LA VALANGA DI VITA
LEON'S LANDSLIDE OF LIFE

When this website was first designed, The Landslide of Life was used as the translation from the Italian title. The Italian title refers to a mining engineer named Pier Giorgio Frassati, who is going to be recognized as living in heaven by his religious community, the Catholic Church, this August 3. Because of his irrepressible vitality and joy, he was nicknamed Valanga at the University of Milan where he studied engineering. He became ill from polio which was untreatable at the time, and died in 1925, before he could accomplish many of his projects. In 2015, he chose to bestow his nickname upon the fledgling public service program, and in 2017 the webpage "Monetine Mondiali" was first published, but many people do not speak Italian in our world.

Leon's Landslide of Life refers to the mythical Leon Montagna, played by Jean Reno in Luc Besson's cult classic film, The Professional. Reno was instrumental in amending Besson's problematic script to present the characters in a more morally sympathetic light. In fact, Leon blows himself up as a sort of human volcano, to eliminate the film's vengeful villain, a corrupt DEA agent, and save Matilda. But it is also relevant as we move into Walden Walkabout Week to consider Leon's attachment to the plant he kept on his windowsill, a plant which Matilda ultimately plants on the grounds of her new home, suggesting that the film's writers, directors and producers like Tolkien with Sam, and Thoreau in his scholarship, realized the often overlooked importance of gardening and its connection to human greatness.