souris (Italy, part 2)
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
An Italian cat eyeing a desert souris rat
"Little House: An Architectural Seduction" -- is a forgotten masterpiece of 18th-century literature that has become an underground classic among architects.
la souris (soo-ree) noun, feminine
1. mouse
Jamais la souris ne confie sa destinée à un seul trou.
A mouse never entrusts its destiny to just one hole. --Plautus
A Day in a French Life...
Feeling small as a mouse before the towering cathedral in la Piazza Rubini, I listen to the Italians call up and down from their tiny balcons* and wonder if the town of Ceriana has anything in common with the word "serenade." After all, this is just what the Ligurians are engaged in as the cloche* in the belfry strikes twelve--only it isn't a moonlit midnight, it's midi,* and the villagers aren't singing about love, but lunch.
Jean-Marc and I are in Ceriana, on the Riviera of Flowers,* for both lunch and love. Love, because a mystic Roman village hidden in Italy's emerald-green hinterland makes for an enchanting place to celebrate twelve years of living in common, and lunch because, tout simplement,* where love is, hunger follows.
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For past chapters in this story, visit:
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References: le balcon (m) = balcony; la cloche (f) = bell; le midi (m) = midday, noon; Riviera of Flowers (in Italian: "Riviera dei Fiori," so-named for the flower industry in this part of Italy); tout simplement = quite simply
In Magazines:

(Note: the file skips... play it twice to hear all the complete sentence.)
Jamais la souris ne confie sa destinée à un seul trou.
A mouse never entrusts its destiny to just one hole. --Plautus
Related Terms & Expressions:
la souris grise = house mouse
La Petite Souris = the tooth fairy (In France, a mouse, not a fairy, is in charge of payment.)
...and while some of us would like to be "a fly on the wall," the French would prefer "to be a little mouse" in order to spy! (From the expression "être une petite souris".)

In Books:


Moleskine 2007 Daily Large Desk Diary - The Legendary Notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, and Chatwin.
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For more online reading: The Lost Gardens: A Story of Two Vineyards and a Sobriety