zoomata :|: a close-up on italy

Holds toilet paper and an iPod, but is it an alibi for murder?

In 2007, British student Meredith Kercher was murdered in Italy, during a study abroad program in hill town Perugia.

About a year later, Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years for his part in the killing, for which Kercher’s roommate, American student Amanda “Foxy Knoxy” Knox and her boyfriend, Italian IT grad, Raffaele Sollecito, are still awaiting trial.

Guede’s appeal now before the Italian court hinges on an iPod.

During what has been hypothesized was some sort of late-night Halloween sex game where the 21-year-old Kercher was an unwilling participant, Guede maintains he was in the bathroom of the young women’s apartment.

While she was being killed with a knife, he was listening to music on iCarta, a toilet paper holder roll that doubles as an iPod dock.

Guede’s lawyers tried to head off what they thought might be viewed as a sort of Twinkie defense for the digital age in a statement to Italian media (below translation mine):

“It is nothing more than a confirmation of how some abnormal behaviors are apparently normal among young people today,” said laywers Valter Biscotti and Nicodemo Gentile. “Just as Facebook is their virtual world, they now listen to music everywhere, even in the bathroom. The marketing of such products implies a certain routine use.”

The statement was published without details on how the defense team might further the bathroom defense in court.

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A new Italian reality show targets men who don’t have time for women, matching them up with ready-for-anything pin-up types.

The format is similar to “SOS Nanny,” although here instead of relieving harried parents, four scantily-clad young women lounge around, waiting for a call from a male in distress. Continue reading SOS Playmate: Reality Show for Men Too Busy to Date

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Dutch wakeboarder Duncan Zuur took to the waters of Venice the other day.

Not Venice Beach California, but Italy’s famed La Serenissima. Zuur made a blink-and-you-missed it four turns around the city’s famed St. Marks square before calling it a day.

How did Zuur pull it off? With the help of a sponsor, naturally.

Once in Venice, Zuur’s team waited for the waters to reach about 4 1/2 feet (1.35 m), then sprang into action. They pulled a 20 horsepower motor winch from a hiding place, setting it up under the square’s arcade.

One team member, appropriately clad in rubber boots, pulled the winch cable across the square, then handed one end to Zuur.

Zuur, who in the meantime had suited up, surfed across the square. Four elegant turns later, Zuur’s feat was applauded with a standing ovation from surprised, waterlogged tourists.

Speed was key: the stunt was up and over so fast that police patrolling the square didn’t take notice.

Floods, known as acqua alta in Italian, have long been a problem in Venice prompting solutions such as the Moses floodgate project and text-message alerts. This year, the flooding reached over five feet, the worst it’s been in 20 years.

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Italians say that a confused person doesn’t know which saint to pray to. The process of finding a saint to appeal to for protection will be easier come next week when the Vatican launches a catalog of saints.

The International Guide to Saints features over 2,000 patron saints in prayer card form hailing from around Europe, the US and South America.

The catalog idea in Italian and English is a good one for on-the-go requests for intercession, but does seem a little behind the times, now that Italian Catholics can get daily prayers on iPhones and iPods with a free app.

Called “santini” or little saints, these prayer cards are found in Italian wallets from students (Giuseppe da Copertino, patron of those struggling with exams) to frequent fliers (St. Christopher, in these chaotic days of Alitalia strikes is invoked a lot) and singles, who can put their status in the hands of San Faustino.

Saint depictions through the centuries are considered an art form. If you’re looking for some intercession on the run, try an Italian newsstand. Several publishers in Italy sell collect-them-all series of saint images.

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Just got the first shipment from Cascina Cornale, a farmer’s coop based in Piedmont that delivers weekly to northern Italian regions, including Val d’Aosta, Piedmont, Lombardy and parts of Liguria, Tuscany and the Veneto.

A friend of mine swears by it, otherwise it was the kind of good idea that given Italian execution would’ve stayed a good idea, rather than something actually tried out.

You pay for the month in advance, delivery is included. Clients either choose online what they want every week, it’s slightly more expensive if you choose, or you get a box of whatever’s in season plus a few basics.

Here’s what arrived in the 1-2 person “surprise” box, which costs €38, nearly $47 if you’re dealing in treacherous dollars.

About a pound each of two kinds of pears, apples, kiwis, turnips, spinach, a head of cauliflower, a head of radicchio, a big slice of pumpkin (soup or risotto? not sure yet) a liter of fresh milk, six eggs, a whole brown trout, a generous wedge of toma cheese, two small jars of plain yogurt, a pack of balsamic candies (perfect for the cold season), some red onions and a spot of lard.

