Chest Sitting Pin Men

Brother, Where Art Thou? The disappearance of Christmas

A preposterous story of the year-end ...

... dedicated to my fellow countryman Frank Capra, who died the day, she twenty-five and sixty years ago realized that one of the best movies in cinema history, and James Stewart, an honest person and sincere, ten years after his death.

Brother, Where Art Thou, or better Oh Brother, Where Are Thou?, for film buffs (not for dog lovers) is the original title of a Cohen Brothers movie, with a wonderful soundtrack, but also "loosely based on Homer's Odyssey," the story of a homecoming set in the grasslands of the southern United States. This question has bounced violently the other night on the walls of my brain, driven by a chemical tsunami of adrenaline as I tried desperately to return to my home.

course, for someone who was in New York, London, Chicago, Rome, Milan, Palermo, Boston, Paris, and also to Partinico, Cesano Boscone and Melide, and that claims to have lost just once in a tissue urban, and this time for a clear intervention of Providence, what you want to make South Bend, so small that even the city is named when it comes to the University of Notre Dame and the hosts who lives alone with the memory of being the place where they produced the Studebaker in the 50's? For one who, having lived for forty years, rubbing of the label "human tourist, who likes to make a day pass for the media when they go to a new city and then jump from one medium to another at random, what can represent the "city" on the border between Michigan and Indiana? It can be a midlife crisis, depression, suicidal feelings, the loss of all certainty, the sinking of existential awareness of being thrown into being, or even worse ... Destiny was perhaps led to steep fork in Heidegger, Nietzsche, Hamlet, Pascal, Dante, Michael Jackson and maybe even Paris Hilton had experienced the thrill of existential abyss.


Sure, my approach was opinionated, but also unlucky, if you think that I had taken (for safety) but that the topographical map of the nearby city, Elkhart, which helped to increase the entropy of the system without and yet give no assurance that it was a hoax, as we shall see later fully understood. Alright And it was raining. And also that steps had already dark.

So, calmly, Volume Volume, I went to Mass at the end of the year the Cathedral of St. Matthews, that all except it seems a cathedral in contrast to the Basilica of Notre Dame. And in five minutes I was there, I promise. The Mass for those who do not remember, lasts an hour and as we have seen in previous chapters, is timed by the presbytery. In that short time there was a phenomenon that happened to me before, but this time, under cover of darkness and the rain (thanks for the favor!) Has proved lethal. Get the car, turn on the radio and relive the same road in the opposite direction. All right. It has been five minutes, exactly the opposite, as the rewind a DVD, you have reviewed all the houses, crossings, buildings of relief, roads that had met the first leg. The only problem is that you were not there anymore, that there , in the final to the point where you started, the house in fact.

for this phenomenon, I could think of only one plausible explanation

That could be explained as follows


mean, I was in a completely different dimension, in a time when, back along the same road, I ended up in a different world or even in the same world, but on another date. These are things that can happen on December 31. My pride was safe living compass, the one that was able to exchange time again with the space, ie find the right path. Usually we try to find yourself at year end, for me this was not a purpose, rather than a requirement: if it would happen at midnight, Cinderella Man had not found its place in the world? Its Camry would be turned into a pumpkin? And what would become of him?

course, as in all the thought experiments, I could not use a map, that is, in fact I had it, but by mistake, reading the subtitle Indiana, I took the map of another city. And of course, just on that occasion I had left home the phone. Okay, I always have a car and are basically in a small town. Probably around the corner, I'll find a clue, a name, a road that I know and I will return in the world I left.
I have seen American movies and things like that happen. Committed the same color that you met in the morning, you begin with a Ferrari and escort you to the courtyard. In short, the usual magic American. A wry smile appears in my brain, but not to give satisfaction to the usual New Year's director, did not report it to his lips. But inside are more than certain. In fact, after a few meters, I run into Ironwood Road, I have traveled thousands of times, America has always predictable, maybe too: immediately after, there was the cross with the four corners respectively Walgreen's and CVS (two drugstores that also sell medicines, those shops which do crazy pharmacist because my cousin in Italy steal the work and who share the U.S., facing its own line of 'Indiana ...).; and on opposite sides, usually the Marathon gas station and restaurant Speedway. Sure, I keep on the same street and passed a few more isolated, another household name. WoW! I find the St. Joseph River, which is always the reference point and the step, until arrival at the University of Indiana: I know I have a few minutes from home and, after twenty minutes are in open country, no signal. I feel betrayed, like Tom Hanks from FedEx. And do not even Wilson.

