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Memorial Trip and Washington DC

There’s something about sunrise which is always opportunity-filled. When sunset hits, you think of what you left behind, another day is gone. Sunrises are filled with surprise. The day is ahead. There is opportunity. Something is coming.

It’s 5:40 am, everyone else is still asleep in the cabin which some friend, my wife and I rented for Memorial Day weekend. We came to Frankfort, Michigan on Crystal Lake. And this is what my iPhone says it looks like right now. Continue reading “Memorial Trip and Washington DC”

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Frank Lloyd Wright in the Midwest – Part 1

It probably started in December of 2016. No wait. Most probably many years before that. When I wanted to become an architect. When I bought a few architecture books at the bookstore. When the ‘bookstore’ was still a thing.

You sit down on those teal velvet armchairs or brown leather couches and start flipping the pages. The architecture is in front of you. You can touch the pages, usually thick, heavy, with perfectly exposed photos. You focus on some of the details, the commas of architecture, be it the windows, the window sills, or just the orange flower arrangement in front of a blue wall. Continue reading “Frank Lloyd Wright in the Midwest – Part 1”

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Is it Super?

“What music would you like to listen to? Here’s the phone, you choose.” Car is clean, there’s no waiting outside in the snow, or rain, or blistering cold. We jump in for the 20 minute ride from Lake Whitmore to Ann Arbor, just a little outside of Detroit. I chose The Animals, for this post, not when I was in the car. My hockey teammates chose the music that time. Continue reading “Is it Super?”

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Six Hours in Paris

A clarinet to suavely introduce the delicate French voice. The singer hums and sings while I hold a cocktail, a cigarette, clearly with a cigarette holder, tapping  to the beat, listening to the vibrato in her voice. I’m getting confused. But through her voice I am taken there, to those time.

I had to listen to Edith Piaf for this post. If I had Six Hours in Paris, I would spend them in a cafe’, mesmerized by her voice, sobbing one moment, feeling exhilarated the next. Continue reading “Six Hours in Paris”

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Fire to Snow

How do you feel about queues? About waiting in line? About that inner feeling of getting ahead, but at the same time being respectful and courteous as society has taught us to be?

Finally on the flight that will take my wife and I to Paris, for a whole 13 hours. I haven’t been to Paris in some 15 years, and my wife probably the same amount. The country of Bresson. Continue reading “Fire to Snow”

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Colorless Landscapes

The color has been removed! The green has been replaced by white. The grey? By white. The blue? By white. The autumn colors? By white. It has all been replaced by white as it snows outside. The first snow of the season. It’s a little late on arrival, but who’s complaining?

Detroit never disappoints. Snow, coffee, Bach in the background.

Colorless Landscapes. Or should I call them monochromatic? Or black and white? Continue reading “Colorless Landscapes”

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Northern Psychiatry

The Counting Crows have to be one of my favorite groups. I could listen to their albums over and over without ever getting tired of them. Not only do I like the music itself, but the lyrics. Phrases always seems to be disconnected, or make little sense, at least initially. But once you hear them a few hundred times they just kind of fit. Not to mention that Adam Duritz, the lead singer, has dealt with a dissociative mental disorder. But still, look at his craft, what he has produced.

And I dream of Michelangelo when I’m lying in my bed
I see god upon the ceiling I see angels overhead
And he seems so close as he reaches out his hand
But we are never quite as close as we are led to understand Continue reading “Northern Psychiatry”

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Deer Hunter

This post could have waited until the hunting season opens here in Michigan, on November 15th, but while reading for this post I came to find out that between October 1st and November 15th  it is the archery season, so still “one shot”. Maybe even more so if you’re shooting with a crossbow.

When I first watched The Deer Hunter, by Michael Cimino, I was blown away. The transition between the life of middle-America, of the the working classes, and their departure to a foreign land to fight a war. The details in the wedding and the length of that scene, the bittersweet relationships of the main characters. And what about that first scene with the blue-collar steel workers handling the machinery? Continue reading “Deer Hunter”

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Cold Cold Feeling

I wasn’t expecting it to be that cold. Iceland.

While I write I have Albert Collins’ “Cold Cold Feeling” playing in the background. A storm is in full effect outside in typical Detroit fashion. Perfect.

My wife, an Italian friend we met here in Detroit, and I went to Iceland this summer for a week. We traveled 2400 km with a reliable Dacia Duster and saw a large part of the mysterious island. Continue reading “Cold Cold Feeling”

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Bill’s Love Story

I moved to Detroit in 2013, in January. I remember landing and oddly enough it was 18 degrees C and recall the taxi driver stating that he “loved this global warming shit”. I couldn’t argue given that my expectations would then turn to reality the day after. Minus an awful lot of degrees. It was freezing.

Went to work the next Monday. A new place, a new work environment, a new everything. The snow. I was amazed by the piles and piles of snow on the side of the road. I had relocated, I was here. Detroit.

Continue reading “Bill’s Love Story”

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Work it. The Scene.

I have been lucky enough to have traveled the world at a young age due to my father’s job. Like my sister and I say, every so often we start getting itchy feet and want to move elsewhere. For now, my home is Detroit. Yet, I can’t deny that even after almost 5 years, I see it from a tourist’s perspective.

I observe with the eyes of an outsider. I draw parallels between different worlds, be it the striking differences between Palmer Woods and the 7 Mile homes (just one street that divides these two areas) or between Europe and the States – yes, I am half Italian and half American, and I compare the two frequently. Also a Third Culture Kid? Well because I lived in Asia for 10 years, 5 of which in China.

Continue reading “Work it. The Scene.”