Little Tooth

Peanut is out her first front tooth

Elbowed in a struggle over Barbies by a  gaggle of little girls who rolled her like a drunk   in times square ..

It happened on a Saturday; one of those quiet afternoons that has me puttering in my study, wearing my striped robe and tasseled fez, while trying to listen to live opera from New York’s Metropolitan theater on my old stand type tube   radio.

I was gumming on the vestiges of day old cee-gar   (a   black Maduro) expertly navigating the dark gummed stub from one corner of my mouth to the other as I fiddled   the radio dial.

 The dial whirred in and out of outer space until it briefly caught hold of the station long enough to recognize that today’s Opera was the Verdi masterpiece, La Traviata.

. The prelude was just finished and I could hear the unmistaken able sounds of the first aria,

  De Miel Bollenti Spiriti, (the soft sweet magic of spirit) when it took off and whirred   back into outer space.  .

..

Frustrated I slapped its naughty backside like a maternity nurse and the set coughed into   cold clear sound   like a lucky quarter hitting the slots.

Marveling on my technical genius, I settled back into my century old wooden swivel chair, re-lit the Maduro, and   began humming along. Then as the tempo picked up I began singing, or warbling as the case may be, in my own claptrap Italian the sweet verses of the Operas stanzas. ...

I’m not sure  what I sing is really Italian ,

 I picked it up on the construction sites years ago listening to all the Dago marble setters and mud men sing bits and pieces of opera as I cut and set stone high above Manhattans magic skyline. 

 In the words of  Black Sal the chief setter in those days

“When you-a sing-a along to opera ,itsa important to annunciate the vowels in long-a sequence …….. like  Amore …..would be sung -a…… AM---MOR-R--R-EE ……

thatsa it …try  to carry out da MOR-R-R-R  for  at   least 4 beats .

When Sal would sing he would open his lungs ,hit the note and sing  …..  ….AM-M ---MOR- EEE 

 ….”va Beni” (good) said  Guido the mud man and the two of them would launch into the duet of  De Miel Bollenti Spiriti like two magpies on a  clothesline .

The singing   was contagious ;

Instantly   as they sang and scraped along their mud pans   along came other   hardhat   “goomba’s” who would appear at the various windows and doors   of the construction site and lend their voices to   the morning’s impromptu.

 .,

There was a base and a baritone  who were plumbers and plasterers ,t

Then there were a slew of  wannabe  false tenors who were  laborers and mason tenders .

There was even a Soprano; (no not Tony) it was a little guy named Skully who was the electrician’s helper,

He would put a mop over his head and use a mason’s apron as a brazier and sing from the window as Violet did to her lovesick Alfredo.

They were a fine chorus, besides we were only steps from the Metropolitan and as the mid morning sun raised over the 10 o’clock coffee break it made the mornings Opus a little bit sweeter. ..

Radio

(Alfredo  to Violet  /with mop head and brazier )

(Loud).

IL GIVANLE ADORE

ELLA TEMPRO  COL PALCINDO