l'Ultimo Baccio: Saying Goodbye to Firenze

The Duomo in Milan


Ciao, Tutti!

It has been a while since I wrote about Italy to you guys, and it will be an even longer time before I can write about it again. I arrived in Berkeley almost 48 hours ago without my bag because it missed my connection from Paris, but I expected that because we only had a 50 minute layover to run through the enormous Charles de Gaul airport, so I packed everything important on carry on baggage. Plus we were 25 minutes late. Anyway, I have my bag now, and without final exams to worry about, I have time to write my last travel edition of the blog.

Two words of warning before I go into this: 1) This is by no means the last blog. I only expect this blog to become more music-oriented, like the Sam Goldsmith website, rather than a online travel journal. I will still be writing, so don't forget about me!

2) Since I haven't written in so long, there is too much to write, as always. I have about 280 pages in my personal travel journal, which is not yet finished, and multiple pounds of scrap booking things. I will try a new thing with this blog so that I don't wear everybody out, especially me. I will make a slide show with in-depth captions, so the blog will revolve around the photos rather than the story. Plus, there isn't much of a story except I was traveling throughout northern Italy for a few days taking pictures.

I apologize to all who are still waiting for my postcards to arrive. I have them all here with me, most of them being written, but knowing the Italian postal system, I figured I'd rather deliver them in person, or at least mail them from the states.

Music Announcements

I must include this segment first, since a development occurred for the 20th birthday concert. The Bowery Poetry Club moved the date until the following Sunday, September 28, 2008, from 6:00-7:30, instead of September 25. I earned 3 more days as a teenager. If you plan to come out for the show, I'd wait a little longer before making plans because, who knows, they might change again.

The premier of Guest Artist will be on Saturday, June 28, 2008, at the Bluesix Acoustic Room at 9:00. Will be a great show, worth the trip into San Francisco to see. The Inspiration Sextet will also be playing a sequel to last summer's Jazz School performance, though there will be some personnel changes due to people leaving town early, and the two shows will feature entirely different sets of music except Guest Artist. Come to both! 8:00 at the Jazz School, August 17.

Good to get that out of the way. Now for the main show:

Genova



This is a view of the city of Genova from the port. Genova is the second biggest port in Europe, the biggest being Barcelona.


The city of Genova. I took this picture from something called the "Bigo," a device that lifts you 40 meters above the ground at the pier next to the aquarium. Speaking of the aquarium, which I have no pictures of... Genova has one of the best aquariums I have ever seen, very well-organized and very fun. I learned a lot of Italian words for marine animals there.


I thought this stairway was pretty. I was walking over a bridge and looking down on the roofs of the apartment buildings. Genova is a city with drastic hills and many height contrasts. Because it's built into the mountains, it is rather long, and most everything one would want to see is by the coast. But I like overhead views.


This is the cathedral of Genova, a work in progress when viewed from the inside, filled with many obvious add-ons and architectural features that don't fit the rest of the design. I liked the facade a lot, though, and they had an amazing treasure museum with the Holy Grail and the plate where John the Baptist's head was kept. It was creepy, but I had just written a paper about these sorts of holy relics, so it was pretty fascinating, too.


An overhead view of the cathedral. In all the other cathedrals I had seen throughout Italy, the structure was similar, but this one was different. There is not much space in Genova, so instead of having the two chambers off to the sides they built their cathedral with the two chambers along side the center altar, so the church takes up less square footage. I took this picture from atop a tower of the royal palace.


The small house is supposedly where Christopher Columbus was born. I didn't go in since I wasn't all that interested by it. Seemed like a tourist trap.

Torino

I didn't get many good pictures of Torino, and I didn't like it as much as the other two cities. But I did get to see some great panoramic views of the too-modern city and the Alps behind it. The main cathedral was very uninteresting, actually about the same size as the other large churches and in now way in a more centralized position than some of the others. And the facade was so dull and bare. And another church had the famous Shroud of Turin, which I saw by accident, not knowing what it was until afterward when I was wondering why there were so many pictures of it up around where tourists were supposed to go. I liked the green building with a dome and spike at the top. "Il Mole" used to be a Jewish temple, but now it's the national cinema museum.


The Po river and the hill I climbed to get my panoramic views. Also on top of that hill was a mountaineering museum, which was interesting. I think I liked the proximity to the Alps more than the city itself, though this may have been because everything was closed for the May 1 national holiday, or I might have been worn out from being a tourist and not sleeping much.


Here is a great panoramic view of the city. The big building is Il Mole. I don't really know too much about Torino, except that it's very French and very baroque, and apparently it was very important in conjunction with Milan and Genova in the Italian industrial revolution. I could tell it was French with the big, square, bland piazzas with repetitive buildings all in the similar design as Versailles. I liked the other side of the Po River better because it was greener and I could see the city with the amazing mountain backdrop. I really did like the mountains. There's a video that won't upload to my computer right now, but I could see the mountains forever and ever it seemed from my perch on the hill. It was quite serene once I got out of the main city.

Milan


I did not actually visit Milan. I only walked through it to get to the Duomo, which was all I wanted to see of the city, except perhaps the opera house that's so famous. I would rather see an opera then the place where it's performed, though, so I didn't care to go, and besides, with only 3 or four hours in Milan I needed to give the Duomo proper respect, and I don't even think that devoting all my time in Milan to it was a big enough tribute to it's awesomeness.


The day was so bright, the cathedral was so white and clean, and the architecture was so bizarre that I was befuddled at times while I was looking at it. I often wasn't even able to tell what I was looking at on first glance, whether there was a wall in front of me or at my side, objects' distances from me, the angle at which I was approaching, etc. It was almost a mystical baroque mind trick device, so elaborate that there is not more sense of front, back, or shape. And yet it was still definitely a duomo, like the others I had seen in my travels.


