Overheard: gone and also forgotten

I wasn’t there, but an entirely trustworthy source has reported the following to me:

There is a cafe in our neighborhood which is one of those little social nerve centers.   The men have them, and women have them, but this particular one is good for just about everybody.   It has coffee and wine, pastries and potato chips, and two rumpsprung one-armed bandits operated feverishly by heavyset women smoking one cigarette right after another.   It’s got a few tables outside for your tired tourists.   And two tables inside where some of the regulars sit and sort of lounge around.

You can buy the newspaper if you want, but you only get the really important neighborhood stuff by word of mouth.
You can buy the paper if you want, but you get the really important news by word of mouth.

This oasis of refreshment is run by a woman and her late-20ish daughter who — like good bar/cafe/nerve-center proprietors everywhere —  know every person who has ever come in there twice.   She got the basics of our life story the first time we stopped for a coffee.  

They’re not nosy, you understand.   It’s just that one wants to  put one’s patrons in perspective.  

So a few mornings ago, my source stopped by for an espresso.   It was clear that he had entered a multi-person conversation that was already in high gear, and had already passed the recounting-the-event-in-detail and moved on to the hilarity-in-reaction-to-the-event.

What had happened was this:   At some point in the morning, the proprietor had gone into the bathroom.   (I don’t know for what purpose but it’s irrelevant.)   Among the plumbing, porcelain, and cleaning supplies was:   A pineapple.  

An attractive, compact, not cheap but always appreciated tropical fruit which somebody had obviously bought and obviously not wanted to risk losing  by  leaving it unattended  outside  when answering the proverbial call.  

Then they left.   Did they ever come back?   I haven’t been able to find out.   But I wouldn’t leave my kid with whoever it was, that’s for sure.

The neighborhood (perhaps the entire town) is bestrewn with small human mysteries. As in: Why would anyone think this was the way to dispose of their empty juice box?
The neighborhood (perhaps the entire town) is bestrewn with small human mysteries. As in: Why would anyone think this was the way to dispose of their empty juice box?

But that’s not all.   Same cafe — perhaps even the same day, I didn’t think to ask — the daughter was doing a quick buzz around the modest premises, and noticed  something sitting on  one of the two small tables.

It was  a pair of dentures.    

Somebody had taken out their teeth and just left them behind.

I know.   The questions crash into each other in my brain too.   We can all understand that someone might have had to take them out, but how can you forget to put them back in?  

Obviously you can, so what about this question: How can you walk away, down the street, perhaps even reaching home, without ever sensing that something about the world (or  if maybe it’s just me) was strangely different and, perhaps, even disturbing?

This neatly folded paper bag was obviously of no further use to someone, so it was just neatly left here.  Where it has become utterly invisible to everyone, even the garbageman.
This neatly folded paper bag was obviously of no further use to someone, so it was just neatly left here. Where it has become utterly invisible to everyone, even the garbageman. If you don't want something anymore, just put it down somewhere and everyone agrees that it has ceased to exist.

How far did he or she get in this toothless, crumpled-lips condition?   Did any of their friends notice?  What about when the person needed to say something to a shopkeeper or a dog or a small rambunctious child?   Did not their mouth (or ears, whichever is in better condition) send some kind of signal alerting them to their total lack of dentition?  

And why am I even bothering with these questions, since the answer to all of them is obviously no?

I love this town.   I really do.

Continue Reading

MOSE : no happily ever after

It’s probably way past everybody’s bedtime, so I’ll  wrap up this little philippic.

Imagining momentarily that a satisfactory conclusion could ever be reached in the Gordian convolutions of the “floodgate” project,  permit me to make a few very brief observations.

First, let us make a concerted effort to ban all those irresistible  emotional words that acqua alta seems to force from journalists’ subconscious.   “Venice under siege,” is a common one.   CNN said that the high water of December, 2008 had been caused by the Adriatic “bursting its banks.”   (Banks?   Bursting?   Are we in Holland?).   The Discovery Channel stated that the high water was “cannibalizing” the city’s buildings (OMG).   And on and on.   One could smile if this kind of reporting wasn’t cannibalizing common sense.

