Calabrisella Mia! Travel Research | OzCrowd

Calabrisella Mia! Travel Research | OzCrowd

What I love about living in Mildura: Your Mildura interview

The lovely Jodie Morgan from Your Mildura interviewed me a while back about what I loved about my hometown of Mildura, my arts practise and life influences.

It's now up online which you are able to read via the link below:
Your Mildura interview: What I love about living in Mildura: Luci Callipari-Marcuzzo

Writing resuscitation

It has been too long since my last blog post; since May 2013 in fact!

So much has happened since then, I returned to study at University after an almost twenty year gap!

I swore I would never return to formal study, but curiously I found my year back on the books enjoyable! And so, I find myself contemplating taking on a Master of Visual Arts degree... but more on that later.

I will start this writing resuscitation with a look back over my Honours year in a couple of separate posts.

Stay tuned for more...

Back to Uni for me

I know it has been a rather long time since my last post, but I promise to blog much more often this year!

I made a big decision this year to return to study after 19 years (writing that just made me feel old!) to complete my Visual Arts Honours year at La Trobe University Mildura campus.

While I've found it a challenge to balance work, family and Uni, I'm determined to do the best that I can in the time that I have.

I'll post more information about what it is that I am doing in coming weeks and months.

For the time being here is my inspiration for the day:


a cross made from palm leaves that belonged to my Nonno Francesco Cufari (my Mum's dad). They give out handmade crosses at Palm Sunday mass, which falls the week before Easter. Nonno tied these together with some nylon string that my Nonna Domenica crocheted and knitted with. My Mum found it at their house after Nonno died and recently gave it to me to use as it relates to my Honours year of study... but more on that in my next post!


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Pane & biscotti day!

Well it's been a long time between blog entries, so I thought I'd share a photo of our wares from making bread & biscuits in a traditional wood-fired oven with my Mum & son.



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Trashy TV

I was supposed to be working on a new drawing tonight. At least I had scheduled the time into my calendar to start anyway.

But you see, I got distracted by what I like to call "trashy tv". So after watching a number of brain draining shows tonight, I made a promise to myself to get back on track tomorrow as I have a deadline to meet. So no more trashy tv for me... at least for the rest of this week anyway!

(Re)view: Duran Duran, Melbourne 19 March 2012

In case you missed a couple of my recent posts, I was lucky enough to attend the Melbourne Duran Duran concert on Monday 19 March 2012 at Rod Laver Arena.

So keen was I to attend the concert I departed Mildura airport on "the red eye" 6:30am flight, bound for the "big smoke" of Melbourne almost 600 kms away.  My trip did have a couple of set-backs, one was the flight having to wait on the tarmac for 20 minutes on arrival due to the space it was allocated being occupied by another plane.  The other was the heated exchange I witnessed boarding the crowded Skybus by two employees, apparently some patrons had been waiting 20 minutes for a ride into the city, rather than its usual 10. But not even that could dampen my anticipation, so I put in my earphones to listen to, none other than... yep, DD for the journey into the CBD which took nearly 40 minutes.

So after I arrived at my sister Elina's apartment, we headed to Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts in St Kilda to pick up a couple of my artworks that had been in their Postcard Show exhibition.  After which we trammed it back into the city for some retail therapy and a spot of preening, then headed home to "get ready" for THE concert.

Getting to the actual concert took longer than expected as the #70 tram that stops near my sister's apartment was running late, and it was by pure luck that we happened upon a cab which took us the few kilometres to Rod Laver Arena.  Due to peak hour traffic, the approximate 15 minute trip, stretched to 20 - 25 minutes, but our cab driver was pleasant which made things less tedious and stressful (at least he seemed to know where he was going)!  So by the time we arrived at our destination, I was ready to jump out to meet the lovely Nicole and pick up our concert tickets.  (Nicole and her sister Lisa had travelled all the way from their beautiful hometown of Perth to attend the Melbourne concert - pretty dedicated I reckon.  They were going to see them again in Perth at Sandalford Estate Winery on their return... lucky ducks!)

I've heard many comments that DD might be getting on a bit and just be remembered for all their old 80s hits. Well let me tell you, that is grossly untrue; not only was their performance energetic and enigmatic, but they surpassed even my sentimental, romanticised expectations.