U-turn, going back to the famous crossroads, of course I'm wrong, I took the road to the opposite direction (the signs are positioned at right angles and not on the side of the road) and I'm confused, logical. And after a while 'usually cross the river, with the usual bridge piers, the city lights nearby, I read well-known names, I should be in downtown and begin the typical fact streets of the Centro: Main, Center, etc.; Now, I bet with myself, to the left is the municipal library, the Library and it appears immediately treatment as soon as I turn on time as the discovery of Pluto, only instead of St. Joseph have written, looks like the Mishawaka Library: My first thought is that the name has changed from day to day, the second is that after an hour's drive I am practically on the border with Michigan. That is, say, Michigan! Another State! No doubt my twenty years of driving skills or knowledge of road signs, or topography. And then I saw a lot of movies and I read all the Peanuts. The smile that still clung to some synapses in my memory, at the same time attracted by the wrath of the amygdala, and this caused some headaches and a copious production of adrenaline. My face could hardly avoid the wrath of the popular image of Jack Nicholson.

And this, though with difficulty, I led to the following reasoning, while the Camry was going on, heedless of the concerns of its helmsman. The border between Indiana and Michigan, Michiana area defined (which includes the four cities of South Bend, Mishawaka, Osceola, and Elkhart, whose topographic maps are absolutely identical, and of course I had to Elkhart, the most useless) is crossed twisted by a river, St. Joseph, through an indefinite number of cities, all with the same urban structure, crossed by parallel roads that keep their names forever in the east-west or the opposite, as he said Heraclitus. These are Ironwood, Hickory, and many others, that at this point I pass through the entire subcontinent, pass beneath the mountains (the Rockies and the Appalachians, the Alps and Apennines that is) and probably arrived in New York or Los Angeles sinks in the oceans, to re-emerge, perhaps in correspondence with the Trans-Siberian Vladivostok and west, perhaps in the Camino de Santiago, Synthesis refers to a cosmic origin of the universe probably. I was, even angry, in what is called the path of metaphysics , that I was almost to my house.

Now, in the stretch that I had the opportunity to explore, that is precisely Michiana , between the cities there are neighborhoods with identical houses with their beautiful garden, which then, as we will see maybe one more time, are the real city , separated from crosses perpendicular repeated in the same order gradually the names of presidents, saints, cities and so on. At major intersections there are always CVS, Walgreen's, Marathon and Speedway. Heidegger teaches me that the unnecessary repetition of daily existence is a sign of inauthentic and Marx's critique of the market economy, and good recovery today from a number of followers who lead the fight against globalization, he told me that the road was not the right one. Risk of ending up in the vortex of nihilism at the heart of the United States.

My internal battery showed signs of dangerous exhaustion, I stopped at a McDonald's, perhaps unconsciously, to give the opportunity for a young clerk who have sadly spent the last year, to do his good deed and in extremis win the prize courtesy. To be, was polite, but sent me exactly the opposite cardinal point, and so, going back in front of Indiana University, I ended up in the countryside in the opposite direction, like Moses in the desert when I thought to be almost entered the Promised Land, the smile, marinated in the meantime by adrenaline, now sunk into the mists of the nightmare from the hypothalamus, was reflected in a helpless recent discovery of mirror neurons, revealing a grin crazy and delusional, while under St. Joseph ran tumultuous.


But I, unlike Moses and the Chosen People, at least that night, I had not betrayed any alliance rose for me and perhaps the prayers that Frank Capra put into the mouths of relatives and friends of George Bailey: many people love me, even at a distance, fortunately, more for my own merit.

I owe everything to George Bailey ...
Help HIM, dear Father.

Joseph, Jesus and Mary.
Help my friend, Mr. Bailey.

Help my son, George, tonight.

He Never Thinks about Himself, God,
that's why he's in trouble.

George is a good guy.
Give HIM a break, God ...

I love him, dear Lord.
HIM Watch over tonight ...

