Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
I was sitting in a sunny patio at Hotel Congress in Tucson, occasionally switching seats as the shade shifted.
Overhead was their fabulous vintage sign, which also happens to sum up summer in Arizona in its first three letters: HOT.
For a place that’s been called “a city of stone built on the water,” Venice has had a lot of fires.
In fact, Venice’s premiere opera house only came into being because of its predecessor’s destruction by fire. Symbolically, the new theater would rise from the ashes of the old one. They named it “La Fenice,” The Phoenix.
First opening in 1792, Teatro La Fenice is now one of the top opera houses in Italy and one of the best-known in Europe.
While the name was chosen to commemorate the theater’s origin, it turned out to also be an ominous foreshadowing. Teatro La Fenice has been resurrected twice, after catastrophic fires in 1836 and 1996.
The one in 1836 started because of some kind of malfunction with a new stove from Austria. The 1996 inferno, however, was intentional.
Two electricians doing renovation work on the theater were facing fines for being behind schedule. So they set the place on fire.
This (a) did not help get the project done on time, and (b) lead to each of them serving several years in jail. Not actually a helpful strategy for anyone.
I’m not sure if the electricians intended to burn it to the ground or just to singe it a bit to make their point. However, access to the theater was restricted due to the renovation project, and firefighters were not able to quell the flames before the building was destroyed. It would remain closed for the next 7 years.
La Fenice re-opened in 2003 with upgraded accoustics and an increased seating capacity of 1000, while its appearance matched the elegance of its previous incarnation.
There are five tiers of boxes, which had been “deliberately egalitarian in design” – until Napoleon came to power. To prepare for his visits to the theater, six individual boxes were combined into one royal box. This imperial loggia remains part of the current design of the theater, just above the auditorium entrance.
Despite a real history rife with operatic-level turmoil, the theater remains open today with a busy schedule that includes symphonies, ballets, and over 100 opera performances a year.
This September, we are looking forward to seeing “L’Occasione fa il ladro: ossia Il cambio della valigia” (The Opportunity Makes the Thief: The Case of the Exchanged Luggage), a single-act farce with music by Gioachino Rossini and libretto by Luigi Prividal.
The opera is a romantic comedy of errors that debuted in Venice in 1812.
It’s good to know that, after all that drama, La Fenice still has a sense of humor.
Teatro La Fenice:
You can see a complete performance of “L’occasione fa il ladro” by another opera company at Schwetzingen Festival, Germany on YouTube.
Photos by Michele Crosera, courtesy of Teatro La Fenice.
When the face wash I used to use started to irritate my skin, I started using olive oil soap.
Phillip has started using it too. Sometimes we get the Kiss My Face brand from Sprouts, and sometimes we get whatever kind happens to be at our favorite middle eastern market.
It’s great for travel, because you can also use it as shampoo. That means two things (facewash or shampoo) I no longer have to worry about squeezing into my TSA-friendly quart-sized bag. Phillip will cut a slice off the end to make a travel-sized bar.
What I haven’t figured out is the best kind of container to pack it in to keep it from getting slimey (like soap does in a plastic baggie) without taking up a lot of space (why do they make travel soap dishes so big??).
Any ideas?
P.S. There’s a post on SmarterTravel with some interesting suggestions for packing without liquids. Who knew you could get toothpaste in tablet form?!
Phillip finished grad school, after seven years of working full time and taking classes part-time. So we needed to have a party.
We ended up reserving space in a restaurant near where the commencement ceremony was, so friends and family could just go there directly afterward. I wanted to add some festive touches but knew I’d have little to no time to decorate before people got there. (It turned out to be the latter.)
I kept it super simple with a few school-themed items that I could set up in a flash – all using things I had on hand.
How I made the book page pennants:
1. Ripped out several pages of a ridiculous conspiracy theory novel that I had picked up from free bin outside Changing Hands. (I mean, I’m not going to cut up a good book!)
2. Found the center of the page by folding it in half, only creasing the very bottom of it and making a mark. You could also actually measure and/or use a template if you’re into precision.
3. Made a cut from the top right corner of the page to my center mark. Then repeated from the top left.
What I wish I would’ve done: cut from the top right and left margins of the page instead, so that the text would run all the way to the edge.
4. Punched a couple holes near the top of each pennant.
Then I just threaded some bakers’ twine through the holes and added the tassels.
In keeping with the graduation theme, I made paper tassels for each end of the garland, loosely based on instructions I found on A Subtle Revelry.
Here’s how I adapted the project:
I thought about adding some color with watercolors. However, my test pages totally curled up, even when I used the smallest amount of water possible or painted just part of the page.
Another thing that could’ve been cool was using a book or notes from Phillip’s classes. But he didn’t have anything like that around – at least nothing that he was willing to sacrifice to the craft gods.
So I went with the conspiracy book, because I liked the page size.
I tried to make sure there wasn’t any murder on the pages I used, but it was hard to avoid. And there were still black helicopters and government officials typing things out on Blackberries – not very festive or on theme.
I hoped people would see it as decor and not try to read it.
No such luck.
One family member said they had been trying to figure out if the pages had some significance or clues. (Nope.) Another one asked me what the garland spelled. (Nothing.) It took me awhile to convince her that what she thought were large letters were actually backwards chapter numbers showing through some of the backlit pages.
I obviously should have come up with more for people to do.
I loaded up a large ziploc bag with everything I (or whoever) would need to set up the decorations at the restaurant:
I had hoped to hand the bag off to my parents, who were designated to get the party started, since I guessed (correcty) that Phillip and I wouldn’t be able to leave the place where the ceremony was and get over there right away. But they were so focused on their mission that they left before I could give them the Decoration Bag.
So I set things up halfway through the party. Less than ideal, but that’s life.
At least having everything in one bag meant I could get it done in record time. And at least the guests didn’t have to wait on the food.
Today at the Arboretum we saw
4 cardinals
1 woodpecker
a couple hummingbirds
several nests
a really neat feather
a possible owl pellet that Phillip poked at with a stick
some beautiful black butterflies
2 very determined ants and 1 that could care less
2 trees full of bees
a handful of squirrels
a turtle
a snake
and 75 lizards (before we stopped counting).
I also spotted a fuzzy tail of an animal going into a thicket. I jumped out of the car while it was still running to see what it was. All I found was a fat, lumbering squirrel.
Also, if you go on a hot, humid Tuesday, you’ll practically have the place to yourself. With the exception of those mentioned above, of course.
P.S. For those of you interested in chronology, by “today,” I mean last Tuesday, when I wrote down what we’d seen earlier that day.