Recognition

Well I'll be damned - well yes according to a few people I am but let's not go into that - the world is finally recognizing me. Two weeks ago it was a kindly wag in Pesaro and now this:


My friend Jack sent this along from one of his Beijing photo jaunts. I was hoping it was a trendy gay bar or clothing store but he tells me he thinks its just another chain restaurant it's a gym. Sounds right to me.

Sic Transit Recognition!

08 settembre - La Natività della Beata Vergine Maria

Jack's Beijing

Last July when Laurent left Beijing much of the city seemed to be under construction. In the year that he's been gone our friend Jack has been keeping us up to date with the incredible changes. And he's remarked more than once that the skyline of Beijing is not the one he remembers from his childhood - and he's only a baby! Its hard to imagine what his parents must make of it and the changes they have seen. He sent these pictures (from an unknown source on the Internet) of the new National Theatre designed by French architect Jean Andreu. I gather there has been some concern because you walk under the water feature to access the building and this is not good feng-shui. Not sure how true that is or if it is just one of those urban myths. Jack has sent me a correction on this: The bad fengshui is because the Opera House looks like a tomb. So people have to go down and into a tomb...
But Jack has also been busy with his camera in the past few weeks capturing the city and recording the changes. A click on Jack in this photo I took when he visited us in January will lead you to his great Flickr Slideshow. And he's promised there will be more to come.

19 agosto - San Giovanni Eudes

Touring Town

Our friend Jack has arrived safely back in Beijing after a week of being dragged around Roman ruins and Baroque churches. Its a little hard to impress Jack with the grandeur of Rome; he lives in a culture where antiquity means 5000 years ago, old means 2000, new means 1000 and really new means all that earlier stuff got knocked down yesterday to build something sleek and steel today. And grandeur is the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace or further afield in Xian the Terra Cotta Army.

But there were a few things that caught his eye (A rollover should give you a brief description):

And did I mention he found the Swiss Guards very impressive - must be those uniforms.

13 gennaio - Battesimo di Gesu

My Father's Grasslands and My Mother's River

At dinner tonight - San Marino's Pizza, the best Roman pizza in the neighbourhood - Jack was telling me about his trip to Mongolia this past fall. He mentioned a video set to a pop-treatment of a Mongolian folksong that he really enjoyed and that is very popular in China right now.



He gave me a very rough translation from the Chinese: the singer has never visited his parents homeland but when he sees it for the first it awakens something in his soul. He discovers that this place has always lived in his heart and rejoices that now he is part of the grasslands of his father and the river of his mother.

Though I'm not really a big fan of this type of pop I find the initial melody and the visuals quite arresting.

04 gennaio - Santa Angela

Lines, Lines Everywhere's There's Lines

We have our box at the opera this year but unfortunately it doesn't include the season's opening production - Tosca directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Zio Franco is still a big draw around these parts - even if recent pronouncements he's made in the papers sound like he may be, how shall we say, losing it just a bit. We want to see this "new" Zio Franco production even if it is a rehash of the Callas 1964 one from Covent Garden or the Met's elevator mad one, just to see real solid sets and not steeply sloped floors with sticky out bits. Guaranteed with Zio Franco if the libretto says Act I - Church of Sant'Andrea delle Valle you'll get the Church of Sant'Andrea delle Valle.

So when tickets went on sale for the season this morning I headed down to Piazza Beniamino Gigli to get us some seats.

The Box Office opened at 1000 I arrived at 1130 and joined this crowd:

And received this slip of paper from a kindly gentleman ensconced in the corner:
He wasn't a member of the Opera House staff - just an opera lover who was going to make damned sure everyone got their turn based on when they arrived. And wonder of wonders it was working except they were just calling number 85 and 86 when he handed me mine.

I figured it would be a long wait so left to do a bit of window shopping and book buying. I returned an hour later and they had just called number 106. An hour after that and they were up to number 162. In conversation with the man who had number 446 we decided we'd be lucky to get to the box office window by tomorrow. In the meantime I had been back and forth to Termini hoping to meet our friend Jack when he arrived on the airport train.

He called to say his flight had arrived late, he had waited an hour to get his bag and he was in the line up for train tickets. An hour later he called to say he had just got his ticket and would be on the next train. The final trip to the Opera House indicated that they were "Now Serving Number 187."

In the meantime I thought I'd buy the stamps I need for my Residence Permit at the Station Post Office while I was waiting. And surprise I ran into another line up.

It just seemed to be a day for line ups. I didn't get my tickets for Tosca nor the stamps for my Permit but I did manage to pick Jack up so at least something was accomplished. Mind you we had to line up for 10 minutes for a cab.

03 gennaio - Santa Genoveffa