signs and wonders

“BUONGIORNO BELL’ANIMA!!” Good morning, beautiful spirit!  This ebullient greeting been up for several years, and it always gives me a boost, although I’ll never know how this relationship developed. The two persons involved know who they are.  I do hope they’re happy.

There are 20,000 entries under “Venice” on amazon.com.  (I’d have thought there were more, actually.)  But that’s only the English-language site.  Amazon Japan lists “over 6,000.”  In any case, whatever your language, Venice is going to be there somehow.  Histories, novels, travel guides, poetry, cookbooks, memoirs and, for all I know, limericks and postcards and old flight boarding cards.

Add to that mighty flood the tributary streams of academic studies and research and theses, the reports from national and international committees, the torrents of daily news and opinion pieces and blogs.  Anyone during the past millennium with a brain and a pencil seems to have written something about Venice and there is no end in sight.  It would appear that you cannot be a warm-blooded, live-young-bearing creature that is alive who has not written something about Venice.

But within this Humboldt Current of ideas and facts and fantasies there are plenty of other thoughts and feelings that flow through daily life here.  Letters to the editor are fine, but it’s much simpler (and cheaper) for the vox populi to make itself heard through signs.  These come in all sorts of ways, but they’re everywhere.

There are the personal messages from the heart.  The heart above is in wonderful shape, but there are many that aren’t.

“Unhappy with a lamentable smile.”  I wonder if the smile is easily identifiable as lamentable, or if it’s a cheerful smile hiding a broken heart (thus qualifying as even more lamentable).  Cue the music: “Take a good look at my face, you see my smile is out of place, if you look closer it’s easy to trace the tracks of my tears…”  Thank you, Smokey Robinson.  It would be hard to get all that on a wall, so we’ll hope this person’s smile has improved.
On a much less poetic note comes this rage-graffito that has been on this wall for a few years now.  “Drug-addicted lesbian slut infected with nymphomania.” I wonder if it made him feel better.  I can only hope so.  Wow.

Neighborhoods bubble with exasperated reminders of some basic rules of civility, in varying degrees of sharpness.  One eternal theme is dog poop.

The offended party has put this where everybody walking north (or, briefly, east) is sure to see it.
“The campiello is not your dogs’ toilet.  Be ashamed.”  A common complaint, always heartfelt, always futile.
Same problem expressed a little more elegantly here.
“Do you love your dog?  Take his crap home.  We didn’t throw our kids’ used diapers on the street but we took them home.  Think about it.”  It seems odd to equate love for your dog with basic politeness to humans; the dog certainly doesn’t equate love and poop.  But the emotion is the point and yes, it’s true, it would be just as bad to dispose of diapers in a similar way.  But, unhappily, here public spaces don’t belong to everybody, they belong to nobody, so the good times keep rolling.  Note also that this neatly printed message has been inserted into a sort of thick plastic envelope that has been nailed to the wall.  Not for this person a few strips of tape — this reprimand is intended to last.
The notice-leaver has made an equally eloquent point by creating and installing this wedge of wood.  It needs no sign to get its message across: “This surface is no longer flat because if it were it would immediately become a mini-garbage heap.”   I can promise you that if it were available, it would be stacked with abandoned Coke bottles, gelato-cups, crumpled napkins, half-empty cans of beer, maybe some squashed juiceboxes, a couple of candy wrappers, and whatever else could be made to fit until it fell over.  The guardian of this space isn’t appealing to your better angels here, he/she/they are just getting the job done.
It just never ends.  “It was beautiful but unfortunately it lasted only a little while,” the notice begins.  Evidently the previous appeal had some effect, but not for long.  “To the owners of dogs … You are prayed” (literally — it’s like “prithee”) “to continue to collect the turds of your dogs.  The streets also of  Castello will be more dignified!  Doing this will bring respect to your beloved dogs because you care for them even outside your house and you also respect the people who lived along your route.  Thank you.”  And just when you thought that defecation was the dog’s only transgression, just wait.
The ladies who have taken our previous doctor’s space for their studio/workshop are also not amused by canine functions.  And their approach leaves the homespun “Be ashamed” far behind as they prepare to throw the book at the guilty: “This is not a toilet for dogs!!!  To permit your dog to piss on the walls of buildings could qualify as the crime of soiling (public walls) that is punishable under Article 639 of the Penal Code.”  That’s quite a cannonball to fire at a dog-owner.  The crime referred to here is the one usually committed by hooligans with spray-cans of paint, so yes, one could conceivably draw a certain parallel.  But I have to stick up for the dogs here.  Where are they supposed to go?  I can understand owners needing to carry away their dog’s poop, but must they race to get their pooch to the nearest tree?  The normal resolution of the dirty-wall situation is a bucket of soapy water, reinforced with bleach, if you want.  I think the Penal Code has bigger problems to solve.  Get a life, ladies.  And a bucket, like everybody else.

