i+alia a to z :: f and j - fish and jazz e la mia famiglia

it is just us now, family of five. on wednesday, we sat down to a quiet dinner in Siena. mom and dad remembered Millevini from their trip a few years ago and had made it back earlier in the week for lunch...twice. this place really has all the best of Siena. it is located in the underbelly of the Medici Fortress and is surrounded by beautiful gardens and walking paths.

the chef Alberto De Gortes is the son of the Palio di Siena's record holding jockey, also Alberto "Aceto" De Gortes. the Palio di Siena is an annual horse race (well, twice a summer) around the Piazza del Campo at the center of the city. it is a world-renowned event, pulling 10,000+ attendees a year. jockeys ride bare back around the tight, inclined circle of the piazza. they loose at least one horse a year, and it is common for horses to finish without their jockeys. Aceto won the race 14 times.

and then there was the food at Millevini. Andrea the diretorre recognized my folks on their second visit in a week and invited them to a special evening of fish and jazz. after hemming and hawing with the kids over wether to come back, they went ahead and signed up.

it is hard to relate our experience. i think the adjective we agreed upon was 'magical'. when i say a quiet evening, I mean a quieting of the soul, a slowing down of the feet, a soothing of the anxieties about what to do, see and the work left at home, and an intimacy that only comes when she wants to.

they served us five courses. the first course was a salty crab over a tomato and basil salsa. the second and my favorite was a white flaky fish (sorry, language barriers made it difficult to figure out exactly what species) over caramelized onions. this fish was cooked perfectly, pan seared crisp on the outside and melt in your mouth on the inside. next was a wide pasta with tuna and bread crumbs. we noted its affinity to tuna noodle casserole - one of our family favorites. fourth was another, albeit delicious, unidentified white fish covered in arugula and marinated mushrooms. for dessert, they served an apple tartelette with vanilla gelato and espresso.

and there was jazz! a feast for the soul served by just a single jazz guitarist, Giulio Stracciati, professor at Siena Jazz, as well as performer and composer. mom was bold enough to ask him to play 'the shadow of your smile.' well, bold enough to ask Andrea to ask him, as she turned and flashed an eye-squinting joy-full smile and my dad smiled back. and we waited. and well tears of gratitude twinkled around me as he worked it out on his strings.

have a listen... (that means click on 'have a listen...')

The shadow of your smile
When you are gone
Will color all my dreams
And light the dawn
Look into my eyes, my love, and see
All the lovely things you are to me
A wistful little star
Was far too high
A tear drop kissed your lips and so did I
Now when I remember spring
All the joy that love can bring
I will be remembering
The shadow of your smile
Now when I remember spring
All the love that joy can bring
I will be remembering
The shadow of your smile...

Written by P.F.Webster & J.Mandel

i+talia a to z :: e - eucharist

i feel it's time for a role call since our chianti caravan (a dodge galaxy, actually) is losing pilgrims every day. i am also more than a couple days overdue here, which is my way. but definitely less is going to be more from here on out or i'll be writing from italia four weeks after i get back state side.

we started in Venezia with mom and dad and me, el and aunt b. dad is (literally) our driving force - all wonder and awe, BUT NOT WHILE HE'S DRIVING(!!!!). that's mom - the keeper of sanity, pilgrim among pilgrims. then there is my great aunt b, who is truly great, and el, our resident phot[eenager]ographer - stunning! her and her shots. we were already quite the crew, old(er) and new.

and we've been eating well too, to speak of eucharist. one of my fav meals in venezia was at da romano, a place on the backside of burano, the venezian island known for lace making. we had risotto di go, which is a risotto made with the juices of a local fish. they served it family style at the table - full flavor, warm presentation.

bellies full, we drove on to chianti. we started cooking for each other then. the rosemary grows in huge bushes here. mom was inspired to roast a scrawny chicken with potatoes.

scrawny for amercians accustomed to roid-wing birds. it was about this time that questions about food ethics started to flavor our fare, from the value of trying new things to dieting trends to slow food practices.

in chianti we met up with the sicilian and the sports fan, the soldier and the storyteller. SO much fun! around and around we went to the hamlets and villages of toscana. we spent one long day in florence (but that's another letter).

