Spiritata?

Spiritata?

Just a quick update that I'm sure I'll edit later; this week has been all ups and downs and I needed time to digest before writing anymore.

Last night, met up with some other SACI kids at the Duomo and went to a jazz club we've been hearing about. We walked around for a while trying to find it; as we were walking I talked to a new friend that I don't know very well yet. We shared a cab from the airport the first day we all got here, but we haven't spent much time talking. The subject turned to music, and apparently he also listens to a lot of minimal techno (among other electronic genres). We talked about maybe going to a show sometime; maybe I will have a companion for TNX next time; we'll see how it pans out.

We finally figured out where the jazz club was, it turned out that it's a minute walk from my apartment in this little alley with an unassuming sign and stairs into a basement. It cost 8 euro to join, but there is a free jam session every Tuesday (blues) and Wednesday (jazz), and I'll never have to pay to get in again. I joined a club - oh my gosh!


The scene had exactly the vibe I've been missing from home; the musicians were awesome and they looked so damned thrilled to be up on stage. There were musicians all over the place, and they switched out through the night. At one point these two young musicians, maybe 15 or 16 years old, came up and started playing. One played bass guitar, the other maybe an electric guitar, I'm not sure. They were really good and the vibe just got better throughout the night.

I met a guy from London who's been living in Florence for two years, and his friend from Poland. The Londoner was showing his friend a magic trick with two corks, and his friend was trying to figure it out. I was sitting a couple of seats away, and he handed me the corks. I tried a few times, and from there, we started talking. It was refreshing to meet them.

At one point during the night, a woman got up on stage and sang; her voice was incredible. She was really belting it out, and it did something to my insides. Listening to her voice woke something up inside me. There were a lot of SACI kids there too, some dancing, others closing their eyes and moving along in their seats. I got up to dance for a while, and the musicians were loving it. I wish I had my camera with me to take pictures of their facial expressions, but this week I will get one, and I'll be going back every Tuesday anyway. I kept thinking to myself all night, "Man, this is great! I could have a great night every Tuesday if I wanted to!" It's nice to have found something that happens on a regular basis; something to look forward to.



In art news, this is the clay model I have been working from for stone carving. It's my idea of what the Large Hadron Collider might look like if might happen if the fears about it come true - the earth, splitting away from time, collapsing into itself.

The stone isn't much to look at yet, but for progression purposes, I'll be documenting.

This will be the back side, with the beginning of the "black hole" (yes, I know we don't know what they actually look like, but this is contemporary art, where we can imagine anything we want):


And this is the side that is highest - to the right is where the undulation will occur. The left side is the back:


Dario, my sculpture professor, encourages me to use the stone that I have, but I am so attached to the way I want it to look that I am having a hard time not wanting to widdle away the hunk of pietra into my dream piece. It is kind of a shame to waste all that stone, though. We'll see where it goes.

Dario came in to check on my progress today and also ask if I was feeling better about being in Italy. I told him last week that I was feeling lonely, and discouraged by my attempts at socializing, and he offered some suggestions to me. I love this professor; he's a hilarious little italian man with a sharp wit, but also absentminded. Sometimes, quite suddenly, he pops into the room where I am working to blurt something out. Today it was, "I was thinking! Ahermm, maybe those italian raggazi have met girls before who had a boyfriend een the Stayeetes and in Eeetaly, that is why they think it ees ok."

I took a break from carving to go to the Wind store before it closed to get a recharge card for the internet. When I returned, he asked how it was, and I said, "It was a nice, brisk walk." He didn't understand brisk, and so we started talking about what another way of saying it might be, and how they might say in Italian. Anne offered that another word for brisk might be quick, fast, or spirited, and Dario latched on to "spirited." He said, "You could call it una passegiata spiritata, but then the italians will find that funny! It means like you have a little devil inside you." We were cracking up and I was demonstrating what my possesed walk to the wind store might have been like. It was good to goof around. I felt like they got to know me a little more because they hadn't seen that side of me, and it was good to relax and have a laugh. I've been feeling out of sorts here, but tonight, I felt like regular Diana, which is not very regular at all.

Tonight I think we will go back to the jazz club and find out if we like the jazz jam sessions as much as the blues jam sessions. Tomorrow night I am going with a friend from sculpture class, Bre, to have dinner somewhere on the other side of the river (apparently things are less expensive over there); she has similar goals for her experience here, and I really enjoy working alongside her in class.

Last night, while listening to the music, I realized how short my time really is in Italy, and I was both relieved, and sad. Though I miss home, this is where I need to be right now.

So there is hope.

More to come soon.