In the next week we are doing three different and rather (us) labor intensive things with the church here in Vicenza. It’s kind of like our last BIG hurrah before we go home (there will be lots of little hurrahs afterward I’m sure). There is a women’s day, a conference and last but not least a youth retreat.
What’s occupying my attention at the moment is the youth retreat. My job is come up with the games and intro icebreakers. The theme is love so we (matt and I) kind of decided coporately that the icebreaker was going to be literary analysis of pop songs that talk about the subject so as to discuss healthy and godly approaches to love vs. unhealthy and ungodly ones….. though I am not for the life of me going to come near saying the words literary or analysis at the retreat, that would be swift and unmerciful suicide. Without those two words added in though I’m kind of hoping it will go over alright. In order to do it though I am having to do research into the current popular songs in Italy.
AGGGGGG!
Ok so to do my research I figured the best way would be to watch All Music, the Italian Mtv alternative.
This morning…..found lots of infomercials …… and they were all the same infomercial! I don’t know if they have them in the US right now but apparently the only infomercial on Italian television right now is the wiggly butt infomercial. Seriously the whole time the infomercial is going the screen is full of butts, old people butts, female model butts, male model butts, the salesmens butt and they are all wiggling, constantly! The machine is supposed to be a exercise thingy I think but, what it seems to do most effectively is make one do a very exagerated maybe fastforwarded version of the twist or something that makes every fat molecule that you have jiggle kind of softly but, rapidly.
After getting far to ingrossed in butt jiggling I finally managed to resist my morbid fascination and change the channel…ok so now I have All Music I think… but wait …. is this really a music video? A four minute music video completely made up of bad camcorder footage of a guys studio focusing most frequently on the number of nobs are on his sound boards! Next video…now I’m watching guy that dances like my husband when he’s making fun of people who can’t dance and this guy is doing it in all seriousness and he can’t even seem to clap to the beat of his own song!
So about this point I give up on the television at least for the morning and go to computer to look up the top ten list in Italy to see if there are any Italian language songs or even English songs of the simple kind that do not have metaphor or double entendre I would have to explain for the kids to know what it means… (for that reason I’m sorry but, I can’t use “Shut up and Drive”? … just learned of the songs existence today by the way… because who really wants to explain the metaphor of a car for a women’s body to a bunch of teenagers …. don’t want to go there. As an aside: this is a major problem. The other day we went to one of the 8 year old girls from the churches ballet recital, she and her class of all 7 and 8 year old girls pranced around to the tune of “I’m a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World”. I’m sorry but there is just a multitude of wrongness there. Who really wants to explain to their parents what it really means.)
Ok so I got back to the search to discover…… Number One on the charts…… Eros Ramozzotti “Non Siamo Soli” or We’re Not Alone and guess who got onto the video? None other than Ricky Martin! He somehow managed to come back from pop star death to feature prominently in a top charting Italian song. By this time I’m really doubting my capacity to continue the search. But I will trudge forward through the multitude of 80s bands (including the Pooh, which I swear were all wearing tupeés at there concert though I guess the video could have been playing with the light) to find the perfect songs.
My family came to visit us about a week ago! It was fantastic, though now our 2 person apartment seem quite a bit quieter after being inundated with 4 more people for a week and a half. It was very fun though because we had saved up all these things to do with them. You know when you don’t go do the things that there are to do in the town you live in until people come to visit. Well that is what we did and it turned out great. First there was a flurry of food….there are so many good cheeses and wines and salami objects that are to expensive and heavy for everyday that are perfect to eat when there is company and no one is thinking about dieting or staying in shape.
Good food you need to try if you come to the Veneto:
Sopresa di Schio with or without garlic
Asiago cheese…all types very old to very young
Seafood if you are by the sea
and white sparkling wines!
The biggest food hit though was chocolates from our local chocolate store where they make them in the back and sell them with coffee out front….passion fruit chocolate is the best ever! (it melts in your mouth like who knows what softly caressing your taste buds into submission until you are so satisfied you cannot even contemplate eating another piece because the satisfaction would morph into painful ectasy! and yes they really are that good)
Besides the food we went to see a lot of the things we’d saved up, wanting to go see them but, putting it off based on we live here laziness. It was good to see the places, it was good to be a tourist for a week but, in some ways it drove home the fact that we are only in Italy for two more months.
