Saturday, July 31, 2004

and with august comes ferie

carissimi,

and so we come to august, that hot, hot month where everyone in italy shutters up and shuts down and heads to one of two places - a dark, cool basement, or the seaside. signs start popping up at every alimentari, pizzeria, gelateria (god forbid) and hair stylist in town: "CHIUSO PER FERIE," which means closed for the holidays. Or in the instance of the pizzeria we saw in Arezzo yesterday: "CHIUSO PER PROBLEMI PERSONALI." I am told the guy that runs this pizzeria is something of a joker...

and so i too am somewhat on vacation. The school has shut down for August (the rest of the students left today) and besides some building organization, watering the thousands of plants in the courtyard, and feeding the turtles, I'm quasi-free. Santa Chiara has had turtles for as long as I'm aware (they live in the courtyard) and a new batch of babies was born pretty recently - it's sort of amazing to see a turtle no bigger than a quarter. We found some eggs in a corner just this morning, so more coin-sized little darlings will be on the way soon.

i have been looking for ways to earn extra money while i'm here this summer, and i've started having english conversation lessons with a few teenagers in town. this is a maddening and often hilarious situation. my little marica, who is 16, is a great student - i'm amazed that she consistently spells correctly words that many americans stumble over. but try explaining why "bought" and "both" are pronounced the way they are? she is on vacation this week and i told her that she had to practice saying "i bought both of them and brought them both home," over and over this week so that she won't forget where we left off. it's actually a bitter reminder of how little i understand my own language sometimes. it's all well and good to try and teach someone else your language if they will accept what you say at face value. but if they want to know why something is spelled or pronounced the way it is...well, that's a whole other story.

i am going to germany in a few weeks to play a show in stuttgart, thanks to the kindness and generosity of some fans who live there. it will my first real trip to germany (unless you count the 5 or 6 layovers in frankfurt) and i'm looking forward to all of the strudel i'm going to eat.

i'm also looking forward to playing in your home, if you'll have me. if you want to find out more about what a house concert is, check it out here: http://www.houseconcerts.com. I have two or three already lined up for the fall and I'd love to tack on a few more. And of course, if you are ready to pre-order the new album, you can always click here to do so:
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=acousticgirl01%40hotmail.com&item_name=Pre-Order+the+New+Album%21&item_number=LSM002&no_note=1&tax=0&currency_code=USD

more to come shortly; thanks for keeping up!
vanessa

Tuesday, July 27, 2004


ecco! I present to you - Ice Cream on Mondays! On the bass guitar, Juri DeLuca; on the drums, Alberto Serafini; and on the guitar/vocals, Manuel Schicchi. My beloved Italian band!! Posted by Hello


it's a little dark, but i suppose it will do... Posted by Hello

i knew there was a reason

that i loved ice cream so much.
 
non posso dire come mi sento.  if anyone out there has strings they can pull that would enable an american girl to tour with her italian band, then please tell me now....then again, why have you waited so long to say something? :)
 
last night's show was even more incredible than the one before.  it's impossible to translate in any language how i felt (feel).  i have only been playing with this band for about a month, but there is a synergy in our music than cannot be explained by the length of time we've played together.  i have to figure out how to get this video onto my site...i'll keep you all posted, so to speak. :)
 
next step is to figure out how to get 3 guys and their equipment to the States...suggestions?
 
sorry to be so brief but my hands are still recovering (too much typing, washing dishes, playing guitar, etc).  I will post pictures from the show as soon as I can get this stupid driver installed...
 
thanks also to those of you that have been pre-ordering...you guys are the best!
lots of love
vanessa

Sunday, July 25, 2004


i had a very hard time getting this thing converted to a picture i could post...so imagine it with white space at the top and bottom, where we wrote the dates, etc, and then you will have a very general idea of the poster mentioned in the entry below... Posted by Hello

A Stranger in a Strange Land

There are many hazards to being American in Italy, not the least of which is a dire slip of the tongue in which you say something you entirely did not mean to say. :) But we will cross that bridge momentarily...

