Motondoso, Part 2: The Why

Read Part 1: The What;   Part 3: The How;    Suck It Up;  Part 4: The lagoon’s-eye view

If civilization has reached the stage where most people generally agree that it’s wrong to strike a woman, a child, even a dog, it’s not easy to explain, much less excuse, why an entire city should have to submit to this kind of abuse, a city which depends as much (or more) on its people than the people depend on it.

But then again, it is easy to explain. Sloth, egotism, and a  resistance to contradiction tougher than corrugated iron induce almost all the people with motorboats of whatever size or purpose either to deny that they are creating waves, or say that other perpetrators are far more guilty, or accept it with Zen-like resignation.

All of these put together foster a situation in which  a recent newspaper article could make a serious reference to  the “numerous reports (to the police, of excessive traffic/waves) by Venetians who when they go out in their motorboats have to work miracles to avoid ending up in the water because the waves are so strong.”

People in motorboats complaining about waves. Let me stop and think about that for a minute.

You'll find virtually any kind of boat with a motor in the Giudecca Canal, usually in a huge hurry.  Here we have taxis, one of countless barges, the Alilaguna airport waterbus, and a hotel launch.  What's missing here at the moment, strictly by chance, are innumerable private motorboats of all sizes, as well as the vehicles of public transport: vaporettos, motoscafos, and the ferryboat carrying cars to and from the Lido.
You'll find virtually any kind of boat with a motor in the Giudecca Canal, usually in a huge hurry. Here we have taxis, a tourist launch, one of countless barges, the Alilaguna airport waterbus, and a hotel launch. What's missing here at the moment, strictly by chance, are (among others) the garbage scows, innumerable private motorboats of all sizes, as well as the vehicles of public transport: vaporettos, motoscafos, and the ferryboat carrying cars to and from the Lido.

Waves don’t really care who causes them or why, but each one acts as a hammer hitting anything it reaches. A study more than 10 years ago revealed, via sensors in the Grand Canal, that a wave hit a wall every 1 1/2 seconds. One pauses to imagine what the public response might be in a city — say, Rome — in which a heavily loaded truck ran into a building, especially a monument, every 1 1/2 seconds.   Zen-like resignation doesn’t come to my mind.

For some reason, waves just don’t sound that bad. But they are. And even though they’re right out there in plain view, solutions — and many have been proposed, and re-proposed — have the doomed allure of the classic New Year’s diet: feasible, yet somehow impossible.

One reason is a lethargy at City Hall of spectacular dimensions caused, among several factors, by the lack of ability or desire on the part of the city’s administrators to resist the inevitable shrieking and ranting from any sector which feels threatened by any suggestion of limits. Example: The recent succumbing to pressure by the taxi drivers, and the awarding of 25 new taxi licenses. These will not be taxis which do not create waves, but they will be taxis traveling the same routes which already are suffering the most devastation.

These licenses were granted by the same officials who in other situations solemnly invoke the “battle against motondoso.” Hard to get anywhere with a battle when most of your officers are collaborating with the other side.

One of many signs in the lagoon notifying boaters of the speed limit, here in the Canale delle Scoasse along the Lido.  Note that the speed is given in kilometers (not knots) per hour.  If anyone is going this slowly it's either because he's just spotted a policeman up ahead, or his motor has died and he's being towed.
One of many signs in the lagoon notifying boaters of the speed limit, here in the Canale delle Scoasse along the Lido. Note that the speed is given in kilometers (not knots) per hour. If anyone is going this slowly it's either because he's just spotted a policeman up ahead, or his motor has died and he's being towed.

Of course there are laws — plenty of them. But they are only sluggishly enforced, especially those concerning speed limits. There are sporadic police “blitzes” which snag a certain number of offenders (it’s like shooting fish in a barrel), but these blitzes change nothing, not even for the people who have been handed fines. Taking your chances is part of the Mediterranean worldview, and laws are meant to be ignored.   Fines are part of the annual budget for many waterborne enterprises. Confiscate your taxi? We’ve got more. One taxi owner invited some city politicians to the launching of his new one.

