Archive for October, 2009
Day of the Dead
Posted by: | CommentsNovember 1st and 2nd pack a one-two punch here, though the first is a holiday and the second isn’t (every year I struggle to remember that because it seems wrong to me). (I think they should both be holidays.)
My most recently discovered saint: St. John of Nepomuk, here adorning the prow of the 14-oar gondola of the club Voga Veneta Mestre. He is a national saint of the Czech Republic, and protector of gondoliers and anyone in danger of drowning. He was martyred on March 20, 1393 by being thrown into the Vltava River in Prague.
November 1 is All Saints Day — shortened here to “i santi” (”the saints”). There is no special way of observing this feast, other than going to church which for some people is asking too much. I know men who will proudly tell you that they haven’t been to church (or put on a tie) since their wedding day. Strangulation seems to be the theme.
The cemetery island, San Michele in Isola, is in the upper right corner, just on the way to Murano.
November 2 is All Souls Day — shortened here to “i morti” (”the dead”). This is a day (even if it isn’t a holiday) which Venetians observe with more attention. The vaporetto to the island of San Michele, the cemetery island, is free. In the not-so-old days, within Lino’s memory, a bridge on boats was constructed for the day from the Fondamente Nove to the island (a distance visibly shorter than the Giudecca Canal, whose bridge for the feast of the Redentore was also on boats). Many people make a point, at least once a year, of visiting their relatives’ graves, tombs, loculi, and if you’re ever going to go, this is the day. The florists on the Fondamente Nove make some real money.
The "bateon" for the dead was in use till the Seventies. It was black, of course, decorated with gold. In fact, there were several of them, kept in a canal by the church of the Madonna dell'Orto. If one must die, this is a superb way to make your exit. A new initiative is being launched to build a new one and put it back into service. Public contributions will be welcome.
I’ll write more about death in Venice some other time — it’s an interesting subject about which there is plenty to say, partly because of the age of the population. Funeral homes are probably one of the few businesses here that are immune to the global economic situation.
The traditions still associated with this feast-day naturally have mostly to do with food. For about a week before November 2, the pastry-shops and cafes put on sale little bags of what appear to be roundish colored styrofoam blobs, like lumpy cherries, colored white, pink, or brown. These are called “fave” (FAH-veh) and come in either the small (Trieste) form or the larger (Venice) form. It’s inexplicable to me but the Triestine are everywhere. Seeking a sack of Venetian fave will cost you some time and effort.
There are differing recipes, but the one I picked had only three ingredients: powdered pinoli nuts, sugar, and egg white, baked for an hour at low temperature. For the record, I tried making them yesterday and while the simplicity of the recipe was part of its appeal, I can confirm that if you halve the recipe, you’d better make an effort to halve the egg white. They were a spectacular failure.
However, from one of my favorite Venetian cookbooks, A Tola co i Nostri Veci by Mariu’ Salvatori de Zuliani, comes a recipe that makes more sense.
First of all, he makes the point quite firmly that coloring the fave is a newfangled fad; the classic Venetian version is always plain white. Remember that if you want to be a purist.
Venetian Fave for All Souls Day (November 2)
These are typical small bags of fave, of the Trieste style. They are priced by the "etto," or 100 grams. Here the merchant has cleverly offered two sizes of bag: One etto for 3 euros, and a two-etto bag for 6 euros. It's like trying to understand a pun in a foreign language -- I just don't get it.
200 gr almonds, 300 gr sugar, 125 gr flour, pinch of ground cinnamon, 20 gr butter, 2 whole eggs, lemon zest.
Leave the “peel” on the almonds and pound them in a mortar with the sugar, then sift. Add the flour, a pinch of cinnamon, butter, eggs, and the lemon zest and mix well with your hands.
Divide the mixture into blobs the size of walnuts, arranging them in lines on a baking sheet that’s been buttered and floured. Press each one lightly with your finger to flatten it slightly — the purpose is to make them resemble as much as possible the normal amaretto cookie.
Bake at “moderate heat” he says; I’ll take that to mean 150. He doesn’t say how long, either (I love the old-fashioned way of writing recipes).
Of course you have already been thinking, “But a fava is a kind of bean.” This is true. So why call these “beans” and why this particular composition, and why on the Day of the Dead?
The rituals associated with death are so ancient there’s a point where explanations fail, but offering food to the gods on certain occasions, especially death, goes back to when people were cooking on stones. In the Mediterranean a great deal of attention was paid to the cult of the Parche (as they were called in Rome), or Fates, who were the goddesses of destiny. (The Greeks also had them under the name of Moirai.) Nona spun the thread of an individual’s life, Decima measured its length, and Morta was the one who cut the thread. Hence they were revered as, among other things, the goddesses of death.
It became known (I always wonder exactly how) that the Parche especially like fava beans. There are undoubtedly reasons for this — I’m guessing spring and fertility, that seems to be what motivates many divinities. So since real fava beans are impossible to get this time of year, or have been — I suppose nowadays you could fly them in from Zanskar — these little nubbins were invented to symbolize them. Sweetness, I seem to recall, was also an important element of some funerary offerings; often honey was used, which also embodied a raft of symbolic meanings.
These fave don’t really have a flavor, unless you count sheer, unadulterated, industrial-strength sweetness as flavor. They’re pleasant enough in the mouth, but as they go down they sort of close up your throat behind them. After two and a half you won’t want any more till next year, and you’ll be vaguely sorry you ate that extra half.
Next year I’m going to try Zuliani’s version, and I hope the Fates will be kinder to me in the kitchen, if nowhere else.
Another treat that shows up in late autumn (not associated with life, death, or whatever is in between) is "cotognata." It is essentially quince jelly, hardened in a mold. Zuliani says that it once was common in houses all over the Veneto, where it was a popular snack for children. He also mentions that some Venetians would turbo-charge the recipe by boiling the quinces in wine instead of water, then adding a touch of vanilla. He says this recipe has fallen into disuse. I'd be willing to try to bring it back.
