vilaine fille

Gianmaria Testa

Gianmaria Testa, one of today’s finest singer-songwriters, makes a rare visit to New York on Sunday, May 25, when he plays Joe’s Pub. Here is my advance on the joint concert by Gianmaria and flugelhorn virtuoso Paolo Fresu from Time Out New York. At Gianmaria’s site, you’ll find part of my 2004 review of his album Altre latitudini.

My 2005 report on a Montréal concert by Gianmaria is one of vilaine fille’s most frequently visited posts. Listen to his music at goear.com—I especially love “Manacore,” “Extra-muros,” and “’Na stella”—and on YouTube.

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One of the very first articles I wrote back in 1997 was on Gianmaria Testa. (In fact, I believe I was the first North American journalist to interview him.)

For the past eleven years, my professional goal has been to land a full-time writing position at a magazine, newspaper, or other publication. Such a position has not materialized, so vilaine fille is closing up shop and moving on to new pursuits. Warmest thanks to all who have visited and supported this site.

vilaine fille will stay live through Labor Day—and “permanently,” if I can obtain free hosting beyond that. I am hanging on to the domain name.

I’m still blogging, but not in English, and only incidentally about music. If you would like to stay informed about my writing projects, please drop me an e-mail at vilaine [{d0t}] fille [{at}] gmail [{d0t}] com. I do plan to launch a new music-related blog in 2009.

To all, thanks and bon vent!

Sorrisi e canzoni XX

172. healthy aches and pains and sweat
173. letting go
174. inspiration and grace
175. love from Oz and FI
176. gallows humor
177. challenges flung down
178. good hair days (repeat)
179. Like a prayer
180. Like a star

Pensée du dimanche 18 mai

In his folk song “Farewell to the Gold,” Nic Jones tells the story of a failed gold prospector. After two years of finding no more than a few flecks of the precious metal, the unlucky man is giving up his search. “Farewell to the gold/that never I found,” he sings. “Goodbye to the nuggets/that somewhere abound./For it’s only when dreaming/that I see them gleaming/down in the dark deep underground.” If I’m reading the omens correctly, Sagittarius, it’s time for you, too, to say goodbye to a quest that hasn’t panned out. Yes, it’ll be sad. But here’s the happy ending: Within a month of the time you surrender, you’ll be led to a better quest with more chance of success.
—Rob Brezsny

Sorrisi e canzoni XIX

163. sleep
164. healing
165. bringing cheer to others
166. having some movies to look forward to!
167. true friends (repeat of a repeat of a repeat…)
168. ooh…
169. Act as if your adversaries are great teachers. Thank them for how crucial they’ve been in your education.
170. Chissà, chissà, le stelle, le città, foschia, foschia, enigma o fantasia…
     
171. Stars, they come and go, they come fast or slow, they go like the last light of the sun, all in a blaze, and all you see is glory. But it gets lonely there when there’s no one here to share…

Pensée du dimanche 11 mai

You know that the world has gone utterly to pot when Peggy Noonan starts making sense.

In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, [Mrs. Clinton] said, “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.” As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, “found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? “Even Richard Nixon didn't say white,” an Obama supporter said, “even with the Southern strategy.”

If John McCain said, “I got the white vote, baby!” his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.

To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical “the black guy can’t win but the white girl can” is—well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.

A resident of New York who twice pulled the lever for Senator Clinton, I will vote for anyone, even Gus Hall’s maggots, before casting another ballot for racist trash of her ilk.

She and all who still support her make me ill.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?
—Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama (2004)

Sorrisi e canzoni XVIII

154. definitive good news about M (congratulations, bellissima!)
155. chametz
156. new sources of inspiration
157. bringing a smile to a friend’s face
158. not having toxic shock syndrome (phew)
159. seeing that people care when I have my doubts
160. letting go of seductive but abusive activities and individuals
161. brother Luigi
162. Stars

Pensée du dimanche 4 mai

You know, if our ancestors had thrown out their furniture every decade, as we do, where would we go for antiques? Let us give some thought to the well-being and enjoyment of our descendants, patch up our lares and penates, and  hang on to them, so that the future will inherit at least some relics of our heedless and wasteful age. Working over something, and repairing it,—whether we re-finish furniture, fix over an old house, or put new cuffs on a sweater—not only gives things new life and makes them look cared-for, but embeds them still deeper in our affections.
—Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter’s Almanac