After going inside (and seeing two preserved bodies of saints, speaking of holy relics), I took the climb to the top, and I enjoyed not being tired as I heard the other Americans panting and muttering curses under their breath as they struggled up the tall and narrow staircase. Kids would come down, and I could hear, "cento trentuno, cento trentidue, cento trentitre" under their breath as they counted the 131, 132, and 133 steps. I don't know how many there were, but people seemed to think there were a lot.


The top was a very strange thing. It was basically a marble roof structured the same way as the roofs of our houses are today, with marble stucco and everything. The view was not so great because Milan doesn't have a very interesting skyline, but it was quite amazing to be able to walk on the crooked roof of the amazing cathedral and look down on its mighty piazza.

San Elpidio al Mare concert, May 3


This is the theater we played in for our last concert in Italy. More people showed up after the soundcheck, but it was difficult to take pictures in the dark. It seated somewhere between 300 and 500 people and was pretty full by the time we started playing. Even though we didn't play all that well for a variety of reasons, including personal, technical, and physical, we played well enough and the people liked it quite a bit, so that was good. I felt good about it, and I had played well, despite the fatigue and lack of practice from the vacation I had taken the preceding three days, and everyone has off-days and you just have to take it like a professional. The place was on a hill by the Adriatic sea, about a 4 hour drive away from Florence, in the region of Marche.


We ate dinner in a castle, actually, and wonderful osteria, which was about the biggest restaurant I had ever seen in my life. The man sitting next to me (who took the picture) talked to me really fast in Italian about how bread is made in Marche, and between the speed and the heavy Marche accent I could only understand about half of it. Still, after my Genova trip where I didn't speak a word of English for 3 days I felt stronger in Italian than ever before. Just in time to take the exam and then take my leave.


On the left is Greg, the guitarist in the band and one of my suitemates, and on the right is Simone, our Italian drummer who we had all become very close with during our travels throughout Italy playing, as well as with our bassist Piero. They are standing next to an advertisement for our show that night. These were up all over the city, and we had an article in the newspaper, so I guess it was a big deal. We are already making plans for Piero and Simone to come out to New York this fall to visit, trying to make suer we'll have enough room in our dorms to put them up for a week or two.


After a basically zero-hour night sleep, the only thing waking me up was this beautiful view of the Appenini mountain range. I think after all this time looking at city monuments and churches and artwork I have started to become very fond of natural beauty, even more than usual, and I have started to miss Yosemite quite a lot. There is a point where every church looks the same unless it's the Milan, Florence, or Siena Duomo (Even St. Peter's is just a bigger version of less interesting churches I've seen, just with a great Michelangelo sculpture at the front). I'm sure it gets like that with mountains eventually, but not. You could make the greatest cathedral ever and it still won't be as grand as a giant mountain.

That is one thing that made me feel better about leaving Florence, feeling that I was ready to be done with travel and tourism. I don't feel like moving city to city and seeing the monuments anymore, I feel like staying put and living, visiting people and nature. I could stay put in Florence and still be happy, but it's time not to move around so much. Speaking of tourism, Florence has started to become more and more crowded and congested with obnoxious Americans, and probably those from other nationalities, too, but the Americans are the most noticeable because they're the most obnoxious. They make it streets so crowded that it's tough to walk down the street to the supermarket, let alone to the Uffizi, whose line was so long I never even made it back to say goodbye. That, the increasingly hot weather, and the zanzare (mosquitos) are the only things I can think of right now that I won't miss about Florence.



As a goodbye present to myself I went to Fiesole, a little rich town outside Florence that has the best view of the Arno Valley. I've been into overhead views a lot lately, as you can see, but I do think that it's a good way to wrap up the semester, the wonderful, life-changing semester. I could see the whole place from where I was standing, all of everything I had been enjoying so much for the last 4 months, all so small as if it was in a little jar to take home with me, a little memory in the blue haze of the sky. No matter what happens, it's a city, a great city, and I can always come back because it's not going anywhere, and even if I don't for some reason, it will always be that little collection of buildings with a red dome of to right of center. When I got there in January, that view would have meant nothing to me but a pretty landscape, like the view of Torino, Milan, or Genova. But this trip gave this place meaning to me, meaning of more than just a place with pretty buildings, but the closest to home I have ever felt outside of the Bay Area. It's like I could see time, the whole time I had been there as I looked at the city, though I could also see the history, the Romans coming down from Fiesole to make a small town on the Arno, the building of the baptistry, burning Savanarola outside Palazzo della Signoria, the recent elections that seem to be taking place every year since World War II. Never have I made a trip where the ending seemed so complete, and so I was not overly sad to return home a few days later.

Mi piaci, Firenze, e non ho voluto partire. Penso che ci vediamo a presto. Lo so

-Sam goldsmith

Un Giorno Perfetto alle Cinque Terre

Ciao, Tutti!

Things are getting a little crazy around these parts as final papers start to come in, people begin to prepare for tests, the final concerts are coming up, and everyone who can't wait to get home gets antsy and people who don't want to leave get sad. After teaching last Wednesday, the teacher and I went over the next two classes I would teach before going back home, and it was more than a little disconcerting to think I would be gone so soon. The idea of spending a year or so here after graduating to teach English is becoming more and more appealing.


View from the Oberau Train Station

Before I talk about the perfect day in Cinque Terre (SHIN-kwe TER-a), I should mention my trip to visit with Shira and Billy, which was interesting since both Shira and I look quite a bit different than last time we saw each other. It looks like the baby will be here in about 5 weeks, according to my expertise in the area, or my calculations after hearing what the due date is. I was glad to have a chance to see where they live because there aren't many people who are going to be able to see the house where little Sophie is going to spend most of her first year. Plus, next time anyone sees Shira from out of town she will be a mother. I certainly felt like I was very lucky to be able to make this visit at this point in time.


