Uno tira l'altro - confessioni di una lettrice compulsiva

Agatha Raisin

Non so se avete mai provato una compulsione alla lettura. A me capita, a volte, soprattutto con libri che rimandano ad altri libri, successivi. Mi piace l'atmosfera, mi piacciono i personaggi e tac, scatta una sorta di dipendenza che mi spinge a leggere, leggere, leggere. Mi è capitato con Harry Potter e ora mi sta capitando con la serie che M.C. Beaton ha dedicato ad Agatha Raisin.

Viaggio a Glasgow in 280 pagine

Ecco che ci riprovo a recensire un libro. Si tratta di uno dei miei autori preferiti in assoluto, che in passato ho avuto anche l'onore di tradurre per la casa editrice Tranchida. Onore, perché per me è stato come tradurre Hemingway, o Kafka, o Dickens, o Orwell... Insomma, avete capito, ho una venerazione per quest'uomo, che di nome fa William McIlvanney ed è uno dei principali autori scozzesi contemporanei, anche se all'estero non è così conosciuto. O per lo meno, non qui in Italia.

Hollywood mania

Non è una vera e propria passione, la mia, perché non so il tempo di aver visto un musical hollywoodiano, però ricordo che da ragazzina mi facevano impazzire. Quelle donne bellisime (tipo Marylin, per esempio, o Audrey), quelle canzoni stupende (che nessuno si sognava di tradurre, almeno nei musical più belli), perché diciamocelo, non c'è niente di peggio di una canzone tradotta. Riesce a rovinare un film.

Portrait of a cat

The cat feels my eye/ Il gatto percepisce il mio sguardo

Ouch, cought in the act/Ah, beccata

Decoration alias Design

English version
To give people pleasure in the things they must perforce use, that is one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce make, that is the other use of it.
William Morris, The lesser Arts (Lecture given to the Trades Guild of Learning, London, 1877, under the title "The Decorative Arts")

Dice il saggio...

It has often been said, and no doubt truly, that one ages very quickly if one lives amongst unhappy peaople. Also they say that southern England is a good place for keeping good looks

Si dice spesso, e senza dubbio a ragione, che una persona invecchia molto velocemente, se vive tra gente triste. si dice anche che il sud del'Inghilterra sia un buon posto per mantenere un bell'aspetto.

Art of living - Philippa Stanton still life shots

Today,  we're going to talk about art with Philippa Stanton. She is an English artist that we've met on Instagram, where she posts wonderful still life photographs, and she'e been so kind to answer some questions about her work. Welcome to our Officina Creativa (OCa)
Oggi parliamo di arte con Philippa Stanton. È un'artista inglese che abbiamo incontrato su Instagram, dove posta meravigliosi still life, ed è stata tanto gentile da rispondere a qulalche domanda. Benvenuta nella nostra Officina Creativa (OCa)

Snow living

English version
Snow can make us free (wo)men, if we are lucky enough to foresee it. I mean: it's snowing and you think, "Oh, it's not going to snow for long" and then you get stuck in the traffic or on a train. You've not been able to foresee snow. But if it's snowing and you think, "I don't know, I don't trust this weather and the railway company, I'd better stay at home", then you become a free (wo)man. No job, no hurry, no irritation, no stress. Only happiness and comfort. Freedom. You can have a walk in the snow, relax, have a coffee looking at the flakes floating out of the window, and think that this is the rhythm you want your life to have. Slow. Snow. Now.
Take it slow, then.

for a Happy New Year

English version
So, here we are again! Christmas holidays are almost over and il cesto dei tesori has got new projects for you to follow, if you like. I hope you have seen our OCaHome project, where we're going to show some photographs on home and living, and we have some new ideas, that will hopefully come true very soon. They are about writing, about design, about architecture and about photograph. A whole new year is awaiting. "Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear." *

Vocabulary
to be over = essere finito
if you like = se vi/ti va
come true = avverarsi

Wishing a Merry Christmas

English version
Is it going to snow for Christmas, this year? I think it's a bit too warm and it's high time it got colder. No, don't worry, it's not going to be a post about weather. It will be a post about Christmas, of course. And about wishes.
Well, I wish I could have enough money to buy a big house, with a huge dining room so that I could invite all our relatives for the Christmas lunch. It would be a long and friendly afternoon, my mum could sit without worrying about the next course, and in the late afternoon, after that everyone has returned home, we would tidy all up and then enjoy a relaxing evening on the couch.

