Nature | Venice: I am not making this up

Folpo and friends

December 13, 2009 No Comments

Each is easily munchable in one bite, assuming you have even the slightest desire to consume it. Folpi have the interesting property of becoming tougher, not more tender, the more you cook them.

This is apropos of absolutely nothing, but as I was discussing the folpo the other day, it occurred to me that even with my impressive powers of description, a picture of the creature after its refreshing plunge into boiling water might be in order. So here are four of the little honeys, ready for immediate annihilation.

The great thing about fishy creatures– most of which were so familiar to Venetians in days gone by that they could have been members of the family– is that they make excellent synonyms for non-fishy things. The folpo, for example, provides the ideal code word for a person (of either sex) who is overweight — not grossly, but noticeably — in a formless, galumphing sort of way. You might hear someone say, “Look at that folpo” as an individual goes by who looks as if he/she might be more comfortable (and attractive) submerged than walking on land.

A very close relative of this mollusc, in biological but especially metaphorical terms, is the zottolo (ZAW-toh-lo, or zotolo, in Venetian: SAW-to-yo). Official name: Todarodes sagittatus. It’s another one of those tentacly creatures, related to the seppia and the folpo. You may not notice them in the fish market but you might well get a batch of their babies (totani) in a mixed fishfry here. Little crunchy deep-fried objects somewhat bigger than your thumbnail that don’t look like they ever were anything.

The reason I’m telling you this isn’t the animal itself, it’s because “zotolo” is also a common and highly useful way to describe a certain kind of person. In fact, there are people who can’t be characterized as anything other than zotoli because of their particularly unfortunate assortment of mismatched traits.

Why a zotolo would be considered less attractive than a folpo is a mystery.

A person who can — and even must — be described as a zotolo would be someone who would be not only physically unattractive in a way that might be mitigated or even overcome if he or she were to care (heavy, scrawny, uncoordinated, slouchy, clumsy, perhaps also pimply or with neglected teeth), but would dress and/or behave in only a marginally civilized way.

Your zotolo could be the person who comes to the office Christmas party (evening, trendy bar) wearing a slightly frayed shirt and/or torn jeans. Or maybe he or she dresses just fine, but who can be counted on to say or do something that’s just that little bit cringeworthy. In other words, a person who gives the impression of being upholstered, physically or mentally, with the old slipcover from the divan in the basement rec room.

Can also be used as a term of endearment.

Nature, Water

Acqua alta: some snaps

December 1, 2009 No Comments

I will eventually be organizing a Gallery page, but meanwhile here are a few additional views of the water-on-the-ground of yesterday. They are not intended to be sensational, but instructive. There is an important difference in the two concepts, especially where issues involving Venice are concerned.

As you see, the streets of Venice are neither perfectly flat, nor a uniform height above sea level. Therefore reports of Venice being FLOODED are not very helpful. Is this street flooded?

The immediate point of pumping is not to empty your place of water; it's to keep it from getting any higher while the tide is still rising. (Then you pump to get it all out.) One theory of what is making the liquid white is that it is detergent. The theory of my nose leads me to suspect something more primeval. — The immediate point of pumping is not to empty your place of water; it's to keep the level from increasing while the tide is still rising. (Then you pump to get it all out.) One theory of what is making the liquid white is that it is detergent. The theory of my nose leads me to suspect something more primeval.

Sorry, your prescription isn't going to be ready till the pharmacists finish bailing out the store.

No special drama here, they keep the vegetables up off the floor all the time anyway.

Now here's a solution: Get your stuff up off the floor before the water comes in. Simple, cheap, effective -- I welcome explanations of why so many merchants prefer to beg for sympathy as well as contributions from the city to pay for damages. — Now here's a solution: Get your stuff up off the floor before the water comes in. Simple, cheap, effective. I welcome explanations of why so many merchants prefer to beg for sympathy as well as handouts from the city to pay for damage. Why should there be damage in the first place? And by the way, the city doesn't own your shop, you do.

What often contributes to high water occurring is an insistent southeast wind, as you see blowing across the water here.

High-water etiquette requires you to slow down when approaching and passing anyone with knee-high boots. If you are sloshing along you will splash them, and they are already desperately trying to keep their clothes dry.

A very humble but crucial byproduct of high water is that it makes it impossible to pass under most normal bridges. Gondolas, taxis, and especially barges have to either find an alternate route or just wait till the tide falls. Even some vaporetto lines are sent up the Grand Canal because they can't pass under the bridge near Piazzale Roma. — A very humble but crucial side effect of high water is that it makes it impossible to pass under most normal bridges. Gondolas, taxis, and especially barges have to either find an alternate route or just wait till the tide falls. Even some vaporetto lines are sent up the Grand Canal because they can't pass under the bridge near Piazzale Roma.