Please, God,
something's the matter with Daddy ...

Please bring Daddy back.

be clear, I do not attribute any of the merits of the hero of Bedford Falls, who saved the city from the grim Potter

However, it will be a chance that those prayers, in Capra's film, coming to a merciful Saint Joseph ( Hello, Joseph. Trouble? ), so, as already recited my last prayers in a car with his automatic transmission was now drifting inexorably, as when James Stewart was the pun threatening to end up in the river, mostly it happens in San Jose (which, however, continued to cross into reality, knowing that the city I saw in the background, were now only mirages), my guardian angel he appears, in the guise of a gas station ( Marathon course) indicate the only direction that I lacked respect the standard compass, which had lost all meaning, but warned that I would come home no earlier than three quarters of an hour at that point, moved to Illinois, after taking the first respectively the way to Missouri, Michigan and Iowa. Okay I'm in the North Indiana, but it's been real, that is, type Italy, France and Germany, and spend the New Year's Eve around the world to assure you, is not the most pleasant thing. Those three quarters of an hour by car but me back in the area where imagination and reality touch: I had passed a test, and morality, was partly in the words of a poem I had read that day.


not matter if at the end of my Odyssey, the food the day before had ended in the stomach of the suitors, who took delight in watching a football game. I had arrived home at last.

Home, Where My thought's escaping,
Home, Where my music's playing,
Home, Where my love lies waiting Silently for me
.

The same evening I express my intentions for the new year, sure of two things: neither heaven nor the film would have never left me, if I had faith in both, God And in my dreams, which often are often competing to outdo. There hope to have made good resolutions for this year and especially not having them abandoned. If you have not, start over riformulateli better.

Good Night and Good Luck!

Marco

We thank the city of South Bend to stay where he remained (will never reveal my true error), and I apologize to the mayor of the city if my story, or metaphor or adventure took place in his city. At the same time I thank all the people of Mishawaka, Elkhart and Osceola for your patience.

Images are taken in order from Oh Brother, Where Are Thou? the Cohen brothers, from Time Travelling Kevin Huizenga, and It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra, the words respectively It's a Wonderful Life of Frank Capra and Homeward Bound Paul Simon.

Hair Salon Live Webcam

One of the great fears of Americans that someone steal their Christmas. Why does Santa Claus (or just not really the birth of Jesus), is ultimately their stuff. Because Christmas and America are made in the same league. Any American Tune is located in an area ideal that can be tuned and hold a Christmas melody, to dig into a Christmas carol, to host a Christmas cameo, or vice versa.
It 's like the colors favored by the Pilgrim Fathers imposed to agree with carol singing, a sort of unwritten rule that somehow everyone recognizes.
The U.S. EPA is generally the most Christmas you might think, considering that California or Texas may refer to the original sites, but in general, American cities, with a Christmas dress, make them look good. Christmas is the party that best fits with the natural love that Americans despite what they say or do to keep family. The prevailing colors are perfect tune with the party and add what is lacking in the decorations of the homes (inside and outside), some decidedly kitsch other truly spectacular: think of a nativity scene in front of clear glass in motion a house). The snow, one must not fail, although this year, having come first, and being planned for later, for Christmas she took leave. What I think is that maybe if Easter is culturally more appealing in Europe, the United States and perhaps the whole of America, the continent just came into the world, is steeped in the atmosphere of Christmas. But it is a consideration that is what it's worth. On this basis, it is important what follows.

United States, I said in my first post, a week before Christmas with only one soundtrack, and Christmas melodies never left you. Some are great crossroads of gender, others are at the limit nenach 'I know what: think of the song in which the child learns that mother kissing Santa Claus and he is shocked by this kind of adultery? incest? But somehow coming to glimpse the similarity between his father a bit 'fatter and Santa Claus. Apart from the content, however, perhaps nowhere so happens that all of a sudden Britney Spears and Hillary Duff, Michael Jackson and Eminem yield up to a week in fact they do not, because they record their album of Christmas songs (all, I would say, except Eminem). When the texts are in English, the result is often significant, a little 'Martian if Bing Crosby or Dean Martin or Mariah Carey sing Adeste Fideles in Latin.

