LIFE TIPS

Life tips, but not advices, because...

Sicilian proverbs

Etna Etna "...dintra ciai lu focu fora la nivi..."

Acqua, cunsigghi e sali, senza dumannati, non ni dari
Water, advices and salt, do not give them unless someone asks for them.

Bon tempu e malu tempu non dura tuttu tempu
Good weather and bad weather do not stay all the time.

'Mpidimentu ppi giuvamentu
Every cloud has a silver lining. (Sometimes what looks bad turns out to be beneficial.)

Calati junco, ca passa la china
Get down, cane, until the flood passes (you need to know how to adapt to the circumstances).

Non troppu duci si no t'agghiuttu, non troppu amaru si no t'iettu.
Not too sweet, or I will swallow you, and not too bitter, or I will blow you away.

A megghiu parola è chidda ca non si dici.
The best word is the one that is not said.

Megghiu arrussiri `na vota ca ingialiniri centu voti.
Best to blush once than to turn pale a hundred times

“Essiri non si pò chiù di 'na vota” ci dissi lu muzzuni a la cannata.
“Being can not be more than once” told the shell to the broken amphora.
(I put this saying in the song “U Diamanti Virdi”.)


... a Genoese proverb...

Sciuscià e sciorbì no se peu
You can not suck and blow at the same time (you can not have it all in life).


... an Argentinian proverb...

Mate

El hombre que calienta el agua no es el hombre que toma el mate
The man who warms water is not the man who takes mate









...and two Spanish proverbs

Si hay remedio, ¿por qué te preocupas? Y si no hay remedio, ¿por qué te preocupas?
If there is a remedy, why do you? And if there is no remedy, why do you worry?

Amor, salud, dinero, y tiempo para gastarlo.
Love, health, money, and time to spend it.


As Julio says: "I have a lot of discipline"

My teacher of astronomy was Professor Attilio Traversa. Professor Traversa did not use books, students had to study in the notes we took in class during his lessons, and then we went home and re-ordered the notes. When we did a written exam, he was used to dictate questions to us, to stay in class for a few minutes watching us, and then to come back only at the end the time he had given us. He leveraged the first few minutes to distinguish between the students who had studied - and who immediately began to write - and those who did not and who then would have tried to copy. At the end of the exam, he asked these students to write on the blackboard the answers to the questions. As they did not know them, the teacher told them that, as homework, they had to write the answers 20 times. "But Professor ...", "40 times, then" There were some of my classmates who reached 80 times! But in this way, writing the same things several times, we ended up learning them.
One of my classmates lived on the outskirts of Genoa, and had to take private lessons with the teacher. The teacher gave him an appointment at his house at 7 o'clock in the morning. Due to problems with transportation, my classmate arrived late, so the teacher did not give him a class and arranged for another day at 6 o'clock in the morning. "Professor, but ..." "Well, then, at 5." "But teacher ..." "At 4 o'clock." "Okay, Professor." On the determined date, my companion ringed the house bell at 4 o'clock in the morning. The teacher looked through the window. "Teacher, I'm here." "Okay, now wait three hours."


Shut up, the shipper listens to you

Port of Camogli. The ships returned from long journeys across the Atlantic Ocean, with the sails torn, a broken mast ... The sailors, worried, murmured to one another "Oh, you see, now the shipper will make us pay for a new mast ... " The ship owner did not even think about it ... but ... on hearing those speeches ... he finally decided to make the sailors pay the new mast!


The 15-puzzle

In Buenos Aires, aboard the Augustus, one of my tasks was to control the passports of the passengers, among them several Chilean citizens who were fleeing from the Allende regime. The trip lasted 28 days, it was a difficult trip, and with the passing of the days the meals were getting worse. As I boarded the passengers, I looked them in the face to infer who was accustomed to long journeys and who did not. To the second ones, I was used, very kindly, to offer a different cabin than expected, and told them that it would be better. Actually, my goal was to make it more difficult for everyone to complain during the trip, because if a passenger had started complaining, they would all have complained soon! To that end, I always had a couple of free cabins, to be able to move the passengers from one cabin to another...
It was in one of those trips that I met Maria Helena. I was already writing songs and sometimes, in the shows on board, I sang them. One day a waitress told me that a passenger (Maria Helena) had asked if she could read those lyrics. She liked them so much that she went to Madrid to convince Julio Iglesias to sing them. Maria Helena also came with me to Florence to meet Rosa Balistreri.


Even hurricanes, in life, may help

Once, during a ocean crossing, we were in the middle of a thick fog, we did not know where we were and we could not determine our route. Fortunately, at some point, a hurricane began. My colleague Paolo Carcavallo and I, thanks to the lightnings that illuminated the sky, were finally able to see the stars and obtain a position fix, thus establishing the point where we were.


onda rossa fondo

"``Hey'' is perhaps Julio Iglesias' most memorable song of all time" Billboard (Sep.23, 2013)