David Gross.We've a dreamed about chucking our job or moving to Europe or getting a motorcycle. David Gross David Jonathan Gross (born February 19, 1941 in Washington, D.C.) is an American particle physicist and string theorist (although he's stated to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, on 09/27/2006, that the second area is included in the first one). did all three Burned out as a New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of lawyer, Gross grabbed the chance to upend his life--by moving to Bologna Bologna (bōlô`nyä), city (1991 pop. 404,378), capital of Emilia-Romagna and of Bologna prov., N central Italy, at the foot of the Apennines and on the Aemilian Way. , Italy, to help Ducati motorcycles turn around its failing business and recapture recapture n. in income tax, the requirement that the taxpayer pay the amount of tax savings from past years due to accelerated depreciation or deferred capital gains upon sale of property. (See: income tax) RECAPTURE, war. its legendary cool. Gross invites us to relive re·live v. re·lived, re·liv·ing, re·lives v.tr. To undergo or experience again, especially in the imagination. v.intr. To live again. the ride in Fast Company: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Motorcycles in Italy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $14). You start the book by writing about figa versus figo. It sounds like people in Bologna classify everything in these very sexual terms. The biggest compliment is to tell a woman that she looks figa--she looks like a pussy pus·sy adj. Containing or resembling pus. puss, pussy term of endearment addressed to a cat. Called also moggy. . In the same way, the slang for a man is that he's figo--a dick, a cool dick. They're very comfortable with sexuality. Those terms are thrown around in a very easy way. Before Ducati, were you scared of motorcycles? Attracted? It was definitely attraction/repulsion. If you get them in an honest space, experienced bikers talk about the fear. Every ride is like kissing death. How did that interact with your sense of yourself as a gay man? Part of it was relevant as a gay man, but it's also just a man thing. Men need to test themselves. They need to confront fear, and I think, for gay men, we confront that later in life. How did being in Italy change you? I came from a very intellectual place. My parents were New York intellectuals, and Italy is not like that. It's about the beauty of the moment. I learned to appreciate things like the beauty of a building, the way a person looks as they walk across the piazza. I'm very grateful because my motorcycle gave me that chance, to be a different person. |
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