Il palazzo azzurro

[Xmmm]

Simili di Laura Pausini è una collezione di canzoni tutte molto simili. Mi chiedo se il titulo sia uno scherzo. Il prodottore molto piace una orchestra d'archi. Forse Pausini è una cantante migliore di Nina Zilli, ma Modern Art è un CD migliore di Simili.

Ho guardato l'episodio numere tre di La Piovra con i sottotitoli vietnamiti. Quando non capivo l'italiano, tentavo a leggerli. Non avevo successo.

[Xmmm]

I finished my 50 hours of Italian listening early this month and am taking a break so I can get Russian over the finish line.

My favorite show is still Il segreto dell'acqua. In fact, I'm looking forward to October so I can watch it again. I actually like Il giovane montalbano okay, not because it's really better than the original show, but because I don't think of the character as Montalbano. The same actor played Blasco Santocastro in Il segreto dell'acqua ... and let's just say, Blasco had a rough time. So in my irrational mind, Blasco has somehow wandered away from the mean streets of Palermo to a well deserved happier life in ... whatever that imaginary Sicilian town is called.

With La Piovra, I'm running into geoblocking of random episodes (why random episodes?). Possibly I could switch over to Russian for the episodes I can't see in Italian.


Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale went well and I'm halfway through Harry Potter e la camera dei segreti. Creatività e pensiero laterale is on hold. Even though I can understand 75% or so, either than other 25% is very subtle and important, or the book's not worth reading. Either way waiting won't hurt. HP #2 will be last HP, then I will make the jump to Italian stuff.

[Xmmm]

I'm watching Il segreto dell'acqua for the third time and it never gets old. I pity the fools that haven't seen this show. My willpower has been breaking down a bit, and this last time around I've been sneaking an occasional peak at the English subtitles to see what's going on in the 60% of the conversations that I don't understand. It's unbelievable how much I am missing, actually. I guess 40% is less than half, but it seems like I'm only covering the basic plot, the basic conflicts, the everyday commonplace utterances. I'm missing all kinds of drama, turmoil and "meta" conversations. Casual acquaintances throwing lurid accusations at each other, a whole set piece around a poorly written condolence telegram, you name it.

On a side note, I wasn't able to sample Italian music conveniently on Amazon. I was looking for the wild-sounding "Sicilian music" that tends to have a lot of guitar. So I tried on Youtube, where I found some, but also a raging dispute about whether it was really Sicilian or Calabrese (?).

After a while I gave up. Somehow started listening to Indonesian "dangdut" which sounds to me like a weird mix of 80s style dance music and Bollywood. I now have "Hamil Duluan" by Tuty Wibowo stuck in my head, and feel like I've been transported backwards in time ... to a parallel universe ...

[Xmmm]

The new series Suburra is actually pretty good. It's grotesque, of course, but unlike Gomorra it has interesting characters. Gomorra also relentlessly focuses on the periferia (at least in episode one, which was all I could handle) but Suburra moves around and gives you some visual variety. You get some periferia, some splendors of downtown Rome, some seaside. I finished season one. There should be enough time in October to watch it a second time.

[Xmmm]

Now that I'm doing "ALG self study" for Italian and "Ari's Chinesepod Method" for Russian, I'm getting a little nervous with all this TV watching. Over on the Russian side of things I have to do 2-3 dialogues a day, 40 minutes of anki reviews, busy busy. But on the Italian side, it's "watch another two hours of Suburra." Doing the dialogues and anki certainly provides a sense of control. Whether that sense of control is actually an illusion of control, I'm not sure yet.

Suburra is a great show. It's just as good the second time around. A review in The Spectator called it "pop-Shakespearean" in an approving way, and I'd agree with that. In addition to well-thought out story lines, the acting ranges from pretty good to inspired, and the show also benefits from a trippy, surrealistic soundtrack. Sometimes if you close your eyes you would think you were watching a science fiction movie and not a gangster show, but somehow it works.

I'm watching it with subtitles this time around, and I found out that at least a few of the lines that were completely incomprehensible to me were actually in Sinti Romani, and not in Italian. So that's good news.

I'm also reading Il grande sonno, a couple chapters a week.

[Xmmm]

Finished Suburra the second time but am utterly sick of TV at this point.

Started ItalianPod101 and am doing a sweep of the beginner series just to see if I missed anything. A handful of words maybe. Zaino, goloso. But now I'm wondering if I really need ItalianPod101. At this point my comprehension of Italian is better than my comprehension of Russian and continues to slowly improve. Maybe the benefits of ItalianPod101 are going to be marginal.

I saw reineke's post about free audiobooks, went to Ad Alta Voce, and started listening to chapter one of La Peste. It's not that hard. I don't have the text in front of me, but I understood maybe 40% -- and I have never read The Plague before in my life.

Apparently you can't get the text for this book in either Italian or English via kindle, so I have a hard copy in English coming via snail mail. I will read a chapter in English, and then immediately listen to it a couple times in Italian. Shades of the old L2/R1 story from HTLAL.

[Xmmm]

I just read a quote from Seneca last night. Something about reading lots of books at the same time leading to disorder and chaos.

Il grande sonno: one half done (R2)

Il richiamo dell foresta: one quarter done (L2 / R1)

Il conte di Montecristo: one sixth done (L2). Don't know what to do with this one, exactly. The audio is only 17 hours long so it must be very abridged. I guess I will just listen to it. I have the unabridged Italian text ... hmmm ...

I'd ordered The Plague and was going to L2/R1. Unfortunately, instead of The Plague what came in the mail was Rachel Ray's Express Lane Meals ...

[Xmmm]

I finished reading Il grande sonno. It was challenging. Unlike the Potter books where I know the story backwards and forwards, I haven't read The Big Sleep in at least fifteen years ... and it has a complicated plot. I was definitely reading faster at the end than I was at the beginning so I guess it's a win. I have more Chandler lined up like Addio mia amata, but first I would like to try to venture into a book I've never read before ... Camus's La peste.

: 4 / 100 Books

Books Read in Italian

1. Il deserto dei tartari (LingQ)
2. Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale (R2)
3. Harry Potter e la camera dei segreti (R2)
4. Il grande sonno (R2)


edited to fix Addio mia amata

[reineke]

Don't take it bad but it's... mia amata.

[Xmmm]

Don't take it bad but it's... mia amata.

I know it is, but thanks anyway. There seems to be some trouble developing with my eyes and typing/proofreading ... I'll confess any time it's not a typo.