Said friend warned me about the perils of the surprise box (anyone know what to do with a whole trout?) after I’d signed up. But on this rainy Milan day, I’m still glad not to have to go do the shopping.

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Italy’s Public Functions Minister Renato Brunetta, who outed slacker state employees, is now on a crusade to bring service with a smile to the Bel Paese.

His strategy? Use emoticons, those little happy or unhappy faces used to show emotion in written or message form.

“My dream is to have a system that allows emoticons in real time by people using any public service, ” he told Italian newspapers.

Plans are to have a trial system in place, much like the one China used during the Olympics, in the next few months. (I saw this in action a few months ago visiting Shanghai, travelers could instantly rate the immigration clerk, though most of us were too intimidated.)

Anyone who has stood in line in an Italian post office or withered in a police station waiting for a stay permit, will understand the appeal of giving immediate feedback on service.

Given some say in the matter, the Italian public could be all smiles. That is, while they zap state employees with those angry little faces.

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Times may change but over half of all Italians still break bread together on long, big Sunday lunches.

Though brunch has made headway in Italy recently, especially in cities and among young people, 52% of the 1,834 families polled by the Accademia Italiana della Cucina (Academy of Italian Cuisine) still follow the Sunday lunch tradition.

The menu? Usually cold cuts and crostini for starters, then pasta and roast meat plus fruit, dessert and coffee.

“In an age where all food is the same and people cook less, Sunday lunch is a bulwark against fast-food and ready-made meals,” said Accademia president Giovanni Ballarini. “It’s an important ritual to keep families together.”

This prodigal spread is still usually prepared by women, though two out of 10 men claim they “lend a hand” for Sunday cooking. Younger generations, say the study, aren’t interested in cooking, but are happy to sit down and eat with the extended family.

Photo courtesy Dpf at Flickr

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Two million romantics flock to see Romeo and Juliet’s balcony every year in Verona.
Unfortunately, many of them also carve their names or scribble hearts on the monument, making it more of a tourist trap than attraction.

To stop love-struck tourists from ruining the building, managers of theater Teatro Stabile, who own the famous balcony, came up with the idea of “lovestones.”

For €100 (about $135) lovebirds have a their names (plus short message and date) carved in laser on marble tiles on a terrace below the balcony. You also get a certificate with a map and can also request copies of the tile, for €35 (about $45).

There are some 60,000 lovestones available, organizers assure that someone will be on hand to help you find yours, should you come to Verona to see it.

Love may not be eternal, but these these lovestones will last indefinitely. Or at least until the natural abrasion erodes the marble surface.

Purchase of the tiles will help modernize the 1846 theater.

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Italian researchers nosing around have discovered traces of DNA from Chinese truffles mingled with prestigious, costly local black truffles.

The trouble with truffle intermingling? Scientists say it is one reason, along with environmental changes, that the prized tuber has become even more scarce in recent seasons.

Truffle cousins from Asia sprung up in European markets in the 1990s. Among them is the Tuber indicum from China, a close relation of the Italian black truffle, Tuber melanosporum. The two mushrooms share genes and have a similar structure and shape. Truffle conossieurs, willing to pay between €200 and 600 per kilogram (USD$130–$380 per pound) for this black gold, say the Asian variety lacks the taste and fragrance of Italian truffles.

During an inspection of a black truffle farm near Turin, where a dozen years ago T. melanosporum truffles were planted, researchers of the Institute for Plant Protection (IPP) of the National Science Council identified DNA of T. indicum in the soil and roots.

Continue reading Italy Faces Foreign Truffle Invasion

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Just what was on the table in Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper?”

Historian John Varriano has his theory, outlined in Gastronomica in a pithy account which draws inspiration from Leonardo’s shopping lists and anecdotes from Vasari.

The plates in front of Andrew and Matthew—the fourth figures to Christs’ right and left—are heaped with food. Not bread and lamb, as previously thought, but eel.

Varriano says the three serving dishes on the right are grilled eel with orange slices.

If you’re curious about what was on the menu, Varriano’s theory is easy enough to check out. The Last Supper was scanned in 2007 in a project to make it the world’s highest-res photo.

Armchair investigators can zoom in on the plates in question and get a much better look at the than provided in the article.

The orange slices are clearly visible. The eel? Hard to tell. Leonardo’s experimental paint techniques left a disastrous, flaking mess.

