AtDTDA: 18 A species of tarantella. [511]

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Kit found himself once again gazing across the saloon 
          at a young woman with a striking head of red hair, who 
          had just come in with a large party of performing Italians, 
          the kids already beginning to juggle the silverware, 
          somehow avoiding injury from the glittering edges and 
          tines, others to spin plates on the ends of limber wands,
          East Indian fashion. Nothing spilled, dropped, or broken, 
          flowers, birds, and silk scarves emerging from empty air. 
          The Captain got up from his own table to go and sit with 
          the family, whose patriarch genially reached behind his 
          ear to produce a glass full of Champagne with the foam 
          still on it, while the dinner orchestra struck up a species 
          of tarantella. The young woman was at once there and 
          somewhere else. Kit knew he'd seen her someplace. It 
          itched at the cornners of his memory. No, it was a little 
          more supernatural than that. They knew each other, 
          it's almost as if had dreamed it once. . . .

. . . .don't know how much this is serendipity, how much is my own will but a 
lovely SACD of Wagner's "Bleeding Chunks" [Szell, Cleveland, 1962 & 1968
originals, straight transfer [I ass-ume] to 2 channel DSD, single layer—why 
bother with the catalog #, it's dead on the water]. . . .

What do you know, music stopped playing. . . .

Anyway, it was the old love/death music from Tristan & Isolde.

I'd guess that the Zombinis might have more influence than I once assumed.

The ". . . .spin plates on the ends of limber wands, East Indian fashion. . . ."
reminded me of the old Ed Sullivan show. "Species of tarantella" is real cute,
here's three:

http://www.sicilianculture.com/folklore/tarantellan.mp3

http://www.sicilianculture.com/folklore/tarantellas.mp3

http://www.sicilianculture.com/folklore/tarantellac.mp3

          The tarantella (tarentule, tarentella, tarantelle, tarentelle, 
          tarantel) is a traditional, southern Italian dance of 6/8 or 
          4/4 time, characterised by the rapid whirling of couples. 
          There are several local variations of this dance, including 
          the Neapolitan, Sicilian, Apulian and Calabrian tarantellas. 
          It is led by a central singer/speaker. A tarantella is also a 
          song that can be played by instrumentalists. Sometimes 
          the word used for the song is taranta ("tarantella" is in fact 
          a diminutive dialectal form for "tarantula", a common kind          
          of spider).

          . . . .Regional variations on the tarantella abound, with the 
          versions from Naples and Sicily probably the most 
          widespread. This dance is a staple of some old-fashioned 
          Southern Italian weddings. 

          Despite some speculative accounts, there are no arachnids 
          known to have hallucinogenic venom*. Instances of dancing 
          mania however, have been explained as ergot intoxication, 
          or ergotism, known in the Middle Ages as "St. Anthony's Fire" 
          which is caused by eating rye infected with Claviceps purpurea, 
          a small fungus that contains toxic and psychoactive chemicals 
          (alkaloids), including lysergic acid (used in modern times to 
          synthesize LSD). Whether unusual psychological states caused 
          by these or other agents were sometimes mistaken for the 
          effects of spider bites is unknown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella

*Perhaps we can intrest you in some of these toads, instead?

          . . . .The skin and venom of Bufo alvarius (Colorado River 
          toad or Sonoran Desert toad) contain 5-MeO-DMT and 
          bufotenin. . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_toad

. . . .mix the Love/Death theme with intimations of tarantellism, together with 
the way Kit and Dally appear to each other—young love in full delusionary 
bloom and Whammo!—and then somehow. . . .