Italian Porta-Potty Contest

Posted on by
4

Dream ToiletIf you’ve ever visited the Bel Paese, you know how scarce public toilets are. Before you’ve visited any number of nicely crumbling ruins, your thoughts will inevitably turn to the loo. Where to find one, how to avoid the Turkish kind and how to convince your traveling partner to have yet another caffé so you can go.

Oliviero Toscani, former Benetton ad guru, shares your pain. He convinced porta-potty company Sebach to hold an international “dream toilet” competition for architects, designers and engineers. Creator of the ideal privy — chosen both on aesthetics and feasibility for mass production — wins €5,000 (circa $6,600). Get cracking: the deadline is August 4.

Italians Create ‘Pasta-Effect’ Pill for Dieters

Posted on by
1

Fat pill gelItalian scientists are testing a new diet pill that turns into a clear, gelatinous blob the size of a tennis ball that may help shrink waistlines by giving dieters a sense of satiety.

The pill, currently undergoing clinical trials at Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli hospital, would be downed with two glasses of water at the first sign of a stomach rumble.

“The effect is like eating a nice plate of pasta,” said Luigi Ambrosio, lead researcher on the project at the National Research Council’s Institute for Composite and Biomedical Materials in Naples. “If you sit down for a meal with a stomach that already feels full, you’ll end up eating less.”

The unnamed pill is made from a cellulose compound of hydrogel, a material that’s powdery when dry but plumps up to a cousin of Jell-O when wet. The gel can soak up to 1,000 times its weight. A gram in capsule form quickly balloons from the size of a spit wad to a ball that holds nearly a liter of liquid. Ambrosio and fellow researcher Luigi Nicolais, now minister for reform and innovation, noticed the burgeoning girth of Americans during a trip to the United States in the ’90s.

Continue reading →

Italy: Study or Work without Stay Permit

Posted on by
Reply

Foreigners can now live in Italy for study or work for up to three months without the dreaded stay permit (permesso di soggiorno).

This cuts in half the amount of bureaucratic headaches — paperwork, rules, lines and time — needed to be legal here.

Pinch of salt: the law (here’s a pdf, Italian only) went into effect May 28, 2007 and still awaits a ministerial decree to become operative.

Would-be expats would do well in coming months to carry a copy of the law with them to brandish in front of officials, who because they haven’t been briefed on the procedure with operatives tend to just say “no.”

Also keep in mind that living legally to study or work in Italy was a two-step process: requiring a visa from country of origin before leaving, then a stay permit after arriving in Italy. It’s unclear whether visas are still required or not — it may help to check with this widget at the Italian ministry of Foreign affairs first.

Italy’s Pilgrim Route on Foot: The Via Francigena

Posted on by
1

Via Francigena Pilgrim routeFellow reporter and friend Eric Sylvers is on a one-man trek to rehabilitate Italy’s forgotten
Via Francigena.

Unlike Spain’s Camino de Santiago, this major pilgrimage route to Rome during Medieval times has been all but abandoned by walking enthusiasts.

Hard to blame them: unlike the Spanish trail, this one is often unmarked and not set up for bare-bones pilgrim travels.

Eric hopes to change some of that.

Follow his progress in the blog account of the 560-mile walk from Switzerland to the Eternal city — blisters, swollen tendons and memorable meals included — it’s an addictive read.

Italian Porn Star Hands Scepter to Geek

Posted on by
Reply

Rocco Siffredi, the Italian Stallion of porn, recently handed his legacy over to a bespectacled, overweight crossword expert.

Well, sort of.

Omar Monti, who came in second on the Italian version of “Beauty and the Geek,” now fills Siffredi’s considerable shoes in some potato chip ads.
Geek Power
It’s one way to drum up publicity after equivocal ads for Amica Chips — with Siffredi peacocking around a pool Hugh Hefner style making references to women’s genitalia that even the bambini got — were censored last year.

