Summer Days

Theatre in the Street
Italians apparently have a real thing for Charlie Chaplin (did everyone in the world know this but me?). There was a Charlie Chaplin exhibit in Bologna, there are books on him all over the place, and there was a Chaplin impersonator/performer on the street near my apt the other night. He started setting up, and within minutes a big crowd had assembled to watch him swing his cane and make balloon animals.

Music in the Square
A piano was placed in the Piazza della Signoria today, and handsome men took turns playing it, rather brilliantly. I stood and listened for some time, and then heard a burst of clapping from behind me – a bride had just tossed her bouquet and a middle-aged woman caught it. You see quite a few wedding parties in the piazza – it’s apparently Florence’s equivalent of temple square, and is a beautiful place for a wedding – and you automatically have about a thousand people there who are happy to celebrate with you.



Don't you think the man on the right looks astonishingly like the nervous guy in Ocean's 11?




















Singing in the Hills
In the evening, I went to a concert given by an American girl I met at church. When I first beheld her I thought she might be a bit touched, but it turns out she’s just rather brilliant, and once I disabused her of the idea that I was a BYU undergrad we got along famously. She’s a graduate voice student at a prestigious school, and has sung for all sorts of prestigious people. She’s got a wonderful, wall-shaking voice, is a knockout performer, beautiful, and has the energy and likeability of an excited six-year-old (not the kind that kicks your airplane seat and pulls your hair –feel free to be a hater of that breed). She’s also got one of those quirky names that usually only daughters of Hollywood actresses have, so I really hope she’ll be a big star and we can all enjoy seeing it in print.

The concert was held up the hill behind the Bardini gardens, in Barbie’s Tuscan Dream-villa, complete with beautiful gardens and panoramic view. The concert was held in the frescoed library, and was a rather fun program of Italian and American music (mostly opera). After everyone had clapped and kissed, we sipped drinks out on the patio in the late solstice sunshine.

And for variety’s sake, around 11 PM there was a brass band playing the theme to the Flintstones under my window.