Back in my takin’-Italian-lessons days my teacher sent me a message that Carmen Consoli was touring in the US for the next several months. A few lessons prior, she had given me homework that included some of the history of Italian popular music from, say, the 1940s to the early 2000s. Many of her lesson slides had dated information so there were no artists included from the 2010s… and certainly not the 2020s. The newest artist that was referenced, and simply from a photo, was Carmen Consoli, active from the mid-90s to around 2010. I did a quick search and listened to ripped albums on YouTube (do albums exist in any other form?) which really hooked me, maybe/probably more because it was alt-pop in Italian than that I liked the music.
Continue reading Dov’ero io? Italia nei circonscrizioni di Nuovo YorkCategory: Personal
Alla fine, durante della pausa
A month ago, April the 11th, was the final lesson–for a few months–with my Italian tutor Marina. The day before was our one year anniversary.
Continue reading Alla fine, durante della pausaSuite for Orchestra, “Figures in a Landscape”
I finished the novel Figures in a Landscape by Barry England back in 2021 and was captivated throughout. In the story, two men escape from war-time imprisonment and flee across a spare landscape pursued by their previous captors. The younger of the two is the more innocent Ansell, and the older is the callused fighter MacConnachie. The novel, from 1968, has no specifics about who the antagonists were or where the action occurs.
England’s book was a pure and existentialist response to sentiments the late 60s regarding war and the value we put on life, ours and others, and how proximity affects that value. What he wrote transcends the specificity of the events contained; the detailed and exposed psychology of the duo in flight contrasts the ambiguous landscapes. I think of it, imprecisely, as a more “human” companion to Waiting for Godot. Bleak humanism?
I read the book several times and annotated the events and days (approximately 11) when those events occurred, converting what I felt were key moments into specific movements. They are:
- march
- village I
- helicopter I
- crawl I
- fire
- boat
- mountain I
- village II
- mountain II
- rain
- fissure
- crawl II
- helicopter II
- “we’d never have got”
The movements are generally grouped in threes, with #13 and #14 standalone.
(written from 16 May 2022 to 3 Feb 2024)
Suite for Orchestra, “Figures in a Landscape”–Coda
Slowness has occurred the last few months. Passive voice. I know the cause is that I’ve focused on learning Italian, but a few years ago when I was on a death march at work, every night I still took at least 30 minutes to work on my Symphony No. 1. Those days haunt me for their dedication under stress.
There’s no excuse.
On learning a language and becoming a person
I started taking Italian lessons a month-and-a-half before I left for Italy. Well, I was taking Duolingo lessons before that for a few months but I don’t count those lessons much after the quality of my experience with a Real Live Tutor. No offence, Duo.
My six months anniversary with Marina hits on October 10th so, as with all anniversaries, I’m assessing the state of the state of my improvement. I guess as arbitrary as they are, anniversaries are still good for taking a moment to assess or else we’d end up being goldfish. And you always want some proof of advancement or else in its absence the effort becomes wasted time that is soon abandoned. With the approaching anniversary, around two or three weeks ago, I started realizing that I’ve become a Real Live Person during lessons.
Continue reading On learning a language and becoming a person