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A very Italian weekend
Friday night there was an talk at Casa Italiana about the Lazio region of Italy. Alessandra Visconti, who is from there, talked about it, showed slides, played music, read poetry, and fed us bruschetta and regional wines. A good time was had by all.
Yesterday, I dashed off to the Art Institute for a forum on "Venice: Looking toward the east", about Venice's connections with the Islamic world, primarily, of course, the Ottoman Empire. (One of the speakers, Stefano Carboni, is the guy from the Met who put together the Venice and the Islamic World exhibit; the others were Patricia Fortini Brown from Princeton University and Julian Raby from St. Hugh's College). This was one of the last events in the year-long Silk Road Project. Rather on the academic side, but fascinating, and gorgeous slides!
Then I grabbed a bus and headed to Northwestern University Law School, for a talk by Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement. He spoke in Italian, with an interpreter, but I found I understood nearly everything he said, and laughed at some of his jokes before they were translated. I'm so proud of myself! (Of course, it helped that he spoke relatively slowly.) It was a good talk. Petrini is an enthusiastic advocate for local produce, biodiversity, etc., but he's also very sensible about having the occasional out-of-season mango. And, unlike us impatient Americans who want to solve the problem now (as evidenced by a couple of the questions asked), he understands that change is a process that comes incrementally. A whole raft of people from Casa Italiana classes were there, as well as some of Daniela's DePaul students.
Came home, made a quiche, and finished reading Julia Child's My Life in France (so I guess it was a "foodie" day, too)!
Yesterday, I dashed off to the Art Institute for a forum on "Venice: Looking toward the east", about Venice's connections with the Islamic world, primarily, of course, the Ottoman Empire. (One of the speakers, Stefano Carboni, is the guy from the Met who put together the Venice and the Islamic World exhibit; the others were Patricia Fortini Brown from Princeton University and Julian Raby from St. Hugh's College). This was one of the last events in the year-long Silk Road Project. Rather on the academic side, but fascinating, and gorgeous slides!
Then I grabbed a bus and headed to Northwestern University Law School, for a talk by Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement. He spoke in Italian, with an interpreter, but I found I understood nearly everything he said, and laughed at some of his jokes before they were translated. I'm so proud of myself! (Of course, it helped that he spoke relatively slowly.) It was a good talk. Petrini is an enthusiastic advocate for local produce, biodiversity, etc., but he's also very sensible about having the occasional out-of-season mango. And, unlike us impatient Americans who want to solve the problem now (as evidenced by a couple of the questions asked), he understands that change is a process that comes incrementally. A whole raft of people from Casa Italiana classes were there, as well as some of Daniela's DePaul students.
Came home, made a quiche, and finished reading Julia Child's My Life in France (so I guess it was a "foodie" day, too)!
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You are quite cosmopolitan!
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