While seeing Soave castle with it’s perfectly kept ramparts that give you a sweeping view of the valley, (a castle we pass every time we get on the highway and that I’ve been wanting to go see since April) was amazing it also meant that that untied up end wasn’t loose any more it was done. In some ways it felt like the store of undone things was part of our reassurance that we actually lived here and as people that live here we can always go look at it later. Soave and the museums in Vicenza itself were more like that for me. Riva del Garda and Sirmione and Aquileia were less so because they are further away I think.
So now we’ve showed off our church and our life to someone else outside of ourselves that will be apart of our life after we leave Vicenza. That part of it was really satisfying because without it when you get back you have this uncanny feeling that in everyone elses eyes you were just missing for 2 years not actually living a real life while you were gone, just gone, dormant somehow. Now that my family has seen my life I feel less like leaving is an approaching doom for my memories of being here though I do feel like it is more certain that we are leaving now.
Filed under: art
Ok, so I think I need to qualify some of my thoughts from my last post. Mostly about exceptions! Exceptions are usually so much more interesting than the norm!
The exceptions…. Greek and Roman art, Early to High Renaissance sculpture (the David of course is obviously not clothed) and well … I can’t think of an and right now so I’ll just write about those. (oh I just remembered a good and! ceiling frescos as a general genre. Though a lot of times I think that those go in the category of bad but very well executed joke)
Ok so as preface I think that our opinions as art historians and popular culture are often more telling about our own culture than about the past ones that they are attempting to analyze or comment on.
For the exceptions Greek and Roman and the Early to High Renaissance there is one popular modern explanation for the presence of men as nude subject, homosexuality. So Greek and Roman art has beautiful men because those were societies in which homosexual behavior was acceptable and enshrined in art. And Early to High Renaissance is copying meticulously their newly found discoveries, though it is telling that in the case of one of the most prominent artists of the Renaissance, Michelangelo, the very man himself, his tendency to portray men (and even his women as men) is attributed to his own homosexual tendencies. He portrayed men as beautiful so to a modern art historian this reveals to us an important part of his personality while explaining the presence of beautiful men in his art.
What I find particularly interesting about this is not that Michelangelo or the Greeks were or might have been gay. The greeks did indulge in homosexual behavior and Michelangelo very well might have but, I find it more intriguing that this is the primary reasoning we as modern viewers and critics latch on to. It shows our incapability to separate admiration from sexual desire in our own society, particularly when it comes to male bodies. Like I was discussing before the same does not seem to be true of female bodies for our modern society. I tend to think that perhaps the absolute connection between admiration and sexual desire in regards to male nakedness is in fact a result of our own culture and perhaps wasn’t an issue in ancient Greece. Women who admire and produce art with naked women in it aren’t considered immediately lesbian in our society so I don’t really see why it must follow that men who produced or admired art with naked men in it in ancient Greece were necessarily homosexual. And the same goes for Michelangelo in my book.
This brings in a host of interesting questions though that in my opinion are far more interesting than speculation about people’s sexual orientation. What about the Greek society was different so that portraying men was ok? Why if it is now generally culturally acceptable to be gay do we not have the same attitude as the Greeks in art? What is it about our own society that makes male beauty tabu?
P.S. I’m not intending to become a famous artist, so the worst you will probably ever see from me is a art book on the subject that will become the mate to “The Breast in Art” a book I found in the art section of the book store the other day.
