The Concert

We went to a concert. My friends Andrea and Fawn have rented a house by the sea in Tonfano on the west coast of Tuscany. A friend, Claudio, organized a grand musical evening with dinner for a crowd of us, maybe 35. Everyone was commanded to dress up. We drove off towards the mountains. You can see the “caves” where the marble has been quarried but much of the area is green with pine tees and olives or scraped raw to the crags. The site was an old mill now a restaurant with all the old grinding stones still in place. We had bits of food out on a ledge with a view of hills and orchards and the tiny river that once ran the mill dribbling over the edge of a former dam. There was a woman singer and a guy with an electric piano. The music played and the sun set and we began to regret that we had dressed for the beach climate and we were in the hills. A bit of prosecco and more music and it got colder. And then we began to share jackets and collect car blankets and one even put on the hiway orange emergency road trouble vest required of all cars here. He even lined it with newspapers! Finally after almost 3 hours of music and long discourses in Italian about the origins of the songs and their meaning we were able to sit down for dinner. (Italians NEVER eat before 9PM!) But outside! I sat next to Fawn’s daughter-in-law Alexia, Luxembourgeois with French, Italian and English! She has an adorable 9 month old baby girl. We talked babies and education. The road vest guy handed out newspapers, David, the Italo/Brit, spent much time talking to me, we had plenty of food and coffee and dolce and sambuca and more conversation. The party was finally over around 12.30 and we rolled home. But I think I’ve had all the Burt Bacharach music I can hold and I don’t think I will ever get those songs out of my head.

Music in the Piazza

There’s a tango concert this evening with a flutist and a violin and a cello and an electric piano and the air is warm and there are dozens of people lounging in chairs and watching and the music is very nice unlike the last few concerts which were either loud or inharmonic or LOUD. I have a first row freebie seat for these concerts since my windows overlook the piazza. But when there is music, I prefer to observe the party from the square itself. More autentico. I think these concerts will continue for the month of September and possibly into October if the weather holds. We are warm and comfy just now but the man in the military uniform on TV says that the forecast for tomorrow is for changeable weather with a chance of showers. Actually I don’t mind if there is some variation in the clime since this resolutely bel tempo is getting a bit boring. Being from the SF area which changes weather from morning to evening, consistency is my hobgoblin. So soon I will order another G&T and dissolve into simple audience mode. It’s a nice night.
Music in the piazza v2.0. Last night a different group played. This time it was up tempo New Orleans style brassy jazz. Loud but good loud. The crowd was very appreciative with many more dancers than the tango group. Well, this music allowed a more free form style of dance. They even had some playful tricks with a balancing act and some schtick with water. Then one of the crazy denizens of the piazza accosted me and tried to lecture me on using a computer in the area reserved for paying customers (but I had a G&T, natch) and my Italian was no match for his fractured English. He sat with me for a bit and plied me with odd questions until the music ended and I went home. All the way to the other side of the piazza.

Nino

Well, things are starting to happen. It has been a dry week what with everybody away for the August holidays. I was caught between ennui and depression, starting to develop heroic buyer’s remorse. But. I was swept into the drama of a displaced Georgian violinist who is reduced to home healthcare for the aged, one Nino. “Is boy’s name here,” she said in her fractured English. I stopped at a particular bar on the Arno which has a lovely view of the Ponte Vecchio as it turns a lovely series of earth colors during the sunset. Then you can turn the other way and see the windows of the Palazzi turning gold and the upstream bridges mirrored in the now relaxed stream. And they make a great gin and tonic. She was smoking and NOT buying the pricey drinks. She asked me a question about telephone cards, a ploy maybe. But for the next hour and a half, I heard her story, long and desperate. A violinist, she plays an Amati, once for the Moscow symphony, now she feeds elderly Italians whose kids only call weekly, weakly. “Be my friend, my sister, you go to Georgia, you need only ticket, after, my family take care everything!” I could not help but be affected and I told her I would do what I could but I was new here myself, blah, blah. She showed me her credentials and her clippings and told me her story and we talked about music and opera and travel and as tragic as she was, I was glad of the conversation and the interest. Maybe it was the romantic venue or the sentimental atmosphere but I truly wanted to be of help. I just have to get my own thing going here.

