Hello from Torino, Italy!
(on Traveling, Returning, and Boxing)
Since I arrived in Turin in northern Italy last month, life has been somewhat of a heat-induced flurry. What I’ve just read: Yesteryear (I have much to say about that one), re-reading Calvino’s The Watcher, which takes place here in Torino, and an essay on V. Woolf in Margot Livesey’s “The Hidden Machinery” and two books by friends. Also reading with dark glee about recent Chat/AI tics: metaphors that don’t hold up to scrutiny and “it’s not X, it’s Y.”
The week I arrived, I took a three day workshop on Cicero with Massimo, John Sellars, and Rob Colter and celebrated the launch of MBF’s truly brilliant Cicero book, How to Be A (Happy) Skeptic: The Power of Doubt In A Meaningful Life also a book launch with philosopher Skye Cleary. (Alas, we missed the women’s boxing match, Botte della Madonna, that was part of the massive pride march here in Torino ).
We spent two days in Verona with friends to see ancient Roman sites–amphitheater, theater, city gates, and the archeology museum–along with a visit to Juliet’s balcony amid the mass of tourists. After all that, I turned my brain over for two weeks of intensive daily Italian language class with a truly impressive teacher at the Scull Leonardo Da Vinci / Ciao, Italy! School here in Piazza San Carlo where on most days at noon, a tastierista turned up his amp outside our classroom window and serenaded us for the last hour of class with romantic Disney theme songs. I spent a few hours in Genova (palazzos, paintings and then MBF and I spent one night at the truly romantic Lago D’Orta overlooking the San Giulio “island of silence,” which we ferried out to on a boat filled with very talkative French tourists.
Back in Torino, we got last minute tickets to see an experimental and physically charged version of Tosca at Teatro Regio, so I’ve been thinking about Tosca and those who “live for art,” Puccini’s famous “vissi d’arte” but die or are made to die for love. Thanks to friends here Torino, we spent last weekend in the mountains with two opera singers from the company and a theorbo player and were treated to their rehearsal of 17th and 18th c. female composers as we wrote in upstairs rooms overlooking the Sacra di San Michele–I’ll live for art where I can.
We’ve endured the heat wave in northern Italy as have many in Europe. Among the many ways we are fortunate, we have been uncomfortable at worst. The heat made getting caught in a bath-temperature downpour during a lightening and thunderstorm two nights ago, very welcome–the city dark and silent aside from the sound of someone’s cane, the stone streets intensifying the smell of rain. And throughout all of this, I’ve been working in libraries on professional (designing a new writing course for the fall I’m excited about) and personal projects (finishing a novella) at the National Library and in my newest Italian reading room at the Circolo dei Lettori.
Why the rush of information? No reason. No reason at all. Except I’m coming back to this writing space, Si Omnia Ficta, so these words are a bit of an outpouring of excitement and guilt poured onto a page as I sit in this reading room beneath an impressive if dusty glass chandelier hung from a ceiling ornamented with gold leaf. People sit and write here for hours. When you’re done, or when the words simply don’t come, you can get a prosecco at the bar in the next room.
We return to NYC soon for another heat wave
A lot has happened with What Mennonite Girls Are Good For. This past year has been transformative. It has indeed felt a bit like “si omnia ficta,” if that phrase exists anywhere else but here. In a forthcoming post: a book update- new reviews, book events completed and forthcoming.
For now, ciao from Italy with an ancient Roman hand wave….
So good to hear about your Italian adventure. Sounds like art and life have merged for you!