Down here at the waterline, I can tell you that one of the biggest obstacles to reducing waves is contained in three words: “Io devo lavorare” (Literally, “I have to work.”   Figuratively, “Get off my back, do you want my wife and children to be thrown out onto the street to beg?”)

This phrase is lavishly used, on the assumption that it’s a free pass to whatever the person speaking it feels like doing. And when gondoliers stage one of their periodic protests, which are always dramatic because gondolas are inherently harmless, the little red “Danger: Irony” light starts to flash. Gondoliers spend all day carrying people around  through waves that range from “unpleasant” to “dangerous” to “life-threatening” (not an exaggeration; occasional passengers have risked drowning, and some have succeeded). But several gondolier cooperatives do a very lucrative business owning and operating a fleet of mega-tourist launches.  

My favorite little moment was when two gondoliers went to a meeting of Pax in Aqua, the citizens’ group committed to combating motondoso. They went in a motorboat.

It’s not that they should have swum there. I’m just saying.

The gondola race at Murano is one of the most important Venetian-rowing races ever.  Here is a small part of the motor-driven horde, lovers of the oar, which turns out to cheer on their friends and relatives.  Some of these fans will also be gondoliers.
The gondola race at Murano is one of the most important Venetian-rowing races ever. Here is a small part of the motor-driven horde, lovers of the oar, which turns out to cheer on their friends and relatives. Some of these fans will also be gondoliers.

I’ll tell you when I gave up. It wasn’t the Sunday afternoon we barely made it back alive rowing our little Venetian topetta from Bacan’, one of the most popular lagoon summer spots to hang out in boats, which means motorboats. The waves were heavy, frantic, aggressive; they came from every direction as boat wakes smashed into each other. So: No more Bacan’ for us. We can just stay home and take up paper-making.   Problem solved.

No, I could hear the air seep out of my capacity to hope on another Sunday afternoon in 2002, I think it was,  when we were walking along the rio di San Trovaso — a very narrow canal which is always busy because it’s one of the  shortest cuts between the Giudecca Canal and the Grand Canal.

For weeks, maybe months, long warning strips of red and white tape had been strung along parts of the fondamenta bordering the canal because it had become so unsafe to walk on. The waves from the constant traffic had done their inevitable work  weakening the sidewalks’ foundations, in which you could easily see cracks, cracks that were widening thanks to the waves rushing in and out, pulling the soil from beneath the paving stones.   The whole walkway  was ready to cave in.

In that period, the then-mayor Paolo Costa had tried a novel approach to the problem: He had appointed himself Special Commissioner against Motondoso, which gave him extraordinary powers to deal with the deteriorating situation and also — well, why not? — get an extra paycheck.

His idea was that the bureaucracy had proved incapable of dealing with  the waterborne anarchy which is obviously destroying the city, and the police hadn’t been noticeably effective in enforcing the laws (which you could understand, seeing that there are so few  police and so rarely are any dedicated to monitoring speed limits). Therefore  a sort of instant dictator would have to step in to impose order.

Even a classic boat, such as this Burano-type sandolo, almost always have motors clamped onto them.  It might be only 15 hp, but that's irrelevant.  A motor there must be.
Even classic Venetian boats, such as this Burano-type sandolo, almost always have a motor clamped onto them. It might be only 15 hp, but that's irrelevant. A motor there must be.

The resulting special decree (Ordinanza n.09/2002, prot. 38/2002, February 21, 2002) outlines speed limits, and boat specifications, and canals name by name, to a degree which makes it clear that if every regulation were to be obeyed wars would cease, hunger would disappear, and illness and poverty would become but an ancestral  bad dream. I’m sorry it’s only in Italian, it makes genuinely inspiring reading.

Suddenly we saw a motorboat come screaming down the canal, faster than any boat I’d ever seen here, hurling walls of white water against the trembling embankments. We stopped, stunned. Everybody walking along had stopped. Then the boat stopped. We heard voices. A few people on the sidewalk were talking to the people in the boat. And then it became clear.

