LIFE: Giving Thanks Redux

CHIAVARI, Italy –If there is one thing I know it is that it is difficult to change the habits of a lifetime. I’m talking about Thanksgiving. For me, it’s hard to get into the spirit of Christmas until I’ve had Thanksgiving. But here in Italy, where they love holidays that fall on Thursday and extend into Friday and even Monday if they can get away with it, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  It’s not that they aren’t fascinated by the idea of giving thanks for what you have, but what do they have to be thankful for they ask. For those of us looking in from the outside, we have to think they are kidding, right? They’re not. 

 

Turin, Italy, Capital of White Magic 

It’s not that they don’t think life is good, Italy is beautiful, or the food isn’t the best in the world. They actually do. But not being too happy about something is part and parcel of the Italian DNA.  If you are too happy about something, no, I take that back, if you show that you are too happy about something, you risk putting a jinx – the malocchio or Evil Eye - on the very thing you are happy about. 

The Evil Eye is best described as a curse that can be triggered by something as simple as a compliment.  For example, if someone tells you your baby is beautiful, beware! The fates have been tempted. You must immediately make the sign of the horn to protect your child from the dreaded Evil Eye.

When I first moved to Italy, a Genovese lawyer told me that if I wanted to succeed in Italy, I would have to stop smiling so much.  And not only that, but if someone asked me how I was, the answer should never be –‘great.’ A better, safer answer,” he counseled, “would be “in somma.” Which loosely translated means, “I’m doing the best I can but it’s a struggle.” Truth is, at that time “in somma” was closer to my reality than “great,” so I had no problem adopting the more “Evil Eye” proof response.

 

A Pox on Your Play

Superstition has been part of Italian life since the dawn of time.  Using your fingers to make what is called in Italy “the horns” is in reality a version of a crescent moon shape which is representative of various Moon Goddesses worshiped in days of old. Interestingly, the finger horn can also be a sign that your wife is cheating on you - evidently a cheating wife is considered one of the worse curses of all.

A few years ago, when I found out that here in Italy having a bird in the house – either as a pet or by accident – is considered bad luck, it triggered a memory of something that happened years ago. I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. I was with my Grandmother in her kitchen, watching her cook. Out of nowhere a white pigeon landed on the windowsill and walked the few inches of the window sill and came inside the kitchen.

 

Extra Added Protection 

When my Grandmother saw the bird she became visibly upset.  She stopped cooking and went out into the hallway and sat down in the chair that was always by the door. I remember her hands were in the fabric of her apron and she was squeezing them together. A nervous gesture. 

I stood next to her and waited to see what was going to happen next. Then she turned to me and said, “my brother is dead.”  That was all she said. And her brother, who was in the Italian army serving in Ethiopia, had indeed been killed in battle.  I was only a kid   so I filed it away along with all the other strange things grownups do and say and didn’t think about it again, until now. I read somewhere that the bad luck a bird in the house brings is a very old superstition, but then, aren’t they all.

Turns out there are other things, like covering your mouth when you yawn – which I always thought we did just to be polite, are also based on superstitions. The real reason we cover our mouths is so evil spirits don’t enter our bodies. After all, God gave Adam life by breathing into his mouth – so what’s to stop the Devil from trying the same trick?

Then there is that old habit of saying Bless You, when someone sneezes. That simple saying is a carry-over from the days of the Roman Empire when sneezing was a sign that you had a dreaded disease. When someone sneezed the Romans thought it best to offer up a short prayer to the king of the Gods, Jupiter. A “long may you live,” or “may you enjoy good health,” or a simple “Jupiter, help me” would usually do the trick. Whichever one you chose brought hope that Jupiter would protect you if from whatever the other person was sneezing out. For the unfortunate sneezer, the hope was that Jupiter would help them expel the disease within and keep them healthy.

