Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Giù Jew


The weather was eerily perfect today. The Husband, La Bimba and I went to La Gaiola today. Part of Posillipo, it's a hidden little cove, a tiny beachfront down a winding two-way road that's wide enough for one car, so you have toot your horn every two seconds to warn oncoming traffic that you're not up for a game of chicken. The water was crystal clear. There were a couple of sunbathers and seabathers (one in a turquoise speedo, tossing his long black curls around in the wind), a family with one of those tall, thin, long-haired dogs (kind of like the one in this photo), and a bunch of workmen, fixing up the joint for the Comune. It was so peaceful, the air so fresh and clean, it was hard to believe we were still in Naples.
There are so may seaside gems in and around Naples, and a balmy weekday in March is the ideal time to go check them out. Imagine the road I describe above in deep summer with it's cacophony of car horns, billowing plumes of diesel fumes, cars going forward, cars going in reverse, pedestrians, motorinos, screaming teenagers. Oy. Not relaxing.
On a completely unrelated note, since the gingerbread, I have officially gotten back on the baking train. I baked a horrible batch of butterscotch brownies (though The Husband liked them) and there is a one-egg cocoa cake cooling in the kitchen as I type. (Did you dig that alliteration? I definitely did, dammit).
On another utterly unrelated note, I know you will all be very sad to hear that I am missing a conference at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, entitled, Practicing Jews: Art, Identity and Culture. My good friend N. is performing in it and there is going to be talk after talk about Jews and Art, Jews and Dance, Jewess Jeans (maybe?! who remembers the Gilda Radner Saturday Night Live fake commercial? "Jewess Jeans: you don't have to be Jewish to wear them...but it can't hurt!"). I'm now wondering if I'll ever return to academia.
Return, you ask? What, have you been there before?
Yes, yes. BA, MA, MFA, lots of letters just hanging around in the junk drawer. I think school is my element, whether university or dance studio. I love to study. I love to study dance above all else. Everything about dance interests me: taking class, performing, rehearsing, reading dance history, writing dance criticism, theory, discos. My current dance life is limited to reading dance blogs and grooving around the house with La Bimba (who happens to be a fabulous dancer...she doesn't walk yet, or crawl for that matter, but she can rock out, wiggling her little pelvis until the wave reaches the top of her head and she flips over...such talent! such grace!).
I gave up doing a PhD in Russian Literature to write dance criticism and to dance. I realized the PhD was not for me when (1) I found we were reading more theory than novels, stories, poems and (2) I found myself doing an immediate about face every time I entered the library. I love libraries for about 10 seconds. Then I want to scream and dance up and down the stacks. (I actually made a short dance piece for my friend M. that involved her running down an aisle of books screaming, "Silence! This is a library! Silence! This is a library!")
Later, I did an MFA in Dance. So here I am, all laureata and shit, and not using any of it. Maybe one day, but doubtfully here in Naples.
I am trying to start a yoga class for English speakers. Any of you expats in Naples interested?

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