Archive for Events
It’s summertime, and the time is right for doing something idiotic
Posted by: | CommentsPreposterous, ludicrous, and any other “ous”ly things that come to mind can happen all year long. But either the summer seems to produce more of them, like tomatoes and zucchini, or we’re more in the mood to read about them.
Here are some tidbits from the recent past, as reported by the faithful Gazzettino:
“THE FAMILY JEWELS IN THE BADANTE’S CAKE”
(Note: A “badante” is a paid caretaker, usually living with a little old person in need of assistance. They are mostly women, and mostly from Eastern European countries, not that that matters particularly to this or any other story).
“They wanted a piece of cake and instead they found a treasure. Too bad the treasure was already theirs and the cake was destined for somebody else. This is the grotesque misadventure of two residents of Castello, a mother and daughter, in what was supposed to be an ordinary domestic afternoon.
These ladies aren't in need of a badante yet. Maybe they're discussing alternatives, like having more children.
The culprit was a 50-year-old Polish woman who has been living in the district for some years….
“She seemed like a good person [said the daughter]; she stayed with my mother all day, sometimes she even spent the night. I trusted her completely from the very first; she did the shopping and cooking, and would take my mother out for walks.”
But one day the badante asked for money to buy the ingredients for two apple-cakes she wanted to make — one for the family, and one to send to her own people back in Poland. And so the cakes were made, and one was sent off to Poland.
The following afternoon — the badante’s day off — the mother and daughter decided to taste the cake…..which turned out to be fairly difficult to cut. ”It seemed like cement,” said the daughter.
Then the discovery: In place of the apples, the cake was full of her mother’s jewelry, necklaces and rings of gold. ”There was even my baptism necklace.”
The other cake had been sent to Poland by mistake.
It was an exquisite plan — the only thing lacking was execution. After all, there were only two cakes — it’s not as if there were hundreds to keep track of, like M&Ms. Anyway, that was the scene: What a lovely cake, let’s have tea and a large piece. The daughter takes the knife and cuts into it. Crunch. (Crunch?) And out come her mother’s 18-karat bibelots. Like party favors, only, you know, not. Not at all. I’m not sure how you say “D’oh!” in Polish, but the badante is probably going to be saying it for quite a while. If not to herself, to her folks back home who cut into their cake, imagining all the things they were going to buy with the money arriving via Betty Crocker, and who came up with nothing but jam and chopped walnuts.
I’m not sure which scene I’d rather have witnessed: The cutting of the wrong cake (either one), or the unsuspecting badante’s return home that evening. Not to mention the phone call from her family.
A tooth in the lung is no more mysterious than this wall, which someone decided was the perfect place to stick Chiquita banana labels. I'm thinking it's some kind of secret signal. The fact that some have been partially removed is extremely suspicious.
“A TOOTH IN HER LUNGS MAKES HER SUFFER FOR 24 YEARS”
“Instead of swallowing it, which would have been simpler, luck would have it that the little girl unconsciously inhaled her milk-tooth molar, which had come loose, at the age, presumably, of 10 or 11. She didn’t realize [that she had done this], but soon afterward began to complain of a pain in her lungs. It would come and go, more or less frequently, more or less intensely, up until a few days ago. Today the little girl is a 34-year-old woman, married and the mother of two children. And by chance the other day, the pain having returned, she had a bronchioscopy and the cause was discovered: a milk tooth. An intervention at the hospital at Dolo [16 miles from Venice], one good cough, and out came the tooth which had caused so much pain for so long.”
What makes me wonder about this woman isn’t that she inhaled her tooth — I suppose it could happen to anyone. What I can’t grasp is that she lived 24 years without investigating further. Did she think everybody has a pain in their lung? Did she never wonder about it at all? Or does it take that long to get an appointment at the radiologist? And if one of her children had a pain in his/her lung, would she have just said “Suck it up” (sorry) and leave it at that? I couldn’t put up with 24 years of anything, if I didn’t know what it was. Evidently curiosity went to Dolo to die.
“130 CITATIONS FOR TWO BARRELS”
There is a very cool restaurant in the Campiello del Remer, not far from the Rialto Bridge. It’s called Taverna Campiello del Remer and I can remember when this campo was pretty desolate. So I was glad to see that improvements began to be made a few years ago by unseen hands. The main accomplishment was the fixing-up of a brick vaulted former warehouse (it would appear to have been) to become this congenial little eatery. But there is no joy in the Campiello del Remer, because the police won’t stop giving the restaurant owner summonses.
This is the entrance to the restaurant. The two barrels are usually within the arch somewhere. This little patch of pavement doesn't appear to be public, but what do I know.
The nub of the problem is that commercial enterprises which occupy public space (think cafe tables on the sidewalk), have to pay a special tax. The space they are allowed to occupy is measured out and a record of these dimensions is kept in one of the city offices.
Emilio Farinon and Angela Cook, owners of the joint, put two big old wooden barrels (closed at both ends) outside the entrance. These barrels were intended to be useful as little tables where people could put their drinks and their ashtrays, much better than putting this stuff all over the ancient marble wellhead in the courtyard.
But somebody in the Campiello del Remer objects to the casks and has decided they must be removed because they are occupying public space illegally. (It’s really heartwarming to find that there is someone who takes the letter of the law so seriously around here. I wonder what they do for fun?). And so this person has taken to calling the police to come write out summonses for the alleged violation. This has happened 130 times in one year.
But not so fast, says Giorgio Suppiej, the owners’ lawyer. This is persecution, and a baseless one, because the square inches of soil upon which the hogsheads are sitting isn’t public, but private. So the summonses have no validity.
To demonstrate this fact, Suppiej has shown the Comune as well as the Court the Napoleonic Cadastre, the first ever to document the property limits of every building in the city. Suppiej then compared it to the subsequent version, and finally the one that is current today. ”In all of the maps,” he says, “the space, which is under a staircase, is shown as private.
“Furthermore, the Comune can’t say the space is public; we previously asked the Comune to grant the plateatico [authorization to use public space], a request which was rejected because the space is under a staircase, a rejection which was suspect because other spaces beneath a sottoportico [passageway under a house] have been granted the plateatico, and anyway, this isn’t a sottoportico, but a sottoscala [under a staircase].”
