On the road

Me revoilà, j'ai eu de la visite et c'était le bonheur ! Si Yale est formidable pour travailler, il me manquait un peu de vie sociale. En si bonne compagnie, nous en profitons pour faire un tour de piste à l'américaine. C'est parti pour le Grand Nord. Première étape Boston où se trouve le MIT et l'ennemie jurée de Yale : Harvard.

MIT : une boîte pleine de fous poétiques

Au MIT on découvre des laboratoires étonnants, pleins de robots qui parlent, qui courent ou de curieux d'animaux :

En route pour le Canada, nous nous rendons compte que ce qui semblait être un saut de puce sur la carte est en fait un immense voyage. C'est grand l'Amérique ! Surtout dans le Vermont ; c'est très beau, mais il n'y a rien. Nous roulons pendant des miles et des miles sans croiser âme qui vive. Nous traversons toute la nouvelle Angleterre (Massachussets, New Hampshire, Vermont). C'est curieux de traverser des villes baptisées Winchester, Salisbury, Plymouth, Manchester, Newberry, qui n'ont d'anglais que le nom.

Skyline de Montréal depuis l'île Sainte-Hélène (c'est plus joli avec le soleil)

Le Canada est un pays rigolo pour les francophones du vieux monde. Les Canadiens ont la manie de tout traduire en français. C'est un curieux mélange d'anglicismes incompréhensibles si l'on ne retraduit pas en anglais. Les autochtones boivent des "breuvages" ; quand on dit merci, on nous répond "bienvenue" et on ne s'arrête pas aux stops mais aux "arrêts". La journée se divise en matin, "avant-midi" et après-midi. L'avant-midi est une étrange notion, qui signifie de 11 heures à 13 heures la semaine et un peu plus tard la "fin de semaine". Une fois que "l'avant-midi" est passé, on va faire du "magazinage" et non pas du vulgaire shopping !

Montréal est sans doute la seule ville qui peut se permettre le luxe d'avoir un "Ice-Bar" en plein air. Aucun risque de voir disparaître l'ameublement avant le mois de mai sous ces latitudes !

Notez les fourrures sur les sièges afin d'éviter que les postérieurs restent collés à la glace !

Nous repartons pour le "sud". Il a beaucoup neigé et les routes canadiennes font pâle figure à côté du luxe routier américain. La neige n'est pas déblayée, ça me rappelle mon enfance sous les montagnes de neige de la Chaux-de-Fonds.

Les autoroutes du Grand Nord, c'est sport !

A part quelques glissades et l'aide de deux bûcherons qui nous sortent d'une ornière sur un parking (no comment !), nous arrivons sains et saufs.

Le week-end suivant - finalement - New York ! C'est bien d'y retourner après toutes ces années et de découvrir que même si tout a beaucoup changé, New York spirit is still alive!

New York, New York, New York !

Il y a des gens, tout plein, partout, tout le temps ! ça fait du bien après les étendues du Grand Nord et le désert humain de New Haven, où il est difficile de trouver un être vivant dehors après 18 heures. Ici nous faisons du vrai "shopping" (en français dans le texte) sur Broadway et nous mangeons tellement bien ! Les New-Yorkais se plaignent que tout est tellement vieux ici ! Etonnant pour nous qui arrivons de Rome... Même si le métro tombe en morceaux, vieux me semble un qualificatif pour le moins emphatique !

Kenka: St Marks Place: Best Japanese ever!

Dernière escapade à Newport (Rhode Island le bien-nommé Ocean State), où se trouve The Breakers, l'incroyable demeure des Vanderbilt, une des plus grosses fortunes de l'Amérique au tournant du XXe siècle. La maison est un pot-pourri typique du mauvais goût des nouveaux riches, mêlant le néo-classicisme au faux Baroque et Renaissance ; les proportions sont fausses, les styles sont caricaturaux. Notre guide aussi, qui ne fait pas très bien la différence entre la France et l'Italie (c'est loin) ou entre la Renaissance et le Baroque (c'est vieux). Le rapport que la plupart des Américains entretiennent à l'histoire est suprenant.