On to the hazards of maintaining a small earthly garden in the street.

Did you know that plants can also create problems?  Or rather, the people around the plants.  It has not been a good day at the oasis.
“Wreck the plants, tear off the flowers, leave the dog crap on purpose outside this door, I feel sorry for your sad life.  (If you’re frustrated, I advise you to see a psychologist.”)  Too bad the crap had to remain on the list of infractions, but there’s just no getting away from it, even in a dismembered conservatory.
These little doorway groves have, not to put too fine a point on it, broken several ordinances, but “live and let live” has been the operating philosophy here for quite a while.  Until one day, it wasn’t.  Somebody didn’t want to let live.
“For the thief (feminine or masculine forms of the word, just to be comprehensive) that steals the plants and flowers outside my house: The flowers can be replaced, but dignity NO!  (You are) persons whose spirits are poor” (as in threadbare).   I regret the flowers, but at least this time dogs aren’t involved.

On a happier note, there is a little old man named Valerio who continued to work in his carpentry shop for decades, or perhaps eons, considering how extremely old he looks.  But he kept at it until one day…

A telltale blue ribbon appeared on his door, next to his workshop. A baby boy!
It simply says “Great-grandfather Valerio Vittorio is born.”

Not many days later, a sign appeared on the workshop door:

“Carpenter Valerio is no longer working. PLEASE (literally, “one prays”) do not disturb. Thank you.”  Yes, Vittorio was the signal that it was time to clean out the workshop and put away the tools.  And Valerio has been doing just that.  Great-grandfathering is a full-time job.

Tourists do not pass unobserved.

Not far from the train station is this remark, followed by two rejoinders.  It’s probably a political statement of some kind.  I can tell you that no one with a hotel, bar, cafe, restaurant, or shop selling anything would be likely to express this thought, especially after the months of pandemic lockdown.  But free speech is thriving.
If the tourist doesn’t know not to sit on a bridge to eat, this shop will make it clear.  “No Pic Nic Area.”
The fundamental problem is that there is are too few places except the 436 bridges on which to sit to munch your slice of cold pizza or assorted carry-out comestibles from the supermarket.  It is true that many (not all) campos have at least a few benches, though it is also true that bridges are the ideal perching places.  But you’re blocking the traffic, for one thing, and for the other, you look like vagrants, huddled on the steps wrestling with prosciutto slices and bags of potato chips.

So much for signs for tourists.  For locals, almost no details are necessary for communication:

A few years ago this was posted at the door of the church of San Francesco de Paula.  “Finished (or almost) the repair/restoration work.  Monday 12 September the patronato reopens at the usual time.”  That’s right: The usual time.  If you don’t know when that is I guess you don’t belong there.  Note: The patronato is what you might call the parish hall/playground/sports area of the parish.  Every church has one, and scores of activities take place there for the children of the congregation.  Not to have the patronato available after school is a major problem, so this is good news.

On a similar neighborhoodly note:

“On Sunday 30 morning we’re closed.  You’ll find that Antonella is open.”  There is no sign outside her tobacco shop that says “Antonella.”  You just have to know.

Moving into the realm of city government, or lack thereof, the Venetians in our neighborhood (and others, I can assure you) have plenty to say.  The comments tend to run along the following lines (and I’m not referring to clotheslines):

I have seen a man wearing a few of these; I am assuming he also made them.  All hung out to dry together, they make quite a screed.  Written in Venetian (L to R): “After the barbarians came to Venice the politicians arrived to destroy her.”  “Long live motondoso thank you mayor.”  “Topo Gigio Brigade.”  You may recall the little puppet named Topo Gigio who appeared several times on the Ed Sullivan variety TV show.  Gigio is the nickname for Luigi, which also happens to be the name of the current mayor, Luigi Brugnaro.  He has no fans in Venice, let me just put it that way.
Being compared to either a rat or a children’s toy is not what most mayors aspire to, I’m pretty sure.