If the city can't manage to find some money for people, even when we've got MOSE we may no longer have any people.  I'm sorry moments like this will become so rare.
If the city can't manage to find some money for people, even when we've got MOSE we may no longer have any people. Good thing we have pictures.

When I think about it really calmly, it appears to me that it’s actually impossible for the planners and builders of MOSE to be able to make any promise (guarantee, statement, claim,  whatever you like) about their creation that they can prove is accurate.

There are simply too many unknowns in the many different scenarios devoted to its use: How well it will function — that’s the big one —   how much its maintenance (routine or extra)  will cost, where the money for feeding and caring for it will come from, etc.  

Every claim from its proponents is supported so far only by data assembled  by them.

Probably the two major areas of  concern for its  success are:

First: How  high the highest tides are likely to become.   Some  estimates only give MOSE 100 years of usefulness, after which the highest tides will spill over its maximum height.   The frequency and duration of these exceptional high tides are also subject to interminable debate.   But nobody knows.

I wonder who will put up the laundry everybody (including me) loves to photograph. Maybe they'll hire somebody.
I wonder who will hang out the laundry everybody (including me) loves to photograph. Maybe they'll hire somebody.

Second: How well the individual caissons will remain aligned.    As I mentioned in my last post, if they begin to lose their perfect uniform surface (even if only one of them doesn’t rise as high as its neighbor, or the seal begins to leak), the strength of the entire “wall” of caissons will be compromised.  

I have rowed against the incoming tide at the inlet at San Nicolo, in normal weather with no hint of wind or surge, and it is nowhere near being a joke.   If the barrier isn’t perfect, the tide will come in whether MOSE is ready or not.

But let us not be downhearted.   Let’s say that the machinery functions perfectly, precisely as planned.   Let’s say that exceptional high water occurs ever more frequently. as expected.   Let’s say that every prediction is fulfilled, even though there is no way to assume they will be.

Here is the real question:   Has Venice been saved from anything except some water in the street    for a few hours?

The true inundation, the most implacable and destructive, is the endless tide of tourists.   The number increases 3 per cent every year; in 2009 it reached 21 million in an area of about three square miles.

No need to waste any time worrying about the old folks, they'll be gone anyway.
No need to waste any time worrying about the old folks, they'll be gone anyway.

Whether this  fact   inspires emotion or not, it is more measurable, and predictable, than the inexact, politically driven “science” that has given birth to MOSE.

So let’s say that while assorted interested parties continue  to water and fertilize  the popular  obsession which the press has with acqua alta,  some very real  problems continue to be  neglected.

Young families will continue to move away because they can’t afford Venice (housing, primarily, though lack of jobs is a close second), the older generations eventually die off, and before MOSE has become obsolete the city will be devoid of residents.   In their place will be the tsunami of tourists — tended to by merchants who mostly live on the mainland — which will  finally render the city completely unliveable.

So even if MOSE performs perfectly, the Venice that has been “saved” will amount to nothing more than a collection of really old buildings, beautiful or not, according to your taste.

If no comparable effort is made to revive and protect the life of Venice, then even if MOSE turns out to be an engineering marvel to rival the invention of the arch, the once-thriving city will be as devoid of life as Machu Picchu.

When that happens, there’s won’t be much point in vilifying MOSE, or bewailing the triumph of politics and fear over basic municipal common sense.  

But unfortunately, and perhaps even unwillingly, even the not-so-old will be gone too.
But unfortunately, and perhaps even unwillingly, even the not-so-old will be gone too.

But it seems clear, even now, before the first button is pushed,  that if the time, energy, and billions of dollars that will have been spent to hold back the tide had been dedicated to resolving the chronic, debilitating problems that Venice experiences every day,  in 50 years there would still be a living city worth saving.

Continue Reading