As Usual, A Long Story Short
Easter in Genova is huge. I don’t have any idea why Genova celebrates it so much (other than the usual Jesus-rose-from-the-dead stuff), but it’s an amazing time to be there. I had a fantastic time, but on Monday night I realized that I’d performed for fourteen days without a break and was in desperate need.
Thankfully, Tuesday morning Allison arrived for a week-long visit. We spent three days in Genoa, which were lovely except for uncooperative weather. Still, I had a really great experience doing some recording for a local documentary filmmaker who was editing a piece on the local area during the Middle Ages. He saw me playing on the street and hired me to contribute some instrumental medieval music to his project. It was great fun! Even better, he was a bit of a heavy metal fan and he knew of the band I recorded with last year. This is the kind of thing I live for ☺
From Genova we headed east to Padova (or Padua), where I had some good busking last year. Unfortunately, as I set up for my first street set, I was told that CD sales were forbidden (although they hadn’t been a problem last year). I still had a good few hours playing (while Allison worked on writing the biggest project of her career thus far), but was a little disappointed about the whole thing. I’m hoping I just caught the wrong cops on the wrong day, and will probably come back for a day or two next year to see what happens.
That afternoon Allison and I took a daytrip to Verona. It was interesting to see our differing interpretations of the city’s Shakespearean connection (it being the setting for Romeo and Juliet), since she’s a Shakespearean actor and director and I’m an historian. She noticed, for example, that “Juliet’s House” (interesting for a fictitious character) didn’t involve an orchard for a courtyard, which differed from the text of the play. I, however, was much more willing to note the building’s Capulet heritage and assume poetic license.
On Sunday we had planned to hang out in Padova, but since I’d had a setback with the local busking I decided to go for the gold. I wanted to busk Venice.
I get asked a lot about busking in Venice, but I’ve never done it. The reason for this is that there is a mile of regulations and paperwork involving permits, restrictions, and suchlike. I found the full text online and just didn’t want to deal with that. But, I figured, if I could accidentally avoid Padovan police for three days last year I could probably do so for a few hours in Venice.
And it worked. Delightfully. I had a very good half hour set before it started to rain, but more importantly I feel that I’ve crossed a personal milestone. Despite the rain we did some walking around the city, and ended up completely exhausted from hauling her laptop and my dulcimer around. The next day, her last in Italy, we went back and had a much more leisurely time.
So yesterday morning I put her on a plane to New York, and I’m now in Brescia, a city that’s been very good to me in the past. I’m looking forward to the upcoming week, and will try to keep in better touch!
Thankfully, Tuesday morning Allison arrived for a week-long visit. We spent three days in Genoa, which were lovely except for uncooperative weather. Still, I had a really great experience doing some recording for a local documentary filmmaker who was editing a piece on the local area during the Middle Ages. He saw me playing on the street and hired me to contribute some instrumental medieval music to his project. It was great fun! Even better, he was a bit of a heavy metal fan and he knew of the band I recorded with last year. This is the kind of thing I live for ☺
From Genova we headed east to Padova (or Padua), where I had some good busking last year. Unfortunately, as I set up for my first street set, I was told that CD sales were forbidden (although they hadn’t been a problem last year). I still had a good few hours playing (while Allison worked on writing the biggest project of her career thus far), but was a little disappointed about the whole thing. I’m hoping I just caught the wrong cops on the wrong day, and will probably come back for a day or two next year to see what happens.
That afternoon Allison and I took a daytrip to Verona. It was interesting to see our differing interpretations of the city’s Shakespearean connection (it being the setting for Romeo and Juliet), since she’s a Shakespearean actor and director and I’m an historian. She noticed, for example, that “Juliet’s House” (interesting for a fictitious character) didn’t involve an orchard for a courtyard, which differed from the text of the play. I, however, was much more willing to note the building’s Capulet heritage and assume poetic license.
On Sunday we had planned to hang out in Padova, but since I’d had a setback with the local busking I decided to go for the gold. I wanted to busk Venice.
I get asked a lot about busking in Venice, but I’ve never done it. The reason for this is that there is a mile of regulations and paperwork involving permits, restrictions, and suchlike. I found the full text online and just didn’t want to deal with that. But, I figured, if I could accidentally avoid Padovan police for three days last year I could probably do so for a few hours in Venice.
And it worked. Delightfully. I had a very good half hour set before it started to rain, but more importantly I feel that I’ve crossed a personal milestone. Despite the rain we did some walking around the city, and ended up completely exhausted from hauling her laptop and my dulcimer around. The next day, her last in Italy, we went back and had a much more leisurely time.
So yesterday morning I put her on a plane to New York, and I’m now in Brescia, a city that’s been very good to me in the past. I’m looking forward to the upcoming week, and will try to keep in better touch!