Continuing with the runic messages delivered by T-shirt:  “Venice is an embroidered bedspread.”  This one is complicated and I have no hope of clarifying its evidently metaphorical significance.  I do know that there is a song that begins “Il cielo e’ una coperta ricamata” — the sky is an embroidered cover, which is lovely.  Is the intention to say that Venice is as beautiful as an embroidered cover?  I think there is some irony here, but it eludes me.  Maybe I’ll run into this person again (I saw him at the fruit-vendor one afternoon) and I can just ask him.  Meanwhile, on we go.

“Venice is a casin thanks politicians.”  A casin (kah-ZEEN) is a brothel, where gambling also went on, and sooner or later tumult ensued.  And not tumult of any polite, Marquess of Queensberry sort.  It’s now the usual word for any situation that entails chaos, perhaps danger, racket and rudeness.  It appears to many that Venice is speeding downhill with no brakes (again, motondoso comes to mind) and nobody at the wheel.  Some people also refer to the city as “no-man’s land.”  Literally everybody is doing whatever they want, and the result is pure casin.

Lastly, “Venezia is dead Thanks politicians and Gigio.”

While we’re talking about citizens’ discontent….

A group calling itself C 16 A (abbreviation of Coordinamento 16 Aprile) was formed to condense the general consensus of thoughts regarding the problems of the city.  This was in preparation for a vast gathering planned for 16 April this year on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Special Law for Venice.  The common goal was identifying the myriad ways in which the city has wasted its opportunities since then.  “AAA cercasi” is the customary code for when you want to place a notice seeking something or someone at the top of an alphabetical list.  These notices are looking for:  “A mayor of Venice who lives in Venice.”  (Luigi Brugnaro lives in Spinea, on the mainland.)  “Businessmen who don’t behave like predators.”  “Landlords with their hand on their heart and not only on their wallet.”

And this handwritten cri de coeur summarizing the profound crisis in the public health system.  The people of lower Castello are persevering in their apparently hopeless struggle to obtain a reasonable supply of doctors:

Residents in Castello:  “9354 and only 4 doctors.  Age groups over 65 years old.  (Note that there are 215 residents who are 90 or older.)  People over 65 years old have chronic pathologies, are not self-sufficient, suffer from social isolation, economic distress, lack of family members, defective social services.”  There are not enough “basic doctors.”   The basic doctor is assigned to you by the public health service and is paid by it.  Many doctors are retiring, so a huge hole is opening up in the near future.  Let me say that there is a reasonable number of doctors, but the number of those that want to practice for the public health system is too small.   A doctor with 1,500 patients assigned to him/her (it’s the case with our doctor) earns roughly 52,500 euros ($56,000) per year.  They also usually have private practices, but still.  One can see the lack of incentive.  Meanwhile, the aging population needs more care than it’s getting.  The city is trying to encourage doctors, I don’t know how, to stay on even after they turn 70 years old.

There are also signs without words that hint at approaching events or persons.

In a word: Carnival. It started early last year by the eager tiny hand of a tiny person.
Did you know that Christmas is coming? These men know it, because this morning they began to string the holiday lights in via Garibaldi and environs. Exactly two months in advance seems like a lot of time, but if there are only four men assigned to it, better get going early.  (If you don’t make them out, the strings of lights are being drawn down the surface of the stone gatepost in a triangular Christmas-tree pattern.)
The strings of lights are another reason for the early start. You thought the tangled mass that lives in your basement or attic is an irritating start to the holiday season? These men have quite the little assignment facing them.

An approaching event I never thought I’d see.  The city’s greatest housewares/hardware store having its final sale before closing.  They tried to keep going after Covid.  They stayed open all day (as opposed to closing in the early afternoon, like every reasonable store used to do).  Then they stayed open all week.  Unheard-of.  It wasn’t enough.  I can’t tell you how bad this is.  I haven’t gone by recently to see what’s taking its physical place; not much can replace something so great.  It used to be that useful stores (butcher shop, fruit and vegetables, etc.) would suddenly begin to sell masks or Murano glass.  Now they will be either a restaurant or bar/cafe’.  That’s my bet for the once-great Ratti.

