Buongiorno, Tutti!
Lately I have been robbed of my internet, so I'm at some other NYU students' place to steal theirs for a while. It might explain why I haven't been in contact via email or iChat lately, and I'm sorry but I won't be able to review a CD for this week because I have precious little time to write this post before my computer runs out of batteries.
As things are here in Florence, I couldn't go a whole week without doing something worth reporting, so even though my last post was just four days ago, I'm already blogging again. First off, I had that gig on Thursday night I didn't know whether I had or not. I did have it, and I rode in the back of the tiny Italian Smart Car, clinging to my tightly packed instrument for my life. The drummer who drove me, Simone, thought that I was the funniest looking thing and took pictures of me hunched over in the back. I'm still waiting for him to send them to me, so keep your eyes peeled. I'll be posting them when they arrive. Anyway, that's how the night started.
The venue was at this place that was beyond the law, in a way. It was an old abandoned high school that some people just took over and hope the police don't find out. Don't worry, I won't say where it is, especially because I don't think I could find it again. I couldn't see where the car was going because my head was bent over in that cramped car. Anyway, because the building has no legal owners and is basically illegal anyway, people are allowed to do things there that they wouldn't otherwise, like smoke, do drugs, talk liberal politics, etc. It felt like what a 1930's jazz club must have been like. Normally I wouldn't like that kind of thing, and the smoke did get to me pretty quickly (my great leather jacket seems to be forever possessed by smoke smell), making my eyes sting, but I had a lot of fun. It was so intimate and people were just hanging out and having fun. Perhaps the weed in the air was getting in my system, or the three glasses of wine I had, more than I have ever had in one sitting. But I loosened up and really enjoyed playing and seeing everyone have fun listening and getting together. The person who "owns" the place made dinner or the 40-50 people there at 8:30 or so, a wonderful 2-course dish first of pasta, then of a strange egg thing in tomato sauce with onions, which was out of this world good. We started playing at 11:00, and I didn't stop until 2:30. The original band took cigarette breaks here and there to let other musicians get the chance to jam, but there were no other vibraphonists, so I just stayed on stage. People kept showing up, and everyone had a good time, even if it was just playing standards. After the gig I got a few phone numbers and possible chances to play more in Florence, and Simone and I took the vibes to his studio for the night. He drove me home and we talked about Italian "womens." Oh, what I night out. Maybe I should try it more often. I went to bed at 4:30 in the morning.
That was really fun. I wish I had pictures to show off.
The lack of internet has made me surprisingly productive, and I got all my 75 pages of reading, major work for Guest Artist, and all my other homework done, so this afternoon I decided to go to the Boboli Gardens like I had always wanted to so I could see La Grotta Grande again. I like gardens in the winter because with the sun in the sky where it is you get shadows you won't get in the summer. I was most interested in the Grotta anyway, and I'm sure I'll be back in the spring when flowers are blooming because I have free unlimited access! Woo Hoo!
It was a great idea to go. The Grotta was amazing like I remembered, though I didn't remember the paintings I saw on the ceiling. I can't imagine how it was made. It's this little cave built into the wall with hand-crafted stalactites and stalagmites as well as two casts of Michaelangelo sculptures. The more you look at it in the inside, the more faces and sheep and other strange things that used to look just like rocks you can see. I wish photos could do it justice, but the same light that made it look so cool and jagged made picture taking hard to work out.
Oh, and my camera was on low battery the whole time, and I ran out before I got all the pictures I wanted. Next time I go back I'll get more pictures.
I loved wandering up and down the paths of the garden without any real plan. There are a lot of small side-streets people don't use and I would just take them and see where I end up. I knew a little about the gardens from my guide book, but I'm glad I didn't try to smash all the big "important" sights and instead ended up where fate wanted me to go, which was the best place of all (or so I know. It's not like I saw the other places to compare it to.).
I ended up high on the hill at Fort Belvedere, where there happens to be a 360 panoramic view of the entire city of Florence. It was incredible. I could see everything, the full Duomo, the Palazo Vecchio, the major churches, the Jewish Temple with the big green dome, San Miniato, and even NYU's campus, if I looked from the right angle. There were hills all around, there was the Arno river, everything on this perfectly crisp day. Now I think photos would be the best to explain this whole thing. It was breathtaking. Fort Belvedere... by far my best unexpected find in Florence.
I didn't plan on staying in the gardens until they closed, but I did. My legs are getting pretty strong from walking up the hill every day to campus, so the three hours of uphill climbing was not so hard on me.
I promise once I have more time and more pictures that there will be more amazing images of this amazing city up on the internet!!!
Music Announcements
I wrote the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City and they said they would be glad to have me back, just to pick a date. I asked them for the last Thursday of September, the 25 of the month, because I thought that having a concert on an early Thursday of the year would be better for having a big student audience, and we'll be rehearsed because the band is based in Berkeley, so we'll have already been practicing a lot. Oh, and a birthday concert might be good for publicity. It will also probably be the New York premier of Guest Artist, which is shaping up to be a wonderful and ambitious piece. I know you'll like it.
I'm also writing Jazz at Pearls to try and get a gig there. They haven't written back yet, but that would be for sometime in July back home in Berkeley.
Then, of course, there will be some gigs here in Italy. I'll let you know about those when the dates become final.
