Tuesday, January 22, 2008

De Gregori

My beloved blog readers stand with me in health and illness, war and near-peace. What gift should I give them?

I can think of nothing better than the music of Francesco De Gregori. Sibelings Laura, Marco and Federico fallavolita introduced me to it in Florance over a decade ago. We'd sit in their modest kitchen, eating spaghetti and listening to his song about fat women who venture broken hearted to form their own, self respecting society.

"It's amazing," I told them, "You travel Europe, and people mostly dress the same and act the same, but food is still so georgraphically specific. Here we are in Italy, and every night we eat spaghetti."

"That's not because we're Italians," Laura explained, "it's because we're students. We're poor."

De Gregori was a fave with all students I met in Italy, including two gay students (both guys, but not a couple) who gave me a lift one night near Bologna and took me to their school-town of Pisa. One of them tried his best to seduce me with the sweetness of this other man's singing voice. I played it mean and stayed a few days in the flat with no intention of yielding to the courtship. Women have done this to me since and now I know better.

Granted, De Gregori himself is rather inattractive. I think most gay Pisan men would prefer him as a recorded voice, but at least in this clip of his song "nothing to understand" he is surrounded by beauty. There, if anyone ever needed it, is a testement to the power of generous eye-liner use. Count this fashion tip as another gift.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shalom Yuval, noticed that you have opera as an interest. I don't know if your familiar with British talent searching TV shows and their infamous judges; they often get plenty off footage from showing up poor hopefuls (some very deluded) who have no talent and the judges let them know this...

This though is a brilliant example of the judges expectations being shown up by a guy called Paul Potts - the changes in their expressions are priceless. Hope you enjoy it

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF9iEXnBRo

girl who speaks in tongues

יובל בן-עמי Yuval Ben-Ami said...

Paul Potts is a favorite of my sisters. The both saw this clip and made the entire family watch it. Pretty groovy indeed.

Funny how your comment seems to be off topic yet isn't at all. Italian music is Italian music. and there's something the shy 1974 De Gregori and the shy 2007 Potts have in comon. On one hand "idol" culture doesn't seem to justify such a comparison, on the other, Nessuno Dorma by Puccini is the aria that made Pavarotti famous. So Potts actually took a risk with his choice.

Anonymous said...

He definitely took a risk! and it was beautiful.

Yeah - my comment is off topic - I think very laterally which tends to confuse or amuse others. I get by though. : )