Are there MUSIC FESTIVAL in ITALY?

Too bad. You were looking for a professional review of the huge quantity of festival that Italy can supply. And you arrived in this blog, which is all but professional. But come on, tourists always complain they do not want to see the "touristy" things, they want to see the REAL Italy, the one ITALIANS enjoy.

If you ever thought those things when on holiday, then keep reading: don't waste an occasion to read a fascinating report about Italian MUSIC SUMMER FESTIVALS, written by an Italian, a musician, and a New Yorker.

So here we go: let me tell you I am a little biased when it comes to music (who isn't?!), so I'll write exclusively of the following two events, which - in my humble opinion - are the two more valuable events of the Summer:

Eating Italian Food in New York?!

So: I posted quite a lot about food already, and I'll keep this pace hopefully. I've never dedicated a whole post - though - to eating Italian Food in New York.

Let me start in an optimistic way: IT'S NOT BAD.

If you're not accustomed with the Italian culture you might not know that Italians are well known to always complain, when abroad, about food. Especially when food is sold as "Italian". To this extent they might be sort of right, since most of Mario's Restaurants or Capri Pizzerias around the US serve all but Italian food.

In a sense they accommodated American tastes to Italian recipes, but that doesn't make a good restaurant.

So, what is different in New York?!

Is there something like the SUPERBOWL in ITALY?

Let me be frank: NO.

Since tomorrow is the big game's day, I tried to think really hard about some similar tradition we have in Italy. I couldn't come up with much, and I was somewhat sorry about that. I generally like these weird situations in which the sense of belonging of some people becomes really really strong, for a couple of hours.

The only thing that would compare is the World Cup final (of soccer, obviously). A lot of people get just nuts about it, and I would say the general feeling is similar to the Super Bowl. Only with less Buffalo wings.

Why isn't there a STARBUCKS IN ITALY (yet)?

I guess time has come to talk about coffee. It is a hot topic (indeed! Sorry, bad joke), and let me say especially for Italians. Coffee for Italians is something like saudade for Brazilian, is the smile of a person you miss. The first thing most Italians do once back from a journey is getting a coffee. True story. Actually I should not get that sentimental, let me start by the very beginning: how would I describe coffee culture in Italy? Bullet-points!

• coffee in Italy means espresso - it is really a couple of millimeters, way less than what you can get at any American cafe - it is really intense and concentrated, almost as dense as honey;  
• it is served in a ceramic cup (not even in the outskirts of the worst Italian town would you find a paper cup);
• most guys get it at the counter, it takes less than 2 minutes to prepare and less than 20 second to drink;
• it costs something between 0.90 and 1.50 euros (in normal places - i.e. not in Piazza San Marco in Venice, or in front of the Colosseum);
• in summer you would sit in the tables and stand there chatting, but NOBODY WORKS IN THE CAFE', in Italy;

Why HAVE I NOT POSTED on SUNDAY?

That's right! As some of you may have noticed, so far I've been posting regularly once a day. At least that's what happened up until last Saturday. Actually, I consider a success keeping it going for 13 days straight - to my remembering I've not really ever committed to anything for longer than half an hour.

I am sorry to have skipped Sunday, though, but fortunately enough that gives me a good introduction to today's topic: quality of life. Exactly, I had thousand of things to do - yesterday - but as soon as they asked me to go out to dinner I did not refuse, and therefore I found myself going on working up until 3AM. Then I went to bed, not being even able to spell my name.

So what is this quality of life, then? And what makes you think to be qualified to talk about that?

Who's probably the BEST KNOWN ITALIAN JAZZ MUSICIAN?

If you're Italian, and you care about Jazz you probably have asked yourself this question.. I did for sure and I could at least select a couple of them. By Italian - only in this post - I mean folks born and raised in Italy. So I got to a quite nice list:

• Enrico Rava;
• Stefano Bollani;
• Roberto Gatto;
• Sandro Gibellini;
• etc..

In particular, in this post, I will concentrate on Enrico Rava not really because I think he's the best (the competition in the top is quite fierce), but because he'll soon be playing in New York, at the Birdland...

Yes, but: HOW MANY ITALIANS are there in NYC?

This is kind of an important question, because it defines properly the target of this blog. And good news is that there are quite many.

In order to approach this question you can do plenty of things, the deepest of which I think should be go to the US Census data and download this infinite spreadsheet with time series of immigration in New York. Alternatively you can go to wikipedia, and start reading pages related. That's actually what I did, but I'm planning to go straight to the source one day.

Anyways there are quite a lot of nice infos also in wikipedia, starting from this map:

that shows the Italians presence in New York State, with respect to ancestry (i.e. folks whose grandfather was Italian - I assume - and thus holding Italian passport - and thus Italian by all means).

Why is WILLIAMSBURG SO FANCY?

I don't know if you're from New York, or wishing to move there or simply about to visit, but there's something you should know:

Williamsburg is damn fancy and hip.

Why is that? I'm glad you asked that, and my opinion is related to one of the major attraction of the neighborhood: the Brooklyn Brewery.

Why is PASTA SO GOOD?

I decided to talk about the reasons why Italians Hate Italians later on, because is kind of a painful topic for me, and it requires some more research.


So let's talk about pasta: I just had a good one, and I am always surprised by how good it is, let's break it down:

• pasta: basically durum wheat flour after a series of processes that while modifying it substantially, do not alter the taste that much. So it boils down to a cereal.
• sauce: can vary a lot, but provided you have tomatoes and maybe a little Parmesan cheese you are all set

Why does EVERYBODY loves Italians? (most of all Americans..)

Elephant in the room! This will be a major topic, so let's try to set this up.

Possible answers:

• Quality of life (my personal favorite): in Italy life is so good that anybody, especially stressed up folks, sees in the Italian Way of Life an ideal of peace and well being that has always been a major feature of the Bel Paese (i.e. Italy!);
• Italians are good at cooking: this is quite related to the previous point, and I think that it makes sense. But let's save the food issues for some further posts.. I will probably set up a dedicated page to Italian cuisine with home made recipe and food philosophy. 
•  Most people don't really know many Italians, but at most Fellini's movies, Venice canals, the Colosseum and probably some operas. This self ironic point (remember I'm Italian) reflect the fact that many Italians are not so proud of being Italians, but again let's save this to the following post (which is very likely to be called: "Why does MANY Italians hate Italians?").