View from Shira and Billy's backyard. The light made this picture hard to take.

The best part about the visit was the main reason I went, which was the passover seder. Last year I was in New York for the holiday, and I didn't get to celebrate it at all, though I do only have to blame myself for skipping the seder my friends were having. But it was so nice this year to be spending the passover with family, the way it's meant to be done, or at least the way I'm used to. Passover is an important holiday for me because of my version of the bar mizvah, where I spent a year studying the haggadah (not enough to spell it right, though) and learning how to lead a seder. It was just so nice and homey to be reading the story and singing the prayers once again with family. It was a small affair this year, only 10 once the stragglers showed up, which was probably a good thing for Shira. It was intimate, and we went at our own pace, allowing for the questions, serious or not, to be answered by the 4 Jews at the table. I had a great time, so great, in fact, that I completely forgot to take pictures, much to Aunt Marsha's probable disappointment. That says a lot, saying as I took 125 pictures at Cinque Terre. Taking pictures immediately makes one feel like an outsider documenting an event rather than taking part in it, and I was having too much fun to withdraw from that to get some photos to send back home. However, when I wasn't avoiding writing my paper, I did manage to get some good pictures of the house, plus I got some at the train station.


Another view from the Oberau Train Station

The small town Shira and Billy live in (whose name I don't remember) is very close to the foot of the Alps, which was evident as the mountains seemed to rise up from right in front of me. It was drop dead gorgeous, the whole scenery, the car ride, the train ride, and even the flight. They live in a small farming community which was very relaxing for me to spend the weekend after a semester of hard work, though it didn't help me tackle my paper. However, after a long stay, I can imagine it getting old. Still, I appreciated it quite a bit.


Shira and Billy's house

It hadn't stopped raining when I got back to Florence. the weather here has been very strange, and even the Florentines don't get it. I was really hoping for good weather before I left so I could see the Boboli Gardens in bloom as well as the gardens on campus. But, sure enough, spring arrived with T-shirt weather on Thursday, and, bounding with the temperature-induced energy, I figured I would get up bright and early at 6:30 to take a train to Cinque Terre Parche Nazionale and make up for the two times before I wanted to go but failed to do so.


View of Manarola from the mountains

It was completely worth it. My goodness, the place was so amazingly beautiful.

Cinque Terre literally means "five lands" or "five villages." It is located on the west coast in the middle of Liguria, the region north of Tuscany. It's about a 15 minute drive from Portofino and Santa Margarita, where I had visited about 3 years ago with my high school band. The five villages are spaced out along the coast and there are numerous trails that lead you from one to the other. Just behind the towns are rolling hills which double as a large farming community.


Manarola

Some initial observations: First of all, it was like the trip to Portofino back in the day, but many times more beautiful. The buildings were built in the same colorful style and the trail had the habit of running through random people's back yards. For example, we walked by a party going on in celebration of the Italian Liberation (I went on their version of Independence Day).


Note the crowd surfer. You can't really hear the loud music they were playing just by the photo, though.

Second, there were all sorts of tiny paths that didn't look like paths until you saw where they were going. A lot of times I had to double back in order to tell where that path began. These were usually paths that led up to farms or private residences. It was sort of like Venice, but the paths actually went somewhere instead of into the water. It gave new meaning to directions that don't use street names but "the third bush after the ninth tree" or something like that.


This door seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but there's actually a path that makes it important.


I think it's obvious it's a path because of how I took the photo, but it wasn't so evident as I walked by it.

Third, everything was so amazingly green! You can tell by the photos, but it was obvious spring had arrived and the farmers were happy. Combining the unnatural blue of the sea with the verdant green of the hills and trees made for a naturally vibrant hiking day.

The names of the five towns, in order, are Riomaggiore, Manarola (the one I got the best pictures of), Corniglia, Vernazza, and Montarosso. I got to Riomaggiore at about 10 in the morning to begin my hike. I wanted to get through all of the towns, and as a consequence I didn't take many pictures in Riomaggiore. I could have taken some looking back, but the sun was just rising in that direction and it was impossible.


Foot trails map

The path most traveled in the park is trail 2, which is not very strenuous and leads you along the coast so you can smell that wonderful sea air and get a good coastal view of all the towns you're going to. It's also the one built best for large groups of people, but even that wasn't enough to keep from congestion. As many of you know, I walk rather quickly, and this was the trail for families, and families don't usually want to walk in single file. I had originally wanted to do the hiking parts as fast as I could so I could have some time to explore the towns, but, as we will see, I ended up doing something much different.


Manarola

By the time I made it to Manarola I decided to try and take a trail above the rest of the people going on path 2, but I took one that took me about half way to Corniglia, then sent me back to Manarola, so I got to see it twice, which may account for why I was able to get better pictures of it. After the blunder I decided to walk seaside again to get views such as this one:



In Corniglia, on the way to the next trail, I saw a sign that looked like this:



So I looked at my hand held map and made sure the trail would eventually lead to the next town of Vernazza, which it did, so I whimsically went off trail and started the uphill climb, which turned out to be just about entirely uphill. There was an elevation gain of about 2,000 feet in about half an hour of hiking. All in all, the trail was 2.5 km long, so a mile of hiking that went up 2,000 feet. That means more than 2/3rds of the hiking was uphill as opposed to moving straight. Puts the trail at a 60 degree angle. My legs were shaking when I reached the road at the top of the mountain. But the view was amazing and it was totally worth it, though Mom would have hated how handicapped inaccessible it was.It made me worried, since I want to go to Yosemite this summer, but if I had such a hard time on this trail, I don't know if I'm quite ready to go all the way up to Half Dome, which is quite a lot more elevation gain than what I did in Cinque Terre.


