When I was just a wide-eyed undergraduate doing a summer program in St. Petersburg in 1993, I spent the longest of the city’s famous White Nights in a countryside dacha, drinking heavily and speculating about Chekhov and the world. When we ran out of inane conversation topics I went out to a clearing on a hill in those woods and sat down and watched the sun dip obliquely across the sky, falling below the horizon for a brief hour or so, the unfamiliar white light of the sky never darkening even to a gray. Eventually I fell asleep on a bench in the dacha, awakening to another in a series of prosaic post-Soviet hangovers.
The celebration of white nights in Italy has nothing to do with any of this, being primarily celebrations of art (sometimes), commerce (often), and drinking. But that makes it no less fun to spend a midsummer’s evening out on the streets with music and wine and hordes of young people to all hours of the night. Tomorrow night, May 26, the White Nights come to Levanto.
So if you’re in the area, stop by for the fun. It promises to be a hot, wonderful weekend after a month of crappy weather, so the town should be rocking.
And remember what the great Lou Reed promised:
“White light, Aww white light it lighten up my eyes
White light, don’t you know it fills me up with suprise
White heat, Aww white heat tickle me down to my toes
White light, Aww white light I tell you now goodness knows, now work it.”