Speaking of occupying public space, I still haven't figured out who this little clan might have been, or why they felt the need to set up a makeshift playroom outside the Accademia gallery. It seemed to be on its way to becoming a small habitation, like something out of the Dust Bowl days. If they got a citation, I wasn't around to see it.
A city councilor, Renato Boraso, has added his booming notes to the chorus, and asked the mayor to justify what Boraso regards as the “excessive zeal” of the municipal police. [Didn't know they were prone to attacks of zeal, much less excessive ones. This is heartening indeed.]
“One hundred thirty citations isn’t something to underestimate,” he says. ”…It’s time to put an end to this persecution — we’ve reached administrative insanity and I’m going to ask for all the documentation and then send it to the Accounting office. The city is going to have to justify all the hours which the police have spent on pursuing the complaint of a private citizen who evidently knows somebody at City Hall, distracting them from their public duties.
“Furthermore, it appears to me that the night that those vandals tried to set fire to Marino, the old derelict, the police were in the office writing out their usual photocopied report on this.” I like this, not only because it shows the vivid contrast in importance between an attempt on someone’s life and a bureaucratic technicality, but because it implies that there were only two police on duty that night in the entire city. But I mustn’t get distracted.
Ernesto Pancin, head of the merchants’ association, also sees some anomalies in this conflict. ”I believe that businessmen ought to be rewarded, not punished, for their tenacity. In the case of the Campiello del Remer, before a business was established there, there were only drug addicts. I can guarantee that there are other cases which are flagrantly illegal but which inexplicably go unpunished.”
The Battle of the Barrels may, with all this publicity, have reached a turning point. Perhaps the anonymous protester will turn to pursuits of more evident public value, though I doubt it because this vendetta doesn’t have any significance to anyone but him or her. But if they’re still in the mood for persecution, I have a little list of offenses here that he or she could start on tomorrow. I could help.
There are specific ordinances prohibiting the degradation of the city's aesthetic aspect. But they don't appear to apply to certified works of art, which is what this decrepit boat from the Comoro Islands with its container most certainly is. I know this because it was moored outside the Biennale for months on end, till the boat began to fall apart. Evidently objects fraught with symbolism do not qualify as eyesores under the municipal edicts, while two barrels are intolerable. And isn't the water public space? Did they pay the tax?
The Redentore returns
Posted by: | CommentsThis past weekend we reached the summer’s festive culmination, the Feast of the Redeemer. But this year the routine was slightly different: No boat, no fireworks. Sounds like heresy, I know. It is heresy. I might as well just call it a club cookout and forget all the historical/traditional frippery.
Things have changed because now we’re in a different rowing club, and in a different place altogether in our minds and spirits. And while we could certainly take a boat and load it up with the usual bovoleti, watermelon, sarde in saor, pasta e fagioli, and all the other traditional noshes to get you from sundown to the fireworks, we just don’t feel like it.
One main reason we — and several other old Venetians I asked at random — don’t feel like going in a boat anymore is because of all the other boats. It’s one thing to be crushed amid swarming hordes of people ashore, it’s quite another to find yourself in the dark with thousands of large motorboats operated by people who are drunk and who don’t know how to drive. Obviously, this was not a problem when Lino and his cohort were growing up. It’s pretty hard to hurt anybody with a wooden rowing boat, at least not to the degree a big boat powered by 90 or 140 or more horses.
In fact — not to cast a pall over what I intend to be a jaunty little post — two young women who were aboard a motorboat zooming back to Chioggia after the fireworks have not yet made it home. Because the boat ran into a piling at high speed — just about every motorboat leaving Venice was going from fast to pretty fast to crazy fast — and one woman hit her head against the other woman’s head. The first woman lingered about a day, and is now in heaven. The other woman, who had snagged a ride home with them just on an impulse, is in the hospital recovering from various fractures. As for the driver/owner/ friends who were aboard, I don’t know what state they’re in, but two of the boys/men/whatever have fled. I tell you this only to indicate that I am not inventing notions about how dangerous it is out there. What surprises me is that disaster struck so few. Not much comfort to the families of all involved.
My first look at the morning's harvest made me wonder if there were any mussels actually to be found in the middle of this wreckage.
So Friday morning (Saturday night being the high point), Lino and I went to the club to help clean the mussels. A vast feast — probably more Rabelaisian than Lucullan — was planned, and our contribution was to do some of the prep work. Little did I know what ten tons of extremely wild mussels will do to your hands.
The set-up is simple. Take a mussel or clump of same from the big tub; remove the material covering it; throw the mussel into medium-size bucket, and the nameless material into the small bucket.
Forget how they look, in their just-scraped-off-the-pilings dishabille. They’re ghastly, I agree. Even I gave some serious thought to striking mussels off my must-eat list for, like, forever. But the ones we took home, all clean and shiny, were absolutely delectable. So you know, don’t judge a mussel by its encrustations.
But as you see, real mussels emerge from the rugby scrum in the big tub. These look almost edible. Rinsed and stirred around with a big wooden stick, they come out looking just like something you can't wait to eat.
After spending hours pulling and scraping off plant and all sorts of other matter, not to mention rending them from each other one by one, my hands felt as if I’d been pulling nettles. Three days later, a few fingers were still a little red and swollen. Now I understand why one of the men put on rubber gloves. I live, I learn.
A certain number of men got to cooking. There were great things to eat but there was also fifty times more than anyone could ever consume. Fried shrimp and deep-fried fresh zucchini and sarde in saor, the aforementioned mussels, grilled pork ribs and sausage and lamb chops and fresh tomatoes out of the garden in the back, and — I begin to lose the thread here — there was also something I’d never even heard of, much less tasted: deep-fried sage leaves. You can have your fried zucchini blossoms, I’m going to take the sage any chance I get.
The blackboard at the club says, and I translate: (L) "Menu: What there is." (R) On the occasion of the Redentore, Saturday we close at 12:00."