We had our first concert last night (also, that bridge shortly), and to publicize the show, Juri (our bassist and also a photographer) took some shots and mocked up a poster. Manuel (our guitarist) finished it off with a bit of photo editing and voila, Vanessa Peters w/Ice Cream on Mondays was born into print. We took posters to the Garden Underground and to Lignano, a park up on a mountain where we played last night. And then a funny thing happened on the way to fame.

Two mornings ago, I was having coffee at the Garden bar. Behind me, I heard an Italian voice reading slowly: "Vanessa Peters and Ice Cream on Mondays." I turned to see a woman regarding our posters with mild curiosity, and I decided to speak up. "Sono io," I said. "Io sono Vanessa Peters." She looked at me with something like disregard, or maybe even less than disregard, and so I tried again. "Questo e il mio gruppo italiano – Ice Cream on Mondays." Again, the blank, disinterested look. Okay, I thought, and turned back to my conversation with my friend Luca. When he left to go to work, he paid for my coffee and said, "Ciao Vanessa, in bocca al lupo domani sera," which means, "good luck tomorrow night." I said ciao and went outside to finish reading my book (I’ll have to send my summer reading list later on).

I had barely gotten a paragraph down the road when the lady appeared at my table in much distress. I’ll spare you the Italian, but the English translation amounts to: "I’m so sorry! We didn’t believe you! I thought you were just teasing me! Are you really Vanessa Peters?" To which I again replied, "e vero. Sono io." And she proceeded to apologize all over again, to ask about the concerts, and to tell me that she would definitely be there. It was hilarious. I think she thought I was offended. I think I’m just going to have keep a picture ID in my back pocket at all times, just in case my identity comes into question again. I am sure Madonna doesn’t have this problem.

And so we come to the concert. Parco di Lignano is a park up on a mountain about, I don’t know, 10 km from Castiglion Fiorentino. Adriano’s brother, Alfonso, runs a bar up there called La Capanna, and it’s a really lovely place. There is a clearing up at the top of the mountain where the bar and stage are located, and it’s wonderful if for no other reason than the fact that it’s about 20 degrees cooler than down in town.  It has been so unbelievably hot these last few days...paralyzing, suffocating, smothering heat.

Anyhow, I was a bit, as we say, agitata, yesterday. But it turned out there was no reason for my agitated state (as is usually the case). The show went absolutely beautifully. There was a gale force wind that drove a lot of people home before we got started, so the crowd wasn’t as large as it might have been, but there were still about 100 people there, twister or no. We shot a video of the show, and it looks like someone has pointed a fan directly at me, as in one of those cheesy videos where the girl’s hair and skirt always have a life of their own. But other than the wind, it was so fantastic. I even managed to speak a little Italian on stage, which for some reason is totally terrifying. It’s one thing to speak Italian to a friend, one to one, and make a mistake. It’s quite another to have a microphone in front of your face and know that anything you say might make 100 people erupt into spasms of laughter. So I kept it very simple and managed to avoid, for the most part, making an ass of myself.

I wish you all could have been there. I really hope the band can come to the States in January as we are planning. They are terrific and really amazing at making my songs come to life in exactly the way I want. It’s like they can read my mind. It’s fantastic. And we have another show tomorrow night, here in town, that I’m really looking forward to. We are going to record that one as well, and hopefully from the two shows we will be able to garner at least one song to put on the site.

And oh yes – the lingual faux pas. Yesterday, I was trying to thank the guys for the show. I tried to tell them that they helped me rediscover the joy in some of my songs. The word for rediscover is "riscoprire." I said "riscopare." In a dictionary, that would translate to "re-sweep." However, in Tuscan slang, "scopare" means something entirely different from sweeping, though I can’t figure out how anyone ever made the leap from sweeping to this, um, action. I’ll leave it to your imagination – I’m sure it won’t take you long to arrive at the correct conclusion and to imagine the furious blush on my face when I realized what I had said. :)

MANY thanks to those of you who have already pre-ordered the new album. You guys rock.
I will be writing again soon. Thanks for everything.
vanessa

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Little Sandwich Music Newsletter - Volume 1

dear fans, friends, and family!
take this comfort at least; it is bloody hot right now. I am sitting at an outdoor café in a park in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy, and I know that some of you are hating me for that. but just know that it’s really, really hot, if that helps any.

