l'arboro di natale

last night, kristin, gabriele and i decorated the christmas tree. it made me want to go home. this is ironic only if you are my parents reading this, and know that our family at home hasn't even bought trees in the past two or three years. you see? don't even remember the last year we did, though that could be due to my awful memory instead.

today is a holiday in italy, the feast of the immaculate conception. it was a long weekend, so of course a lot of people left for one last trip. i didn't, but i did finally go to the bargello, which is the national sculpture gallery, where donatello's bronze david is kept. it was actually kind of fortuitous that i procrastinated for so long, because it was under restoration until about a week ago, and when i saw it, it was bright and shiny new.

also, since this is the last week of classes, i obviously did what i always do when finals are upon me: not work. instead, i watched in the valley of elah with katie w. and her friend ashley. at least they had to watch it for film class. i had no such excuse. but it was quite good. i recommend it highly. it's dreary, but not too preachy, and that's all we can really ask for in these iraq war films. though i will say that it does not nearly have the same amount of bright, young, good-looking things as stop-loss. because i am a shallow and irreverent human being.

i'm coming home in ten days. i can't really fathom that. or how i'm going to fit everything in. i've bought eight (count them, eight) new books since i've come here. and i still haven't started infinite jest.

internships and the nextech festival

I got it! I am now an intern for The Florentine, Florence's bi-weekly expat newspaper. The internship is through Syracuse, and my first story is going to be about the locations that Spike Lee used when shooting Miracle at St. Anna, which is set in a little Tuscan village. I'm hopefully doing internet research on Sunday and travelling around the actual places next weekend. Tomorrow and Saturday I am going to two school trips, to Assisi on Friday and Ravenna (!) on Saturday. And, fingers extra extra crossed, I am emailing Scott Schuman to see if I can interview him, because Florence is so frequently featured on the Sartorialist.

Starting tonight, the Nextech Festival starts in Florence. It's festival of "musica elettronica e ambiente visivo" so basically DJ sets, live electronica and lots and lots of projection screens. And even though we are leaving for Assisi at 7:30 in the morning tomorrow, I am still going to this show tonight. I will sleep on the bus. Plus live music of any sort is so very few and far between in Florence, that I should take advantage of it whenever the opportunity presents itself, right?And Chicks on Speed are playing tomorrow, so I might go to all three nights? I'll have a full report after the weekend.

cray cray

(c) m.c. g. zipprich.

Anyways, this week is going to be a mess. Let's assess: Monday is low key, sandwiches in Astoria and shopping for Things I Need For Italy. Tuesday, Jenny comes to town !!!! We hang out and do things like watch Rushmore at McCarren and eat barbecue on rooftops. Thursday morning at probably the asscrack of dawn, me, Jenny, and my mom haul ass back to Connecticut, where I have a doctor's appointment. I sit in my room and fume silently as the next two days are consumed by neverending packing. Saturday the entire fam packs up for Brooklyn where we send Jenny off to the airport on Sunday and me off on Monday.

Some days I think the universe is playing one huge celestial joke, my life.

looking forward:

If you happen to read the Sartorialist, you will understand my giddy anticipation of arriving in Florence. That blog will have you believing that Florence is crawling with nothing but nattily-dressed men and women of all ages, kitted out in impeccable haberdashery and most endearing knitwear. No amount of cloth sacrificed to the manpri will depress me as the hope of a man as dashing as this fellow lounging about the next corner will linger. I'm hoping to get at least a crash-course in analog photography before I leave and shilling around in piazzas, being That Foreign Creepster taking pictures of all the little old gentlemen in their straw boaters.

Also, these make me wish most desperately for outsize man's feet. Purple suede with tassels? Who could resist!?