“Selling everything!  Discounts!”  They make it sound like something wonderful.  It was more wonderful without the “closing” posters.  I have been informed by sharp-eyed readers that Ratti has reopened in not one, but two locations not far from the Rialto Bridge.  This is news of a goodness one doesn’t receive every day, so I am really glad to know they have found a way to keep going.  And yes, I should make a point of buying something there, otherwise all my glad words aren’tt worth the electrons they’re written with.
The bar/cafe’ “Magna e Tasi” in Campo SS. Filippo e Giacomo near San Marco used to draw these lines on the wall with a Sharpie.  They decided to make these indications of acqua-alta calamity more legible, and elegant.  And waterproof.

The arrival of certain foods are reliable harbingers of seasons or events, though seeing clementines for sale in October is not normal.  But this is absolutely the moment for torboin (tor-bo-EEN).

This is Venetian for “The torbolino has arrived white and red.”  In Italian it would be “E’ arrivato il torbolino.”  This is a sign of the progress of autumn, as demijohns arrive from Sant’ Erasmo loaded with the first drawing-off of the new wine (otherwise known as “must”).  One expert explains that “It is usually from white grapes, not completely fermented, turbid, lightly sparkling and amiable.”  It is the classic accompaniment to roasted chestnuts.  So it’s good news!
One of my all-time favorites was this sign in a window of a bread bakery in Campo Santa Margherita.  The owner is making this retort in Venetian to his cranky customers who annoy him with complaints that he (like many merchants) had begun to charge a pittance for the once-free plastic shopping bag for carrying their purchase.  “Notice to my clients: “The shopping bags are terrible-as-the-plague expensive and don’t hold up worth a dry fig.   So if you put in your purse a shopping bag that lasts a lifetime, 10 cents here and 15 cents there at the end of the month you’ve saved (money).  THANK YOU.”

In a class by itself is this astoundingly inappropriate offer of a room with perhaps an undesirable view.

“A 50-year-old man will share with a girl or working woman a sunlit apartment near the Santa Marta vaporetto stop, a single bed in a small room.  The place is made up of a liveable kitchen” (meaning large enough to eat in), “a little living room and two bedrooms of which one is already occupied.  Contact Francesco…”.  Cringe!  Unless you’re a student and really, really need to be near the University of Architecture, which may be what Francesco is counting on.  Someone has added the word “porco” — pig.  Went without saying but it’s still good to see.  I wonder if he just forgot to mention a bathroom, or if it’s down the hall.  Of the building next door.

Above the chorus of voices on the walls there come a few magical notes from mysterious poetic souls.

“I dreamt I could say something with words,” wrote someone who either is from England or was taught by someone speaking the King’s English.  The answer is strangely poignant.  “Yes.”  I love this person as much for having to squeeze in the last-minute “g” as I do for the response.  One sometimes wonders why certain places are chosen for these messages.  Behind a fountain at the Rialto Market doesn’t immediately suggest poetry, but fish and mushrooms don’t seem to clash.
“I love you for all of my life.”  Dez and Ruez plighted their troth near the Rialto Bridge and while graffiti aren’t to be encouraged, this is really nice.  Far better than the “Bomb the multinationals” sort of thing that students like to spread around.
On a wall near the church of San Isepo.  Not quite this faint in real life, but pretty near.  And to the right of the design you can barely make out an important three-word message.
“Gioia per tutti.” Joy for everyone.

So by all means stroll through Venice looking at palaces and canals.  Just don’t forget the walls.

 

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Now tourists are robbing tourists?

Tourists want beautiful glass, so this shopowner sometimes has to dust everything, or wash it with Windex, or whatever she’s doing. The visitors I’m talking about aren’t interested in glass, though.

The story about making money off tourists has taken a few turns since my recent post.  It would probably be more accurate to call the following characters “short-term visitors” rather than tourists, because their purpose in being here does not resemble in any way whatever the typical tourists are seeking.

First, there are what journalist Elisio Trevisan, in his report for the Gazzettino, calls “beggar-commuters.”  We are now learning that an increasing number come to Venice from various Eastern European points on what you might call, not a vacation, really, but a sort of brief work-abroad project.  They come on the cheap Flixbus (which is great, by the way), set themselves up as beggars, eat at the community soup-kitchens, sleep in doorways, and can make as much as 100 euros per day.  They manage to wash up at some public source of water before the return trip (the bus driver won’t let them board otherwise) and go home to their families with enough to live on till the next trip becomes necessary.