This is a multi-purpose letter, so forgive any ramblings and incoherent leaps of thought. I am writing this James Joyce style, so whatever comes out comes out.

I have been pretty busy this summer, working and writing songs and perfecting songs with my new (Italian) band, Ice Cream on Mondays (yes, it changed). I have been booking my tour through the Midwest and East Coast, and I am about to begin booking shows for the band in 2005. Booking is hard, hard work that requires patience I don’t yet have. As always, the position of manager/booking agent is open. Please see my webpage (
www.vanessapeters.net) or email me (info@vanessapeters.net) for information on how to host a house concert if you are interested.

I am also planning my third (solo) album, as yet untitled, but scheduled to be recorded late this fall. Hopefully we will wrap it up in time for a Christmas release, so that you can all give one to your friends and family and I will be able to make my car payments and student loan payments in a timely manner.

So really, I am writing this letter to ask for help (hard for me to do, actually). As an independent musician, it is nearly impossible to create your own album and have it look and sound professional. The costs involved are myriad: studio time, album design, web design, duplication costs, other musicians, promotional packages, etc. I made the last album for $5,000, and this was considered a shoestring budget. I didn’t pay my musicians anything, and my producer only made $1,000 for 8 months worth of work. My designer and webmaster each got $100 and an occasional dinner when I could afford it. $3,000 alone went into the actual production of the CD – the copying, printing, packaging, etc. So I suppose you see my point.

Funny…I am listening to a mix CD and "Help is Just Around the Corner" by Coldplay just came on…

Anyhow. I am hoping that some (all) of you would like to pre-order the CD. This is a pretty common thing in the independent music world; you, as my beloved listener, take a leap of faith and pay in advance and in return you receive perks that no one else gets. I then have the money to pay my musicians and producer a living wage and still make a CD that looks and sounds beautiful (if all goes well).

So how does this work? Well, for the time being, you can send a check to the address below, or click on the link to pay by credit card through PayPal (you don't have to setup an account with them to do this). But if you don’t mind writing a check, that much better, because then I don’t have to pay a fee to a middleman.

Here’s the scale o’participation, rated with the language I speak best (food):

"cappuccino" $13 – a signed copy of the CD, mailed the same day I receive them (way before the CD release party, way before they will be available anywhere else).

"cappuccino and pastry" $30 – 2 signed copies of the CD, a "restless traveler" button, and a sticker for the new album

"cappuccino/pastry/gelato in the afternoon" $50 – 2 signed copies of the CD, the "rt" button, the album sticker, and a "apple green and charcoal gray" t-shirt, available in either of those colors. :)

"cappuccino/pastry/gelato everyday for the rest of my life" $100 – 4 signed copies of the CD, the "rt" button, the album sticker, 2 "agacg" t-shirts, and your name in the liner notes as an EXECUTIVE PRODUCER of the album, plus 2 free tickets to a Vanessa Peters/Ice Cream on Mondays show of your choice.

You can part with your hard-earned dollars by sending a check or money order here:
Vanessa Peters
3000 Wind Flower
McKinney, TX 75070

 
or by clicking here:
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=acousticgirl01%40hotmail.com&item_name=Pre-Order+the+New+Album%21&item_number=LSM002&no_note=1&tax=0&currency_code=USD

You have no idea how much your individual support will help. If all of you on this mailing list were to pre-order just at the "cappuccino" level, I would be able to make the album worry-free, able to concentrate on touring/booking/recording/designing/and oh yes, writing songs. So please consider it – I am floundering in a deep well of gratitude for all the encouragement you all have given me thus far.

MILLE grazie.
vanessa





Friday, July 16, 2004

things that strike me as unusual

ciao ciao,
i wish i had something terribly fascinating to tell you, but the truth is, i don't. i have settled into my work-a-day (does that have dashes? workaday?) routine here in my adopted hometown, and nothing i could tell you would be much different from what you have heard many times before. there are a few things that may make you smile though...

number one. italians are required to purchase and carry with them at all times a set of reflective clothing to put on in the event you are ever stranded on the side of the road. i have seen these little vests, still wrapped in plastic, lying in the backs of friends' cars. you are also required to carry a pair of glasses in the car with you at all times if you wear contacts. i ask you - if you are ever so badly injured that you can no longer see with your contacts, are you really going to be able to take them out, replace them with your glasses, and then drive on down the road? i sort of think not.

