conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled Sicily, It's Not Quite Tuscany about Shanghai, Singapore, Italy with the genre: Reference, Writing, Research & Publishing Guides?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author worked as the managing editor of two lifestyle magazine groups, first in Shanghai and now in Singapore, after his year in Italy with his wife.His workhas been published by Cond Nast Traveler and National Geographic.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first three paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Sicily, It's Not Quite Tuscany
  Another day she'll open the fridge to find a wall of green leaves filling the shelves. 'What are these?'
  Sadly, Catania's famous market mightn't be around for much longer. Nine out of ten people I see shopping there are middle-aged or older. Younger Sicilians prefer the ease of a supermarket, where they can get everything under one roof, with a single payment and no haggling. Catania isn't the only Sicilian city where change is afoot. Palermo's famous fresh produce market, the Vucciria, is almost wholly sustained by tourism these days.
  During our time in Catania, the most popular supermarkets seem to be SMA (owned by the massive Rinascente group) and a chain with the ominous name Despar. Soon after we leave, though, a gigantic new mega-market called Etnapolis opens its doors. It's hard to begrudge the creation of more than two thousand local jobs, but there's something a bit dismal in the thought of the sons and daughters of local fishermen buying their tuna in neat slices, one centimetre thick, on a polystyrene tray with a cling-wrap cover and a sticker with a fixed price.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know four more paragraphs? Start with the sentence 'A good lie-in can solve any number of ailments – particularly on the first day of the year'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A good lie-in can solve any number of ailments – particularly on the first day of the year. Less therapeutic is the thunderous tolling of church bells at six am. Gill and I shoot up from our beds instantly. We have a small laugh when we recognise the tune of the bells – 'Silent Night'. The laugh becomes even smaller as the bells continue to ring, non-stop, for much of the morning.
  I hike up Monte Rosa, the headland separating Lipari from Canneto. Among the wet weeds and abandoned shepherds' huts are a number of blackened stumps suggesting a recent fire. Later I discover that blazes are common on the Aeolian Islands: hunters light them deliberately so rabbits can't use the foliage to escape. What a strategy. Burn those fields, hunters! Slay those bunnies!
  At the Monte Rosa summit, I find a ten-foot upright crucifix fashioned from metal bars and lined with neon bulbs. Presumably the whole thing lights up for religious festivals, with the glowing cross visible from the main town below. And speaking of bunnies, on the ground is the skeleton of one that seems to have mistaken the power cable at the back of the crucifix for a snack. Its little buck teeth, set inside a toasted skull, remain firmly clamped around an electrical wire. Where's David Lynch with a video camera when you need him?
  Out towards the horizon are two more Aeolian Islands – the tiny celebrity hideaway of Panarea, and the steep and perfect cone of Stromboli, still fuming from its flare-up a couple of days earlier. Back down to my right is the bay of Lipari. I choose not to look in the direction of Canneto, the scene of our recent expensive mishap.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last four paragraphs? End with the sentence ' So many sickles! It may even be that the word 'Sicily' itself has some etymological connection with 'sickle', though that's disputed.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I was almost tempted to warn the fellow that if he wanted to keep his genitals intact, he'd be well advised to look out the window instead of at my wife's breasts.
  Castration isn't a bad analogy on which to end. At the very least, it brings things full circle from Gill and me and our lives in modern-day Sicily back to the island's mythical beginnings.
  When the Olympian gods roamed this part of the world, Uranus was married to Gaia. It was an unhappy alliance. The latter forged an immense sickle with a blade made from flint, and asked her sons to castrate their father. Cronus, the youngest, agreed to the deed. He ambushed Uranus, sliced off his genitals and cast them into the sea. (This is why I've always wanted daughters rather than sons.)
  From the spilt blood, life was forged, and from the testicles came the goddess Aphrodite. The bloodied sickle, meanwhile, was buried near Messina, formerly called Zancle – 'sickle' in Greek. Or perhaps it was tossed into the sea near Trapani, formerly called Drepanum – 'sickle' in Latin. So many sickles! It may even be that the word 'Sicily' itself has some etymological connection with 'sickle', though that's disputed.