Coniglia from above

This hike was the best part of the trip, even if my calves are still sore. It was very cathartic, very introspective, and I could feel my mind clearing. Suddenly I could remember things clearly, things from back in my childhood, and make connections to solve problems that had been forgotten by now (Flip Saunders needs to do this kind of hike). I was all alone in the mountains by the sea. It was an ecstasy, a mental cleansing, and I felt in a better, more optimistic state of mind that I can remember in a long time. I felt I could go back and finish Guest Artist in a sitting, that I could stop stressing about this movie score because I could just sit down and do it, that I don't have to worry about my exams because all I have to do is study for them. I even felt for the first time that I could talk to Mariel without anger, reserve, or fear. I felt like I could tackle all my problems as long as I was on that mountain, like my mind was sharp enough to handle anything set out for it to do. A feeling of "I can do this" about everything. Barack Obama would have been proud. He must do hikes like that all the time. All jokes aside, it was a profound experience for me, perhaps even as far as spiritual. And, of course, it felt like the perfect ending trip for this wonderful semester of mine, a feeling of closing up all the holes left open until this point. It was a truly wonderful feeling.

Part of the consequence of taking the long way around, other than the shaking in my knees, was that I approached the next town, Vernazza, from the back rather from the side, and the path winded down people's back yards, directly through the farming community next to a river. It was so green and full of spring that it was fairly obvious that the farmers were having a good time with the great weather. I liked seeing the little rails with carts on them used to transport things up and down the hills. The whole community seemed to take living on the hills in stride, though with all the uphill climbing they have to do as suggested by the crazy steep stairs, they must be very fit and worn out at a much younger age.



I just booked a hostel to Genoa for a couple days next weekend to celebrate May Day, which is a national holiday here. One last great trip in store for me before this whole adventure comes to a close.

Music Announcements

Very exciting news: The NYU in Florence jazz bands got a final surprise gig back in Marche in a town on the sea close to Macerata. This gig is going to be different than our normal club or cafe dates because we will be playing as a preview to their summer jazz festival in which two NYU groups are playing. This means they will give us a theater and 500 or so people to play in front of, as well as enough money for each band to give us a place to stay for the night and enough to pay the leader of the ensemble I'm in, a stellar trumpet player from Rome who takes our ensemble to another level, though we have yet to play with him in concert. This show will be on Saturday, May 3, so if any of you happen to be in Marche and in the city whose name I don't know yet, you might want to come and see the show.

Tomorrow, Monday, April 28, is the Jazz Party at Villa La Pietra where the bands will play for the students and staff at NYU's campus in Florence. The show should be nice, not that different than the one in the theater on May 3rd, though we have a pretty strict time limit. It is our last (sniff!) performance in Florence.

May 6th is the scheduled date for the performance of the film score. I suppose this means I have to finish it. This is the last thing in the school year that is pumping coffee into the butterflies in my stomach. I do have my friend Leo set to conduct it, and I trust him, but I'm most worried about leading a rehearsal because I don't really know how to rehearse this kind of thing. I hope everyone can sight read it. But if all goes well, the show should be like nothing I've ever done before. In a good way. And it has been fun doing this film score, but it's also been just about the hardest thing I've ever done. With hindsight I would have liked more practice with shorter scenes first, since writing 7 minutes of silent film music is pretty tough, but here I am!

Again, the shows for the summer, which will kick ass:

June 28 at the Bluesix Acoustic Room in San Francisco The first ever performance of Guest Artist, as well as a celebration of the year-birthday of my CD, "Summer Victory Dance." I will bring a repertoire of political music I have written as well to anticipate the end of Bush's final term.

August 17 at the Jazz School in Berkeley My last concert as a teenager will feature a different arrangement of Guest Artist as well as performances on many different instruments I have either never played on stage before or haven't for a while. I will take advantage of the electricity that Bluesix doesn't have.

September 25 at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City The Sam Goldsmith 20th birthday celebration concert. I haven't planned far enough ahead to say for certain what the focus of this show is yet.

Every show will feature the Inspiration Sextet.

Macerata

Ciao, Tutti,

A ridiculous amount of stuff happened since the last story I wrote, which was about Siena and Rome, I believe. This includes the teaching lessons I have been giving, which have all been continuing to go tremendously well. The teacher told me that parents were coming during the parent-teacher conferences to say that the kids really like the American who comes in on Wednesdays. That would be me. So, in short, things are going well, the kids are expecting and behaving for me, and the teacher asks to keep some of the homemade games I create. They did say something about the "magic backpack" (zaino magico) that I bring everything in, one day a game I made up, that time before I brought a pot and silverware, once I brought my laptop to watch Space Jam on, once I brought my frame drum, and so on. Things go very well in the classroom, and I'm trying to save some of my souvenirs, like the drawings they make for me or the games I make for them, to put in my scrapbook once this amazing adventure comes to its inevitable ending.


The band: Rob on sax, Greg on guitar, Simone on drums, Piero on bass. Piero and Simone are both Florence natives, which is why the band is called "New York-Italian Connection."

What I want to spend most of my time talking about today was the trip to Macerata for a gig on Sunday. Macerata is a small city outside of Florence, sort of like Prato, and we had the gig all to ourselves, in that the other band wouldn't be there at all so we would play the whole time. It would be a nice an easy gig since I didn't have to pay for a cab to move the vibes since we would be taking Antonio Vanni's (the head of the NYU in Florence Jazz Program) car.

Actually, just about none of that was true, yet that's what I thought was going on until Saturday night (ah, don't you love Italian organization?). In actuality, Macerata is about 3 and a half hours of driving outside of Florence, about the distance of Rome, and nearly on the Adriatic coast, close to the city of Ancona. We were to meet the other band there and, after our set, we would have a jam session and stay the night, leaving early the next morning to see which classes we could make it in time for. We were set to leave at 11:00 to cross the beautiful Appenini mountains which meander down the center of Italy. The gig was to pay incredibly well, even paying for a farmhouse for us to spend the night in.