[and aside: out guide in firenze, seeing our fatigue, stopped in at one of the oldest gelaterias in the city - Perche no!... 

they have a slow food sticker in the door, and their gelato is just the thing for a summer day chasing pavement.]  

it was at the end of this day (and two hours trying to get out of florence at rush hour) that we wearily wobbled into the osteria in our little village - bottega di lornano. two things: 1) i found the dish that i came to italia hoping to find - a gnocchi with pork and rosemary and fennel; 2) hot chocolate flan (a.k.a. lava cake).

el and aunt b left us the next day, and we went on to cinque terre. the kids, as soldier calls them, were there and more than alright. we thought we might never leave after dad left the headlights on. thanks be the kids showed up with meat and cheese and biscotti (a.k.a. loaves and fishes).

the kids are also justice makers. so our ethics making really heated up after their arrival. one question we've been stewing is the question of dieting, not that any of us are even attempting to diet on this trip. some of the questions that we've been boiling: diet intention - health, appearance, sustainability, species rights? efficacy? fasting? socio economics? slow or fast? commercialization? south beach or atkins or paleo or mediterranean, is that the question?

folks are leaving the party everyday. sicily and sports fan are gone. i leave tomorrow for Malta, and soldier and storyteller soon after. yesterday was my name day, and it was a farewell feast. we ate a little of everything, just the way i like it - tortellini with prosciutto, pizza, ricotta cake, meatballs and asparagus, sausage, lasagna, suckling pig and potatoes, coke light with ice, frizzante, and caffe a. nannini. so much to be grateful for.

i+alia a to z :: d - an odyssey

‘The way you see it now is no more real than the way you’ll see it then…What makes you think you can see anything clearly? What gives you the right to make a notebook and shake it at me in thirty years, if we’re still alive, and say you’ve got the truth?...But I tell you, Henri, that every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost forever. There’s only now.’  

- Domino, The Passion

she was waiting there for us, on the other side, Penelope, lit up and stretched upon the wall, not like earlier in the day. i totally missed her, in broad daylight, another hedge on the bank. i had my head down thinking about what to record from the day, stealing moments I guess. also, Jeanette Winterson via Villanelle is right, ‘The city I come from is a changeable city.’ it was dark, but i was looking up. this was our fourth pass of Ponte dell'Accademia. but let me start from the beginning.

my sweetheart suggested that i reread Winterson’s novel The Passion while i was in Venice. two out of four chapters take place in the changeable city. Winterson writes about the nature of time and relationships and the finding of one’s life and death post*certainty. some have set this struggle in a maze of mirrors (see Lacan). Winterson chose the heart of Venezia, a web-footed girl with no need of bridges.

‘We didn’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water. Nothing so obvious. A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place. A casual place. Enemies will choose to meet on a bridge and end their quarrel in that void. One will cross to the other side. The other will not return. For lovers, a bridge is a possibility, a metaphor of their chances. And for the traffic in whispered goods, where else but a bridge in the night?’

we crossed three bridges on our third day in venice. i’ll begin with the last.

Ponte dei Sospiri, the bridge of sighs as it is translated sits under the doge palace. this is the link between the court rooms of the palazzo and the prison, between peace and justice or justice and peace, rightful lovers but seeming adversaries depending on one’s perspective. Fredi explained that the name of the bridge recalls the affect of the accused as they realized their chances were at an end. crossing the bridge meant darkness and terror and often death. which is more real, i wonder? light or darkness, hope for freedom or certainty in a cell? if there is only now, then there is only darkness for the …. Villanelle reflects, ‘I used to think that darkness and death were probably the same. That death was the absence of light…But darkness and death are not the same. The one is temporary, the other is not.’ if time is not at an end, there are no easy binaries, no easy separations between one’s present location and the direction one is facing. we are now counted among those who survived the bridge of sighs, although the present meaning is significantly changed.