Then there are the regular thieves.  They too are coming from elsewhere; they also are not exactly tourists, but tastes on vacations vary.  Some people take a break and go surfing, or look at the Mona Lisa, or run with a batch of bulls, while these intrepid pilferers come to Venice to steal for a while.  According to Carlo Mion writing in La Nuova Venezia, they come over from Lombardy, the region next door, and are usually organized by family or clan.

This egret, who seems to have adopted our riva, is also on the hunt, but not for money.  He’s looking for anguele (ang-WEY),  the Mediterranean sand smelt (Atherinus hepterus).  I imagine that anguela mothers are warning their spawn about him the same way I’m warning you, though I suppose their main advice would be “Dive!  Dive!”

The Carabinieri have been studying them and their systems.  They are basically from the Balkans and eastward (Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and also a contingent of Roma).  They dress in a credible way; the women wear panama hats and big scarves (to cover their faces from surveillance cameras), daypack hoisted on their chests and with a city map in hand (to cover their busy hands).  Also, they look very touristy this way.  Favorite targets: Americans, Koreans, Japanese.  During one brief shining period there were also cash-laden Russians.  In any case, a clever faux-tourist can gather as much as 300 euros in a day.

In one recent case, it was 700 euros.  Two Bulgarian women lifted the wallet (that also included her documents such as passport, I assume, and perhaps also credit cards) of an 80-year-old American woman.  The victim wasn’t aware of anything amiss, so I don’t know who raised the hue and cry.  In any case, the filchers were taken away by whichever uniformed officer was on duty.  The hearing is scheduled for the end of July — “in theory.”  That doesn’t sound  encouraging.  In any case, whatever happens, they will be back.  Or their friends and relatives.

Years ago there was a spate of street gamblers playing the shell game around the city, especially on the Accademia Bridge.  (This sort of thief has not reappeared so far.)  I read in the newspaper that one day lightning-fingers managed to milk a gullible player of $5,000.  It’s not funny in any way, but I have to admit that, at least in this case, that the victim, as well as his trickster, must have become a LEGEND in that Serbian family.  Every couple of months somebody will want to hear uncle tell the story again of that time in Venice he peeled the money off the tourist and that’s how come they’re living in such a nice house, with a garden and two cars.  A boisterous toast to uncle and tourist.
I hope this is the last time I’ll be droning on about the situation.  So just take every precaution, and then take some more.
Venice: Worth seeing. Your valuables: Worth keeping.
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Gondola overboard

Newspaper headlines have to do two things: Be short, and make you want to buy the paper.  You’ve got to have emotions about whatever it is, and Lord knows there’s no lack of emotions around here.

Be careful, though, not to draw the wrong conclusions or make wild assumptions when you have more feelings than information.

Case in point: This simple but fraught headline on today’s announcement board at the newsstand.

It contains nothing but emotional words: “Moto ondoso gondola capsized two boys  saved.”  Anyone here has only to read the words “moto ondoso” to brace themselves for the worst.  This term refers to the chaotic waves caused by the ever-increasing motorboat traffic, and obviously is never good.  Moto ondoso has recently reappeared — yet again —  in the forefront of Venetian minds as the clearest and most present danger to waterborne vehicles and their passengers.  The city itself is being victimized, too, pounded all day by the impact of the thrashing water.  So we see “moto ondoso” and instantly we intuit danger, and knowing nothing more we assume that the gondola had people in it (tourists, probably).  Perhaps the passengers were the two boys? Boat overturns, people being “saved” = nearly avoided drowning, is my quick assumption.  What other danger would they need to have been saved from?  All this is what the telegraphic headline implies.

The very brief story in La Nuova Venezia basically said that two 18-year-old boys were towing a gondola between the Bacini and San Pietro di Castello on a wide canal known as the Canale delle Navi, known also as a stretch of water becoming increasingly wild with the wakes of every motorized vehicle known to Venice.  They were bringing the boat to the squero for repairs.

Some water entered the gondola, courtesy of a wave, and more followed.  The boat became yet more unstable, and before long the combination of internal and external liquid pushed the boat overboard, so to speak.  The article says that the boys fell in the water, but didn’t explain how.  Waves and some variety of panic could have done the trick.

A passing boat rendered immediate aid, the firemen were called, as were the local police.  The story will undoubtedly develop with claims and counterclaims (there seems to be some talk of a big tourist launch that was speeding).  Allow me to shake my two raised fists and bellow “Curse you, moto ondoso!”