Overheard: Saint Anthony, the Queen of England and Cartolina
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the great things about learning the language of your location — or in my case, two languages, Italian and Venetian — is not that you will finally be able to explain to a local what the difference is between metaphysics and epistemology. Useful and entertaining though that might be.
I can never understand how people who see each other every day can have so much to talk about.
No, it’s to catch so many fleeting remarks that you hear people making in all kinds of unexpected or unlikely places. Quips, execrations, assorted badinage, comments that are like little flakes falling from the facade of what we regard as normality.
Yesterday morning I was in the church of S. Francesco di Paola in via Garibaldi. There were eight people there for the 9:00 mass; the usual smattering of nuns from the nearby convent, and a couple of other women, and a man or two. One of the men is someone who seems always to come to this service.
He is old but not ancient; neglected but not repellent; in his own little world, but not actually crazy. His hair is ragged and he always sits by himself, and he is always the first in line to take communion. In fact, he’s first before there is a line. This is obviously his self-appointed right and privilege. He makes sure he’s already in position before the priest has even finished the prayer of consecration.
As the faithful were leaving in peace, obeying the canonical and very precise command at the end of every mass, I noticed one nun pausing in front of a new statue of Saint Anthony of Padua. It was about her height, actually, or maybe slightly shorter, and he was holding the Christ Child in the crook of his left arm and a lily in his right hand, as always.
So she’s standing there looking at it, maybe wondering where it came from or why it’s there now, or whether it needs dusting, or maybe just thinking about the saint. Or not thinking at all.
Seeing her, the old guy abruptly changes course and walks toward her.
“It doesn’t look anything like him,” he announces. “St. Anthony had a very sharp, aquiline nose.” He sounds as certain as if he’d been his brother. The nun just looks at him.
“He didn’t look like this– he had a very aquiline nose,” he repeated.
She said nothing. He paused, then wandered off and that was that. I too walked away, but fighting the urge to stop him and say, “You actually knew him? Wow….”
What he said may have been completely true, though I’m not sure we can trust most of the depictions of St. Anthony, even those made in his own lifetime before he was even close to becoming a saint.
But let’s say it’s true. Let’s say the statue doesn’t look anything like St. Anthony. So what? Devotional images aren’t supposed to help the police identify you, like photos on driver’s licenses. Is some man with a tonsure and a habit (not to mention carrying a lily and the Baby Jesus) likely to be walking around via Garibaldi claiming to be Saint Anthony?
Answer: Not likely. At least in this neighborhood; saints are pretty thin on the ground. Though he might be mistaken for a relatively harmless tourist, or somebody left over from Carnival.
But now we know — or think we know — that Saint Anthony had a very aquiline nose. I’ll be on the lookout.
One of the great things about Venice is running into your friends on the street.
Then there was the family waiting for a relative or maybe just a friend at the vaporetto stop at the Giardini, all set for some outing. The ladies were past middle age but full of energy, their hair ferociously sprayed, and their men were hanging around the periphery while the women batted little comments back and forth.
As I walked toward the dock, I heard one woman say firmly to the others, “She looks just exactly like the Queen of England. All she’s missing is the tiara. Wait and see.” This was a statement, not an opinion.
“There she is — finally! Helloooo,” the woman spotted the lady, then turned back to her friends. “You see? Look at her hair. Even the way she walks. She could be the Queen of England, am I right?”
Naturally I looked. But I have to say that it was a bit of a stretch. If we start referring to every late middle-aged, short, heavily upholstered woman with neatly curled short white hair, whose skirt falls just below her knee, as the Queen of England, we’re going to be spending all day curtsying.
And there was the other morning, as I left the house early and there was almost nobody on the street yet. The sun was just getting itself up and out the door, the air was cool, the world looked ready for business.
As I crossed the bridge to the fondamenta on the other side, “Cartolina” was walking by from his home way over in the Quintavalle neighborhood toward via Garibaldi.
“Cartolina” means “postcard” (somebody surely knows his real name, but that’s the only way Lino knows him and can’t tell me why he got this nickname) is a small, chunky, old man who is just a bubble off plumb but still full of energy, some of which he expends on what I call his little litany as he walks along, a sotto voce recital of how bad he feels and how old he is, directed at nobody in particular. It’s a pretty limited repertoire, usually assorted murmurings to himself and anybody in earshot: ”Aiuto. Aiutami mamma. Aiuto. Povero vecio. Aiuto.” (Help. Help me mama. Help. Poor old guy. Help.)
Evidently there's no more to be said, at least not at the moment.
I would never belittle his pain, which might be serious, for all I know. Lino told me that he used to work as a porter at the Bacino Orseolo near the Piazza San Marco, on call from any nearby hotel or office which needed somebody to shlep luggage or anything else heavy and cumbersome by means of an equally heavy handtruck, undoubtedly over many bridges. Years of that will mark you, but not many people orchestrate their own chorus of sympathy and then sing it themselves.
So the other morning he passes me on the bridge and I hear this: “Aiuto. Aiuto. Go 120 anni. No, 106. Go sbaglia’.” (Help. Help. I’m 120 years old. No, 106. I made a mistake.).
Then there was the morning (he seems to be a matutinal creature — I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him after 11:00 AM) we were having the first real fog of the fall. He was coming out of the bread bakery with a small sack, muttering: “Aiuto. Mamma mia. Ancuo magno pan e caligo.” (Help. Mamma mia. Today I’m eating bread and fog.)
This morning, I saw him coming as I was heading toward the Quintavalle bridge. He began in the classic way: “Mamma mia. Aiuto. Aiuto.” Then he said, “Vogio ‘na bela casseta. Vado via. So stufo.” (Mamma mia. Help. Help. I want a really beautiful casket. I’m out of here. I’m fed up.)
I love this guy! Not only can he make a joke about how bad he feels, he’ll make it to himself. Or to however many personalities are living in there.
Dolphins play ball
Posted by: | CommentsThis has nothing to do with Venice but everything to do with smiling, which one needs to do early and often here. Just like voting in Boston.
For the record, I have seen dolphins in the Ionian Sea, just down the road from Venice, and there have been reports of them out in the Adriatic, where I gather they have become rare. Rumors of one in the lagoon have not been confirmed, at least not by me. In any case, this little divertimento was filmed in Cardigan Bay, Wales.
