Becoming Sicilianissima: Jann Huizenga author of Baroque Sicily talks about Ragusa Ibla

Ho conosciuto Jann Huizenga lo scorso gennaio, alcune settimane dopo che avevo iniziato questo blog. Ero delirante e felice di entrare nel mondo dei blogger ed ero curiosa di vedere se c’erano altri come me, pazzamente e perdutamente infatuati dell’italia. Allora mi sono messa a navigare su internet e ho trovato un sacco di gente come me! È stato durante uno dei miei vagabondaggi su internet che mi sono imbattuta nel blog di Jann che si chiama “Baroque Sicily“. Mi sono innamorata del suo blog a prima vista, che tratta del suo trasloco a Ragusa Ibla, un piccolo villagio in Sicilia, e il suo carico, (qualche volta felice e altre volte deprimente) di rinnovare una casa nel bel paese. Nelle parole di Jann:

The island cast such a spell on her that in 2007 she bought a damp house with an old green door in Ragusa Ibla—a stony village where lemons roll in the streets and bees grow fat as hummingbirds, where the local gelateria offers up cream of anise and petal of rose, where public clocks as well as people are way behind schedule, where street names are snatches of poetry: Orphanage Alley, Shadow Way, Laurel Lane, Dark Lane, Street of Chillblains, Street of Ballads, Street of Sighs.

Vi invito a entrare nel mondo di Jann, per fare una visita alla sua Ragusa Ibla e per vivere un po’ della Sicilia tramite le parole poetiche e le foto bellissime di Jann.
I’m a babbling toddler in Sicily, with a whole new lexicon at my disposal. I love anything ending in issimo—buonissimo, generalissimo, impazientissimo, nervosissimo, pessimistissimo

—and get as much pleasure from saying these jawbreakers as I do from rolling a fat dark Sicilian olive around in my mouth. I mimic the locals, volcanically hissing the sibilant on a high pitch until I nearly run out of steam, then dramatically dropping my tongue and intonation, almost to a whisper.

Sicilians, given as they are to hyperbole and excess, have an appetite for these words, too. Shops here have names like “Scarpissima” or “Sportissimo” and plaster their windows with “Saldissimi” signs, breaking every rule.

When my friend Giò and I shop for cookies in a pasticceria, the clerk asks if she’s American, like me. “Sono sicilianissima (see-chee-lyan-EES-ee-ma)!” she protests, which basically translates to “I’m a meatball-and-cannoli Super-Sicilian!” When I ask my friend Giorgio if he’s sure I’m not disturbing him by phoning at the sacrosanct siesta hour, he whoops, “Sono sicurissimo! I am absolutely positootly sure!” When I manage to make myself understood to some squinting store clerk, I sometimes get praised like this: “Bravissima! You super-duper little linguist you!”

No food in Sicily is merely good, buono, it’s always buonissimo, to die for. No human being is just plain ugly, brutto, they’re all bruttissimo, hideous. No car or view or cake or shoe in Sicily is ever beautiful, bella, it’s always bellissima, drop-dead gorgeous.

Do Sicilians use these superlatives more than other Italians? I’d say yes. Baroque is in their bones.

Jann Huizenga – Baroque Sicily