Acqua alta: reviewing the basics I

Let’s start with the most basic fact of all: Venice is sitting in the middle of a tidal lagoon.   This means surrounded by water that rises and falls.    I don’t mean to keep harping on this, because I know it sounds  really dumb,  but not much  dumber than all those stories that get published and broadcast that make it sound as if water on the ground here were stranger  and more upsetting than four sharks singing “Shine On, Harvest Moon.”  

How high the water  will rise might vary from the official  prediction based on a few factors, but when it’s looking imminent I’ve definitely got at least one eye on the barometer, the wind sock (on the computer) and the moon.   Wait, that makes three eyes.   Well, you know what I mean.

This shopkeeper near the Piazza San Marco is keeping his high-water records this way.
This shopkeeper near the Piazza San Marco is keeping his high-water records this way.

Data on the tides began to be recorded regularly after an exceptional high water in 1867 (153 cm above  average sea level).   In 1908 various monitoring stations were installed to more precisely measure  the height of the tides, and in 1914 the pertinent data on the barometric pressure and the direction and force of the wind were added.    

For events longer ago, historians can only turn to various chronicles and accounts in which the quantities aren’t always easy to assess.   As in: “The water rose high enough to ruin the wells.”   A flooded well would, in my view, be much more distressing than some water on the floor, seeing as the supply of fresh H2O in Venice was not infinite.

The main high-water factors are the following:

The season.   If  the acqua is going to be alta, it will usually be between September and April.   Articles which refer to  its frequency  are often misleading  because they use aggregate numbers which give the impression that it’s a monthly occurrence all year long.   While there might be pesky clusters of high water events in winter (as happened this year), the likelihood plummets to June; it has never been recorded in July and August.  

Phase of the moon.   The tides are highest and lowest when the moon is full and when it’s new.  Actually, the moon is the only component to this phenomenon which isn’t even the tiniest bit likely to swerve from the forecast.  

Atmospheric pressure.   When it’s low, the water is high.   When it’s high, the water is low.   If we tap on the barometer and see that it’s gone to the bottom of the scale, there’s no getting around the likelihood that the water will be high.   The barometer won’t tell us how high,   but we can look out the door and make a guess.     A barometer is a great friend to have because it cannot tell a lie.

Wind.   If the scirocco is blowing, it will definitely aggravate the situation.   The  scirocco is also  obnoxious  because it’s warm and humid (get one blowing in the summer and you’ll wonder if you took the wrong exit and ended up in Amazonia).   But as it’s from the southeast, it will blow into the lagoon and — putting it very simplistically — push against the tide and prevent it from going out in a timely and efficient fashion.   On the contrary, it seems to work very hard to keep all the water in the lagoon all at once.   I try to avoid anthropomorphizing the natural world here, but I have to say that sometimes it seems like  the wind just does it on purpose.

When a strong scirocco is blowing, I don’t hear wind so much as I do the heavy surf rolling up in close-order-drill on the Lido’s Adriatic beaches.   It’s a deep, rumbling sort of roar off in the distance, impossible to mistake for anything else.  

Yes, the water is rising in the Piazza San Marco.  But the owner of the cafe clearly is not too concerned, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered setting up all those chairs and tables.
Yes, the water is rising in the Piazza San Marco. But the owner of the cafe clearly is not too concerned, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered setting up all those chairs and tables.

There is a warning system to alert the city that within an hour, water will be  rising  in the Piazza San Marco (the lowest point in the city) and, by extension, at other various low-lying areas.    This information comes from a monitoring system at the mouth of the lagoon at San Nicolo, and at other points in the lagoon.  

Until two years ago, the citywide warning system  was a few  sirens which emitted a sequence of rising wails.      The first time I heard them they woke me from a deep sleep in the middle of the night — a sudden violent tone  swooping upward, overlapped by another one just following it, and then by a third.   Scared the hoo out of me — it was like the Three Weird Sisters in Macbeth going mad.

But what they didn’t tell you back then was how much water was going to come ashore.

Two years ago, the system was refined.   Now there is only one  siren-swoop, after which comes a steady tone  which indicates the maximum  predicted height.   One tone = 110 centimeters above sea level.   Two tones = 120 centimeters.   Three tones = 130.   And four tones = 140 and above.   This is what they sound like.   I can tell you they’re very effective.   There may not be any way you can ultimately prevent water from coming indoors, but you cannot possibly say you had no warning.