number two. just so you know, you don't get sick when the cold wind blows and comes into contact with your exposed (ah!) throat. i don't know how many of you were still under that impression, but there is an entire nation over here that is clinging that belief with desperate tenacity. A similar belief held here is that if you are sweating, a fan blowing on you to cool you off is not a good idea. The mere suggestion of the idea is met with stern disapproval, an almost "how stupid are you?" kind of look. humph.

number three. italians call a fanny pack a "marsupio," which, if you think about it, makes a heck of a lot more sense than a fanny pack.

our show at the garden underground may be off for the time being, but we are trying to organize another one in its place. there are some "political issues" arising from being in a small town that are making it difficult for us to do the show. we still have one scheduled nearby for the 26th, if anyone wants to hop a plane to catch our debut. we are still trying out names as well....i am open to suggestions, though i think i have settled on one in my head already.

the next post, as promised for some time now, will deal in depth with the fall tour and the upcoming album...hold on tight, as i am sure you are beside yourselves with anticipation and butterfly tummy.
lots of love,
vanessa

ps - did you like the pasta? i have another super simple recipe brewing in my mind, just waiting to be typed out...

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

scattered thoughts and recipes for pasta

hello dears,
many threads running through the tapestry in my head right now. i just finished packing, as i am leaving Badia Petroia for the rest of the summer. i will be moving back to Castiglion Fiorentino, which i can't deny being really, really happy about. my new address will be:

Vanessa Peters c/o Amanda Ross Versari
Via San Michele 44
Castiglion Fiorentino
52043 (AR) ITALIA

My cell phone, should you need me, is: (0039) 3387626613. A good dialaround is 10-16-868.

Okay, onto other things. Band practice has been going phenomenally well. These guys are great fun and very talented and I wish you could all be here for our debut show! I hope we can record it, or at least part of it. We have a very rockin' version of "the maybe love song" that I would love to preserve, if for no other reason than to satiate those of you that keep begging for a recording of that one.

Conversation at the grocery store (an actual grocery store, not a local shop) the other day led to a discussion on globalism, the environment, and tourism. It all stemmed from seeing a bin of avocados, which are not grown in Italy but shipped over from California. I heard this really fascinating program on NPR before I left about how the shipping of food (and free trade) is destroying the enviroment, raising the cost of fuel, and forces the government to spend enormous sums in subsidizing their own farmers because every one buys food from out of state or out of the country. I was telling my friend Britt about that story and it led to another discussion about travelling versus tourism. She went to a lecture at Santa Chiara last spring about tourism and the detrimental effect it has on the environment and, in general, the sense of a place (see my entry regarding Firenze). People spend billions of dollars a year to fly across oceans, drive through cities never meant to contain cars, pull up in front of a cathedral, pose in front of it...and drive off. Tourism has so taken over certain places of the world that the language is being lost (again, see my entry regarding Firenze, which is actually the city the speaker was referring to). Few people visit a place for more than a day, and so they never allow more than surface absorption of the sights, sounds, smells...and besides, on any given day in Firenze, you are absorbing the sights and sounds of your fellow Americans (or Japanese, or British, or whatever). It is rare to find a traveller anymore; everyone is a tourist. The smog and smudge left behind by the SUVs rented and driven through the streets of any medieval town is enough to undo the sanity of its residents and to undo years of restoration work on the facades of the churches and chapels. It is remarkable.

So is "Bowling for Columbine." I saw it for the first time yesterday; very interesting and thought-provoking film, as is the book I am reading, also by Michael Moore, called "Stupid White Men." I highly recommend reading and watching them both.

Anyhow. I keep threatening to post about the new album and about the fall tour but I just haven't had the time to really gather my thoughts (hence today's title and the random nature of this entry). I will do that soon.

