Here he is, in all his Il Duomo splendor!
I love Italia!
Because, seriously, where else in the world can you order a cappucino and when it arrives looking all artistic and lovely, and when you comment on its loveliness, the barrista flirtatiously says to you, “which is ‘bellisimo’? the coffee or me?” and you blush and laugh and say “l’uno e l’altro”. Because honestly, both the barrista and the coffee are works of art!
Ghiberti’s “Gates of Heaven” currently look like doors to a bank!
The Florence Baptistery is currently enveloped in a gray shrouding of some sort. This friendly detective, at your service, is on the case and will update you when information becomes available.
Seriously, are they cleaning it under the shroud or is the monument wrapped up to keep it warm for the winter?
I’ll get back to you on that!
UPDATE: According to my local anonymous sources: the shroud covers the scaffolding which was erected so the monument can be cleaned and shined up to match the shining Duomo, since they are more or less a matched set.
In the meantime, this is how the doors that Michelangelo called “the gates of paradise” look today. You can’t tell if these tourists are lining up to look at the art or queing up to draw money from the ATM. Oh, wait a minute, no one ques in Italy, so it must be the art!
Do you see what I see?
Dante’s been keeping watch over Santa Croce for me. He is still strong and silent. I assume he’s dark and handsome; he’s certainly tall.
Psssst…come a little bit closer, I need to whisper something in your ear.
See that picture up there? This is about that.
And this thing has to be kept hush-hush, just between you and me, ok? You sure you can keep a secret? Ok, then (I begin in sotto voce):
I know this picture doesn’t look like much of a picture at all, but I think it is the moon shining over the North Pole on my flight last night from the U.S. to Italy, taken about midnight. But, here’s the thing…I had my iphone pointed downwards, you know, trying to capture the scene below me. But, I am about to describe to you what I couldn’t capture with my camera.
Now, I wouldn’t swear to it on a stack of Bibles, but I do believe that I saw quite a human-looking complex located on several mammoth icebergs last night. There was a big house as sort of the center of the complex, so big I could see it from 35,000 feet above sea (ice berg) level.
There must be a lot of chimneys in the complex because I saw a lot of smoke puffs coming out of what looked like chimney tops.
There were also many adjoining buildings (it all looked kind of ad hoc in construction), and there were a lot of small looking humans who appeared to be dressed in green tunics, tan leggings and felt hats with a feather coming out of the top for stylistic purposes, I would guess. These people were running in and out of all the buildings, often with their arms full of materials. It seemed pretty suspicious to me.
Then there were a series of buildings nearby that appeared, from my vantage point (and by the way, I had this sensation that I was flying in a sleigh instead of an airliner…I know how crazy that sounds, but the feeling lasted only for a few moments and left me shaking my head because it felt like I had some sort of a vision. But, I’m fine, truly) to be barns, like you would keep animals in. A few times I caught glimpses of what may or may not have been reindeer, or a close evolutionary reindeer cousin, at the very least.
Now I know what you are wondering: did I see a reindeer looking animal with a red glowing nose? Everybody is asking that, like it would prove my hypothesis or something! Ha! I would not bet my life upon it, but to tell you the truth, a couple of times I felt like I did see such a critter.
And, even more amazing than all of the above, is that also for a split second in time, I am pretty darn sure I heard a loud, jolly male voice hollering something directly to me, and it sounded alot like “ho, ho, ho.” But, I wouldn’t swear to it.
And, anyway, about the fact that I tried to capture what I saw in a photograph but all I got was the moon up above. How weird is that?
It was quite a flight I had. It might have been the ambien?
Cloudscapes
This is how Europe looked from above on Dec. 3, 2014
Photos taken with my iphone (the camera in this thing amazes me) while flying from Amsterdam to Florence.
Even the clouds look better over Italy! Why is that?
Open my heart
Open my heart and you will see, graved inside it, Italy.
Robert Browning
And mine too, Bobbie!
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker, part 2. Run to see it!
Yes, the peacock was sublime!
Yes, the harlequins were a delight!
But, let’s looks at some other aspects of the extravaganza.
For example, the warring factions, on the part of the Nutcracker and the Mice, were picturesque beyond belief.
I can’t locate a good photograph of the cavalry component of this Nutcracker online, but I did find this illustration.
