Branding is everything. Whenever anyone disputes this point, my husband brings up Altria. They saw a jump in investors when they stopped calling themselves Philip Morris. Altria sounds new and youthful. Philip Morris sounds like a hacking cough. So while I was impressed with some of the copywriting I saw in the U.K., as well…
Ladies and Gentleman, when I’m not doing a half-assed job of recounting my trips across the world with my husband, I am (removes glasses a la Clark Kent) … A COPYWRITER!!! Okay, fine. So it’s not that exciting. I don’t pop into phonebooths and tear off my clothes at the first sign of trouble ……
Yes, I realize that isn’t a proper parody of the Star Trek tagline. But I can’t put a split infinitive in a title, can I? Not that that stops me from using them, but … well, whatever. Saturday was Halloween, and I’m of the firm belief that Halloween should always happen on a Saturday, because it…
For the most part, I get the English. I really do. I know that we’re “two countries separated by a common langauge” (or something equally obnoixous and clever), but for the most part, I understand and am pretty familiar with English culture. My mom spent her childhood split between the U.K and Italy, and my…
I can’t quite remember when it started. It might have been when I first saw La Revista Di La Television con Vinny Vedici. It’s a SNL sketch where Bill Heder plays an Italian talk show host.. When I first saw it, my jaw dropped. Rand asked if it was real Italian. “No … it’s jibberish.”…
So, common knowledge is that if you try learning a language after puberty, you’re hosed. This makes high school foreign language requirements even more diabollically evil than previously imagined (Did you know the word “embarazada” in Spanish actually means pregnant? Do you know how many kids in my 9th grade Spanish class said they were…
25 years ago, an American couple traveling in Italy snatched up a hunk of some ruins as a souvenir, and wracked with guilt, returned it decades later. “We appreciate the gesture,” Italian police were quoted as saying. “But WTF. It’s a rock. It’s not like we even realized it was gone.”*
Last week, the hubby and I found ourselves in Munich for National Beer Day (insert joke here about how every day is National Beer Day in Bavaria). The hubby had a beer, and I had Johannisbeer juice, which we determined, after a lengthy discussion that nearly involved diagrams, to be currant juice (clearly, I am…
Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury
by Geraldine DeRuiter
Available Now!
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