Gondolier smackdown: the score
Posted by: | CommentsSome while back, I recounted the unpleasantness between two gondoliers near Piazzale Roma on August 14 which resulted in the just-boarded passengers of one combatant (the defender) being overturned into the drink. One detail of this encounter that has only now been reported is that not only did the aggressor gondolier — they’re never named, which is tiresome — yell horrible things at the defender, he got to the point of physically attacking him and attempting to hold his head underwater. If you should ever dream of trying to become a gondolier, this is not a skill you’ll be tested on.
Gondoliering is essentially a job, like anything else.
Now, for anyone who might have been wondering how the story finally ended, the case has just been adjudicated by the Ente Gondola, the governing body of the gondoliers, and the sentence doesn’t involve courses in anger management or hours and hours of community service. Unfortunately.
The nameless defender has been given a two-day suspension. The published accounts of this kerfuffle never described how he responded to the attack but evidently he didn’t just stand there and take it. So, two days.
His nameless aggressor, however, has been suspended for six months, beginning November 1. This means he won’t be working at Christmas, New Year’s, Carnival, or Easter.
Don’t start taking up a collection just yet, though, and you don’t need to picture him shivering at home, wondering how to make a pound of pasta last a month. Because he, like all gondoliers, undoubtedly has a substitute. And when the gondolier isn’t working, the substitute takes over (hence the word “substitute….”). And the gondolier, wherever he is (skiing at Cortina, snorkeling in the Red Sea, whatever), gets to keep 3/4 of the money the substitute makes. So this outcome is basically a great thing for the substitute — six months of work!!! — and a type of paid vacation for the gondolier.
Harsh.
The Venice Olympics?
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On October 2 at 6:53 PM, the news broke upon an unsuspecting city — and even some unsuspecting city councilors — that the local headmen had cooked up a new scheme: Officially proposing Venice as the site of the 2020 Summer Olympics.
I’ll pause while you adjust your screens.
Technically speaking, “Venice Olympics” wouldn’t necessarily connote the same thing as “Venetian Olympics.”
The “Venetian Olympics” would consist of any typical activity of any typical day in almost any typical week. Medals would be awarded for such events as:
- the 2000-meter walk home over five bridges carrying 20 pounds of shopping in plastic bags and a six-pack of mineral water bottles during Carnival (an event which could be adjusted for difficulty according to the distance, bag weight, number and height of bridges, density of crowds, and whether you have up to three small children with you);
- the vaporetto-boarding-at-6:15 PM in the rain with two runs having been skipped, leading to a phenomenal accumulation of enraged, wet, tired mammals (starting line: Piazzale Roma, finish line at Rialto, San Toma’, or San Zaccaria);
- choice of one of several activities at the train station (buying a ticket at 5:45 AM; finding a bathroom at 9:30 PM; locating your departure track in the absence of any information on any notice boards, five minutes before departure), to be judged not only on speed but style;
- getting from San Marco to the Lido in the fog during a transport strike;
- obtaining a package from abroad via SDA, a delivery company which does everything but give correct information in a timely fashion, or deliver.
Actually, I think the “Venetian Olympics” could be a spectacular event, for those in the right frame of mind, and best of all, they could be held any day of the year, practically.
But I am only slightly jesting. The headmen, on the other hand, are completely serious. That’s because they are: Massimo Cacciari, the mayor; Giancarlo Galan, governor of the Veneto Region; Franco Manzato, regional vice-president AND councilor for Tourism; and Andrea Tomat, president of Confindustria Veneto, the regional business association. Politicians and businessmen — it’s the winning team in most Olympic efforts, I have no doubt. And as soon as Madrid lost its bid to Rio, thereby re-opening the field to a European candidate for the next go-round, Venice pounced.
The Region of Veneto.
But “Venice Olympics” is a loss leader. What they mean by “Venice Olympics” translates into “Olympics scattered around the Veneto region.” Everybody wants to get into the act.
The only foreseeable competitor in Italy would be Rome, which hosted the Games in 1960 (perhaps a handicap, though capital cities seem to do well). I”m not sure what card Rome will be playing in an attempt to become the national candidate, but it’s true that they wouldn’t have to face the quips that almost certainly will soon be lobbed at Venice. I can imagine the helpful suggestions for organizing the pole vault over the campanile of San Marco; synchronized swimming in the Grand Canal; the hammer throw and shot-put aimed at the taxis churning along the Giudecca Canal. Field hockey in the Piazza San Marco.
Let me not blemish the euphoria by mentioning crass numbers; clearly the visions of new everything being built all across the region has got lots of people all worked up. I merely mention, at random, that the candidacy of Madrid, which made it all the way to the finals, cost the equivalent of $55 million.
And that’s just the cost of candidacy. Once you nab the Games, the real bills start to mount up. Brazil has budgeted $14 billion to host the Games in Rio. Venice has a few handicaps, in my opinion, in that regard: It’s already the most expensive city in Italy (this ought to really lure spectators), and it has made a career of rattling its tin cup, wailing that it has no money. But… but… If there is no money for schools, monument restoration, policemen, hospitals, firemen, and so on, how can they suddenly find millions — gosh, it was right here behind the Encyclopedia Britannica all the time – and be prepared to expend billions, if they get the nod? (That was a rhetorical question.)
The notables who have spoken have been refreshingly direct about why they want the Olympics. Skipping entirely any mention, however brief, of desiring to add to the glory of Italy, or the honor of the city, or the splendor of our athletes (somebody did refer to that, I think, but I can’t see how that matters), they’ve gone right to the point.
“Promoting and organizing the Games of 2020 would permit the city and the entire metropolitan area represented by the triangle of Venice, Padua and Treviso (italics mine) to accelerate the numerous improvement and renewal projects which for years have filled the agendas of the institutions of the territory,” said Mayor Cacciari.
“Venezia 2020 represents a strategic project for the development of the infrastructure of the entire Region,” said Dr. Galan. For the record, the entire Region covers about 7,000 square miles.