Newport, Rhode Island

Bye bye my dream team!

The Queen of the Night and the Winter Queen

Questa settimana sono andata all'opera di Yale ed ho visto Il Flauto magico versione hollywoodiana! Povero Mozart...

I musicisti e i cantanti (tranne Tamino, ma comunque a me non piaciono i tenori!) eravano bravissimi. Non so perché, il dirigente prendeva dei tempi lentissimi per alcune arie e diventava doloroso di aspettare la prossima nota. I costumi eravano assolutamente orrendi. Sarastro e i preti sarebbero andati benissimo in un peplum tipo Spartacus o Ben-Hur, mentre la Regina della Notte e le sue tre dame erano travestite da ottime Walkyrie! Inoltre le parti parlate sono state tradotte in inglese! Faceva molto strano di sentirli cantare in tedesco e cambiare all'inglese per recitare. Per di più, in queste parte hanno deciso di "modernizzare" un po: "Whassup Papageno?" "Had I my i-phone I could ask the gods?" or "Tamino, an artist formerly known as Prince"... Il pubblico ha adorato e crollava delle risate. Io sono rimasta esterrefatta. Magari sono decisamente un dinosauro e dovrei andare al Yale Peabody Museum:

La casa di riposo per musicologi pensionati

Siccomè ancora non ci siamo, preferisco tornare nelle mie belle biblioteche.

Beinecke Library, la torre centrale dove sono conservati tutti i libri rari

A parte l'opera, questa settimana ho fatto solo che lavorare. Allora racconto un po delle mie ricerche. Sono la specialista dei ghirigori. Studio dei manoscritti musicali del Seicento, in gran parte anonimi, per identificarli, datarli e quand'è possibile attribuirli.

E' come un giallo: indago per rintracciare la storia di questi manoscritti. I miei soliti sospetti sono i compositori e i copisti. Provo di identificare la loro mano. Più sono illegibili, più mi interessano, perché contengono tracce di modificazioni, di composizione, di ulteriori aggiunte. In questo modo, riesco a capire come lavorava un compositore, chi erano i suoi allievi o i suoi copisti.

Poi negli archivi, provo di trovare ricevute, lettere o testamenti dei miei "sospetti" in modo di avere un campione firmato. Se sono fortunata, riesco ad identificarli, se no li battezzo copista A, B, C etc. e li lascio nel mio file di "fedine penali" finché riesco a identificarli. Si trova di tutto negli archivi, un esempio di calligrafia curatissimo:

Cresci, Il perfetto scrittore, Venezia 1570

o una bellissima ricevuta firmata di un certo Ambrogio Franco che sapeva appena scrivere:

Decodifica: "Io Ambrosio Franco con mano p[ro]p[ri]a"

Ci vuole tanta pazienza, una buona memoria, dell'intuizione, gli occhi grande aperti e un bel po di fortuna. Uno può cercare per mesi, spogliare buste e buste e scoraggiarsi. Ma quando meno se l'aspetta, si scoprono delle maraviglie!

Un letterone

In uno dei manoscritti che studio, ho anche trovato un disegno, che raffigura una certa Eliza=Bohemia. Si tratta molto probabilmente della Regina Elisabeth Stuart of Scotland, Electress Palatine e Queen of Bohemia, anche chiamata The Winter Queen, perché il suo regno durò appena un'inverno.

The Winter Queen, una protagonista nel mio giallo attuale

Quando ho scoperto una traccia, la seguo come un Indiano segue la sua preda. Leggo tutto quello posso leggere, guardo tutte le mie fedine penali per paragonarli e ognitanto sono fortunata!

Da qualche parte ci sarà un indizio

Sterling Memorial Library

Here I am in big Yale!