In the middle of the day, we made our way through corridors of shops to the Rialto bridge, a long time hub of venetian trade. as we dipped our heads into doorways, maybe crossed a couple of thresholds, i imagined Ulysses, tugged at by all manner of temptations. i thought of Villanelle’s warning: ‘Some who come on foot leave on horseback and others who trumpeted their estate beg on the Rialto. It has always been so.’ we climbed to the top of the bridge but did not cross, seeing sadly that most of the wares were poppy for the soul. looking ahead was just like looking back.

finally, the beginning. our first pass of Ponte dell'Accademia was on pilgrimage to the Peggy Guggenheim museum where modern sensibilities safely reside behind a guard rail, securing hope from plummeting into the abyss of post*realities. Nonetheless, hope stands on tiptoe peering at her rippling reflection in the water under the bridge, uncertain.

On our first pass, my back to the bank, I was fascinated by the bundles of locks that hung under the railings. 

My dad explained that lovers buy a lock with two keys. They write or engrave their names on it and lock it to a bridge, each taking a key. I thought of her, my sweet heart. I thought about locking…well, what’s an odyssey without a little lovesickness. ‘anyway,’ as she would say. 

is change certain? a post*certain question for the modern thesis. as i entered the special exhibit, i noted (meaning snapped a photo of) Peggy Guggenheim’s statement of purpose in supporting Art of This Century: ‘to serve the future instead of recording the past.’

and then I came across this piece…

9th Street Exhibition, Robert Motherwell, collage

this is an archive: an arrangement of an event or series of events that immediately becomes a recording of the past even if the techniques of arrangement signal a change to modes of recording. change is dependent on a past, in art, a set of techniques, skills, colors that open onto new configurations, but nothing new under the sun. 

a hall of mirrors, if you will. notice the distortions that the daylight causes – reflections, changes in color, fading, people, etc. is art in the process or the production or the interpretation? is it a verb or a stative?

I was particularly drawn to the pieces by Salvador Dali, which is not unusual. Surrealism expressly unveils the absurdity of tradition, read time, while holding fast to it in both technique and subject.

La Naissance des desirs liquides (Birth of Liquid Desires), oil and collage

Dali watches tradition trans*forming, fluidity joined to fundamentals, albeit with resistance.

another...

i see our reflections, as though they are part of the piece - mine and my parents'. i am caught in this interchange, reminded that i am tethered to my creators, my ancestors, a tree strung with shards of glass. i left with this image of myself.

'Our ancestors. Our belonging. The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich. Thus the present is made whole. On the lagoon this morning, with the past at my elbow, rowing beside me, I see the future glittering on the water. I catch sight of myself in the water and see in the distortions of my face what I might become.'  - JW

it wasn't until later, after dinner that i looked up into the night and found her and i felt found. she whose shadow is a more compelling reflection than any mirror or camera could make, more [hmmm] in the interplay of darkness and light. well, we had the same hairdo at least - me and Penelope. 

i+alia a to z :: c - the cost of a chandelier

an 'authentic' piece of venice costs a lot. really, everything in Venice costs a lot. according to Fredi (short for Frederica), our tour guide at the Palazzo Ducale and a native Venetian, most Venetians do not live in Venice anymore because the cost is prohibitive. instead, they live on the 'mainland' and vacation on (the) Lido.

everywhere we went, Venetians warned us against the invasion of Chinese investment and the cheapening of goods usually associated with the sinking city. they were especially adamant, including Fredi, that we not buy any Murano glass without proper authentication. this is a tricky thing when you are in a maze of disguises.

in the 13^th century, the Venetian Republic moved its glass makers to the island of Murano in order to protect the city from their furnaces. Fredi explained that Venezia is a floating city, so most of the buildings - even the 14k-gold-covered gilding - are made of wood for elasticity. fire is a great danger even today. just a couple of years ago, Venezia lost an entire museum in one day.