They were filming “The Italian Job,” and this was just one of many sequences the city was to witness over the next few days or weeks (I can’t remember). Boats were racing up and down canals in a way that not even taxi-drivers could have dreamed of. Of course, if a taxi driver were to go this fast, he’d have to go to jail, or hell. For a movie, though — that’s something else entirely.

And who gave the permission for this film and these high-speed chases, and these walls of white water? The mayor. Excuse me, I meant the Special Commissioner against Motondoso.

I wish I could say I made that up, but I didn’t.

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Motondoso: Waves Gone Wild, Part 1: The What

Just one of the countless waves (here, the Giudecca Canal gives an uppercut to the Zattere) which are reducing Venice to rubble.
Just one of the countless waves (here, the Giudecca Canal lands a left hook on the Zattere) which are reducing Venice to rubble.

Slapping. Punching. Thudding. This is the sound of what things have come to. For 1,795 years, Venice celebrated Ascension Day with a ceremony in which the doge threw a golden ring into the sea and intoned the words: “Desponsamus te, O Mare, in signum veri perpetique dominii.”   (“I wed thee, O Sea, in sign of true and perpetual dominion.”)  In this case he was referring to the Adriatic, and possibly even the Mediterranean, and the Venetians did an excellent job of this for a long time.   But the Venetian lagoon is a body of water which resists domination.   It is not a happy marriage.

The gondoliers at the Molo, on the Bacino of San Marco in front of the Doge's Palace, finally installed a breakwater at their own expense. It's not the perfect solution, but it's better than nothing.

Over the past 50 years, the complex rapport between land and liquid, hitherto marred by only occasional bickering — an engineering misunderstanding, say, or some meteorological outburst — has now reached the stage of open battle.

But contrary to the general impression the world has of  Venice’s rapport with its waters, the most serious problem  does not involve acqua alta, or high tide. It is motondoso (sometimes moto ondoso), or the waves caused by motorboats, which is literally killing the lagoon’s erstwhile spouse.   And unlike other forms of pollution or pressure,  waves are a little hard to keep secret.   The sight and sound of crashing water has become nearly constant.

Venetians routinely refer to motondoso as “the cancer of Venice.”

If you’re not impressed by the roiling high seas surrounding the city (try stepping between the leaping and plunging dock and vaporetto after the motonave — or better yet, the Alilaguna, the yellow airport “bus” — has just passed), give a glance at any canal at low tide.

You’ll see walls with chunks of stone and brick gone, stone steps fallen askew, cracks and fissures snaking up building walls from the foundation to the second floor, and even higher. It doesn’t take many canals before you begin to wonder how the city manages to stay on its feet. There are palaces on virtually every canal which have holes in their foundations bigger than hula hoops —  dank caverns stretching back into the darkness. I have seen them with these very eyes. And if I’ve seen them, so has everybody else. But it just keeps getting worse.

Several years ago the fondamenta on the Giudecca facing the eponymous canal was finally completely repaired.  Years of pounding waves were causing it to literally fall into the canal.  But the waves continue as before — on the contrary, they’re increasing.  The force, the height, the frequency, pick what you will.  It’s all bad.  (One study has stated that the highest waves in the entire lagoon are in the Giudecca Canal.)

Therefore the fondamenta is beginning to weaken again in the same way, which you can check by looking at the point at which a building is attached to the fondamenta.  Cracks are opening up.  Again.  

So fixing — or saying you’ve fixed — a problem doesn’t count for much if you haven’t, you know, actually fixed it.

