The results of the last Italian election are baffling, if not incomprehensible, to most foreign observers: as one American friend put it, a majority of Italians voted either for a comedian (Beppe Grillo) or a clown (Silvio Berlusconi). A center-left coalition won a narrow plurality in the lower house of parliament with about 29.6 per cent of the vote, barely edging Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, with Grillo’s Five Star Movement, a loose collection of citizens organizing over the Internet, gaining an astonishing 25.6 per cent, more than any single party. In all likelihood, the three-sided split spells an ungovernable chaos. It would be a mistake, though, to see Italy as a crazy farce that is entirely different from America. Our two-party system has limited the success of more radical parties, but the Italian experience illuminates phenomena that are at work in the United States, too. Are we really sure that Congress is a saner institution than the Italian parliament?

Alexander Stille considers Italy’s rudderless state: http://nyr.kr/YM4SEB

Photograph by Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg/Getty

(Source: newyorker.com)

Tom Mueller talks to charismatic comedian Beppe Grillo about his serious goals for Italy: http://nyr.kr/XSBWOa

Photograph by Stefano De Luigi.

In this week’s Food Issue, Mimi Sheraton remembers the European sausage and salami she’s loved, and seeks similar specimens in the US: http://nyr.kr/TfEfKk

Here, meet Cesare Casella, the executive chef at Salumeria Rosi, on the Upper West 

(Source: newyorker.com)

“Vienece, Italy” (1990), by Martin Parr, in response to Issue 103, “Fiction and Metaphor” (1986).

Click-through for a slideshow of photos from “Aperture Remix: A 60th Anniversary Celebration,” for which curator Lesley A. Martin commissioned ten contemporary photographers to create photographs in response to an Aperture publication they felt most influence their development as artists.

In this week’s issue, Ariel Levy asks if Italians have had enough of Silvio Berlusconi—and the culture he embodies. The piece also explores “the vision of female sexuality that Berlusconi has communicated through his television monopoly over the years.” The video above (be forewarned: it’s twenty-four minutes long) excerpts and examines the images of women on Italian TV.

“The best sex you will get all year, if that’s what you crave in your moviegoing, is between Tilda Swinton and a prawn.” - From Anthony Lane’s review of “I Am Love”