So I was just about completely wrong. But these things happen.

It's all still a blur in my mind, everything that happened, and I'm still exhausted from it. I didn't sleep well the night before and I slept only 3 hours on Sunday night, so I'm a little worn out, but all in all it was a blast. The gig was actually in a smaller town 20 minutes or so outside of Macerata whose name I don't remember, but we did stop in Macerata for half an hour of exploration, though the exploration only took fifteen minutes. The town was small. There was a nice outdoor market, though, and I bought a big dice (dado) with hinges and five little dice inside, perfect for playing Yahtzee. I figured there would be no Macerata playing cards since there was really nothing to take a picture of, but I did want something to commemorate the moment. The countryside was the real beauty out there, nothing but dazzlingly green farmland with a backdrop of the Appeninis. There were a few snow-capped peaks, and I got that urge I had in Crete to just drive towards the mountains with no real plan, just to get closer. Antonio really needed to clean hi car, which is my excuse for not getting any pictures from the road. Mi dispiace (I'm sorry).


The Market

So this was basically the best gig we have played all year, which makes the trip gratifying. There is a nice feeling when everything clicks, the kind of feeling that makes it understandable why I never need to drink coffee. It was energetic in the small cafe we played in, and there was no room even to move in the audience; one would need to plan far in advance if he needed to make a trip to the bathroom. Something clicked, and we played our two sets and killed it. There's not much more to say than that. We were brought in from 3 and a half hours away and we gave them the best we could give. Everyone in the room was happy. This usually doesn't happen in real life! But the power of music is so great... it brought meaning to the phrase "contagious energy." I can't do it justice with words. You would have needed to be there to understand.

This is the place we played:



They turned it right-side up when we got there for the sound check.

Now, besides us playing great and having a wonderful time, there were a couple of special things about this concert. First of all, one of Antonio's great friends, Samuel, who had the connections to get us this gig, was celebrating his 28th birthday. He sat in on some rock tunes on drums. Playing is not his specialty, the business end is, but we all had a great time playing Led Zeppelin tunes. Antonio came up and sang "Dazed and Confused" during this part of the jam session and I played piano, and it still puts a smile on my face to think of everyone in the room knowing everyone else and everyone just letting go and doing what's fun rather than what makes sense because fun is what makes sense. This is what it looked like when Antonio was singing:



The other interesting thing was that the best drummer in Italy, according to Antonio, was in the house and joined the jam session. Now, having said that, I completely forget the poor guy's name. My mind wasn't in a great place, but I do seem to have a good memory of Machiavelli's "The Prince," the reading I brought with me and did in the car when the road wasn't to windy. Anyway, Italians have a habit of exaggerating things, though he was quite a good drummer with a keen ear for making a piece move forward and bringing the best out of the soloist. I only heard him for one piece since I had to load up the vibes which had broken a string. Here is a picture of the three Italians who had the most impact on this show:


From left to right: Antonio Vanni, the director of the NYU in Florence Jazz Program; Best-Drummer-In-Italy-Whose-Name-I-Forget; Samuel, now 28 years old.

We started playing at 7 and didn't stop until 12:30, though the actual set was over many hours before that and I had to pack up the vibes (Rob suggested brilliantly that I put my shoelace in the place of the broken string, which worked until our set was over). The other band brought their horns and joined the jam, as did a flamboyant and talented young Italian saxophone multi-instrumentalist. It was a ridiculous amount of music in that hot and crowded room. Actually, everything about this gig was ridiculous. This is what the jam session looked like:



The ridiculosity was not over yet, though, since then we had to find our way to our casa colonica in the middle of the farmland in the middle of the night with an entirely drunk group of drivers (people were disappointed that I hadn't taken advantage of the free drinks they were offering besides fresh water. I'm not saying this just because I want to impress you, family of mine, but because it's true). Anyone who knows the definition of "casa colonica" must think I'm insane, but I do not joke at all. We were actually provided with a 10-room farmhouse all to ourselves, about the size of the house the family will be staying in when we go to the beach this summer. We followed Samuel to this place in the middle of nowhere to the point where we thought we were completely lost, but then there we were and at 1:30 we had plans to leave at 9:00 the next morning, giving us time for our classes and everyone else time to get to the polls for the Italian election. I got a room to myself and went to bed at 3:00.

This is what the house looked like in the morning when we could see:


(Actually, "casa colonica" means farmhouse, which was behind the house we stayed in)

And this is the view of the countryside that came with the house:



So, as to all things, there were some downsides, and one of them is me trying to stay awake right now as I write this. I got to bed at 3:00 for a combination of reasons including figuring out the shower, making the bed, getting ready, finishing a piece I had started writing in the car on the way, etc. I did not wake up at 8:30 like everyone else. I was up bright and early at 6:00 because it was already light out and quite cold. I needed my overcoat on top of my blanket to keep warm. An hour later when it was obvious I wasn't going to go back to sleep, I simply got ready to go and finished "The Prince." This would not have been that big of a deal had it not been for two big factors: 1) The night before I hadn't slept well either because I woke up in the middle of the night with a song idea. Worth it, but that makes two nights in a row without much sleep. I tried to sleep on the ride back, but the road was too curvy and my stomach started to hurt, so I just closed my eyes and listened to headphones. I got about 20 minutes of sleep once the road straitened out. 2) There was also not much food. The one shortcoming of the gig was that we didn't get to have dinner. They fed us all sorts of appetizers, which were very good but not filling at all. Lunch passed as we were in the mountains (both Sunday on Monday), though on Sunday we stopped to get small panini, which were delicious but about 6 times too small. So basically in between Saturday night at 9:00 pm and Monday at 4:00 pm all I had to eat was:

1) Bowl of cereal
2) Small but delicious panino
3) Assorted appetizers
4) A piece of chocolate with coffee in the center (no, not mocha, but real coffee!)