Filed under: art
So we went to Paris, right? And I finally got to see a whole lot of the Paris museums. In one week we basically zipped through a brief visual history of the most important works of art in Western Europe from classical Greek to contemporary art. Now I’ve got to tell you what I noticed. The second day we were in the Louvre, while contemplating Ingres “La Grande Obelisque” my husband Matt made an observation. He said that he’d seen a lot of naked women that day, and that though they were art you really couldn’t get around the fact that they were naked and women. It was rather obvious that he was right about the quantity of naked women but, what I got to thinking about was the absence of naked men which I think is more notable then the presence of naked women. With the exception of the ancient greek and sometimes roman art they were rarely naked men. What I noticed was that the naked men that were depicted, again with the exception of the ancient greek, were naked apparently not for the admiration of their nakedness per se but because the painting was obviously imitating greek art. The naked men were almost always in action and usually had some very conveniently placed swords or other similar objects. It is true that the naked women were very rarely identifiable women, these weren’t portraits of real naked women. The naked women were usually glorifications of female physical beauty instead. Which is I think the key difference between the two depictions: men it seemed to be the museums were saying can be naked but, their nakedness is secondary in importance and they are not objects of beauty, women’s nakedness, in contrast, is very often the central theme of the painting and usually considered an object of beauty. What was even more interesting to me is this same distinction persisted throughout the brief history of art we experienced. At the George Pompidou I must admit it changes a bit but, there still naked women are blatantly pictured as objects of beauty or desire whereas naked men though they appear fairly often are always grotesque or ridiculous (with the exception of one painting by Picasso…but still not depicted as objects of sexual desire). Even more interesting to me is that even when the artists were women you found that the same thing was true. Because for the majority of time men have been the ones painting it has been natural for them to paint women as the objects of beauty or desire….women are objects of beauty and desire for men. So nothing strange here. What is interesting is that with the advent of rising women artists that we do not see the opposite phenomenon. Why do women as artists do the same thing as men? Wouldn’t it be natural for a woman to paint men as attractive and beautiful in the same way that men have seemingly always portrayed women. I mean I think that there are plenty of women, and women artists for that matter, that do not find men’s bodies disgusting. In fact I think there are plenty of women that find them attractive, so why do heterosexual women only paint women as objects of beauty? I don’t actually buy the argument that women are not visually stimulated and so that’s why. That they aren’t wired that way in the same way as men I will readily admit but, that women are not visually attracted to men whatsoever is a bald face lie. Anyway so considering that painting naked men as beautiful is just not done, it is also not excepted practice. It’s not traditionally considered art. So here’s my theory…… at our current point in history if someone wants to be an artist he/she has a generally excepted path to take when depicting naked people….woman as object of beauty, woman as grotesque and scary, man as grotesque and scary (or perhaps just a bufoon). Man as object of beauty painted by a man is considered an expression of homosexuality. Women depicting women as art objects is considered standard practice. BUT if a woman began depicting naked men as objects of beauty not as grotesque, stupid or scary (I’m thinking like the male counterparts for Degas bathing women) I think she would cause some stir. I think because it is not done…because in the art museums you do not see men depicted this way it would be scandalous to an extent. I think the woman artist that decided to do this and do it well might just have a shot at notoriety. Perhaps it is a sign of the backwardsness of much of the feminism that has changed our society to date. As women became artists riding the wave of feminism, the same wave that saw women become doctors and politicians, these women have distortedly become male artists rather than female ones. So that women artists, just as male ones, depict women as objects of desire. It is as if a female artist must, in order to be an artist, renounce their essentially female view point. So I guess I’m challenging aspiring female artists to take hold of the fact that they are women and depict men as beautiful, and to rectify the situation.
Filed under: art
So we went to Paris. Which was awesome! I couldn’t be more ecstatic about all the things I got to see that I’ve wanted to see. The last time I was in Paris the museum workers were all on strike so I didn’t get to even set foot in the Louvre, let alone any of the other museums.
My mini critique of the museums themselves:
Louvre, WoW it has so much important stuff!
Critique: It does a good job of organizing the art works by region and time period so you really can get a sense of the flow and development of art, especially that of France itself but, really it’s the flow you see. There is so much of it that the specifics are necessarily lost. Like the original collectors intended ( the Louis were never known for their sober restriction and frugalness) the collections quantity and variety is overwhelming, with almost obscene impressions of opulence that flow from the simple unrestricted quantity.
Must sees in the museum:
the Nike! Wow! just as good in person.
Ingres, this guy was great I really am not very fond of most of the art produced by his contemporaries but, his stuff is really worth seeing.
Portraiture….throughout the museum my favorite things to keep track of was the vast array of portraits. Really they are all very impressive. My favorites of course are the ones from before the 1600s but that is personal taste.
