Italian style

I may be a sucker for a certain brand of Swedish modern baroque (for example, my infatuation with some of Ikea's more dramatic light fixtures), but I feel all that Protestant blood congealing in my veins when I am confronted with the glitz and glamour of the Italian every-day.

Here, for example, are two display rooms in a not particularly outrageous home-goods store we stopped into last week. So much gold...

For some reason I find the glittering gold quilt in the bedroom even more disturbing than the sequinned death's head on the couch.

Even comfy old-lady shoes get the bling treatment.

But for full-bore pizzazz al italiano, I look to the offerings at Fidenza's largest "Chinese store." General stores of various sizes run by Chinese immigrants are now a fixture in Italian towns all over, offering a wide range of low-priced household goods, clothing, and knick-knacks, much of it made in China. The locals call them "Chinese stores," and therefore so do we. There are several in Fidenza, including a gigantic one that we've visited several times looking for those odds and ends we don't know where else to find--a scrub brush, for example, or a cheap wastebasket.

On a recent trip this trio of handbags caught my eye. Particularly the one that looks like a teapot or perhaps a soccer ball. You could keep someone's head in there.

Mamma mia, that's Italian. Unless maybe it's Chinese.