It was an extraordinary day ... yesterday

I don't even know where to begin ... last night perhaps, when Alessandra organised a dinner for a few of her friends and I was invited along.  It was outstanding.  

Donatella Soranzio sang, with Luciano Susto on bass guitar, and they were sublime.  I felt so very fortunate to be there listening.  Video by Federico will follow, as it was he who packed his camera and filmed events as they unfolded but they are on youtube as Susto e Soranzo.  And you will see, it was one of those 'pinch me, I'm dreaming' moments, there at Stefano Di Bert's exquisite restaurant called Pacetti Antica Ostaria.

And Stefano ... what a host.  He brought out plate after plate of truly divine food, accompanied by the loveliest of wines ... so many divine wines that came along on that gastronomic journey.  Food and wines from both Friuli and Liguria.  Stefano, Alessandra, Federico, and Donatella are all from the Friuli region. 

1.30am saw Stefano, Barbara, and Alessandra walking me back through quiet city streets to my apartment. This morning, I have to admit that I woke, and lay very still ... checking for hangover damage.  It turns out, the story is true, there is no hangover with good wine and believe me, we had had a lot of very very good wine.

It was one of the most enjoyable evening's I've had in a long time.

Today I had appointments all over the city, ending with a Napoli pizza at my favourite pizzeria on Via Ravecca.

Actually, yesterday I also had lunch with Francesca.  'The' Francesca from Le Gramole.  We laughed often but the dish below, the Troccoli, that made us laugh most of all because I told her of New Zealand's Huhu Grubs ...

I have eaten a Huhu Grub and if you clicked on the link you will have seen why I might have found my Troccoli slightly disconcerting.

I'm too tired to write of everything, although I must add that I also had the pleasure of meeting Sibilla Iacopini.  And I'm enjoying this new apartment in another part of the city.  I'm top floor, with a small balcony and french doors that I open each morning as a way of beginning the day.

I'll take some photographs when my days stop spinning but really ... I love the spinning.

Magical Events ...

Genova is this magical place ... and already I imagine the Genovese doubting me but it happened like this.  My lovely friend, Barbara, invited me to attend Teatro Carlo Felice's ballet - Biancaneve (Snow White in English).

I went along, no idea what to expect and honestly, after the show my mind was completely blown.  I have borrowed one of the photographs from the Teatro Carlo Felice website here in Genova, hoping that nobody minds, giving full credit to the photographer Marcello Orselli.  You can see more of his work here.

The photograph I'm posting was just one of many spectacular scenes.  In it you see the Seven Dwarves leaving work.  They dance on that 'rockface' using ropes  they simply took our breath away.

Other breath-stealing scenes included the wicked witch forcing the apple into Snow White's mouth. It was brutal and yet it was dance and somehow that made it beautiful.  And the scene where the prince danced with his dead princess. 

We were all 5 years old again ... believing all that we saw.  Aching for all of the characters.

I left the theatre both exhausted and exhilarated, feeling so fortunate that I had witnessed so much beauty.  I have no more words besides telling you ... it was sublime.

And I Arrived ...

It was an epic journey to Genova this time ... 2 hours of sleep, up at 4.45am for the 5.27am tram.  There was the airport-bus, the plane, another bus and a train.  Then arriving, and shopping for essentials and aperitivo with one of my lovely friends here.

I slept so deeply last night.

Today was about drinking that first extraordinarily good cup of espresso, and wandering the streets that I love so well.  It was about catching up with Francesca .  Lunch, and perhaps a siesta and tonight, a ballet at the theatre I've wanted to visit for so long.

Tomorrow is a dinner with new friends. 

Meanwhile the sun has been shining and all around me and, without people realising, I am quietly enjoying the Genovese way of talking and greeting one another out there on the streets.

I have arrived.  Photographs to follow.

In These Days ...

I sit at my typewriter
remembering my grandmother
& all my mothers,
& the minutes they lost
loving houses better than themselves

Erica Jong, extract from Women Enough.

I've been busy ... a project, of course.  A new website specifically for the project, and all kinds of other things too.

At night, I shift my aching body from my ergonomically-disasterous desk and creak to my bed ... tired from sitting rather than anything deliciously active.

But the website is almost done.  I'll launch soon, via a newsletter that shall become regular.  I'm eyeing Instagram too ... I'm in Genova next week, it seems like a good time to work out all this social media stuff that I've mostly ignored, as the new project is all about Genova.

I've been cooking and cleaning, imagining myself quite marvelously productive there too, although wanting more applause than I get for fitting everything into my day.  I've always been dubious about this housewife stuff.  It seems to run along the lines of 'if a tree falls in a forest and noone is there to see it ...'  Same with housework.  A clean house is the result of many lost minutes and hours.  Many.

Erica Jong wrote the perfect poem when she wrote Women Enough. 

So precisely, yes.

But I must work.  I have one more in the elderberry series to post.  It's been up to 28 celsius, thunderstormy, calm and cool too.  It's Spring.  I'm loving it.

Jared Moossy, Photographer

Jared Moossy is an American photographer who filmed all four episodes of the documentary series Witness. He specializes in conflict photography and is a founding member of the photo-collective Razon. For the Witness series, he travelled to Juarez, Libya, Sudan, and Brazil. Witness shows what life is like for photojournalists working in conflict zones; how they utilize fixers and contacts, search out a story, and make their photographs. The series also touches on the dangers that the photographers, their colleagues, and subjects face, while pursing this work.

An Interview with Jared Moossy, in Nowhere Magazine.

Anyone who knows me knows that war photographers and journalists fascinate me.  I read a lot of their literature simply because I have this idea that they take the reader beyond the gloss and spin that is everyday news, beyond everyday life, to a place where agendas don't really play out in reporting the news and the truth can't be bought and repackaged. 

They go out into the world and attempt to tell the story ... a story with words and/or photographs.  Camille Lepage was one of those people.  She was a 26-year-old French photojournalist who died on Tuesday May 14th, 2014 in Central African Republic.

She said, “You, as a photojournalist, are the messenger, you’re not the one who will implement new laws on Human Rights in Russia or Chechen, you’re not the one who will put rapists in jail, you will not cure Aids and won’t give food to all of those who are malnourished, but you’re the one, and that’s essential, who is going to denounce those things. Your job, or at least that’s how I see my role, is to make it as appealing as possible so people can relate to it and ideally put pressure on those in charge and whose role is to make things change!” 

Camille Lepage, December 1, 2011, via the blog of Christine Dowsett.

Jared Moossy for Nowhere Magazine: Syria from Nowhere Magazine on Vimeo.