The table is set, the vases of basil are in place, ready (they say) to repel mosquitoes, and the view over the canal of San Marco toward the Lido cannot be surpassed.
After that the sheer quantity began to press down on my brain — I know I ate many more things, but I can’t remember what. At a certain point one of the wives pulled out a homemade frozen dessert called zuccotto. The recipe I looked up here makes it sound elegant, but what we ate were pieces that seemed to have been hacked off the Ur-zuccotto with a dull cleaver. And of course there was watermelon, which is utterly non-negotiable. You can skip a whole batch of things, but yes, there will be watermelon.
Crossing the votive bridge from the Zattere to the Giudecca, to the very feet of the church of the Most Holy Redeemer, always touches me.
We watched the fireworks from afar, enjoying the highest ones and intuiting the lower ones by the shimmering glow through the treetops. It was more comfortable than sitting in a boat right under them, but much less exciting. I don’t see the point in fireworks if the’re not going to be exciting. You might as well watch them on TV, or through the wrong end of a telescope, and wear earmuffs.
After the fireworks – or as they put it, “pyrotechnic display” — the countless motorboats began to stream homeward. The paper estimated that some 110,000 people came to party, but didn’t hazard a guess as to how many boats. There were so many they were tying up to public lighting stanchions, not at all a good idea.
We all sat there, sticky with watermelon juice, watching the migration. It was like the wildebeest at high speed, with big roaring mechanical voices, each with a little red light gleaming from its left flank.
Next day: The races. Now they were exciting. Lots of wind, lots of tension, lots of — unfortunately — waves. Something is going to have to be done, the racers can hardly row anymore. But that’s a subject for another day.
For those who are interested in a few more statistics, the spectacle (fireworks, etc.) cost about 100,000 euros. Doesn’t sound like much, I know — actually, I had the impression that the show was shorter than some other years.
The poppieri, or stern rowers, gather with the judge to draw lots for their positions on the starting line. They may look relaxed, but there are men whose hands are visibly shaking when they reach into the bag for their number.
Three of the nine gondolas begin to warm up, and head for the starting line.
The men and the boat can take it, but the wind and waves were something to contend with.
It was hard going for the pupparinos too.
The "cavata," or blast out of the starting gate (so to speak) can make a huge difference. Here, the "Vignottini" on the white gondola have shot to the front. In the last minute of the race, pink pulled past them.
The phenomenal Franco Dei Rossi, known as "Strigheta," finished fourth (he takes home a blue pennant) in the 34th year he's rowed this race. You cannot tell me that that is the arm of a 56-year-old man. And yet, it is.
Crimes of passion
Posted by: | CommentsThings are heating up here in an alarming manner, and I’m not referring to the Saharan heatwave that is currently sweeping the old Bel Paese and suffocating everybody’s capacity to think.
I’m referring to two recent spectacular homicides with distressing similarities, the kind one hears that judges in Provence excuse because of the effect of the mistral. Here, I’m not sure that the weather is considered an accomplice or not. But the girls are still dead.
These two tragedies demonstrate the most effective way to resolve your pain when your girlfriend breaks up with you. Not a new approach, but it works: You kill her, then yourself.
Both of these recent calamities happened on the mainland (sorry, no romantic canals into which to throw the body), but just a few miles inland, and the Gazzettino has been providing the details for days, even though virtually every element is pretty much out of the handbook.
Roberta Vanin (left) and her body being removed from Bio-Vita, her store.
Spinea is a small town in the Province of Venice about 10 miles from the Piazza San Marco, hitherto famous (I guess) for being the hometown of Federica Pellegrini, an Olympic swimming medalist. Spinea is like numberless other small towns on the mainland near Venice; what were once little villages stuck in the middle of fields of corn or wheat differentiated only by the belltower of their parish church, and now are larger settlements surrounded by roads, highways, and shopping centers, differentiated by nothing, not even their love-deranged inhabitants. I’ve been there several times to visit some of Lino’s relatives.
Now Spinea is stuck in my mind as the home of a certain Andrea Donaglio, a 47-year-old professor of chemistry, who was in love and lived with Roberta Vanin, 43; they even owned and operated a health-food store.
Anyway, she broke up with him, moved out, found a new boyfriend. He began to stalk her. He kept phoning her. He threatened her with a knife. (And then people start with the “We never imagined he could do such a thing.” Makes no sense in Italian, either.) She felt sorry for him. Her friends and family told her to get a restraining order against him. She didn’t.
So July 7, we pay our one euro for the Gazzettino to read the lead story: “He massacred his ex with 20 stab wounds.” (Later accounts raised it to 40, then to 60; it appears he used two knives, perhaps because the first one broke. Oy.) Then he tried to kill himself with a couple of stabs to the stomach, but he’s recovering. Physically, I mean.
"Death of Romeo and Juliet," by John Everett Millais (1848). Even in iambic pentameter, the onlookers say pretty much the things they say today: "What a waste."
So if this catastrophe is the pebble thrown into the pool, we now experience the ripples of the subsequent stories which go into all sorts of aspects of the situation from all sorts of points of view. There is the story about how the scene of the murder is now a sort of shrine, covered with flowers and notes and stuffed animals, then the story about the funeral and how many people were there — a thousand, anyway, because everybody knew them. The story about her as told by her friends, how wonderful she was. The story about him as told by his friends (or relatives) about how desperate and unhappy he was.
The one really unusual part of this whole horrible tale is the fact that Roberta’s parents declared that they forgave Andrea. This is as amazing here as anywhere else, and I want us all to stop and reflect on that for a moment.
Fabio Riccati and Eleonora Noventa.
A mere four days later, while all this was still boiling through the newspapers, another man decided to punish his girlfriend for leaving him. (I thought romances were supposed to end in September.) This happened at 9 in the morning on July 11 in a very small town, Asseggiano, a mere mile and a half from Spinea.
Fabio Riccati, 30 years old, had found the first girlfriend of his life, and they’d been seeing each other for six months or so. Eleanora Noventa, an only child, was evidently one of the sunniest and loveliest girls ever. Unfortunately, she was only 16. Maybe a tad young to have started up with him, but not too young to have realized she had to break it off. On Saturday she gave him the bad news and whatever little presents he had bestowed on her.