Gray-ish blobs certainly appear fish-like, reminiscent of eel dishes still eaten by Italians during the Christmas holidays.

Any guesses?

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Set to the tune of “Volare,” gondoliers in Venice stump for Obama.

Obama, oh oh, Joe Biden Vice President.

Only in Italian accents does the word “can” sort of rhyme with “president” (presidennn).
Very catchy. Who thought such a romantic backdrop could deliver a political punch.

Via iReport

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Music be stills rapidly-beating hearts — even those damaged by heart failure, say Italian researchers.

Using an mp3 player that looks a little like the iRosary, Gianfranco Parati, head of cardiology at the Italian Auxology Institute, first tested the device on himself and fellow researchers. They tried it while atop Italy’s 4,000-meter high Monte Rosa to see if listening to music that synchronized and then slowed heartbeats would help the heart work more efficiently.

“We started with the idea that slower breathing would have specific physiological effects,” Parati said. Among them, he added, were slower, deeper breathing which uses more of the alveoli, thus improving the quantity of oxygen in the blood.

Then the team conducted a study on 24 patients who had suffered heart attacks. Half of them used the device. In less than three months, the 12 patients who practiced slow breathing (for 15 minutes, twice a day) had a significant improvement in heart pumping capacity, blood oxygen levels and other symptoms when compared to the group receiving traditional therapies. At the end of the study, patients who were “treated” with music were diagnosed with a less severe class of cardiac insufficiency.

The “heart pod” works like this: when the patient breathes, the movement of the chest presses against an elastic band. The computer emits musical tones that mimic spontaneous breathing intervals, 15-18 times per minute. After a few minutes, the music changes causing the patient to slow breathing down to just four or six times a minute.

To see whether music makes tickers reach pianissimo under stress, Parati and his team will try out the device on Mount Everest.

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Italian scientists are now defending the national dish, plagued by price hikes and cut by those counting calories, as a mood improver.

“Pasta contains tryptophan, an amino acid that turns into serotonin, the so-called hormone of happiness,” said Mauro Defendente Febbrari, an expert in metabolic diseases. “That is why eating pasta gives you a feeling of wellbeing and pleasure.”

His remarks come before the 10th edition festival dedicated to pasta in all its varieties called I Primi d’Italia, the name a play on the dish as a first course and the best in Italy.

If pasta is the ultimate mood food, Italians must be a happy bunch: they are among the top consumers of maccheroni, tortellini and linguine on the planet. Each Italian winds up some 61 pounds (28 kilos) of spaghetti a year.

Continue reading Happiness is a Warm Plate of Pasta, Docs say

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Cash-strapped Italian consumers can now use text messages to tell them if the price is right.

Euro-pinching shoppers thumb in product names — from pasta to produce and parmesan cheese — and a text message speeds back with the average retail price for North, Central and Southern Italy.

Called SMS Consumatori (SMS consumers), the three-year program, organized by the Agriculture Ministry, is free to users.

SMS Consumers started two years ago with a three-month test run, offering info on a limited number of fresh produce; it’s back bigger, sleeker and with more bells and whistles, sort of the Ferrari of text message price watches.

Continue reading Italians Price Check Via Cell Phone

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To stop Alpine glaciers from melting, Italian scientists want to cover them with blankets.

Large swaths of reflective polyester and polypropylene material will protect the Presena glacier this winter, making it look slightly as if it had been tee-peed, in an effort to help the ski mecca retain its cool. Two years ago, Swiss neighbors started blanketing the alps to prevent slippage.

“When we first heard about covering the glaciers, we wrinkled our noses at the idea,” says Claudio Smiraglia, president of the Italian Glacier Committee. “Now we want to know if, when and how it works.”

The Presena cover-up comes after University of Milan researchers studied the blanket effect on a patch of the Eastern Dosdè glacier, 2,740 meters high and the tallest glacier in Lombardy.

Initial results gave those involved the warm fuzzies: after 90 days under the 150-meter-area covered by the white blanket , the protected snow and ice sheet were 1.90 meters thicker (about 6 ft. 2″) than uncovered portions.

Whether blankets are a viable way to keep the Alps in their place remains to be seen.

“We must be very cautious, about possible applications in the field of land management and natural hazards,” said Jean Pierre Fosson, director of the Foundation for Courmayeur Safety. “We must take into account the costs and environmental sustainability. If it takes helicopters or other mechanical means to put down the blankets and take them back up, energy consumption and CO2 emission will increase.”

Melting glaciers are especially felt in this part of Europe, doomsday predictions have them warmed away to nothing by 2050.

