Problems

surfing the Grand Canal

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This image of one of the “surfisti” was published in La Nuova Venezia.  Fun!

Here’s something I learned today: Electric surfboards exist.  They don’t literally go in the surf, but are big rectangles of plastic with a battery-powered motor and a cord to hang onto, and you just zoom away having the water-skiing time of your life without having to bother with attaching yourself to a motorboat.  I guess it could be compared to an electric scooter, but on the water.  Or a jet-ski that you stand on.  Or a turbo-charged paddle board without the paddle.

This much is news to me.  What isn’t news is that somebody (two somebodies, actually) decided to bring their toys to Venice and try them out on the Grand Canal.  It happened this morning (Wednesday, August 17).  What also isn’t news is that imbeciles have some primitive instinct that compels them to come to Venice in the summer, like the wildebeest have to surge across the Serengeti in May.  If you are an imbecile with money, you will get there before all the ordinary, common-garden-variety idiot tourists who do mundane little stupid things like jumping off the Rialto Bridge, or cooking your lunch hunkered down around your camp stove in the Piazza San Marco.

Two men aboard these entertaining vehicles suddenly appeared in the Grand Canal, as I said, and after zooming from Rialto to the Salute they somehow managed to disappear before anybody had means, money, or opportunity to nab them.  Mayor Luigi Brugnaro was livid and posted this on Twitter (translated by me): “Here are two overbearing imbeciles who are making a joke of the city … I ask everybody to help us identify them and punish them even if our weapons are blunt … there is urgent need for mayors to have more power to ensure public safety!  To whomever identifies them I offer dinner!”

Well, they got caught, and it didn’t take more than a few hours.  Bulletins didn’t name who gets the credit — and the dinner — for tracking them down, but it may be a while before these two bright sparks will be feeling that rush of adrenaline and endorphins and serotonin and oxytocin and dopamine they were savoring this morning.

They are two Australians who now, at nightfall, have had their boards confiscated (total worth 25,000 euros, or 36,662 Australian dollars), and been fined 1,500 euros each (2,344 Australian dollars).  It’s only money and they almost certainly can afford it, but the mayor has initiated legal proceedings against them for “damage to the city’s image.”  I don’t know what that is likely to add up to, but I can see lots of lawyers’ fees and whole lots of time being spent on making an example of them.

Naturally I’m as glad as the next person to know that they have been hauled away in chains and leg shackles, but my gladness is curdled by the thought that if it seems incredible that somebody would do this, it is equally, if not more, incredible that they weren’t stopped in flagrante.  Along the entire stretch of the Grand Canal (3,800 meters or half a mile) there was not one carabinere, state police, local police, lagoon police, firefighter, dogcatcher, anybody at all with a badge and a walkie-talkie who was on the scene, ready to intervene.

I know it’s an old joke to say that you never see one when you need one, but if I were the mayor I’d be spending less time dudgeoning about these two cretins, and instead be chairing a serious meeting to find out where the hell everybody was.  It’s invigorating to want —  what was his phrase? — “mayors to have more power,” but it seems to me that if people were on their assigned jobs at their assigned times and places, the mayor wouldn’t need more power.  The mayor’s supposed to make the system work, not BE the system.

I can imagine scenarios more serious than electric surfboards that would have had urgent need for a rapid intervention (baby falling into the water comes to mind), and yet, nobody’s on hand.  “Please leave a message at the tone….”

Oh wait.  The shell-game shysters have returned to their traditional places to pluck the unwary tourists ready to gamble.  Maybe that’s where the police were.  If not there, they must have been out patrolling the myriad motorboats causing extreme motondoso this year, though the waves make me doubt it.  If not there, maybe they’re going around checking store-owners’ certificates of fire inspection.

The Grand Canal is Fifth Avenue!  It’s the Champs Elysees!  You can’t have Fifth Avenue with no police officer in sight.  Something goes wrong on the Champs Elysees — there must be at least one policeman patrolling.  But here in Venice we have the Grand Canal with nitwits running wild in broad daylight and the mayor has to turn to Twitter to ask for help finding them.  Am I wrong, or is that just a little bit dumber than speed-surfing on Main Street?

