As a freelance journalist, I have written about many things for many publications over the eons. Though I’m publishing less frequently at the moment than in days of yore, I have just written a small piece on Venice for National Geographic’s online News.
Most readers will recognize familiar themes, but I thought I’d provide the link here anyway. At the least, it’s something for you to read while you’re waiting for the water to boil and I’m whipping up another post.
By the way, a very important but unaccountably missing link in the online text is for the Venice Project Center:
4 Comments
Brilliantissimo as always. Have Facebooked it accordingly. The bit about living here without speaking dialetto hit me hard. If only I could retire, remarry, get the courage up to join the local ladies in the chat-athon on the vaporetto or otherwise re-programme my brain from Italian to Venetian….it’s on my 2015 To-Do list (again), otherwise known as perennial new year’s resolutions…
It was with a heavy heart that I wrote that, but it seems to me to be crucial. I would certainly wish for you to know Venetian but I could never wish that you’d have to go through the process, which is long and agonizing. It may take courage to start, but it takes unfathomable depths of stubborn, thankless perseverance to continue. Because while it’s not agonizing to learn a word or to recognize a phrase, it takes years of struggling every day finally to have enough Venetian at your command so that you can not only understand what someone is saying, but say something yourself before the conversation sweeps onward. Learning Italian is kind of like learning a linguistic waltz; learning Venetian is like learning a freaking mass tarantella. I totally love it and there are so many ways of saying things better than I can say them in my own blessed mother tongue. But I repeat — it took years. I had a few extra back then to devote to the project, but I don’t know if I could do it now.
“In sto mondo ghe xe più culi che careghe”! I love it.
Absolutely terrific article. Thank you for the read—I shared it with a number of my friends. 🙂
I loved the NatGeo piece and shared it with some of my friends, as in my short visits to Venice I have observed the small town dynamic you mentioned: everyone seemed to either know each other or have some familiarity with each other. As a matter of fact, after reading the article my friend from nearby Chioggia informed me that I briefly met you when I was visiting last summer!