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Non capisco!


About once a week I get an e-mail from something called the Italian Cultural Institute in New York.  I don't know why.  I know nothing about them and have no idea how I got on their mailing list.  But I generally take a quick look at the e-mail, because every now and then I see something interesting.

The other day I got one of these and saw what appeared to be a potentially interesting lecture today.  It was by a professor named Stefano Jossa, currently at Royal Holloway, the University of London.  He was going to be speaking on his new book, in Italian, but the title of which in English would be The Most Beautiful in the World: Why Love the Italian Language.  It sounded intriguing, it was free, all you had to do was register and get a Zoom link.  So I did.

It turned out that the lecture was actually being sponsored not by the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, but rather by the one in Montreal.  But who cares, right?  As long as it's not in French, which didn't appear to be the case.

And wasn't.  Not in French at all.  Unfortunately -- the whole thing was in Italian.

Needless to say, I left the Zoom meeting reasonably quickly.  But if you're interested, you can evidently see a recording of it here!
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