Dear List:
Since traffic is so light this week (which has been the cause for concern by
many, it seems), I thought I'd write something a little off-topic to singing,
but I'll try and tie it in anyway.
In today's Washington Post Style Section
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52453-2001Jul25.html>
is a great article about an Italian book recently published in the USA in an
English translation. It's a book by an Italian who spent a few years in
Washington, DC, about what it's like to live in America.
The singing tie-in is that the book might be useful cultural material for
singing students going to study in Italy!
Now that's out of the way, the real reason I'm writing is this delicious quote
that I particularly appreciate due to my day job of professional Federal
government bureaucrat:
"For Italians coming to live in the United States, the greatest satisfaction
derives not from seeing films six months before they are released in Italy, or
choosing from fifty different kids of breakfast cereal, or reading two kilos of
newspaper on a Sunday morning. What really tickles our epiglottis is grappling
with American bureaucracy. Why is that? It's because, having trained on the
Italian version, we feel like a matador faced with a milk cow. It's a
push-over."
Peggy
---
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
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