Tuesday 18 June 2013

My guitar show (posted by Thomasina and David)

   Rolling Stone magazine is seen as an authority when it comes to the 'Best of All Time.' They keep a list of the best guitarists of all time (Jimi Hendrix on top). The guitar is the reigning Queen of musical instruments. I tried to play one once, with mom. What a mistake. Perhaps the Petersen gene swaps musical talent for something else... or nothing else.
   Lately, though, the Petersen gene may be diluted enough to allow Thomasina the ability to play something. She's been seeing a guitar teacher every Saturday in Paciano for the past three years, seldom practicing (without serious force from Alex); but she actually can play. The guitar teacher, Paolo, is clearly fond of her and thinks she has natural talent. He must exist in a world of constant frustration, trying to get lazy kids to remember 10 notes in a row; or perhaps he really is the most patient man in the universe. Whatever the case, he lately managed to organize a concert featuring his pupils in a collection of tunes dedicated to two local school children killed in traffic accidents. One family took offense, but the other was gracious enough to get the ball rolling. Paolo took it upon himself to organize everything including a strong pitch for a local charity dedicated to child safety. He's a nice guy.


A month ago, I had a guitar concert.

To most of you, that might think that sounds normal and you are probably thinking:
"I've seen lots of concerts and shows, whats the big deal?
But what if I tell you that you're wrong? Going on stage is a HUGE deal! 
Let me ask you something: Have you ever been on stage, in front of hundreds of people and double the amount of eyes looking at you almost willing you to make a mistake?
Well I have, and I tell you that it's no piece of cake.

   The hall was small, but purpose built. Stage, seats, speakers, lights, curtains, the whole deal. It was a two night affair. The students had to learn a couple of pieces each, and the selections were varied between generes with Paulo often sitting in, in fact often leading, and in some cases singing. Mean spirited members of the audience might have called it a venue to demonstrate Paolo's command of the art, but the audience was entirely parents or friends of parents forced to be there, so nobody really complained. There they were. Our kids demonstrating talent. Remarkable.

I've been doing guitar for almost three years and last month we finally had our first concert (if you could call it that). I do admit that I have done close to no practice for all these years but I still enjoy it.
I started working really hard a week or two before the concert and did at least half and hour of practice a night. I should probably have done more because my performance wasn't exactly outstanding, but that's not the point. 

   The only people likely to read this post besides Thomasina and myself (Alex won't go near my blog) is John and Grazia so I'll say right now that a boy named Luca stole the show. He dazzled us with riffs as delicate and inspired as anything the instrument has ever produced. We all sat goggle-eyed while he stole our hearts with his improvisations. Paolo was stunned. Luca, rumor has it, has been signed by four recoding companies who are now locked in litigation over copywrite. The recording in my portable camera has been confiscated.

So the big night came and I was sitting in a tiny room, backstage, sweating and trembling with fear together with all the other kids who were doing the show.
I had to do two guitar pieces and sing a song with my friend Lisa.
Now this is when I ask my self: How in the world do all these people like Obama, Michelle, Pop singers, Doctors, Teachers...get up on stage and talk, lecture and sing without breaking into a sweat and run screaming from stage "Mommy!!"?

I mean seriously, I know I haven't had any stage practice or anything, but you are under so much pressure when your in that spotlight and all eyes are on you.
   On the first night, Thomasina performed a solo classical number and sang a duet with her friend Lisa.  There she was. Up there. In the lights. A nervous wreck. I couldn't have done it. But she did and we were thrilled.

Anyway, the first piece was a solo and it went ok,

   On the second night, she played rhythm in a trio featuring Alessio and Paolo. Remarkable. Of course by the time we watched her on stage we had the music memorized, and memorized, and memorized; and we were confident because she had the sheet music with her on stage.

but the second bit was a complete disaster!

To be continued.... possibly.

underpinning

    Underpinning. I think it means shoring up from below. Foundation work. That's what we're up to foundations?! Talk about an upside down project.
right now. Foundation work. It's been what? eight years? And we're finally getting around to the
    But, yes, foundations. Or lack of them.
    It all started with a damp spot. A damp spot that spoiled the nice new plaster that was to be our kitchen wall. The kitchen that would set us free from so much crowded, time consuming inefficiencies that have plagued us for the past eight years. 'We are experts in temporary kitchens,' I heard myself say to our latest volunteer. We have known nothing but temporary kitchens for as long as our children can remember. And a pantry? We've got plenty of food in storage but do we have a pantry? If we need a roll of loo paper, we hunt around upstairs in the dusty corridor (which is the last place left in this building site for storage) among anonymous cylindrical formations of brick dust until we find something squeezable. Hopefully it's not last years zucchini.
     The damp spot grew. Another one appeared. Then standing water. Standing water cannot be explained away by global warming. Standing water in one's future pantry is... not allowed. So we tried to melt tar paper against the wall. And we tried to will the season to return to normal. Both strategies proved futile. Then, pouring water. Water began to pour into our new stairwell. It poured in from the surface of the wall at about waist high. Just poured in. It ran down the stairs into our wine cellar where we had to siphon out lots of it every day. We were visited by an expert: waterproofing the foundation from the outside was our only choice. We dug and we dug deeply and we finished the surface and we
waterproofed and we protected the waterproofing and we... we came to a point along the wall where the foundation stopped. Oh mio Dio! Now we were not just waterproofing, we were underpinning. Serious structural stuff. The oldest part of the house had a very shallow foundation which we exposed as a rustic wall when we leveled the ground floor rooms and the outdoor terrace way back in the very first summer. Now, looking for a solution to some creeping damp, we've found a very good reason for some creeping damp but saddled ourselves with a much more serious solution.
    Ironically, at the same time, we've been applying for a new building permit and waiting for a new set of permissions along with an engineer's report before we can legally begin work. The last thing we needed was the engineer to find out that part of the house had no foundation. Especially that part where I had already, without official permission, enlarged both the window and door openings (which weakens any wall). By pure dumb luck we had excavated only newer walls when he looked around, but now we must hurry up and get some cement in, waterproof and push the dirt back before anyone notices.
    All this excitement began when we had Charlie and Richie here to push on with the heavy lifting. They could make short work of the heaviest projects (have a look at the photo of a beam replacement on the third floor. They are lifting that thing with a rope, by hand). But now they're gone and in their place are workaway volunteers. Poor things. Down in the ditch with bucket and trowel. It's been a month and a half since Charlie and Richie left. The rain has stopped, spring flowers have finished, school is over for the summer, everyone heads for the swimming pool after supper, the vegetable garden is off to a new start along with the irrigation system, the damp spots are fading, the lawnmower and strimmer are wheezing, but the waterproofing job is still not finished. We are still surrounded by a (dry) moat and the piles of mud have hardened into mountains of pottery clay. With tall weeds growing out of them. And this project is still waiting for its underpinning.