a wee tribute

I came back from London in December sick and was relieved of my final responsibilities to my classes. I didn't renew my contract, and am therefore finished working for the school, and it deserves a little send-off.

My first lesson of the day on Thursdays was in Bicocca, a little "suburb" that has sprouted around one of the numerous university campuses here. The tram drops me on campus, and I walk through a series of buildings that are all the same, coloured a specific shade of burnt orange and really really square -- hey must have been built in the 70's; they have that look about them -- to a piazza that is literally an outdoor mall and food court, complete with escalators and picnic tables, "paved" with something that looks like tile, where my students live in a really nice 10-or-so-floor condo. The buildings are tall for Milano and rise up all around you. They are still constructing in this area -- it's soon to become even more of a hub, with its own metro line. It's a vibrant area, or at least has some life about it -- the students pour out of the buildings at lunchtime and line up for kebab or a slice of pizza, and sit all over the piazza. Part of the reason I love going here there and everywhere to teach is getting to discover these new areas of the city, not necessarily beautiful in the same sense as the Duomo is beautiful, or the Foro in Rome; but each face of the city lends it its own flavour and deepens my understanding of its people.
I taught the majority of my lessons in Piazza Aspromonte, a 15-minute walk from my apartment. My walk to work will be a nice memory, if banal. By now, the row of kebab shops, restaurants, knick-knack stores, and cafés is as familiar to me as the row of houses on the way to the corner store where I grew up. OK -- maybe not quite as familiar. But it only takes something as small as a daily walk or other mundane routine to instill a sense of home.
My students were all Italian. Some were children, and some of those children were insupportable, but I am going to miss the little girls who drew me pictures. I'll miss the determined university students working towards proficiency exams and the Spanish-speaking Italian businessman who went crazy for Dire Straits. I won't miss the many cancelled appointments and the students who didn't try; these taught me patience, though, and which things to get stressed about and which to let go.
As for working for an Italian school, I think the well-oiled machine that was my Toronto job spoiled me.

I'm done with the school now, my contract having expired as I said; I've chosen to not renew it and spend my last six or seven weeks travelling and focusing on my personal and artistic development, and enjoying myself. My itinerary is up in the air, and more on that will come later, but I am looking forward to an extremely productive couple of months.

Happy Epifania!

Once upon a time, three wise men on their journey were stopped by an old woman with a broom who asked them where they were going. They told her that they were following a star that would lead them to a newborn baby, and invited her to come along. But she replied that she was busy sweeping and cleaning and did not go. When she realized that the baby was the Redeemer that all the world had been waiting for, her regret was so great that she continues to wander about Italy and at the Epiphany, rewards good children and disappointing those who were bad.


st nick and the dowries


la befana

Once upon a time, Santa Claus was unknown in the poor regions of southern Italy. He was imported from America, wearing the colours of Coca-Cola, in much more recent times, and passed off as the relative to St Nicholas, who was the man that anonymously threw three bags of gold into a window of a poor family so that the three daughters could be married honourably, and who was therefore equated with the generosity of spirit and of material goods that Christmas is known for. Until Santa Claus, children would wait in anticipation on the night of January 5 for La Befana to come on her broom, sneak down their chimneys, eat the cakes and sweets they left for her, and fill their socks with delicious gifts.

La Befana, a poor old woman herself, gives even the poorest of children presents as a reminder of the lavish gifts presented to the baby Jesus (who wasn't the richest of babies). She reminds me of the drummer boy, who was so poor that all he had to offer was a song, which in the end (I'd like to think) was probably more meaningful than some frankincense or myrrh.


La Befana vien di notte
con le scarpe tutte rotte
col vestito alla "romana"
viva viva la Befana !!
Porta cenere e carboni
ai bambini cattivoni
ai bambini belli e buoni
porta chicchi e tanti doni !

La Befana comes at night
In tattered shoes
Dressed in the Roman style
Long live la Befana!!

She brings cinders and coals
To the naughty children
To the good children
She brings sweets and lots of gifts.



diasporic relic?

ketchup catch up

In the interest of playing catch-up, my second post today will take us back to December 20, when I fought my way, tooth and claw, into the second-last available seat at La Scala and settled in to see Emma Dante's new production of Carmen.

I LOVED IT!