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Venetian-ness

endless little discoveries

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Even if the last word is missing, it takes no effort at all to fill it in: “The sun is nothing compared to your eyes.” I hope whoever has those eyes wasn’t the one who removed the word.

One of the best things about walking around Venice is that you are always discovering things, the littler, the better.

Here is a smattering of recent surprises, in no particular order.  The important thing is that they made me smile.

Speaking of eyes, this is not a fragment from the ancient Syrians or Greeks.
This haunting tribute is placed on a wall at the hospital, near the Emergency Room.  It was created by Orsoni, maker of mosaic tesserae in Venice since 1888, and donated in honor of the medical personnel at the city hospital for their heroic work during the pandemic.  “Duri i banchi” is a very old expression still used as encouragement, if not warning, dating from the epoch of rowed galleys when it was shouted to the crew to brace themselves before the moment of impact in battle. (Think “Ramming speed!” from Ben-Hur).  The banchi (BAN-kee) were the benches upon which the rowers sat, but saying “Hard the benches!” doesn’t mean that the benches were hard, though of course they were, but refers to the rowers themselves.  So: Hang tough, stand your ground, stay strong.  (Note: It’s about 35 cm x 45 cm/13 in x 18 in.  I didn’t think to make a photograph of its general position — I’ll do that next time I’m by the hospital.)
A tree has been growing on the vegetable boat, and its nespoli (loquats) were bravely maturing not long ago.
I didn’t keep track of them, so I can’t tell you whether the birds ate them or if Massimo or Luca took them home from the boat and made compote.
It’s possible that this window belongs to a vast apartment, but seen from the end of a long dark calle this small opening brings Rapunzel to mind.  Or the Count of Monte Cristo, if he had liked to grow basil.  I understand why the bars are there, but they do add a strangely dramatic tone to a very ordinary scene.
And on the subject of windows, I noticed this the other day. It’s amazing what you can find when you’re not looking for anything.  You don’t see any particular “this” in the scene?  Look closer.
Wait — is that a mirror I see through the open window? Wow….
The city’s like some visual echo chamber.
“I’ll be right back,” it says on the open door.
I understand the need for ashtrays. I do not understand how this one along the canal works.
This scooter has obviously been sent to the corner of the church for a big time-out.  Don’t ask, it knows perfectly well what it did.
This young girl has just single-handedly restored my faith in the future of the future. I saw the title on the book’s cover: “Piccole Donne.”  Little Women.
I had to compliment this lady for her exceptional attention to her whole ensemble.  She could have just thrown on the dress and still looked good, but the necklace!  The mask!  The cell phone cover! For those whose maximum concern is making sure their socks match, all I can say is “Watch and learn.”
No comment needed, they speak for themselves, and for her.
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Events

sorry, but this is hilarious

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The headline at the newsstand Wednesday: “Huge reviewing stand in Piazza (San Marco) Florian closed in protest.”

Some things deserve to be laughed at — laughter with a frisson of incredulity.  Incredulity without the guffaws also works well.  And Florian closing in protest is hilarious.

Florian is the jewel in the crown of the Piazza San Marco.  Opened on December 29, 1720, it is certainly the oldest cafe extant in Venice, and in all of Italy; some sources claim it’s the oldest in the world, though Florian modestly denies it.  It’s also extremely beautiful.  History and elegance make such a lovely couple.  Sipping your prosecco or Bellini or even a tiny cup containing three drops of espresso, a nibble of salmon, a delectable pastry, all brought to you on a silver salver, you can feel wonderfully, uniquely glamorous.  Sitting in Venice!  At Florian!  Am I dreaming?  Is this really me?

It is fabulous, there is no other way to put it.

Then the bill arrives, and you have to start planning that second mortgage on your house.  Coffee at the bar: 3 euros ($3.17).  Seated: 6.50 ($6.85). A little plate of six (6) cookies? 13 euros ($13.71).  Is the atmosphere adorned by the enchanting music rippling from the instruments of the quartet on their platform outside?  Your conto will request your payment of 6 euros per person, even if you didn’t actually order it.  Yes, for a concert it’s extremely economical.

I could go on, but my point is not how expensive it is; Florian can charge any price it wants and nobody is forcing you to go there.