On Sunday morning, Fabio waited for her out on the street, expecting her to pass by on her bicycle. She stopped. They exchanged some comments. He pulled out a Magnum .357 and shot her three times, the last shot to the head. Then he shot himself in the heart.
I want to live somewhere where nothing ever happens. Nothing. Ever. And I never liked Romeo and Juliet, either.
Racing through Murano
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Murano is just ten minutes from Venice, but it's a whole other world. And not just because of all the glass, either.
If you’ve ever been to Murano, one of the world’s great glass-making centers, you will know that it’s impossible to race through it. You will be exhausted, but not because you’ve been going so fast; au contraire, you will have been plodding along at the pace of those debilitated galley slaves in Ben-Hur, going in and out of so many shops you’ll think they’ve been breeding in dark corners when you’re not looking. The five islands that make up Murano, of which you will probably only visit two, cover barely one square mile, and the Yellow Pages list 61 shops. I think there must be more.
Anyway, you will not have been racing. Unless it’s the first Sunday in July, in which you can come to Murano to watch other people race, and believe me, they’re going to be more tired in less time than you and your whole family after an entire day.
A glimpse of the leaders last year, heading from out in the lagoon into the Grand Canal of Murano and the home stretch.
The regata of Murano is really three regatas, each involving solo rowers, which calls not only for stamina but for skill. The races are for young men on pupparinos, women on pupparinos, and grown men on gondolas. It’s always hot, and there is always wind, and sometimes, like a few years ago, there can be sudden thunderstorms with pouring rain. But the race must go on.
Only about ten more minutes to go, and unless something extraordinary happens, at this point the positions aren't likely to change much. But they don't slack off, all the same.
The city of Venice organizes nine regatas a year, plus the Regata Storica. Each race is designed for a particular type of boat and number of rowers, and each is held in a different part of the lagoon, which means that the conditions and course present their own particular quirks. These changing venues also means that some are easier to watch from the shore than others, and the one at Murano is especially exciting not only because you can see both the start and the finish, but because there are good vantage-points along the fondamentas, and even a big cast-iron bridge from which to get a spectacular view of the finish.
The women on pupparinos are about 60 seconds from the finish line and it looks like the pink boat may still have a chance to overtake the white (2009).
Regatas (a Venetian word, by the way), have been an important feature of Venetian festivities since the Venetians crawled out of the primordial ooze; sometimes they were part of a religious celebration, or part of the myriad spectacles staged for the amusement of visiting potentates, but they were one-time events.
Luisella Schiavon -- from Murano, as it happens -- has a clear shot at first place at this point. She won last year, and this year, too. Being tall, as well as talented, makes a difference.
But in 1869, the regata at Murano was established as a regular annual event and not for any prince or pope but to entertain — yes — tourists. And whether or not tourists can look up for a few minutes from the heaps of glass necklaces and picture frames and flower vases, this race is arguably the most important occasion for a Venetian racer to show what he, or she, has really got. I can tell you that the man who wins the gondola race is universally regarded as having won something akin to Wimbledon, or maybe the Ironman Triathlon, or the Tour de France. Maybe all of them.
Here’s what it takes to win: Strength, stamina, skill, luck, and extreme and ruthless cunning. It also helps if you’re tall. It’s a physics thing; short rowers have a hard time keeping up with taller ones, though sometimes a short person has pulled it off, especially if he or she (I’m thinking of a she) is lavishly gifted with the aforementioned luck and cunning. Or just cunning.
My two most vivid memories of this race are from one of the earliest ones I ever attended, and the one from last Sunday. Both, oddly, involve a certain racer named Roberto Busetto.
Roberto Busetto last Sunday, crossing the finish line in third place just ahead of the yellow gondola. Victory is sweet, at least until you black out.
Mr. Busetto is strong — he looks like Mr. Clean, and he has biceps that make you think of whole prosciuttos. He is also experienced, and very determined (I’m not sure that he’s made it up to “ruthless”), but if anything ever upsets him during the race — even if it may not have prevented him from finishing really well — he can be counted on to show up for his prize yelling about it. In fact, there will always be something that’s wrong, and he goes all Raging Bull at the judges, at some fellow racer, at some onlooker, at anyone or anything that might have created even the tinest problem for him. Or who looks like they don’t care. It’s never easy to understand, in the midst of his tirade, what actually went wrong. But you know he’s mad.
Okay, Mr. Clean, let's just check those vital signs again.
The first time I saw Busetto at full throttle, he had barely crossed the finish line when he started ranting. It had something to do with what he claimed was some sneaky, illegal thing that another racer, Franco Dei Rossi, had inflicted on him, thereby preventing him from finishing better.
The confusion of boats immediately following the race doesn't usually include the ambulance. Last year it was just the usual suspects.
But it wasn’t his tantrum that stunned me, though I didn’t know at that point that tantrums are his normal means of expression, the way some people can’t help starting every sentence with “Well” or “You know.” It was the fact that under this deluge of outrage, Dei Rossi was sobbing as he mounted the judges’ stand to be awarded his prize. A grown man, one of the greatest (in my view) racers of his generation, son of one of the greatest racers in history, was standing there weeping uncontrollably. It was so astonishing and distressing that I know I didn’t imagine it, and I’m not exaggerating, either. I’m glad I didn’t have a camera with me, I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at the pictures. It really left a mark on me.
So we come to last Sunday. It’s Busetto again. He has been racing for at least 20 years, maybe more, but he had only a very brief peak, and that was quite some while ago. In fact, I’d have to stop and do some research to determine when was the last time he won a pennant. I think the Beatles may still have been together. (Just kidding; it was in 2000.)
But this year, he finished third. Which means he won the green pennant, which means that after a ten-year drought he had managed to pull himself back into the ranks of the demi-gods. Pennants are awarded to the first four finishers, and they really matter to the racers, almost as much as the cash prize.