Half the symbolism went right over my head - I went home and did a lot of googling - but the overwhelming feeling that I was witnessing some sort of pagan cult ritual was what was really important about the production. The costuming and props recalled, I am told, a lot of Sicilian religious imagery, and in my opinion, there was something more deep-seated than that. The images and symbols meant something to me though I didn't know what they meant; Emma Dante has succeeded, I think, in touching some part of the collective unconscious of her audience that, depending on education and experience, will be articulated more or less easily by each member, but nonetheless felt.
Let me give you a few examples.
Micaela, ever the angelic voice on Don José's shoulder, had a black robe pinned up around her that opened to reveal a white dress beneath, which denoted "Don José's mother"; something as simple as white and black imagery made the shift between the two characters impossible to mistake. She was accompanied by a robed priest, lanky and topped with a broad-brimmed hat that my googling told me was a "padre hat", typically worn by itinerant priests of rural congregations, as well as 4 altar boys, who set up a cross at a 40 degree angle to the ground wherever she went and prayed fervently while she sang.
I wish I could find a picture of the quadrilla of the toreador Escamillo for you. Nowhere in my googling could I find a quadrilla that dresses like this traditionally, so I have to assume there is some religious significance. There were 6 or so, and they were dressed in long white robes with sticks in the arms, so they could swish their sleeves when they danced. Their headdresses were comprised of white masks with white veils, recalling the KKK, but topped with an elaborate arrangement of white flowers. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen and if you know anything about this type of costuming, leave a comment!
The cigarette girls were nuns with flowers in their mouths who undressed, jumped in a bath, and frolicked in the water like sirens while the men gaped and Carmen sang the Habanera; the gypsy girls frequently had choreography that recalled rabid beasts. In fact, the only people that seemed untouched by symbolism were Carmen and Don José themselves, and maybe that is because the opera does a fine job of setting Carmen up as the archetypal femme fatale that is the demise of the Everyman, José, and that's enough symbolism as it is (by the way, Jonas Kaufmann is no Everyman. Apparently that wasn't even his best show, and I wanted to cry every time he opened his mouth. He also spent a good deal of the scene in Carmen's den with his shirt off, which was fine with me).
As you might have guessed the singing and direction (Daniel Barenboim) was exceptional across the board and the 25-year-old Anita Rachvelishvili was a sensational Carmen. Apparently she's booked all over the place for the role now. What a heady feeling it must be, at 25, to look up into the theatre and see a full house on their feet for you, and that house be one of the toughest crowds in the world to please. I feel like I witnessed a bit of history in the making.

Happy 2010!

A few friends of mine are doing "daily" challenges for 2010 - one (Pratik) is writing 100 words a day, and one (Katy) is taking one photo a day. I think it's a valuable exercise; at the end, you have a record of your year in real-time, as the thoughts and images put down embody the moment in which they were put down. A good reminder, perhaps, of how far you can come in a year.
I think I can manage an entry a day, don't you? My entries to this point have been epic in nature, because I have so much to say and I say it so infrequently. Doing an entry a day may mean that some of them are less earth-shattering than others, which I can guess is probably OK with you. Some may border on inane, and for this I apologize.
It's probably for the best; over the vacation I read a book called "On Writing Well" by one William Zissner, and it changed some things I used to think about writing, specifically mine.

It's January 5, but everyone knows the year only starts on the first Monday of January, so I have only missed one day. Today will therefore be a two-entry day (and maybe other days will be too, if I feel the need to make up Jan 1-3).




My latest existential struggle was brought on by the arrival of another rejection letter, this from the Royal Academy of Music. After a long day of breast-beating and forswearing of the art of song, I've decided to take charge. I've made a list of the major European conservatories that interest me, and I'm busy researching them for submission deadlines and teachers that catch my attention for whatever reason, and from this, plotting some kind of itinerary by which I will endeavour to meet said teachers and have a lesson. That way, I will have an "in" when I go to audition. I think this would have helped me immensely in London. Being unknown in a sea of similarly-skilled light lyrics and soubrettes with no leverage of any kind is a lost battle before it's fought.

One. The Hague, Netherlands...

..it's going to be a long day.

I'm. COLD.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful,
and since we've no place to go,
let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!


I could not disagree more.





Welcome to winter in Italy, where the houses aren't insulated and there exists no infrastructure for snow removal!


Yesterday, I actually smiled while taking the above photo, thinking, "Isn't this magical?" It wasn't til three hours later, when the snow still had not stopped and I had arrived at home to take this photo, that I realized what a problem snow is for this city.





This amount of snow (about 10-15 cm) is a nuisance in Toronto or Montreal, but it does not bring life to a screeching halt, and it certainly does not bring about a state of crisis like it does here. The news last night was nothing but reports on the terrible gridlock, the condition of the rail tracks (trains didn't go), the lack of public transportation above ground, the terrible ice. It was about -6 and it snowed, like I said, no more than 15 cm. Of course, this part of Italy never gets this kind of weather, ever; what did I expect?

Well, I certainly didn't expect the pipes to freeze.

Houses here are not insulated like they are at home. In fact, the room I stay in has three walls to the outside of the condo and those three walls are made from something resembling aluminum siding, and you can bet there is not a scrap of insulation present. Needless to say, without my little space heater, I'd put my room at about 12 degrees at its coldest. I actually had a really terrible revelation the other day; I had my bed against these walls and my suitcase, and I pulled my suitcase away from the wall to clean and revealed a lovely crop of mold; the walls accumulate condensation because of the difference in temperature when I heat the room, and if there is anything cloth against the wall, you can guess what happens. Obviously this is no longer the case, and I keep the room cooler, much to my chagrin.

I digress. Because there is no insulation, the poor pipes don't stand a chance; I really had not thought of this, because it would never happen at home at -6!!! We have no hot water today, so if I would like a shower, I may as well go take a dip in Lake Como, because it would probbaly be about as warm.

As for infrastructure -- I have seen salting trucks here but nary a snowplow in sight, and let's be honest, these roads ain't built for 'em. The news was showing people clearing their sidewalks with gardening implements, like hoes; not a spade or shovel to be found. So I'm not too sure how they are going to deal with the snow we got overnight. I know they've closed the schools; ATM, the public transport company, is insisting that service will be as good, if not better that usual; still, I can't wait for Wednesday, when it's going up to 6 and the rain will wash this mess away, and we can pretend it never happened.