My point is that they closed for a day to protest the “invasion” of the gargantuan stage set up for massive ceremonies in the Piazza San Marco. (More on the ceremonies later.)  Florian strongly objects to all this construction encroaching on their territory, primarily because they were not consulted weeks in advance.  The city government disputes the accusation of no consultation.

To set the scene, Florian is the cream-colored awning on the left side of his image.
This is the view of the Piazza from the tables at Florian yesterday. The large blue reviewing stand is one thing, but the bleachers will be in front of the tables. Yet where else could you put them?  Even though Florian objects to it, the marching always crosses the Piazza lengthwise. Geometry is heartless, as I discovered in 10th grade and Florian discovered this week.  The Comune has conceded extra lateral space for the tables to compensate for the distress.

I could understand somebody protesting a situation that would dangerously and cruelly limit, if not eliminate, their income for a few days (April 29 – May 9, to be precise).  But I don’t believe this is the case.

They complain that there is too much going on in the Piazza, and huge events such as Wednesday’s graduation ceremony for 800 students of the University of Venice, and the even huger rituals planned for today in honor of the Morosini naval school (details follow), are seriously invading their physical space and even their aura.

The occasion is the 60th anniversary of the school’s re-founding in 1961 (originally established in 1937, but interruptions such as war ensued).  And while we’re all together, why not also conduct the requisite swearing-in ceremony by which the first-year class is rendered officially military.  This year the second-year group will join in, as there was no oath-taking last year.  There will be marching and saluting executed by the 150 cadets, undoubtedly abetted by detachments from other military branches.  Did I mention that the president of the republic will also be there?  Not to mention many past cadets, going back decades.

To return to the bur under Florian’s saddle, yes, there is an enormous reviewing stand, and yes, there will be big bleachers flanking it.  It’s regrettable that these will degrade the scenery of the Piazza, to the detriment of the Florian fascination.  But it occurs to me that even though this legendary cafe’, like all businesses that place tables outdoors, pays a tax for the public space they occupy, they don’t actually own that space.  Which is to say that the Piazza San Marco doesn’t belong to them.  In fact, you could make a good argument that Florian’s appeal does not lie principally in the Piazza, but in its own glorious rooms.  If you take the Orient Express, are you really going to spend a lot of time looking out the window at the scenery?

People want glamour, people are willing to pay for glamour, and then they park their baby stroller in the aisle.  Power bank recharging something, backpack stashed aboard.  The invisible clients on the left could be sitting in the departure gate area of the Dubuque airport.  Not saying travelers can’t have their stuff, just saying that the Florian aura is a very frangible thing.  If somebody can come to Florian and do this, I seriously doubt that some bleachers outside are going to bother them.  If Florian doesn’t mind the stroller parked amidships, I’m not sure why they’re complaining about the atmosphere of their operation outside.

In any case, the Piazza San Marco has been the site of mass confusionary events for centuries.  The interminable procession on the feast of Corpus Domini, the week-long market for the feast of the Ascension — stalls everywhere selling everything! — bear-baiting to entertain the Crown Prince of Russia in a Piazza surrounded by yes, bleachers filled with thousands of spectators, and so on.  If anything big is going to happen in Venice, it’s almost certainly going to happen in the Piazza San Marco.  Did nobody think to tell Florian?

Well, not according to them.  They say they got barely 24-hours notice before the scaffolding began to go up, at which I wonder what difference it would have made to have had even 240-hours notice.  The scaffolding is going up, and it will be coming down.  See: “Ownership of Piazza,” above.

So here is what strikes me as hilarious about all this: What possible difference does it make to anyone except Florian if it closes for a day?  I understand the desire to protest, but saying you’re going to close for a day to show how mad you are is kind of like when I was three years old and threatened to hold my breath forever if I didn’t get what I wanted.  My mother basically said “Go right ahead,” and I did, and when I regained consciousness on the kitchen floor she was still standing over there, washing dishes or cutting vegetables or whatever she was doing.  So much for my protest.

So a day without Florian, even though you can make it sound like something terrible, doesn’t even register on the Apocalypt-o-Meter.  I think most of us can say we have other things to worry about.

None of the three other other cafe’s on the Piazza have protested, and they too, as well as the museums, are going to have to close for the ceremonial day.
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Birds

the voyage of the swan

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We expected to see the usual Sunday morning mix of taxis and vaporettos, but a mute swan (Cygnus olor) was a surprise.