Van Eyck… really cool!and go to the Islamic section it is worth the 20 minutes, especially for the animals jumping out of each others mouths rug.
The De Cluny, the really old french stuff.
Critique: This is the museum of the French middle ages and was by far my favorite museum. They don’t have a ton of stuff but, what they have makes a comprehensible picture of the art work of the time. Focused primarily on decorative arts such as illumination, stain glass and tapestry work it’s really fantastic.
Must see:
The tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. Oh my goodness, they take your breath away literally. I seriously turned the corner into a corner room that I didn’t really know how big it was going to be and sat staring for the next 20 minutes. This 6 piece series is worth the time. The tapestries are enchanting and brilliant and full of emotion. Better design and workmanship went into these tapestries then into most of the paintings from the same period in the louvre. I can’t say enough.
The tapestry with the porcupine. It is not really all that notable except for the porcupine but really isn’t it cool that that particular North American creature manages to get onto the surface of the tapestry and it really is unique.
The tapestry of the wine harvest. After the Lady and the Unicorn this was my favorite, it is fascinating to look at because it shows the entire process in action from how they cut the grapes off the vine to smooshing them and starting the process of making wine. Plus it is beautifully done in my opinion.
The George Pompidou, Modern, Modern, Modern.
Critique:This museum itself is really cool and I have to say it was my favorite view of the Paris skyline. Their current exhibition format of the permanent collection is chronological by movement which is nice because of it gives an idea of the change during this century though I think I would find a topical arrangement perhaps more interesting. So there is some really cool important stuff here and even if you claim not to like modern art it’s way worth it since it can give you a better idea what exactly you’re claiming not to like. Though the collection does include Kandinsky and Klee it is really incredibly heavy on French artists justifiably so. It’s a shame though because my favorites weren’t there because my favorites generally aren’t French.
Must sees:
Rothko and Mondrian, these are two artists which you really can’t understand until you’ve seen them in person. There works really aren’t that great seen from a book in print but, when you see the actually painted thing you stop asking if it really took talent to do something like that.
Calder, ok the wire sculpture by Calder is amazing, I’ve never seen such a sparse rendering give the impression of such specific forms. The guy really was a genius.
Kupka, I discovered an artist that was new to me that I really liked and it’s this guy, a really early abstract artist his paintings are miraculous plays with light.
Delauney, both of them really are fantastic. I love this kind of play with color abstract art, it’s what I really get into actually. Never was to hot on the cubists because they are too grey, but this…..Color as music!
The Museè D’Orsay, Impressionism galore.
Critique:Great museum, great layout, great works, but…..far to many people and good grief please stop them from taking pictures! really go buy the silly postcard please you can’t hardly see the paintings for the people taking pictures of the paintings.
Must sees:
Manet! enough said.
The Polar Bear…. by Rodain I think… but it really was too cool!
The room of Van Goghs was mind-boggling.
The pastel collections are really awesome and worth looking at closely, it’s really cool to see the influence of the pastels themselves on the artists other works.
Make sure to make time to look at the Art Nouveau furniture gallery, it’s really amazing. The pieces are spectacular. I’ve never seen prettier beds.
We also went to Giverny and the home of Monet, Versaille and the D’Olangerie (hope I spelled that correctly) all well worth the trip. My trip highlight was rowing down the grand canal at Versaille….much better than walking!