First though - I had to make lunch yesterday with what was at hand, and it was delicious and mind-numbingly simple. Try your hand at it when you have ten minutes to spare.
baci,
vanessa

Pasta d'Estate (summer pasta)

Put some water on to boil. Make sure to throw in a liberal dose of salt. While the water is boiling, take a decent-sized handful of cherry tomatoes (pomodorini). Quarter them and throw them into a pan with 2 cloves of garlic, chopped or whole (if you want to take them out later; I always leave mine in). Turn the heat to medium high and add olive oil (good, good, good olive oil). Sprinkle salt (sea salt if possible) on top and a few cranks from the pepper mill. While those are heating, take about 1/5 of a yellow pepper and dice it. Throw that in as well. Find some basil, if available, mince it, and toss it in as well. While the pasta is cooking, you can lightly mash the tomato/pepper mixture to make the juices run. Remove from the stove when it has a thick, soupy/stew texture. When you drain the pasta, save a bit (a few tablespoons) of the pasta water and add it to the tomato sauce. Drain the pasta and then add it to the pan, tossing it to coat evenly. Stir in some freshly-grated Parmesan (the real stuff) and you will have a very very yummy meal. Turn on "Bowling for Columbine" and you will be doing exactly what I did yesterday at 5 pm.

Buon Appetito!

Friday, July 02, 2004

le frange sona di moda

roughly translated, that means that bangs are in fashion.

As most of you know, I am not a fashionable person. I don't think I have ever been, nor will be. So who knows what possessed me today when, while sitting in the chair at the hair salon, I pointed to the pictures of the lovely lady with long bangs and said, "this one. i think."

I am happy with the haircut. I am not happy with the bangs. So upon leaving the parrucchiere, I promptly walked into the first cosmetics store I could find and bought a package of bollettini (hair barrettes), pinned back my fashionable bangs, and proceeded happily down the street.

Today we were in Citta di Castello, the nearest big town to where I live. It is actually the perfect size, though unfortunately surrounded by hideous suburbs. Italian suburbs never cease to amaze me. Given the Renaissance and the hundreds of talented painters and architects this country has spawned, I will never understand the hideous flats that occupy the outskirts of every city, my beloved Castiglion Fiorentino included. It's unbelieveable.

Anyhow, Citta is the perfect size. Large enough to have a main street with lots of good shopping, a couple of quiet piazzas off the beaten path, hidden alleyways and clean streets, and small enough to where you don't brush shoulders with a soul unless you just want to. Room enough for all.

Another thing. Did I mention I learned to drive? As some of you may know, I had never driven a standard transmission until about 2 weeks before I left for Italy. Never. And I have basically been forced to learn under some rather dire circumstances. The first road I drove in Italy is the one leading down from Palazzo Terranova, if you can call it a road at all. For a hotel where the cheapest room goes for $500 a night, you would be amazed at the condition this road is in. Downright third-world. Rocky, amazingly steep, totally unpaved, and without a shoulder and barely room for a car, much less two, should you meet someone on the way up or down. Yesterday, on the way up the hill, I suddenly lost power. Otherwise known as: I ran out of gas. Not my fault, because it is a shared vehicle and I wasn't the last one to drive it. Anyhow, I began rolling backwards down the hill, because the hill was so steep that the emergency brake wouldn't hold. So I had to put myself into a ditch, perpendicular to the road, in order to stop rolling backwards. Luckily there were some farmers not far up the road who lent me a cell phone to call for help. While we waited, we exchanged typically terse dialogue regarding the state of the weather (ma dio, che caldo) and they offered me some homemade wine. In Italy, you always take what is offered to you, especially wine; never mind that I have never really developed a taste for it, and in fact I would rather have remained parched. But I took it like a champ; and it was actually better than most I have had.

Today, however, after I finished taking care of the little ones, I toodled off to Castiglion Fiorentino for the evening. I can do little more than toodle because the car is a purplish, dusty, dented Ford Fiesta, model year unknown. But I toodle quite well in it, and I can even navigate intersections now, a feat I am quite proud of; before, I used to look both ways and roll through stop signs very slowly, hoping for the best, because I was afraid I would stop and then not be able to get started again...but now I can obey the laws of the road with ease, or something like it.

