Back in my takin’-Italian-lessons days my teacher sent me a message that Carmen Consoli was touring in the US for the next several months. A few lessons prior, she had given me homework that included some of the history of Italian popular music from, say, the 1940s to the early 2000s. Many of her lesson slides had dated information so there were no artists included from the 2010s… and certainly not the 2020s. The newest artist that was referenced, and simply from a photo, was Carmen Consoli, active from the mid-90s to around 2010. I did a quick search and listened to ripped albums on YouTube (do albums exist in any other form?) which really hooked me, maybe/probably more because it was alt-pop in Italian than that I liked the music.
After I purchased L’eccezione on vinyl (ok, albums do exist in other forms) I told Marina about my new purchase and learned that she actually had never listened to Carmen Consoli, but just brought up the tour simply to cultivate my interest in Italian culture. Teachers are the best.
Although I partially explain my enjoyment of CC because I enjoy hearing a singer sing in Italian, in truth some of the songs are really well-written. I saw a short video of her performing with Elvis Costello and, like the potential that a veneer of foreign-ness too much captures my attention, he’s such an accomplished songwriter that I give her a lot of cred because of that too. He really is a performer-slut so maybe he just happened to be around, but I don’t think he’d perform with someone whose songwriting he doesn’t respect. It’s an imprimatur of approval.
Her tour included one night at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC. One day; one concert; then fly home. I can do this.
Wed 22 May 2024
In line for security at the airport and immediately realize I need to check a bag first which I forget because I never travel alone and this is what happens when you’re left to your own deployment. The line at baggage check is long and the one at security is longer. Longer, since I had to leave it and return and somehow more people want to travel as time goes on. I lose maybe 15 to 20 minutes. Ultimately, it takes me an hour to get from the start of the security line to the gate, running from security, down the escalator, eschewing the Plane Train, and “excuse-me!”-ing along the moving sidewalk where I assume at least the pilots on there understood. Luckily I’m heading to the very first gate in the airport: A18. Up the escalator with more polite pleading to get to the gate 5 minutes before the end of boarding and finding that boarding will take another 30 min or so. travelamirite
I’m hopped up on adrenaline until maybe 45 minutes into the flight. I get coffee. And attempt to read Second Foundation, prompted by the tv series to re-read for the first time since high school. I started the third book just before start of the trip, expecting to continue or finish, but being all weirded out and on a short flight made it difficult to focus. All I could think was that I appeared weird to the 20-year-old to my left and the business man to my right (yes, center row; yes, cheap tickets; yes, that will burn me later).
11:00
Le Guardia. On the 45 min. taxi ride to The Flat Hotel I can’t tell what city I’m in; the buildings look unfamiliar but I’m not sure what I’d expect them to look like. All of the billboards have elaborate and crudely drawn political messages, climate-related. Queens-Midtown tunnel bitch! The Taxi driver has classical station on. Nice. But it’s pledge week. Yuck. We arrive, and from the pics on their website the hotel is a cross between boutique and hostel, though I’m being a bit unfair. Their confirmation email was conversational and felt bespoke like a Hilton Garden or somesuch doesn’t. And sincere. In it they suggested: “When you arrive, look for the BIG BLUE DOOR!” with a phone # to text if I need anything. I’m wondering if there’ll even be someone there to hold my bag while I wander.
I need not have worried, because I walk in the BIG BLUE DOOR and meet with a hipster chick is sittin’ at the counter. Too early? No problem! To the room…
Snarkfree: The Flat Hotel has an upscale hostel coolness to it. My room had a bed, a hinky desk, a TV (unused so not sure if there was cable), and a nice bathroom. It was the exact environment I needed for a concert day-trip, and also for a less-than-day-trip. Home base achieved. (I would talk about the absence of AC, but quite honestly it doesn’t matter with the place and location and convenience.)
12:00
Pizza at Tappo. One of my research choices but it was also recommended by the cool hipster girl at the front desk. Salad, personal pizza with mushrooms and spinach, and wine. It’s an NYC chain but the food and the atmosphere felt independent. Maybe that’s just a New York thing.
Need to decompress and nap.
