I indicated to Ric tonight that a good next book would be to talk about some of the out of the way places we both have been to and focus on how those places can be as rewarding as visiting some of the better knwon locations. The problem with out of the way towns is that perhaps they wish to stay that way. I would not want the podestas of twenty small towns out to get me ! One of these precious gems is the Alto Lazio town of Viterbo, where we visited in 2012. During that same excursion we also toured Tuscania, another spectacular town. (We will talk about Tuscania in a few weeks) Neither of these places have as much elevation such as the Tuscan towns of Montepulciano, Montalcino, or Cortona (to name but a few), but charming nonetheless. It took us almost nine months to finally do this show and it was well worth waiting for. Ric, using no notes, gave a fabulous tour from memory. I remarked on the show that his knowledge of Viterbo was akin to my knowing about Kingston. As Woodstock is such a small town, we often shop in Kingston which is much larger. The relationship between Ric's town of Roccalvecce and Viterbo is similar, as he frequents the latter on a regualr basis.
We started the show with an analysis of the recent elections in Italy in which their lower and upper houses of parliament became so divided among several parties that the country appears to be ungovernable, causing widespread panic in the a financial market already frail in the current worldwide recession which began in 2008. As Italy has dozens of parties, my friend Luca told me that these divisions are common in Italian elections. I indicated my interview with Andrea Martellini one of the spokepersons for the Five Star Movement, started by Beppe Grillo several years ago as a protest against Italian governmental corruption. His movement captured 25 % of the vote, which is astounding for a non-party group out of the mainstream and without much political clout. They have succeeeded in capturing the loyalty, imagination, and devotion of the Italian populace who seek change. Since he is just interested in weeding out corrupt politicians, there is no other platform other than the election of honest people to serve, and greater regard for the masses of struggling Italians. Ric assisted with this as well. When we return in May, I hope to do a follow-up with Andrea and several winners of the election. It would be a real coup if we could also speak with Grillo through video and bring that back with us.
On the production front, Ellen, my engineer (and all of us) heard this loud buzzing on the sound system when it was hooked to the computer, so we disconnected it and went instead with the sound from the computer directly into the microphone. It was impossible to tell that anything was different and otherwise the show was perfectly broadcast, a very calm evening of television production for sure.
Meanwhile on other fronts, Alan's Italy begins to be rebroadcast on New Paltz Public Access on Fri, Sat, and Sun at 6 PM having the same show for three weeks at a time. This is apropos to the beginning of my 8-week program as part of New Paltz Lifetime Learning on March 20 extending into mid-May. That class will be expanded from the original 20 limit that I set during registration, as apparently many more people want to get into the class. The sight in the catalogue of a photo of Lake Como and the intriguing description must be very appealing to people, as I knew it would be. My specially prepared 7-page broshure will be e mailed to my students shortly.
My next show on Alan's Italy, Towers of Italy focuses on all the different types of towers that appear throughout the country. I hatched the idea from a show that Franc Palaia will be doing on March 15 when he talks about his Polaroid Photography in which many towers appear. I will categorize each type of tower and discuss my experience with them during the show. Please tune in. Grazie per la lettura.
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