The drive tonight was lovely. Castiglion and Ronti are separated by a large mountain, and so the drive is, though short in distance, about 40 minutes of winding up and over and then down again. It had finally cooled off, and I had the windows down (because there is no A/C). I was singing "Top of the World" by the Carpenters (because there is no radio, though that doesn't excuse the song choice). The sun was painting stripes on the hills and far below me in the valley, tobacco farmers were hard at work keeping their carcinogens alive. Pity it's such a vile substance, because tobacco plants are quite lovely, all lush and neat in their deep green rows. And my heart palpitated with joy, as it always does, when I reached the summit and began my descent because, around the first curve of the descent, Castiglion can be seen from my window. The tower was glowing brickish orange in the setting sun and in the foreground, the olive trees shone with a silvery light. Few trees are as lovely as an olive tree.

And now I must be off to bed, because I have to head back early in the morning for work. I will have an Illy cappuccino, watch the sunrise, and toodle off, leaving a trail of dust in my wake and obeying all posted signs along the way.
ta ta,
vanessa

Thursday, July 01, 2004


And how cute is this?? Courtesy of Simone, the morning barista at the Garden Underground. This is a lovely cup of Illy cappuccino, smile free of charge. Posted by Hello


Here's another nice view of the valley around Radicondoli, taken at twilight. I am standing at the edge of the property, which overlooks an abandoned house that I want to restore (any backers out there?), the roof of which you see in the picture. After 3 years of owning my digital camera, I finally had the good sense to use the twilight setting... Posted by Hello


This is the view from the house we stayed at in Radicondoli. Far off in the distance, you can see the towers of San Gimignano. This town once had over 70 towers; now only about 13 remain. Its nickname is "Medieval Manhattan." Posted by Hello


This is the campanile (bell tower) of Siena's Duomo. The stripes are comprised of faint pinkish-white and deep green marbles. Lovely. Posted by Hello

on my way home, i stopped off at home

I am here in Castiglion Fiorentino for a very brief while, so glad to be home. (How many homes can one person have??) I arrived this morning - the Tirabassi family dropped me and my bags and guitar off at Porta Fiorentina and I began the ascent into town. Along the way I passed 3 or 4 people I hadn't seen on my previous trips to town, and I had to explain myself...it was a good test of my Italian to explain that I am living in Badia Petroia, as an aupair, but that I left there to go to Radicondoli for 11 days to be an aupair for another family, and that family had just dropped me off here, where I will stay the night with Amanda, which is why I have such a big bag for just one evening. It is difficult enough to explain in English, yes? But is so nice to come to a place where people greet you on the street with joy and surprise, when they ask how long you are staying, when they ask where your better half is, when they ask when you are going to give up the fight and come back to live forever. My response is always, I am staying for the summer, my better half is in Texas, I am going to come back to live forever when you crazy Italians make the paperwork a little less formidable. Or something like that.

Today I went to the alimentari twice (the small little grocery in town), helped Amanda make lunch (fresh mozzarella with tomatoes and basil, homemade olive oil, panzanella (bread salad), prosciutto and melone, pecorino, and fresh tagliatelle pasta with sugo), and we went for a walk around town. Such a simple day. I ask you, why does this make me so happy I could burst? If any one of you were here, I am sure my cup would have flowed over.

In other exciting news, I have an Italian band! So to speak. I practiced last night with Gumo (a nickname), Manuel, and Juri...and they rock. They were all acquaintances that I knew from previous trips to Castiglion, but not guys I knew well. Adriano, Amanda's husband who owns the Velvet Underground, just opened a second bar, called the Garden Underground. It is a really cool outdoor bar, just on the edge of the historic part of town, with a killer view. Anyhow, he asked me to play a show with a band (as a venue, it is not really conducive to a solo act) and these guys are the "house" band at the Velvet. So we had a practice last night, and they rock. It was so much fun. I was worried about playing with other folks, given the language barrier, until I found out that they all speak English very well...and so many words are the same in music terminology. I was trying to explain something about a variation in tempo, and I asked, "do you know the word tempo?" Duh. That's, uh, the Italian word for time or timing. I am an idiot. Metronome...metronomico. You get the point. Anyhow, we will have a few more practices and then play in mid-July. We are going to try to record the show and see if we can maybe get some good live videos.

I hope you are all well and happy where you are. Thank you thank you thank you for all your lovely emails and posts. Pictures coming soon.
vanessa