I’m readjusting my portfolio right now. I have been working on this project for this whole summer. You know in order to apply for grad school in a design field they want your portfolio, which is great and all except….. Well, so I managed to get through my schooling without touching InDesign or Photoshop or Illustrator and I kind of wanted to learn them at least a little so I said well….I have to do a portfolio why don’t I do it and learn at the same time. Great idea, actually it worked quite well I’ve learned alot and now I have a portfolio design and ready to go. There were lots of times in the middle where I was complaining that the computer program required me to do ridiculous things that made no sense whatsoever and my patient husband explaining that that is just how it is….my response to this is almost always “WHY? why would it work that way that is ridiculous, it doesn’t make sense to do it that way.” This conversation happened even more when it came to discussing changing my design into an actual book. Printer standards and color worlds or whatever I must say are very seriously beyond me. We’d get into these long conversations about color environments and printer standards that were so full of jargon that I couldn’t tell heads for tails….. I must say though that I don’t understand why if most all printers, print shops etc. print using the same standard in a regional area why the programs don’t have atomatic settings. I mean why if the operating systems are specific and the programs themselves come in different versions (albeit slightly) for different regions shouldn’t these different regional programs come with different print and color world set up presets? Given that if your savy enough you will want to be able to change your presets but, really why not have a preset? So that is my question and it is probably illogical and unfounded considering I’m having trouble understanding the concepts anyway. Right now in the middle of the night I’m trying to send my design to a printer…who will make it into a book…but it turned out that the printer’s 10×8 books are really 9.61×8.24 so I have to go through and resize everything for the whole design…and I’m stopping now because I am terribly afraid that I have messed up where the centers of my pages are on all the pages I’ve already worked on. Again I don’t understand why if you advertise an 10×8 book the actual size would be half an inch less wide. All kinds of things I don’t understand. Picas and regulations and color space (ha I remembered the jargin! here I’ve been saying color world all the time) and blah and blah and blah……I hope landscape architecture school is worth it!
Filed under: art
So I finished my prints! I’ve been working on them for more than a year now so I feel kind of silly. I almost didn’t want to finish them. The feel of process is entirely enthralling. While I’m creating a print I get to work through an idea until I’ve totally absorbed it. When I draw I feel as though I am working through the idea or the image as well but I can never make the feeling, the process last as long. When I draw there is a point at which I am always afraid I will ruin the drawing by adding something. Watching the picture form I am expectant, breathless but, then there is a point at which I shrink from drawing anymore because the essence of the image that I see is captured and I am afraid that one more pencil stroke will add more noise will make the picture irrelavant. Even if the drawing isn’t a good one I feel this way, it’s like there is a point of no return with drawing after which the picture is either good or bad and you either throw it away or decide to be content.
Prints on the other hand take more time. Each line takes work. You sketch, you think, you plan, and then you carve and test and test again and carve and test and test again until the picture is complete, until it is right. For me the expectation has great value. The process is sobering, enthralling, rythmic like dancing but less exuberant.
A good ten years ago now my dad decided that Christmas was too depressing the way we did it. Not that Christmas was ever bad at our house, he just decided it didn’t last long enough. So that year my dad purposed that we have Christmas for 7 days from Christmas Day until New Years. We accomplished this by opening the stockings and grandparent gifts on Christmas Day and then opening a gift from another member of the family for each of the following days…there were only 5 of us so then we added a couple theme days… movie day, and game day. So from that christmas on if we are at home Christmas lasts for 7 days. There is certainly a peak thrill to Christmas all in one day that you don’t quite achieve with Christmas in 7 days, but the 7 days of expectation and gift opening and festivalness are certainly worth the exchange. This is partially the same feeling I have for printmaking vs. drawing the thrill may not be as zingy but the enjoyment is more thorough.
and that’s my thoughts about that. It rained today, I really like rain. The world as seen from under an umbrella is fantastic. The ducks in the park were liberated from their usual hide out on the island in the middle of the park lagoon because of the rain, they seemed quite happy…the geese too. Italians don’t really differentiate between big ducks and geese. The poor geese are always stripped of what little dignity they have and called ducks.