I
You’ll have to take my word for it: the cavalry rocked! I’ve never seen anything like their spectacular horse costumes.
The ethereal dance sequence with the corps de ballet dancing in a lightly falling snow was awesome.
Can you see what I mean? It snows rarely in Seattle, so this aspect of the ballet is beloved locally. By me for sure!
I’ve run out of superlatives to describe the Nutcracker, so I just show you some random photos of some great parts. A picture is worth a thousand words anyway.
And yes, I had to sneak in the peacock again. I can’t help it. I love it so much!
So, to close, let me remind you that this is the very last year to see the Stowell-Sendak version of The Nutcracker in Seattle. So, what are you waiting for, people? Go!
Let’s talk turkey! Pacific Northwest Ballet shines in Nutcracker!
First, I admit it. I love the ballet.
Second, I love a classic as much as the next person. Maybe more.
Tchaikovsky-The Nutcracker Ballet
Third, I love a new twist on an old favorite. Shaking things up is almost always a good thing. Especially in the arts!
Fourth, I love rousing live music from a top notch orchestra.
Fifth, I am a sucker for the holiday season and the spectacle of falling snow.
Put all these things together, and they elicit the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company's Nutcracker, what else? Ma oui, mesdames et messieurs! (I have no idea why I just went all les français. It just seemed appropriate!)
The Pacific Northwest’s is an entirely different Nutcracker than any you’ve ever seen.
And that’s because one of the company’s directors, Kent Stowell, had a brainstorm back in the 1980s. He thought a new, updated version of the Christmas classic would be nice.
As I noted in an earlier post, Kent Stowell invited famed children’s book author and illustrator, Maurice Sendak, to collaborate on a new version of the Nutcracker. Fortunately, although his initial impulse was to say no, Sendak agreed. The ballet that I enjoyed yesterday in Seattle is the carefully nurtured product of that enlightened collaboration.
Thanks to technology and the www, we can hear the late Sendak himself and see him at work.
Thank goodness they did it, for I’ve been to a few Nutcrackers (indeed I have been drug to many to watch friend’s children perform as mice and other nonsense) in my lifetime, but never one as charming as this.
I could give you the whole rundown, but you don’t need that and neither do I. So let’s jump right to my favorite parts of the Seattle spectacle.
First, let’s skip the turkey and talk all peacock. Personally, I never have liked turkey.
The illustration above is courtesy of the PNB’s website. No credit is given for the artist, but I guess we can take credit all the way back to the early 1980s and give it to Maurice Sendak, who originally envisioned all of this bravado on display at McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center for the next month.
There are hundreds of things to love about the Stowell-Sendak Nutcracker. Maybe more.
But, personally, I could not get enough of this joyous peacock who arrives on stage in her own gilded cage.
Then the gorgeous bird struts her stuff and it is a joy to behold.
The choreography, the costume, the music, the beautiful, skilled ballerina–it all comes together in this all too brief moment of peacock madness.
If you ever wondered what it is like to dance the part of the gorgeous peacock in the Sendak Nutcracker, and come on, who hasn’t?, then watch this:
But, as I often do, I have gotten way, way ahead of myself.
This light-hearted, magical stage front awaits you upon your arrival in the theater. While the orchestra tunes up and all the little sugarplums and sourpusses in the audience take their bumper chairs, your eyes and mind have much to enjoy in admiring this warm Sendak illustration. It literally sets the stage for the magical moments ahead of you. The stagefront makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, like you are sitting on your grandmother’s knee and she is about to read you one of your favorite stories with fantastically attractive illustrations for you to admire.
The curtain(s) rises and you are confronted by this whimsical nutcracker’s face and unending teeth.
Another curtain rises and we see the young protagonist of the story, our fraulein, asleep, about to have some wild REM sleep! Out come the mice, the tale’s “narrator” (he is silent, but he still narrates), and the fantastic dreaming begins.
It would take pages for me to go through the chronology and details of the ballet, and I don’t want to write for pages. So, here are some of the scenes from the dream sequence. I present them out of order, the way I would like to dream it.
Three dances in harlequin costumes present a lively interlude. I loved this part!
I’ll be back with another post on this masterpiece soon. But for now, run, don’t walk, to the Seattle Center to see this ephemeral delight while you still can.
May we all have visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads this next month!
get back, lauretta! 
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