“Our businesses realize that having the Olympic Games in Venice in 2020 could act as a catalyst for a series of ‘virtuous’ processes in the economic field and help the consumer regain confidence,” said President Tomat.
But don’t break out the Prosecco just yet. First of all, Rome isn’t going to shrink from the fight — au contraire. This was the home of the gladiators, after all; also, the mayor of Rome belongs to the right wing of the political spectrum, while the mayor of Venice is from the left. They’re used to fighting. So, like every war, this brewing conflict has a long history and many undetected combatants.
And a few cautious voices — important voices — have sounded their notes of warning amid the chorus of praise for this audacious notion.
If you cross your eyes just a little, the big picture comes into better focus.
“Extremely important economic guarantees are going to be needed,” commented the head of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), the group which will adjudicate which city carries Italy’s banner into the final selection. Not a very heartening public statement, though unusually honest. They were polite enough not to refer to the recently (finally) completed Ponte della Costituzione (”the Calatrava Bridge”), which required 11 years, many lawsuits and an impressive cost overrun (final cost: $18 million compared to the $10 million quoted in the winning bid), to span 265 feet of the Grand Canal. But an Olympic Stadium ought to be a lot simpler.
“It would undoubtedly be a great opportunity for the entire Veneto [there we go again] to furnish itself with facilities adequate to such an event which would then remain at the disposition of local groups….It would require an enormous investment with the complete participation of the government as well as the industial sector,” remarked Renzo Di Antonio, president of the Olympic Committee’s Veneto division.
“As a Venetian I couldn’t be anything other than happy at this proposal,” said Andrea Cipressa, fencing gold medalist and vice-president of the national fencing association. “Naturally, on the real feasibility of the project I feel some understandable doubts….There are many, many things to take into consideration and the first impact of the proposal is mainly emotional, romantic. But then you have to start taking reality into account as well as the many problems which are always connected with Venice.”
But perhaps he has failed to grasp the magnitude of the marvels which the Olympics would bestow on the Region (excuse me: ENTIRE Region], especially right around Venice, innovations which have already been discussed for quite a while in the government:
“I believe that Tessera” (the village near the airport) “has all the necessary potential,” said Laura Fincato, councilor for Urban Planning. “We are discussing an area which would have a multilateral potential — an area of recreation including a new building for the Casino, a stadium, a concert hall and an structure for all sorts of sports. In this area there is also the airport and the [future] passage of the high-speed railway [the TAV Corridor 5 which will connect Kiev to Lisbon, passing through northern Italy]. If we then add a forest of 105 hectares [260 acres], it seems to me that we have all the right conditions.” A forest?? Now that’s something that’s really been missing from the urban fabric. We don’t have enough firemen — we don’t even have a breakdown lane on the Liberty Bridge. But a forest by the airport? Why didn’t anybody think of that before?
The mayor of the nearby beach resort of Jesolo is already jumping up and down and waving his hand: “We could hold the windsurf and beach volley competitions,” is his contribution to the discussion.
Paradoxically, though, the rowing competitions would be impossible to hold in the lagoon, due to the tidal currents. Sailing in the Adriatic ought to work, but rowing would have to be somewhere else. That’s going to be a little tricky for the public relations work. Maybe they could dig the rowing basin in the forest by the airport.
Probably the only thing the campanile of San Marco hasn't seen since 1514 is a Summer Olympics.
One commentator, Tiziano Graziottin, sees the big picture this way: “However you look at it, there are many obstacles on the horizon to overcome; the ‘tripartisan’ group put into play by Cacciari, Galan and Manzato… looks at Venice as the figurehead of an entire Veneto system, using the icon of the most beautiful city in the world to fascinate world public opinion while aiming at developing the potential of an entire macro-region… Venice is the star that drives photographers crazy but the Olympic ‘film’ succeeds only if all the actors play their part under the highest-quality direction…. The good thing about this idea is the concept behind it, and it’s a key concept for ‘internal use’: To make clear to a public opinion frequently divided into provincial (in every sense) rivalries that Venice and the Veneto can and must march together.” For those numbed by the endless bickering between Dr. Cacciari (center-left) and Dr. Galan (center-right), this is a revolution. “Bipartisan” isn’t a word you hear used very much; in Italian, it’s a knobby little word (bipartitico) which doesn’t really have a home in anyone’s vocabulary. I think it must sleep in the political garage.
A closing note — more like a shot across the bow — from the ever-contrarian lawyer, Francesco Mario D’Elia, who has organized four (4) referendums with the aim of separating Venice from Mestre, all of which failed, but not by so much. He has now organized a committee called “No to the Venice 2020 Olympics.”
“To propose Venice for the Olympics,” he stated, “is merely an operation involving the image, in order to exploit the fame of the city without giving anything in return…. Therefore we say ‘Enough’ to those who exploit the name of Venice, a city which has no need of the Olympics.”
So he has wasted no time in writing to the governor of the Region of Sicily saying that there’s a small group in Venice ready to support their candidacy for the Olympics, presumably at Palermo. “The Palermo Olympics.” That sounds even stranger than The Venice Olympics.
In all, a fairly audacious gamble, which will require betting millions of somebody’s money to play a hand which may not turn out to be as strong as its holder might imagine. Venice isn’t in the habit of competing, really — people come here anyway, whether you invite them or not. As a historic, artistic and even touristic city, who would it compete against? So having to think as a global competitor for anything is going to be a short sharp shock to a few people here. Especially when they come up against other potential candidates such as Cape Town and Mumbai and St. Petersburg.
But that’s the point of gambling — you’re ready to take a chance. Perhaps it will turn out that this whole Venice Olympics business is going to be less like a game of poker or mah-jongg and more like a long and unfathomably expensive session of “Risk.”
Oh let’s just all go on strike, about everything
Posted by: | CommentsI know we all — or most of us — are all tangled up in the world’s problems, but while you’re thinking about everything that’s going wrong on either side of your front door, spare a thought for Italy.
