 I understand this was a long time ago, but really, stabbing someone for flirting? If the tipo actually puts his hands on the woman, perhaps. Puncture him all you want. In reality, I've witnessed pappagalli (parrots or wolves) flirting with pretty ladies walking by in Rome and other Italian cities, and have found their comments are actually complimentary in nature, and because of their culture, can actually be fairly poetic...
Flirting is part of life in Italy and it even has a poetic name: fare la civetta, which literally means "to make like an owl", or as we might say, making googly eyes at a girl. When in Italy, young ladies have to keep this in mind: More so than American men, Italian single men--even into their Fifties--actually have a great respect for women. Many single Italian men are actually Mama's boys and traditionally live with their Mamma until they get married! No stabbing. Go easy on them. Va bene? --Jerry Finzi You might also be interested in:   My father was born in Molfetta, Puglia in the South. My Mom's mother and father came from Naples. Both spoke dialects of Italian. My mother often said that my father's dialect was so different from hers that she couldn't understand certain words. They were like different languages, far apart from Italian. In the late 1800s, most Italian immigrants came from the South: Campania, Calabria, Puglia or Sicily. In time, Italian-Americans have slurred local dialects even more... softening consanants, truncating words or even swapping sounds completely, like P to B, C tp G or V to F.
If you watch the Godfather, especially the scenes in GF II showing Vito Corleone as a young man, you can hear this sort of dialect from Sicily. The words in the South are often totally different. Lots of slang is used. Liaisons happen... Usually, the end of one word attaches to the beginning of the next word. Beginnings of words are often omitted. Even Italians consider these dialects like another language... for example, the announcements on the train from Bari to Rome are in English, Italian and "Dialetto". Dialect sounds nothing like regular Italian down South. Now, add to all this the fact that Italian immigrants in American spoke a sort of second hand Italian dialect, much was lost to misunderstood pronunciations and the fact that many (like my parents) didn't want to speak Italian in the home. When I asked why my parents didn't teach us Italian, they said they wanted an "All-American" home for us. Even today in the South parents don't want their children to speak Dialect when they move to the big cities in Italy. They are looked down upon for speaking it by Northern Italians. What a shame... These dialects are what makes Italian so interesting. Here are a collection of Italian-American wods and phrases that I grew up with... spelled phonetically: Agida/Agita Acid indigestion/aggravation Ah-fa Nabalee Get out of Here/Go to Naples Ah-shpette Wait! Ah-Va-Fan-gool Go f*ck yourself Bah-Bookia Papocchio, a mess, allmixed up Bah-fongool Go f*ck yourself Ba-cha-ga-loop Wolf Hunter or Brave (not dummy, like some think) Bish-Gut biscotti/cookie Bock-owz Bathroom/stink house, Back House or outhouse. Bomba-lonee Little Kid Boochach Bitch/c*nt Boombotz Idiot/Crazy Boo-tahn' puttana, whore Baz-ih-nigole Basil Brahgonne Drunk Brah-jole bracciole/slang for penis Cabbadost Thick head/stubborn Chooch Big Baby-a put-down, or vagina ComoseeCyam? What do you call it? Coh-Yonees Balls Dees-Gradseeyad disgraziad, misfortune, bad luck, screw-up Gal-ay-mahd Calimari/squid Facha-broot Ugly face Fin-ook Finoccichio/Fennel, Gabba-Dost Thick Head Gabeesh? Understand? Gavone Pig/Slob/Overeater Gobba-ghool Capicola (a type of cold cut meat) Googootz A fool Goombah Pal/Comrade/Friend GooMahd Girlfriend GOT-zo! What Balls! Jadrool Lazy bum (cucumber) Jamoke Idiot Kay-Gotz What the F*ck Keh -sa-deech? How are you? Mal-yOke Evil eye Mamaluke Idiot/stupid/screw-up Manageya Damn it/Curse it Managutt Manicotti (pasta) Mah-done! Madonna mia! (exclamation) Mopeen Dish Cloth, Rag Medz-a-medz So-so/half and half/not so much Mutzarelle Mozzarella cheese Nabolee-DAHN Neapolitan/someone from Naples Pasta-vazool Pasta fagioli (bean soup) piezahn Friend/countryman/brother Pitza-gain Pizzagaina, Egg-meat pie Ooo-Fah I've had it/I'm fed up Rigutt Ricotta cheese Rompee-Coyownee Ball Buster (Rompicoglione or -palle, for balls) Shka-roll Escarole/Cash money sfatcheem a Jerk SkeeVo Disgusting Stroonz an Ass Stroonz-a-medz Half ass Strombolone Clumsy Stata-Geet Shut Up Skutch Pest Stoon-od Idiot StuGotz Screw it/F*ck it TooSee Batz You're crazy Vena Ka, Vena Ga Come here --Jerry Finzi If you found this post useful, please LIKE it and tell your friends about Grand Voyage Italy. Ciao! Copyright, Jerry Finzi, Grand Voyage Italy, All rights reserved  ... You wake up in the morning and the first thing you smell isn't coffee brewing, but the smell of last night's marinara and meatballs still wafting through the house.