In Italian instead of saying peek-a-boo I got told yesterday that you say something to the gist of – pat-ta-toom-fit-ay
Filed under: Italy
They’ve been protesting outside my window for the last year. You probably have heard very little about it, but the United States wants to expand the army base in Vicenza. They want to expand onto the old unused airport here so that they can fly in and out of Vicenza itself. Once the expansion is done the base will be a grand total of 1 full mile square instead of half of one. You probably haven’t heard, but I have. About once a month or so I run into a group of people banging pots, most often right outside my apartment, wearing protest flags and sometimes yelling. So I am well aware that there is a section of the population of Vicenza that doesn’t want the base to be expanded and ignoring their opinion the government that they voted in to say no to the US army said yes anyway. Now there is alot of confusion, one of the women at church told me that they were protesting because they thought that America would keep nuclear weapons in Vicenza if they enlarged the base and so everyone was scared because if they got bombed and there were nuclear bombs here then it would be bad or a friend of ours who is sympathetic took us by the base to show us that it was right to protest because the base would be gynormous if it was expanded (4 city blocks instead of 2 on the outskirts of town! Really….they don’t have any idea how big bases can get). So yeah a lot of confusion, but there really are good reasons for the protest. In a lot of ways I sympathise. A government that doesn’t do what you think is important and to me the vastly more troublesome problem of an incredibly corrupt government should be protested against. But everytime I see them banging pots I can’t help thinking that there must be something more useful they could be doing with their time. Most of the protests happen at or around community functions like park dinners or concerts. The protest today happened around a food and culture celebration planned by the city, so instead of freely going and tasting good cheese and wine the rest of the city stays home to avoid the protesters and gets angrier and angrier because of the annoyance. Not more sympathetic. I have what Matt calls a fairly anglo saxon mindset of this kind of thing. If what I’m doing doesn’t have the benefit of being effective I don’t want to do it. To me you protest by calling your senator and representative so much that they can’t work because they’re phone lines are blocked or you go sit in their office or in government offices, if you protest you protest in front of where the officials responsible will see you and have to deal with you or where you will get the most media coverage. Not where you will be the most irritating to your neighbors. I always want to yell at them <I CAN’T HELP YOU! I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! WHY ARE YOU PROTESTING HERE?> The other day rather than the normal pot bangers there was a group of people that were collecting signatures for what they called V-Day or approxiamately in Italian F—- you government day. It seemed ridiculous because they were cheerily singing on guitar a song that went <F— you, F—- you, F—- you oh government> in a rather Simon and Garfunkely manner. I asked later that day what was going on and found out it was anything but, ridiculous. The signatures were for passing a law to change the current regulations of parliment that effectively protect any and all corrupt politicians from any sort of prosecution during or after office, to limit the amount of time prime ministers can stay in office (Berlusconi had an 8 year consecutive term and is now trying to get his position back and the current Prime Minister Prodi was prime minister before Berlusconi as well as after him and it can go on like that forever currently) and it was also in favour of free speech (Italy is said to be one of the only western nations that effectively does not have free speech… the form prime minister, Berlusconi again, owns most of the TV channels that aren’t run by the government and you have to get permission from the government to publish as much as a mass mailing, if you don’t have the permit already good luck getting one). Apparently in Italy if enough of the population signs something like this the populace itself can purpose a new law or reform that must be brought before the parliment. Now this kind of protest I could get into! Reasoned and a chance of being effective! This was as far as I can tell an exception to the rule though. Most of the time the Italians seem really rather pessimistic about what really can change or happen about their ability to make a difference. They seem to make up for this pessimism however in a throughly whole hearted belief that they need to make their opinion known. So they seem to protest for protestings sake not to change things. It’s like if they yell enough then they can’t be held responsible and can say < well you know I was against that when that happened> not because they really want or believe they can change things. A good for instance for me is that they spend alot of time and energy making their opinion known about the death penalty or racism in the United States something they can do little or nothing about in reality and do very little to recitfy inequalities or problems in their own system or in their own cities. It’s like the having of the opinion saves them not what they do about it. This does have it’s advantages as a country. You can have very heated debate and still never come to violence. You can disagree incredibly strongly with your neighbor but relish the arguement amicalbly along with the coffee you drink every morning together. Really on an interpersonal level it is very handy. Even though they don’t like your opinions or your government or your religion they can still be your friend and talk to you. Its refreshing at that level, debate is possible and there are no real forbidden subjects at the dinner table and no hard feelings really even if the arguement gets bad and loud. On a governmental level it doesn’t work very well though. It means you almost never get down to business.
