Under the Crushing Weight of the Tuscan Sun
March 14, 2016 10:20 AM   Subscribe

I have sat on Tuscan-brown sofas surrounded by Tuscan-yellow walls, lounged on Tuscan patios made with Tuscan pavers, surrounded by Tuscan landscaping. I have stood barefoot on Tuscan bathroom tiles, washing my hands under Tuscan faucets after having used Tuscan toilets. I have eaten, sometimes on Tuscan dinnerware, a Tuscan Chicken on Ciabatta from Wendy’s, a Tuscan Chicken Melt from Subway, the $6.99 Tuscan Duo at Olive Garden, and Tuscan Hummus from California Pizza Kitchen. Recently, I watched my friend fill his dog’s bowl with Beneful Tuscan Style Medley dog food. This barely merited a raised eyebrow; I’d already been guilty of feeding my cat Fancy Feast’s White Meat Chicken Tuscany. Why deprive our pets of the pleasures of Tuscan living?
posted by Chrysostom (49 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
So basically Under The Tuscan Sun is the spiritual ancestor of Eat, Pray, Love.

Yeah, I can buy that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:25 AM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


In “Tuscan Leather,” from 2013, Drake raps, “Just give it time, we’ll see who’s still around a decade from now.” Whoever among us is still here, it seems certain that we will still be living with the insidious and inescapable word “Tuscan,” used as marketing adjective, cultural signifier, life-style choice.

Is Tuscan Leather the new Corinthian Leather?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:33 AM on March 14, 2016


You forgot Tuscan milk.
posted by SillyShepherd at 10:35 AM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


Are the Tuscans it comes from grass fed?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:37 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]




Will she eat Tuscan Raiders? Maybe...
posted by pipeski at 10:41 AM on March 14, 2016 [7 favorites]


Tracy Kidder's "House"

Now THERE's a great book!
posted by sallybrown at 10:47 AM on March 14, 2016


pipeski: "Will she eat Tuscan Raiders? Maybe..."

[nerd] That's TUSKEN Raiders. [/nerd]
posted by Chrysostom at 11:04 AM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is where I note that I've met Diane Lane, right?
posted by HuronBob at 11:17 AM on March 14, 2016


I think Tuscan just means warm tones and too much rosemary.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 11:24 AM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


You forgot Tuscan milk.

Are the Tuscans it comes from grass fed?


You can milk anything with nipples.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:28 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


Under the Crushing Weight of the Tuscan Sun

After that, you can head over to Provence.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:30 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is where I note that I've met Diane Lane, right?

... go on ...
posted by jbickers at 11:35 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


I no-kidding believe part of the appeal of Tuscan and Tuscany is that it's easy to say with an American accent.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 11:39 AM on March 14, 2016 [15 favorites]


...got drunk on Campari and vomited on a fourteenth-century fresco

Campari vomit is NO JOKE. I feel for that brother in law.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 11:46 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


MetaFilter: warm tones and too much rosemary
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:05 PM on March 14, 2016


[nerd] That's TUSKEN Raiders. [/nerd]

[pundit]That was a pun.[/pundit]
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:15 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yeah, that Tuscan-style dog food mix in? Pretty sure it's poison. My dog wouldn't touch it, so I gave the remaining cans (comes in a 3 pack) to my brother to feed to his dogs. One of my brother's dogs is normal but the other one has eaten all number of things including but not limited to: her steel crate, a cardboard box, her own poop, a feather pillow, my dog's poop, a window, a dead frog.

Neither of his dogs will touch the Tuscan medley, either.
posted by phunniemee at 12:17 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


Try marketing the "Aix en Provence" footlong at Subway.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 12:19 PM on March 14, 2016 [7 favorites]


If you mentally replace Tuscan with Tusken it's more enjoyable.
posted by resurrexit at 12:24 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I no-kidding believe part of the appeal of Tuscan and Tuscany is that it's easy to say with an American accent.

I can buy this theory, actually. Exotic but not too exotic, and eminently pronounceable.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:36 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Try marketing the "Aix en Provence" footlong at Subway.

There is nothing that brings me more strange joy than hearing a Sam Elliott sound-alike pitching Arby's French Dip & Swiss Sandwich's 'Hearty au jus' in a thick cowboy accent.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:36 PM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


I can buy this theory, actually. Exotic but not too exotic, and eminently pronounceable.

I have a former coworker who pronounced Tuscan like Tuscon you should have a word with.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:39 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have a former coworker who pronounced Tuscan like Tuscon you should have a word with.

Making something idiot-proof merely challenges the universe to send a bigger idiot.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:40 PM on March 14, 2016 [23 favorites]


Try marketing the "Aix en Provence" footlong at Subway.

Be sure to try Starbucks' new millefeuille!
posted by leotrotsky at 12:43 PM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


This also explains why no one will order my locally sourced delicacy, l'oeil de l'écureuil.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:46 PM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


Try marketing the "Aix en Provence" footlong at Subway.

Do they have galaktoboureko or kataifi? Karythopita?
posted by sukeban at 12:48 PM on March 14, 2016


Be sure to try Starbucks' new millefeuille!

True story - upon ordering the petit fours at a French bistro in New York I was asked, "Sorry - the...what was it you wanted?"

I pointed at the menu because I couldn't bring myself to say what needed to be said to correctly indicate my choice of dessert. Rather, I let nature take its course.