Tomorrow, October 23, there is going to be a national strike. By which I don’t mean that the nation itself is going to strike — however one would manage that — but the nation will be dramatically affected by a very big general strike organized and imposed by three large unions for a batch of different reasons. The strike was announced on August 4, so if you haven’t come up with an alternate plan for the day, it’s not their fault.
Tomorrow there are no pachyderms scheduled to either arrive or depart, since all the pachyderm-wranglers in the Port of Venice will be on strike. Six will be arriving or departing the day after, though; four the following day, and three the day after that. Impressive strike.
Their stated grievance is that the government has not dealt with their requests on a number of issues. They are against workers being fired (not a theoretical concern, in the current economic situation) — in fact, they want the government to block firings — and they are also against reducing the penalties for those who cause fatal accidents, or severe injury or illness, in the workplace. They’re in favor of reducing the work-week, increasing raises and pensions, establishing a minimum wage, attaching cost-of-living increases to pay scales, and making workplaces, schools, and transport safer. Could anyone disagree with any of this? It would be like quibbling over the Ten Commandments, or the Boy Scout Oath.
The categories which will be affected by the strike are:
- Public administration (no problem there, as only five people seem to ever be working in the country at any given time, and then mostly unintentionally); the whole day. Convenient, it being a Friday.
- Schools and universities. Professors and students jubilant, parents not so much.
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One can only hope and presume that at least one of these ambulances will be in service tomorrow.
Public health (nurses, orderlies, ambulance drivers, perhaps even doctors); so far, no guarantee of minimum services has been given. Something will be cobbled together at the last minute, it always is.
- Firemen. Those actively scheduled to be on call at airports and elsewhere will strike only from 10 – 2 PM. Not bad, unless your fire starts during those four hours. Office people: Out all day.
- Airlines: No planes flying between 12 and 4 PM. Sorry about that connection.
- Ports: from 8 AM Friday – 8 AM Saturday. Office people: Out all day. Absolutely no ferries connecting small islands to the mainland or to each other for 24 hours. Deal with it. Read a book. Call your mom.
- Trains: There is conflicting information here. One report says that personnel assigned to actively working with the trains will strike from 11 – 3 PM (office people: out, naturally). On the other hand, the railway company says that normal service will be maintained, but considering what “normal” tends to mean in an ordinary week, it’s hard to say if the effect of a strike will even be noticed. Or if service will appear to have improved during the strike.
- And above all, PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Venice is one place where lack of buses makes a major dent in your day. Here’s what life will look like here from midnight Thursday to midnight Friday:
Transport will be cut to the very bone, which means that there will be hardly any vaporettos except during the morning and evening rush hours. Which means that if you have to get to the train station (except between 11-3) with your luggage, you’ll be walking or taking a dazzlingly expensive taxi. Need to get to the airport? Dazzlingly expensive taxi, but remember, don’t bother going between 12 – 4.
Despite the shortage of services, there will be no slowdown in the delivery of goods. On the morning of Judgment Day there will still be tattooed men all over Venice loading up their handtrucks.
For those of us staying on home territory, anyone wanting to go to or from the Lido from anywhere will be waiting a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time for a vaporetto to appear (or taking a dazzlingly expensive taxi). On the mainland, the fact of buses going on strike can be somewhat mitigated by car-pooling. In Venice, you don’t see anyone in their personal motorboat carrying friends or stranded people around.
In Rome, though, to help deal with the masses of protesters, the trains and subways will strike only between 8 PM and midnight. Am I the only person who finds this odd?
In the absence of any specific notice, one presumes that the mail will go through.
The forecast for tomorrow is also for fog. Fun. Though I suppose if there aren’t any vaporettos or ferries, it doesn’t make much difference.
It’s true that in Venice you can reach almost anywhere fairly conveniently (if you’re not in a huge rush) on foot. Unless you’re a shaky little old person on two canes, say, trying to get to the hospital for your knee X-ray which you scheduled six months ago, or a tourist with lots of bags. No vaporettos is not amusing.
Naturally I’m totally in favor of everything the unions want, and don’t want, and so on. But there isn’t any union that I know of which would muster its troops to demand changes that would make life any easier for me.
So I’m going to protest on my own. After all, in the middle of everyone else, who’ll notice? I’ll just stand next to some disaffected welder and let fly.
So here’s what I’m against: Unscrupulous people deliberately doing cruel and ignorant things to other people; anything that costs more than $1.50; dog-owners who let their dogs poop wherever they want and don’t clean up; kids who scream, and their parents who either make them scream or don’t make them stop; chocolate-chip cookies with more than 20 calories. The people upstairs who throw their cigarette butts on the street in front of our door, and the unstable person who leaves his/her bag of garbage at the corner of our apartment.
A bag will just appear, deposited by an unseen hand. Wrong place, and always the wrong time. A neighbor tells me this has been going on for years but nobody's able to say who the culprit is. This just shows you how life has changed since the Old Days, back when the neighbors knew what color your underwear was even before you put it on.
Also: I’m against unprofessional, obtuse, malicious, devious behavior of any sort by anyone at any time; cheating and lying. Incompetence. Hypocrisy. My list could go on but I’ll stop here.
Here’s what I’m for: Kids that laugh, dogs that don’t poop, lots of money paid for hard work done well, and music of almost any type except that car-crash-torture-dungeon-hand-grenade music, whatever it’s called. A pat on the head/back/cheek for any and no reason — the person receiving it will know what it’s for.
I’m off to prepare my placard now. Will report back from the barricades or whenever it gets dark and I have to come home.
Lions never go on strike, never protest, never make demands or stipulate deadlines or set conditions. They just stay at their post, being kingly.
The market today
Posted by: | CommentsBy which I don’t mean the financial market, and “today” is generally intended to mean more-or-less now. I’m referring to what new edibles are on sale in the market these days.
As I may have mentioned elsewhere, one of the many ways in which I notice the seasons changing is by what arrives and departs from the fruit and vegetable stands. (Fish also. Meat pretty much stays the same.)
I should note that in the past few years the rot of nonlocal-feedlot-hothouse-raised-out-of-season comestibles has begun to set in. I used to love the fact that you really could stick with the seasonal offerings here — in fact, you hardly had a choice.
