100,000 views + and my nomination for best Foreign Film at the OSCARs

I have had this blog since 2007, I did not write anything in 2008 and then started to write in earnest ever since on various topics of interest to me.

Today I surpassed the 100,000 view mark, a milestone of people viewing my blog from around the world. The largest readers are from the USA and then Canada followed by Russia, UK, Australia, France, Italy, Germany, Poland.
I am quite happy with that number and with people reading and on occasion commenting. Thank you to my readers.

On another topic, the Oscars are this weekend, I usually pay very little attention to the Oscars, to me it is not on the same level as other Film Awards and often looks biased. However this year I do hope that the Italian film of Paolo Sorrentino, La Grande Bellezza (the great beauty) will win the prize for best Foreign Film. The actors are well known, Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone and Sabrina Ferilli.

I absolutely loved this film and it made me cry, which does not happen often at movies, if ever.
Maybe because Will and I lived in Rome and feel that Rome to us is like our home, we have been taken by the eternal beauty of the Città but also the life of the City and so many other facets that make it a wonderful place.

In the final closing moments of the film, the camera cruises the Tiber going towards the Vatican and the bend in the river, going under several bridges I crossed many times, I can name them, the buildings are all very familiar, the last building to appear is the Mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian known as Castel San Angelo which is featured in the final scene of the Opera Tosca.

Maybe Rome is the great beauty or maybe it is for Jep something else. At any rate I am very happy I saw this movie and hope to see it again soon.

Che piacevole film

Who is a celebrity?

Not having a television at home now for several years means that we do not follow regular programming of any kind. We also do not go to main stream cinema, the big release with this or that Hollywood actor or actress is of little interest to me to the point that I often do not know who they are  when they are mentioned in the news. Neither do I care, the reason being that a good actor will get to be known on his or her merit and for the body of his or her work. To be famous because you have a certain physical look or good plastic or dental surgery does not make talent nor interesting personality.

Then you have celebrities who embrace a cause, you name the cause. Yes a good idea as long as it does some good or raises a profile but beyond that I question the motivation. A celebrity flies in to visit a camp full of poor people in the middle of nowhere and has pictures taken. Another is pictures with animals another with sick children. All good to raise awareness but again what is the long term value of such gestures given the world we live in where a new cause emerges everyday. At a recent Hockey game, the team used it's celebrities to gather from the fans 26,000 teddy bears to be given to poor children. A nice gesture, but given that in Canada, we are told one million children live in poverty and the numbers are growing, many in the public asked would food and warm clothing have been a better option or of more lasting value than some teddy bear?

The celebrities I know but do not follow every breath, are usually personalities who are in the theatre, opera or dance world, writers, musician or persons who left a mark on our world by tangible accomplishments. TV personalities I do not care for, movie actor and actresses, I appreciate are mostly elderly or dead or very well established with a large body of work. Sports personalities I do not care for either, they are playing a game, they have talent but beyond that no I am not interested.

So when one of those so called celebrities dies like this week in a fiery car crash and the name is on every possible news story, I ask who is this? Likely to be forgotten in a year or so. To me it is fabricated celebrity status made up by the Media, telling us this person is a celeb. Nothing new here really it has always been thus, though now it is in overdrive, perfectly ordinary people and people who behave badly can become celebrities for the power to shock.

I also do not believe that winning an Oscar is proof of talent or celebrity status. Though we are told this is the mark of achievement in the North American Movie Industry.

So I consider myself free of celebrities, I know of people whose name are household commodities, some I may consider to be famous for what they have done but nothing more. It will certainly not condition my view, attitude or behaviour based on a celebrity.

Maybe not having a television helps in bringing peace and order in how one thinks, you have time to focus on something else instead of a box or screen talking to you with the constant parade of celebrities and experts.

At Christmas time, I do like a lot of people enjoy my peace and quiet, a time for reflection, so doing without lots of electronics and intrusion from so-called celebrities, is a blessing in itself.

