SR, back in the US

Back again in the states after two weeks traveling around Italy. I had a great trip through Rome, Florence, Pisa, Lucca and Venice. Toured all the Roman ruins and St. Peter's at the Vatican, and saw enough Renaissance art to have nightmares about being carried away by throngs of winged putti. (Well, not really, but close.)

Traveling was not without its drama - a train strike stranded us briefly in Pisa and Lucca, and I caught a hideous cold in Florence - but overall I had lots of fun.

I need some time to get my photos together and when I do that, I'll tell you more about the trip itself. Right now I still need to get back on schedule after flying in yesterday evening. (Wide awake at 4 a.m.! What fun!)

Thanks for checking in and leaving comments while I was gone. It was terrific to see that so many of you kept my blog alive while I took a break. :)

(Photo: Graffiti in Chelsea, October 2007)

Ciao!

I’ve been pretty prolific over the past week or so, haven’t I? Well, I’ve been trying to “stock up” the blog a bit in anticipation of today, when I leave on a two week vacation. I’m going to Italy! Woo hoo!

I’ll be in Rome, Florence and Venice -- and maybe a few other places -- traveling with my Mom. I’m taking a laid-back approach to this trip -- aside from hotel reservations and a few things we did in advance, like buy tickets to the Uffizi, we’re not really planning our daily activities. We’re just going to get up each day and see which way the Italian wind is blowing.

So I’ll see you when I get back, some time after Nov. 15th!

(Photo: Garden furniture outside an antique shop in Tribeca, Sept. 2007)

Keep it Spare

Anyone who’s spent time around me knows I am nuts about preventing clutter. I work constantly to keep the level of “stuff” in my house and life very low.

I’ve told this story before, but for those of you who missed it: About 13 years ago, long before I moved to New York, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Florida. I’d spent years collecting mid-century furniture, china and other stuff at flea markets, and I had a huge collection of books, music and general junk. I’d just returned from two years in the Peace Corps, living very modestly, and that’s when I realized how crazy it was to own all this stuff.

Slowly but surely, I began getting rid of things. I donated a lot of it to charity and consigned some through a shop in the town where I lived. I sold a lot of stuff on eBay. I gave some things to friends. I didn’t earn a profit, but considering the use I received from everything I’d say I got my value out of it all.

By the time I moved to New York, I was down to a small apartment, with some stuff in storage at my Mom’s house. Now I live in a studio, and all that stuff in storage is gone. I have less stuff now than ever, since moving to college 23 years ago. I don't miss anything I got rid of.

It’s so freeing. Less to insure, less to worry about, less to store and clean and maintain. I always tell people that if anyone broke into my apartment, they’d be sorely disappointed!

Yesterday, however, I read about someone who’s taking this even further than I have. He’s reducing all his possessions to 100 items. I don’t think I’m quite THAT extreme.

My hints for preventing clutter?

-- Buy less! And if you buy one thing, get rid of another.
-- Throw out or file all paper as quickly as possible. Keep files to a minimum and clean them out often.
-- Buy a good shredder.
-- Only keep clothes you wear regularly (aside from a few seasonal items).
-- Indulge in sports that require little or no equipment. (running, the gym)
-- Always keep a bag designated for items going to charity. Put stuff in it and donate often.
-- Use the Library. Use Netflix.
-- Discard periodicals if you don’t read them by the time the next one comes. Don’t let them stack up. (This also eliminates “magazine guilt.”)
-- Give gifts that can be consumed, like food, gourmet coffee or wine, and urge people to give you similar gifts. Or make donations to charity in the names of your friends and family members.

(Photo: Chelsea morning, Sept. 2007)

Darjeeling

I saw Wes Anderson’s new movie, “The Darjeeling Limited,” on Saturday. It’s one of these movies where the characters have such interesting exchanges that I come away wanting to communicate better in my own life. Why do I leave so many things unsaid? Why don’t I open up more?

Don't get me wrong: The movie is not weepy. The main characters are three brothers, so their communication is more visceral. Sometimes they fight, or they're uninentionally funny, or they just give meaningful looks. Still, I envy them.

Of course, what I have to remember is that movies come from a SCREENPLAY, in which responses are scripted and considered and no one ever blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. In other words, all that frank and honest exchange isn’t really honest -- it just sounds like it.