Pepe, our guide at the B.F. Signoretti glass factory on Murano, said that the move to Murano was a safeguard for the artisans’ techniques. Venezia’s Murano maintained a monopoly on glass art for several centuries. still today, the Murano stamp is sought after by collectors from all over the world. but like Fredi, Pepe warned us that things aren’t always what they seem.

when i asked if i could take photographs in the demonstration area (because it seems you are not allowed to take photos anywhere), Pepe said yes and lamented that the Chinese had already successfully stolen their secrets. in their galleries, however, i was told that i could not take photos. this is where they exhibited many one-of-a-kind pieces from Venetian glass Maestroes.

you see, it takes the better part of a lifetime to earn the title Maestro in the tradition of Murano glass. the better part of a lifetime honing one’s skills, but also, our guides insisted, it is in the blood – one must have talent. there is only one Maestro per furnace, so one might work a lifetime and still not master the craft.

so murano glass costs a lot for both creators and consumers. if it does not (cost a lot), beware you have fallen for an obvious diguise. Fredi and Pepe warned against the cheapening effects of Chinese infiltration. Fredi said that the (thousands, i know because i saw them, of) shops and stalls that line the streets and bridges of Venice are often a front for a Chinese merchant counting the take in the back. restaurants too, she said. investors are manufacturing cheap glass in large quantities and passing it off as Murano glass. they are even buying up glass factories on Murano and cheapening Venetian arts as they use location to authenticate their wares.

this reminds me of several conversations i’ve had recently about the death of trade skills in the US and global reliance on cheap and seemingly anonymous manufacturing practices. it takes me back to an interview i heard on NPR not long ago with the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, Elizabeth L. Cline. This memoir details how the US has outsourced clothing manufacturing, and therefore lost its skill sets and its appreciation for quality. Cline's conclusion is that we need to buy less of higher quality and buy with intention about where and how things are made. folks, there is a reason for those place of make tags in your clothing and on everything else. pay attention, and know the greater cost of buying cheap! this cost is not just to the consumer. cheap goods are paid for in lives and deaths – the alienation of everyone from labor as life (see Marx) and the deaths of those who the rest of the world refers to as resources (see the NPR coverage of the garment factory collapse in Bangladesh).

here are some tips that we learned as we were led through the byways of venetian glass:

-  look for the Murano seal of authentication and corresponding documentation

-   this +an artist’s signature in the glass is better

-   ask about the artist

-   make sure the factory and showrooms that you visit are venetian owned

-   take your time in the process. Do not cheapen it rushing about. if you want something specific, do your research in advance, and make arrangements to visit the factory that has what you’re looking for. Signoretti specializes in chandeliers, and they were truly spectacular. i bought a small pair of white, milk glass earrings to remind me to dream of a small one for a white kitchen someday.

-   pay the high cost of murano glass

true, a good deal is worth pursuing, and Venice enjoys a good negotiation. nonetheless, the prices are higher and higher as Venetians lose more and more ground in their art. one of our party paid a high price, and i wondered, as others my research shows, whether she’d been taken. however, the more curtains i pulled back, the more my heart slowed. it might have been possible to pay less. she may have paid the tourist price, but let’s not forget, we are tourists.

and tourism is the foundation of the venetian economy, one that becomes more and more tenuous as the city sinks and sways further into debt. Fredi pointed out the huge advertising banners in san marco plaza, a concession to investors helping the city with cleaning and restorations.

on our tour of the Palazzo Ducale, she introduced us to six women, although maybe fewer if you consider Venezia’s propensity for disguises. first, there was the courtesan spotlighted in the waiting room of the palace, part of an elaborate pictorial signaling Venezia’s universal welcome to those with ‘wit or wealth.’ second, was Venezia herself greeting us in the discussion room and portrayed as royalty. she hosted peace and justice, two more female figures. next was the virgin in blue always holding her child. and last (random) was St. Catherine, depicted as a princess bride to the infant in the virgin’s arms. interestingly, St. Catherine closely resembled Queen Venezia, as well as the courtesan in blue who greeted us.

