Damn the mosquitos! Full speed ahead!

First serious discussion of the academic curriculum today. Oh, WOW. Acrobatics, Feldenkrais, commedia with Marcello Bartolli, voice, the aesthetics/philosophy course...and this is before the mask-making workshop and of course clown. I am so impatient for classes to begin.

This weekend, there will be jousting.

Learned a bit more about the villa: It was built in 1560, and it originally served as the summer home of a bishop. The children of Cosimo de Medici came here to study with said bishop.

There really will be jousting this weekend. Arezzo has a big medieval festival.

It's also apparently possible to find places in Arezzo where the Decameron takes place--notably the famous well. I'll have to make a Field Guide post on the Decameron while I'm here, then.

It's been very interesting to discover the reputation of Chicago theater. Both the faculty members I've talked to have been quick to praise Chicago theater, and to say that the work in Chicago these days seems more interesting and vital than what's in New York.

The truism also holds that Chicago is the biggest small town in the world. Even here, it turns out, I'm running into friends of Chicago theater people. A fellow staffer did his undergrad work with Sean Graney, for example. So there goes any lingering illusion of escapism.

And yes, this place is idyllic and gorgeous, but OH MY GOD THE MOSQUITOS. I am covered in red welts. The windows, being Renaissance windows, have no screens. I may regret saying this when the fresh figs are a distant memory and we're all shivering on our eight daily hours of state-rationed heat, but as far as the bugs are concerned winter can't come soon enough. All in all it's still a small quibble. But when you are hot and itchy and reeking of apparently ornamental bug spray, you tend to lose your sense of proportion.

Life at the villa

This is the view from the villa's lending library: the vineyard immediately adjacent. We have a few vines and a fig tree on the premises, and apparently you can walk to one of the neighboring vineyards with an empty jug and have them fill it with table chianti.

The city center is a short hike away, down a steep one-lane road along which cars hurtle at terrific speeds despite the numerous blind driveways and side streets. You turn right at the aqueduct, and walk a ways more to the scala mobile, a series of escalators--why not?--that help you up the hill towards a high medieval wall. Apart from the aqueducts and the medieval walls and the Duomo, there are aspects of the landscape that remind me of Las Cruces, especially in this heat: the ground tends to be dry and rocky, with tufts of scrub grass rather than an even green cover, and sometimes you glimpse a tiny lizard scurrying out of the way.

Got my first glimpse of the week-by-week curriculum today (classes start next week, after everyone has settled in). It looks like we'll have daily movement and voice work for the first month, which is fantastic. Less clown than I was hoping for--some classes are of necessity based on the schedules of performers who teach when they can--but at least the clown will be all day, every day, while it lasts.

Anyone who goes to Italy should document the food, so I should mention the fantastic spicy mushroom-tomato ragout I had last night at a bruschetteria. For free. They left out a number of primi piatti--toasted bread, foccaccia, squares of puff-pastry panini with prosciutto and mozzarella, beets, a pineapple-ham salad, mortadella, deviled eggs--and people sat out in the plaza and chatted and snacked over their beer and wine. It's a very nice way to eat.

Home, for the next four months

I'm installed in my room in Tuscany. I'm too tired, hungry, and jet-lagged to write more. It's going to be a race: whether I can finish dinner before I fall asleep. But I'm here.

addio, addio

In the terminal at O'Hare. Packing four months' worth of stuff into a single duffel bag is a grueling experience. I think I was pretty disciplined (certainly compared to the way I used to pack in college), but still, four months is four months, and the bag was, predictably, over the weight limit. Once I picked it up it was clear it would be a bad idea to try to carry my guitar too. So I said goodbye to Little Girl this morning too. There's a campus guitar for general use (I am skeptical of its quality and availability, but we shall see), and I can always try to find a cheap guitar in Arezzo.

I have a stopover in Frankfurt, so all the boarding announcements are in English and German. Disconcerting. The process of studying Italian has already made some German bubble back up to the surface. God knows what language I'll be speaking when I get to Arezzo.

Goodbye, Funny-Dumpy-Lumpy

Of course, of COURSE, getting rid of the car would turn out to take the shape of an elaborate clown gag.

Of COURSE after the last buyer flaked--three times--the wrecker who was supposed to show up at 1:00 didn't arrive.

Of COURSE I couldn't find his number, even though I had made a point of writing it down.

Of COURSE I had to call five other wreckers before I could even talk to someone who could take the car today.

Of COURSE he would only pay half the price of the other guy.

Of COURSE when he did show up, it took 20 minutes of wrestling and prying and pulling to get the plates off the car. ("It's almost like it don't want to leave you," he said, which would have been funny if it didn't feel so spookily accurate.)

Of COURSE I still got a little emotional about saying goodbye to the car: the first car I ever bought; the car that seemed too nice for me when I first drove it home; the car that has seen me through a whole lot of tough times; the car that has caused its fair share of tough times too; the car I have written songs about.

Of COURSE as soon as I sat down at the computer I found the first wrecker's phone number.

Oh. Ohhh, clown. What a life I have chosen for myself.

In bocca al lupo

My going-away present from Joe:


I don't know if the inscription is legible at this resolution, but it's a traditional backstage pre-show salute that translates to "Into the mouth of the wolf!" The proper response is "May he choke!" or "May he die!" (Or, depending on who you ask, "Cut out his throat.")

I've heard it comes from Italian opera, though I don't know this for sure. Hasty online fact-checking: The Boston Globe, though its Italian spelling is a bit dubious, says the expression is from opera; other sites say it's from Italian theater; one site says it's just what you used to say when you were leaving the tavern late at night. In any case, it's the Italian equivalent of "Break a leg." Probably the best explanation I've seen of the expression--and of why it's suited to performance--is here, on the site of a summer commedia program.

And yes, it's perfect and lovely. I'm lucky.