Tag Archives: just for fun

~Simply Gianluca~ by Daniela

Leafing through here and there, I found these beautiful thoughts of a girl who met Gianluca on the beach of Roseto.  Her name is Valeria, another Valeria, Valeria Tirelli and her favorite is Gianluca.

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With his warm, velvety voice, he caresses the soul’s cords.

With his sweetness, with his kindness, with his generosity in wanting to give you a smile, a word, a hug, he steals your heart.

I’m really happy to have had the opportunity to meet Gianluca Ginoble.

Because I did not meet the famous singer, but he, Gianluca, the “normal” guy, the one who did not change (and I hope it never happens) from the huge, well deserved success achieved along with the other guys from Il Volo.

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Together, they enchant audiences around the world with those wonderful voices.  Meeting  Gianluca face to face, he has enchanted me.

Impossible not to be touched by his way of being, so humble, so normal, or by his sweetness, which you perceive in every gesture, in every look, in every smile.

Gianluca is the furthest you can be from how, a bit all of us, we imagine are the famous people.

If, as happened to me, you have the good fortune to meet him outside of the official occasions, you feel on your skin of having in front of you,  a very special boy.  He is kind and helpful, curious and attentive to anyone approaching him to say hello, for a photo or an autograph.

 

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Even if he is in a hurry, he does not deny a few minutes of his time to anyone, ever, going (and it is something that I would like to underline, having lived it in person) far beyond what would be “normally” due to the fans.

So I thank him for his time, for the photo, for the autograph, for those few minutes in which he spoke with us, treating us in a very exquisite way and giving us a precious moment to put in the album of memories.

I hope I’m lucky enough to meet him again.

 

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I am convinced of one thing: only true great artists, and only those who have the merit of being beautiful souls, like Gianluca, are able to enter people’s hearts in this way.

And once they enter, they stay there forever.

Roseto Degli Abruzzi 20 August 2016

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Valeria Tirelli is the girl in the center

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Translated by Daniela

 

Credit to all owners of photos.

Personally Speaking~ Ignazio the Cook ~

 

First of all I must tell you that Ignatius here does not provide a real recipe but it is as if he were making an imitation of some Italian chef because he uses a deeply accented language in southern Italian.

Translation: 

So all right,

We roast the zucchini already sprinkle with the red wine.  Spadelliamo ( = stir -fry) for good as Cannavacciuolo ( famoso cuoco italiano del momento) teaches.

All right, take paper towel and clean everything.   Ciao. (kiss)

 

It is better understood that they are zucchini cut into cubes and fry with a little oil, sprinkle the courgettes with red wine and sauté them (stir-fry), mixing the zucchini well with the wine.

 

Note the sharp chef’s jacket.  This guy is serious about his skills!  

Ignazio has always had a flair for cooking.  Here he is way back in 2013, making Scaloppine alla Marsala!

This is a sweet short interview from 2013 where Ignazio talks about his favorite food and his Mammas cooking.  Marie and I were lucky enough to actually go to Nina’s Pizzeria.  It is a cozy little place with three smiling young women who make GREAT pizza!

Nina and her staff

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Marie…Nina…Jane

to Jane 10

 

So who would like this dashing chef to come and cook for them?  I think we will all have to get in line BEHIND Marie and Loretta! 🙂

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Translation of video by our very own Daniela!

Credit to all owners of videos.

~ Italian-American-Venezuelan Il Volo Fluff ~

Marie recently sent me two video clips she thought we would all enjoy.  She coined them “Il Volo fluff.”  The first is a clip from an interview in Venezuela and as an added plus it has English subtitles!  

Our guys can sing acappella any time, any where.  They are just that good!  Love seeing Piero spontaneously throw his head back, cracking up in laughter.

Enjoy this little tidbit of Il Volo just being their charming selves!

 

 

 

The second clip is from a television news show where Lou Maglio, who claims to be 100% Italian, gets the results of his DNA ancestry search.  This is a very popular thing to do now.  Many of you may have already done so.  Who knows…maybe we ALL have a little or a lot of Italian lineage in us!!  

 

 

 

Thanks Marie!

Credit to owners of videos.

~The Three Boys With Suitcase ~ by Valeria Bosch

A Christmas fairy tale dedicated to Il Volo.

