I had thought of opening this post with some striking statement (as I often do) regarding the fact that the thing I perhaps miss most when writing in a language that is not Italian, is swearing. I have to rethink this now, as during my very first French class the other day, the professor immediately enlightened us on the crazy variety of French underground idioms, and all the related swearing possibilities.

However, there is still one thing I definitely do miss, that is giving people and things nicknames, and deforming names. Had I written in Italian, I’d have always said Sprinzi or Brus for Springsteen, fàcebox for facebook and similar nonsense. The best part of it was making English words Italian (the only example coming to mind, and unfortunately not of my creation, is Ernesto & Giovane for Ernst & Young).

I actually find it strange how, after only this short time I’ve been writing a blog in English, all such words have gone out of my brain, when once they were at the top. Imagine that I’m on the verge of making comments in French here and there while I write.

Nevertheless, I do enjoy learning new languages and, if the time comes, trying to express myself through other means than the grammar I was born with. I admit is sounds funny, especially considering I’m not such an expansive person as to talk all day long about everything and anything. What I like most of learning foreign languages – and therefore being able to understand a book or someone speaking other than Italian – is that, if you (want to) learn them thoroughly, you are in the end forced to comply with another way of thinking. From my experience I have noticed that there’s a point, before which you make use of a foreign language as sort of an automatic translator—when you still think in your own language and then try to translate before speaking or writing. But after that point (and it might take very long) you begin to really enter the mindset related to that particular language, and thoughts start to come up that are even difficult to re-translate back into your own tongue.

As you might know, I have this troublesome habit of delving into things that spark my interest more than any normal person would. With foreign languages it’s the same. Now, English is the only one I have perhaps managed to understand and use decorously (French is my next goal, then German, Portuguese and Spanish, if you want to know), and I do feel a huge difference when writing.

I like English. I always have, but especially since, in high school, my at-the-time best friend (who like me was the English professor’s pet) once noted that she loved English because it is so flexible, you could make any word a verb, a noun, an adjective and an adverb; you could give a thing a name, and the next moment you have the whole collection of grammatical beings into life, allowing for a variety that perhaps no other current language knows. I guess this is the reason I like it too. I find it very creative—almost close to some of the word-deforming I myself do in Italian (but less nonsense at least).

So when I read (finally!) George Orwell’s 1984 late this summer, I was dumbstruck at how brilliant – and paradoxical – the creation of Newspeak is. The whole novel is terrifying (and I might swear that while reading my heartbeats went nuts in fear), but the cruelest detail is just the new language. It is at once extraordinary and hideous what Orwell created: starting from the very typical flexibility of the English language, he manages to turn this very principle away from its goal, as far as reversing it—word destruction instead of word creation. Since English allows you to make verbs out of nous (and vice versa), cut one out. Who cares? No opposites are needed: bad is not the opposite of good, since, being another word at all, it implies very different subtleties. Bad is not the opposite of good: ungood is.

By the same means a language uses to expand, to deepen human thoughts and meanings, Newspeak cuts off, eventually, all possibility of thought.

The very idea of a language meant to shrink thought is appalling. But, on closer look, the reverse may explain why I so much love the idea of understanding foreign languages. Thought and word are so strictly linked as to make no thought possible if there is no word to name it: and if it is true that most languages can be translated (to the point that we can read books containing complex concepts, because somebody has been able to render them), it is also true that, on the way of translation, infinite details are lost.

Now I know that I do enter a controversial field, an my own thoughts are very ambivalent over such a subject. I didn’t want to come this far, actually. All I wanted to say is, although I passionately love Italian, I also love foreign languages because, if I can learn them properly, they allow me to enter not only other people’s mind, but the mind of an entire other people. Temporarily yielding my mindset to another means I can access different viewpoints, try to understand, learn, and bring back what I learned to my own mindset.

And here I stop because I’m going metaphysical and this is surely not gonna make a proper article.

