Monthly Archives: September 2014

A Simple Repast

15 Monday Sep 2014

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A repeat of the first of our full meals at home (a simple recipe, brought with us, that uses little more than pasta, cannellini beans, garlic, greens) leaves plenty of time for the first performance of La Commedia (I attempt to read the Italian, as Reb gamely provides a translation to be checked against Longfellow’s own).

With 3 cantiche (Inferno, Purgatorio, e Paradiso) each divided into 33 canti (with an introductory one to grow on), there’s really a pretty long row ahead to hoe. Especially when you consider that between the two of us, going at full bore, we make our way through four tercets (basically, 12 lines out of 14,233 in total).

For homework, vocabulary flash cards remain to be made.  But if you stand far enough back from the alien tongue alone, there’s some mighty fine images to contemplate: dark woods, straight paths, slumber, and one’s being lost along the way in the middle of life’s journey.  Nel mezzo del cammin nostra vita.

One Adverb Short of a Classic

15 Monday Sep 2014

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“So you are here to live,” Pa-mel-a explains it to herself and us, when she has learned the date of our departure, while finishing a fashion transaction today.

So simple, and so precise, her words.  Not at all unlike the Movida piece of transformable clothing made in Italy by VagaMé.  Elegant and intricate, too.

Is it extravagance, or arrogance, that prompts Thoreau to add “deliberately” to the common verb of human experience (to live)?  If only to wake his neighbors!

Flipping my way through The Senses of Walden, I shall try to take up such impertinent questions in a fashion adapted for slow travel.

One Shot Short of a Header

15 Monday Sep 2014

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No football to this point in the journey, sorry Rodger and Karen.  (Except for the glare of Friday Night Lights in our backyard.)

But minus the horse-drawn carriage (at Fiera di Loreto, that in some way I never bothered to shoot), iPhone replacements are all in their proper place.

I’ve grown accustomed to the original look, however.  Better just to let it be, perhaps, leaving the requisite acknowledgments in their stead.

Assay the Damage and the Lessons Learned

14 Sunday Sep 2014

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La chiesa, it has been standing for more than four hundred years, I believe.  Time will tell if it’s still standing when (or if) we get there.

Whereas Il Mercatino dell’ Antico, Antiquariato, Collezionismo e Artigianato in town (aka, the “flee” market in my experience around some parts of the New World) only assembles a venerable audience on the second Sunday of each month.

So which won out?  The church history or the true believer in the fine art of a bargain?

If anyone awaits the answer at 11:00, I have some relics I might be able to interest you in. Plus some photos of various and sundry direct assaults on the Euro stash I carried.

(Truth be told, of course, one prize has my name written all over it; another, only captioned in pictures, works historically beyond the facts of the matter; while for the last, next signpost points one way toward link, thanks to Earl, for a hoot of a U-tube video about the return to work of a “secretary” from long ago:)

Though as for that, all the items potentially on our tracker’s list today are held most dear by family and friends over the years:

Only fitting and proper, then, to end our outing by overlooking the place where we once began our travels here in Spoleto–the ancient site of Teatro Romana:

TeatroRomana

Lessons Continued

14 Sunday Sep 2014

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With a sunny Sunday for a welcomed change, no better time for the Italian, religion, history, and transportation lessons to continue.

Off to the church of Madonna di Loreto it is, then!  Assuming, the “comforting and sheltering” portico di Loreto runs far enough, or the traffic’s observance of the sabbath slows enough, to get us from porta S. Matteo to the outskirts of town–all in one piece.

News at 11:00pm.

Last night’s rain caused nothing but problems,

13 Saturday Sep 2014

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whereas today the sound check and the backstage pass were a breeze.

Only that still left us uninvited to the party: must have been the way we were dressed!

UninvitedToParty

So Simple, So Very Simple

13 Saturday Sep 2014

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Il pane, l’olio d’oliva, l’aglio, il sale.  E il panne, l’olio d’oliva, i pomodori.

La zuppa di lenticchie, il farro, i porri

La pasta, il sugo di pomodori.

E il formaggio.  

So simple: bread, butter, garlic, SALT, tomato; lentils, faro, leeks; pasta, sauce. CHEESE.

So good!

What a Difference a Year Makes #2

12 Friday Sep 2014

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Don’t get me wrong.  La Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, the Duomo, is quite magnificent–and its Piazza, with or without the festival in play, truly an amazing sight to behold as you come upon it, unexpectedly (as captured in these photos from October 2013).

But what a difference a year makes.  More than ten days have passed, and we have not felt the need to rush out and see it, perhaps because we knew we had penciled in the “rock” dance performance (details unknown) in the Duomo piazza for this afternoon.  Pictures to follow, weather permitting.

But it’s raining at the moment.  Weather man calling for more.  Not that we put much stock in the predictions when the clouds, and your relation to them, turn on a dime.  So we’ll see.  In the meantime, images from near and far stick around to play in our minds:

Yum Yum

12 Friday Sep 2014

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With the door shut tight and without any light or movement inside, the sign required little translation:

SignOpening

Once the shopkeeper arrived, however, there was just no slowing her down.  Fluttering around the il piccolo alimentari (a small deli), words flew faster than any hands or ears could catch them.  We, of course, simply had to come away with most of them in our bag.  A good thing, too.  I mean, a very good thing:

Now, if we only knew the name.  Not for a lack of trying: Il nome?, we ask.  Something something something something, she replies.  A quizzical look, we provide.  Something crema something something, she offers again.  Another quizzical look follows.  La dolche crema di something something, the words are starting finally to get through.  In the end, maybe,  something like this: La dolche crema di mozzarella di bufafa.  Yes, that’s right: we definitely like this.

Coming and a–going Weather

11 Thursday Sep 2014

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By mid-afternoon the sky has changed. Safe enough to drop off the trash, pick up some cash, and climb back home, stopping to see about dinner choices; then off again, up the hill, to see if we can’t lose a few of those Euros on art supplies, perhaps a jacket or blouse, before slipping past the art gallery below (hint: think “mermaids”) to steeple-watch and to sky-gaze from the terrazzo.