Ah Erko ... and Florence ... and that's not an English accent

[blamebrampton]

The lovely crazy French cat lady was about again today, with her giant ginger tom in her backpack, head sticking out and surveying the world. Apparently he dislikes cat cages, but is quite fond of being worn papoose-style. She inquired after our plague and I was happy to report that J and I are both on the mend. While the occasional coughing fit still occurs, and we're still fairly tired, we are definitely functional human beings again rather than flu victims. Hurrah!

This recovery, and the end of the report edit of doom (want to know anything about Australian regulatory authorities? I'm your girl!) means that I am now free to start planning the casual part of my trip to Florence in five weeks. It starts with a conference and a catch-up with my curatorial friends, and ends with a catch-up with some fandom friends, but in between there are several days of nothing.

I suspect that two straight weeks in Firenze will see me a little rabid, so I am trying to sort out what I want to do nearby. I'll be travelling by train or bus, have a modest budget and will be alone. It's the art and textiles tour, ahead of next year's romantic getaway when the cash-flow situation will be much improved. If you know the region, help me make up my mind. Bologna is calling to me, but I am trying to decide about Lucca, Ferrara, Pisa (where I m dropping in for a day anyway), Siena and San Gimignano. Any recommendations? I have been to all these spots save Lucca, but as a dissolute young person rather than as a responsible adult with High Cultural Concerns.

On the topic of cultural concerns, one strange artefact of the flu has been watching television. I am constantly surprised by what American actors think sounds English. Does this happen the other way around? Hugh Laurie and the bloke on Life both sound very American to me (with occasional vowel slippage from Hugh),  do Americans hear everything that's wrong there?

Finally, a very happy birthday to sassy_cissa ! Your kindness, generosity and talent never cease to impress and inspire me!

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Parma is lovely, but they don't have all the Lavinia Fontana stuff that's in Bologna. Maybe I should just go to Ferrara and do the d'Este homage tour ...

And J is a mad medievalist, so I think he'd love SG.

Send me your address!

[complications-g.livejournal.com]

Well, you're not missing much. ;)

Hee, even better! Classic!

Ooh, I love Robin Hood movies, will definitely check that out.

[beatnikspinster.livejournal.com]

The politics I was think of were reversed in terms of class implications. I meant...
Politician/Lobbist/Religious Leader: "Attention Southerner, see how the evil, elitist Hollywood oppresses you with derision. He resents your faith. Donate $$$ to [organization] to help restore the power of good Christians by helping to end abortion/evolution in school curriculum/restrictions on oil drilling/fiscal restraint."

It sounds stupid, but that's how it plays out.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Oh well now I am just depressed.

"That bastard just called you smart!"
"HOW DARE HE?"

[beatnikspinster.livejournal.com]

Sorry! Sorry! *backpedals* Crap, lemme find something to cheer you back up... PS: How much are H/D like Bugs and Daffy in this? *boggles*

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

So THAT'S where 'I will hug him and squeeze him and call him George' comes from! GENIUS!

And yes, there is a disturbing H/D undercurrent there ... which I suppose makes the snowman Goyle.

Cheery again, thank you!

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

sorry! went to grab lunch!

alright...i'll be nice to nicole. that is if she gives back her oscar. :P

it does take a proper sort of training to grasp any accent, but it just kills me when actors who i feel are amazingly talented blow it. cate blanchett comes to mind in that category. she just can't pull off american. any american. and jason isaacs, god help him with his east coast, wanna-be priovidence swagger in Brotherhood. he may melt us as lucius, but he fails in the american accent arena. :(

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Cate's English is all right, though. And ... Nicole has an Oscar? WHY?

Really off to bed now, have a good afternoon!

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

i meant to say except for her english accent. most people outside of england and australia believe cate is english anyway.

and YES. i don't know why...but our film academy decided to give her an oscar for The Hours. go figure.

sleep well sweetie. :)

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

Hey there! Meant to say thanks for friending me. :o) *feels special*

I don't think there's anything much in Pisa. I would recommend going further up the line to the La Spezia area. La Spezia itself is nothing special but Portovenere and the Cinque Terre (a string of 5 villages perched between steep hillside and the sea) are beautiful. (And abound with excellent seafood!)

In Florence, you need a day for the Ufizzi alone. And pick out beforehand what you don't mind missing. That place is enormous.

You could also try Assisi, to the south east - it's gorgeous.

Fortunately the trains are amazing, in that they are punctual fast and cheap, and go damn near everywhere.

[winterthunder.livejournal.com]

If you can, go spend a night in one of the towns in Cinque Terre. It's about 2.5 hours by train from Florence, and it's amazingly beautiful. There's an 11km trail between the five towns and you can spend the day hiking in amazing scenery and pausing for a gelato, pizza or glass of wine in each town!