This is what normal collapsing looks like -- here, Sebastiano Della Toffola has just finished his first race with the big guys. Franco Dei Rossi, a certified, gold-plated Big Guy, looks on with something that looks like comprehension.
Finishing third is pretty great, but about two seconds after crossing the finish line, he collapsed. First he sort of let himself fall down backwards on the stern of the boat, which isn’t so strange except that it’s usually the younger men who want to show how completely wrung out they are. It’s like when they throw their oar in the water (rage, joy, some other intense emotion — looks very dramatic, till you realize how dumb it is).
An excellent example of what incredible-victory collapsing looks like. Last year, like this year, first place went to Igor Vignotto. On the orange gondola both times. You may laugh, but this is how superstitions are born.
But then my friend Anzhelika said, “He’s too white.” Then I noticed that his boat had drifted slaunchwise across the canal, blocking the arrival of the last gondolas. Then there was some commotion, then the sound of the water ambulance arriving at full speed.
Much pouring of cool water on his head, much checking of his blood pressure. He tore himself away long enough to come pick up his pennant, annoyed (of course), though not yelling, because everybody was fussing over him. He likes attention, but nobody with arms like prosciuttos wants it to be because he fell apart.
But some things in life are bigger than prosciuttos, and rowing under the searing sun for 40 minutes at full blast if you’re not in astronaut-type physical condition is asking for it. “It” being an ambulance and a blood-pressure cuff, and lots of people suddenly looking at you like you’re some kind of invalid.
You know it’s serious when Roberto Busetto isn’t yelling.
Franco Dei Rossi (2009) in a more typical post-race moment: Smiling because he's won another pennant. In this case, a blue one for fourth place. Not at all bad in a field of nine, for a man who's drifting up on 60 years old.
This year's first and second-place finishers. Igor Vignotto on the left (red pennant) and Rudi Vignotto (white pennant). They were adversaries, but only sort of; not only are they cousins, but they have rowed together their entire lives.
The fourth-place pennant, clutched by a sweat-soaked Ivo Redolfi Tezzat. This is an especially nice design, with the rooster, the emblem of Murano, in the upper corner. If you've won this, though, you really don't care if it's a rooster or a wall-eyed vireo.
Then we all followed the scent of the scorching sausage and ribs to the local festa. This little girl out with her grandmother has the most astonishing pre-Raphaelite face. I just can't stand the thought of her growing up and walking around with a cell phone and tattoos and mutilated hair. Must be getting old.
Interested in the races? The ribs? The music? The thunderstorm about to shatter the sky into a billion sharp wet pieces? Not really. Here is an excellent demonstration of what these parties are for. The food and music are just ruses.
Saint Peter runs amok
Posted by: | CommentsAs you probably know, today is St. Peter’s feast day. And in this neighborhood, it really means something.
St. Peter by Carlo Crivelli (1473). Not looking particularly saintly here; those spectacular keys may be slightly more of a burden than a blessing.
I’ll bypass the cadenzas about the saint himself, though he has always been my favorite mainly because for most of his life there was nothing so saintly about him, except the part about his asking Jesus to cure his sick mother-in-law. That was cool. But then again, she must have been a saint as well. Imagine having Peter as your son-in-law. (Story about St. Peter’s mother in the next post).
The great thing about him is that before he became the Rock upon which the church was to be founded, he was just a working fisherman, which meant he probably smelled like fish — do they have algae in the Sea of Galilee? He probably smelled like that too — and I’m sure he had chilblains and smashed fingernails and feet that were more like hooves. If you want proof, I mention that he’s the go-to saint for people with foot problems.
Peter's feet, a detail from a limewood relief carving by Christoph Daniel Schenck (1685).
Peter's hands, a detail from a painting by Georges de la Tour (1615-1620).
More to the point, he had one superb quality and that was, as they say in Venice, that “What he had in his heart, he had in his mouth.” Impulsive, a little clueless sometimes, but spectacularly sincere and frankly never afraid to just put himself out there. (Pause for sound of many, many chips falling where they may.)
The posters are a bit redundant, since everyone already knows all about it.
Why I like him so much now isn’t merely all the above, but because he is the patron saint of the former cathedral of Venice, the church of San Pietro di Castello, which is just over the canal from our little hovel. And each year they put on one heck of a festa in his honor.
Like most festas, there is music, and food, and dogs and old folks and little babies and a big mass, and etc. But this one also has three regatas, the mass is celebrated byno less than the auxiliary bishop (the patriarch can’t ever be bothered to come to these things), and the party goes on for five solid days, by which I mean nights, too.
The juggler is working the audience into a frenzy. "Festa" is just another word for frenzy.
Attempting to kill your friend with your balloon sword is always entertaining.
Balloons that are not swords are also fun.
I have no idea what happened. One minute he was fine, the next minute he was hysterical. Festas seem to have that effect on little people.
What does this mean for us? Well, it means not only five days of the fabulous aroma of charcoal-scorched ribs wafting around the area, and not only five nights of inconceivably loud music audible from way over here, but five nights of all the festa-goers coming and going till 2:00 or even 3:00 in the morning. The main street to the church is right outside our bedroom window and of course our windows are open. Happy people going home always shout, I don’t know why.
So while Peter may be the patron saint of locksmiths (hint: he carries the keys to the kingdom) and butchers and cobblers (feet again) and other trades, including fishermen and netmakers and, naturally, the Papacy, for my money he is also the patron saint, at least in our neighborhood, of the deaf, the insomniac, the overtired and overstimulated (technically he’s the go-to saint for cases of frenzy, but people here like frenzy), and also the occasional Russian drunk.
The latter is a newcomer to the list, but at 4:00 AM last night whoever he was was wandering the streets, which had finally achieved slumber, calling out forlornly for Marco. Surprising how far your voice can carry at that hour.
I have no idea if he ever found him, but I’m really sorry that his friend wasn’t named Peter. That would have been so perfect I might actually have gotten up to help him look.
Maybe next year.
We rowed the auxiliary bishop and the parish priest to church for the big mass on Sunday morning.
We were preceded by the band from Sant' Erasmo. I have only ever heard them play two pieces, maybe three. They're never completely in tune, but they’re very loud, which is all that matters.
