Mo over at It's a Blog Eat Blog World should know by now that it is not safe to leave me alone with a word. All sorts of things start happening. Today's word is "HEAT". Heat ... Hot ... Fire ... Burn ... Creation and Destruction ... Glass and Flames ... Phoenix rising from the ashes ... AHA!!! I Think She's Got It: The La Fenice (translation the Phoenix) Fire of 1996 and a wonderful book that I just finished: The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt. This book opens with the power of heat to create and destroy by juxtaposing the impact on the city of the burning of the famous La Fenice opera house and the beautiful works created by the master glass blower Archimede Seguso who watched the fire from his apartment across the dry canal drained for repairs.
Very rarely does a non-fiction book and the people described read as a mystery, romance, history, drama and family saga. This one does and all through it there is heat from the passion of opera to the passion of fathers and sons. If you read "Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil" this new book by the same author is even better.
The phoenix eventually rose from the ashes. One cannot say the same for the glass ... "Signora Seguso sighed, It had been ten years since she had spoken to her younger son, Giampaolo ... until a court could decide their fate, those creations of love and fire would remain locked in a storeroom at the glassworks ..."
As for the sound in the new La Fenice - Here is the heat of Summertime
Another history lesson. Summertime is a great song. Happy MM. :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome post!! Love those glass photos!!
ReplyDeleteI saw the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", but didn't read the book.
ReplyDeleteAs for the video, she has a beautiful voice but I don't know that Summertime is suited to it. I think I need a sexy voice like Ella or even Janis to bring the passion of the song home.
Travis, The video I wanted to used was withdrawn from embedding, but if you like opera you can hear it HERE
ReplyDeleteAs usual with Opera somebody just died. :-)
Sounds like a very good read.
ReplyDeleteWhat an eclectic mix of HOT stuff! :)
ReplyDeleteHave a great Monday, and stay cool.
I didn't read the book but it seems to be nice !
ReplyDeleteI read the book and saw the movie a couple of times. Now, you've set out what you wanted to do - you've whetted my appetite to read this book, as well!
ReplyDeleteI personally like "Summertime" sung both ways..it's one of my "sing-in-the-shower" songs. In one of my other lives, I was a torch singer...
~~~Blessings~~~
Wonderful MM post.
ReplyDeleteI have no grog
To drink on my blog
But won’t it be neat
To read about heat?
See you there.
Beautiful glassworks! :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Manic Monday!
Arff, arff... pant, pant... woooff. Like your post.
ReplyDeleteI’m a puppy dog
With my own blog.
Bring me a treat
And we’ll talk about heat.
Come visit.
great work of glassarts!
ReplyDeletehappy mm!
Thanks for the tip Jamie. I'll get a copy. Cheers!!
ReplyDeleteWEll done. Thank you
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the few, unfortunately that just could not get into Midnight, so I'm leery of his new book. Perhaps will look into it, though, on your recommendation.
ReplyDeleteThanks for participating in Manic Monday!
cheers,
mo
Interesting.. perhaps I'll add this to my reading list for the summer!
ReplyDeleteHappy MM!
Amazingly enough, today I just started reading The City of Falling Angels. I bought the book several months at Borders in the bargain section for around 6 dollars. I have read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil last summer and was definitely willing to read another one of his books. Today, I finally opened the book to find...it was signed by the author John Berendt (I could tell because the indentation carried on to the next page). I just thought this was a random surprise worth sharing. I have read the first chapter, dealing with Seguso, which lead me to this blog. I can't wait to finish the book!
ReplyDelete