Author: Mara L.

Jens, I read your piece on the movie In Bruges. I rented it myself, and it resonated greatly with me. It’s a truly funny movie, something I’ve come to appreciate more than I used to. And yet, it reminded me almost too much of the heavy layer of boredom weighing down on life in many small-cum-beautiful European towns. I guess I’ve become addicted to the irreverent and quick-paced spirit of Manhattan. Think of all the Sundays in my teenage life at home in Italy, feeling I could go straight back to bed because there wasn’t going to be anything to do that I hadn’t done a 1000 times already. And think of the parental advice to go and see (yet again) one of the wonderful museums and parks in my hometown. It made me sick, though admittedly, something must have rubbed off or else I wouldn’t be an architect. In any case, the movie has my highest recommendation for all ex-pat Europeans who are struggling with reverse culture shock when they go back home, and who still have a resilient love in them for the beauty of bygone times, set into stone in many of the places the likes of me come from. Five stars. *****

Friday evening, I went to the opening of a show that I liked better than anything I’ve seen in Chelsea during the past couple of years: Alison Rossiter at Yossi Milo’s gallery.

Perhaps that’s an overstatement. Really, I should say that I liked it better than any photography show I saw recently here in Manhattan. Rossiter’s work is thoroughly modern, in a way that is shockingly rare. Here’s one of my favorites: Eastman Kodak Royal Bromide, expired March 1919, processed in 2010.

August isn’t the greatest month for grocery shopping, whether you’re in Italy or in Manhattan. It’s just too hard to keep things fresh. For the past weeks, I’ve carried cool packs through the city when I wanted to get fish and meat. It’s so hot that things would spoil on one’s way home. Yesterday, however, I grew a bit tired of it all, returning from one of my favorite grocery stores, not having found anything that I would have liked to cook. I was hit by a rare attack of nostalgia, my thoughts wandering back to the old world, my old life, and my favorite market: Padua’s market at Palazzo della Ragione, famous for its poultry and game. I think of Padua’s market at my saddest moments. I guess I mentioned this before: A few years ago, I spent a rather awful winter in the Veneto. But I also think of it with a painful desire to be there, and to go back, even if only for a while, to the kind of life where inspecting the produce at several stalls, having one’s favorite seller for every kind of food, and going home with a happy plan in one’s mind for dinner, belongs to one’s daily routine.