By the time I actually had something to eat I had forgotten how to eat it.

In addition to being exhausted and hungry, I had also forgotten to pack my toothbrush, so my mouth tasted horrible. But even when you combine all this, I've felt worse before, and because the gig was so much fun it was worth it. This whole exhaustion and physical wear and tear just adds to the story for me, though I'm still recovering, as you can see. I did have early classes today, and no time to get rest afterward because of class registration. But I took a nap after that and now I feel a little better. No teaching tomorrow, so I get to sleep in, and I think tomorrow will be good. It better. I have a big paper to get serious work done on and a film score to write.

This is a good segue into the Music Announcements

Good news on Guest Artist: I no longer have to count how many mysteries I have to solve about the piece, but only hoe many things to write. That number is 2. And I already know what those 2 things are going to sound like. The thing is finally nearing completion!

Here are the shows where this piece of music is going to be played. A more complete description can be found on the last post.

1) June 28: Inspiration's Anniversary at the Bluesix Acoustic Room in San Francisco
2) August 17: My last concert as a teenage band leader at the Jazz School in Berkeley
3) September 25: 20th Birthday celebration at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City

The only new announcement I can think of at the moment is that at the gig in Macerata-sort-of someone asked if we could play a show at a jazz festival on April 25, bringing the concert count for that weekend to 2. It seems pretty cool, though I don't know much about it. You have to ask Rob, the band's spokesman because he can speak the best Italian.

And, once again, if you think all the concerts with Guest Artist will be the same, you could not be more wrong. I've got so many ideas for projects in my head right now that it will be an easy thing to give each concert, each with its own meaningful date, a different and meaningful existence.

I will be in Germany next weekend to celebrate passover with Shira and Billy. Let me know if I left anything off the blog that I should post before I go, or if there's anything I should do or say while I'm there. Ciao!

Rome in 9 Hours, Siena in an Evening

Ciao, Tutti!

I apologize for my lack of blogging, but it seems time is shorter than I remember it being. I won't be able to finish the Greece post, though I think I've done enough. I just know that I didn't talk about the Hephaestus temple, which impressed me because it was so completely preserved, and the last day, when Mom and I were so tired and didn't want to do anything, but we ended up just browsing the flea market looking for gifts and had a great time. In brief, that's what I've left out. But so much has happened sine then it seems I can't dwell on anything until I get that covered. And I can't even dwell on that.

Music Announcements

Today I would like to start with the music announcements because since my arrival from Greece a lot has happened, though none of it has been confirmed until just recently. To provide you all with a broad itinerary:

Saturday, June 28, 9:00: The Inspiration Sextet live at the Bluesix Acoustic Room on 24th and Treat street, San Francisco. This will be the first performance of Guest Artist and a celebration both of the year-release of "Summer Victory Dance" and the final six months of the disastrous Bush presidency. A very special day for me in my life, the day where the band gets its name. Julian Pollack will probably be a guest artist (ha ha) for the second set, also special because June 28 is his birthday.

Sunday, August 17, 8:00 The Inspiration Sextet live at the Jazz School in Berkeley, Addison Street between Shattuck and Milvia. We will perform a different rendition of Guest Artist in my last show as a teenage band leader. I will also take advantage of the electricity we will have there that we won't at Bluesix to play as many instruments as makes sense, which includes both guitar and voice (I haven't played guitar in a concert for more than 4 years, and I have never sung live before!) Also a special surprise for my brother, whose birthday is two days later.

Thursday September 25, 6:00 The Inspiration Sextet live at the Bowery Poetry Club, New York City. We will perform Guest Artist live in New York, a fitting celebration of my first 20th birthday (only 20th birthday). I have a knack for booking shows on dates that are meaningful for some reason.

Each show will have a different second set, and I'm trying to make the long Guest Artist different for each show as well so that there is a good reason to go to all of them if you have the chance. Of course, that's probably impossible, so the New York show will probably be quite similar to one of the shows in the Bay Area. But one thing I can guarantee is that there will be a reason to see both of the Bay Area shows if you're in town for them both. I have yet to work out the specifics of that plan, but it will come to be.

The day after the Bluesix confirmed with me the Jazz School wrote to me saying that the 17th opened up. It was very exciting, though now I have to deal with having two shows that fit about 100 people per show and trying to put all my effort into making both of them better than anything I've ever done before and filling them with people. However, the excitement helps the drive, and I'll need all the help I can to get the word out so as many people can partake in these great shows when the days come.

I missed promoting the show I played at the world famous jazz club in Florence, Pinocchio, with the NYU jazz ensemble I'm in called "New York-Italian Connection," also featuring two of my suitemates, Rob and Greg. That show at Pinocchio went great, but it was far away from where everyone lives and it rained, so the audience could have been quite a deal better. The concert we played last Saturday at La Cite, a hip cafe, drew a lot more people but I played unspeakably badly. It was ironic: I played great at the show no one I knew was at and played like sh*t the day people I knew were there. They said it was good, though, so I guess I shouldn't complain, but the drummer (an Italian named Simone, a really great guy) said he could tell I was thinking too much as I was playing, which was true.

The next Italian gig is this weekend at a place called Porto Di Mare. On Tuesday there is an international music festival at the school where we take our music classes, Il Trillo, and I will be playing there, too, as far as I know. It seems from now on every weekend has at least one gig, usually not in Florence, actually, though I am free the weekend of Passover when I will be visiting my cousin Shira in Germany, and also the weekend before finals, when I hope to go to Seville. But we have gigs hopefully in Ferrara and in Terni, plus another place, I think, but I can't keep them all straight in my mind.

On to the main show!