I felt this way years ago after I saw “The Secret Lives of Dentists,” in which I admired the ability of the characters played by Hope Davis and Campbell Scott to argue and fight, openly working through conflicts that among my own family members would probably produce only cool, stubborn silence.

I guess all of this comes from my roots as a repressed WASP.

Anyway, “The Darjeeling Limited” is a fun movie -- terrific atmosphere and very quirky characters and plot. Beautiful photography. And it introduced me to an interesting folk singer named Peter Sarstedt, whose late-’60s song “Where Do You Go To My Lovely?” plays a prominent role.

(Photo: Doors between Lafayette Street and Broadway, NoHo, Sept. 2007)

Hey Jack Kerouac

I’m reading “The Dharma Bums” by Jack Kerouac, in which the narrator hoboes across the United States in the ‘50s, wrestling with his own proto-Buddhist tendencies. Kerouac, binge-drinking alcoholic that he was, certainly had his attachments. But every once in a while he shows flashes of “getting it,” at least from what I can tell, my own flashes of “getting it” being few and far between as well. (And as they say, as soon as you think you’ve got it, you don’t.)

I liked this passage - complete with unconventional punctuation - in which he hits on the essential oneness of things, and the ways that all of the past snowballs down to us, becoming our reality in the present.

“It seemed that I had seen the ancient afternoon of that trail, from meadow rocks and lupine posies, to sudden revisits with the roaring stream with its splashed snag bridges and undersea greennesses, there was something inexpressibly broken in my heart as though I’d lived before and walked this trail, under similar circumstances with a fellow Bodhisattva, but maybe on a more important journey, I felt like lying down on the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstasy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass.”

(Photo: Mercer Street, NoHo, Sept. 2007)

A Night at the Opera

Last night I got to experience some real highbrow entertainment - I went to the Metropolitan Opera.

A friend from the Zen center, who’s kind of an opera hound, invited me - he had tickets to Verdi’s “MacBeth.” I’ve been to exactly three operas in my entire life, but I accepted, since I’m basically up for anything.

In some ways, it was beautiful. The staging and sets were fascinating, especially the dreamlike visions of MacBeth as he’s haunted by his crimes. Plus, the Met itself is such a scene, with everyone all dressed up and those glittery starburst chandeliers hanging from the gold-leaf ceiling.

But I’m just not a huge opera fan. I admit it - I nodded off a couple of times. I can appreciate the drama, but it’s very hard for me to establish any kind of relationship with the singing or the music. Even as I sat there appreciating the artistry of the production, part of me was thinking about being home in bed.

Which is where I’m going to stay on this dark and rainy morning. The weather seems to insist on it!

(Photo: Car reflection, Chelsea, Sept. 2007)

It's a Pink Moon

One of the benefits of working at a media company is that there’s a lot of, well, media lying around.

For example, in the mailroom I recently found a discarded paperback book - a booklet, really - called “Pink Moon,” by Amanda Petrusich. It’s the story of singer/songwriter Nick Drake and his “Pink Moon” album, recorded in 1972, just a few years before Drake died from an overdose of prescription meds.

The book’s premise can basically be summarized as: “Isn’t this a great album?” It’s hard to argue with that. But it also offers an interesting history of Drake’s career, punctuated by recollections from semi-famous pop culture figures about when they first discovered him.

My Nick Drake discovery story goes like this: It was 1994, and I was wrapping up my two years in the Peace Corps. I was in Ouarzazate, Morocco, visiting an acquaintance, and we were sitting on her roof one night listening to music and talking. She played songs by two singers I’d never heard before: Nina Simone and Nick Drake.

They both blew me away. When I came back to the states several months later, I bought a Nick Drake compilation album almost immediately. I eventually traded up to CDs of his three original releases: “Five Leaves Left,” “Bryter Layter” and “Pink Moon,” the last album he completed before he died.

I don’t think of his music as gloomy, though there are certainly gloomy themes in the lyrics, and his life came to a gloomy conclusion. In fact, the music can be comforting and warm, even peppy at times. He was a masterful guitarist with a soft, mesmerizing voice, and “Bryter Layter,” in particular, comes with some snappy horn arrangements.

Have you heard Nick Drake? At the very least, if you’ve seen this - probably my favorite car commercial of all time - then you’ve heard the song “Pink Moon.”

(Photo: Tent at the P.S. 1 art museum in Long Island City, Queens - July, 2007)