Italian Rigmarole

Italian rigmarole is not a dance. It is the life blood of people with little else in their lives but making others' lives complicated. I have been to the Quaestura to report myself as required in all of the documents in my possession. After several hours in different offices, they aren’t interested. They sent me to the post office to fill out a set of forms which they freely admitted would only be returned in time for my departure. I have obtained a codice fiscale which is supposed to permit all manner of financial transactions except the ones I want to execute like resurrecting the telephone line which ostensibly lived in the apartment so I can install broadband (forget wireless, just give me a connection!). I have been advised by David, intrepid Italo/British pal, that I should install a targa (nameplate) on the array of bells at the downstairs door so the phone co will find me but I am concerned that the landlady will be compromised since she hasn’t registered the lease, so I pause, wondering. Do the post office types rat to the lease bureaucrats? Well, maybe it will get better when the entire world comes back from vacation tomorrow or Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever. At least tomorrow I can go to the school and take advantage of the expertise of the ladies there, even if I have to sign up for a conversation class to make it legit. Parlo molto Italiano adesso! But apparently I need to learn curse words.

Homeless at last

I got out of the house at last on the 31st of July. Homeless at last! But I did it the Mill valley way with a Mercedes, a computer and two cell phones. Of course I had a whole collection of drek that I couldn't get rid of so it lived in the car for two weeks. And now I fully understand why truly homeless people keep so much crap: you never know when you will need some extraneous thing. I kept trying to consolidate things: a recipe collection which only had ten or twenty heirloom recipes but buried in an hour's worth of paper tossing; an album project from years past that need thinking and glueing; a couple of boxes of ancient school papers with some blackmail material buried deep; crutches - a great sympathy ploy for the plane but try using them with three pieces of luggage!; an ever expanding compliment of luggage - I ended up shipping more stuff; Chinese scrolls that never sold; files to take, receipts to store, and bills to pay; a fur neck piece that was impossible to wear in SF without risking animal fan's wrath - off to Italy with you, if not there, then a ritual burial; miscellaneous gifts dredged up from the travels of years past - perfect hostess gifts. I learned that you can give stuff to people, they will be grateful, and if they hate it they can toss it later in the privacy of their own home. And sometimes you can either mail it or just abandon it on their doorstep. I did enjoy the "cousining around" as my mother called this kind of friend/family visiting especially since it allowed for a one on one experience with several friends even if I sometimes needed my schedule to remember where I was sleeping that night. My last spot was with Kristin and Dennis who marvelously took me to the shuttle and are babysitting the last two cases until they get shipped. Just bought stamps for the thank you notes. Now to find a fan for the nighttime heat.

The Move Progresses

I have torn up every room in my house. There are books and boxes and furniture piled up everywhere!! My bed is on it's side due to rewiring of the reading lights. So I'm sleeping on the guest bed which is very high and quite firm and which is lovely and nearly new but doesn't want to sell. I should keep it and sell the other one but I love my soft, comfy bed. The renters have allergy problems so they don't want any of the rugs which also don't want to sell. And the books!! I had no idea that I had so many books. And I haven't opened most of them in years. Some in thirty years! Why keep any of them? Just the Italian history. Luckily a friend has looked them over and flogged a few for a nice bit of cash.

The packers/movers came today and are busily wrapping and rapping and packing away. They are a nice crew of part time musicians and artists with an interesting variety of hair choices. Groovy dudes all. But there must be some corollary to Parkinson's Law that states that the goods expand to fill the available pod. After packaging, my "stuff" was easily twice the volume I had expected. But after years of time wasted playing Tetris - which I recall is a video game - the boss and his vice chairman were able to perfectly fit it all into the 8x8x16 POD with a bit to spare so I saved the golf clubs. Haven't given up actually playing my age, but now I need to live to be 105.

On stuff

George Carlin died last Sunday. His comic philosophy was all over the news. Most relevant for me was his rant about STUFF. I am up to my eyebrows in 40+ years of STUFF! And George appears posthumously all over radio and TV, reminding me that it’s all just STUFF. I am pleased and only a little surprised at how easy it has been to eliminate so much of it. So how do you handle all your stuff? When I was sick in January watching dreadful TV, there was a program called Clean House where families with way too much STUFF are persuaded to get rid of lots of it so the bossy host and makeover team can fulfill the show’s mandate. Why do people accumulate so much STUFF? And why is other people’s stuff so dreadful? As George said “Other people’s stuff is shit and your shit is STUFF!” Glad to see the back of most of it. Regrets later.
Then in the NYTimes yesterday was a lengthy article about the tyranny of the HEIRLOOM! Melinda doesn’t want the mahogany table from Nana and Jonny doesn’t have room for the Deerfield chest. I am looking hard at all this STUFF. If you are going to spend real money to put it in storage it better be because you want it not because X left it to you. I have said goodbye to a lot of real drek. I just hope my children appreciate that they will not have the three week, four dumpster purge to handle when I die. But there’s still time and Italian STUFF is so much more interesting.