 

Let's See, Heel Goes Here Then Three Turns to the Right 

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just in southern Italian thing. In Milan they take the Evil Eye and other superstitions very seriously. The worn out nether parts of the mosaic bull, the symbol of the city of Turin, in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in downtown Milan is proof of that. Even those who claim to be non-believers can’t resist the Milanese tradition of twirling around three times on the bull’s dangling bits in the hope that it will keep the evil spirits at bay and bring them luck. So the next time you are in Milan make sure you visit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and give it a twirl. You won’t have any problem finding the bull mosaic, there is always a crowd of people waiting there to take their turn.

If you are the nervous type and don’t want to wait until you get to Milan, you might want to wear a cimaruta around your neck. Some even hang this Italian charm on their babies cribs to protect them from the Evil Eye. After all, there’s no point in tempting fate. At least with the protection of a cimaruta, you’ll gain favor with the Goddess Diana, Queen of the Italian witches, and that can only be a good thing. I know I’m going to get one and hang it on my computer. Better safe than sorry, no?

So while we Americans have no problem roasting up a turkey and brazenly give thanks for all we have, the wary Italians prefer to go about their business of living large and enjoying life by pretending they are suffering through it all. So now that you know the rules, cross your fingers, touch wood and make the sign of the horn because I am going to wish you all a Very Happy Thanksgiving.

ON ANOTHER NOTE

This Italian Life now has a Facebook Page. You can get there by clicking the Facebook badge on the right hand side of the page or going to https://www.facebook.com/thisitalianlife.  I’m still working out the kinks, and the badge is kind of crummy, but it will take you to daily updates of life in Italy.  I hope you’ll check it out, leave a comment or two, and while you are there it would be nice if you gave the page a Like.  Thanks

LIFE: Giving Thanks

CHIAVARI, Italy –If there is one thing I know it is that it is difficult to change the habits of a lifetime. I’m talking about Thanksgiving. For me, it’s hard to get into the spirit of Christmas until I’ve had Thanksgiving. But here in Italy, where they love holidays that fall on Thursday and extend into Friday and even Monday if they can get away with it, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  It’s not that they aren’t fascinated by the idea of giving thanks for what you have, but what do they have to be thankful for they ask. For those of us looking in from the outside, we have to think they are kidding, right? They’re not. 

A Pox on Your Play 

It’s not that they don’t think life is good, Italy is beautiful, or the food isn’t the best in the world. They actually do. But not being too happy about something is part and parcel of the Italian DNA.  If you are too happy about something, no, I take that back, if you show that you are too happy about something, you risk putting a jinx – the malocchio or Evil Eye - on the very thing you are happy about. 

The Evil Eye is best described as a curse that can be triggered by something as simple as a compliment.  For example, if someone tells you your baby is beautiful, beware! The fates have been tempted. You must immediately make the sign of the horn to protect your child from the dreaded Evil Eye.

Let's See, It's Heel Here and Then Three Turns to the Right

When I first moved to Italy, a Genovese lawyer told me that if I wanted to succeed in Italy, I would have to stop smiling so much.  And not only that, but if someone asked me how I was, the answer should never be –‘great.’ A better, safer answer, he counseled, would be “in somma.” Which loosely translated means, “I’m doing the best I can but it’s a struggle.” Truth is, at that time “in somma” was closer to my reality than “great,” so I had no problem adopting the more “Evil Eye” proof response.

Superstition has been part of Italian life since the dawn of time.  Using your fingers to make what is called in Italy “the horns” is in reality a version of a crescent moon shape which is representative of various Moon Goddesses worshiped in days of old. Interestingly, the finger horn can also be a sign that your wife is cheating on you - evidently a cheating wife is considered one of the worse curses of all.

Extra Added Protection 

A few years ago, when I found out that here in Italy having a bird in the house – either as a pet or by accident – is considered bad luck, it triggered a memory of something that happened years ago. I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. I was with my Grandmother in her kitchen, watching her cook. Out of nowhere a white pigeon landed on the windowsill and walked the few inches of the window sill and came inside the kitchen.