Filed under: Rant
The dreaded day has come once again. My jeans are falling apart. I know that is probably too much information, but it’s true and it’s infuriating. It never happens as a singular event either, it’s always en masse instead. A week ago I found my favorite painting jeans had holes in them in unspeakable and needless to say unwearable places and then this morning I discovered that the legs on another pair are about to become no more. This has happened before to me. My senior year of college I literally had three pairs of jeans gain irreparable holes while I was wearing them. Twice is happened in my dorm room which was frustrating but saved me from any embarrassment. The third pair however ripped right open in the middle of a horse back ride down a road where cars also came. So there I was sitting on top of a horse which is conveniently on eye level of human beings and cars with a six inch hole in my pants. So now it’s a little less than 4 years later and it’s happening all over again. The problem is that your favorite jeans the ones you get attached to and actually wear or bother to take with you to Europe become like your skin in a way, they are a precious well worn in thing that fits properly! It’s already a heart wrenching experience to see them go away, to have to throw them out, discard them but even worse is the search that must begin right afterward. Once they break you have to buy more! The ignominy of going to store after store to find out that your body isn’t built the way clothes companies think it should be starts all over again. Yes, you know that you’ve been avoiding this exact experience for the last 4 years because you had found your jeans but guess what you have to go back. Yes, you have to face the fashion worlds stereotypes in there full fledged and throughly sadistic forms. I have to face it. I have to go and try on jeans again. Inevitably this means trying on dozens of pairs before finding something that is comfortable or wearable let alone flattering or nice. And that is why I dread this cycle. Seriously dread it. By the way I have to modify my post on Facebook….I joined I’m afraid even after having said such things. The feeling however the rather creeping odd feeling is still there though. I don’t have it when I’m writing this blog though so if you find me on face book you could opt to communicate with me here and I could avoid the creeping feeling…..well maybe I’ll get used to it….I did after all sign up after only 2 days of resisting.
I had to go to the doctor today. It’s really quite and interesting experience here. This particular doctor is in her office 4 hours a day and everyone comes and gets a number because you can’t make appointments. Literally, you take a number like if you were in the supermarket deli line and then you wait. Well you don’t actually have to wait there in the office. I went home and set up this blog for an hour. Then I went shopping. Then I sat and waited…anyway. It was fairly confusing trying to figure out the system when we first moved to Vicenza. Me: “Hello, I’d like to make an appointment for sometime next week is there a time available?” Doctor:”I’m sorry why did you call this number?” Me: “Because it was the number they gave me at the insurance office for my doctor. Why?” Doctor:”You don’t make appointments at my office. Just show up. Don’t call this number again please.” Me:”oh…ok.” One of the strangest phone conversations I’ve ever had. The confusion itself aside I have had a less than amazing experience with doctors and the health system here in Italy. Which is interesting because the other day I was surfing the net and found that Italy has the world’s 2nd best health system according to the World Health Organization. I surfed for a little longer though and found that the vast majority of italians agree with me rather than the World Health Organization. Only 20% of italians are satisfied with their own health system whereas the US system even with all of it’s issues still manages to satisfy over 50% of the people it serves (see “The Public Versus The World Health Organization On Health System Performance” by Robert J. Blendon, Minah Kim and John M. Benson) All facts that you probably didn’t need to know, but that satisfy my inner need for objectivity. There are two major factors that I think have influenced my own opinion of the health system in Italy. First of all I think it must be really, really, I mean terribly hard to bottom out as a doctor in Italy once you set up practice. People may transfer away from you but, the state will just hand you more, so incompetent or rather recalcitrant doctors remain in their positions as long as they want and they don’t have to make a good impression on their patients. And if you’re lucky enough (like me) to be new (like me again) and you don’t know which docs have a bad reputation you get to meet them quite often. The other factor is the lack of record keeping. There are no records kept in doctor’s offices ever, anywhere in the country as far as I can tell. Coming from a system where the moment you step into any doctor’s office even to get cold medicine they make a record of your entire medical history and take all your vital statistics it is extremely unnerving to be in a place where the doctors apparently never care about records of this kind or even a record of your visit. If you get an x-ray done at the hospital guess what happens to it……it goes home with the patient. What if you get a kidney scan or a blood test done…it goes home with the patient. And that’s that. No stacks of files in back rooms keeping copies of all the tests and all the diagnosis’s of all the patients they’ve ever seen. No files, no copies, and no clerks. I guess it saves money.