[Coming next—JERSEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!!!!! Or Marta’s Adventures in Asbury Park, NJ]

The reason why you haven’t heard of me, despite the fact I’ve been back in Italy for a whole week now, is I’ve spent this time mostly sleeping and reading (and writing, occasionally. I should mention I’m full of ideas and willing to work, though most probably all this enthusiasm will end up in nothing, as always).

My standard day in the last week has been: wake up (by the alarm or not), breakfast, write something (or try to collect past writings), pick up a book and read, have lunch, read, drop asleep, sleep sleep sleep, wake for dinner, have dinner, go to bed and listen to an audiobook chapter (you just can’t imagine how cozy the whole thing is), and then fall asleep again.

Only a week ago, my standard day went about like this: wake up, breakfast, go out. Once out, depending on the day, it was school, or neverending walks downtown, East Village tours, subway to Harlem and gospel masses, or else Penn station to get either a train to Asbury Park or New Haven, or a bus to Boston or Philly. Now that I think of it, I almost cannot believe that just ten days ago I was on the other side of the ocean, and when I woke up I got out and walked up and down MANHATTAN.

In a month, I’ve done a number of things I’d never thought I would ever do. You know I’m lazy, you do. But there my day started at seven and sometimes ended at three in the morning, walking back home from some bar in Greenwich Village, or some rooftop garden club on 5th Ave. In-between, there was school, there were organized visits, there were parks and museums and shopping – I swear I never shopped more in my life – and Yankee games, concerts, parties, dinners, movies. The list might go on, as I’m surely forgetting things.

And the most interesting part is: New York City is exactly how you’d expect her to be. I can’t count the times I found myself thinking, or exclaiming, <it’s like in the movies! because it really is. Add the fact that, thanks to the (in)famous zero tolerance policy, criminality dropped to such a low rate as to make Manhattan one of the safest areas in the world (which allowed me to walk back home at three in the morning, as I mentioned, in heels or miniskirt). All things put together, in this last month I felt like I were in a gigantic dreamy puffy pink soap balloon: with no problems whatsoever on my shoulders (except how to get rid as soon as possible of groupworks), a whole month in a city where anything is possible (and I mean, anything), with two of my best friends ever, and enough money to back me up.

I still need to catch up with all relevant Italian news, because I paid totally zero attention to any politics when I was there. I felt guilty for that, but on second thought, I was in New York, and when on earth was I to be there again?

On our first days we stayed at a Hilton on 35th street, 27th floor, and the Empire State Building was just one block away—so that we saw its top right at eye level. The first time we saw it we were like: oh, look, that skyscraper’s nice! Then some of us realized: guys… that nice skyscraper is the Empire State Building!, and scenes of collective insanity followed.

And after that, the Union Square dorm, Starbucks, the Puck building, Broadway, 5th Avenue, an amazing night of Mocha-fueled creativity at Starbucks, and its Yellow Tail-flavored critical follow-up; the afternoon I decided I would buy an Elvis vinyl; eating oysters in Boston; the college tour and the Hard Rock Café tour; Central Park and Washington Square Park; Café Wha?, Groove, 230 Fifth Ave; wandering around East Village and meeting my best friends for lunch at Blue Note; my Sunday in Asbury Park (which might deserve a post on its own); Bubba Gump, Times Square!

Now, Times Square does deserve some words. I suppose you all have an idea of what Times Square is. The first time I saw it, well, it was our first day. We had literally just landed, left our bags at the hotel and immediately went out again. We planned to walk from our hotel in 35th street, up to Central Park and back. The first time I entered Times Square, I almost didn’t realize I was entering Times Square. Sounds impossible, but it’s what happened to me.

Love at first sight.

Really.

And it is something I can hardly explain to myself, because Times Square defies every single belief of mine about what I thought I liked. I’m the sort of person who wouldn’t go shopping downtown on a Saturday afternoon because it is too packed; and Times Square is the epitome of packed. I don’t like ads when they’re too insistent, too big or too bright.

…

You got the point.

