Uncategorized | Venice: I am not making this up

Those pesky permits, plus some creative parenting

August 13, 2013 4 Comments

I appreciate that Venice (well, San Giorgio, in this case) is seductive and irresistible and beautiful and everything. But it wouldn't have been less beautiful the next day. It's been here for 1,500 years -- presumably it can wait for a family to have dinner and sleep. — I appreciate that Venice (well, San Giorgio, in this case) is seductive and irresistible and beautiful and everything. But it wouldn’t have been less beautiful the next day. The city has been here for 1,500 years — presumably it can wait for a family to have dinner and sleep.

After I began to think about it more clearly (that is to say, after I thought about it in the mountains, where we just went for four days, breathing air that was cool and dry enough to resuscitate my mental processes), I realized that I made a small miscalculation in the payday for the police.

I’m referring to the extra paydays they gave themselves by forging permits and whatever else they were doing to help eager immigrants make it through the bureaucracy.

Yes, each of the accused maintainers of public order did indeed receive 300 euros for finagling the permit, which seemed to my super-saturated brain to be pitifully small.

But now I realize what sharp readers have long since understood: It was 300 euros multiplied by God knows how many times they orbited the cash register each day. Each week. Each month.

Before long, it won’t be only God who knows what the total came to. I presume a phalanx of lawyers and judges is already pounding its calculators.

Not me. I don’t care anymore. I’m on to other things. I’m more interested now in the German couple who drove their camper 1,026 km/637 miles from Dresden to Cavallino-Treporti the other day. Even though the trip probably took them ten hours, and most likely more, when they got there the first thing they wanted to do was to get on the motonave and go to Venice. How romantic, how beautiful. And how inconvenient that their ten-year-old daughter dug in her heels at yet another trek before the day could finally be over.

Nothing daunted, her parents locked her inside the camper. Then they went off on their own, feeling fine about her being fine, except she wasn’t.

She got out of the camper, couldn’t get back in, became distraught, and was collected by a sympathetic passerby who took her to everyone’s favorite caretakers, the Carabinieri. Who were waiting for her parents at midnight when they got off the boat from Venice. To present them with the formal accusation of abandonment of a minor.

Mann kann nicht alles unter einen Hut bringen, as they say in the Vaterland. You can’t put everything under one hat. Neither can you have everything you want, including a child-free jaunt to Venice whenever you feel like it, no matter where you might be inclined to put it.

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Blooming everything

June 18, 2013 1 Comment

In honor of the brief but glorious interlude of the blossoming of the lime trees (or linden, or tilia, or whatever you call them) — no visible blossoms, and in fact, no visible trees, but only soft, luxurious waves of their delicate perfume from somewhere nearby — I offer a view of the recent spring, as told by flowers. Summer will be here in two days, and many of the flowers are already moving on. But each one of them was part of a spring which was chilly, late, and cranky, and often very lovely.

The pittosporum along the fondamenta by the Biennale is one of the first to appear each spring. It hangs on the longest, aging gracefully, concentrating its perfume to an almost nauseating degree. — The pittosporum along the fondamenta by the Biennale is one of the first flowers to appear each year. It hangs on the longest, aging gracefully, concentrating its perfume to an almost nauseating degree.

Roses in the Giardini, which appear to open all at once. — Roses in the Giardini, which seem to have opened all at once.

And yet more roses. These seem to tend more toward the old-fashioned, Elizabethan rose, which I like. — And yet more roses. These seem to tend more toward the dog rose, which I like.

No war of the roses here; the red counterpart was planted virtually in the lap of the white roses.

Then there are poppies just about everywhere. — Then suddenly there are poppies everywhere.

With tamarisk blooming neck and neck with them. — With tamarisk blooming to keep them company.

There are homespun patches of garden around the neighborhood also. This is a sage plant in the process not only of flowering, but taking over the world.

Grapes in their earliest stage. Not a flower, of course, but I'll take signs of life in any form that's going. — Grapes in their earliest stage. Not a flower, of course, but I’ll take signs of life in any form that’s going.

Oleanders aren't among my top ten, but this edition is an exception. It's partly the fact that it has become a tree, and partly that the tree has such a beautiful shape. — Oleanders aren’t among my top ten, but this edition is an exception. It’s partly the fact that it has left shrubdom behind to become a tree, and partly that the tree has such a beautiful shape.

Though the blooms aren't bad, I must admit. — Though the blooms aren’t bad, I must admit.

The magnolias are coming out all over. Lovely as the flower may be, I have recently become more enchanted by the buds and the leaves, if anyone cares to know.

The famous violet artichoke of Sant' Erasmo is a first-rate flower. — The famous violet artichoke of Sant’ Erasmo is a first-rate flower.

And back to roses again, which have found their niche in a closed-off doorway.

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I miss Giulio and I didn’t even know him

June 5, 2013 2 Comments

I waited to tell you the bad news about Giulio Andreotti’s demise because I didn’t want my blog to turn into the obituary column. He entered the better life on May 6, and although he was 94, which means it was far beyond inevitable, I’m sorry he’s gone.

His CV tells you that he was important, among other reasons, because he was: Prime Minister (7 times), Minister of Defense (8 times), Minister of Foreign Affairs (5 times), Minister of Finance, Minister of the Budget, Minister of Industry (two times each), and Minister of the Treasury and Minister of the Interior one time each.

No need to ask what he did in his spare time — he couldn’t have had any. But if he’d ever written a book about his career, hardly anybody would have been left standing.

You need to know the above to have the rudiments of appreciation of what a master he was of the scintillating quip. First, he was Roman, and that gave him a huge headstart in the witticism department. While every region, town, hamlet must have its own type of humor, the Roman type is famously quick and piercingly irreverent.

Second, being a career politician meant that he had endless occasions for practicing his exceptional talent for quippery. Essentially he was Minister of Himself.

So it’s in that spirit that I offer you this glimpse of one of the pillars of 20th-century Italian politics. People who know more about it, him, or them, please don’t enlighten me. I want you to see his best side here. By which I don’t mean his turned back.

One of the many pages devoted to him on May 7, 2013.

From top to bottom, more or less, are the following observations:

Power wears out the people who don’t have it.

The wickedness of good people is extremely dangerous.

I know that I’m just of average height, but I don’t see any giants around me.

In politics there are more Draculas than there are blood donors.

It’s not enough to be right, you’ve got to have somebody who recognizes it.

Apart from the Punic Wars, they attribute everything to me.

Crazy people can be divided into two groups: Those who believe they’re Napoleon, and those who believe they can reorganize the state railway.

Humility is an amazing virtue, but not when it you use it in declaring your income.

You should always tell the truth, but except in the courtroom don’t ever tell the whole truth. It’s inconvenient and often causes pain.

I love Germany so much that I preferred two of them.

Being men of the middle class, the middle road is, for us, the most congenial.

I’m posthumous to myself. (This is the literal translation, but even Lino can’t make me understand what he meant.)

Uncategorized, Venetian-ness

The lamppost returns

May 24, 2013 3 Comments

Once upon a time there was a lamp. Then there was a naked boy with a frog. Now there’s a copy of the lamp. I guess all we need to wait for now is a copy of the boy with the frog.

The important thing is that there is a lamp, and it’s back where it belongs. I’m not sure where the boy with the frog belongs, but it’s probably not at Angkor Wat or the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak. I doubt it (he? them?) would fit in well at Petra, or the Stone Circles of Senegambia, or the Medina of Fez. Just reminding some people that Venice and its lagoon are also UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There is undoubtedly a place where the boy and his amphibian would belong, but it’s not at the Taj Mahal, or Chartres Cathedral, or here.