Now there are strawberries in January and cherries in September and artichokes virtually all the time. It’s grotesque, and not only because of the prices. That there is a market for them is what’s distressing. Happily, a few items such as fresh peas and cardoons and loquats and parsnips have eluded the commercial drift-net so far, that mechanism that sweeps products indiscriminately off the calendar and dumps them all onto the shelves and into the bins together.
This price comes out to $5.16 per pound. That sounds expensive to me, no matter how good they are for you.
So what makes my heart leap up when I see plants take their cues and slip onto the autumnal culinary stage here? Walnuts — Italian, as well as from California.
Chestnuts waiting to be roasted, or glacee'd, or even ground into flour, though who has time for that.
Chestnuts from various parts of northern Italy, the most prized being from Piedmont, around the town of Cuneo. “Zucca barucca,” a pumpkin which if you didn’t know it was so good you’d think was a sort of mutated Hobbit. Cachi (KA-kee), or persimmons. The leafless branches of trees in gardens here are festooned with these golden spheres far into the fall, little grace-notes of sun in a season which becomes progressively grayer. If I were a canning-and-preserving person, I’d be working around the clock.
Zucca barucca from Chioggia.
The first cachi (persimmons) I saw this year. They're only within waving distance of ripe, which might explain the startlingly low price.
Best of all, the giuggiole (JOO-joe-leh). It’s better in Venetian: zizoe (ZEE-zo-eh). In English: jujubes. You may think of jujubes only as that gummy candy you’d buy at the movies when you went for the Saturday-morning double feature. But they are a real fruit, perhaps a bit handicapped by the fact that they look like olives wishing they could be dates.
They have no juice — their main appeal is the crunch, and their unassuming flavor. And engaging as their Venetian name is (I buy some every year just so I can say “zizoe”) their scientific name is even better: Ziziphus zizyphus. Name of a man with a heavy head cold doomed to push a boulder uphill forever.
Modest though they may be, they have their own place in Italian culture. For example, there is an expression — “andare in brodo di giuggiole” (literally, “I went into jujube broth”) — which you would say when you wanted to convey extreme happiness or satisfaction. The “broth” is a sort of infusion/decoction which evidently is more delectable than you can imagine. Only now have I discovered a recipe for this beverage, or I’d have tried to make it before the zizoe disappeared and given a full report.
Around here the zizoe come mainly from the area of the Euganean Hills, beyond Padova, especially the environs of the hamlet of Arqua’ Petrarca, where Petrarch settled to live out his last days. The Arquites (or whatever the inhabitants are called — Arquatensi, actually) dedicate not one, but two Sundays in October to celebrating their yummy little drupe.
The Romans brought them from Syria; Herodotus noted that the wine you could make from jujubes would get you drunk in no time. (I’m freely translating.) There are recipes from the Egyptians and even Phoenicians.
Apart from its alcoholic potential, and the fact that it has more Vitamin C than the orange, it was especially valued by our forebears as being one of a group of so-called “chesty” fruits (such as figs, dates and grapes) which produced a liquid which, when condensed, could combat chest colds and respiratory inflammation, of which there is no shortage in this climate.
Here’s a recipe, which I’m already poised to try. All I have to do is wait till the end of next September.
BRODO DI GIUGGIOLE
- 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) jujubes
- 1 kilo sugar
- two bunches of Zibibbo or Muscat grapes
- 2 glasses (no size specified…) of white wine
- 2 quinces
- grated lemon peel
- sufficient water
- Wash the jujubes and put them in a pot. Cover with water.
- Add the grapes and the sugar.
- Simmer over low flame for 1 hour, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon.
- Peel and thinly slice the quinces.
- Add sliced quinces and wine to the pot.
- Raise the flame to more rapidly evaporate the alcohol. Turn off heat. Cool.
- When it is cooler, stir in the grated lemon peel.
- Pass the mixture through a sieve, pour the liquid into jars and completely cool.
- Leave in a cool place for at least a month before using.
I’ll see you next year with this one. It will be the Great Zizoe Broth-off.
The thief who…fell asleep??
Posted by: | CommentsThis just in from Milan — and it’s too good to keep to myself even if it didn’t happen in Venice.
A 32-year-old Somali man is in Italy illegally. This isn’t news. He is arrested and found guilty of the crime of “clandestinity” (being illegal) and slapped with an expulsion order. Normal so far. A large number of illegal immigrants who are arrested and sentenced to return immediately to their country of origin just put the document in their scrapbook and keep on with whatever they were doing.
So he doesn’t leave Italy. But he does need to do something. So one night he makes his way into somebody’s apartment to steal stuff. For reasons difficult to determine from where I am, instead of nabbing some valuables and getting the hoo out of there, he is overcome with somnolence and sits/lies down on the sofa and falls asleep.
I grant that it’s easy enough to fall asleep on the sofa at night, especially in the dark (which I presume the room was) even if you’re not watching Formula One racing (oh wait — people think that’s exciting) or a bridge tournament or a Japanese political debate.
But in any case, Morpheus sneaks up on him like a thief in the night and out he goes.
Meanwhile, the homeowner has heard something suspicious (snoring?), discovers the interloper and calls the police, who appear in a trice.
The patrol-people’s first question is not “What the hoo are you doing here?” It’s ”May we see some ID please.”
So he reaches into his pocket or scrapbook and gives them a piece of paper. Sure enough, it’s got his name on it. It’s an expulsion order. I have no idea how long he’d had it, but it’s not a document you’d normally consider flashing to somebody in a uniform, given that if you do have one you’re not supposed to be lollygagging around the country that doesn’t want you, you’re at least supposed to be at the airport pretending to look for a flight to somewhere else.
In any case, you’re not supposed to be busy committing yet another crime.
And then I ask myself, “How exactly do you manage to fall asleep when you’re in somebody else’s house committing a crime?” I mean, it’s not as if he turned on the TV and started watching a bridge tournament.
So now I presume he has another expulsion order, possibly one that categorizes his status a bit more forcefully. To go in his scrapbook.
