Italy

• Carrion Birds
  Unpublished article written in 2003
  "The first impression of Roman traffic, seen from the city’s natural epicenter of Piazza Venezia, is of a scene of hand to hand wheeled combat, a laboratory of internal combustion Darwinism where lumbering buses and trucks are under constant evolutionary assault by darting, quicksilvery scooters and tiny cars. The roar is apocalyptic…"
  
  
• Modern Roman Architecture
  Unpublished article fragment written in 2000
  "Most people come to Rome for one of a handful of obvious reasons: the
  gorgeous antiquities, the museums, the fountains and the shopping, the local cuisine,
  or for an experience of that hard to define thing known as Romanness which includes
  a certain dash and deviltry, a certain Mediterranean style and flair…"
  
  
• Nobel Laureate Grazia Deledda
  Speech delivered in her honor in Nuoro, Sardinia, 2001
  "I’d like to begin my remarks by stating at the outset that I am here in the role of
  an American writer, a novelist, and not, I’m afraid, a scholar. Now, when a novelist
  reads other novelists in his own language, he does so not only for pleasure, but for
  another less noble reason: to borrow, or to put it more plainly, to steal…"
  
  
• Speech (in Italian) introducting a Guide to Modern Roman Architecture
  Delivered at Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2001
  "Perdonatami se devo leggere il mio interventino stasera, ma il terrore di
  rivolgermi ad una platea in una lingua non mia lo rende necessario. Sono qua
  per parlarvi della Guida di Roma Moderna, dal mio punto di vista di dilettante
  Americano…"