A note from Italy
Hello, readers. Been a while, no? I’m about to depart Italy for home after a week doing for this blog none of what I had intended. I had hoped to write about the trip, celebrations, meetings, and sights in near real-time, but no, it was not to be. A lack of a non-iPhone internet connection until the very end combined with packed days and, um, needy parents basically made it impossible.
But there’s another thing. This trip deserves a smart write-up. Not blog-style, but organized and thorough. I need some time to digest it all. So much has happened in such a rapid-fire manner that a few quick morsels simply won’t do it justice.
I do want to answer a question I’ve gotten a few times from pals back home. The recognition ceremony in Barile was unbelievable. And I mean that baldly: it defied belief. Not because it was lavish or unexpected, but because I still cannot believe how much I was made to feel like a member of the town’s 4,000 citizens. I was recognized in two separate ceremonies — once in the mayor’s office, once at a public ceremony — and was greeted nearly everywhere by happy townsfolk. I’ve never experienced anything like it and probably never will again. I get choked up just thinking about it.
So, hope you don’t mind that I am going to take my time on this. Look forward to at least a few videos (including me almost getting creamed by a bus on the Amalfi coast highway) and hundreds of photos stitched together with the tales of Ravello, Barile, Potenza, and Matera.
4 Responses to “A note from Italy”
Hi, I’m John Tolva!
The Ampcamper
Views From The Tank
Gravid With Decay
Short recommendations, reviews, and cautionary tales about horror in fiction (mostly movies). Read through the archives and subscribe here.
Marginalia
-
Ring the bell to let the fish pass through the boat lock in Utrecht. This is what the Internet was made for.
-
"It seems to me that there is a fundamental discrepancy between the way readers interact with books and the way the hack-your-brain tech community does."
-
I'd watch a modern day Western flick based on this.
-
This fossil is 100 yards from my old house. A welcome friend on the walk to/from the L. (But it's a squirrel impression!)
-
How do you make sense of a world sloshing around in AI-generated content? The liberal arts.
-
Estimating the size of YouTube by "drunk dialing" URL strings.
-
Is it urban form itself that makes ghosts or the lack of community?
-
If they can pull this off in Phoenix, it can be done anywhere.
-
"Our universe's history, fossilized in light."
-
Thinking like Africa is a solution.
-
The hack that made my summer camper trip possible.
-
Live air traffic audio from the world's airports overlaid on ambient tunes.
-
See where any living thing exists in a beautiful interactive taxonomy visualization.
-
Flipping between channels of my childhood.
-
More impressive than tool-usage.
-
Type at work in the real world.
-
You're probably not prepared for how enthralling this is.
-
Anti-bird spikes as nest material, keeping other birds out!
-
B♭ C A♭ 8vb A♭ E♭.
-
Trains, automobiles, and rocket ships, basically.
-
"The act of simplifying reality for a machine results in a great deal of complexity for the human."
-
Sara Benincasa on the beauty of The Bear.
-
Two writers facing one Turing test: A dialog in honor of HAL between Richard Powers and Bruno LatourPrescience for our current world from 1998.
-
"History is the long process of outsourcing human ability in order to leverage more of it. We will concede this trivia game (after a very long run as champions), and find another in which, aided by our compounding prosthetics, we can excel in more powerful and ever more terrifying ways."
-
AI neologisms. Could just link #termsfromtoday to this and never manually post again.
-
Science fiction becomes reality for fossil literature.
-
So much worse than the passive voice.
-
AI-generated imagery in the service of mythopoeic storytelling on a small town scale. (Follow via Instagram.)
-
"Dark magic box": The unique design opportunity of designing a marine ecosystem experience for visitors.
-
"A book with feedback"
-
Matt Kirschenbaum writes his own words about the "ongoing planetary spam event."
-
Meaning isn't 100% transitive.
-
A one-shot music video performed using only the reel-to-reel tape recorders.
-
Just because it was inevitable doesn't mean it isn't glorious.
