Uncategorized

The triumph of the laundry

14 Comments
This was what greeted me just down the street.  It was like a trumpet fanfare.

Of course I’m obsessed with laundry — mine, and everybody else’s.  Not to sound weird, but out in the rest of the world where clothes dryers are normal, your clothes do what you tell them to do.

Here, where you have only wind and sun to work with, the wet things have the upper hand; you have to learn to collaborate both with the elements and your garb.  The time frame is different.  Their behavior is different (do you want more heat, or more breeze? Have you got drenched denim or terrycloth? Will ironing later finish the job?). Maybe it’s because I’m used to a dryer that I have come to feel I have to adjust myself to their demands, and not vice versa.

I don’t know that everybody approaches their laundry in this way — people here have grown up with clotheslines — but I have to calculate how much the humidity is going to slow things down even if the sun is shining, while figuring that a cold, cloudy day can work out fine, if there’s the right wind.  Not too cold a day, of course; one winter evening I took in the towels and they were frozen hard as boards.  Which wouldn’t matter except that when they defrosted, they were wet again.

I also have to take into account the fact that the sun shines directly on my clothesline for just about one hour from noon to 1:00 PM, depending on the season.  Those precious 60 minutes have to be made to count.  I position the underwear in the sun with more precise calculation than any woman on the beach developing her tan.

The apotheosis of the sheets.

As all the world know, Monday morning is sacred to laundry.  But yesterday morning must have been the date, unknown to me, of some sacred ritual, because every calle in the neighborhood was festooned with laundry. It seemed that everybody (man or woman) had received some occult signal and washed everything in their house.

IT WAS DAZZLING!  They ought to make it an annual festival!  I’ll bring my mattress pad, hooded bathrobe, waffle-weave blanket, and five pairs of jeans and join the bacchanal.  Or are those at night?  Never mind.  I’ll be there just the same.  Maybe there’ll be a bonfire I can dance around, flapping my soggy beach towel.

Even the shadows of people’s raiment are entertaining.  Could be a song: “The Shadow of your Shirt.”
This load of laundry is never going to dry.
Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Aqueduct clarification

1 Comment

A sharp-eyed reader has asked an excellent question regarding the first sentence of my last post: “To pick up the story more or less where we left off….”

He inquires, “Which story was that and where did you drop it?”

Here’s the link to the post I was referring to.  With my Silly-Putty sense of time, I thought I had written it just a few days ago.  Not even close.

Many apologies.

Drink up: The aqueducts then

 

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Mini-Memorial Day

3 Comments

Memorial Day is now disappearing in the traffic behind us (though my calendar notes that yesterday, May 30, was the traditional date for the same), but what are dates? As a wise person once remarked, for Gold Star families every day is Memorial Day.

In any case, many nations commemorate their fallen with masses of marble, eternal flames, and other worthy symbols of pride and humility.  Italy has the “Altare della Patria,” or Altar of the Fatherland, in Rome.

Imposing.  Serious.  Solemn.  (Photograph by alvesgaspar, wikimedia).

And then there is a schlumpy little chunk of some kind of stone that was sitting in a tangle of green-and-brownery at Sant’ Elena.  This last bit of Venice before the Adriatic Sea isn’t known for monuments, unlike the rest of the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world up the street.  But in fact the whole neighborhood is a sort of memorial to World War I, its streets named for generals, battlefields, dates and exploits.  And there is also this cube on which two words were long since incised: MILITE IGNOTO (MEE-lee-teh Ih-NYAW-to).  Unknown soldier.

Lino came across this relic a few months ago, and was startled and more than a little offended.  Not that he makes a cult of military cenotaphs, but he stated clearly that he saw no point in having such a significant object if it was just going to lie there, neglected and forgotten.  He said this also to a few other people too, especially to some of the officers at the nearby Scuola Navale Militare Francesco Morosini, where he teaches Venetian rowing.

“Unprepossessing” is putting it mildly. Till you think about it, and then you realize that this fragment is the exact equal of the mountain of metamorphosed limestone in Rome.

Most comments float away like dandelion fluff (if you’re lucky), but Lino’s particular comment stuck somewhere because a cultural association devoted to World War I entitled the Associazione Cime e Trincee (Peaks and Trenches) got to work, and last Sunday the newly furbished memorial was rededicated in the sight of God and a small but trusty company of assorted veterans.

This ceremony wasn’t matched with any particular date — they could have waited till Saturday and combined emotions with the national holiday commemorating the founding of the Italian Republic.  But they did it on Sunday, and we went.  We felt mystically involved, even though we still haven’t found out how the notion of bringing the stone back to life, so to speak, ever occurred.  It’s enough that it happened.

The Gathering of the Participants from various components of the armed forces with their standards. The participants outnumbered the spectators, but the fact that there WERE spectators is a fine thing.
When it comes to the bersaglieri (“marksmen,” or rapid light infantry) I’m not sure which is more dazzling — the fuchsia standard, or the cap cascading with turkey feathers.  I’ll take both.
Just about the best uniform ever.
Last to arrive were three cadets from the naval school, bringing the Italian flag. They were accompanied by a very energetic ex-member of the Alpine Regiment who appeared to be acting as a sort of stage manager.
Ready?
And off we march.
Hup two hup two.
The flag is raised.
We move a few steps back to stand along the border of the circular plot where the stone is placed.
The two little girls pulled off the orange cloth to reveal the stone, which has now been placed up on a sort of pedestal and isn’t lying around in the dirt anymore.
Don Gianni Medeot, the chaplain of the naval school and a naval officer, blesses the stone.
Being blessed. The traditional laurel wreath has very untraditionally been laid — albeit reverently — on its side. The ribbons are supposed to be vertical. But let me not spoil the moment.
As soon as the modest speechifying concluded, a youngish member of the Alpine regiment (not pictured, and not the stage manager) walked right up and straightened the wreath. I felt so much better. The picture of the three cadets also looks better this way.
The standards were then packed up in their carrying cases, and the everyone proceeded to the refreshment phase — here as simple as the ceremony: red wine and potato chips.
You don’t need a marching band or fireworks.

 

 

Continue Reading

Uncategorized, Venetian-ness

Always looking

3 Comments

I’m working on a new post, but meanwhile I thought I’d share some glimpses from the past few weeks:

On the last day of March we had an invigorating ten minutes of crashing hailstones. I’d have photographed the fabulous foam they raised in hitting the canal outside, but I was afraid that my little camera would suffer from the bombardment.
There were a few workmen nearby the morning I passed, so I very approximately assumed that these apples were part of their lunch menu. Though why the fruit seemed better on the ledge than in a bag will never be explained.
The next day, two apples were gone. And so were the workmen, though they hadn’t removed the floorboards, or whatever those wooden hatches are called that cover drying street-mortar. The only theory that completely explains this is aliens. Or the mentally precarious guy who lives in the house in the background. I was tempted to ask him about the apples, then decided I’d like to continue to enjoy the day.
And speaking of things sitting all alone with no reasonable context, there’s the can placed by an occult hand out in the middle of the innocent, unoffending street. If the Biennale had opened I’d know it was art. As it is, no telling.
Down a very short and narrow side street far across town I discovered a bolt that puts the average lock to shame. Count of Monte Cristo, anyone?
And why have I never noticed this unusual script before? One reason: I rarely pass through Campo San Zan Degola’. But this jumped out at me the other day. Gosh – the year the Order of Alexander Nevsky was founded.
Fog creates problems if you need to get to where the vaporetto isn’t going, but when the sun comes out there are all sorts of lovely surprises.

 

 

 

Continue Reading