This tide-level notice board at Piazzale Roma gives the height of the tide in real time, indicates whether it is rising or falling, and what time the next maximum (or minimum) will be.  And how high or low.  Very useful, if you happen to be at Piazzale Roma.
This tide-level notice board at Piazzale Roma gives the height of the tide in real time, indicates whether it is rising or falling, and what time the next maximum (or in this case, minimum) will be. And how high or low. Very useful, if you happen to be at Piazzale Roma.
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Carnival: mopping up

You thought Carnival was over with the sprinkling of the ashes on penitential hairdos?   Not quite.

Carnival doesn’t slink away under cover of darkness when the marangon, the basso profundo bell in  the campanile of San Marco, tolls midnight on Martedi Grasso.   Two things have to happen for it to really be over — in my opinion, that is.   Two things which are more predictable  than the  swallows returning to Capistrano.  

One of the regular car ferries is engaged for the carnival trucks.
One of the regular car ferries is engaged for the carnival trucks.

The first is the pulling apart and hauling away of  the traveling amusement park (what they generically call a “Luna Park” here) which has been gracing the Riva dei Sette Martiri since — I believe — early December.  

These people (as in much of the world) are almost exclusively families which have dedicated many generations to the setting up, operating, pulling down, and rolling on to the next location of their ride or concession stand.  

After three months, I’m going to miss the smell of the hot-doughnut-frying-oil and the screeching of the children.   It was fun strolling along the waterfront late every afternoon to mingle and kibitz.   And I am convinced that as long as there is at least one small child  walking home carrying a  small plastic bag containing water and a goldfish, the world will  not come to an end.

All this concentrated traffic is a lot to ask of a stretch of walkway which is made of small stones atop packed damp sand.
All this concentrated traffic is a lot to ask of a stretch of walkway which is made of small stones atop packed damp sand.

Anyway, the men start work early on Ash Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning the  funfair is gone.   The only sign  they’ve ever been here  are the patches of new cement filling the holes in the pavement where their big rigs (or something) went astray.

Speaking of itinerant carnies, I went to the small town of Bergantino a few years ago when I was working on a story about the Po River (National Geographic, May, 2002).   This former farming town has, since the Twenties and much more since the Sixties, become dedicated to the design, construction, and (eventually) operation of carnival rides —    merry-go-rounds, bumper cars, etc.   Despite the town’s modest size — it’s really just a village of some 2,000 people, when they’re all there, I mean, and not out on the road —  they’ve carved away a heavy slice of this international industry for Italy.   One of the major markets for their inventions is the USA.

Well, wherever they’ve gone, I’m already missing them.

The second element of the end of  Carnival is the orgy of articles, editorials, and letters in the Gazzettino reviewing, celebrating, and vilifying the festivities just concluded.   I can tell you without even having opened the paper that there will have been too many people for this fragile city to support; that the managing of this predictable overload will have shown inexcusable organizational flaws and failures to resolve the most elementary large-event necessities (toilets, in a word); that the money taken in doesn’t justify the stress and expense to the city; that it will have lacked originality and creative genius, and that for the residents and shopkeepers of Campo Santa Margherita, the ten days just concluded have been nothing less than at least six of the nine rings of hell.  

And every year,  the apex of all the claims and counter-claims:   That this event would be (or ought to have been, or next year definitely will be) the “Carnival of the Venetians.”   I saw Venetians having a fine time carnivalizing in their own modest way in various neighborhoods of the city, but not in the Piazza San Marco.   I’d have given you a cash prize  if you’d found any Venetians besides Lino in the Piazza San Marco.  

Going-home time near San Marco.  I count eight launches ready to load up and head back to the mainland, and this picture is only one third of the traffic panorama.  This traffic is not composed of Venetians.
Going-home time near San Marco. I count eight launches ready to load up and head back to the mainland, and this picture is only one third of the traffic panorama. This traffic is not composed of Venetians.

So when this wish to involve Venetians is mentioned, as if it were obviously a good thing,  I ask myself  if the speaker  believes that  a “Carnival of the Venetians” would  have the slightest probability of pouring the millions of euros into the municipal strongboxes that all those tourists do.   After all, Venetians don’t spend money on hotel rooms, restaurant meals, fancy masks, or whatever else makes Carnival matter.   So frankly, what would be the point of spending money to organize a ten-day carnival for the few remaining locals?   Just wondering.

Let’s go to the videotape (so to speak).   Here is a smattering of the Gazzettino’s   overview of Carnival 2010, as published yesterday:

The organizers claim that 150,000 people came the first Sunday; 250,000 the second Sunday (let that sink   in…) and 40,000 on Martedi Grasso.   Altogether, they say a total of 800,000 people came to Venice during Carnival.   Perhaps not much compared to Rio, but for a city that covers a mere three square miles, not bad.

