vilaine fille

Pensée du dimanche 31 décembre

Gentle readers, vilaine fille wishes you and yours abundant good health, love, happiness, and success in 2007.

P.S. Siamo campioni del mondo, e lo saremo per altri tre anni ALMENO !

Pensée du dimanche 24 décembre

LET IT SNOW!

To all who keep Christmas—and to all who don’t—vilaine fille sends her fond wishes for a season of miracles, togetherness, and wild, enduring joy.

G-d bless us, everyone! (Anche i cugini rosiconi, bien sûr.)

Pensée du dimanche 17 décembre

They declaim against the passions
without bothering to think
that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.
—The Marquis de Sade

Pensée du dimanche 10 décembre

OUR lives are Swiss,—
So still, so cool,
Till, some odd afternoon,
The Alps neglect their curtains,
And we look farther on.

Italy stands the other side…
—Emily Dickinson

Pensée du dimanche 3 décembre

The only real elegance is in the mind;
if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.
—Diana Vreeland

Brave Old World

I’m breaking radio silence ever so briefly to urge everyone in the New York area to attend Brave Old World’s concert on Sunday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. They will be performing Song of the Lodz Ghetto, whose Winter & Winter recording I named Newsday’s 2005 CD of the year.

(I think Song of the Lodz Ghetto will probably be my CD of the decade—and I still can’t find words to evoke its staggering beauties.)

I don’t think my TONY feature does justice to BOW or their music, but Ruth Ellen Gruber wrote a beautiful story last year about the Lodz Ghetto project for the International Herald Tribune.

Update: Here is an additional article from The Jewish Week. Note the quote from Ari Davidow of the KlezmerShack: I can’t find the words to express the depth of the music.

You can purchase BOW’s CDs (all splendid) at Barnes & Noble.com.

P.S. I’m slowly getting better, aiming to start posting regularly again in a month or so.

O Captain! My Captain!

Oh, and while I’m at it: Fabio Cannavaro, captain of the Italian national football team, who had already won the most important prize of all, also won the Ballon d’or this week.

To honor the occasion, Nike issued a video ad, produit en Italie, promoting “Coppa Cannavaro” ice cream—la coppa golosa che fa il mondo geloso (“the delicious cup that makes the world jealous”). The original series of print ads is available here, with an expanded series at Nikefootball.com, where Captain Cannavaro advertises a new flavor: Gold.

You can celebrate Cannavaro’s victory by singing “Cuore azzurro” along with the lads, watching a recap of our glorious victory (warning—it’s a tearjerker), and listening to Fabio Caressa’s immortal tribute to our captain and his magnificent men. (And if you haven’t heard the Arab-language commentator call Fabio Grosso’s goal against Germany, go to it.)

Ah, man-love truly is bellissimo. Brokeback calcio? We invented it.

Yes, Italy are World Champions and the most beautiful men in the world. Rosicate, Franzosi, rosicate!

P.S. When I was in Italy, the Dolce & Gabbana underwear ads were up at all the bus stops and train stations, larger than life. Do you understand why I didn’t want to return to the States?