note that many Hollywood movies have a Christmas theme, or are held at Christmas, the day of thanksgiving, the comics newspapers suffer a sharp steering and Christmas becomes the center of attraction, for good or evil, narrative (remember the Christmas letters of Sally Brown? but also Garfield, Dilbert, The Far Side, Blondie and Dagoberto, Calvin & Hobbes are involved in the case. Very different is the Christmas TinTin or Mafalda, even Mickey Mouse and the Muppets were appropriate here). That said, it is a fact that Americans are afraid that their ruby \u200b\u200bChristmas (the Grinch ), that another party from appropriating Santa Claus (The Nightmare Before Christmas ), and those who, like Linus, confuse Baby Jesus (at least in the early decades of Peanuts ), with the Great Pumpkin, well, are subversive sectarians.
If you think about it, that Christmas, in the absence of anything better to entrust us Boldi and / or De Sica, around the world (this year, I think, in the Big Apple) is the space heroism, contact with the man of God, the coming of the angels, the world is turned upside down: Do you remember Life is wonderful or more recently The Family Man or While You Were Sleeping? Large fictions that lead to large changes in this part of the world take place at Christmas, and usually reconciled to God, marriage, work, family, community and the general meaning of life ... and maybe change your life. There are people who change lives at Christmas: it is a fact, and this Christmas is a matter of life or death.

Yet for fear of losing it, the U.S. has unconsciously sowed the seeds of weeds along with the Christmas tree and the mistletoe. And little by little, without anyone being aware of it, the tree has lost its magic power, miraculous, calming, reconciling, to make way for a. ..

This year, the United States, there was Christmas. No call to 911 (remember the date of the attack on the Twin Towers? 911 is the national number for emergencies, which translated into day American states September 11).

Forgive me if I say with apparent disrespect. No crash of airplanes and skyscrapers. And nothing to report at airport controls. Not even a blurb in the NY Times or the Post, I said, I think, that the Child was represented, jingle bells, slides still run happy. Despite all this, Christmas has not arrived this year, Christmas in the USA: I did the good wishes of many people, in the week between 25 and 31 and the people I squared, really surprised. And to think that going around in the car with the classic Christmas carols and the most bizarre I was thrilled. Yet the Grinch was finally defeated (I'm aware, there will be a sequel , the pumpkin has not eaten the cabin ... in the meantime we were leaving in the ex-president Ford (always intended soon to be overshadowed) by James Brown and later by Saddam Hussein (but this is not a Christmas story, and maybe one day, when I am able, I'll tell you something about it). As for Christmas, Oh Oh Oh !, , some would say, where is it?

tracks lead me at the local mall, where a few days ago, I was greeted by Christmas jingle that extend from my Camry right into the huge paradise in its various heavens is called the Wal-Mart, Hallmark, Best Buy ... instead of Christmas, it was not me to wear, according to tradition, my gift to the child, as learned in catechism, rather I was to receive the gift: better late than never, is it really true that Americans are ahead in everything. And at first, I received a nice gift, electronic, or delicious candy. The cabin, meanwhile, had turned into a warehouse and everything was for free, which is the American way of saying free. And that means really free. With us or things are gifts or, if they are not free Of Love, are a rip off. No, the baseball cap gave it to me for real, the book's success as well ...