I arrived Feb. 1st, during the Super Bowl. I was tired and jet-lagged and everybody else, both in New York and New Haven was completely excited, especially my taxi driver, who was trying to explain me everything about American football - even if it was absolutely useless - and was yelling almost as a real "tifoso dell'A.S. Roma", and sneezing all the time because he made an allergy to the cat's hairs I brought with me...

Monday, first day of research at the fabulous Beinecke Library, in which I have a grant during the month of February.

My new office, not bad after the Vatican...

After all these years in the Roman archives, I am not used to be so well treated. As a fellow, I have a very friendly personal librarian assigned to me (!). It's a wonderful place to work, and I enjoy every moment in there. I can also have coffee and lunch in a beautiful lounge, reading the New York Times. That's research!

In the afternoons, I go to the Irvine S. Gilmore Library, in the Sterling Memorial Building, a fake Gothic cathedral, artificially aged by acid and built in the 30s, as most of Yale's Neo-Gothic buildings. The oldest building in Yale is from 1750! Yale has been founded in 1701: pretty old stuff for here...

Connecticut Hall, oldest building in Yale

The Music library is tremendous, anyone can access anything at any time (just say that to any European researcher...). I can even go by myself in the reserve and pick anything I want. And the choice is large: I tried to find something they wouldn't have... and didn't succeed yet! I even found an obscure Festschrift in Dutch from the 1970s... the bad news is that now I have to read it! so I tried and the good news is that Dutch is not so difficult.

Sterling Memorial: a fake cathedral to real knowledge

Going to the supermarket was another anthropological experiment of my first week. I dreaded for the worst, but happily had to change my mind. Fruits and vegetables are gorgeous, as long as they come from California. I even found 'rapini' that is 'cima di rapa alla mericana' and it was good!

Americans are so friendly. They just seem to find everything wonderful and I wonder how they do to be happy all the time? Maybe we Europeans are just too cynical. Everybody in the shops, libraries, bars, and supermarkets keeps worrying if everything is OK for you. My supermarket is full of big black mammas asking me all the time: "Hi Hon[ey], did you find what you were looking for?" or calling me "Babe": me? a babe??? well... The only problem in the supermarket is that everything is HUGE: it's impossible to find an onion weighting less than a pound, giant mushroom (diameter at least 10 cm) and elephant garlic (no description needed here). You're also supposed to buy HUGE amounts of everything. But since I live in a beautiful American house, I have a HUGE American fridge (we could put four persons standing inside!) and a HUGE American freezer, where I can put all that HUGE stuff I bought in the HUGE American supermarket. Everything seems to be made for giants here.

My lovely American house

On my way home, I take the bus B on Whalley ave, which is exclusively used by huge Black people. The others have a car of course. It's hard to find a place because everybody seems to need two seats (at least). But it's very funny. "Yeaaaah Sista, we is going out ain we?"

Here it seems that you risk your life every time you set a foot outside your house, your car or the campus. Yale has its own police and scholars are asked to program an emergency number on their cell phones. Alert stations are to be found every five meters. There is also an escort service (no, not this kind of escort...) that can accompany you around the campus. I didn't try that yet. The funny thing is that New Haven is a little town which seems just absolutely quiet and nice. I don't know if Americans are a bit paranoids about safety or maybe you never know... I survived one week, let's hope for the best!

I am also a Yale Bulldog now (I am afraid our cats won't be happy!) since I join the HUGE Payne Whitney Gymnasium: the biggest gym ever, or so they told me. I am very happy to practice karate again and I have an extremely good senseï. Well, Yale has the best of everything... The legend says the old, rich and bed-ridden widow Payne-Whitney wanted to offer Yale a cathedral. The university didn't need a church but a gym. So they took the widow's money, instructing the architect to build a gym looking like a cathedral and everybody was happy: "strani, strani, questi Mericani..."

The Cathedral of Sweat

The Lighthouse

That's all for this week, please, leave your comments, I miss you!