IMG_8030 carnival compThey estimate that each visitor spent 50 euros, for an exciting total income of 40 million euros.   Not sure where this number came from; a professor of the Economics of Tourism at the University of Venice says that the “bite and run” day-trippers spend an average of 30 euros each day, while the more solid tourist spends 150.   In any case, let’s not quibble over a million more or a million less.   Restaurants and hotels certainly made money, not to mention the ACTV and their spectacularly expensive vaporetto tickets.

One new comment is by the businesspeople (especiallythose of  restaurants and cafes) in the Piazza San Marco — they don’t want a maxi-stage there anymore.   I’m not sure why, but I imagine it’s because it takes up too much space which needs to be available for them to put out their tables and chairs.  

I  could go on, but it’s probably not that interesting.     These few days following Carnival are mainly spent in a sort of  emotional and mental scrubbing and disinfecting.  

I am going to miss this, though.
I am going to miss this, though.

The summary is fairly concise.   Apart from numbers, claims, and counter-claims as to success or failure, as one reporter wrote, “Now the Venetians can give a deep sigh of relief and put their hands on their foreheads and say, “‘Once again we’ve lived through it.'”

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Carnival farrago, part 2

During Carnival nowadays, anybody who normally sells anything lays on a batch of souvenirs -- masks, capes and other stuff.
During Carnival nowadays, anybody who normally sells anything lays on a batch of souvenirs — masks, capes and other stuff.

Here are a few more morsels of lore about Carnival back in the Old Days:  

Laws:   I realize that the Carnival motto is “anything goes,” which makes the idea of laws somewhat incongruous.   But “anything” could — and did — lead to enough dangerous and unstable behavior over time that the adults supposedly supervising this city-wide party  were forced to set some ground rules.   Their significance is pretty obvious.      For example:

  • Face painting is beautiful and fanciful, both important for Carnival, though one can't say it's the best approach if you were to want to remain anonymous.

It was forbidden in 1703 to wear the bauta in the ridotti,   or gambling houses.    The government was apparently the last to realize (after centuries of Carnival) that being completely disguised was a great way to hide from your creditors.   So, no hiding behind masks and capes for any nefarious purpose, because they were also …

  • …  a great way to conceal your identity as you lurked around stealing things and killing people.   On February 11, 1720, the government decreed that the capo, or head,  of each neighborhood was to patrol his territory with eight men every night of Carnival; there had to be some effort made to limit, if not completely prevent, the mayhem and murder that seemed to be the natural consequence of fun and frolic.   It must have been a great time to settle scores.
  • It was forbidden to wear masks during a plague.
  • It was forbidden to carry weapons if you were masked.     Duh.
  • It was forbidden to dress up as a priest and it was most especially forbidden for men to dress up as nuns.   If they did either of these things,  it was just too easy for them to enter convents or churches  and debauch the sisters.    Not that the nuns cared, especially;  a large percentage  of them didn’t want to be Brides of Christ in the first place, and plenty of them  absolutely made the most of Carnival anonymity.  I’m presuming  that women had also  been making the most of voluminous Carnival coverings to visit the monasteries.

Just to make sure there was a stop to this particular bit of chicanery, on January 24, 1458 it was decreed that nobody wearing a mask would be permitted to enter a church,  convent,  or any other sacred place. Period.

One you really get into the Carnival groove, you start to look at everybody differently.  Like these two individuals.  Who are they really?  And what an amazing costume they've put together -- they look just like two little old ladies from the neighborhood.
Once you really get into the Carnival groove, you start to look at everybody differently. Like these two individuals. Who are they really? And what an amazing costume they’ve put together — they look just like two little old ladies from the neighborhood.

The Carnival Calendar:

You couldn’t wear masks just any time you felt like it.   It was like hunting season, with fairly specific dates:

It started in October, when everybody came back from summer vacation in their country villas, and the theatres began to open.   At its height, Venice had 17 theatres, an extraordinary number  for a city in those days.   And Carnival continued, with a brief interruption for Christmas, until Ash Wednesday ushered in Lent.

Masks were also  allowed to be worn during the two weeks of the feast of the Ascension and its phenomenal market, which filled the Piazza San Marco with vendors from all over the Mediterranean basin and beyond.

