"CAZZEGGIO" CULTURE OR THE CULTURE OF HANGING ABOUT

This is something that in the university area involves everybody, a "non activity" that around here keeps everyone really busy. For some, it is much more: a style, a life philosophy... a real culture!

WHAT??!!

Well, the dictionary defines it as "Doing or saying frivolous, unimportant things"

In Piedmontese the corresponding word is "bamblinare".

To really understand what "cazzeggio" is, a field study is required: it is necessary to go where "cazzeggio" (hanging about) becomes culture. So take a walk in the university area and contribute to culture with a scientific research on the subject. Observe closely and classify the subjects of this custom, the places and the thousand and one ways of practising it.

THOSE DEDICATED TO IT

Lo studente, il vero professionista
From empirical observation it is clear that the real professionals of "cazzeggio" are the students attending Palazzo Nuovo. University students dedicate themselves to it constantly, whenever they can and even when they can't (e.g. 2 days before an exam on 8,000 pages).
Not just professionals, but real Stakhanovites!

The "infected" professor
Direct contact with students is often fatal to younger professors. After the lecture, in their study or,in more "serious"cases,at the café,"cazzeggio" discussions involve lecturers who boast considerable oratory skills with very subtle yet complex speeches.

Via Po bookstall owner
He is a very peculiar subject. Passing half the day sitting by his bookstall, apparently staring into space, and the other half moving books around from one end of the stall to the other, the most reliable assumption is that - when sitting - the subject is meditating on complex and revolutionary criteria for ordering books and that - whilst standing - he puts them into practice, thus giving new dimensions to the bookstall. Many students searching for out-of-catalogue and old books stop here and always give in to "cazzeggio".

From this empirical study you'll appreciate that many kinds of people, belonging to different species, are dedicated to "cazzeggio". Indeed,in the university area "cazzeggio" is like a mermaid song,something in the air that becomes irresistible: practically nobody manages to escape it!

WHERE AND HOW: THE PLACES AND THE "THOUSAND AND ONE" WAYS TO PRACTICE

Roaming "cazzeggio"
The most frequent method followed, characterised by not staying in the same place: the subject roams from one place to another, from a study room to a library to a café and to another café...
In most cases the justification for roaming is the difficulty in finding the right place inspiring the concentration needed to study. And, inevitably, at the end of the day, the search will have been unsuccessful and, therefore, will have to start again the next.
This kind of "cazzeggio" has a literary reference: do you remember the Slothful in Dante's Divine Comedy?

"Cazzeggio" in the library or the study rooms
These are privileged places for "cazzeggio": it is practiced everywhere.
Clearly, you go to a library or a study room - as the name points out - to study, but "cazzeggio" manifests itself in every break taken.
There are standard breaks, like the one called "coffee and cigarette", or "I've finished a chapter", but even "a paragraph" or, in extreme cases "a sentence". But there are also unforeseen breaks, like the one to say hello to a primary school classmate you haven't seen for ages - and fancy meeting him/her here - or the one to answer the mobile vibrating and its your girlfriend wanting to know what you've eaten - and you can't possibly not answer...
Result: of the time spent in the library or study room about a quarter is dedicated to studying and... all the rest to "cazzeggio"!

"Cazzeggio" at the café
The most pseudo intellectual - artistic form of "cazzeggio", founded on oratory skills, takes place here.
Essential components are: a café, a table and a group of students sitting around it. News from the daily paper,a book, a film, or a record,may be fundamental... they are usually the starting point of conversations, then discussion passes subtly from details to more and more general concepts and, without those involved realising, the light hearted conversation becomes a dissertation on the meaning of life. So it's happened again: the discussion has inevitably become endless!
Indeed, there will be no conclusions - and this is the advantage: café "cazzeggio" is never-ending!

"Cazzeggio" on the "large steps"
The spring and summer version of "cazzeggio" at Palazzo Nuovo takes place on the large steps delimiting the via Verdi and via Sant'Ottavio car parks.
Here it takes on many forms: cigarettes are chewed and put out, laughter overtakes, soccer matches take place and juggling shows are improvised in the street using the large steps as spectator seats. All this under a scorching sun shade, which explains why some students from April onwards exhibit a sun tan as if they had been on a cruise along the Nile.

THE DEFINITIONS OF ENTHUSIASTS

The most authoritative on "cazzeggio" are certainly Palazzo Nuovo students, real enthusiasts. To understand the nature of "cazzeggio" let's hear the university students' definitions.

Arts and Humanities students
"The Latin for "otium"with the addition of 'vitium'"
"The typical ineptitude of Svevo's characters: many mental trips and not much action"
"The sublimation of Aristotle's comedian"

Philosophy students
"The cognitive experience of the Loss of Sense"
"The Phenomenon of Apathy"

Communication Science students
"The signified is none in comparison with the signifier"

DAMS students
"Two parts of boredom and one of pleasure, shaken, but not mixed"

Psychology students
"The emersion of unconscious frustrated drives"

Law students
"The object of legislation is the non fulfilment of the convened subject"

Economics students
"Maximise resources and time used to reduce the results to be obtained"

Meta definition:
"Cazzeggio consists in trying to define cazzeggio"