Oh gosh -- we couldn't get to work on time because there was acqua alta. Here are some men who are looking desperately concerned and distressed by this. I imagine at least one of them is trying to think of the nearest cafe that is on dry ground.

Or maybe it's a guy thing and not related to having boots at all, the need to stop in groups to analyze, compare, contrast, discuss, and otherwise dissect the moment.

I am fascinated by the problem-solving approach taken by the man on the left. His knee-high socks were drenched (see wet footprints) and he is rolling up his trousers. I'm hoping he had the sense at least to have taken off his shoes before he stepped into the water. But why didn't he take off his socks as well?

One has heard of a bridge to nowhere. I offer the passarella, or walkway, to -- well, not exactly nowhere. Right to the water from which it has been placed to defend you. Maybe they ran out of boards.

Nature, Water

Dolphins play ball

October 28, 2009 1 Comment

This 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.

Food, Nature

Summerthoughts

September 2, 2009 No Comments

Summer ended last Saturday night. It’s always like this: One minute you’re sweltering in the hellish heat of summer, the air over the city pressing down on you like a hot sponge full of mildew, sweat trickling down your spine, then suddenly, overnight, it’s fall.

We had the long- and desperately-awaited break in the weather toward midnight on Saturday, announced by a long period of rumbling and groaning from the sky. When we get the storms which always hit toward the end of June, Venetians say that the thunder is the sound of St. Peter cleaning the barrels (St. Peter’s feast day is June 29, as you know.)

I can’t say what this noise might have been. St. Peter moving great-grandfather’s mahogany tallboy?

Whatever was going on, we got some drops of rain, then the wind shifted, and there went summer. The next morning a strapping bora was blowing, raising some whitecaps out in the lagoon, and a light jacket felt very good.

Of course the days are still hot. This will continue till October, probably. But the heat lacks conviction. It seems to be fading from underneath. The light becomes paler, as if the sun were worn out from nearly four months of blazing and hasn’t got the strength to make it all the way to the ground. I love cuspy moments like this.

Curiously, the thunder wasn’t associated with any lightning that I could see from my prone position through barely open eyes. All summer long the lightning (“lampe“) tells you all you need to know about the upcoming weather, at least for the next six hours until the tide turns. Here’s the lore:

“Lampe da ponente, no lampe par gnente” (Lightning in the west, it’s not happening for nothing — that is, there will be rain).

“Lampe da tramontana, tuta caldana” (Lightning in the mountains, it’s all just heat. The tramontana is also the north wind which comes from those mountains).

“Lampe da levante, dorme, dorme tartagnante” (Lightning in the east, sleep peacefully, tartagnante — nothing’s going to happen). The tartagnante (tar-tan-YAN-tey) was a person who fished aboard a boat called a tartana. The boat is extinct, therefore so too is its fisherman. He would have rowed his boat, or even sailed it, slowly along the deeper lagoon channels keeping to the edge — called the “gingiva,” or “gum” (as in what anchors your teeth) — of the canal, dragging his net (also called a tartana) behind him. When he was finished, he would have one of those wonderful lagoon hauls, a bit of everything.

I see in my Venetian dictionary that in days of yore, “tartana” was also an expression for “love handles” (a comparison to the net floating out behind the boat, I’m guessing). It gives a nice image of extra fullness, though I can imagine it being used with a slightly less than complimentary tone of voice or expression. Nobody uses the term anymore; I don’t know that anybody would even understand what it meant.

Back to the lightning: I notice that there isn’t any apothegm to describe the significance of lightning in the south. Maybe it never happens.

Speaking of cusps, the market at the Rialto is currently a little sonata to the change of seasons. There are still peaches and melons (though they too are becoming insincere, being either dry and flavorless or mushy and flavorless); the apricots have long since disappeared, though some deranged vendors are still offering small quantities of cherries at prices which would mean that if you bought a few you’d obviously be planning to cover them with gold leaf.

What’s been coming in are the purple things: eggplant and plums and grapes, fruit shading from purple-blue to purple-black. And lots and lots of mushrooms —chiodini and finferli and porcini.

There are also pomegranates, which if I had won the lottery last week as I had intended I would buy by the metric ton and squeeze into juice. As it is, I just admire them and move on.

I see that the first apples and pears are showing up, which is heathen. It may well be true that the harvest is on in the sub-Alpine plantations of the Val di Non and Val Venosta, but we’re going to be restricted to apples and pears for the entire winter, six eternal months of pears and apples. I don’t start on them till there’s absolutely no alternative.