"OH. The pet-it fores."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:56 PM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


After that, you can head over to Provence.

Ontario really isn't all that exciting.
posted by srboisvert at 12:59 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ontario really isn't all that exciting.

you get far enough north and the noseeums and mosquitoes can be very entertaining, not to mention the horseflies
posted by pyramid termite at 1:04 PM on March 14, 2016


The non-fiction sequels to this book by Peter Mayle are:

Toujours Provence 1991
Encore Provence 1999


"Oy, gevalt. Always with the Provence."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:04 PM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


"Tuscany" was one of the entries on a piece I did way back in the day, where you could name a new south Orange County housing development by picking any three words in a list.

Tuscany Chardonnay Estates
Villa Armani Heights
Pinot Grigio Coast Meadows
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:08 PM on March 14, 2016 [7 favorites]


For a second I mixed up Under the Tuscan Sun with Under The Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino and found this FPP very confusing.
posted by bleep at 1:09 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Tuscany is a residential neighbourhood in the north-west quadrant of Calgary, Alberta...Tuscany was established in 1994 and it was named for the region of Tuscany, Italy.

Yeah, because the climate is so...similar.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


"Oy, gevalt. Always with the Provence."

"But does he ever visit his mother? Does he ever call? Should I die, G*d forbid, would he even know? So busy is he with his wine and his cheese and his fancy milk. A son like this I need like a lokh in kop"
posted by leotrotsky at 1:26 PM on March 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in earthtones and rosemary
In the House of the Tuscan Sun
posted by Kabanos at 1:33 PM on March 14, 2016 [20 favorites]


If you mentally replace Tuscan with Tusken it's more enjoyable.

Okay, I saw that and figured that this would *have* to exist. Yep.

Under the Tusken Sun (YT)
posted by Four Ds at 1:57 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


>You can milk anything with nipples.

We don't yet have the technology to milk pigs.

However, there's been a proposed method.
posted by porpoise at 4:08 PM on March 14, 2016


You can milk anything with nipples.

Just you try it, buster.
posted by Devonian at 4:36 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I've managed to wind up a number of people over the years by convincing them that ant milk is a thing...
posted by pipeski at 4:52 PM on March 14, 2016


I've been an Italophile since some point in my college classes when I started taking art history, so of course I've read Under the Tuscan Sun, along with a bunch more in the genre. I haven't read the book in a while, but I remember being simultaneously annoyed/envious about the casual flinging around of heaps of cash, deep jealousy that this woman was living my life, and simply enjoying a lot of the book. It's true that she's good at conveying the emotion of joy. There are better books out there about living in Italy, whether you want the perspective of a native or an outsider, but I won't deny that there are some pretty passages in UtTS that are nice to return to.

It's funny to read this after getting back from my Italian lessons, where I slaughter grammar under the patient tutelage of a Florentine, but I'll put my nose in the air and say that Umbria is just as pretty as Tuscany and not so crowded. And despite the horribleness of Perugia and the Amanda Knox business, the city itself still makes my heart skip a beat.

(Anybody who wants a list of other good books in the crazy about Italy genre, hit me up via memail and I'd be glad to recommend a list. )
posted by PussKillian at 7:01 PM on March 14, 2016


Originally the name of a certain style of dryvit-covered tower-having suburbanite commercial construction that began under Clinton's rule and seemingly became mandatory sometime in Bush the Younger's reign.

It seriously seemed like an order came down from on high to local planning boards that only "Tuscan-style" architecture would be allowed in new strip malls. So for me, the moniker implies terrible aesthetics and as cheaply made as is humanly possible while still meeting modern building codes.
posted by wierdo at 7:04 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


In so doing, she has managed to turn a region of Italy into a shorthand for a certain kind of bourgeois luxury and good taste.

OK, I finally have to ask: what does bourgeois mean here? I always figured it translated to "middle class," which to me implies "Another Pleasant Valley Sunday" rather than the estates of Stealing Beauty.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 7:17 PM on March 14, 2016


I think of it as an antecedent of "basic." Basically, lacking in refined or artistic taste; enthusiasm for the good and mediocre and often expensive rather than the truly special. It's not necessarily lacking in money (in fact, here it might mean a bit of flashy spending on things not worth the money), but lacking a special elegance/distinctiveness/eye for style/authenticity.
posted by sallybrown at 7:33 PM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have a Tuscan toucan. His name is Wham-Bam.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:49 PM on March 14, 2016


OK, I finally have to ask: what does bourgeois mean here? I always figured it translated to "middle class"

A sort of herd like aestheticism, the equivalent of Bernard Shaw's 'middle class morality', and (unlike middle class, a label which is embraced by all in some societies) always applied to other people.
posted by tavegyl at 8:13 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Chrysostom: "[nerd] That's TUSKEN Raiders. [/nerd]"

That seems so wrong though. It's like people who spell "fucking" as "fucken". Sure, it sounds right, but it somehow hurts the eyes.
posted by Bugbread at 8:47 PM on March 14, 2016


However, there's been a proposed method.

I salute this brave vision of our bold new future
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:10 PM on March 15, 2016


Under the Tusken Sun (YT)

Well that was underwhelming. Way to Squander the Tusken Pun.
posted by mubba at 8:34 AM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


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