Image via flickr.

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There will be no more shoulder shrugging when tourists ask directions in the Umbrian town of Spoleto: officials have decided it’s about time locals here learned English.

Though known for hosting the international Festival of Dei Due Mondi, the locale of 38,000 could use a language boost, according to the city culture councilman.

The answer? A program called “I Speak Spoleto” featuring American movies. A square in the town center hosts free outdoor flicks until mid-September. It’s the first in an ongoing series of language programs for business people, the police department, administrators and everyone else.

The ambassadors of English-language culture include: “Grease,” “Saturday Night Fever” and the “Blues Brothers.” These old faves will seem new to Italians watching them in English for the first time — at least in the case of “Grease,” the songs were translated in italiano, too.

It’s a timely idea: Italians aren’t the most linguistically agile in the EU when it comes to English, under 30% have any knowledge of it and 60% aren’t able to hold a conversation in English. Giuseppe Roma, head of the national census bureau, Censis, recently called it a “sad situation,” adding that languages aren’t taught well in Italy.

So kudos to Spoleto for trying out something new and fun, but one wonders, however, just how much help the French accents will be in “Ratatouille,” the film showing as part of the English for kids program.
Image courtesy @Nina.

More from the archives:
That’s amore: Italy’s favorite word
Italians Fight Flood of English Words
40% of Italian Words “Extinct”
Kids to Adults: Please Use Better Italian

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Five hundred years ago, Renaissance inventor Leonardo Da Vinci put his hand to designing an artificial leg.

An Italian museum dedicated to his inventions in his Tuscan birthplace, Vinci, recently unveiled a working model of Leonardo’s limb.

In fleshing out his creation, Da Vinci described the leg as “round…with soft annealed copper wires then folded for a natural effect.” The model made today by local craftsmen was inspired by a 1508 drawing of his anatomy studies now known as the Windsor Collection.

Instead of just rehashing the great man’s better known inventions, the Museo Ideale in Vinci often highlights his more obscure experiments, such as plastic.

More on Leonardo from the archive:
Leonardo Da Vinci “Confetti Machine” Fires Up Carnival
High-Res Last Supper Reveals Leonardo’s Secrets
Neutron Beams Search for Da Vinci’s Lost Masterpiece
Digital Da Vinci Codes: Thousands of Leonardo’s Papers Go Online

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Italian home design company Seletti created hipster smog masks for urban cyclists with skull and cross bones or check prints.

Retailing for €7 (about $11), the Urban Mask has an “active carbon filtering system” which can remove ozone
but can’t do much to cut through the fug of a million belching Fiats.

Though the use of masks is debatable, at least this one looks cool, and who knows whether spotting this kind of warning symbol in the rear view mirror while stuck in traffic might lead car drivers in Italy’s fashion capital — one of the world’s most polluted cities — to think twice.

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For the cost of an SMS, Italian sun worshippers can save gas and headaches by plugging into sea and sand ratings from environmental association Legambiente.

Roadtrippers send a text to 340 4399 439 indicating what area they’re in, a message comes back with best beaches nearby and other points of interest. My text message (see pic) for Marina di Grosseto (Tuscany) advised taking the sunblock and swim fins to Spiaggia delle Marze. A second text suggested a visit to the nearby 1792 watch tower.

The association’s “blue guide” for beaches uses 128 parameters to comb 243 coastal spots in a yearly quality test, again gave Southern Italy’s less frequented spots top marks.

Not all of Italy’s extensive coastline — 1,850 kilometers or circa 1,150 miles — makes the grade, but figures are improving.

Ratings also take into account natural beauty, contamination but also tourist structures, disabled access, noise levels and environment-friendly waste systems.

Just 12 beaches received full marks, or five out of five “sails.” Sandy spots with a four-sail rating (44 total) include: Sirolo (Marches), Orbetello (Tuscany), Lerici and (La Spezia).The guide is also available online, Italian only.

For the first time, disgruntled daytrippers can also text complaints or MMS to the same number improving updates for future editions of the guide.

The service, provided in partnership with Vodafone, costs the same as regular text messages according to carrier plan. It could go a long way to saving those disastrous impromptu beach outings.

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The drug of choice for young, club going Italians: psychedelic mushrooms dissolved in Nutella.

Found under cow patties in mountains near work-hard, play-hard Milan, these red, polka-dotted Amanita muscaria shrooms are plentiful. Dealers mix about 10 of the fungus in a jar of jam or the famously addictive hazelnut spread Italians consider a national treasure.