On the Giudecca: The green is dangerous to people above, the waves are dangerous to the fondamenta below. Waves can damage just about anything they can reach.
The constant spray from the waves creates the ideal environment for a type of algae which is spectacularly slippery. And in the winter, spray turns to ice. You're on your own.
It's not hard to find scenes like this, or worse, below the waterline. Here, a house near Campo Santa Maria Formosa. And just imagine how happy the owners of this house must be. Who pays for repairs is a saga unto itself. (Credit: Italia Nostra Venice Chapter)
Low tide here is an appalling revelation. One of the primary causes of this damage are enormous iron workboats. If one bumps into a wall even slightly, it opens a crack (or hole) which the waves keep eroding. Hey, it's not their wall. (Photo: Italia Nostra)
This is one version of the intermediate stage, here on the Riva dei Sette Martiri facing the Bacino of San Marco. The waves are working away underneath and eventually gravity will take over. This picture is a small illustration of how this phenomenon fits into real life: It's just normal by now. No warning sign or barrier to keep people away, no indication whatever that anything is going wrong here. This silent catastrophe is just sitting here peacefully in broad daylight as people wander by.
This is one version of the intermediate stage, here on the Riva dei Sette Martiri facing the Bacino of San Marco. The waves have been pushing and pulling underneath and gravity has begun to take over. Just imagine if this were happening under your house. And yet, this is normal by now. There are no warning signs or barriers, no indication whatever that anything is happening here. This silent catastrophe is just sitting here peacefully in broad daylight as people wander by.
Waves working night and day will eventually produce a result like this ruined fondamenta facing the Scomenzera canal just behind Piazzale Roma. The pavement looks like a dead parking lot but that is because it's undergoing renovation. This is almost certainly necessary because the pavement was giving way due to the waves in the canal weakening the soil upon which it rests. The stone border makes it eminently clear what that eventually means. The fondamenta will eventually be new, but the waves will continue – narrow as it is, this is a major canal for vaporetto and barge traffic.
Waves working night and day will eventually produce a result like this ruined fondamenta facing the Canale di Santa Chiara just behind Piazzale Roma. The former walkway looks like a dead parking lot because it's undergoing renovation, work almost certainly necessary because the pavement was giving way due to the pounding waves in the canal. The fondamenta will eventually be new, but the waves will continue – not only is the canal narrow, it is a major route for vaporetto and barge traffic.

Next: Part 2: The Why

Part 3:   The How

Suck It Up

Part 4: The lagoon’s eye view

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Turkish not-so-delight

There are many things, I admit it, that deeply fascinate me about Turkey and one of them is its complicated linkage over the centuries with  Venice.   Polar opposites, one might think, until one begins to look closer.

As I was expatiating on this theme recently, I neglected to mention a few of the manifestations of this linkage  lurking here.   And one of them does not show Venice in her best light.

First:   Two steps from Campo San Barnaba is a short, narrow street (with bridge) named the Calle (and Ponte) de le Turchette.   If you were to guess, based on your elementary Italian, that this means “Street of the Little Turkish Girls,” you would be right.

IMG_5141 turchette compTradition maintains that in the era before the Casa dei Catechumeni was established to accommodate instruction in the Roman Catholic faith, there was a house here where Turkish women (“Turchette”), taken prisoner in assorted battles, were kept.   Their time was spent mainly in being converted to Christianity.   Or not.   No word on the rate of conversion, or whether conversion was considered optional, or what the consequences were for not converting, at least not by the point where I stopped seeking information.

According to the estimable Giuseppe Tassini, writing in Curiosita’ Veneziane, a document in the Scuola di San Rocco states that the confraternity possesses a house in the parish of San Barnaba, “in Calle Longa, where the Turchette are housed.”   That’s all I can tell you about this, though every time I pass this way I admit that images of exotic females, enclosed in another sort of harem, wander through my mind.

Second:   An even more intriguing Middle-Eastern, let’s say, element is a mute patera (PAH-teh-ra) affixed to the side of a house behind the former hospital of the Incurabili.   (These “incurables” were mostly syphilitics, if you’re wondering.)

This patera is very easy to miss, being so uncharacteristically high.
This patera is very easy to miss, being so uncharacteristically high. Looking up is always a good idea when walking around in any city, especially here.

Patere were typically circular plaques carved in low relief on Istrian stone, often showing animals, which were placed on buildings generally from the 10th to the 12th century, though a few date till the 15th.   These images were intended to ward off evil.

The one that fascinates me, though, has a very different vibe.   It shows a cross, whose base  is  in the suggested form of a sword, standing upon a crescent.  