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Once upon a time there were three children.  One was called Gianluca, another Ignazio, the third Piero. They had come as a gift to three provincial families of our beautiful Italy, who lived several kilometers away from each other. What had been the amazement of mothers in finding that, in the closed fist with which they had presented themselves to life, each of the children hid a briefcase with a flying wing on it and a musical note!

Those suitcases were entrusted to them, at the time of departure for the Earth, by the Archangel Michael, from Bologna, who had personally chosen also the families to send them, of which he had certainly not taken into account the wealth and social position, but only honesty, rectitude and fullness of the love that inspired them. The three mothers, in their typically maternal foresight, did not throw away those suitcases because, they thought, they could serve in the future. And it did not take many years for those same suitcases, duly dusted and polished, to serve the three little ones for a trip to Rome, where the blonde fairy, Antonella, was waiting for them, who immediately loved them and understood that those guys had a lot to give to the whole world.

 

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In Rome, the three boys saw each other for the first time.  They recognized themselves at the start from the sky.  They had not just been given the suitcase, but everything necessary to put in it to bring to the world the amazement of three celestial voices.  Voices different from each other, but which together, as if by magic, became a force of nature, an angelic concert, a magnet for all people.

It was in this way that the archangel Michael, seeing his pupils departing for “an extraordinary adventure,” decided to come down to their side on earth, stripping of wings and halo, and keeping only, as a sign of recognition, the flowing white hair, down to the nape. Then the three original suitcases widened and multiplied and the angel’s voices resounded in the most distant lands.  In Latin America, Canada, the United States, and in Europe, until their return home, where right away the people received them not as something other than itself, but as something that was already in their heart, in their blood, in their humus (roots).

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But, in the middle of the cheering crowd, there was a witch lurking in the name of Mass and surname Media, a slightly waving witch, sometimes good-natured, but more often bad and unjust. However, the boys went undeterred on their way, strewn with satisfactions and triumphs, always accompanied by “Fra Ercole” their trusted advisor, and “sister Barbara” their putative mother, indispensable support in every difficult and unexpected situation of their wonderful adventure. Meanwhile, the boys, who when they were presented in Rome by the blonde fairy were rather awkward and clumsy, like all the kids of that age, they decided to grow not only in the voice, but also in the physical and in the look, and received  help from a whole court of elves and from the magicians Armani and Lardini. They turned them into marvelous princes of a beauty to leave breathless!

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Finally, as in all the fables that are respected, here also appears a patron saint, San Placido from Madrid, who loves them, esteems them and elevates them, regardless of criticism and risks, in the highest place, in the empyrean of the lyric, because he understood.  As he was inspired also from the sky by his fraternal friend San Luciano da Modena, that these guys, in addition to unique and inimitable voices, received the greatest treasure: the voice of the heart.  That voice that goes straight to the heart of the people who listen to them and can reach all the corners of the earth.

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And now we are  at Christmas.  Gian, Ignazio and Piero have temporarily put away their “suitcases,” ready to take them out soon, because their adventure must continue and continue for a thousand years more.  More and more bright, more and more unique, more and more extraordinary, because they are IL VOLO.  IL VOLO because they are always traveling to be close to the people who love them.  IL VOLO because they make their voices fly higher than those of the angels, to give people even just a moment of serenity and of joy.  IL VOLO because they make the heart of those who listen to them fly towards the infinite.

 

Merry Christmas, guys with the suitcase, thank you for what you  give us, thank you for being in our hearts, thanks for reassuring our minds. 

Thank you. 

And AD MAIORA SEMPER !

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 Written by Valeria Borsh

 

 Translated by Daniela

 

Credit to owners of all photos.

~ Christmas in Italy ~

Christmas In Italy

From Kathy McCabe, Dream of Italy.

While millions of people travel to Italy during the summer months, if they only knew the treasures that would await them by taking a winter break instead and enjoying the magic of Christmas in Italy. Yes, the holiday has become a bit more commercialized here in recent years. Yet, Christmas in Italy is still a holiday of family, spirituality, food, lights, age-old artistry and the wonder of miracles.

From the Christmas markets in Alto-Aldige to a 250-person strong live Nativity pageant in Puglia, there are Christmas enchantments and surprises in every corner of Italy.

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Piero, Ignazio, and Gianluca we know you are back home in your beloved Italy just in time for the holidays.   Here are our Christmas wishes just for you…

 I wish you precious time to be surrounded by the loving people who are so important to you in your life.

Jane

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Credit to all owners of photos.

Article excerpt from Dream Of Italy.