When my Grandmother saw the bird she became visibly upset.  She stopped cooking and went out into the hallway and sat down in the chair that was always by the door. I remember her hands were in the fabric of her apron and she was squeezing them together. A nervous gesture.  I stood next to her and waited to see what was going to happen next. Then she turned to me and said, “my brother is dead.”  That was all she said. And her brother, who was in the Italian army serving in Ethiopia, had indeed been killed in battle.  Like I said, I was only a kid   so I filed it away along with all the other strange things grownups do and say and didn’t think about it again, until now. I read somewhere that the bird in the house is a very old superstition, but I wasn't able to find out how it got started.

Bye Bye Birdie

Turns out there are other things, like covering your mouth when you yawn – which I always thought we did just to be polite, are also based on superstitions. The real reason we cover our mouths is so evil spirits don’t enter our bodies. After all, God gave Adam life by breathing into his mouth – so what’s to stop the Devil from trying the same trick?

Then there is that old habit of saying Bless You, when someone sneezes. That simple saying is a carry-over from the days of the Roman Empire when sneezing was a sign that you had a dreaded disease. When someone sneezed the Romans thought it best to offer up a short prayer to the king of the Gods, Jupiter. A “long may you live,” or “may you enjoy good health,” or a simple “Jupiter, help me” would usually do the trick. Whichever one you chose brought hope that Jupiter would protect you if from whatever the other person was sneezing out. For the unfortunate sneezer, the hope was that Jupiter would help them expel the disease within and keep them healthy.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just in southern Italian thing. In Milan they take the Evil Eye and other superstitions very seriously. The worn out nether parts of the mosaic bull on the pavement in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in downtown Milan is proof of that. Even those who claim to be non-believers can’t resist the Milanese tradition of twirling around three times on the bull’s dangling bits in the hope that it will keep the evil spirits at bay and bring them luck. So the next time you are in Milan make sure you visit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and give it a twirl. You won’t have any problem finding the bull mosaic, there is always a crowd of people waiting there to take their turn.

 

 A Cimaruta

If you are the nervous type and don’t want to wait until you get to Milan, you might want to wear a cimaruta around your neck. Some even hang this Italian charm on their babies cribs to protect them from the Evil Eye. After all, there’s no point in tempting fate. At least with the protection of a cimaruta, you’ll gain favor with the Goddess Diana, Queen of the Italian witches, and that can only be a good thing. I know I’m going to get one and hang it on my computer. Better safe than sorry, no?

So while we Americans have no problem roasting up a turkey and brazenly give thanks for all we have, the wary Italians prefer to go about their business of living large and enjoying life by pretending they are suffering through it all. So now that you know the rules, cross your fingers, touch wood, and make the sign of the horn because I am going to wish you all a Very Happy Thanksgiving.

ON ANOTHER NOTE

This Italian Life now has a Facebook Page. You can get there by clicking the Facebook badge on the right hand side of the page or going to https://www.facebook.com/thisitalianlife.  I’m still working out the kinks, and the badge is kind of crummy, but it will take you to daily updates of life in Italy.  I hope you’ll check it out, leave a comment or two, and while you are there it would be nice if you gave the page a Like.  Thanks. 

LIFE: Mother and Daughter Together Again (in jail)

SARONNO, Italy  - While I was doing some research  last week I came across an article on Vanna Marchi, a former local television personality. It seems Vanna is now out of Milan’s San Vittore prison on an early release program and working at a local bar. That’s the same program that Patrizia Gucci turned down as it requires the convicted criminal to have a J.O.B. 

Vanna Marchi

In the early 90’s Vanna Marchi ran a profitable business selling magical cures on her popular late night television program. Viewers would call in and tell her their problems and she would offer them a solution. Some wanted to win the lottery, others wanted to know if their husband or wife was cheating on them or if a loved one was going to recover from a serious disease or operation. Others wanted to lose weight and wanted a little of Vanna’s magic to help them.  