My friends from NYU in Madrid came for their spring break to visit Italy, starting with Venice, then Florence, then Rome in the end. Remember Kat and Amanda from the Barcelona post? They were both there, as well as another Scholar, Alicia, and two new people to meet, Genalise, whose name I can't even pretend to spell, and Stephanie. Sheila, also from the Barcelona trip, joined the party in Rome. On the bottom picture we can see our happy family:





From left to right: Me, Alishia, Amanda, Kat, Genalise, Sheila, Stephanie!

I took them to the right gelaterias and restaurants here in Florence, I suppose. I don't really know which ones are right and which ones are wrong, but they were totally impressed by the food, so I guess it worked, and they even liked my rusty Italian, out of practice due to the effort to learn even the smallest amount of Greek at the sacrifice of my Italian skills.

On Friday I took the cheap train to Rome in the morning, a 3.5 hour train ride, to celebrate Kat's 20th birthday party, the only 20th birthday party ever to be better than what mine is going to be like. I had originally wanted to stay all weekend, but we had that gig on Saturday night and I needed to be rested up, so I needed to sleep in my bed back in Florence. So I got to Rome at 12:30 and left at 9:30 (on a faster, more expensive train). Yes, I did Rome in 9 hours. Good thing I'd been there before.



Doing Rome in 9 hours is almost shoving the paradox of a grand city like Rome into your face. There is an impossible amount to see, and you could spend a lifetime there and still be discovering corners tucked away that you could never imagine. The center of the world's (or the west's at the very least) greatest empire has something for you at every turn. For a tourist, this presents a problem, because how much do you see before you feel satisfied with all you've done in the city? To see all you need to see in Rome, you have to devote much less time to what you need to see to see it all, whereas in a place like Siena or Ferrara, you not only have plenty of time to absorb all the city has to offer a tourist but you have time to get much more out of its limited amount of sights. With Rome, if you're not having a blast or seeing something amazing, you feel like you should be doing something somehow more meaningful simply because the meaning is there waiting for you to take advantage of it. Rome puts a lot more pressure on the tourist than a place like Ferrara, or even Venice, where simply being there is the main thrill.



However, as Venice showed me, the main thrill of a trip is usually found off the track that has been planned. And I have been to Rome before and I know I could always come back before I leave Florence, so I didn't put that kind of pressure into my 9 hours. I had one major sight I wanted to see, the "Ecstasy of Saint Theresa," a crazy baroque sculpture I had studied in Music History. After all, music and the visual arts aren't that different. After that, with the Rome first-timers, I assumed we were going to spend time at one of the most famous sights of the world: the Colosseum and Roman Forum. Plus, I didn't mind seeing those things again, unlike the Vatican, which I didn't really care about seeing again, not yet, at least. Everything was free because it was Culture Week in Italy, and all archaeological sites and museums were free to the public. We took a tour to skip the line into the Colosseum, though it was so bare-bones that I don't know if it really counted, but we saw the Colosseum and I could say what I remembered from last time and the books I've read. Plus, I mean, It's the Colosseum. You don't need much else. Speaking of which, the Roman Forum was closed when we were able to tear our eyes away from the colossal Colosseum, so the girls said they would come back later in the weekend. I was content taking pictures from afar and remembering writing "Song of the Siren #2" in my head last time I was there.



P.S. It was a beautiful day, and I definitely got sunburned.

Kat and her friends were tired from the week of travel, so they planned a two hour napping period before dinner and a big birthday celebration after I was to leave, so they left me the two hours to myself to see my church and do whatever I wanted. This was the time of great exploration for me. You see, I knew the "Ecstasy" was in the church of Santa Maria, but when I got to Rome I discovered there were a myriad of different churches to Santa Maria, including two that were on the street I knew the church I was looking for was on due to prior research. I plotted a course to go through to them through the major landmarks along the way. The first church, Santa Maria Maggiore, looked from the outside to be just as functional as the Roman Forum, though on the inside it proved to be more modern than I could have possibly imagined. Plus it was quite large. And, most importantly, no "Ecstasy." I had to move on. Santa Maria Della Vittoria was money, and I could tell right away from the room. We studied the "Ecstasy" in Music as an example of the baroque tradition, an overflowing sculpture, and the room made it seem plain. It was quite small compared to Santa Maria Maggiore, but it was loaded up with all sorts of colored marble and gold and other precious metals, the walls lined with exquisite sculpture and painting. It was overwhelming, headache-inducing, even. By the time i had finally gotten used to it at all the evening services were starting, and I had to leave with just a short time spent looking at the sculpture I was looking for in the first place.



The Outside of Santa Maria Maggiore

Now I make a long story short, because I saw an incredible amount in the hour or so I had left. I would look at a map and choose a landmark somewhere close to me and see it. If there was a church or an interesting looking street, I'd go in, sort of like exploring Venice without going over the bridges. In the end, I managed to see seven fountains, 4 churches, a gate to the city, two piazzas, and the sun setting over Vatican City.


Sunset at Vatican City

Of course, there was one thing else. At some point I decided that it would take a major accident to stop me from seeing the Pantheon, one of my favorite buildings from the last time I was in Rome. This whole trip I was on a mission to take the pictures I didn't take last time I was in Rome with my family. Last time I only took one picture in Rome, a shot of the Forum. This time my camera was going crazy, and even though the Pantheon was quite a bit out of the way and down streets that made a somewhat difficult maze, I had made up my mind to see the Pantheon and not be late for dinner. Turns out the last part was unavoidable. But the thrill of walking as fast as I could past the igniting street lamps toward the ultimate goal... I felt like I was really there, not just a normal tourist with a limited understanding of Italian and a map, but like I was really getting into the spirit of the city. It was a wonderful feeling, an earthy connection to the roots. It felt like creating experiences instead of just letting them come to you.



