TY  - BOOK
AU  - Severgnini,Beppe
TI  - La bella figura: a field guide to the Italian mind 
SN  - 0767914392
AV  - DG 451  .Se83 2006
PY  - 2006///
CY  - New York
PB  - Broadway Books
KW  - National characteristics, Italian
KW  - Italy
KW  - Description and travel
KW  - Social life and customs
KW  - 1945-
N1  - Day 1: Malpensa -> Milan: The airport, where we discover that Italians prefer exceptions to rules -- The highway, or the psychopathology of the stoplight -- The hotel, where singular people are not content with a double room -- Day 2 & 3: Milan: The restaurant, one way of sitting in judgment -- The store, the field of lost battles -- The nightspot, where foxes turn into peacocks -- The condominium, a vertical space for oblique obsessions -- The eat-in kitchen, the nerve center of domestic counterespionage -- The bedroom, the bathroom, and how hard it is to find space of your own -- Day 4: -> Tuscany: The train, where many talk, few listen, and everyone understands -- The museum, beautiful women on the walls -- Television, where the semi-undressed signorina acquires a cloak of significance -- Day 5: Tuscany: The countryside, where we show that Italians are the world's leading manufacturers of emotions -- The Italian piazza, a tool with more cutting edges than a Swiss-army knife -- The window, framing fantasies that are sometimes cut short by a shutter -- Day 6: Rome: The bank, a confrontation of confidence and cold feet -- The office, the opera house of orderly anarchy -- The shopping mall, a taste of America delivered to your door -- Day 7: Naples: The sidewalk, or on collective individualism -- The automobile, and fumbling on the fold-down seats -- The travel agency, where the nation flexes its flippancy and pampers its patriotism -- Day 8: Sardinia: The waterfront, the convoluted charm of a liquid frontier -- The beach, a bare outline -- The garden, seclusion in bloom -- Day 9: Crema: The barber, the newsstand, and the town as a lifebelt -- The monument. And yet it moves -- School, the workshop where shared memories are made -- Day 10: Crema -> Malpensa, via San Siro: The church, where we will ruminate on the moral menu -- The stadium, notes on social gastroenterology -- The horizon. In other words, give us back Columbus -- Epilogue: A letter from America
N2  - An offbeat odyssey into the heart of Italy and the Italian people captures the colorful character of the nation in a ten-day journey to thirty destinations that reveal Italy's best, worst, and most authentic aspects
UR  - http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0633/2005058243-b.html
ER  -