Having just returned from a week-long visit to Milan, I felt the urge to dedicate an entry to this wonderful city, which despite historic waves of foreign invasions, forced industrialisation and reluctant globalisation, manages to retain an untamed and unique spirit.
Milan is an ugly city. Yet, after a few hours of aimless roaming through its cobbled streets, one cannot help feeling a strange attraction for this incoherent assembly of ancient palaces and cement blocks. It is only after a few days, though, that one understands what the secret of Milan is: its people. Notoriously hostile like Newyorkers and rude like Parisians, one should hate them. Instead, they soon reveal a rather unique trait, a mixture of dry humour and cheekiness that is most endearing because it comes across when least expected. Never have cab journeys been so much fun.
So here's to Milan, to its wit and to its wonderfully bizarre citizens...!
A la mensa collettiva a gh’è el mangià che stracca
se va denter con la forza e se vègn foeura con la fiacca
la minestra semper bònna perchè la dis mai nient
t’en dann ona tazzinna ma ghe manca el condiment.
la minestra semper bonna perchè la dis mai nient
t’en dann ona tazzinna ma ghe manca el condiment.
Se te voeuret per vint lira te dann anca el bologna
la grassa che gh’era denter l’è scappada de la vergogna
quatter rav in insalada fettin ben ben tajàa
merluzz che te refilen el campana ’me on dannàa
quatter rav in insalada fettin ben ben tajàa
merluzz che te refilen el campana ’me on dannàa.
A la mensa collettiva gh’è i sbarbàa de la via Arèna,
ghe va anca el scior Giacòbbe con la sciora Maddalèna
Lisander ch’el starnuda e’l Rico perrucchée
la mensa collettiva la fa sú di grand danée ,
Lisander ch’el starnuda e’l Rico perrucchée
la mensa collettiva la fa sú di grand danée.
3 comments:
When can we expect the Collected Works to be translated into English? Maybe Ms. V could be commissioned...
Miss V is exhausted, dahling, exhausted and considering trip to Teutonic sanitorium complete with strict nurses, enemas and light whipping with birch twigs.
mmm. i've heard this said before. that milan's charms are hidden. i did tumble into a sublime cinema bookstore that looked like someone's decrepit turn of the century salon. the owner was an attractive 50 yeard old woman with a mane of auburn red hair. i head the soundtrack of michael winterbottom's wonderland, a beautiful michael nyman score, and i was drawn in. before long i was admiring her plethora of romy schneider memorabilia and never wanted to leave. i dropped a few hundred euros, there natch.
and of course, maude, is a milanese marchess. so.........
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