Monday, February 07, 2011

il dolce far niente



il dolce far niente

(the sweetness of doing nothing)


I tried to watch Eat Pray Love on Saturday night (husband was out of town and I couldn't wait to sprawl out on the couch and watch a girlie movie).  I say TRIED because it was painfully boring, completely unentertaining, and I fell asleep midway through Bali during a bore of a conversation with the Texan.  However, I did fall sleep with two positives running through my mind... One was the incredible, beautiful scenery and appetizing close-ups food shots - I work on a lot of food commercials, I can appreciate the art of capturing food preparation at its most mouth watering moments.  Oh, and the yummy red wine toasts shots that seemed to be scene changers were also very lovely.

The second positive was the scene in the Roman barber shop.  The Italian older brother or friend of Julia (can't even think of the name of the woman in EPL) was defining an italian phrase 

il dolce far niente 
that translates to "the art of doing nothing" and how Italians are able to just enjoy for enjoyments sake.  He went on to say that Americans always think they have to work to deserve this simple enjoyment and are always stressed out from the pressure of constantly having to be productive.  What a wonderful phrase...and because I am one quarter Italiono, I believe that I too can master the art of il dolce far niente...if I put my mind to it, put down my phone, and leave my computer closed once in awhile.   And I think that mastering this art may (most definitely) is going to be added to my 2011 resolutions...and if it includes italian food and wine once in awhile - just to get me in the "nothing" mood, even better.


A few more shots of my Italian trip 2005... 



6 comments:

Vanilla said...

I haven't seen it yet, dolce far niente is a wonderful phrase :)

Love, Vanilla

http://vanillaheartsstyle.blogspot.com/

Suzanne Anas Jurich said...

I have tried multiple times to read the book and I just can't. I haven't tried again in years, so maybe I will. Eventually I may try the movie, but who knows. :)

And what a fantastic phrase! I try my best to live that way, but sometimes slip into trying to do too much and forget to just relax and just enjoy life sometimes. Thanks for the reminder!

bestie said...

Suzie, I have tried to read the book several times and can't get past Rome. I try to love it but I can't find the connection! Maybe I will try again too. The movie, unfortunately, was a waste of time. I should've just done nothing :)

Ana Degenaar said...

I loved that phrase from the movie. doing nothing can be really sweet.
xx

torrie said...

I have a recommendation.

Try listening! I listened to it, as opposed to reading it. We were about to go on vacation, and I had recently bought in on audio for my mom. Since I'd been wanting to read it, I asked if I could borrow it. My mom had already started listening and said that she loved the fact that it was in audio- with her reading it (Italian language, stories,...). I loved it. Ryan really liked it too! (didn't hurt that we were traveling through wine country during much of it =).

Then after, my mom and I had both finished it, a friend of ours mentioned that she hated it and couldn't get into it, so my mom and I recommended that she listen instead, and she ended up loving it!

torrie said...

p.s.

I haven't seen the movie, but do love the concept of doing nothing.

On Monday, when I was in misery, I slept on and off for hours- computer off all day. It was absolute bliss.