfect score. Still it
Got the job done.) The answer, it turns out:
Sandstorm in Spoleto falls from desert plains
Of Africa; yet another sign of global warming?
16 Monday Apr 2018
Last week was a treasure for the eye;
And this week, a whirlwind for the ear.
Less demanding than Tra il grano e il cielo (the film portrait of Van Gogh), Maria by Callas tells the diva’s story in her own words, enough of them English to keep us well entertained.
Translation and subtitles also play a role, as the international jet-set moves effortlessly between French, Italian, and whatever the language that carries her voice into unknown territory.
And familiarity breeds comprehension, with cameos by enough celebrities to keep the pages of People filled to the brim. They break fast out of the Box Office gate, just like the thunderous downpour that struck us as we left Pegasus.
16 Monday Apr 2018
Last night at del Trivio
Then today on the Corso
First Mirella, then Umberto
Went on about la sabbia.
There was also talk
About la macchina.
Enjoined in rhyme
But still no reason.
14 Saturday Apr 2018
Posted in Education
So much is suspended on the hook of a comma?
In the course of most days, the fruit of our labor:
Per her instructor online, Rebecca is testing out
A theory of Value‘s directions to the viewer’s eye.
While I, moving to the beat of a different drum,
Weigh appeal of plot against the purchase of pun.
12 Thursday Apr 2018
Posted in Education
Leaving the story’s title and my own for translation anon,
I’m struggling with the opening line: its missing subject,
Along with prepositions that always require concentration.
Succedere: to happen, befall; succeed, follow, come after.
It happens in Spoleto, in the city of ‘culture’.
The professor has my attention. So begin my Italian lessons.