Enveloped by music, and crossed the threshold here, for a single dollar (which will never be a dollar less than a euro!), I could buy a gadget I had always dreamed of by, say, the fountain pen with the 'three-dimensional ink, or set to play basketball on the desk in the studio ... and then the mug, that is the mug for coffee, tea, and so on, with peanuts, garfield, the caricature of Bush, and more ... i have a mug almost hypnotic fascination. At that point, with two dreams in my pocket for just one dollar, I was logged in Christmas. The music was still in the background, only that I had messed up something at heart, or stomach, and that something put to rest my head ... At that point, my internal organs recorded a somersault imperiously and began to ask these eyes and the brain and this neck and neck the rest of the body to move, to look for something to serve them, no matter what, so mica with all the deals we're gone bankrupt and then it's nice to give things to others ... the portfolio, even better credit card, they appeared willing to give themselves spontaneously, especially the second without pain (the most painful Christmas shopping is writing checks, why not try this credit card? "read the sign outside the Mall"); money separate from my body, to which I would have rejoined the house or mentally anesthetized magnetic card from that painful and yet so full of promise) I had passed through the automatic doors of the mall owning myself and my ability, with a safety contact with my personal finances, while small, whereas now sailing between marshmallows (in Italian, Toffoletti) caramel and fascinating set of fishing 'hill, undecided on what I needed more for the year to come. What I need or I liked was now beyond any reasoning. Other than the veil of ignorance. They should have threw a blanket, turn off the light and fill the barrel to let us retrieve the legendary Enlightenment rationality.
short, a bit 'Pavlov was right, that of dogs, here is a preliminary Skinner, who has the dog's name, at least Pavlov longer master. With all due respect to dogs. And then Pavlov did not know them all. For example if you put some special objects near one another, they acquire a great capacity to refer to each other. That is, there is logic in combining small things (which resembles the psychosis of the gambler), a wife can help or lead to ruin, so it is said that all come to the end of the game, that is, buying on installment a mega-machine , computed a lawnmower or marry a belle di Reno (Nevada): I have not seen the shelves for that article, but maybe I missed some step. In short, if the great empires were created by a cent spared, as I had taught Scrooge mistreated, was costing me a cent, without realizing it, my whole anthropological self-representation: a set of desires that I was floating, bouncing to the little things that the addition of 6% VAT and put together, made the happiness of the cashiers and my guardian devil, that I finally whispered mockingly: "So Christmas comes only once a year." (Mom, do not worry, I have not done anything like that, but the effort was great, I'm saving for the complete set of Happy Days on DVD, but who does not have a target firm as my own, easily succumb to the empire of small desires).

So it's 25 days, to not misunderstand that, do not call Christmas, the day of the exchange of gifts. After all, the least important of all, because you already know what they receive and do not have expectations or not you imagine and then you wait for the next day ...



... day 26, the day when the Mall bursts because people go back and change presents, in large part because he liked them, because they did not serve any purpose because was all the result of a collective psychodrama, or because that gift was the right one, but in a matter of exchange rates and rebates, maybe you could swap it with a better one. Out of curiosity I went back to the Mall at the suggestion of a friend ("Go and see, see that you have fun!"). A crowd! And for a buck they catch something the first two days was worth 50! The music remained in the background, was more combative spirit (you have to grab the best bargains, get open and keep the line ! ) and however the cards with Christmas greetings, which I would buy a good Italian abroad a lower price after Christmas had already been removed. If greeted with a Merry Christmas, what sense could have to answer to my wishes for Christmas, after the gifts were returned? In Italy, however, remained to care for a child, just here to throw paper and working the next day (at most, a holiday , a word that unlike festival draws a blank.

The party of the poor want bizarre had passed, is the only resign and wait for the new year. The only thing to say is that the festival had become a party that continues is ending and that my mind (or my mind) they had suffered, I was reborn in a new life. Forgive me irony or sarcasm ... but actually this Christmas has come every Christmas as it should, unexpected, and changed me maybe more than many Christmases past.


I understand why John Grisham took a sabbatical from his legal thriller, to write three good books, one on the family and home, one on school and football, and a delightful comedy that is called by us "Escape from Christmas, "something that perhaps imitating the Krank family in the future we will also groped us.

For the American New Year, which arrives six hours after our own, at least in that we are ahead, the few words that deserves commemoration poor! I was never attracted much, maybe because I do not love about fireworks, but this year is because it encompasses a particular conception of time, or because it pushes you to rethink your life and start over, knowing that certainly does not not keep your intentions, but maybe this time so short, I got a bit 'fond. Maybe it's age. Here the new year, and because there are different time zones and then the years come "loose" what is the point to see the countdown in Times Square if Los Angeles is still 22:00?, Is reduced to a choreographic quote a countdown that could happen at any moment in world history, and who do not follow your mind or make changes, only publicity and perhaps a record for a football game and the latest news from Iraq.

