Bailey Alexander

Tom Stoppard just died - he became English - yet forever Bohemian.

His plays, writing, well known but this little paragraph:

“What an extraordinary idea. People are not the world, they are merely a recent and transitory product of it. The world is ten million years old. If you think of that period condensed into one year beginning on the first of January, then people do not make their appearance in it until the thirty-first of December; or to be more precise, in the last forty seconds of that day”

Maybe Jazz was America’s finest export, so here’s a coupla slices from Kenneth Tynan’s profile on Miles Davis:

…the Spanish have a word, ‘duende’. It has no exact English equivalent, but it denotes the quality without which no flamenco singer or bullfighter can conquer the summit of his art. The ability to transmit a profoundly felt emotion to an audience of strangers with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of restraint; Miles Davis had ‘duende’

….In Britain Miles was at his most isolated, performing in provincial concert halls and metropolitan movie-houses to vast assembles of ethnic strangers. A dapper, tapering figure in evening dress of black Italian silk, he would take the stage like a fawn in a fairground, or a hermit poet thrust against his will into a populous market place.

He had always jibbed at visiting England, because he once told me, “I can’t stand to hear English spoken that way”

“By late November I see signs of brooding. Perhaps I’ve neglected her. Things begin to break. The pool pump. The dishwasher. Then the stovetop in the kitchen keeps threatening to explode. My first friend on our new frontier was a laid-back character named Max. His family ran a nursery in Bubbio, but he didn’t believe in the hard sell. I had a fetish for flowers so I appreciated this. A guy so relaxed his favorite expression was tranqui, tranqui—I doubt he ever had trouble falling asleep. But when I turned on the stove he jumped higher than I did. The gas rings lifted in unison. I called the local company and the guy arrived, aptly named Guido. He validated my idea of a gas leak by taking me around to the back of the house and placing a lit Bic lighter beneath the gas valve. Then the broiler became fussy. Guido arrived a couple of times to service it with a cigarette attached to his lower lip the entire time. I kept walking outside, crossing my fingers, muttering.”

Excerpt From Personal Legends of Piemonte Bailey Alexander

“The vendemmia is a major event in Piemonte. At first, key players appear minor, like the little red and black buckets. They lie so low you can barely see them while driving by. Lined up dutifully in between the vines, there are thousands everywhere. One minute they’re spilling over with grapes, the next, their precious contents are carefully poured into trailers. Over and over again. If left alone they may tip over when the pickers and their clippers abandon them for a midday meal. The days can be long and the work exhausting so while they pick and clip and bend for hours, they keep one another entertained by saying nothing at all…”

Excerpt From Personal Legends of Piemonte Bailey Alexander

“You’d think vineyards would lose their attraction, but they’ve only just begun. This is when they really come alive, colors so vivacious that change so quickly, within a few weeks shifting from green to passionate red, then the grand finale—when coral, orange, and deep ochre take over—by the time their leaves find their way to the ground the next season’s on its way.”

Excerpt From Personal Legends of Piemonte Bailey Alexander

A link to a dream, even if it’s dark; I don’t mind

Please stick around; you’re so pretty.

An older friend said to me, “I’m just trying to avoid ennui” and I thought ‘whatever does he mean"

until I slid into my 60’s, after awhile it began to loiter about

Could say Rome, but this would be a lie. Can no longer walk down from my apartment during ferragosto and hear the silence - for there is silence no longer in Trastevere- the heart of Rome

Now, you must pay and wait before you walk into the Pantheon and dwell on Raphael and the Renaissance

and, they tell me the Romans have made an exodus, Airbnb all over…every time I go I say no no no and know but on my last trip, in April, they are right…..such is state of the eternal city

Perhaps Venice is the one city that remains….La Serenissima

Driving through Transylvania

Maybe it’s your life, or your experiences. Oscar Wilde said experience is the name we give to our mistakes. And they do inspire to create meaningful work, and find our bliss. Yes?