Birthdays

Our little puppies, well not anymore, will turn 4 years old this coming week.

Imagine four years ago, we went shortly after their birth to Capena a small town just a few kilometers outside of Rome, a suburb by today's standard. Capena is famous for being in antiquity a town for wealthy Romans who had villas. Marcus Tulius Cicero (the father of lawyers) was one, Livia, Empress of Rome, mother of Tiberius and wife of Augustus, also had her famous summer villa at Prima Porta.

We had heard, I do not remember how, of the Casa degli Orsi, (the house of the bears) which is a breeding kennel for Wire hair Dachshunds and for Saint Bernard's, two very different breeds of dogs.
The kennel is owned by a well known Veterinarian Dr. Massimo B. and his wife Tiziana who have won many trophies and awards.

We loved the farm or kennel, lots of big trees and meadows and old stone farm house, there was also a big pool full of Koi fish. The two bitches who were with their litters were inside the house. The puppies being new born still had their eyes close and were very small, smaller than my hand. Tiziana picked up one little female puppy and then went over to the other box and picked up a little male. The two mothers looked alarmed and kept an eye out so that their puppies would not be harmed. When she returned them to their respective boxes the mothers licked them, checking that nothing had happened to them.

The male dogs who fathered the litter were kept outside in a pen with the other wire hair dachshunds.

With Will at the farm in Capena, left Nora and right Nicky at 6 weeks.

We decided then to adopt the two puppies and left them at the farm to return 6 weeks later to pick them up. We also had to think of a name for them, in Italy you cannot give just any name to your dog, there is a complex registration process and papers have to be filled out, it is as we say ''la bella face''. We had a contest on the internet and a friend came up with Nicky and Nora as in the 1940 movies about Nick and Nora Charles. It was explained to us that both dogs could not have names starting with the letter N, so a device was invented to go around this rule.

Our Nora before her grooming session at the Salon.

Nora close up in 2010, Rome

So our female dog was named Eleonora della Casa degli Orsi, we call her Nora for short. Her father was Hungarian, Erik Ligetfalvi, her mother was Italian and named Lucy.

Nora was born on 19 February 2009, feisty even has a new born with a hunting dog mentality, very independent.

Our Nicky, we named Fantastico Nicky, born 23 February 2009. Both parents are Hungarian, the father was Indian Catullus and his mother Filomena Catullus. Nicky is not a hunter more of a show dog  like his father, life is a catwalk, very vain, he knows he is beautiful, how can dogs know this, he knows, its his Italian side, all style.

Fantastico Nicky groomed for his birthday on Saturday 23 February.

We got proof of origin for pure bred dogs (Hungary) and registration of birth in Italy and then permits were issued by the province of Lazio (Rome) with their Health Certificates. We being the owners had to provide proof of identity and our Codice Fiscale or tax number. They also got their European Union international chip inserted when we went to bring them back to Rome.

This is by far my favourite photo of Nicky in our den at home in Rome on Via dei Villini.

The trip back to the City down Via Tiberina and then Via Salaria in our car was comical, Nora was happy to go and settled quickly, while Nicky whined all the way for 25 minutes, very unhappy to leave his family and the farm. It turns out that Nora has a large vocabulary of sounds to tell you things and will bark at you to indicate different things that she wants. While Nicky whines, he does not bark unless he is upset about something and it is usually one sharp bark. He may give a low ominous growl as a warning but that is all. He can also tell time, per example 7am is breakfast time, 17:35 is dinner time and 22:00 is bedtime, if you forget not to worry he will remind you. He is very precise about such things, we just find it strange. I suspect he as a little watch like a Piaget hidden in his kennel.

Nora and Nicky on the ancient Via Appia, posing by a funeral monument in the Spring time, Rome.

Happy Birthday to our little Dachshunds who bring so much joy to our life.