Scribbles from Italy
by Vian Andrews
Vian Andrews’ “Scribbles from Italy” are posted on Dooney’s every two weeks.
This page functions as a table of contents for the series, and will be updated as new instalments are added.
Canadian writer Vian Andrews and his wife moved from Vancouver to Umbria in Italy. Here are his “scribbles” from a new place in the world.
Vian Andrews’ dispatches from the Umbrian countryside welcome the light and rage against its dying.
Vian Andrews hiking and thinking in the Umbrian countryside, amid olive groves in the rain and “sentieri” paths between mountain hamlets.
Vian Andrews is out in the olive orchards, clearing brush from under the trees and thinking about ChatGPT and the future of artificial and other kinds of intelligence. The latest passage from Andrews’ journal about life in the Umbrian countryside, “Scribbles from Italy.”
More passages from Vian Andrews’ journals about life in Italy’s Umbrian countryside. He’s thinking about books, silence, pruning tools, theatres, Bob Dylan, and the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
More passages from Vian Andrews’ journals of living in Italy’s Umbrian countryside, a world of mountain hamlets, memories of dancing around the fire pit, old knife-grinders, and burnng the cuttings.
From Vian Andrews’ journals about life in Italy’s Umbrian countryside: reflections on the winds that blow, full course meals, the stench of daily life, and even orgasms and anti-vaxxers.
Passages from Vian Andrews’ journals about living in Italy’s Umbrian countryside. He’s thinking about church bells clanging, children’s playgrounds, medieval donkey races, the brutal games of politics, and the bloody chore of pruning brambles and thorn bushes.
Passages from Vian Andrews’ journals about life in the Umbrian countryside. Taking the kids to the park, the Thanksgiving lunch, a bird song of pain, farmers ploughing their fields, cold houses, and the wind in the olive groves — the settings in which a little wisdom might be found.
Vian Andrews’ journals from Italy’s Umbrian countryside include woodpiles, competent workers, words that hurt, bureaucratic permits, Sunday theme-parks, and lots of olives, harvested and pressed, and olive oil drizzled on hot grilled bread.