Davey

The Reds are retiring Davey Conception's #13, but he's unfortunately probably past the point where he will make it into Cooperstown. Too bad -- best shortstop of his day, second only to Ozzie Smith later in his career, 5 Gold Gloves, 2,300 hits, big part of why the Big Red Machine were who they were, and all-around nice guy.

Heavy Rotation

Album of the past week (again): Little Feat by Little Feat. I keep going back to this record over the past 5 years or so, after Roger got completely wrapped up in the two records and sent me a rush package containing this one and Dixie Chicken. It's a slow burner, mixing funky Exile-era Stones guitar and piano sounds with a bit of country and southern rock, and Lowell George's strange, memorable, reedy voice tenuously holds it all together. The album creeps up on you after repeated listens with songs like Willin', Takin' My Time and one of my all-time favorites, Truck Stop Girl. Two songs about truck drivin': what's not to like? Highly recommended.

Gardening at Night

I've officially lost my mind, and added another nail in the "I'm going to be a weird old lady" coffin by getting (re-)obsessed with gardening. I had a garden 7 or so years back behind my ex's house on N. 7th, but lost all of those plants (mostly taken from my mom's garden in Ohio) during the divorce. Admittedly after some manipulation on my part by filling up planters last spring thus making friends with the entire neighborhood with my half-assed lazy attempt at beautifying the street using coleus, my landlord was kind enough to give me access to part of the yard that will hold a flower bed 4'x 15', and an 9'x 9' deck just big enough for a grill and table.

Went absolutely nuts this weekend, digging the whole thing up and dropping a couple hundred bucks on shade loving perennials (clematis, 3 astilibe, columbines, hostas, lily of valley, caladium, tomato plants, gold dust bush, ivy, hydrangea, azalea...), in an rush effort to get them in the ground this year so that in the upcoming years, the garden will be gorgeous and plant-filled.

Having a little respite from the city to have tea in the mornings while reading the paper in the backyard is going to be a godsend. I am never, ever, ever moving.

Nice, too, to come back to the city with the cherry and magnolia trees in full flower. Dare I say it? Spring has finally sprung. And as always, with the sun comes good moods for weeks...

Italy: Round Three

After spending one 12-hour day working, I had two days off to wander around northern Italy. It was really nice this time, as I wasn't having withdrawal causing night sweats and crazy anxiety, plus last Wednesday in Italy was a national holiday. Liberation Day marks the anniversary of when the fascists were kicked out of Italy after WW2. The Italians are good about making sure they have plenty of vacation time to enjoy the real pleasures of life, so many places are closed for a week leading up to the Labour Day holiday on May 1st.

I went out to Lago di Garda for part of the day, and strolled around the eastern shores of this beautiful huge lake, through the towns of Bardolino and Lazise (eating gelato twice in three hours) along with about a million Italian families enjoying the spring weather. From there, I drove about 45km southwest to Mantova, a place Aldous Huxley called the most romantic city in the world. Hm. Not so sure about that, but it was another one of your ubiquitous medieval Italian towns based around a series of piazzas. Encircled by three lakes, Mantova was ruled by the Gonzaga family for 3 centuries, and retains a distinctly medieval flair in the city center. You can still see on Piazza Broletto two reminders of how criminals were treated under the Gonzaga reign: metal rings that were used to pulley up and suspend pickpockets in the air by their wrists are still embedded in a building, and the tower called Torre Della Gabbia has a cage attached on the outside where prisoners were exposed to the public and the elements for weeks on end.
















Finally spent a day in Milan on Thursday, instead of just passing through Malpensa Airport. Mirelle and Stefano, who I met in Vietnam and traveled with for a few days last August (she's from Baltimore and a former model; he's Milanese), were kind enough to take me out for drinks and dinner for the evening and show me some of the city. Milan has a great custom called apertivo. Between 6-9 each evening, people unwind over cocktail hour, and the bar counters are stacked with hot and cold food selections that are included in the price of your drink. Very nice deal and almost makes it unecessary to eat dinner. Since Milan is one of the major fashion capitials of the world, people in Milan are super coiffed and well turned-out, preening throughout the day and nights. Unbelievably good-looking and slick men everywhere you look, in pinstriped suits and shiny shoes, and women in expensive sunglasses and 4-inch heels picking their way through the streets. Interesting to watch -- woudn't want to live there, but I definitely can visit for a little while.

