02009-10-02 | Photos
Monday Morning I got up at 05:00 after an hour or two of sleep – I ended up reading for most of the night when I realized I could not fall asleep – I picked up Jon and we left his house at 06:30. From Albuquerque to Dulles airport and then across the puddle. Paris airport, 6AM. Pain au chocolat and black tea for me and a croissant and espresso for Jon. We arrived in Milan on Tuesday Morning at 10:35 and were at the hotel at 11:30. Rooms not available yet. Dead tired we left our luggage and walked around the corner and found an outdoor cafe, where we ate lunch, delicious paninis. More walking and back at the hotel to check in at 13:00.
Internet in the hotel is €17-22 per 24 hours. Highway robbery. I hope the Blue Note has wireless Internet acces and so I can try to upload photos there on Thursday.
In the afternoon I played guitar for a couple of hours. The first painless (((except for one jolt))) guitar practice since I sliced my finger 9 days ago. Tuesday Evening I walked around for a couple of hours and took a bunch of photos. Then I kept myself up, finishing the new Dan Brown novel, to move my body to the European schedule. Not a great book, but it does contain some interesting information, especially about D.C. and American history. A couple of Brown’s statements about Buddhism are plain wrong.
Here are some photos from the Tuesday Evening walk:
Wednesday Morning I took another walk. A cappuccino here and an espresso there. I like the area around the hotel a lot. Haven’t seen it on a map yet. Thought about the current era, the problems, the danger of climate change and then I thought about the middle ages and the plague and how desperate those times must have been. Especially how strange it was that so many people died simply because they believed and prayed. Churches were the biggest source of infection, because many people came together, and of course they all dipped their hands into the holy water… Every time has its own difficulty and challenge.
Back to the hotel and some work on the slideshow, which I think is still improving quite a bit. It is now about 2.6GB in size.
The Milanese tap water is wonderful! Either that or the hotel is filtering their tap water.
02008-05-27 | Photos, Travel
Drinks at Bond, dinner at Officina 12 on the Canal. Same as in 2005 and just as good. A beautiful ending to my stay in Milan. Ciao…
02008-05-26 | Photos, Touring, Travel
The Connected House… Above photo was taken yesterday en route to lunch.
This morning I went to a nearby park, which looked timeless…
And then moved to a different hotel in the center of Milan. A familiar room in my favorite hotel.
02008-05-25 | Performance, Poetry, Touring
(…and then there is Milan in September, a piece we recorded in 1993 for the album “The Hours between Night + Day”, but not included on the CD)
Last night’s performance at the Blue Note was ideal. A quiet and attentive audience that applauded enthusiastically and thereby encouraged further explorations, which I was happy to embark on. I am grateful to all of you.
This ad drew in tourists from Houston, who were in Milan for one day only. A German listener also saw the ad and came to the club. As in the days before, some people had traveled from Rome and other cities in Italy to hear me play – ah, when do I get to perform in Rome!! And on Friday I met three fans who came all the way from Romania for the show. My sincere thanks to all that came to hear me play at the Blue Note.
Y. sent me this part of a poem by Hafiz:
…When Hafiz plays his lute,
My notes ascend into the air and form
Infinite blue crystals
That will move on the wind’s breath for hundreds of years
As my sacred debris, as the divine dust
Rising as a gift from my
Singing bones.
-Hafiz
Music rising as a gift from my singing bones! That’s what it feels like. I don’t use a set list for my solo performances and improvise a lot. I make up new melodies, discover new sections, play new medleys and try to simply follow the whims of inspiration. Every performance is quite different and is as much a discovery for me as it, hopefully, is for the audience.
I’ll be back at the Blue Note in Milan and there is also talk of bringing the band to Italy for a tour next year.
02008-05-23 | Interview, Performance, Radio, Touring
Radiomontecarlo.net : Monte Carlo Nights
Last night at the Blue Note I did an interview with Nick, the Nightfly between my sets. We met for the first time in 1994, I believe. He mentioned that next year his program will be twenty years old and I answered that I recorded “Nouveau Flamenco” twenty years ago next year… Time is like climbing a mountain. We take one little breathless step at a time, but at intervals we look back and are amazed at the view back down the valley… Twenty years – almost half of my life. A long time or not time at all… :)
The first set was recorded for broadcast.
I wish I’d speak Italian.