A funny thing about TV

English version
There's a funny thing about TV and the mass media society we've become. We know that when you say something on TV it seems true just for the simple fact of being said. It means that if somebody tells a lie on TV, it sounds like the truth. The funniest thing is that even if we know it, we still believe the lie to be true. So the videos of a Prime Minister, or an ex Prime Minister, are still considered speech and not advertisement. In a videocracy like ours repeating a lie on TV turns it into a truth, because facts are not important, only opinions are.

Ohm

English version
Friday at last, we're almost there, the week's going to finish and I'm really tired. Why am I so tired, if this has been a short week, from Wednesday to Friday? I think I know the answer, but I don't like it. It's probably because I've met a lot of people who are always pretending they're friendly when they don't like you, assuming that what they think is right and what you think is wrong. It's really tiring to cope with such a situation and I'm happy that tonight I'm going out for dinner, and tomorrow can stay at home and relax.

Reverie on a train

English version
I've heard that the London Tube is considered a joke by London commuters and I've heard that the British Railways are not so reliable as they should be. But I wonder if these people have ever travelled on an Italian commuters train. I don't hink so. Yesterday afternoon my usual train was cancelled, so they made the next one stop at my town, even if it normally doesn't. On one train there were all the people that generally take two different trains. It was like hell.

The importance of words

English version
Languages have lots of words that can have slighlty different meanings and convey very different scenarios. Differences are very imoprtant both in languages and in life, they are what makes you different form me, or her, or him. Difference is richness. That's why it's important to take care of languages lest some words be forgotten and then disappear. If our languages (English, Italian or whatever) become poorer and poorer, their societies will follow them down the hill.

Morning Thought (in the afternoon)

Versione inglese
On this windy morning, I sit down in an old-style train, look out of the window and notice that the green of a few days ago has turned into a kind of brown. It's the perfect day to take it easy, to forget all your worries and relax. I think relaxing is somethingthat we have forgotten how to do. It makes us think of holidays, travels, seaside, but it could be much more.The fading colours of autumn can help us remembering it. In the cycle, the rhythm, of nature it'is time to slow down.

Yellow Submarine

English version
Do you remember the song Yellow Submarine, by the Beatles? Of course you do! "We all live in a yellow submarine"... "sky of blue and sea of green" but we live in the submarine, anyway. I think it was a poetic way to say we all live in a cage, and if it was true in the Sixties, it is even truer today. This morning I arrived at the office by car, not by train as usual, and I think it's an even sadder situation, because when you're stuck in a queue you're sorrounded by cars, you're aware that you're breathing bad air and there's no way out. You are really and truly stuck in there. So, my idea for today is to set us all free from our cage

Hard Times

English version
How long haven't you been on a train? I travel by train twice a day and the most interesting thing about it all is watching people and listening casually to what they say. On a commuter train you meet most of the people every day, so, even if you don't know them personally, they are part of your life.
The people here beside me are talking about babies and diapers and children. Two of them are men and I find them so sweet. It's a good thing that fathers nowadays take all their part of responsibilities in growing children and take active part to the every day problems that can occur. Most mothers work, so the family organization has changed since the past.
I say it again loudly: it's a good thing that men are active fathers.

History of a good reading

English version
I bought this book ages ago. When I learned that Ethan Hawk, the guy from Dead Poet Society, who shouted "Captain, my captain" making me cry all the tears of my life, had had a novel published, I madly wanted to read it. But you know how it goes with books: you buy them, because you need to have them in your bookshelf, and then you read them after a while, because at the moment you're reading something else. In the meantime I learned that Ethan Hawk had been married with Uma Thurman, who I simply love because she is perfection to my eyes, but had left her breaking her heart. I still don't know anything more than this about their story, and I don't want to know anything more, but anyway the book remained untouched in my bookshelf for years.

True Colours

English version

Hello, here we are again. What are we talking about today? About Being. More or less. Some people say there is an aura around us, some people can see it, and it is of a different colour according to the way you are or feel. I don't know if it's true, but there is certainly some energy in our bodies, we produce energy and so maybe we radiate it. And I like to imagine it a colourful experience. Pity we can't see it in everyday life, it would be easier to understand others and maybe also to understand ourselves. Look into the mirror: what colour are you today? Yesterday I was black, I'm sure, but today I think I am a bit more lively than that. 

Black(out) Monday

English version

Hello everybody! Today's talking is about laziness. Have I ever told you I'm lazy? Well, I am. Generally speaking, people like weekends because they can do a lot of things: visit places, have lunches and dinners with friends, play sports and so on. I like these activities, too (well, I don't like sport so much, actually), but not more than one at a time. 

I've just survived a weekend full of friends and emotions, I enjoyed every bit of it, but today I could do with a whole day rest, to save some time for myself.