So, this year I would be credited to a Christmas, if a friend had invited me in the middle of nowhere Indiana (here, I will say, the usual conservative and rural America, a stereotype that has its own history, its own truth, and something wrong), along with a host of relatives who came from all States, including people from uptown from the big cities, with a pile of presents in the middle and a series of numbers drawn by lot: who goes first choose a gift, the second one could draw from the pile or to request the gift of those who had preceded him, and so on ... little by little created strategies, personal or family, to achieve their goals. The child who did not want the torch shaped like a hippo, and did his best to steal the soldiers to his aunt and I with my face or maybe even more surprised because a lady forties for reasons of state I had taken the cup of Peanuts with Snoopy doll in order to arrive with a complicated alliances around you, Thai ... I finally retrieved the cup, and I also won a beautiful tie with all the characters of Schulz, who will wear to my first lesson in Italy and a T-shirt Charlie Brown, that is yellow with stripes and zig-zag.

course, a big family that meets (and then stay to talk to late at night, after midnight Mass, though not all attended), is made up of people who do not you see all year, that in America today has the same cohesion in some cases pieces of Lego, which is made up of families acquired, divorce, ... problems, and then from year to year is a bit 'reworked in order. With the problems of those, usually the functional part of the family must handle, the guy who should not see Dick, Sempron to be invited because he is an ex-husband ... and the fact that new groups appear suddenly family, including relatives of animals and unexpected. A little 'as the Christmas About a Boy, for those who remember the movie with Hugh Grant. In any case, it starts talking, you see something that you feel being the one in Chicago and the other in Boston ... and eventually people end up happy and contented, more constructive. It's not the luck of all families, but in the hearts of many American reality there is someone who acts as glue and gradually brings people to talk at times to resent. No, Christmas has come, in most of the States, I believe, and do not be pessimistic as Krank.
This is Christmas in the States, a Christmas thanks to God and in the absence of religious representations (the American ones are rare, but delicious, the rest are floats between the bland and bad taste), a home for the time flows underground and that makes no noise, proclaiming the end of time or commemorating his funeral feast of strange for a birth, no?

I remain impressed with the tired smile of his grandmother, the only one left of his generation, who watched all those people that I went to Mass the following Sunday and suddenly passed away, bringing back the whole family from all parts of States, because here we take a plane and you go, just like in the movies. Today, after Mass, I prayed for this peaceful and quiet lady and I just bureaucratic reasons for the failure to attend the funeral.

One negative image has stayed with me that night, and that of a baby son, located at the intersection of two marriages break up. It was the only one trying frantically as many gifts and at the same time visibly in having the most dissatisfied. This is not rhetoric, but that child was screaming in his silence to give him your Christmas, his miracle. His great-grandmother, one day, maybe it will satisfy, I doubt that the return to the Mall Christmas lost, although he has collected more than gifts of all: some things, unfortunately, does not work that way.

Happy New Year from the States and at the same time, Merry Christmas.

Good Night and Good Luck

Marco

The images are of the order Norman Rockwell, respectively Discovery, and Christmas Rush, and of course Charles M. Schulz

Letters In Oklahoma Drivers License

In a week's Christmas


Finally, after the misfortunes of the visa, I landed in Chicago and then to South Bend and Notre Dame. A first week full but very linear. I bought the boots to tackle the snow and rain (even though many girls are using the flip-flops, that is the FlipFlops, which has its own reason: it's raining, you flip-flops, a towel and quickly solve everything, without being forced / aa drive you around and especially shoes stockings, socks, wet ghosts: this also allows to show the color that Mabellini NY last thought for the nails of your feet). The Life is really short here, but there is little wonder, in short, mica or speak Maldives Malindi (the place preferred by clients of the agency where I did my low cost). The sky is leaden, at least until February, when the campus is deserted, late of examinations, and people dedicated to decorate their homes for Christmas. And here divides the preparation for Christmas.

As you can see by the following examples: Some of you ask what they mean the film, inspired by the book by Grisham, Christmas with the Kranks. Well. Nothing anti-Christian or atheist, simply run away from those $ 8,000 you need to decorate with lights, Babb birth (Santas) and so is your home, inside and out. Thus, during the Sunday Mass, the priest said that one of his followers had prepared better Christmas this year ... unity because he bought a backup for the lights of his house: as they say in Italian? Already I have no words ...

