The Arabian Connection

For the last 3 weeks I’ve been in Laguna Beach, California, working with my friends Greg MacGillivray (Director) and Steve Judson (Editor) at MacGillivray Freeman Films, where we are finishing Arabia, the 3D IMAX feature that will be released in theaters this February, 2010. Needless to say, it is another link in the chain to my Tuscan dream.

In July 2006, I was returning from a 10-day scout in Saudi Arabia, to Rome where I would meet Sally before another relaxing and productive stay at Podere Villore. It just happened that Mark Strand (American Poet Laureate and one of my favorite foodie friends), was in Rome at the same time. He invited us to join him for dinner at the home of Patrizia Cavalli (the Italian Poet Laureate) for a delicious meal featuring an amazing stinco (ox shin slow-cooked in wine all day) and more than one bottle of--what else?--red wine. When Patrizia proudly served the wine, she asked if anybody at the table happened to know it. By happy coincidence, I did. It was Il Bosco, created by my friend Massimo Alessandro at his vineyard in Manzano, near Cortona. Here we are among his award winning Syrah vines during a visit. Ciao Massimo!

Cougar!

They don't have anything like this in Tuscany, so this may seem like a diversion. But before Sally and I decided to make our second home in Italy, we had to make a road trip out to the Great American West – 14,000 miles to be exact, 18 states in all. We were looking for a beautiful piece of desert on which to build a dream retreat in one of the other regions we love.

With my 1993 Ford Explorer packed to the gills, we rambled all over, camping most nights and eating fresh caught trout, wild mushrooms and foraged greens. We are especially fond of southern Utah and the arid Four Corners area. At the end of one long day's drive, we stopped at the remote campsite overlooking renowned Cathedral Valley in Capitol Reef State Park where Sally wanted to photograph at dawn. It was dusk and we'd just eaten dinner when the incident occurred. To read one of the closest recorded cougar encounters without injury, just follow this link to the official mountain lion report and report with pictures.

Aqueduct

Those ambitious ancients really knew how to multitask.

This is the Pont Julien in southern France, built 2000 years ago. During a picnic Sally and I took there in 2002, I began to sketch out the character of a young Roman architect who’d fallen in love with the architectural detail known as the semicircular arch.

During a visit to the Pont du Gard aqueduct in nearby Nimes, the highest stone arcade the Romans ever built, I realized my architect was also the historically forgotten hydraulic engineer who designed and built it. In an apartment in Rome, and at Villore during the summer and autumn of 2003, I began to flesh my engineer out in words. His name was Hiero Anasus (Hiero the Duck). The son of freed Greek slaves, he was a Roman citizen at the time of Caesar Augustus when the Pont du Gard was probably built. In about a year I’d written the first draft the novel I'm now polishing as AQUARIUS. But I left one thing out of the story -- politics.

Then came the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush. I knew the book had to be politically substantial. I did my homework and learned that a two-party system was at least partly responsible for bringing the Roman republic down, among other things. To express my deep disappointment in my countrymen, and to illustrate what happens when too much power is handed to one man, I refocused the story. And that is how my ancient hydraulic engineer became a Tribune of the People at the moment democracy died in ancient Rome.

Fishing in Tuscany

There isn't any, really. Not where we go. I just needed a hook.

After seeing a show of Sally's photos in Montalcino, Russell Wilkinson and Eileen Guggenheim (who run the New York Academy of Art where Eric Fischl mentors) were inspired to call and tell Sally how much they liked her work, which inspired Sally to invite them to dinner, where I was inspired to invite Russell fishing, which led us to bob around in my little 17-foot Boston Whaler in the Atlantic off Montauk, where we hooked sharks longer than the boat (and let them go), which gave us the subject for one of the tales that now gets told at the table of Podere Villore, the villa Russell bought near Montalcino the same week he saw Sally's photos, in Tuscany, where we've returned many times ever since Russell offered to let me use his guest house as a writing retreat while Sally taught her photo workshop during the scorching summer of 2003.

Roman Daze

Despite appearances to the contrary, this is not Roberto Benigni.

When Eric received a fellowship to the American Academy in Rome in 1997 (still pre helmet law), he and April invited Sally and me to spend Thanksgiving week there. We had a fantastic time in la citta' eterna.

How Do You Keep A Dream?

In our case, we didn't know it was a dream yet. We just kept dreaming it. Year after year we returned to Italy. For the air. the light, the people, the food, the history, the culture. For the Toscana Photo Workshop where Sally teaches. For the Roman wedding of friends.

Besides certain brain wave patterns and terror, sleep researchers have found only one other thing that differentiates dreams from nightmares: Dreams turn into nightmares when the dreamer becomes helpless to change her situation.

Here's a real example: Sally and I are at the check-in desk in the international terminal at JFK. We are on our way to to Rome, to participate in the wedding of two of our dearest friends, Eric Fischl and April Gornik. We place our passports on the counter and the agent picks them up.

"I'm sorry sir, but your passport's expired. I can't issue you a ticket."

"Can't we get a new passport here?" Sally pleads.

"No. You'll have to go through the appropriate agency."

Sally's tears don't work either. So we both turn around and cab back into the city.

That was a waking nightmare. But luckily, I was able to get an "expedited" passport, and after a full day's hustle we were on our way to Rome.

The wedding was beautiful, intimate, Italian. On motorini (Vespas, pre helmet law), the wedding posse buzzed suavely through the city in skirts and suits, treating traffic lights as suggestions like the Romans do, and stopping for photo ops at ancient sites. The bride threw her bouquet into the muddy Tiber from a bridge. The meal in the Hassler, atop the Spanish Steps, was grand. The whole thing was one of the best dreams I've ever eaten.

Someday, sleep researchers may reveal how to turn nightmares back into dreams. Until then, here's a warning: If you are afraid of nightmares, don't come to Italy. You will be forced to dream here ... frequently.

Vine Among The Ruins

“You should have a vineyard!” said Sally.

“There’s a fixer-upper!” said Jack.

They were just kidding; they knew they could never afford it. But they drove all over Tuscany, falling in love all the same.