[aldehyde.livejournal.com]

wow, i am so jealous of your upcoming trip to italy! i can't recommend one place over another since i've never been to the region, but i hope i can visit sometime in the near future.

as for accents, i think hugh laurie does a pretty good job. i almost always forget that he's not an american and get terribly shocked when i watch his interviews.

americans doing british accents is..well, not that great.

i have a weird accent myself - it's a complete hodgepodge. certain words have an underlying english strain since i learnt the language from the brits, but then the presence of american culture in the middle east in a post-gulf war 1 age did strange things to my diction. and then i moved to canada.

so yea, it's just a weird melange, heh.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

The odd thing is that both my home and office are in complete chaos. And by "complete chaos" I mean "I'm not sure this is fit for human habitation".

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Very few American actors can actually fake an accent. >> It's sad.. I've never herad anyone try to fake an American accent though!

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

i don't know why...but our film academy decided to give her an oscar for The Hours. go figure.

This is because Hollywood confuses good makeup with character acting. The Oscar was for the nose. :)

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

i call it the halle berry syndrome. she won her oscar after daring to "bare all" in Monster's Ball. now don't get me wrong, i adore halle berry. she represents my hometown and all...i'm very proud of her success. but girlfriend CANNOT act. yet she has an oscar on her bookshelf. or maybe her nightstand, who knows. ;)

[deensey.livejournal.com]

Go to Siena and pretend you're me?

[deensey.livejournal.com]

Damian Lewis does a great job of it, in Life, and in Band of Brothers. In fact, the entire cast of Band of Brothers, well, 2/3 of them were british.

Nicole Kidman consistently sounds American, and Jamie Bamber does a brilliant job of it as well. Add Yvonne Stravinski on Chuck, who's an aussie, and Anna Friel on Pushing Daisies, and you have a heap of people doing quite good american accents.

Historically? Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, or A Streetcar Named Desire.

The other way around? Scarlet Johansen and Natalie Portman have both pulled off British pretty well, as has Frances McDormand, Renee Zellwegger was not bad in BJD or Miss Potter, Gwyneth Paltrow rocked in Emma, and Kevin Kline has done not too bad a job at it either.

[deensey.livejournal.com]

Reese Witherspoon. Another one who's managed it well.

[sassy-cissa.livejournal.com]

First of all, I'm so happy you're on the mend. And I'm more than just a teeny bit jealous of a trip to Florence. I've made it to Paris and Frankfort (and surrounding areas) but have not made it to Italy. One day I hope to see it.

Secondly, thank you for the birthday wishes and your kind words. I'm humbled and pleased. ♥

[jadzialove.livejournal.com]

Hugh Laurie does fantastically well. I'm always floored when I hear him speak naturally, even though I know he's a Brit, I consistently forget. As for the Life guy, I had no idea he was! I guess that means he's doing a bang up job of it.

A badly done accent can throw me right out of a movie. Although I love the Kevin Costner Robin Hood because of Alan Rickman, Costner's accent was a disaster, which must have been clear to him as well, as he abandoned it halfway through the movie. We won't even mention the Dick Van Dyke cockney debacle.

I think most Brit and the numerous Aussie actors regularly appearing on our TVs do a fine job of it. It's very rarely that I think "oh, he/she's fighting an accent."
The less practiced, however, sound really really nasal.

I'm not sure how much weight my opinion holds, though, because I think there are a lot of American actors that do great English accents. Fools me!

[lisbet.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing the original Forsyte Saga series years ago, and the woman they had playing Anne, Jon's American wife....she had to do a southern accent, and...the poor thing. It didn't go well. At all. I cringed every time she opened her mouth. I was like...omg, do they really think American Southerners sound like that?

Don't they have dialect and accent coaches nowadays in the film industry though? I wonder how much that sort of thing would cost for regular people. Probably a lot more money than I make! Still, I'd love to have someone work with me on perfecting an accent other than my own.

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

*blinks* how does that go?

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Can't help you with Italy. Go where you're least likely to contract the flu again. :P

The talk about accents amused me greatly. At least it's only bad accent, but every time American movies or shows decide they need something exotic and put in "Hungarian" charatcters, they always end up with Russian names, look Russian, and I suspect the closest they've ever come to Hungary is eating goulash in a Hungarian restaurant. Last time I encountered "Hungarian speaking" characters in an American show, I pressed rewind four times, trying to figure out what they were saying, allegedly in Hungarian, before I gave it up. :P

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I found a book today that is full of small museums in Florence; I may not get out of the city ;-) And if anyone coughs near me, I will spray them with disinfectant!

I didn't even think about Eastern European accents, but YES! It's the same way that a sort of German stands in for anything Baltic. And that's hilarious about the speaking 'Hungarian' ;-)