A Wonderful and Unexpected Achievement

Alan's Italy is proud to announce that we have gone over 10,000 views on my Youtube Channel !!! I would never have believed this when we began production in mid December 2011. I am grateful for the support I have received in the town of Woodstock, the neighboring Hudson Valley, and online via Youtube. Youtube itself has been wonderful to me over the months, and I wish to thank them as well. The show is still not for profit, strictly public service in design and execution, and will never deviate from that model that was created at the outset when the idea first began to germinate in my mind during the spring of 2011. I have endeavored, as you are quite aware from reading my blogs, to create an informative, interesting, and quality production for people of all ages who are inquisitive about the wonders of Italy. The attainment of such a considerable number of views is validation that I have succeeded and I am extremely pleased that my efforts are not in vain. I have enjoyed the process very much, although there have been many rocky times, most of which I have written about in these pages. I hope to continue to keep the show going through the years and to provide the same quality production despite the time constraints I now have, and the really considerable work that is entailed to be imaginative, productive, and interesting for my audience. In the meantime, I wish to thank you who read this blog regularly from the bottom of my heart !!! You are part of my audience that means the most to me personally and professionally, and I will always be very grateful to you.

A Wonderful Experience Becomes a Reality, Finally

I began to realize this show, # 81: Citta della Pieve, was going to be a little weak on significant images, historical background, and material in general to sustain a 50 minute show, as the week progressed. I added a segment on News From Italy, an idea I had actually begun to include into the show a while back not only to create some "filler," but also as an interesting way to focus on the current situation in various parts of Italy. My friend Luca always sends me the Florentine Newspaper which has a lot of current events in that great city. I liked the idea of finding an extension for the show in this manner, so added four segments in that regard, one on the recent eruption of Mt Etna, two on Venice, and one on the trial of the captain of the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Western Tuscany. I then began to embellish the show with as much historical background as I could considering Citta della Pieve was not one of the most famous Italian Hill Towns. I also intended to give my usual background of why we visited this town. The latter was one of my favorite stories, and I made the most of that throughout the show.

When I arrived at the studio and saw the empty parking lot, I was cheered by the fact that obviously there would be no major events at the Woodstock Community Center that evening. Whew ! I immediately settled down, because sometimes the noise is really annoying. Well, just as the show was about to begin we heard the occasional sounds of castanets and the tap-tap-tap of that Flamenco dancer who sometimes practices in the empty community center. Throughout the show I was constantly having a difficult time concentrating with that horrid noise. Of course, as I have explained many times, being in such close proximity to the community center, we,  the Woodstock Public Access Television Producers, must always know that we may be sharing the whole space with people who have an equal right to the facilities, so I just gritted my teeth and bore the burden. Throughout the show I felt very distracted and had a very, very hard time concentrating. I just knew my discomfort would come through on the video.

When I came home Laura told me it was a good show, but I felt that it was probably going to be disappointing. I just viewed the first half hour, and was pleasantly surprised at how professional I sounded. It is obvious that after almost two years of broadcasting, perhaps I have come to deal with small annoyances with a certain level of acceptance and aplomb. That was great to see. Meanwhile the experience of having first "discovered" Citta della Pieve seven years ago, always vowing to return and finally doing so came across very well. I looked forward to including a whole show on that amazing small town in north central Umbria, just east of the Tuscan border for a long time. Ellen loved the "News From Italy," the general tour of this charming town, and the restaurant scenes. I liked the show and now have finished the three-part series on the towns of Central Italy we visited during our most recent visit. I now turn to my next show, which remember, will not be the usual next week, but two weeks hence. I am now on an every other week schedule. The show will be very different, a number of videos one after the other taking the viewer on a rather stunning series of water rides down the "Main Street" of Venice, the Grand Canal. Although the viewer will also hear the sounds of the great pathway from the train station to the lagoon, I will also be narrating as we go along. In addition to seeing the sights and hearing the commentary, the audience will also see how the experience of taking a vaporetto ride by a passenger occurs. Some great scenes, and the pure excitement of Venice punctuate this very unique broadcast in two weeks.

