Hello, It’s currently very hot here in Italy, with highs of 40°C during the day. And it doesn’t get below 28°C at night, which is frightening to me – all of Europe is facing a dramatic heatwave, even the Northern countries, which is unusual. We’re slowly saying goodbye to the world as we know it and heading headfirst into a new climate era.
Nevertheless, I’ve been working on new editorial translations. I’m currently enjoying a small break before starting work on a new book in August. In the meantime, a self-help book I translated was published recently: Happy Habits by Tal Ben-Shahar. I was surprised to learn that I’m already putting some of those “happy habits” into practice in my daily routine! Also, another Robert Bryndza installment for the “Erika Foster” series, Chasing Shadows (Un volto nell’ombra), translated into Italian by yours truly, is coming out pretty soon, on July 28th.
A couple of weeks ago, Alessandro Inolti and I set off on a road trip to Udine, in the North of Italy, to catch BEAT in concert. BEAT is an all-star band comprised of Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai, and Danny Carey, playing the legendary 80s music of King Crimson. It’s a real privilege to hear this music played live by such wonderful musicians. The venue was beautiful – the castle of Udine on top of a hill, where we could enjoy a stunning view of the Alps. The weather was nice for a change too, with a welcome slight drop in temperatures, not as dramatically hot as it has been this past week.
I had the pleasure of catching up with Tony Levin – the last time I saw him was in Carrara in March 2025, when I opened the Stick Men show at Teatro degli Animosi. We also had a nice chat with Adrian, whom I hadn’t seen in quite a while. One funny thing happened backstage – while I was talking to Tony, I noticed a man waiting patiently in a corner. When Tony went to speak to him, I realized it was Francesco Messina, the great musician and producer who worked on Alice‘s 1986 album, Park Hotel. Tony told me it was the first Italian session of his career and proceeded to share some funny stories about the recordings. It’s a great album, also featuring Phil Manzanera on guitars and Jerry Marotta on drums. That’s my music recommendation for today.
Alessandro’s girlfriend, Rebecca Bredl, was there with us. She is a great concert photographer and shot some amazing pictures. Steve Vai liked them so much that he even shared them on his social media accounts! Check out Rebecca’s profile on Instagram.
One more thing – as Lieutenant Columbo would say. I wrote a new article for LINK, this time focusing on video games and particularly on graphic adventures. It’s in Italian, but if you’re an English-speaking reader, I wrote something about point-and-click adventures in an old blog post, if you’re curious to know more.
Thanks for reading, and I will have more to report soon.
Marco Machera 