14:00
30-minute walk to The Whitney to see their 2024 Biennial. Lisa and I had gone to the Biennial yearsyearsyears ago and it had a good mishmash of challenging art from the previous two years. On the way I tried to visit a museum of posters called Poster House. It wasn’t supposed to be open on Wednesdays but worth a try. Even if it was a failed try. It was. Unexpected consolation prize was a small vintage poster shop that had a poster of Luna Zero Due in the window. During my movie poster collecting, though I never got a poster for it, I purchased several lobby card sets for Moon Zero Two along with a publicity photo signed by Catherine “Maya” Schell.
A lot at this year’s Biennial was centered around women’s issues and general injustice, but except for a few was rather lazy. The more interesting pieces were from their collection of abstract expressionism and surrealism from a few artists I hadn’t seen before. I also saw a work that we’d seen there yearsyearsyears ago which haunted me but I could never remember the name of the artist. Jay DeFeo, “The Rose”.
16:30
On the return to the hotel I stop by Bar Veloce to pre-pre-game with happy hour wine. Every bone in my body was telling me to go back to Tappo for their happy hour to get the free large pizza when you purchase a bottle of wine. If Lisa were with me there would have been no question. And much regret.
Shower because I stank. I stank by the time I got to the Whitney so I was doubly offensive at this point and needed a recharge from the flight and the walk and the heat and the wine.
18:30
Walk to the area. Many many bars.
At a bar called Bosco (Italian for wood or woods) across the street from the venue for some Negronis and snacks. I see two guys walk in and sit a few seats down the bar from me and as they start chatting I soon realize: my first Italian sighting of the trip! I catch maybe a third of what they’re saying, the simplest third, and so don’t introduce myself until they’re about to leave. I mangle some Italianglish with them and they soft-compliment me on what I manage to get out. Silly, but that small interaction kindof made the trip. [ed. “bosco” in Italian means “the woods” as in “hiking in the woods”: “fare una escursione a piedi nel bosco”]
But then the concert started.
The venue was small-ish with a low stage angled at the front, a bar across one wall, and the rest open. Maybe 100 or 150 people or so. I had wondered whether I would be the only non/semi-speaker, but she’s internationally famous for a reason and so the crowd felt internationally varied. There was a mix of 20-something hipsters, generic people like me, and a few more well-dressed individuals (though I didn’t see them, i miei amici del bar were part of the well-dressed contingent: slacks, white button-up, casual jacket). The venue was perfect.
She started, solo acoustic, with some traditional Italian songs (maybe Sicilian?) and switching haltingly between Italian and English when talking to the crowd. I suspect she was testing the waters to see how many were from her homeland because after a few songs where everyone in the audience except me were singing along, she realized she was amongst friends and seemed more comfortable staying with Italian. It was, unexpectedly and emotionally, though so simple, one of the best concerts of my life.
Walk home, stop back at Bar Veloce to cap the evening, the to my new favorite hotel. A charmed day.
The next day
Oh god. I did everything right so why am I being punished by the Airline Gods? Ok, so don’t blame on god what you hath wrought unto yourself by buying inexpensive tickets on Frontier Airlines. Quite unfortunate. After several rounds of delays where at one point I freaked out because the app said I was boarding in 10 min while the Big Board said I had two hours so I went to get a meal, my flight finally gave up the ghost and cancelled proper. Cue everyone running back to check-in to reschedule. Let me tell you, and with the utmost respect to budget fliers, Frontier customers are a chaotic mix of people who really need to travel inexpensively. They fought for what they paid for and argued a compelling case to the poor manager that had to handle such a day.
I simply found out where my luggage was from him and, after retrieval, started making rounds to find another flight. I did not trust Frontier to make good on a new flight and so just wrote that off. Again, and I sympathize, most people didn’t have that luxury and so stayed for the fight. Well, it was a fight elsewhere because online and in the lobby every time I thought I found a flight, by the time I got to pay it was sniped by another abandoned traveler. I even had the airport concierge help me as best he could (oh my lord he was the nicest and most dedicated person). The attendant he hooked me up with found me a seat but by the time he navigated to reserve it it was gone. Oh woe. Finally, I requisitioned Lisa to help, since being saddled to the phone it was more difficult for me to navigate several sites at once. The endgame was her using her valuable points to get me on a flight at around 8 or so.
I wouldn’t have traded this trip for anything.