The conclusions one might draw from this are fairly obvious, but that’s what annoys me — because so often the obvious turns out to be excitingly wrong.   There is also the curious factor of the points of this crescent not being identical.   So far, however, I haven’t been able to learn anything about it.   But there it is.

IMG_5137 patera 2 crop comp

A small digression on Turkishness:  Ever since maize began to come to Italy from the Americas in the 1500’s, it has borne the name granoturco, or Turkish grain.    There are various hypotheses for this, none of them definitive, but one of the more credible ones refers to the custom of  lumping all sorts of foreign things together under  the generic label “Turkish.”  A relic of this habit applies here today regarding the Slavic women who come from Eastern Europe to work as caretakers of the elderly; even though they may come from Ukraine, Romania, or Moldova, I’ve heard  at least a few Venetians refer to them as “Turche.”  

Now  we come to a longish street whose official name is “Barbarie de le Tole,” but which I think of as the “Street of the Kebab Joints.”   And here the theme of Turkishness becomes less attractive.

There are some 20,000 students in Venice, a total of the enrollments in  the two universities (Ca’ Foscari, the University of Venice, and the I.U.A.V., or University of Architecture).   There is also a noticeable number of immigrants in the city, some from the Middle East or North Africa.     And there is also a growing  group of tourists who  are getting by on a squeaking budget.    These are  all people who typically seek nourishing and/or good food at a very small price.   So from pizza-by-the-slice (Italian, even if not very civilized), the choice has broadened out to include doner kebab, or what in the U.S. is often called by its Greek name, gyros.   Foreign.   Suddenly this changes things.

Whether or not you read Turkish (or German -- notice the subhead on this banner), the image itself translates as "good cheap food."
Whether or not you read Turkish, the image itself translates as "good cheap food."

Doner kebab was invented in Erzurum,  eastern Turkey, and  since the Seventies it has become a common and familiar fast food in most European countries.   The making and selling of it are virtually always in the hands of Turkish individuals.  

But all of a sudden Venice isn’t happy with these little places.   I can’t say whether the kebabs’ precursors were available in the declining years of the Venetian Republic, but considering the spectacular variety of ethnicities and  creeds which were to be found milling around the streets and markets and waterfronts of Venice back in the Old Days, it wouldn’t surprise me.  

In the past decade or so, the subject of immigration (to Europe, not only to Venice) has become an increasingly tormented one politically, economically, and socially.    Considering the multi-cultural foundation of this town, any anti-foreign sentiment is in some ways difficult to justify —  not that one can’t understand it.   This is a theme which I will dissect at another time.

But on December 4, the Gazzettino announced that the mayor has signed an ordinance forbidding the granting of any new licenses for kebab joints until 2012.   The reasons given  for this are many; they bob like ornaments hanging on a tree which has been hollowed by termites.   The reasons as stated are:

  • The proliferation of these establishments and the consumption of their product on-site contribute to the “impoverishment” of the typical local places, as well as of the architectural and environmental quality of the city “due to the particular nature of their furnishing and equipment,” and
  • The “incompatibility” of the opening of new pizza/kebab joints with the “conservation of the artistic patrimony” and the “typicality” (if there is such a word) of the historic center, and
  • Opening such places in certain points in the city conduces to the “maximum vulnerability of the cultural and touristic profile” of the city (whatever that might mean), and
  • That anyway there are already enough such places to satisfy the demand, so no need for more.

And who proposed this extraordinary measure?   Not any of the assorted Superintendents of the Artistic/Historic/Cultural/Archaeological Heritage; nor the director of the Academy of Fine Arts, nor the Guggenheim Collection, nor anyone from the battalions of professors of art, history, or even tourism, if you will, though any of those protagonists might be able to make a reasonable case.   Not a voice from the syndics of the Venice Atheneaum.   Nobody from any sphere or stratum of the cultural or artistic universe here.   Not even a  wail from Augusto Salvadori, the City Councilor for Tourism and Protection of Traditions and Decorum.