May 1 was a national holiday, here and in many other countries, and it’s generally known as International Workers’ Day.  So in honor of workers everywhere, we also did not work that day.  We went out for an early morning row, and were amazed to be met in the Bacino of San Marco by a very fine, and very unexpected, feathered friend.

There are about 270 species of bird in the lagoon over the course of the year, either pausing in their migrations, stopping for the winter, or just moving in permanently.  The Venetian lagoon is on a major north-south flyway, and apart from being enormous, is one of the few, ever-diminishing coastal wetlands in Europe.
He was tranquilly crossing the Bacino without any noticeable destination in mind — more or less like any other tourist wandering the city, except much more beautiful.
He didn’t seem to mind the waves as much as I do.
Recent fossil records, according to the British Ornithological Union, show that Cygnus olor is among the oldest bird species still extant; some fossil and bog specimens date back to 13,000 B.C.E.  The young bird is initially gray and gradually becomes white over four years.

We have often seen a pair of swans in the northern lagoon, beyond Torcello, and also on the Brenta river near Malcontenta; one time we counted nearly 50 floating in the distance near Sant’ Erasmo.  Lino told me that when he was a lad, some birds that we now commonly see in the city, such as cormorants, egrets, and seagulls, never came to town.  You’d see them only in the distance, he says, if you saw them at all.  Now they’re everywhere.

But the swans weren’t to be seen anywhere.  About 35 years ago, Giampaolo Rallo, now president of the Mestre Pro Loco, then a naturalist at the Natural History Museum, noticed that there wasn’t a swan to be found in the lagoon, “not even if you paid it,” as one account put it.  So he got what he calls “this crazy idea” to bring back the swans.  On April 13, 1984, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), together with the Gazzettino, launched a drive to find individuals willing to sponsor (fancy word for “pay for”) pairs of swans — not a small contribution, considering that a pair cost the equivalent of $315 today.

He strolled, so to speak, over to the riva Ca’ di Dio where someone was dropping a few crumbs into the water – or so it appeared. Photos ensued. It wasn’t long before he decided to investigate other sources of snacks, such as the seaweed.

Over a period of two years, up to one hundred couples were acquired in the Netherlands and placed in the “fish valleys” of the southern lagoon.  “It was a great cultural work,” Rallo explained to a journalist from La Nuova Venezia in 2019, “because we had to teach the respect of all the great waterbirds — I’m thinking also of the flamingoes.  But there was real enthusiasm in the city for this initiative and there were important signs, such as the participation of Federcaccia Venezia” (the hunters’ association) “which bought a pair and made their volunteers available to watch over the swans to prevent anyone from disturbing or wounding them.”  Who would hurt a swan?  Well, hungry people a few generations back had no problem with trying to get these spectacular creatures on the table.

Today there are a thousand swans in the lagoon, and are sometimes seen even in Mestre’s modest waterways.  A breeding pair named Silvia and Peter live near the lagoon at Caorle, and are awaiting the hatching of their eleventh brood of cygnets.

Moving on toward some moored vaporettos.
Hello, what’s this?  A shiny little metal plate that looks crunchy.  Or maybe not.
Not.  Definitely not.
Well, let’s mosey along and see what else we can find.
While I’m marveling at the wonder of his being in Venice, he is perhaps marveling at the notion that anybody could live in a place like this and not on a muddy tidal islet lined with reeds.

A tasty morsel hiding behind this taxi? He got there first.  At this point we moved on, so I have no idea what else happened to him.
This is your swan’s typical territory. You can understand why it was so strange to see one in downtown Venice.

My most powerful memory of swans was a moment that was not, and anyway could not have been, photographed.  It all happened so quickly.

Years ago, we were out rowing near the island of Santo Spirito on a deep grey morning in winter.  Suddenly a trio of large birds flew toward us — three swans — flying so low it seemed we could touch them.

I had never seen swans flying, much less so near.  As they passed overhead, their long graceful necks undulated slightly, and a barely discernible murmuring sound came from their throats.

Swans may be beautiful when they’re doing nothing, but when they fly they are magic.

He would so love to be a swan. Let’s just let him have it.
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