You know it's Carnival when there's confetti (sorry -- coriandoli) literally everywhere
You know it’s Carnival when there’s confetti (sorry — coriandoli) literally everywhere

And then there was the convenient clause of  “and whenever appropriate” (as I think of it).   Masks could be permitted by special decree for very special occasions.   For example, masks were allowed during the celebrations of the victory of the Battle of Lepanto (1571).   Among the countless public festivities was a parade of allegorical floats: “Christianity” was represented in the act of crushing a chained dragon; “Victory” vaunted itself over the vanquished; and “Death” was triumphant,  complete with sickle.   It was all party, all the time for several weeks, and that could only mean break out the masks.

In any case, in good times or bad, one unassailable rule was that Carnival could not be interrupted.   When doge Paolo Renier died on February 13, 1789, they didn’t report the  death  until March 2.

Party on!!

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Carnival farrago, part 1

A couple in full bauta regalia: mask, hat and mantle (Giovanni Grevenbroch, 18th century).
A couple in full bauta regalia: mask, hat and mantle (Giovanni Grevenbroch, 18th century).

There are just too many curious things about the way Carnival was  back in the Great Days, so I’m only going to tell you a few of the ones I  think are interesting.   Anyway, it’s not as if they have any relevance now. For all the roar of media coverage today,  what goes on here is a hoarse whisper  compared to the cacophony that was Carnival before 1797.  

And Paris must be deserted; there are nothing but French people in town.

For many centuries, Carnival  here was primarily a Venetian phenomenon, which is to say an integral part of Venetian life and culture.   But when Vasco da Gama reached the Spice Islands by means of a daring new route round the Cape of Good Hope (1497),  Venice’s monopoly of the spice trade collapsed virtually overnight, dragging the city’s economy down with it.

Struggling to get the city back on its feet, somebody began to put the word out that the Venice Carnival was one heck of a thing to  see.    Yes, Venice  could discern its potential for  tourism even before the invention of bullets and parachutes,  and the Venetian merchants, staring into their now-empty coffers, were quick to make the most of it.

  • Costumes:   People would dress up as virtually anything, from a classic character such as Pulcinella (from Naples) or Arlecchino (from Bergamo) to plague victims, blind people, cripples,  Jews, Turks, lepers, peasants from Friuli, men dressed as women.   These were known as “Gnaga” ( NYAH-ga) and had their own particular mask to go with their feminine clothes.   The mask was meant to resemble a cat, and the person would meow instead of talking.   (It must have looked great on a person with a beard.)   The gnaga  also carried a little cat in a basket, or sometimes even a tiny baby, or he/she’d be accompanied by men dressed as babies.   Don’t ask me.

    A "gnaga" with a suspiciously empty basket (Giovanni Grevenbroch, 18th century).
    A "gnaga" with a suspiciously empty basket (Giovanni Grevenbroch, 18th century).

The wildly absurd and  equally wildly obscene elements which so many favored (I refer to behavior as much as garb) were not simply a crucial social safety valve (keeping in mind that the patricians lived with loads of restrictions, too — it wasn’t just the salt of the earth that needed a break).    It appears that people have always exploited the absurd and the obscene as a way of  exorcising  their dread of death and the demonic, and Carnival was the Olympics of spitting in the face of fear, as well as in the face of manners and rules and occasionally, I imagine, other people.

Sir Thomas More  famously stated that “The devil, a proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked,” so the broader, sharper, and deeper the derision, the better.      That went double for the rude and the lewd.    So really, unless you were putting somebody life or savings in danger, there was no such thing as too wild, too crude, too raunchy– too anything.   They organized races for boats rowed by dwarfs, or the blind.  

  • Masks:   There is a universe of lore about their meaning, their function, etc.      Did you know that…
  • bauta larva compThe white mask often called a bauta is more correctly termed Volto (face) or “Larva.”   Sounds repellent, but it comes from the Latin meaning ghost, specter, minor evil spirit.   Its extraordinary shape resolves several important concerns: First, it completely hides the face; second, it leaves space for the wearer to eat and drink; third, its shape alters the speaker’s voice, thereby acting as a kind of vocal, as well as visual,  disguise.  

morettaw1 moretta crop compI think my favorite is the “Moretta,” or “Servetta Muta.”   It’s so strange it could only have come from France (it did), and it started out, at least, as something to be  worn by women when they went to visit a convent.   It was usually made of black velvet, and wasn’t attached by ribbons; you kept it on your face by biting down on a small button attached to the faceward side.   (Hence the term “mute.”)  

I can see what the appeal would be for men, but if you couldn’t speak, why would you go visit someone in a convent in the first place?   To give the nuns a chance to talk?

A detail from "The Rhinoceros" by Pietro Longhi shows the "moretta" mask out and about.
A detail from "The Rhinoceros" by Pietro Longhi shows the "moretta" mask out and about.
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