Despite its being couched in cultural and historic and artistic terms, the proposal was in fact made by Giuseppe Bortolussi, the plain old City Councilor for Productive Activity and Commerce.   Therefore one can interpret these cultural concerns in economic terms, in favor of  the small businessmen who are the competitors of the kebabists.

And the decree will cover 13 of the 24 most important touristic points of the city, including the Rialto, the area of San Marco (where there is already a flourishing McDonald’s), the train station, and the Accademia.   They might just as well have said “everywhere,” considering that they have stated that there are already enough such places to satisfy the demand.    

I thought capitalism posited that the consumers, not the city councilors,  were the ones who get to decide which businesses live and which die.   And if it’s possible to determine at what point there are “enough” kebab joints, it ought to be possible to determine at what point there are “enough” shops selling glass and Carnival masks, which a stroll around the city reveals as being somewhere around 249,327.    Enabling infinite choice in souvenirs (good!) doesn’t seem to translate into infinite choice in foodstuffs (not good!).

This ordinance looks  strangely like an effort to protect the restaurateurs, not the city,  from impoverishment.    To herd the wandering tourist seeking sustenance back into the trattorias and restaurants where the prices can sometimes go so high, at least compared to the value received, that  they practically glow in the dark.

But I’d like to close this little cultural pilgrimage with the observation that   hypocrisy evidently  provides more fertile terrain than volcano slopes after an eruption if you want to grow a bumper crop of  contradictions.   All those affirmations of protecting the artistic and historic nature of the city?   One hardly knows where to start to list the examples of how that concept has been violated.  

I’ll provide just a few random snaps, chosen mainly by their convenience.   Anyone who can explain why these alterations are permissible (I’ll spare you the details of the laws designed to “protect” the artistic and architectural nature of the city) is eagerly invited to enlighten me.

The "Danieli Excelsior" (center) was built as an addition to the Danieli Hotel, and wedged between the hotel, formerly a palazzo of the Dandolo family (DATE TK) and the New Prisons (DATE TK).
The "Danieli Excelsior" (center) was built in the 1950s as an addition to the Danieli Hotel, and wedged between the hotel, formerly a palazzo of the Dandolo family (late 1400s) and the New Prisons (1589-1616).
Somebody thought these balconies would be just the thing on this already unattractive modern residence, right next to the church of the Santo Spirito (1506).
Somebody thought these balconies would be just the thing on this already unattractive modern residence, right next to the church of the Santo Spirito (1506).
Then there is this construction, housing the University of Venice's Department of European and Post-Colonial Studies, next to the TKTK.
Then there is this construction, housing the University of Venice's Department of European and Post-Colonial Studies, next to the Gothic palace now housing the Capitaneria di Porto (Port Authority).
Tramontin and Sons are one of the few squeri still building gondolas in Venice, and their workshop shows the traditional setup, from the wooden-chalet workshop to the ramp sliding down into the water.
Tramontin and Sons (1884) is one of the few squeri still building gondolas in Venice, and it shows the traditional setup, from the wooden-chalet workshop to the ramp sliding down into the water.
Right next door to Tramontin is the squero Daniele Bonaldo, which used to be its identical twin.  I watched its inexplicable transformation from the traditional layout (he kept the wooden chalet workshop) into a major boatyard for motorboats.  The cement platform covers the beaten-earth ramp, the hydraulic winch was unknown to his forebears, and of course the boats have nothing at all to do with gondolas.
Right next door to Tramontin is the squero Daniele Bonaldo, which used to be its identical twin. I watched its inexplicable transformation from the traditional layout (he kept the wooden chalet workshop) into a major boatyard for motorboats. The cement platform covers the beaten-earth ramp, the hydraulic winch was unknown to his forebears, and of course the boats have nothing at all to do with gondolas.
This is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (Venice Savings Bank) in Campo Manin.  They say it's called Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin, but it doesn't resemble anything like what most people would call a Venetian palace.
This is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (Venice Savings Bank) in Campo Manin. It's called Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin (1972), not for conjoined noble families but for the two architects, who stated openly that they didn't intend to create a "false antique." They succeeded.
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Olympics: higher, faster, more ironic

As you recall, poor old Venice got dragged out into the middle of the stage a few weeks ago and forced — not to recite poetry or sing a comic song in front of all the relatives — but to present itself as a plausible candidate for the Summer Olympics of 2020.

