I cheated a bit on today’s Daily Create, which asked us to “take a photo of your favorite watering hole.” As soon as I saw the prompt I knew I was going to recycle a short video I took a few months back when I was first discovering the new environment I found myself in Italy.
The above video features a fountain in front of Villa Mersi, a majestic Villa located directly in front of my kids’ school in Villazzano, Italy. I took the clip and uploaded it to Vimeo. Then I used GIFFY to make a quick GIF. I don’t have too many applications on my machine these days; I’m doing almost everything online. But I debated downloading GIMP and MPEG Streamclip to make this one perfect, but I chilled. I think the point of this GIF, and the post more generally, is that my immediate surroundings could not be further from the reality of the Old West. I think that is part of the reason I am excited about the Western-themed version of ds106. It’s a link back to the mythical motherland.
That said, Italy is well-known for its own fascination with the West, the Spaghetti Western being the more popular example. But there is another pop culture exploration of the American West in Italy that is not as well-known in the U.S., the comic Tex, based on the fictional character Tex Willer. The comic has been around since the late 1940s, and it is still in every Tabacchi you go into. I think I am going to spend some time exploring Tex, given it will help me establish my Italian as well as give me a different perspective on the global phenomenon that is the Old West.