“We older consumers have eaten these mushrooms for ages, thanks to the hippies who passed down the knowledge. Nowadays mixed in with sweet stuff, the young kids go for it too,” said “Mauro” a drug dealer/factory worker interviewed in leading daily Corriere della Sera.

Though possession and sale of the mushrooms is illegal in Italy, business is booming. A jar of the psychedelic snack goes for 16€ (about $25).

Popularity of the DIY hallucinogens has increased thanks to stricter controls on discotequers drugs of choice like ecstasy, said Francesca Assisi, a toxicologist who also recently published a book outlining all the species of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Lombardy region.

It’ll be hard to think of those famed after-school Nutella parties the same way ever again.

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Head to the maestro’s hometown in Tuscany, where a spanking new amphitheater will be unveiled at this year’s Puccini Festival to celebrate 150th birthday of Giacomo Puccini. The curtain rises June 15 (through August 23) in the tiny lakeside village of Torre del Lago, where the opera legend spent most of his adult life, and where he composed Madama Butterfly, La Boheme and Tosca (pictured). Puccini always wanted his operas to be enjoyed al fresco, and the new 3,200-seat facility was designed to afford views of the composer’s villa (now Villa Museo Puccini), set between Massaciuccoli Lake and the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Pilgrims to Puccini country can stay in nearby Lucca, at the recently restored 19th-century hunting lodge Albergo Villa Marta. You also get to eat like the composer, whose letters from Milan to la mamma while studying at the conservatory there contained entreaties to send hearty Tuscan fare to the homesick artist. One thing Puccini might not have bargained for: mosquitoes love balmy Italian breezes. Open-air opera acolytes should come slathered in repellent.
Full story on Globorati.

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Historic Italian outdoor firm Ferrino concocted a travel kit for pilgrims hoofing the thousand-year-old Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

It comes with a super light, feature-happy backpack, waterproof map holder and lightweight sleeping bag sure to come in handy on those long, cold nights; the whole shebang costing a parsimonious €99 euros. A few friends have trekked from Milan to Northern Spain, returning with sore shoulders and mostly horror stories. Hmm. The combo would probably also come in handy for the slightly less ambitious Francigena pilgrim trail in Italy.
Image courtesy Ferrino.

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If, as some scientists claim, 80 percent of taste is linked to smell, you’d better follow your nose to Europe this month. New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr leads a series of scent dinners in Rome and Florence, curated by Context Travel (who insist on calling their scholarly guides “docents”), the evenings are part lecture, part feast and part exploratory scratch-n-sniff.

On June 10, you can sample the pantry perfumes in Rome at Casa Bleve, nestled into the ancient bath complex built by Marcus Agrippa. Another dinner will be held in Florence on June 11 at the new Four Seasons residence club Palazzo Tornabuoni, where the fabled Medicis broke bread in the 15th century.
Full story by Nicole Martinelli at Globorati.

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Cell phones will now tell Italians when the tide is high in Venice. The city government just launched a free text message alert system for the floods which frequently put La Serenissima under several feet of water.

Intended to assist waterlogged locals, the only real requirement for signing up is an Italian cell phone. These timely texts could save a lot of headaches for anyone traveling to the city, especially in the fall flood season, normally a great time to visit Venice since it’s less plagued by tourists.

These acqua alta alerts let users know up to 36 hours before floods hit, keeps them posted from three to six hours before storms and lets them know when things are clearing up and water is ebbing back into canals.

Given that there are far more cell phone subscriptions than Italians, it is one of those services whose time has long come.

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Chalk up another one for that particular brand of Italian genius: students have designed T-shirts bearing formulas and tricky grammar rules to get through high school finals.

Web site “scuola zoo” (zoo school) is giving away 10,000 T-shirt cheat sheets, available in six different styles; nail-biting students need only pay shipping costs. Creators Paolo and Francesco claim that fashion smarties won’t be stripped of this helpful accessory during tests.

In Italy, the comprehensive exams required for a diploma following five years of high school are the stuff of nightmares. Called “maturità” (lit. maturity) they are a rite of passage most recall vividly. With the advent of cell phones, many overtaxed students are trying to get high-tech help.

T-shirt info, including math, Greek and Latin head scratchers, is printed upside down for easy reading for the wearer, but also bears right side up info on the back — to help out fellow test takers.

The motto for the shirts is: “What’s not ingrained in your brain is printed on the T-shirt.”

Image courtesy Scuola Zoo.

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