Back to Rome

I never get tired of Italy. Duuuuhhhhh ! Actually I have been to Rome a dozen times over the years and have seen just about everything, and finding a different slant so that I can revisit my favorite places is always prominent in my mind. Strolling around the town lingering on the great piazzas is not only an excellent way to spend an afternoon in Rome, but has become a favorite pastime of Romans through the years. I chose the piazzas of which I was the most familiar. It is impossible to cover all the piazzas in one show or even two, but on these over the years I have spent most of my time in Rome. Tonight's show was one of my most relaxing to do. After a week of study, as I do whenever I produce a program, the show came off exactly as I had planned. After the frenetic show we did last week, when my poor engineer, Ellen, was trying to do so many different things, and was having trouble with the equipment, this production was smooth as silk. We were both relaxed, and it was pure joy, although once again midway through the broadcast I became very hungry. No matter how mush food I eat before the show, I cannot help getting starved at about 5:35. Nonetheless, I was very pleased, and just watched about half of it on Youtube, and it was very well done.

The week was smooth as well, as the technician at New Paltz College fixed the mechanism that projects my images to my weekly class in the Lifetime Learning Institute. The projector used to shut off after fifteen minutes and the tech figured out that it was programmed to shut off at the same time each day just in case a professor forgot to turn it off. He fixed the setting and now the rest of the semester should be very low stress. The presentation was on Tuscany and it was fun once again. With only three classes left as the term winds down, I will miss teaching once again. I will, however, with any luck be back soon to mathematics teaching somewhere on the east coast.

Meanwhile as Laura's opening draws near, we are still learning about people we know who are planning to be present, and I just advised an old friend of her's on places to stay in Venice. I succeeded making reservations at the famous Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, where we will spend the last two nights of our trip. This is the third reservation I have made there in the past ten years, always paying in advance, and the previous two times canceling for one reason or another. I will try very hard to get there to see the amazing Giotto frescoes. Also I would like to spend time around the town photographing and videotaping material for a future show. In fact over the two week vacation I have about two dozen possible ideas for show. One of which will be an interview with the Director of the Florence Synagogue. Then this week I finally heard from his counterpart in Venice and have an appointment with the Director and Rabbi. The Jews of Italy will be a theme I will try to develop from material gathered in both Florence and Venice, together with photos I have of the Jewish neighborhoods in Rome and Pitigliano, plus whatever other information I can gather in my research, will be able to fashion a series of shows, and perhaps some lectures.

I also noticed on my Youtube Channel that the show I did on Dining in Italy had the largest number of "hits" in a three week period of any show I ever did, over two hundred. Therefore with that in mind I will be doing several after my trip in May/June. I have several cooking demos reserved with friends of mine who own restaurants in Florence and Orvieto. That plus other material I will gather will form the nucleus of a series on Italian Dining once again. One of the most popular shows has been those on Venice, and since I will be there for five days, a number of shows will be developed on that as well. Plus, of course, we will spend more time at the Biennale than ever before, and that will form several more programs. If I am accepted for Press Credentials, I will be able to interview artists at the exhibitions that I run into; otherwise, I will not have the status to do such a thing. Nonetheless, either way I intend to come back with a lot of Biennale material.