I suppose I did have my doubts as to whether they could reignite my teenage 80s infatuation, but they did... although maybe not in the same way that had me wanting to move to England and marry heart-throb, lead singer Simon Le Bon(!), but rather in a less delusional way that has made me appreciate them from a performer/artist's perspective.

Duran Duran, 17 March 2012
L- R: Dom Brown, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes, Simon Le Bon, Roger Taylor & Simon Willescroft
image courtesy: http://www.facebook.com/duranduran

Simon Le Bon's voice was as sweetly melodic as I remembered, he dazzled the appreciative and very vocal crowd in his inimitable style, singing many old favourites, along with a few from the new album All You Need Is Now (set list below*). He also jumped into the audience and picked a very lucky lad named Chris to lead a rendition of The Reflex with him (an interactive number with the audience), a task envied by all those waiting in the wings - me included!  Le Bon also showed his serious side when he dedicated Ordinary World to the people of Syria.

A favourite with the "ladies", John Taylor proved he can still play the "effing" bass (their words, not mine)! JT, a self-confessed tweet-a-holic, also instigated a tweet-fest where fans were able to tweet messages to the band through social networking site Twitter which were then projected onto the backdrop during the instrumental classic Tiger, Tiger, which seemed to send my mobile version of Twitter into temporary meltdown! This instrumental interlude also allowed Le Bon a much needed vocal rest and dazzling costume change. (The tweeting also got me wondering if the new song, Being Followed, is also about social networking... hmmm...)

Roger Taylor, can still "bring it" as far as drummers go - I have to admit, I'm not very knowledgeable about drums (although my young son would like to learn how to play them) but RT really put everything into his performance, especially during a couple of my favourite DD songs, Hungry Like the Wolf and Wild Boys. 

Keyboardist extraordinaire Nick Rhodes (yep, still conjuring images of Andy Warhol - but better looking  with more sequins), provided some light entertainment by informing the crowd the many inventions Melbourne has been responsible for, notably the black box recorder plus my fav, the electric drill.  One of my favourite reviews of the concert poked fun at one of the songs, The Man Who Stole a Leopard, from the new DD album All You Need Is Now and pointed the finger at Rhodes for inspiring it's creation.  I love listening to this new song (you can read more about it here), but as I've explained before, I have many varied, eclectic musical tastes for various reasons.

The vibe at the concert was electric, and the band members really seemed to enjoy playing music together.  There was a real sense of camaraderie between the remaining four original members; the aforementioned Le Bon, John Taylor (bass), Roger Taylor (drums), Nick Rhodes (keyboard), and new guitarist Dom Brown (whom my sister thought looked a bit like Prince Harry... I didn't quite see the resemblance!), awesome backing singer Anna Ross and skilful saxophonist/percussionist Simon Willescroft came together to deliver an unforgettable performance that I will treasure forever.

A couple of highlights were John Taylor dedicating the Melbourne concert to local music guru Molly Meldrum who had an accident at his home last year.  And Le Bon's lengthy band intros during the encore, for which the appreciative crowd cheered enthusiastically... especially when he ventured into the audience again and picked another lucky gal with an English accent to introduce him... "make sure it's a good one" he quipped!

So even though we were just a little too far away from the stage (14 rows, great seats) to get up close and personal with my 80s idols; to say my sister and I enjoyed the concert is an understatement - it was absolutely FANTABULOUS!  Not even the annoying Scotsman in the row in front of us pretending to be German(!) could dampen the great vibe at Rod Laver, (but that's another story NOT worth telling)!

So after all of the tra-la-la-la's, re-flex-flex-flex-ing, clapping, dancing (on the spot), singing, screaming and sweating (from all of the dancing), one thing is for sure - as one of the lines in DD's well known song goes, "Wild Boys always shine" - and that they did!

If only I could do it all again... sigh!

* Set List, Melbourne:
Before the Rain-Planet Earth-View to a Kill -All You Need Is Now-Blame the Machines-The Reflex-Come Undone-Safe-Something I Should Know-Girl Panic-The Man Who Stole a Leopard-Tiger, Tiger-Notorious-White Lines-Ordinary World-Hungry Like the Wolf-Sunrise-Wild Boys
[Encore] Girls on Film-Rio