But I thought I’d reflect for a moment on the fact that towing a boat here isn’t as simple as you might think. I have participated in numerous transfers of rowing boats under tow, and you quickly discover that, even without waves, you need to pay attention.  It’s not unusual to see motorboats towing some Venetian boat from the area of the race eliminations at very high speed, and some of those boats flip over too.

This was Lino a few years ago towing an eight-oar gondola and two normal gondolas. We were returning from a big event in Nafpaktos, Greece in which Venetian boats were major participants. Each boat here has some people aboard, which may well not have been the case of the unfortunate boys.

We know nothing about how this operation was being carried out.  Was the gondola tied by the bow or the stern?  How fast were they going?  How long was the rope linking the two boats?  Was there wind?  In the early afternoon they would have been going against the tide; was that a factor?  Don’t think I’m trying to defend the waves, I am just saying that this is a tricky undertaking for anyone who may not yet know some of the fine points.  If one of the boys had been sitting in the gondola, using the oar as a sort of rudder to keep the boat from slewing around, that would have been a huge help.  Or you can usefully tie a length of chain, or some deadweight object, to the stern to act as a sort of sea anchor keeping the boat from skidding around.  The boat wants to fishtail because it is already riding on the swervy crest of two waves that are the wake created by the motorboat itself.

Here the foreground gondola has been allowed to skew to the right; the people aboard weren’t paying attention. As you can see in the gondola behind it, each of the two men aboard are holding oars to use as a sort of rudder.  The right pressure just before the boat begins to wander off course keeps it in line.  If there were more waves here, it would be clearer how vulnerable the already-low left side of the gondola is to taking on water.
Here I am with a friend, each of us working with our oars to keep this caorlina on the straight and narrow. It’s not just the gondola; any Venetian boat wants to wander off course when it’s being towed.

Of course we don’t want waves, and we don’t want boys falling in the water all of a sudden.  I’m certainly ready to blame moto ondoso for every bad thing on earth.  But towing a boat is like driving in the snow.  Things can happen.

Another view of the boats moving around.  You really need to anticipate the boat’s tendency to slither out of line, otherwise you’ll wear yourself out hauling on your oar way too hard.  Lino has towed as many as nine boats by himself. Naturally that’s the Expert Level, because the person driving the motorboat has to be extremely sensitive to the motion of the boats behind him or her.  When the towed boat pulls in one direction, it exerts pressure on the motorboat to veer off in the opposite direction.  There are just any number of factors to keep track of, and everything is moving all the time.  At least here there weren’t any waves.

 

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Moving forward, backward, in circles?

Too many corners?  This street will take you somewhere.  It might be the “where” you want to be, or maybe not.

I had an interesting dream last night, set in Venice; nothing particular happened but I did awaken with this thought: It’s not the canals that make Venice so particular (special, different, beautiful, strange, etc.), it’s the corners.

Why is that?  Because there are so incredibly many of them, and when you turn one, or two, or more, you either move ahead or you somehow find yourself pretty much back where you started.

That’s my new metaphor for Venice.  As far as I can tell, after the enormous difficulties and turmoil caused by two years of Covid, somehow it seems that we’re back where we started.  You might think that could be a good thing (“Back to normal!”) except that it’s not (“Back to normal!”).  Things keep happening, but almost nothing really changes.  Names change occasionally, but the headlines seem to be set on “replay.”

There are now fewer than 50,000 Venetians living in the historic center of Venice.  (In 2021, there were 50,434).  This is a threshold many people dreaded crossing, but it has been crossed nonetheless.  I have no idea what this means in real life, because supermarkets continue to open.  Who are their customers?

This place was a furniture and upholstery shop when we moved here. Then it became a bar/cafe/slot machine parlor. Then the “acqua granda” decimated it in 2019 and it has remained this way till now.
Then, just a week or so ago, suddenly there was activity.
It’s going to be a very large supermarket dedicated to shampoo, detergent, cosmetics, also potato chips and beer.  Just what we few who live here were needing?  We already have two supermarkets and a shampoo/detergent shop.  Stand by for the struggle for survival of the smaller, family-run detergent emporium and this megalodon.
This store is already separating itself from the family-run shop several doors down: It will be open continually (no mid-day closing for lunch or a nap or anything like that), and it will be open on Sunday, when the family is at home taking a break like normal people.  I am not happy.
Here’s a wonderful sight, though: Imagine my delight at seeing a truly useful shop open up. A barber named Mohammed took over the space of the defunct laundromat, victim of the acqua granda. The space sat empty for two years, then suddenly the classic rotating barber-pole appeared. I really hope Mohammed makes it. There must be at least one tourist who’ll need a haircut between spritzes.