-
Dan makes me nostalgic for Twitter 2007-2013.
-
Incredible instrument made from two Commodore 64s, floppy disks, tape and a giant dose of nerdery.
-
‘Oh, that’s tennis for non-athletes.'
-
Answer: barely, with a few modifications.
-
Some behind-the-scenes of my work life.
-
The All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club!
-
"Hell's Aquarium"
-
"Before we rolled out through the gate, I’d tell myself that I didn’t need to worry, because I was already dead. The only thing that mattered was that I did my best to make sure everyone else came back alive."
-
"The problem wasn’t that Sisyphus had to roll his boulder up a hill forever; it’s that he had to roll it alone."
-
Same with me, clowns, same with me.
-
I'm here for the needless politicization of tennis versus pickeball.
-
Biomimicry meet reclaimed waste product.
-
"Cities are where we see each other. People who don’t want to see hate that."
-
How much do you know about lines?
-
Documentary on Minnesota's failed attempt at a city of the future in the late 1960's.
-
"Humanity, how are you doing on this beautiful Monday?"
-
Amazing visualization of European lighthouses showing light color, actual pattern, and radius of visibility.
-
An interesting data point, for sure, but this metric may be the best part: Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score.
-
The exact time of day, pulled from books.
-
Einstein confirms.
-
Mapping magnetic fields to the audio spectrum.
-
So pretty you often don't stop to listen.
-
The greatest tribute ever penned by a child for a parent.
-
Humans walking through a city don't take the shortest route but the one that physically points them at their destination most consistently.
-
Placing this here to remind future me.
-
LIght pollution of course ruins this.
-
Clever. Would be even better using LEGO's bioplastic bricks.
-
It doesn’t solve the problem to buy a hybrid and retrofit your house if all of that takes place 20 miles from your job.
-
Eno on urban design is masterful.
-
Railroad marketing ploy. But it's still quite nice here.
-
Particularly proud of this project from the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance.
-
"'There is an Italian phrase,' said Marco after we ordered our food. '"Li ti avvelenano", which translates to "there they will poison you." This is my prediction for the night.'"
-
Bringing together a few things I'm working on.
-
The condiutions and accomplishments that this story described laid the foundation for the beginning of my career.
-
“And so those fish are then left with less information about when it's safe to go out and eat and control these algae. And this feedback has these ecosystem-level consequences.”
-
"It’s not Columbus’ fault that industry promises about the imminent arrival of self-driving cars were way overblown." ← Actually, it is Columbus' fault.
Much congrats on living life to the fullest and making every moment count. This is a great story in the making and I am glad I could be along for the ride. Can’t wait to hear all the juicy stuff that happened. Again congrats on taking the road less traveled and doing something “great!” . All the best. Travel safe.
Very interesting web site my great great grandfather left Tolve Italy in 1898 his name was Luke Antiono Tolve wass wondring if there is any relationshi[p there
I am interested in any information that you have on this town, my grandparents came to NYC from Potenza, and my grandfather was from Tolve with the last name “Stigliani”. I understand it is quite a small area with a very small population…..so happy to find this site/blog and that someone else has this heritage!!!!!!! When my aunt visited there and mentioned the family name, she said that half the town seemed to come forward, oh my….I can’t imagine what happened with the last name “Tolve”……thank you!
I also have relatives in Tolve, Italy with the last name Filitti. My family and I went to see our relatives in 1994 and then again in 2000. They showed us a wonderful time but we actually only stayed in Tolve for 2 days, 1 night. The communication was almost impossible considering there was only 1 person (that we knew of) in Tolve that spoke English. They fed us delicious food and drink and even gave up their bedroom to us. They insisted that we stay – not taking “no” for an answer. It was an incrediable experience. They made us feel so special when we were there. The only sad part was my Uncle Donoto Filitti passed away after our last visit to Tolve. We was crying when we were leaving. He was adorable and we will miss him on our next visit.