I haven't really, but I like the idea.
I like the idea that instead of spending my days in an unkempt living room in an old house in the middle of nowhere, trying to keep my feet warm in grey wool socks, I might still have a chance to spend them at a small cafe table in Italy, existing on very small cups of very strong coffee.
Instead of a faded T-shirt and pants with an elastic waistband, I will wear a small black dress. I will replace my skewed four-year-old thick glasses, (apparently inspired by the safety glasses of 1960s NASA engineers), with enormous round sunglasses. I will cover my carefully arranged hair with a silk scarf, loosely tied, to keep the wind from tousling my curls too much (and also because I know the scarf looks fetching as it flutters, and because it sets off my diamond earrings so nicely).
In this other life, I will be able to navigate cobblestones and dodge paparazzi in three-inch red high heels. My lightweight trench coat will be tightly cinched around my sylph's waist. I will drive a tiny 1963 Fiat two-seater to meet my agent, Giancarlo, at my publisher's office in the old city. I will sometimes feel bad about keeping Giancarlo waiting, as I always do, and in such a state of constant anxiety. I will tell him he must stop smoking, and he will blame me every time for his failure to quit. Oh Giancarlo! In one breath you threaten to leave me forever, I am such a torment, but in the next breath you say you couldn't possibly and beg forgiveness. I might forgive you. I might.
Oh. That was a fun and a bit therapeutic. Maybe I won't stop for a Filet o'Fish on the way to pick up the kids afterall.
As you can see I am having a useless sort of a day. Periodically, the desire to create a T-Shirt overwhelms me and I spend a happy hour or so putting one together. Today, my inspiration was this slight mistranslation of a famous line from Tosca which often repeats in my head. Here's my version on a T-shirt.
In the original Italian, the line is: Vissi d'Arte, Vissi D'amore.
It is much better that way, isn't it? But no one in Vermont would know what I was trying to tell them. Maybe it would be better that way...
Well, next time I have an idle hour I am doing another one the way Puccini wrote it. I suppose it's really more headstone material than T-Shirt material but my deeply trapped inner Maria Callas needs to advertise - as you already know.
I am mentally blowing you all kisses, with very grand gestures, from the balcony of my imagination. Ciao, my darlings! Ciao!
8 comments:
Oh, my gosh, you are funny! I laughed out loud reading this. I just saw a clip on tv from the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun and there was a great line - the Italian guy says his name is Marcello, and the American woman says, of course it is.
Nan - my dear fellow New Englander. The Tuscan sun, even in October, is hard on my complexion but I would risk it to see Marcello again. He was a great friend of Giancarlo's once - and I think they have made things up since that unfortunate, hmmm, misunderstanding in Milan. (Really, we are just very good friends, Marcello and I). Perhaps you would care to join us? There's room in the Fiat for one more. Giancarlo can take the train and go on ahead to get things arranged for us all at the villa. Let me know what your good dates might be.
the grand thing about being an artist, darling, is you don't give a damn whether you are fashionable or not - it is the freedom to be eccentric, unfashionable, passionate and outspoken, for after all you are an artist.
and if you are an Easterner living in the Mid-West ANYTHING you do, say or wear, is regarded as exotic....
hmmm, do i exaggerate? only slightly as the crap clothing i wear in the studio matches what the farming community wears....
Nan mentioned the "Tuscan Sun" movie, a film which my wife likes way to much for my comfort level. Too many buff Italian guys stealing attractive middle aged women. In view of the fact that I'm a short middle-aged, gray-haired guy, married to an attractive woman, I get a little queasy when I see those wistful looks.
Cheers.
Great post. Hilarious in fact. I'm pretty sure on those idle hour t-shirt making days I would also go the artistic route and make a shirt saying, "fuck art let's dance."
Sending you a virtual high five, low five. Happy to have met through the ever entertaining and fun swell life.
xo
You have to do it K - you know you do, and you'd love it. Can I come and visit you in your Roman villa? We would go out cruising on your Vespa and drink Campari Soda.
Deborah - Bless you. I will grant that you are an artist. I am an aspiring artist. Are you an exotic there in Kansas? I guess you must be. I think they need you there - maybe like a kind of artist missionary?
R- Anyone who writes so sweetly about his wife after, what, about 20 years of marriage? is safe from the Marcellos of the world.
Reanna - Thanks so much for stopping by and the various fives. If I see your T-shirt next time I'm in Montreal I'll know it's you and give you a high five.
Lulu - Do you think Rome might be a little far south? But of course, you are the most adventurous traveler of my acquaintance - and so ready to mingle with the locals!
I am impressed beyond words by your recent encounter with the bakers of Lesbos. I think you are both friendlier and bolder even then my Italian alter ego. Sometime you must explain to us all what took you off to Greece.
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