The Pantheon was also free for culture week, which was nice, and all the scaffolding I remembered from the last time I was in Rome was gone. It was quite a different experience to see the circle cutout in the ceiling by night, no light filtering through at an angle that gives the impression of ancient clock or calendar. But in a way looking up at the night sky was more peaceful, more a testament to the architectural achievement of the builders. I felt the sky closer to me in that building than almost anywhere I'd ever been, a feeling of being outside and inside all at once. It wasn't like camping where you lie under the stars and partake momentarily in the natural world. Now the sky was coming into the man-made world I was used to, not though a window like I'm used to. I guess it's pretty hard to explain, but suffice to say that I really like that building. I was happy the rest of the day and throughout dinner. I told the waiter to bring Kat a tiramisu while I was "in the bathroom," and he did with a candle in it. She loved it.

The music program was to go see a concert in Sienna, and I have too many fond memories of Siena to just go for just an evening and skip seeing the Duomo or the Piazza Del Campo. So I skipped my classes except composition lesson to go for the afternoon by myself. Oh, hush, you'd do the same thing. I didn't earn myself that much more time, only about 4 hours, but if I could get as much done in Rome that I did in 9 hours, let alone the 2 hours I had to myself, I could basically conquer Sienna. Which I did. It was quite easy to find the great food that I remembered, and I continued the mission from Rome to take pictures of the places I didn't last time I was there.



Nannini is the famous bakery. Siena is famous for its food, specifically for its pastries. I was supposed to get a bombolone conciocolate, but they were out of chocolate, so I got a cream filled one, a chocolate croissant, and an apple turnover. Heavenly! Especially to eat them one by one on the gorgeous shell-shaped Piazza Del Campo, a grand piazza focussed on the bell tower that imposes even more than Florence's Signoria.



There was also this meat shop with a boar's head with glasses that sold the most delicious pork that fed our family last time we were in Sienna for three days, though if we had room in our stomachs we would have eaten it all right there and then. Sadly, like the bombolone con ciocolate, this memory could not be relived, since they were out of pork. That's what happens when you get there in the afternoon: they've already sold out of what they're famous for. But at least I got to take the picture, and I hope to go back sometime. Let's see if I can get to Cinque Terre first, though. I've now failed twice to follow through with my plans to get there. More on that later.



Besides trying to relive old memories, I stumbled upon some new ones as well. The Sienna museum society or whatever its real name is has a very nice thing going on for tourists. There was a very cheap ticket I could buy at the beautiful cathedral that get me into the main museum, the crypt, the baptistery, the Duomo, and the Orology. Of these things, I had only been inside the Duomo before, though it was definitely worth going again. The thing that was so attractive about this ticket was that it granted access to an arch next to the Duomo that I remember trying to find a way to the top of with Joel last time we were there, but we couldn't figure it out. Well, this time I would get my chance.


The Duomo

The crypt, located under the Duomo, gave me my first rush of excitement. We could see the foundation of the cathedral from inside a small chamber whose walls were painted with biblical scenes, and through panes of glass on the ground we could see how much further down the support was coming from. Mom's toes would have been numb. The Duomo, like most of Siena, was built on a hill, so they had to raise most of it to the level of the facade so the main hall would be level. Last time I was there, I didn't realize this, and now I felt like I was in the heart of the cathedral, not just the part for show to everyone but the part that really made the building possible to exist.


The entrance to the lower levels of the Duomo, including the Baptistery and the Crypt

The baptistery was not as impressive as the Florence baptistery, though, like a lot of things in Siena, the frescoes, paintings, sculptures, and other works in the room were overly preserved to the point where they looked like they had just been painted recently. The important thing about the baptistery for me was that the... something... (I couldn't derive its purpose or name) in the middle bore bronze statuettes by many great sculptors of the time, including Donatello and Ghiberti, and there were also along the sides panels that resembled those on the baptistery doors here in Florence. It was fairly obvious which ones were by Ghiberti, who is now one of my favorite artists because he is simply amazing at perspective. Even the Donatello panels could not compare.


One of the Ghiberti panels

I thought the museum was very impressive, just about as impressive as the Academia in Venice, though there was not nearly as much emphasis on painting. There was the famous stained glass window originally in the Duomo facade that is now being preserved, and many sculptures, ancient books, and other treasures that have now been removed from the Duomo for the sake of preservation. There were two rooms of particular interest to me. In one there were the architectural designs for the Duomo, even down to the beautiful frescoes and the "ground carvings." Everything was meticulously planned by the artists and architects, and it was fairly amazing to see the plans that were used all those centuries ago. The other room that caught my attention the most was the room with the holy relics. There were countless relics that lined the walls of this room; an entire shelf was filled with glass boxes containing skulls of saints. There were too any relics for me to believe in their validities, though that was how it was back in the day as well. An example would be how Saint Gregory has roughly 40 fingers if you count how many of them turn up in reliquaries. The pagan nature of this method of practicing Catholicism and my proximity to these holy human remains creeped me out a bit. Though the most important item in the room was a golden rose bush with 19 flowers made out of pure gold that was given to Sienna as a holy gift blessed by the Pope. The confusing religious messages were a little too much for me and I left the room.



Skull of Saint Katherine, I think. I was yelled at for taking this picture.

At the top of the museum was the way to the arch Joel and I saw last time we were here, and I ran into a British couple and we had a nice conversation about the state of government and private funding for artistic creativity. I got a French adolescent to take the picture of me in the beginning of this section.


The arch I was on top of. I forget its real name.

For the sake of moving on, I will concede that this is the basic gist of my last two trips. It seems that I won't get the chance for much more travel as airfare rises and I seem to have concerts every weekend from here on out. I have some one-day trips in mind, like Cinque Terre that I have tried and failed twice to visit. I will try to post as soon as I can. For now, here is a video of the Acropolis I somehow left off last week's post. Enjoy!

A presto,

-Sam g