Cose Fantastiche

There are times when I am given evidence, that yes I really am Italian. This does not mean Italian-American, which has its own weird culture I was never exposed to. All of my interaction with my relatives has actually been in Italy, so really I'm just straight up Italy Italian. The effect is probably not obvious to people, even those who know me really well, and sometimes I'm criticized for being 'pretentious'. For the record, I'm not for two reasons 1. I like stereotypically populist sorts of things as well as stereotypically elitist things, and 2. I'm European, deal with it. Not speaking Italian fluently for a long time has made it difficult at times for me to own my identity, but it is half of the picture of who I am and it has partially defined my lifestyle, food palate, fashion sense, and even music taste. Observe below.

My friend Marina was on my computer the other day watching stuff related to King Arthur because she's just weird and awesome like that. Today in my Youtube history I found what she was looking at: 'King Arthur' sung by Valerie Dore, which part of an italo-disco Arthurian concept album in the 80s. As I watched this in wonder I felt my Italian-sense tingling.



And then I watched "Lancelot" which is a huge stadio show, which means that at one point there were thousands of Italians out there capable of appreciating the majesty that is this song. And the only thing cuter than the happily waving people in the crowd are the comments of people musing on Youtube in Italian about all their nostalgic flashbacks brought on by this song "Ahh che bei ricordi!"



The world is a changed changed place due to the Italians that made italo-disco like this possible. Yes, its ridiculous, and yes, its amazing something like this not only existed but had a real following. It's times like these when I'm seriously proud to be Italian.