One of her best-selling products was a “skinny belly” cream that she said had miraculous slimming properties. The cost of the offer was 3 jars for $100, which, in the early 90’s was a lot of money. Another slimming product made from micronized dandelion and algae extract, and I don't remember if you were suppose to drink it or rub it on your body.  

Vanni Marchi at Work

Throughout the entire TV transmission Vanna spoke in a very loud and shrill voice that apparently the viewers loved, especially her tag line, “d’accordooooooo?”, which is Italian for OK? She was so popular, the Pomodores, an Italian pop group, recorded a song about her entitled “Want to Marchi,” which was distributed on a single 7 inch 45 RPM vinyl in the late 1980’s.  She was also  on a TV show called Superclassifica, which has gone down in history as the beginning of trash TV in Italy. 

She was such a part of the Italian culture that she was hired to appear in a comedy film about a “snake oil” salesman back in the Middle Ages who claimed to have found a cure for the plague. It seemed la Marchi had made her mark – if you’ll excuse the pun.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

But then in the early 90’s she was arrested, along with her daughter Stefania Nobile, Mario Pacheco Do Nascimento, a self-styled Brazilian magician and Francesco Campana, her former lover and Vanna found herself in the center of a huge legal battle. She was convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy, a very serious charge in Italy, with a secondary charge of fraud and aggravated criminal association to commit fraud through her television program. 

Her initial legal problems centered around the fact that after she had declared bankruptcy and shortly thereafter was back on television as an employee of the Axe Company of Milan. The company owners were listed as Stefania Nobile, Vanna daughter, and the magician Mario Pacheco Do Nascimento. In other words, they were all still in business and the business was far from bankrupt.

Vanna and Mago Pacheco

In late 2001, she was arrested again – this time for fraud. She was charged with selling lucky numbers for the lottery and ritual kits guaranteed to make your every wish come true – even if that wish was to see your ex-husband hanging by his maroni in a public piazza. She also sold talismans and amulets against the 'evil eye,' something all Italian dread. In order to understand if your run of bad luck was just bad luck or the result of someone putting the ‘evil eye’ on you, viewers were instructed to dissolve a 2lb box of salt in a half a liter of water. According to Vanna, if the salt didn’t fully dissolve, that was proof positive that someone had put the ‘evil eye’ on you and it was in your best interest to buy one of her "solutions." What the callers didn't know was that sodium chloride (common salt), as all salts, has a limit of solubility in water. If the amount of salt exceeds a certain concentration, it can’t disolve and sinks to the bottom of the container. 

What I remember best were the people who called in asking for lottery numbers for specific lotteries, say the one in Naples, or the one in Catania. Everyone wanted a little of Vanna’s magic and they were willing to pay substantial amounts for it. Vanna sold that service as an investment. Little did the callers know that the lottery numbers, that were told were “customized” for each client were all the same number.

Vanna During the Trial

Vanna's career ended when daughter Stefania was recorded talking to clients who had called in and did not want to buy any of Vanna’s magical products. Stefania was heard wishing them “all the evil in the world”, and predicting terrible misfortunes in their lives. Well, you know how superstitious the Italians are. (See http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.com/2011/11/auntie-pasta-giving-thanks.html ) so of course many callers changed their minds and bought the useless products.

On April 3, 2006, Vanna Marchi and her daughter were sentenced to serve two years and six months for conspiracy to commit fraud and an additional 10 years for an assortment of other charges, as were Pacheco Do Nascimento and Francesco Campagna. They were also required to return more than 2 million euros ( $2.5 dollars) plus an additional 40 million euros ($50,000) to their victims.  

Is That Humble Pie?