When the mayor uses the term “Venice,” he is referring to the general metropolitan entity, the preponderance of which is on the mainland.  Everybody knows he really only cares about the mainland: “The future of Venice,” he said openly, “is Mestre.”  Take that, Venice-lovers!  The future of Milwaukee may well be Sheboygan, but to someone who thinks of the Piazza San Marco when he/she hears “Venice,” Mestre is a bit much.  Still, this is how it’s going.  Eight of the ten city councilors are from the mainland.  The ninth is in Venice itself, the tenth lives on the Lido.  And of course the mayor too is from the mainland, where he has business interests.  So voices speaking up for the dwindling historic center are faint and few.

Meanwhile, daily life is made up of stores closing, stores opening.  Unpredictable transit strikes and all-too-predictable wailing by ACTV, we have no money we have no money.  Tourists:  We want them, but they’re making us crazy.  The sudden drought of Russian tourists has torn a new hole in the city’s financial fabric.

Cruises: Big ships are banished from the Bacino of San Marco. The cruise ships will enter the lagoon at Malamocco, toiling like container ships up to the raggedy docks in the commercial port zone of Marghera.

The MSC “Sinfonia” opened the season by docking at Marghera on April 9, the first of the 200 cruises scheduled for this year.  Sound good?  Not when you compare it to the 565 cruises that stopped (or started) in Venice in 2019.  But those days are gone.

MOSE: There will never be anything new to say about this.  Work stopped, problems found, money gone, problems found, money arrives, work starts again, problems found, date of completion always on the horizon.

The thing is that headlines blurt out news that any Venetian already knew years ago.  Example: Barnacles.  Lino mentioned the inevitability of barnacle encrustation to me back in 1994.  It would be impossible to astonish anybody who has kept a boat in the water here.  This is as much a fact as that water is wet.

Still, somebody finally noticed the problem.  In 2018, an article announced the discovery by an underwater drone that the MOSE barriers were rusting and encrusted with barnacles.  Time passes, nothing is done.  In 2022, another headline:  Barnacles!!  Or to be even more precise: Mussels.

The Guardia di Finanza disseminated a brief video showing this little voyage of discovery a few days ago.  I can’t estimate how many tons of mollusks have attached themselves to the gates, but I can tell you that their weight is going to have a very serious effect on the gates’ functioning.

Turns out that the gates that have been lying in their assigned position underwater awaiting the call to block the tide have not been receiving the required and agreed-upon maintenance.  The money for maintenance was allotted some time back, but it seems to have not been spent on maintenance.  If the crud was predictable, so was the fate of the maintenance money.

Years ago, the cost of annual maintenance was forecast to be some 15 million euros.  Then estimates of maintenance costs rose to 80 million euros, and now they’re projected to be 200 million euros per year.  Where do these numbers come from?  Are they breeding in dark corners, like wire hangers?  In any case, vast amounts of money can’t ever sit still long enough to be spent on what they’re supposed to be spent on.  When you actually need the money, somehow it’s just not there anymore.

There’s no need to read headlines, this has been going on for generations now.  The big hold-back-the-tide project began in 1973, when the Special Law for Venice allotted money for a competition for designs (held in 1975).  When the first stone was laid in 2003, the end was promised for 2010.  We were all so young, so innocent… Then the 2014 deadline came and went, then the middle of 2018, then the beginning of 2019.  The “acqua granda” of November 2019 broke several financial logjams, and work picked up with the promise of concluding in 2021.  Sorry, I meant 2023.  Endless years pass of “We’ll get there!  Give us more money!”  Lack of funds closed the works for the entire year of 2021.  Rome sends millions, then more millions.  And yet, somehow there is never enough.

Tourism: They’re baaaaack.  Intermittently, and more often on weekends, still more often just during the day.  There were a few Carnival crush-fests in the San Marco area, but nothing noteworthy.  I suppose it just wouldn’t be Venice without 100,000 or more visitors in a day.  And just now, on the cusp of the Easter weekend, we are back under siege again.