For weeks, Siffredi stared down billboards in a dressing gown asking who would be man enough to take his place.

Thanks to an online contest, it’s an unlikely 31-year-old self-proclaimed virgin who wades through throngs of hot women to the tune of “Daddy Cool” in the refurbed spots.

Proving, once and for all, that geeks are sexy.

More Body-Conscious Art in Milan

Posted on by
Reply

A giant naked man floats face down in Milan’s Sempione Park. Looking a little like Mr. Bean and slightly deflated in the privates, “Balloon” is a work by Polish artist Pawel Althamer. The 21-meter long work is a self-portrait.

No competition for the enormous memento mori lying next to the Duomo, it’s part of an exhibit called “One of Many” on in the park until June 5.

The show is sponsored by the Fondazione Trussardi, where someone has a thing for hovering art: namely the infamous hanging children installation by Maurizio Cattelan which were “freed” by an upset construction worker.

The current suspended work is unlikely to cause such controversy, though it would be kind of fun to take a pin to it.

Update: Daily Corriere della Sera reported on Saturday that an unnamed 40-year-old man (“perhaps a foreigner?” the journalist wonders) took a pair of scissors to the “nude doll.” No harm was done and organizers minimized the episode.

Italy’s 3D Fashion Peep Show

Posted on by
Reply

3-D FashionGet ready for a department store peep show. IBM’s only dedicated fashion division, based in Milan, has launched a prototype “multisensory cabin” for shoppers that’s reminiscent of a coin-operated viewing machine equipped with a projector.

About 10 fashionistas can gather in the small, dark box to see what’s behind the latest spring fashions. Wearing fold-up polarized 3-D glasses, people watch canned scenes from the world’s top-tier catwalks. As images of gazelle girls on runways waft by, viewers see flyby close-ups of real-world fashion items. In other words, the stuff (think bags and shoes) that actually comes off the catwalk for plebes.
Full story & video by zoomata editor Nicole Martinelli on Wired

Italian Cow Parade

Posted on by
Reply

Cow Parade MilanMooo-velus, darling: 100 life-sized cows, each hand decorated by an artist, are grazing around Italy’s fashion capital.
This one is by Thomas Berra (title: “There’s Confusion in the Meadow”) and makes its stance at Arco della Pace near Sempione park.

Billed as the world’s largest public art event, the cattle started meandering in Zurich in 1998 before heading for new pastures including New York, Tokyo, London and Sydney.
The cows are also an early warning sign that Milan’s design week, the largest in the world, will kick off in a few days. Every year brings some much-needed public art to town, last year there was oversized Ikea furniture…

Milan’s artsy bovines will be around until the end of June when they hit the auction block for charity at the Triennale art museum.

Super-sized Memento Mori in Milan

Posted on by
3

A skeleton nearly 80 feet long reminds tourists and passersby of their mortality as they snap pictures of the Duomo or eat gelato.

The installation is part of the city’s art fair, MiArt; the leg bone is connected to the hip bone in the courtyard of Palazzo Reale.

Artist Gino De Dominicis, obsessed with his own mortality, created this work called “Cosmic Magnet” (Calamita Cosmica) in 1988. Ten years later, he died at age 51 on April Fool’s Day.

The skeleton has what looks like a giant knitting needle piercing the right hand, meant to represent meetng point of cosmic energy and the human element.

Made out of polystyrene, them bones weigh in at eight tons.

After it is dismembered in Milan May 1, the macabre reminder will be haunting cities around Europe including Hamburg, Brussels and Paris.

Italian Scientists Study Sacred Sounds

Posted on by
Reply

Researchers in Italy are investigating the subjective acoustic qualities of church architecture in one of the most extensive scientific inquiries yet.

By studying the best-sounding spaces (and the worst), the researchers hope to assemble practical design criteria for new churches. The data can also provide the clergy with some considerations on what music works best in existing places of worship. More from zoomata editor Nicole Martinelli here.