The Battle of Lepanto: our contribution
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A detail from one of innumerable paintings of the battle; in contrast to the artistic hyperbole of many renditions, this gives clear information on the geography. To the right (east) is the narrow entrance to what is here called the Golfo di Lepanto (now the Gulf of Corinth); to the west is a scattering of Ionian islands, primarily Kefalonia and Ithaki.
Nafpaktos on a modern map.
We’re back from our excellent adventure in Greece, and to tell the story in even its most rudimentary form will require a little time and a certain amount of context. I’ll try to keep the pace brisk, but we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Stragglers will be shot. Deserters also.
Practically every town and village in Greece has its special annual event, but there aren’t many anywhere whose local festa commemorates an event crucial to the history of Europe and, I think one may say, the world.
In the gondolone outside the entrance to the harbor at Nafpaktos, your correspondent rowing on the stern. Behind us, the entrance to the now-tiny fortified harbor, backed by the four-walled Venetian fortress.
We went, eight of us with the faithful gondolone “San Marco,” to a town called Nafpaktos (NAHF-pak-tos), just inland from Patras on the west coast of Greece, to participate in the annual spectacle which commemorates the victory of the Battle of Lepanto. The Venetians modified the town’s other name, Epaktos, into Lepanto (LEH-pan-to), and this is the name by which the epic naval battle of October 7, 1571 has gone into the annals. Nafpaktos means “place where ships are built,” but judging by its history — eight battles over two millennia — it more likely means “place where ships are blasted to flinders and their crews killed and maimed.”
The territory of the Ottoman Empire at its maximum moment.
This clash was arguably the most important sea battle to be fought in the 900 years separating the one at Actium and Trafalgar. Why do we say this? Not only on the basis of the numbers involved, but because the battle put an end, once and for all, to the efforts of the Ottoman Turks to conquer the Adriatic and thus open the way for their further expansion into Europe. If the coalition fleet, powerfully bolstered by the Venetian contingent, had lost, Europe would soon have had many more mosques than churches. To put it tactfully.
Let me pause to say to any Turkish partisans out there that I adore Turkey and admire large chunks of its history and culture and would willingly go there at any time for any reason. But when an empire wants to grow — which is a given, considering that once you start an empire, it’s kind of hard to stop until somebody stops it for you– some hideous things can happen. I believe we can all agree on that.
The walled harbor of Nafpaktos, clearly much smaller today than in 1571, though the Turkish fleet never completely fit inside. The two massive fortresses which the Ottomans built on each bank of the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth made the region safe enough for them.
The backstory: Turks and Venetians had been fighting and making up for centuries by the time the fateful year of 1571 arrived. But the situation had become increasingly desperate, as one after another the Ottoman forces conquered many of Venice’s prize possessions in the eastern Mediterranean and moved ever deeper into the Balkans. Then came the appalling siege of Famagosta in Cyprus, which dragged on for ten months between 1570 and 1571, thanks to the bulldog resistance of commander Marcantonio Bragadin who had absolutely no hope of reinforcements. On July 31, 1571, not only was he was finally forced to capitulate, he was then flayed alive and his skin stuffed with straw to make a sort of effigy which was paraded through town on a donkey before being sent as a victory trophy to Sultan Selim II. The humiliation, rage and grief of the Venetians pushed them to the head of the line when the chance for revenge came just two months later at Lepanto.
That, and the fact that there had already been not one, but two, battles at Lepanto (1499 and 1500) with the same cast of characters and plot line, both of which Venice had lost. If history is geography, Lepanto is clearly on one of those strategic power points.
One of countless renderings of the battle as depicted by the victors.
The combatants: The Ottoman fleet, obviously, on the one hand. On the other was the combined forces of The Holy League, organized by Pope Pius V and comprising ships from Spain, Genoa, the Order of St. Stephen (Pisa), assorted towns of Dalmatia, the Knights of Malta, the Papal States, a healthy assortment of Italian noble ruling families (de’ Medici, Gonzaga, Este, Farnese, della Rovere), the dukes of Savoy and of Tuscany and, of course, Venice. The commander in chief was Don John of Austria, who despite being only 25 years old showed himself to be a brilliant tactician. The Venetians, who supplied a good half of all the ships involved, were led by Sebastiano Venier.
The position of the two fleets at the beginning of the battle. The Christian forces are to the left (west), with their six huge, cannon-laden galleasses in the center. Armed with dramatically more accurate guns than the Turks -- weapons designed by an Armenian engineer, Antonio Surian, in the Venice Arsenal -- the Venetians quickly disabled or damaged many of the enemy vessels virtually at the outset.
The two fleets engaged at 10:30 AM on October 7, in the waters outside the entrance to what is now called the Gulf of Corinth. The area was near a scattering of islets known as the Curzolari; for this reason the battle is also occasionally (pedantically) referred to as the Battle of the Curzolari.
The numbers involved vary so widely among the many accounts that I’ll just give them all and let you pick the ones you like best.
The League had 284 ships (or 195, or 300) of varying types — half of which were supplied by Venice – carrying 1,185 guns, 12,920 sailors, 43,000 rowers and 28,000 soldiers. The Ottomans had 277 ships but carried only 750 guns and 25,000 soldiers, including 12-15,000 Greeks taken prisoner for this purpose and 2,500 janissaries, the only troops equal to the Spanish infantry.
A contingent from Spelonga joined in, with a replica of the Turkish battle flag which one of their ancestors brought home from the battle. The original doesn't travel.
Approximate casualties: Whatever the true totals, the difference between the two sides is obvious.
The Holy League: 7,500 (or 9,000, 12,000, or 15,000) men, 12 (or 15) ships sunk and one captured.
The Ottomans: 30,000 (or 20,000) men, 8,000 taken prisoner, 113 ships sunk and 117 captured, some of which were in good enough condition to be used by the victors. The only prize the Turks snagged was one Venetian galley.
I’ll pause for a second to attempt to imagine what 45,000 casualties look like, especially when they all die in the space of five hours. The attempt has failed. Let’s go on.
The victory monument atop the entrance to the Arsenal in Venice. The inscription reads VICTORIAE NAVALIS MONUMENTUM MDLXXI. No further details needed.