The background is an incredible number of different versions of the usual Christmas songs, performed by Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, Bill Clinton, Robert De Niro, Diana Krall (which, if you want my advice, really deserves), Bing Crosby , Tony Bennett, etc., In different styles, jazz, funk, bebop, rap, R & B. .. crucial to your soundtrack is to put American Greensleeves from the Peanuts Christmas CD. The soundtrack accompanies the party, shopping at the mall, walking on campus, life at home, use of internet, there's a whistle that Christmas ends up becoming part of you and so little by little become even Christmas you.

But there are also nativity scenes, Advent and everything else, say the substance. Even if it is to marry the American spirit, and in the splendid if a little 'kitsch Basilica (pronounced Bezsilika) University, in the chancel stands a clock with the countdown The minute I have to say that I felt some anxiety in the last stanza of the final song, when the clock was at -17 and has managed to stay within just one second.

to church, but a bit 'all over the world, love is expressed through hugs (hugs), which become softer with the passage of time: you have no idea what a year can fatten a forty, I can say at first person, but that is not me talking here ... had with what you eat and shake ... But at least it's good, compared to the Italian imitations, so in the USA USA and you eat enough.

Tips to imagine the American spirit in this period: see Christmas with the Kranks, as mentioned above, and the first of two Mother Alone!, which contain the near-perfect balance of the spiritual and the consumerism of Christmas, along with the basic song to enter the mood. For the rest, if you have the opportunity to read chronologically the period from November to March of the Complete Peanuts, yet to be published and Baldini Castoldi Dalai PaniniComics and, in different editions, but just with chronological order, you'll know what is the background this period in most of the States: a common uniform and a bit 'boring, which sees the end of football season, sliding the Christmas period, starting the second semester or the new calendar year working, and slowly extend until Charlie Brown goes back on the springboard and reorganizes his squad for the baseball season.

At this time, the most watched TV show is Lost, in his first season in Italy, here from February to the third, the second already on DVD, so that those who did not see it can catch up, keep up before the end of winter. There is a beautiful film about the life of Johnny Cash, Walk the Line (there are more and more American movies, I noticed that we import in Italy, put it another way ... in English! So the confusion is not complete ... really know what you saw and what you have not seen. However, in general the film Americans love their singers Ray ... for example last year.
There then a big boost in the study of Pop Culture in all its forms, from TV series architecture, comics, music, design. I would refer you to The Atlas of the emotions of Giuliana Bruno, published at Harvard and soon translated into Italian, but watch out for upcoming Manual Antonio Monda on American cinema.

Well, what are you doing there, you ask? Well, philosophy is a blog designed to be more engaged, you will find here basically costume then what makes you truly understand everything else and allows you to do philosophy ...

I decided to blog, and not for the newsletter, so messages will not arrive full of photos, which I consider necessary to tell the story ... although this time there are no photos.

What does it encounters a zero opti? But what a beautiful belt you've bought for Christmas ... American humor here ... with which I leave you tonight, while outside there are six degrees and in Italy, at 4 under 10, there are 17.
way, a little note on time. And 'this happened. Indiana has reconsidered the time zone. And it was decided to give each county, we say to each municipality, authority to decide on the time zone, if one of the Midwest (-7) or the Far East (-6): result, chaos, a kind of time to patchy in a territory as large as half of Italy. Then the federal law (one day we will cover the laws) has established a division in the middle more or less fair, which led to South Bend in part in New York, which is 15 hours away by car and has stolen in Chicago, which is an hour from here. So, if you take the car and go to the Big Apple at normal speed it takes you fifteen hours, if you go to Chicago and forced a little 'time, you can leave and arrive at the same time as starting at seven by seven to get to Milan and turin ... which makes me think that with this trick you can always earn an hour and never get old, if you stay in the car at constant speed. But I think at some point encounter the Great Wall of China (which is why the year built, the rest had their clocks mysteriously as long as 5000 years ago).

Okay, this is stupid but what remains true is that Indiana is the only country in the world that keeps the same hours all year round, no DST. Frankly, I must say that I think almost always dark, at any time, and very often I get confused with the time, for some strange mechanisms, Italy and the United States are approaching the times of meals and then leave the rest of the day. What gives a lot of psychological satisfaction, because I do not know, is that when you go to the campus or read the email from Italy, you have the idea that people have already worked for you ... must make better use of the idea.

Good Night and Good Luck

Marco

Image: Kevin Huizenga, Glenn Ganges: Travellers of Time.