 The culture in Italy is very different than in the U.S... especially concerning rules of proper behavior. What is acceptable in the States might be considered disgusting in Italy. What Italians consider as normal behavior, we would never thing of doing at home. Here are a few differences...  Popular tissues in Italy
  Pick up your change
 Avoiding la colpo d'aria 
 It's Chilly down there
--GVI   No shit! There really is a Shit Museum in Italy... the Museo della Merda. It was in 2015 that Gianantonio Locatelli founded the "museum" in Lombardy along with his associates: Luca Cipelletti, who manages its projects and products, Gaspare Luigi Marcone and Massimo Valsecchi. The idea came into being in Castelbosco, in the province of Piacenza (just south of Milan) on a farm which makes milk for Grana Padano cheese and includes seven production units. Here every day 3,500 specially selected cows produce around 50,000 litres of milk and 150,000 kilos of poop.   Letame Essciato - Dried Manure fertilizer The future-thinking Locatelli wanted to turn all this excrement into something useful with his ecological, productive and cultural scheme. Using highly innovative systems, electrical energy started to be produced from the manure. Today the farm produces up to three megawatts per hour! The buildings and offices of the farm are heated exploiting the warmth given off by huge processing tanks called Digestori (digesters) turning the manure into energy. The process also produces fertilizer offered for sale under the name MerdaMe (Shit me). All these activities have drawn attention from various international institutions concerned with ecology and innovation, leading to widespread recognition and prizes, and making Castelbosco a point of reference.
 Locatelli began to gather together friends and artists, leading him to the idea of the Shit Museum. The Museum itself might be called a canvas onto which artists create... the Digesters themselves transformed into a bright colored landmark in the area. The idea for a new museum slowly took shape, emerging from manure to deal with the broader theme of transformation. The museum would be an agent of change which, through educational and research activities, the production of objects of everyday use and the gathering of artifacts and stories concerning excrement in the modern world and throughout history, was to dismantle cultural norms and prejudices. The first stage of the project was carried out in April 2015 with the inauguration of the exhibition spaces of the Museum, in the rooms on the ground floor of the company premises, located within the medieval castle of Castelbosco. The museum is a blend of aesthetic, scientific, human and animal experiences, both modern day and historic. The concept is that shit is a useful and living material. The symbol and mascot of the Museum is the dung beetle, considered divine by the Egyptians (and symbol of the Museum itself), to the use of dung in architecture, from ancient Italian civilizations to those in Africa, via historical-literary works such as Pliny’s Naturalis Historia. Right up to the latest scientific research and works of art drawing on the use and reuse of waste and discarded materials, the Museum is a contemporary cabinet of curiosities which finds its main guide in the science and art of transformation. 
 Museum Activities Right from the start, the Shit Museum was designed to be a production center not only of ideas and exhibitions, but also of objects and projects. The implementation and patenting of the Merdacotta® brand sums up the principle of sustainability. The poo is mixed with clay and gives shape to the first products to bear the Museo della Merda brand: vases, flowerpots, tiles, plates, bowls, a jug and a mug in simple, clean, rustic shapes, harking back to ancient principles. The ‘primordial products’ of the Museum were presented for the first time during the 2016 Salone del Mobile, in an exhibition which won the promoters Cipelletti and Locatelli first prize in the Milano Design Award. The motivation given was as follows: “for the development of a process of great complexity and innovation, capable of destabilizing common perceptions. The educational itinerary breaks down all the commonplace stereotypes and offers a censorial experience, one which promotes a new vision of the culture of the project.” Museo della Merda Frazione Campremoldo Sopra Loc. Castelbosco 29010 Gragnano Trebbiense (PC), ITALY To Make an Appointment: [email protected] For information: [email protected]   While researching another subject using Google Earth, I came across this unusual scene just outside of Canosa di Puglia... a beautifully built Highway to Nowhere.
Oddly, the "street view" from several years ago shows nothing but dirt roads and farm fields. The satellite view taken in 2017 shows this beautifully built highway and a wonderfully wide roundabout in the middle. The only problem is, it goes nowhere and comes from no where. There are dirt roads and vineyards around all sides and the paved intersections intersect with dirt roads. There are no structures within the "development" area... just olives and grape vines. Go figure. Perhaps the regional government thought, "If we build it, they will come." --Jerry Finzi  There is that old saying (or aphorism), “Don’t raise the bridge, lower the river" that every engineering student knows. It describes the attitude about the obvious: there are no obstacles in getting things done. Just analyze the problem, and think of a way around it. But this doesn't usually mean literally. "Lowering the river" is what lies behind the design of most canal locks in the world. I've even seen canals built on viaducts, making the water travel over an obstacle, like railroad tracks or a road. But I've never quite seen the Italian solution to the problem illustrated above. In Manhattan, for example, if a work crew arrived, permits in hand, ready to dig a ditch for a sewer or communication cables, a call to the City's tow trucks solve the problem in no time at all. Tow the car out of the work zone. Done.
In Italy, however, perhaps because of the lack of a reliable city department that would actually handle this problem--before the 12-3pm riposa--these workers figured they wouldn't wait for anyone else and solved the problem their way. Furbo. Look out for your own interests. Get the job done and get back to your own life. Why worry about some future contractor trying to locate that underground run of cable that he thinks should be in a straight line.
Besides, "Why have someone's car towed away and cause someone else problems? It might be my friend's cousin, or my cousin's cousin, or, Dio mio... someone's nonna!" --Jerry Finzi |
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