Venice is all of these in one – a mother to the one who is seeking, a rich and generous queen, lover to/of peace and justice both, and a courtesan to those who catch her fancy or who promise her a paycheck. who is Venezia? perhaps it is more important to ask who one wants or needs her to be.

i+alia a to z :: b - in be tween

i am sitting in the philadelphia airport waiting to board a plane to venice. my eyelid finally stopped contracting on the plane from jacksonville. before we got on the plane, my mom said, "its stress. you've had four major life events. and now you're traveling. give in to it..."

perhaps the reprieve is in between destinations, in the quiet of the airport, bags packed, time to think, pray, chat, just the present. the days leading up to this pause saw me wrecked over how to pack the perfect piece of minimalist luggage. 

wednesday :: online research about packing for a six week stay in europe and the psychic causes of procrastination. so these two entries from The Everyday Minimalist were SUPER helpful with the packing, fyi: Uber Minimalist and IN PICTURES 6 weeks.

however, combined with a thoroughgoing of Thought Catalog's thoughts on procrastination (see especially procrastination-is-not-laziness), i devolved into a nail-biting perfectionist fever. you see, my particular crazy fixates on a problem that is, as the voice of don’t-be-ridiculous puts it, "not a real problem" in order to seemingly control my anxiety about what is now or about to happen.

thursday - monday :: shopping frenzy for the perfect components for the perfect piece of minimalist luggage.

monday @3pm (leaving tuesday @8am!!!) :: exhaustion sets in just as i start on the to-do-before-i-leave list – you know, the real problems – oh, and before i actually start packing.

this is what my process looked like as i attempted to emulate Everyday Minimalist’s organized and informative photo essay:

exhibit 1 :: beginning

exhibit 2 :: bag options

exhibit 3 :: what must go in :: cottons and silks, stripes, denim, etc.

exhibit 3 :: seven bag options later…mom – “ok, you proved you can do it. now you need to be realistic.”

story of my life. as soon as i get everything squared away, i turn around and realize i have left the most important thing out of my planning. i can be deeply avoidant in this way. or is it inconsiderate?

exhibit 4 :: full circle plus one

what does all this mean? because that is generally the question that i ask myself. how is it that packing becomes so symbolic? like, if I can just get this right, i can make a claim to efficacy. one, neat little bag. this might show the world that i am capable of getting my act together.

this is what it has been like, organizing the grief of four deaths, one struggle after another sort, organize, and purge the remnants of a world passing away. first the denial. then the rage. then the bone squeezing sadness. finances, possessions, memories yet to figure. layer upon layer stripped away. just when i think i am down to my birthday suit, i find i am still wearing socks.

this trip is part of a new set of clothes - a gown or a simple pair of black linen trousers, maybe some i+alian made sandals - an outfit for a new name day feast. like my sister said, a new set of memories to be made.

this trip means a lot. it is more than what don’t-be-ridiculous calls a ‘transitional object.’ it is transition.

i recently upset her (don’t-be-ridiculous i mean). you know, my being inconsiderate. i apologized, but it wasn’t until later that i realized just how she has up set me – in the best possible way of course.

i feel like a tween again. this is good and bad. i find myself in this space between labors, a kind of dependent once more. i am also madly in love, the kind of love that makes one reckless and motivates one to be better at once.

and it is a most positive augury that i met her in between, in the sky above clouds. because you see, i always find my constants in between. my family, my sanity, my vocations - i am best present to them in transition. in the pause, in the labor of stillness, now in her my eye stops twitching.