Two of the nine mascaretas rowed by women battling it out in the regata of the Marie (Marys). As always, the ladies were shrieking the most un-saintly remarks at each other. Of course, the men do too, but the women are much worse.
One of these ladies is trying to imitate the other.
Mass is over, now we can all go eat.
These guys must have to burn their clothes, after five days in the smokehouse.
Pitt stop
Posted by: | CommentsYou may have heard — or maybe you’re hearing it now — that several Venetian spring months were sparkled-up by the presence of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, here filming “The Tourist.” (Stuntman Vladimir Tevlovski was also here. Just thought I’ve give him a shout-out.)
But naturally the excitement was generally focused on The Jolie and also Brad Pitt, who seems to have come along to drink and eat things and get photographed around town with the kids. And perhaps to keep an eye on her and Johnny Depp, if some unkind comments are to be believed.
I’ve lived most of my life in cities where there are more celebrities than plumbers. And usually Venetians aren’t too easy to impress, even with the annual Film Festival and other big events that so excite reporters and editors. This “Hey buddy, you’re blocking the entrance” attitude is just another of the many similarities between Venice and New York, and just another reason why I love it here.
Hoping to illustrate the reason for Venetians’ general indifference to stars (”So who is that?” “It’s Al Pacino!” “It’s Heath Ledger!” “It’s Daniel Craig!” “Oh……”) I thought I’d add here the number of films which have been shot in Venice over the 100-some years that cinema has existed. But a complete list evidently has never been made. Listers tend to name only their favorites, which is a little annoying. Anyway, it’s a lot. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen at least six in progress, which isn’t all that many.
But in a bar/cafe/pizzeria behind the trees in the generally nondescript area known as Sant’ Elena, at least one barista hasn’t made any effort to be blase’.
The other morning I noticed that somebody had set up a little shrine to a moment of elation which will probably endure till the last person who knows who Brad Pitt was has been cremated and forgotten.
The note says: "Brad Pitt drank from this cup." The date is April 24, 2010. I'm sure it has never been, and never will be, washed.
Venice marries the sea: the bride was lovely
Posted by: | CommentsLast Sunday (May 16) Venice pulled what was once one of its greatest festivals out of storage for its annual exhibition: Ascension Day, or “la Sensa.”
The boat procession, having passed the Naval College, moves along the Lido shoreline toward the church of San Nicolo' and the ceremony of the blessing of the ring.
Up until the year 1000 A.D., if you’ll cast your minds back, the fortieth day after Easter had been primarily known as the commemoration of Christ’s ascension to heaven. It still is, but at the turn of the millennium the day took on large quantities of extra importance for Venice.
The day also became just as famous for the “Sposalizio del mare,” or wedding of the sea, a ceremony performed by the doge and Senate in the company of many boats of all sorts which all proceeded toward the inlet to the sea at San Nicolo’ on the Lido. At the culminating moment, the doge tossed a golden ring into the lagoon waters and intoned, “Desponsamus te, Mare, in signum veri perpetique dominii.“ (”I wed thee, O Sea, in sign of perpetual dominion.”)
The "Serenissima" pulls up to the judges' stand to put the doge -- I mean mayor -- and retinue ashore.
This statement had nothing to do with religion, even though it does sound impressive in Latin, right up there with “till death us do part.” It had much more to do with politics, because on Ascension Day in the year 1000 (May 9, if you’re interested), doge Pietro I Orseolo finally quashed the Slavic pirates who, from their eastern Adriatic lairs, had been harassing Venetian shipping and seriously inconveniencing Venetian progress.
This was a pivotal moment in Venetian history; it opened the way to centuries of expansion, wealth and power, and the Venetians wanted to make sure that all their assorted neighbors and trading partners and possibly also trading competitors remembered what they had done and could do again, if necessary.
For another thing, beginning in 1180 one of the largest commercial fairs of the entire year was held during the Ascension Day period. Merchants and traders from all over the Mediterranean and beyond set up booths in the Piazza San Marco to sell ivory, incense, ebony, oils of jasmine and sandalwood and bergamot, pomegranate soap, tortoiseshell back-scratchers, bath salts, mirrors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, dried figs and apricots, plant-based hair dyes, luxurious textiles, and even Abyssinian and Circassian and sub-Saharan slaves. All this was traded in languages and dialects from Venetian to Armenian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Greek, Turkish, German, Georgian, Iberian, Arabic, French and Persian. I’m sure I’ve left something out. This fair was such a big deal that soon it was extended from eight days to two weeks. Yes, even back then the city was just one big emporium, though incense strikes me as being cooler than the bargain Carnival masks made in China bestrewing the shops today.
A flea market by the church of San Nicolo' is the best we can do at evoking the fabulous market of yore.
I don’t suppose that the average Venetian on the street would have told you much of the above if you’d stopped to ask what the big deal was about the Sensa. But a smallish contingent of people have applied themselves, since the early Nineties, to bringing back at least some ceremonial in order to acknowledge the moment .
Need a lampshade with a portrait of Audrey Hepburn or Charlie Chaplin? Now's your chance.
I wonder if any merchants from the old days would have been tempted by these.
So yesterday morning there was a boat procession, more or less following the “Serenissima,” the biggest and fanciest of the city’s ceremonial barges which was carrying the mayor (best we could do, seeing as we’re dogeless these days) and costumed trumpeters and a batch of military and civilian dignitaries and also a priest.
At the Morosini naval college at Sant’ Elena, all the cadets were ready and waiting, lined up along the embankment. Standing crisply at attention with their hats in their right hand, on command they raised their hat-holding arm straight out at a sharp 45-degree angle, and shouted with one voice “OO-rah.” They did this three times in succession, then there was a pause. Then they did it again. They do this at intervals till the boats have all passed.
For my money, this is the best part of the event, much better than the ring-and-sea business. In fact, I’m convinced that if the cadets were not to do this, it would ruin the entire day.
The boats surround the "Serenissima" as the declamation(s) proceed.