I think it’s sort of a either-or thing. Either you love it at first sight, as I do—or you despise it from your heart. I don’t know how come I like it. Maybe it’s the ads. Maybe they’re just too flashy they hypnotize you. Maybe it’s like that, and I just didn’t have the strength to resist the charm. And anyway, beside ads, there’s all that people, and colors, and sounds, and smells… all the senses are engaged somehow. It might be pleasant, or it might not – New York is smellier and dirtier than I thought – but it hardly leaves you indifferent.

Oh, and there’s Hard Rock Café in Times Square.

Where I bought all my Born in the U.S.A. 25th Anniversary memorabilia on that same first afternoon. (85 bucks down the drain at once. I had been less than six hours on American soil).

Anyway.

I also experienced the US health system, you know?

I got ill during the last week (right the day of the final exam, incidentally), and I went to the hospital. Despite it being privately funded, its ER was nothing too different from Italian hospitals. Not too shiny, not too beautiful, not too techy. After I came back, everybody was asking about ER doctors—and no, there was no George Clooney to help me. Too bad. I just ended staying home for a couple of days, under drugs, while my friends went to school’s final party on a cruise around Hudson river, and went to see daybreak at the Brooklyn Bridge (and have cheesecake for breakfast) the following morning. A day later, I burned a finger while cooking. Yayy!!

That was some experience.

I can’t wait to go back.

[Coming next—the announced one on writing a foreign vs. your own language. Yes, I’m goona do that]

The first thing I remember of that day is me in the subway seeing a guy with my same Bruce tee on (at that time I had only the Hard Rock Signature Series Tee, you know, the black one with the orange guitar and his signature). I smiled to myself, thinking about Springsteenians finally showing themselves. Later it was Guatti and me, waiting at the tram stop, and a guy approached us saying “You going to the stadium, ain’t you?”, and Guatti, to me (I sporting my tee): “Yeah, there’s something revealing in you…”.

Then the tram arrived. It was some 20 minutes trip, and with each stop it filled with more and more fans—something familiar but bewildering at the same time. What dazzled me most was the spectacular amount of grown-ups – I remember clearly a man who could have been in his… well, way into his fifties at least, grizzled hair and proper Bruce tee and cap – which of course I immediately realized makes perfect sense, given that Bruce himself is no boy anymore; but on the spot I wouldn’t have imagined a rock concert could attract people almost the age of my parents.

But anyway.

We got to the stadium finally—and man, it was huge (first time in San Siro too, by the way)! It was already about 7.30 pm and it was really full. Seeing all those people was thrilling. We met Guatti’s friends who were already there, found our seats, and chatted while looking around.

It is my most heartfelt desire that the person who wrote this banner be male, because I want to marry him. The other remarkable banner we saw missed an “n”—and, though I didn’t know it was a song title at the time, still it had me rolling over the seat.

At 8.30 pm the sky was still clear, and I was on a hype. The ticket said 9.00 pm, but I knew he would start half an hour before because of some noise complaints by residents. So… it was NOW! And I couldn’t wait. You know that feeling, don’t you? Like that Petit Prince abused quote on the kid and the fox. Well, I was about half mad. Recorded music was played back while waiting, and at the end of each song I hoped it would stop so that Bruce could come out.

And then, after much waiting and hoping, he does.

Now, as you can see, we were pretty much apart. I could see him about the size of an ant—but still, it was HIM, and he was DOWN THERE, and he REALLY EXISTED. I had just the time to realize the enormity of these notions, when Max started drumming a song I didn’t know.

“Ciao Milano!”—crowd roar,—“Fa abbastanza caldo?”—crowd roar,—“Fa abbastanza caldo?”—crowd roar,—“Ci scalderemo ancora di più!”.

And it was Summertime Blues. After that, again, “Andiamo Milano!” led the way to Out in the street. From then on, for three full hours (three full hours and yes, he turns sixty this year) it was mass insanity—people singing along, clapping, screaming, dancing, roaring. I contributed all the way – I think I never danced more except at my grad party – and at the end I went out the stadium in a sweat, knees trembling and a harsh thirst.

