"Be Italian"

Poodletail sent me this preview for Nine, which appears to be a musical version of Fellini's 8 1/2. (Yep, due out in late November.) Daniel Day Lewis and Judy Dench... Wow.
If I get discouraged on my moviemaking weekend in Montana [2 posts down], I shall watch this again. And again.

I was writing just this morning about how my personality matches my watery zodiac sign. I've always struggled with feeling bad-and-lazy here in the industrious U.S. Midwest. (I don't intellectually assent to the negative judgment; but I feel it anyway.)
I could just as well--and far more proudly!--say, I'm living up to my glorious Italian heritage. (Is this true? Who cares: Lie for Italia!)

Here's what American Marlena de Blasi says in A Thousand Days in Venice (2002) about Italians, work, and time:

"The Italian knows that speed––say, the fitting in of another appointment or hurrying to finish something he can finish tomorrow––will not give him more satisfaction but less, if such preposterous acts interfere with his rituals. An espresso and a chat with friends will always come before the installation of your baseboard. And he knows that because you are such a lovely person, you would applaud his sense of values.

"... Italians have learned about patience more than almost anyone else. They know that, in the end, a few months, a few years, one way or another, will not cast long shadows over your well-being nor enlarge it. The Italian understands wrinkles in time."