This is supposed to be good (even as we see the interminable lines at the vaporetto stops for boats to Murano and Burano).  Venice has got to get back in the game, seeing as it’s the only game there is.

Venice isn’t the only Italian city to take a major hit from the pandemic, but I am not seeking comparisons. There were 8,800,000 visits in 2019; 2,500,000 in 2020, and a little more than 3,200,000 in 2021.  Between May and August of 2021 (peak summer season) the arrivals were 54 percent fewer than in 2019.
Last January I glimpsed that a return to normal tourist business was imminent when I passed the dry cleaning shop and saw piles of hotel-room drapes.
Now vaporettos are back to being jammed with people and luggage.  True, this is a holiday weekend, but the crush has become more noticeable over the past two months.
Fancy bags from fancy stores show that some of the tourists with money are returning. Too bad the Russians are gone; they’d been increasing over the years to be among the top spenders in the tourist cavalcade (fourth after Japanese, Chinese, and Canadians), spending an average of 145 euros per person per day in 2018.  And they loved the many-starred hotels; almost 40 per cent of Russians stayed in the fancy hostelries.
Italian tourists are forecast to increase by 35 percent over last year, and foreign tourists will be up 43 percent.  If they all went to Dior, how great would that be.
Maybe these bottles were prepared for the now-missing Russians?  Stunned by a wine that costs 900 euros ($972), I discover that Solaia is produced in the Chianti Classico area and is considered “among the most influential wines in the history of Italian viticulture.”  The other two bottles suddenly seem so much more approachable.  Yet if there is one thing — or three — that say “tourist,” it has to be these.  Have them delivered to my yacht.
And speaking of bottles, there are these little containers of unknown substances.  Of course there ought to be something on sale for everybody, but the city is promising to clamp down on the shops selling the cheap tchotchkes aimed at the average yobbo.  I doubt that this item will make it onto their radar, though.  They’re on the lookout for cheap masks and little bobbing battery-run gondolas for your bookshelf.
Gondoliers are back at work.
So are taxi drivers.
Suddenly the now-reopening businesses and hotels are scrambling to find staff. The Bar Torino in Campo San Luca is looking for a woman or man to work the bar — experience required.
Waiters!!  “We are seeking personnel for the (dining) room.  Send your CV via email….or leave it inside!  Age between 20 and 30 years old.”  Evidently age requirements aren’t forbidden by law; if they were, I don’t suppose the proprietor would be so upfront about how much he prefers people in their 20s.
“Lacking chambermaids, war breaks out between hotels.”  I say “chambermaid,” though maybe there are men who also clean and set up hotel rooms.  But 70 percent of workers associated with tourism are women.
Unloading bags of flour at the bread bakery is another sign of the touristic return. People buy bread, sure, but restaurants and bars buy more.

Last year sometime there was a brief quiver of excitement over the resurrected idea of installing turnstiles to control the flow of tourists entering the city at certain points.  That idea has been mothballed.  I think we don’t want to slow them down.  The eternal subject of the selling a ticket to enter Venice has also been put aside.  But these ideas will be back.  They’re like the swallows going to Capistrano.

One huge drawback to the renting of apartments to tourists is their garbage. Many owners leave instructions about when to leave it out for collection (on our street, the trashmen come by between 8:10 and 8:25 AM). But if for some reason you put it out much earlier, even the night before, this is what greets the dawn. Seagulls can smell your pizza box and coffee grounds and they will rip the plastic bag to shreds.
Pigeons are also fans but they don’t get a chance till the seagulls have finished.
There are two tourist-rental apartments on our tiny stretch of street. I understand that if you have a flight that leaves at 6:30 AM, you’re going to put it out when you go. Then again, there are people who put it out at 9:00 because they want to sleep late. The trashmen are not amused but they can’t leave it there.

Biennale: Yes, it is opening this year — April 23 to November 27 — and the vibrations are palpable.  The small park on the Riva dei Sette Martiri tends to host more light-hearted works.  I’ll just call them “works,” because I can’t bring myself to say “art.”  I honestly don’t know what they are.

No, THIS is art.

So here we are, caught in the endless cycle of everything.  Maybe there will be something new around the next corner (or ten), but I’m not counting on it.

My vision of a perfect world: Nothing fancy, everybody getting along, nobody trying to get anywhere.
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