Moving decidedly away from food, this past week has been one of truce for a great many of us living in Italy, and also an excellent opportunity to catch up on sleep: We're between winning the Luis Vuiton Cup and the finals of the America's cup. The decisive regatta against Paul Cayard and America One, which took place between two and four in the morning Italian time (New Zealand is 12 hours ahead of us) had about 3 million people glued to the tube. I can't think of anything else that has captured Italian interest to this degree -- Formula 1 is tremendously popular, but only diehard Ferrari fans stay up when the races are in Australia. Luna Rossa captured everyone.

Of course the merit for all this interest lies with the New Zealand television crews who are filming it all. They're doing an excellent job with their onboard minicams, but what makes it really interesting is the sound -- both boats were dotted with mikes, and it was fascinating to listen to the crews, especially when things were going. More on Luna Rossa than America One, because the Italians raised their voices a lot more, blistering the airwaves on more than one occasion. When asked about it, De Angelis (Luna Rossa's skipper) shrugged and said, "When you've got a crew of 16 and things get out of hand..." In other words, he considered the mikes an invasion of privacy, and didn't care what his crew said so long as they got the job done. In case you were wondering, there weren't any negative reactions on the home front either (some of the blistery parts were transmitted on the news). Spoken Italian is often quite colorful, and what's said on some primetime shows would be beeped out in the US. In any case, the America's Cup finals begin February 19 2000, and if you run into an Italian who's yawning during the week thereafter, you'll know why.

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