Home From Italy

Getting Back After It

CoolMom and I got back from our extended weekend in Italy yesterday. It was a great time. We did Florence and a day in Siena. I ate some great steak; we both gorged on pasta and gelato and made a serious dent in the Italian wine supply.

I love going to churches and basilicas in Europe to see the architecture and the art, but I mostly love checking out whatever creepy and weird stuff they have inside. Santa Croce in Florence has some very important tombs like Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli, Galileo, and Marconi. Those, though, really just look like plaques on the wall. San Miniato al Monte, which sits on a hill overlooking the city of Florence, has a fantastically creepy cemetery containing many busts and statues of those buried there.

Siena is where things get serious. The Museo dell'Opera of the Duomo in Siena has a room full of relics from various saints -- teeth, digits, full skeletons. In the Basilica of San Domenico, they've got the head of Siena's (and one of Italy's, along with St. Francis of Assisi) patron saint, St. Catherine.

On the secular / scientific side of things, you can see a couple of Galileo's fingers in the museum dedicated to him back in Florence.

Obviously, if that kind of stuff isn't your thing then there are many, many other wonderful things to see in those two cities -- Michelangelo's David and a beautiful synagogue in Florence, Caravaggio's John the Baptist in Siena just to name a few -- and we saw them all. I got more exercise than I've had in a while; and I'm ready to get going again.

I've been obsessing on The So So Glos new album, Blowout, a bit lately. Through the magic of robo-posting my review of that record went up over at Speak Into My Good Eye just as I was leaving for Italy.

I'll be back to driving swim carpool this evening, and LiveNation just informed me that my tickets for Johnny Marr at Irving Plaza are for tomorrow night. I've also got a few EP's and LP's that I'd like to write something about; so watch this space if you're interested in any of that.

Seattle

Memorial Day / Anniversary Long Weekend

CoolMom and I are headed back to Seattle tomorrow for the first time in about twelve years to celebrate the arrival of summer along with our anniversary.  We had some good times there back in the grad school days, and I'll be interested to see how it's changed.

We were there during the height of the corporate alt rock era and listened to KNDD-"The End" through the awful radio in our red Tercel.  Then, one day, I discovered KCMU (now KEXP), and the world got a little brighter.

Lots of great bands from the area.  One from our grad school days...

Business Trip

Barcelona, All Week

Heading to Barcelona tomorrow night on business.  I'm kind of looking forward to this one.  Spain is among my favorite places, and I kind of speak the language (Spanish, not Catalan).  CoolMom and I even honeymooned in Spain back in the aughts, though we never made it to Barcelona.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to myself while I’m there, but Monday night I’ll be on my own almost for sure.  As luck would have it, John Cale is playing at a place called Apolo that very evening.  If I can overcome the jetlag and score a ticket, I may have to check it out.

Posting may be light to non-existent.

Hasta luego.