The boats then proceed to the area in front of the church of San Nicolo’ on the Lido, where they clump together, the priest blesses the ring, and the mayor throws it into the water. One year our boat was close enough that I took somebody’s dare and actually managed to snag it before it sank (all the ribbons tied to it momentarily helped it to float). Then I had a heavy surge of superstitious guilt. Even if it wasn’t gold — it was kind of like what you’d use to hang a heavy curtain — it was a symbolic object fraught with meaning. I wondered if I’d just blighted Venice’s mojo for another year. But I didn’t throw it back — that seemed even stupider than grabbing it in the first place. So, you know, my disrespect just left another ding on the chrome trim of my conscience.
The first three gondolas, battling it out in the back stretch.
Then there is a boat race — in this case, a race for gondolas rowed by four men each. In Venice the celebration of really important events always involved a regata, and when this festival began to take form, Lino created this one. Yesterday the competition was somewhat more dramatic than usual in that a strong garbin, or southwest wind, was blowing, and it was also really cold. Lots of big irritated waves. Strong incoming tide. All elements that do not conduce to easy victory or friendly handshakes afterward, not that these guys are ever inclined to that sort of thing. But it made for a very exciting 40 minutes — better than usual, if you could stand the cold.
Heading into the home stretch, they held onto third place, well ahead of their closest competitors.
So much for the festivities, so much for the wedding of the sea. No honeymoon, though. We just move on to another 12 months of trying to dominate the sea. Not with galleys anymore; Venice seems to be doing a pretty good job with the ever-increasing flotilla of cruise ships.
Carnival: mopping up
Posted by: | CommentsYou thought Carnival was over with the sprinkling of the ashes on penitential hairdos? Not quite.
Carnival doesn’t slink away under cover of darkness when the marangon, the basso profundo bell in the campanile of San Marco, tolls midnight on Martedi Grasso. Two things have to happen for it to really be over — in my opinion, that is. Two things which are more predictable than the swallows returning to Capistrano.
One of the regular car ferries is engaged for the carnival trucks.
The first is the pulling apart and hauling away of the traveling amusement park (what they generically call a “Luna Park” here) which has been gracing the Riva dei Sette Martiri since — I believe — early December.
These people (as in much of the world) are almost exclusively families which have dedicated many generations to the setting up, operating, pulling down, and rolling on to the next location of their ride or concession stand.
After three months, I’m going to miss the smell of the hot-doughnut-frying-oil and the screeching of the children. It was fun strolling along the waterfront late every afternoon to mingle and kibitz. And I am convinced that as long as there is at least one small child walking home carrying a small plastic bag containing water and a goldfish, the world will not come to an end.
All this concentrated traffic is a lot to ask of a stretch of walkway which is made of small stones atop packed damp sand.
Anyway, the men start work early on Ash Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning the funfair is gone. The only sign they’ve ever been here are the patches of new cement filling the holes in the pavement where their big rigs (or something) went astray.
Speaking of itinerant carnies, I went to the small town of Bergantino a few years ago when I was working on a story about the Po River (National Geographic, May, 2002). This former farming town has, since the Twenties and much more since the Sixties, become dedicated to the design, construction, and (eventually) operation of carnival rides – merry-go-rounds, bumper cars, etc. Despite the town’s modest size — it’s really just a village of some 2,000 people, when they’re all there, I mean, and not out on the road — they’ve carved away a heavy slice of this international industry for Italy. One of the major markets for their inventions is the USA.
Well, wherever they’ve gone, I’m already missing them.
The second element of the end of Carnival is the orgy of articles, editorials, and letters in the Gazzettino reviewing, celebrating, and vilifying the festivities just concluded. I can tell you without even having opened the paper that there will have been too many people for this fragile city to support; that the managing of this predictable overload will have shown inexcusable organizational flaws and failures to resolve the most elementary large-event necessities (toilets, in a word); that the money taken in doesn’t justify the stress and expense to the city; that it will have lacked originality and creative genius, and that for the residents and shopkeepers of Campo Santa Margherita, the ten days just concluded have been nothing less than at least six of the nine rings of hell.
And every year, the apex of all the claims and counter-claims: That this event would be (or ought to have been, or next year definitely will be) the “Carnival of the Venetians.” I saw Venetians having a fine time carnivalizing in their own modest way in various neighborhoods of the city, but not in the Piazza San Marco. I’d have given you a cash prize if you’d found any Venetians besides Lino in the Piazza San Marco.
Going-home time near San Marco. I count eight launches ready to load up and head back to the mainland, and this picture is only one third of the traffic panorama. This traffic is not composed of Venetians.
So when this wish to involve Venetians is mentioned, as if it were obviously a good thing, I ask myself if the speaker believes that a “Carnival of the Venetians” would have the slightest probability of pouring the millions of euros into the municipal strongboxes that all those tourists do. After all, Venetians don’t spend money on hotel rooms, restaurant meals, fancy masks, or whatever else makes Carnival matter. So frankly, what would be the point of spending money to organize a ten-day carnival for the few remaining locals? Just wondering.
Let’s go to the videotape (so to speak). Here is a smattering of the Gazzettino’s overview of Carnival 2010, as published yesterday:
The organizers claim that 150,000 people came the first Sunday; 250,000 the second Sunday (let that sink in…) and 40,000 on Martedi Grasso. Altogether, they say a total of 800,000 people came to Venice during Carnival. Perhaps not much compared to Rio, but for a city that covers a mere three square miles, not bad.
They estimate that each visitor spent 50 euros, for an exciting total income of 40 million euros. Not sure where this number came from; a professor of the Economics of Tourism at the University of Venice says that the “bite and run” day-trippers spend an average of 30 euros each day, while the more solid tourist spends 150. In any case, let’s not quibble over a million more or a million less. Restaurants and hotels certainly made money, not to mention the ACTV and their spectacularly expensive vaporetto tickets.
One new comment is by the businesspeople (especiallythose of restaurants and cafes) in the Piazza San Marco — they don’t want a maxi-stage there anymore. I’m not sure why, but I imagine it’s because it takes up too much space which needs to be available for them to put out their tables and chairs.
