Long Overdue...Mi Dispiace

I realize that I have been unusually negligent with this blog recently. I think two weeks is more than enough time.

It’s a little difficult for me to remember now what has passed. I left off when I was about to go see the Buena Vista Social Club at the local theatre. The performance was excellent and enlightening, as that is one area of music into which I’ve not really delved.

That Sunday and last Sunday were spent in Christine Perrin’s apartment again, eating lunch with other friends and having good conversation. It was disappointing that she and Catherine needed to leave so soon, but I recognize how lucky I am that they will remain in my life even after being here, a gift that not many of the other students have. They came during a rough period of our group’s history, and especially for me; having them gave me a measure of reliable former context. That is a valuable feeling that cannot be reproduced or imitated by something that is not native to life back home, and it helped me strengthen and heal.

The week (two weeks ago) was the final period of the portrait painting course. During that time my eye really began to change, and even still I look at someone’s face and see how I would reproduce it with patches of color. I thought that I was not good at painting, and maybe that was good, maybe I would not have made the progress I did. But I love it now. In class, we painted Signor Ricetti, a local ancient portly man with a glorious white beard and weathered face. I love my painting, but I will need to finish some of the details when I return to the States. For my final independent project I painted Erin…it still needs work as well. She has an amazingly captivating face, and reproducing the look I wanted was a harder task than I expected.

Abby and I went to Rome last Saturday…it was a good trip, but there were some unfortunate occurrences that made it a very long, and in some cases, frustrating day. I kept getting us lost in the area around Piazza Navona, and there were some major fiascoes with the train schedule. Due to some misdirection, we were told that the only train we could take would depart from the Roma Tiburtina station (as opposed to the convenient one, Roma Termini), and that its only stop on the way to Firenze would be a half hour drive from Orvieto, and that it would be more expensive than the train we’d been planning to take. It turns out that there was another option, but we were not told about it, so we had to beg Laura Menichetti to come pick us up…at midnight. But the highlights of the day were great…wandering into small stores, a picnic in the Borghese gardens, exploring the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (since Abby hadn’t seen any of it and I’d only seen the Cy Twombly exhibit), which has a pretty nice collection, and a visit to the Gagosian gallery to see an Anselm Kiefer sculpture show. Walking into that gallery felt like walking out of Rome and into a corner of Chelsea, which was a nice feeling.

This week began our travel writing course with the poet Scott Cairns. I love it. He’s a really down to earth guy who wears sandals, shorts, oxfords, and a pony-tail. His wife is a very lovely person who writes about food, which both of them love. He has excitedly discovered a taste for grappa, and proudly shows us when he gets a good bottle of it. But the course itself is wonderful because it is wonderful to be writing and reading again. Invisible Cities was a perfect warm-up to this class, and to reading Roland Barthes’ Empire of Signs, which is absolutely fantastic so far. The pace has been relaxed so far, and the work is completely enjoyable. Most classes this week, we have gone out into the town at some point to write sketches about the things we see and take in some sun…it’s a time of Orvieto that we had not been able to really see before.

Other than that, the days have been filled with more leisure activities…playing football on Thursday afternoons, trying a fragrant, 8 year Irish whiskey at a new enoteca, celebrating Jake and Lauren’s birthdays at a restaurant last night, Leonardo driving Erin, Jess and her sister and I to Lake Bolsena for an afternoon to swim and lie on the beach. That sort of thing. Summer has dropped onto this region suddenly, and it is hot and sunny perpetually, and life is fresh.

PS, Dr. Romaine from NYCAMS emailed me recently to let me know of the internship they selected for me for next fall...I will be working at the New Museum, on Bowery St. in Manhattan. Apparently it's one of the foremost contemporary art exhibition spaces in NYC, so I'm super psyched about it. Check it out.

PPS. My brother, Stephen, graduated last night. I wish I could have been there, but I'm really proud of him, and excited to see where his life will go. Please congratulate him if you see him!