I also will be honing several of the upcoming shows namely the Ric Hirst narration of the incredible Orvieto Cathedral and my three shows on the 19th century photos of Italy broken down into three parts, Florence, Part 2, Tuscany, and Italy in general. Then Ric is back with his take on the Doors of the Florence Baptistery, and his extremely amazing photos of the former Roman town of Carsulae, rarely visited and hardly known. I will also try once again to create the show about the Venice Biennale which occurred at Giardini and Arsenale. The problem here is that I have so much material and very little knowledge of contemporary art that I may not be able to do this. I keep trying. Stay tuned !

Laura's Idea Turns Into a Show

Usually I plan trips we take to Italy, and then speak with Laura to refine the idea, choose hotels, and destinations. It is really very much a joint project, and then I go about the nitty gritty work of obtaining flights, hotels, rental cars, and other reservations. This time Laura made friends with an Italian artist, Matteo Cocci, and that relationship which had been nurtured over the internet eventually became a visit to one of the great Tuscan Hill Towns, Colle di Val d'Elsa, which is south southwest of Florence. Show # 80 tells this story complete with an extraordinary video interview with Matteo and the owner of the gallery Arte A Colori, Francesca Sensi, which was exhibiting his work at the time of our visit in May. We designed this show before we even left the United States with a visit to the town itself and taking what I projected would be some extraordinary photos, going to the gallery in which Matteo was exhibiting, trying to do an interview on video, and then having lunch with him and his wife (which turned out to be his whole family). What had been planned at home became almost the replica of the eventual show. Although not an unusual occurrence based on my penchant for heavy planning, it was almost to the T the exact design. Even the part where my friend Luca would drive us to the town and do the translating had been factored into the concept. Actually the only part about which we were unsure was the inclusion in this excursion of our two traveling companions, Barbara, Laura's cousin and Barbara, our friend from Woodstock. The absence of Luca's partner, Mary, permitted the extra room.

The show came off without a hitch, among the very few perfect shows, and except for an inadvertent grammatical error I made that few would even pick up, my performance was very pleasing to me. Ellen did a perfect job as well, as I just viewed it at first totally and then skipping around. I believe my fans will find it very pleasing as well. I would really like to thank Luca for driving us to a gallery which even he had trouble finding in not remote Tuscany, but certainly an area much less traveled by most Tuscan tourists. Also my appreciation goes to Matteo and Francesca for their kindness to us. Colle is in an area in which I have visited many times making stops at nearby Siena, Monteriggioni, and San Gimignano, and even Volterra a bit further west and perhaps north. I loved the way the town looked in photos I had studied. There are two sections, a lower part where the scalo district is located where the industrial areas usually are located and an upper area, Colle Alta, where the medieval castle and buildings make this one of the most picturesque towns in Central Italy. The streets, buildings, and well preserved walls are absolutely charming and beautiful, and I believe all of that is captured in tonight's show.

Meanwhile this was show # 80, an amazing milestone considering I originally rejected the idea of a tv show when first presented to me many years ago. However, tonight Ellen and I spoke of a major modification in the weekly format. Because I am too busy to spend a lot of time planning new shows, and the fact that really there may be a limit to my ability to formulate newer and near ones, we decided that after next week we will do a once every two weeks original show and intersperse reruns throughout. This will give me the ability to sustain a continuous show until after Laura and I return from the projected trip in very late May, early June 2014. During that trip will once again endeavor to discover new and unique shows by visiting a plethora of small Tuscan and Ligurian towns, and also Lake Como. Since after we return I am able to put together enough shows for about 25 new shows, a once a week format makes sense. I will will still try to give my viewers quality, fun, and picturesque presentations, however, and it should be the same wonderful experience for me and for them.