Naming Conventions

Wondering: Why is "Wein" translated from German into English as "Vienna"? And why is Roma=Rome; Firenza=Florence; Venezia=Venice; and Mantova=Mantua, but then Verona is still Verona, Vicenza=Vicenza, Paris is Paris, and Budapest is Budapest??

Very puzzling. Perhaps the first really 'other' cities English-speakers went to confused them with unusual names, or were too 'foreign,' and thus translations were offered? Roman names?? I honestly have no idea.

I drove through a city today in Lombardy called "Roverbella" but I am guessing that was never called "beautiful dog city," as I translated it in my own head.

Wein

Two days out of Vienna, and I am still waiting for strong impressions of my first time in a Germanic-flavored city to cross my mind. Beautiful city-not surprisingly, I suppose-unbelievably clean, quiet, serene,uncrowded but not dead, and well-kept. It all seemed very civilized, and maybe one of the best-kept secrets in the EU as a totally liveable and slower-paced city than most urban centers. You certainly wouldn't know that half of it was bombed to kingdom come during WW2 for its (readily accepted?) role as a stronghold of the 3rd Reich. Whatever was reconstructed post-war (in a mere 7 yrs or so, although it was under control still of the allies until 1955) fits in seamlessly.

I confess that in true ugly American-centric fashion, my knowledge of European History is shoddy and vague at best, but with each country I visit, I manage to learn tons about the role of each city, um, over the past 2,000-odd years in the best walking through history ways. So yeah; the Austrians were huge in their day, dude. Owned it all. Didn't fuck around with the palaces, either: built some doozies. They wisely married into every other monarchy they could possibly join with to expand their empire. Nice work, all in all.

Kate, by the way, is now the Queen of Viennese history. Alas, not yet a Habsburgh baronness. (Two weeks left to find Christopher Plummer in 2007 form!)

One more thing to add to the universal rules of comedy that monkeys/retards/midgets are always funny: recorded, overly-enunciating voices speaking German are always funny.

Ciao

I'm off to Vienna and Kate tonight for 4 days before train riding down 12 hours to Verona. Allegedly going on 'vacation,' however, I'm the idiot who took a freelance book job for this gallery, and thus will be spending time on said vacation working as I normally do ...doing a press check. Ah well. Nothing to complain about: A couple days in my home away from home in Verona, before moving on to a day in Milan seeing two friends made in Vietnam, and then back to NYC next Friday. The sun seems to be shining in Europe and, optimistically, spring will have come to Brooklyn by then.

The fever has just barely loosened it's grip on me, so here's to hoping stale airport air doesn't send me back to the sickbed.

Brookland

Emily Barton's novel Brookland has been keeping me company the past few days. I'm not a fan of all historical fiction, for it often seems like everyone in the story knows the three famous people of that era (see: the Alienist). This one is good enough that it's completely engrossing: a perfect at-home-sick book.

The story is set in late 18th century Brooklyn, and tells the story of woman who runs her family's gin distillery on the shores of the East River while dreaming about building a bridge that will connect her town to Manhattan. Her main characters seem very modern for the 1790s although they do make for a good read. Sprinkled with last names that are now streets: Luquer, Schermerhorn, Boerum, Livingston, and Remsen, Barton probably takes her liberties with history, but halfway in, I'm completely captivated by the story of Brooklyn as it once was.

Toxic Brooklyn

The usually annoying Vice Magazine crew's online TV channel VBS.tv has created an interesting series on what lurks beneath the grounds of million-dollar condos going up like wildfire in Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

Most of us who have lived in these parts for awhile are aware of some of these horrors, but the show is well worth checking out to give you more detailed statistics of all the toxins we live next to. Some of their facts aren't dead on based on other stuff i have read, but regardless, the point is still made and relevant.

I have a friend who has tried to make me promise I won't live in Greenpoint for more than 5 years (sorry, going on 6) for these exact reasons. Maybe it's why I'm working on day 4 of being sick at home.

Always sobering stuff. But can I afford to move?

Touch Me I'm Sick

I finally got the typhoid fever or whatever it is that has laid up almost every person I know in the past 10 days. And that's all I got for now -- my brain isn't working right...