Update - Leonard Cohen

Right now, I am in Vienna, a lovely place worthy of an entry, but I have done little, yet, so I will give an update on Claudio and my evening with Leonard Cohen [oh, a quick hope that Claudio made it home okay... he should, I heard that Lufthansa settled the rotating strike with its employees... this was the only worry, especially for Lufthansa, as many members of Claudio's extended family were due to be on that flight, and I certainly wouldn't want to walk in the boots of the person who had to explain to a gaggle of Canalese and entourage why they weren't going to get on the plane.]

Leonard put on a great performance... I'd like to say that I wish I will be that captivating and sexy when I am in my seventies... hell, I wish I had Len's stuff now!

He sang 24 or 25 songs, including 6 encores... there were a number of standing ovations and much enthusiasm during the concert... I am from the school that says that people are too prone to overpraise, too prone to stand up for only decent performances, but Leonard Cohen in Rome was worth every clapped hand and every rise to the feet.... it is just unfortunate that all the tendency to puff up other performances might cheapen the truly great ones.

Cohen's band was extraordinary, especially the Spanish guitar player [I am referring to the style, but he might very well be Spanish... it seemed to be in his blood, the way he played].

The playlist included [I tried to write them all down, but lost a few in the second set and encores] Dance Me to the End of Love [the opener, a personal fave], The Future, Ain't No Cure for Love, Bird on a Wire, Everybody Knows, In My Secret Life, Who By Fire, That's No Way to Say Goodbye, Ring the Bells, Tower of Song, Susanne, Halleluiah, Democracy is Coming, I'm Your Man, Little Viennese Waltz, So Long Marianne, First We Take Manhattan, Sisters of Mercy, and Closing Time.

When we were driving in to Rome, we managed to get lost, even though we knew pretty much exactly where we were going... Italian signage sucks, but so does our sense of direction, evidently.... at one point, Claudio made a quick turn to try to rectify an obvious mis-direction, and we found ourselves on a one-way street with a stream of Roman drivers coming straight at us... and could they just let it go, as we obviously knew that we'd goofed and were pulled over to the side? Nooooo, each person slowed down and rolled down their windows and had to give two or three or four cents' worth... some of it trying to be helpful, but all of it unwanted... Doi! all it did was make more drivers behind pissed off, giving them the oportunity to give their opinion, etc. [sorry Claudio, but it is kind of funny]. We did get turned around and then moved toward the music hall [luckily, we weren't arriving just on time... we were planning to park near the venue and take public transit for sightseeing]... we could see the venue from the bridge where we were, but kept circling it... it was like it we and it were like magnets... we could approach, but could not actually make contact.... eventually, we did manage to get within sight of the music hall, but, unfortunately for later, couldn't really explain how it happened, it was just there... and, miracle of miracles, found A FREE PARKING SPOT IN ROME! [all the machines in the parking lot were out of order] I expected a band of angels to appear in a beam of light from heaven and take us up to sit at the feet of god or something... I should probably report this to the Vatican... it will go a long way towards our beatification... the Day of St. Claudio and St. Peter, July 28th... I can see it now... of course there is the problem of some other guy claiming my name, but maybe he's willing to go by "Pete". Anyways, we took the tram and the metro to the EUR, Mussolini's model neighbourhood... with wide boulevards and funky fascist architecture. It is spiffy. We saw the sights, then ate a quick dinner at a tavola calda [literally "hot table"... a cheap and decent type of place to eat in Italy], and made our way back to the concert... I haven't mentioned, yet, that it was in an outdoor amphitheatre with intimate seating for about 2800-3000 people... there wasn't a crappy seat in the house.

After the concert, our experience of approaching the hall was reversed... we couldn't get away... it was like checking into the Hotel California, only scarier, because it included Roman drivers. We circled the building for a while, turning left, turning right, going straight ahead, but always ending up swinging by where we started... there's one damned roundabout that we went 'round about 10 times... asking "how did we get here?" and remembering that we had no idea... then, suddenly, we were on the bridge, looking down at the concert hall and heading for Canale... can either of us explain how this happened? No, no we can't. Perhaps the tribulation of the concert hall is part of our road toward having statues carved of us... and Claudio's dad's trusty Ford. We zipped to Canale with the windows down, had a big old glass of grappa, and slept with Leonard Cohen induced dreams.