 Poor Vanna Marchi. She’s come a long way from a popular television personality to a minimum wage bar maid in a local Milan bar, but I guess she feels that the embarrassment and humiliation of working for a living are better than sitting in jail. Maybe if she had a pet ferret and a couple of plants to keep her company, like Mrs. Gucci, it would have made a difference, but somehow I don’t think so. Nor do I think we’ve seen the last of Vanna Marchi.

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AUNTIE PASTA: Giving Thanks

SARONNO, Italy –  One thing I know is it’s difficult to change the habits of a lifetime. I’m talking about Thanksgiving. For me, it’s hard to get into the spirit of Christmas until I’ve had Thanksgiving. But here in Italy, where they love holidays that fall on Thursday and extend into Friday and even Monday if they can get away with it,  they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  It’s not that they aren’t fascinated by the idea of giving thanks for what you have, but what do they have to be thankful for they ask. For those of us looking in from the outside, you have to think they are kidding, right? They’re not.

 Thanksgiving Greeting from Saronno

It’s not as callous an idea as you may think. Not being too happy about something is part and parcel of the Italian DNA.  If you are too happy about something, no, I take that back, if you show that you are too happy about something, you risk putting a jinx – the Malocchio or Evil Eye - on the very thing you are happy about. 

The Evil Eye is best described as a curse that can be triggered by something as simple as a compliment.  For example, if someone tells you your baby is beautiful, beware! The fates have been tempted. You must immediately make the sign of the  horn sign to protect your child from the Evil Eye.  

"Two Versions of The Horn"

When I first moved to Italy, I was told by an Genovese lawyer that if I wanted to succeed in Italy, I would have to stop smiling so much.  And not only that, but if someone asked me how I was, the answer should never be –‘great.’ A better, safer answer, he counseled, would be “in somma.” Which loosely translated means, “I’m doing the best I can but it’s a struggle.” Truth is, at that time “in somma” was closer to my reality than “great,” so I had no problem adopting the more “evil eye” proof response.

 

Superstition has been part of Italian life since the dawn of time.  Using your fingers to make what is called in Italy “the horns” is in reality a version of a crescent moon shape  which is representative of various Moon goddesses worshiped in days of old. Interestingly, the finger horn can also be a sign that your wife is cheating on you - obviously the worse curse of all - a cheating wife.

Turns out there are other things, like covering your mouth when you yawn – which I always thought we did just to be polite, are superstitions.  The real reason we cover our mouths is so evil spirits don’t enter our bodies. After all, God gave Adam life by breathing into his mouth – so what’s to stop the Devil from trying the same trick? Then there is that old habit of saying Bless You, when someone sneezes. 

Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele

That simple saying is a carry-over from the days of the Roman Empire when sneezing was a sign that you had a dreaded disease. When someone sneezed the Romans thought it best to offer up a short prayer to the Gods – “long may you live,” or “may you enjoy good health,” or a simple “Jupiter, help me,”  they would say. Whichever one you chose brought the hope that Jupiter would protect those unlucky enough to be around someone who was sneezing,  and hopefully expel the disease from the unfortunate person who sneezed.

Even Locals Take a Twirl

Here in Milan, they take the Evil Eye and other superstitions very seriously. Even those who claim to be non-believers  can’t resist the Milanese tradition of twirling around three times on the bull’s nether parts, which is supposed to bring luck and ward off evil spirits. So the next time you are in Milan, make sure you visit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and give it a twirl. You won’t have any problem finding the mosaic with the bull in it, there is always a crowd of people waiting to take their turn. No point in tempting fate. 

So while we Americans have no problem roasting up a turkey and giving thanks for all we have, the wary Italians prefer to go about their business of living large and enjoying life and pretending they are suffering through it all. So, now that you know the rules, cross your fingers , touch wood, and make the sign of the horn because I am going to wish you all a Very Happy Thanksgiving Day.

And a note for Muzik Girl – I'm sorry I don’t know the name of the soup,  but I do know quite a few people from Puglia and I’ll  ask them. As soon as I have an answer for you I’ll post it on the blog.