Imbalance of Trade
The Italians gave us fine art and fine architecture, fine film and fine fashion. In return, we gave them Kelly Clarkson.
“How y’all doin’ out there?” Clarkson hollered to the descendants of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Fellini.
Clarkson’s concert highlighted the Sunday evening celebration in Piazza Castello, the town square at the heart of the Turin Olympics. There’s a free party here each night, with fireworks, music and lights.
This is for the locals, who might consider the sporting venues distant and the tickets costly. This is for the visitors, who might otherwise miss out on the historic part of town, with classic plazas and cobblestone walkways and street vendors selling some of the best chocolate in the world.
This is for the athletes too. This is where they receive their medals, in a multimedia ceremony that precedes the nightly concert. With medals draped around their necks and flowers clutched in their hands, they can bask in the applause of thousands.
They can thank the crowd with a polite wave -- or, as U.S. speedskater Chad Hedrick and U.S. snowboarders Shaun White and Danny Kass did Sunday, with fist pumps.
We gave them Kelly Clarkson, and fist pumps.
Salt Lake City did this too, rolling a medals ceremony and concert into a nightly party. But the backdrop here drips of history, with fans waving flags from an old royal palace overlooking Piazza Castello, with the landmark Mole Antonelliana, the spired building so noticeable on TV, in sight.
Turin invites you to explore its history, without demanding it. Sunday’s ceremony included a short video highlighting the culture and nature in the city, and in the surrounding Piedmont region. The slogan, ever so polite: “Piedmont -- Pleased to Meet You.”
And, to be sure, the locals were pleased to meet Clarkson. McDonald’s is here, and so is Coca-Cola, but the Olympics can offer no greater testimony to the global dominance of American culture than Clarkson, a singer who rode “American Idol” to international fame.
Clarkson wore a U.S. Olympic team jacket, joked about knowing two words of Italian and got the crowd hopping to her hit singles. With temperatures dipping into the 30s, hopping around was a pretty good idea.
The Turin organizers call the musical portion of the festivities an “international concert,” and they reserved Saturday’s opening-night spot for legendary Italian tenor Andrea Boccelli. Italian artists are scheduled to fill about half the spots. Other international performers include Lou Reed, Whitney Houston, Canada’s Avril Lavigne and England’s Duran Duran.
The tickets are free, and so are some delicious snacks. The giveaways on Sunday included biscotti, the famous hard cookie; grissini, the local breadstick, and torcetti, a twisted sugar cookie.
We gave them Kelly Clarkson, fist pumps and Chicken McNuggets.