In between about 8.45 pm, when it started, and 11.45 pm, when it ended, it’s been an ever-growing climax: as songs went by and I realized they were MANY, an argument began in the back of my head between the tiny voice of rationality, wondering when was he going to stop and murmuring that he HAD to, some time or other, and the exultant voice of irrationality that, for the whole time, kept reason in chains (it wasn’t that hard, anyway).

Writing a complete report of how it was, could be at the same time almost simple, and unbearably difficult. Apart from my natural slow writing, for which I claim no excuse, you should know that in the immediately following days, I did write down something; but I never finished. Two, three, four days after it, my memory still flourished with things to remember, to write, to say, to tell people—but then, when jotted down, they all sounded a long long shopping list of adjectives and song titles, complete each with a detailed analysis of what that particular wording or chord meant to me. Which, yes, might be liberating and useful to myself, but I suppose substantially boring to everyone else.

(And no, don’t pretend you’re interested in everything I say, because I know you are not).

Not that I didn’t want to have my take at telling my story. I still do.

It’s exactly a story that I want to tell. Not an annotated setlist, not a description of the complete spectrum of human emotions. Which means, among other things, cutting.

But hell. It is damn hard.

You’d wanna say everything, so that people can taste, or at least imagine, how you felt in that particular moment, because of that particular thing he sung, or did, or said. But then you cannot simply write it down, because every single moment should be properly explained, and if done with words it would require some zillion pages.

You’d wanna say how proud and honored you felt when he climbed up the stage, grabbed the mike and spoke your language, when his “Milano Milano Milano Milano” at one point seemed to melt into a raucous “Vi amo vi amo vi amo vi amo”, when he stressed the word “Italians” in his immigrant song.

You’d wanna describe the thrill through your spine as you felt songs even before they began, and the awe in meeting the ones you didn’t know. You’d wanna explain how it was possible for you to hear the songs you loved on two tracks at the same time in your mind: the one your ears captured, and the one your memory let surface after years not listening to them. (… I guess this requires neurosciences or something like that. It was crazy, really).

You’d wanna tell how much you laughed at his gags, when you saw him run through the audience shaking hands, kissing girls, dancing, touching and being touched, sliding, jumping and running through the whole stage. Your fit of laugh when you saw him roll on the stage while playing his guitar during Rosalita, and your speechlessness when you saw somebody beating the rhythm on his knee while he sang I’m on fire.

The first song of his that got under your skin, sung along by a whole jumping stadium and making your heart full. Racing, and you positively wanting to strangle all those assholes clapping right as Roy’s solo began—that solo you worshipped from the very first time.

And then Bobby Jean, Last to die, Spirit, Badlands and the whole stadium o-o-o-oo-oohing for five full minutes after the song was over, and stopping only when an encore was assured. See how easily it all comes down to a list? Music’s evocativeness is such that after experiencing it you are left speechless when asked to word what you… what you what? What you felt? What you experienced? What you imagined? What you thought?

As for me, I think I could spend infinite time telling how it happened that I started listening to music, that I started listening to Bruce, and all that pretty details that make anecdotes. But when it comes to what it means, well, that’s hard, confused and, worst, always in progress.

One thing right now is clear to me, though. It took just a harmonica and a long, full blow to understand. You know, the first notes to that song called The Promised Land.

On that, I felt like home.

[Coming next—on writing a foreign vs. your own language]

First WP post! It looks all so pro down here, and I have to adjust—moving from Splinder ain’t easy, you know… some technology jump for me, being used to a dumb-user-friendly platform. Well, I’ll make it with time, I guess.

First-posting is always lame with me. We all know that. Although this oh-so-serious WP blog is supposed to introduce me to the English-speaking blogosphere—that is, ultimately, to THE blogosphere. Well, you find more info on me in the About the girl page, and I’m gonna upload other info pages next days. All of you who already know me for some reason… well, you know me—and you just have to switch language. All of you who don’t know me, hello! Nice to meet you, and I hope we’ll get along well!

[Coming next: 1st Anniversary—my San Siro 2008 fairy tale]