I could go on, but it’s probably not that interesting. These few days following Carnival are mainly spent in a sort of emotional and mental scrubbing and disinfecting.
I am going to miss this, though.
The summary is fairly concise. Apart from numbers, claims, and counter-claims as to success or failure, as one reporter wrote, “Now the Venetians can give a deep sigh of relief and put their hands on their foreheads and say, “‘Once again we’ve lived through it.’”
Ash Wednesday
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Carnival was definitely over early for the family who owns this tobacco shop; the sign on the door says they're closed for mourning. The blind left askew on the door emphasizes the point. And all that cheerful confetti has been swept up by the trash squad and left right here. Still feel like partying?
It’s not as if the city goes into mourning when Carnival is over (the merchants are too busy with their calculators to feel sad), but if you had gone out with me for a walk this morning, you wouldn’t just feel that something was missing (like, say 100,000 people). You would have the distinct sensation that you were at the bedside of a patient whose fever had finally broken and was sleeping peacfully.
A tranquillity comes over the city that is nothing less than miraculous. All that’s left to do is to clean the room and change the sweat-drenched sheets. So to speak. (I do hear some desultory sweeping going on outside.) And now we can see the simple, austere, monochromatic 40 days of Lent stretching before us.
Here’s what I won’t miss: The mighty force of the touristic masses being sucked into the city’s gullet as if through some colossal straw. The wall of humanity blocking entire streets, a good number of which had to be organized as strictly one-way. The incessant rumble of the launches hauling and re-hauling loads of countless people from the mainland to San Marco, not to mention the choking poison of their engines’ exhaust as they idle by the Fondamenta degli Schiavoni waiting for the next batch.
Here’s what I will miss: The neighborhood in full frivolity, the kids of all sizes in all sorts of costumes, their entourages of relatives, doting or beleaguered as they may be. And — you know what I’m going to say — the fritole and galani.
Lent personified during Carnival; detail from "The Battle between Carnival and Lent (Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1559).
Food seems to be the standard by which every human experience is measured here, and now we’re supposed to get serious. The list of (technically) forbidden goodies for the next month and ten days is well known and can be fairly detailed. But I narrow the “forbidden” list to two items: Fat and sugar, which means no more fritole or galani (sob). And you are expected (technically) to pretty much give up on meat, at least on Ash Wednesday and Fridays.
In this officially Catholic country where hardly anybody (it is said) goes to church anymore, today the butcher shops are closed. You’re supposed to eat fish. Or nothing, I suppose — maybe you get extra points for fasting, which wouldn’t hurt anybody after the gorge-fest we’ve been through.
We stopped by Marcello the butcher yesterday, looking for a cheap steak to eat before the culinary window slams shut on our fingers. He was busy doing brain surgery on a batch of chicken breasts so we watched his deft slittings and peelings and trimming while waiting our turn. Now that I think of it, it’s not so much brain surgery as couture tailoring.
Lino said, “I’ve always loved watching butchers work on meat. It’s a real art.”
“All the work that artisans used to do were arts,” Marcello replied. ”I used to love watching the baker making bread. He could twist and tie and arrange it in all sorts of shapes. You don’t see that anymore — now it’s all stamped out by some kind of form. I’d stand there for hours to watch him.”
“You going to be closed tomorrow?” Lino asked, not having noticed the handwritten sign in the window saying “Closed Tomorrow.”
“Yes,” said Marcello. “It used to be that on Ash Wednesday all the butchers would be closed. The butchers, and the salumieri [butchers who work only with pork], and the pastry-makers. Those were the only ones to close, and we still respect that.”
No need to have mentioned the pastry-makers: it’s obvious. They are the CENTCOM of fat and sugar. They also must be worn out by now.
Even if nowadays anybody can go to the supermarket on Ash Wednesday and buy chops and ground beef and veal brains and so on, it wouldn’t really be in the spirit of the day. We’re hanging tough with vegetables, mostly. So healthy, so spiritually fortifying.
While we’re thinking of food, have you ever noticed that fasting, instead of clearing the mental decks for you to contemplate matters of the soul, usually has the opposite effect? That’s something to meditate on when you run out of repentance.
Meanwhile, we ate seppie in their ink tonight with polenta made the old-fashioned way (40 minutes of constant stirring). The seppie were so fresh that they practically smiled at us from their plastic bag — Nardo the fisherman had struck again, and we scored his last two. Technically the menu was well within the Ash Wednesday rules, but we totally violated their spirit — it was outrageously good.
I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to repent of that too.
Carnival: time to go home
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The entire Piazza San Marco was spangled with confetti. It was like laughter all over the ground.
I’m writing this on Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday) but I feel the hot breath of Lent on my neck. People with suitcases heading toward the train station and airport have been filling the vaporettos since this morning, even as the tourist launches continue to haul their loads of fun-seekers from Punta Sabbioni (where their big buses don’t have to pay any fees) back and forth across the Bacino of San Marco to the Piazza San Marco.
We went to the Piazza this afternoon to watch the official presentation of the Maria who won first prize, blue ribbon, grand cru, or whatever they give her. It was boring. What was more amusing were some of the costumes, as well as the massive lion of San Marco, complete with requisite book under upraised paw, made entirely of plant material — fruit, vegetables, leaves and fronds and huge lashings of imagination.
This fantastic lion of San Marco is composed of red apples, purple cabbages, laurel leaves, and carrots. He's also wearing a red-apple mask, which is kind of cool.
An example of the standard, often rented, luxury costume. Nice, but not very imaginative.
I don't have any idea if she made this or bought it, but it's one of the best masks I've ever seen.
Infinitely more fun: Somebody's version of Papageno (center), Papagena (left) and I can't remember exactly who, carrying the magic flute.
I'm dazzled not only by their imagination, but their patience. I'd never take the time to stick all those feathers onto my clothes, much less in my hair.
Then we were back in via Garibaldi for the free fritole and galani that local restaurateur and personality Lucio Bisutto arranged for some local club to give out. That old saying, “Build it and they will come”? Here, it’s “Put free food on a table and they will come.” The little old ladies are always the first; they’re like circling buzzards who can sense dying prey.
