Just back from Italy... will wonders never cease...

Now THAT was what La Strada is supposed to be like... they transport you to 'somewhere'... In this case the Volksgarten nearby. There was a group of Italian women singing folk songs. It took me right back to Italy. Just wonderful things.


There were songs about dreaming of emigrating to America, with such longing, or about organising against fascists and building up the labour movement, or loss and lamenting during wars.



This photo... it was a children's song, being lost in the woods, telling mamà and papà not to worry, they would be home soon, they should wait. It was hauntingly beautiful.



And yes, of all the songs, I understood the lyrics, they were so clear in the enunciation. A lot of it was acapella. But then there was a bass player who doubled on guitar. The ladies were wonderful.



There were three songs which were in dialect, and then I was fully lost, but got the sense of what they were about by how they choreographed it. And they had a couple of 'chestnuts' that every vacationer in Italy has heard a million times, but put their own twist on it. Otherwise, it was a short overview of their culture in song. The audience went nuts at the end.

So it made for a nice emotional roller-coaster of a ride for me. I'd often heard a lot when I was in Italy... whether it be a demonstration, and they are ALWAYS demonstrating for or against something or other... or once at a street festival the communists held on Giudecca in Venice. That was something, all right.

The only sour note was seeing what used to be our living room windows opened. They seem to have very small pictures on those very high walls. It nearly killed me. Which is why I usually never go there. But it was only a small knife in the gut, and returned to enjoying that lovely performance.

And I have to learn to stop trying to use the zoom on my camera so much. I'd have had three really spectacular photos if I hadn't, and they got so blurred, there was no chance of salvaging them.