Meanwhile, at Venice, the campanile of San Marco was being manned continually by lookouts awaiting some sign of the battle’s outcome. The Venetians sent word by their fastest galley, the Angelo, which entered the lagoon ten days later, on October 18. The instant that the lookout could make out that the ship was draped with Turkish flags, he cried “Victory!”
Every bell in the city began to ring. Total strangers kissed each other in the streets. Shops closed in celebration, some owners slapping signs on the doors saying ”Closed due to the death of the Turks.” The debtors’ prison was emptied. Permission to wear masks was given. And so on and on. A triumphal arch was constructed over the entrance to the Arsenal, and every year on October 7 (feast-day of Santa Giustina), from 1572 till the fall of the Republic in 1797, the Doge and the government would go in procession to the church of Santa Giustina, where the captured Turkish standards were brought out for all to see.
The statue of Miguel Cervantes within the harbor walls was given by the Spanish government. In addition to the wreaths tossed into the water, one is usually placed at his feet, as well as at the memorial plaque on the nearby wall.
Another trophy — if one can call it that — of the war was Miguel Cervantes’s left hand. He fought at Lepanto aboard the ship Marquesa, and when another writer later derided him as being “old and one-handed,” he replied: “What I cannot help taking amiss is that he charges me with being old and one-handed, as if it had been in my power to keep time from passing over me, or as if the loss of my hand had been brought about in some tavern, and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen, or the future can hope to see. If my wounds have no beauty in the beholder’s eye, they are, at least, honourable in the estimation of those who know where they were received….”
So who were the real victors? Morale soared on the European side: It had finally been shown that the Ottomans could be defeated, something which after about 100 years had begun to appear unlikely. On the other hand, Venice never got Cyprus back. And although it was wonderful that they had destroyed the Turkish navy, it was back to its previous strength within a year.
“I would have you know the difference between your loss and ours,” the Grand Vizier Sokullu Mehmet Pasha told the Venetian emissary. “In wresting Cyprus from you, we deprived you of an arm; in defeating our fleet, you have only shaved our beard. An arm when cut off cannot grow again, but a shorn beard will grow all the better for the razor.”
All true. But the Ottomans never succeeded in conquering the Adriatic, which would have jammed the door open to many unhappy events. I consider that to be the verdict on Lepanto, and so did most of the delirious victors.
Let’s move up to last week. For the third year in a row, we were invited to participate in an hour-long show broadcast live on Greek television commemorating this event. Obviously nothing anyone can do today could match the event itself, so it came down to a kind of audio-visual creation heavy on symbolism (I think that’s what it was) and mood. And fireworks. You can never go wrong there.
The acrobat rehearsing, suspended over our boat.
Our assignment was to row around the tiny fortified harbor, providing a Venetian/nautical tinge while all sorts of things were happening around us: Strobe lights and projections on the stone walls enclosing the port, acrobats climbing long strips of fabric and creating dramatic human shadows that moved sort of like combatants, a procession of costumed Venetians from C.E.R.S., flames shooting from the battlements, as well as from a Croatian two-masted ship which also poured white fireworks into the sea, and finally, an acrobat in a white bodysuit suspended over the water who danced to a melancholy song which even though it was in Italian, I couldn’t understand. (Our material contribution was to carry the girl and her assistant to and from the point of performance.) Coming at the end, her silent contortions gave an elegiac quality to the event, which was almost immediately canceled out by the fireworks that followed.
The icon, now considered miraculous, of the Madonna of Nafpaktos, to which the Greeks prayed before and during the battle.
Entertaining as this was (and I have to say that the editions of 2008 and 2007 were much more elaborate and imaginative — evidently the economic crisis has bitten deep into the budget here), for me the much more important and moving ceremony occurred the following morning.
After a long commemorative Orthodox mass in the cathedral, a procession formed to march to the harbor: An armed honor guard and military band, a few bishops and other clergy and a large icon of the Madonna (who is credited, much more than Santa Giustina, for the victory), the mayor and city councilors, and representatives from most of the nations which contributed to the battle.
After a short speech by the mayor, and a series of prayers by the bishop, a moment of silence was called. I know this because suddenly a silence fell on the harbor and everyone in it which was something exceptional. This silence wasn’t just the absence of noise, it was as if the world had literally stopped. Whether you wanted to or not, your thoughts (mine, I mean) had to go straight to the battle and especially its victims, among whom I willingly remember the Turks, who naturally did not send a representative even though their troops were just as dead as ours.
The representative of Venice offers the city's wreath.
Then each nation’s official took a laurel wreath — I counted ten — and one by one, tossed it into the water. Last year this segment was enriched by a cannon blast before each one and the playing of that country’s national anthem by the military band, which I found tremendously affecting. This year, no cannon, and evidently not only money but even time was in short supply because after this brisk sequence the ceremony closed with only one piece of music, the Greek national anthem. We, as always, raised our oars in acknowledgment of the prayers and the anthem.
I’m not going to risk attempting to close with some profound summary. All you have to do is consider even the barest outlines of the conflict and then, as Job admonished his friends, “Be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth.”
This modest palazzo in Campo Santa Maria Formosa in Venice was the house of Sebastiano Venier, commander of the Venetian fleet. He was unanimously elected doge several years later, in 1577, at the age of 81.
The plaque on the facade reads: "Questa e' la casa di Sebastiano Venier Vincitore di Lepanto. La Marina Militare Italiana nel IV Centenario della Battaglia 7 ottobre 1971 pose." ("This is the house of Sebastiano Venier Victor of Lepanto. The Italian Navy placed this on the 400th anniversary of the battle 7 october 1971.")
Service Announcement: Off to Greece
Posted by: | CommentsI regret the recent interval of silence –now we’re on the road again. For the third year in a row, we are going to Lepanto (Nafpaktos) Greece, to participate in a spectacle commemorating the victory of the Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571 — I remember it as if it were yesterday…).
I’ll be back in a week, full of anecdotes and photos, one hopes not too out of focus. The anecdotes, I mean.
Let me wish myself bon voyage: kalo taxidi!
