When we returned from the trip last June, we came home with about 40 video interviews including those from the Venice Biennale, Ristorante La Grotta di Leo, the merchant friends in Orvieto of Franco Sala among others. We are now down to final few, and the nature of the shows will change from shows with a predominance of video interviews to the regular shows of places to which people are more accustomed. Also, I have decided to cut down on the quantity of broadcasts to perhaps 2 or 3 a month. This to allow me to spend time preparing in my "new" job of college professor, and not be so pressured to compose new shows. Therefore I now take a three week break to regroup, prepare new shows, and just take a breather. Other than vacation time, this will be the first hiatus of such length in almost two years of producing Alan's Italy.
That being said I do have some great ideas, excellent photos, a few more videos, and the time now to develop good stuff. In that regard I will now turn to exploring the Tuscan hill towns of Pistoia, Colle di val d'Elsa, and Citta della Pieve. This will not be easy, because I have very little knowledge of these places. I do have quite a few photos, and, of course, some stories of the reason why we chose these places. As you know, when I choose a place to visit, there is always quite a bit of background. That story needs to be told in order to place everything in perspective, not only for my audience, but for me as well to get into the right frame of mind. I have a show yet to be properly developed concerning the Venice Biennale at the Arsenale and Giardini areas that I have yet to do. Plus I have the two books with the 19th century photos of Italy by the Alinari Brothers, who pioneered photograph in Italy in the 1800's. I also have a few shows that I had created back several months ago such as the Streets of Florence focussing on my favorite places to stroll and why. Also, I have many shows, as yet undeveloped which will require help from my friend Ric Hirst to narrate. In that regard there are endless numbers, but certainly at least ten I have written down. All of these should bring me up to next May when again we travel to Italy. For that trip I have a rough idea of what we want to do, but there are many loose ends. When a decision is reached, which may not be for a while, I will discuss it in this blog.
Meanwhile last night's show has been uploaded to Youtube, but alas, I forgot to edit out the first period of 43 seconds which is devoid of sound. Now, why is there always a period of time without sound, you might ask. Picture this scene. Ellen turns on the tape machine, whispers, "quiet on the set," and then takes anywhere from 25 - 45 seconds to give me the signal to begin the opening slideshow. This, of course, must be edited out, the only editing process I have mastered. After that is accomplished, the two videos I uploaded last night, shows 77 and 78, will be history, and I can turn to my other projects for the future. Last night I tried something unusual for me, broadcasting without a sport jacket. I had no reason for this change. My original shows had a lot of no jacket sessions, but my daughter told me she liked me better with a jacket, so I changed, but now I wanted to see how it looked. Frankly now that I saw that, I decided I also liked the jacket better, so that may change next time around back to the jacket.
There are times when I get tired of the routine. Yet when I see the numbers of people continuing to go to the Youtube channel and the numbers increasing (now approaching 10,000 views !), I get reinvigorated. I believe that the Alan's Italy project is really quite amazing, and I would be unhappy to leave it. I will, however, as I have said, cut back somewhat. Meanwhile I am fully involved in my second go around for college teaching, and now will continue with my 32 year at the college and 42nd of teaching generally, still a great privilege to help young people reach their goals.
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