 

There's no question that Venice could make an amazing Olympics poster.  It
There's no question that Venice could make an amazing Olympics poster. It's a start.

You might also recall that Rome intends to make a serious bid for the same candidature.   And that Italy only gets to field one.

There was a flurry — a small hurricane, actually — of fevered activity/ verbiage from a group of people here who all had clear and present interests in snagging the nomination and, eventually, the Olympics themselves, for Venice.   There was also an equal amount of either rebuttal or silence (a more potent form of rebuttal) from non-believers.   The cads.

But the dream is probably dead, though its proponents aren’t ready to admit it.   (They’re like that person I read about a while ago who went to pick up the pension check for his just-deceased friend.   Obviously without having revealed that the check-worthy individual was just-deceased.   Obviously with the purpose of using the money himself.   When the person was told that the  friend had to come in person, he propped his dead buddy in a wheelchair and wheeled him to the pension office.   Too bad it didn’t work.)   The Venice Olympics people are still wheeling the idea around, but they’re not much more credible than the aforementioned dude at this point.

CONI (the Italian Olympic Committee), in the person of its president, Gianni Petrucci, had what must have been a fairly vivacious meeting the other day with mayor Massimo Cacciari, who is also  a professor of philosophy.   Everyone likes to point that out, I don’t know why.   Maybe to emphasize that he isn’t just a boring old politician, but a genuine intellectual, which ought to be an impressive thing if you didn’t notice that the two qualities are seem to be mutually exclusive.

Unfortunately, sometimes just being beautiful isn't enough.
Unfortunately, sometimes just being beautiful isn't enough.

Mr. Petrucci was pretty clear when the meeting was finished.   “As the philosophers say,” he began, “reality is that which is, and not what we would like it to be.”   Nice one!   “And I’m a realist: What will count is what is.”  

What “is,” in this case, is a raft of sports facilities which are already up and running (or jumping, or throwing) — and not a list of facilities  which are all  going to have to be built new from the ground up.  

“I was a realist with Prof. Cacciari,” Petrucci went on.   “CONI wants to win, therefore we want to present a really strong candidate.”  

These remarks were met with a random barrage of retorts — kind of like those moments when the embattled citizens on the parapets begin desperately to launch whatever they can get their hands on — rocks, wagons, donkeys — over the edge to stop the enemy advance.

“Venice would be something new,” was one retort.   The Northeast is a region that “gives much and receives little” (translation: you owe us) is another.   “They treat us like provincials.”   And so on.

Giancarlo Galan, the president of the Veneto Region —  in whose head dreams of a shiny new Veneto full of big new projects paid for by somebody else had been dancing — decided to object, not to the message so much as to the manner of its expression.

“I don’t think you’re capable of ironizing (it’s a verb in Italian, very useful) about philosophers,” he huffed in a letter to Petrucci.   “It shows that you haven’t understood two things: The fact that the Olympics serve to transform the infrastructure and change an entire territory.   (I never knew that.   Is that why the athletes cry when they hear their national anthem?) The second is that you don’t know the Northeast and what we’re able to accomplish.   Venice and the Veneto deserve this recognition because we’re among the most advanced in the world.”   (I didn’t know that either.   We may have reached the stage of launching a Jeep Cherokee over the ramparts.)

Petrucci was unfazed by this predictable range of objections.   (You don’t love us, you don’t understand us, you don’t care…..)   He replied, “Everybody knows his own world best.   Galan knows the Northeast well, and I know the Olympics well.”

While this was going on,  the mayor of Rome was off in London, busy bagging mayor Boris Johnson’s future vote for the Eternal City.

Maybe he’s the one who’s actually got the right philosophy  for this situation.

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