The table is set up at this corner because the children turn right here to get to the elementary school.
Yesterday, Sept. 16, was the first day of school. Nobody was happy, of course, even though the Veneto, along with Puglia, was the region that started school the latest (Alto Adige began on Sept. 7, but they have German DNA).
I’ve never investigated the reasons why the whole country doesn’t start school on the same day, and starting on a Wednesday seems odd, or at least asymmetrical, to me. Then again, some of the post offices in Venice open at 8:15, and some open at 8:25. Anyone for 8:00? Certainly not. To each his own symmetry, I guess.
This little sprite was in another neighborhood, heading off for her excellent adventure complete with backpack, mother, and grandmother.
This year, as in the past few, the neighborhood old people’s group (literal translation of “gruppoanziani“) organized a wonderful send-off to the littlest scholars to launch them into their first real day of school ever (they will already have had nursery school, but this time it’s serious). We didn’t stay to watch because we had to be somewhere else, but I have no doubt that, as before, each child was given a bag of presents — school supplies could qualify, as long as they’ve got that new-car smell — and given a heartfelt exhortation, and a warm round of applause.
But what was new this year was the sign they put up on the backdrop, the wall of the church of San Francesco di Paola. We discovered it toward evening, and this morning it was gone. I’d like to think that the wall will retain the warmth of the poster for quite a while yet.
“Viva’ is short for “Evviva,” which is a cry of joy and acclaim. I always think of it as “Long live” the whatever-comes-next. It is sometimes abbreviated to a big “W” (two V’s, naturally).“Long live school, Long live culture, Long live all the children in the world.”
We had some boffo days at the end of August and beginning of September.
Hello. Maybe you remember me, I’m the blogger about Venice who doesn’t make anything up. I am fully aware that I have set a new record in silence, and I’m sorry about it, but I had lots of good reasons, including having to finish a colossal project (which will be revealed at the appropriate moment, which isn’t now). I have been living in a parallel universe complete with galaxies that have long numbers instead of names, and have not had enough brain, or whatever energy is actually made of (electrons? crush-ons? four-hours-of-sleep-a-night-ons?) to do anything else.
But there is possibly a deeper reason for the silence. I have temporarily run out of interest in Venice. At least I hope it’s temporary.
Why is this? Because I have become the glass into which the famous one drop too many has dripped. Several drops. Too freaking many drops.
Here is what I mean:
The tram. Another massive public project, full of problems and costing too much.
Ten years have been devoted to the building of a tram that goes places in Mestre and now, finally, is concluding at Piazzale Roma. Naturally this has been done to the sound of teeth: Those of the highly inconvenienced public (gnashing and grinding) and those of the builders, politicians, and Superintendent(s) of Architecture and Landscape (gleaming with satisfied smiles).
This is merely the latest version of a story that just keeps getting retold, like bodice-ripper novels in which only the names and locations change: Estimates of time and cost blown to flinders, a vehicle which, new as it is, breaks down at odd moments for all sorts of reasons that are explained in the “Don’t Do This” chapter of the textbook on how to build a tram. Derailments, losses of power, miscalculations of angles of descent which mean the tram would ram itself nose-down into the ground at certain points unless the geometry gets fixed.
Now the bill, so to speak, is coming due. The budgeted cost: 163.7 million euros. Real cost to date: 208 million. Unforeseen delays, extra features added on later, the usual litany of an expensive public project. Wait, I think that’s redundant. There will be investigations, of course. The tram people can explain everything.
So much for the tram itself, which frankly, I happen to like. When it’s working.
This is the “shelter.” It’s not that it’s ugly that fascinates me, it’s that somebody thought this fulfilled the needs of people in a windy rainstorm, which are not uncommon here. And what about shade in the pounding heat of summer? I’m just not seeing it. Bonus points: It’s only sort of original — one almost exactly like it was built in Alicante, Spain in 2006, and has even won awards, perhaps not voted by anybody who actually uses it. (Photo not by me, but uncredited where I found it.)
But the tram’s new “shelter” in Piazzale Roma (105 feet / 32 meters long) is an entire other subject, the latest in a series of phenomenally ugly constructions which have been approved and executed in the spirit of “Because we’re the city and we can do what we want.” The purpose of this construction is to protect what appears to be about 50 people from the rain while waiting for the tram, as long as there is totally no wind. The more I look at it, the more I can’t understand how it could be considered functional, whether beautiful or not.
But by the way, it isn’t beautiful. But no matter. As so often has happened, the project documents clearly came out of the office of the Superintendent of Architecture and Landscape (who you might have thought was required to protect and defend the fabric of the most beautiful city, etc.) covered with big bright stamps that say “We like this!” “This is good!” “Let’s do this ASAP!” “Can we do more of these?” This has happened so many times since I’ve been here. Say what you will about the Calatrava Bridge — for all its problems, and preposterous cost overruns, at least it’s functional. You can adjudicate beauty on your own time.
As you can see, this shelter (I don’t know what else to call it at the moment, though it doesn’t look very sheltering) answers to the nickname given by the first Venetians who saw it: the “big black coffin.” It’s made of three sections of steel which weigh a total of 18 tons. I cannot understand why something that big that weighs that much has to exist anywhere in Venice; even Tennessee Ernie Ford knew enough to stop at Sixteen Tons.
Traffic in the Grand Canal: Remember the fatal accident by the Rialto Bridge two years ago? We’ve jettisoned one mayor, used up a commissario, and now have another mayor. Nothing has changed. Everything is just the way it was. Remember all those new regulations that came out a few months ago that threw a few amateur rowers into a swivet? Regulations are so wonderful, especially when you have no way to enforce them, like not having one policeman for every boat. Don’t watch this space for news of the next fatal accident, because I’ve stopped caring about the traffic. Let everybody do what they want, which is exactly what they are doing. Rock on.
The awning’s modest list only hinted at the awesomeness of the store that was: Housewares, Detergents, Perfumes, Gardening, Camping, Hardware, Trinkets. The name itself meant “Big Store.” But monuments crumble all the time, so what’s one more?
The Bottegon is gone. This strikes way too close to home. Stores close with alarming frequency here, usually as a result of spikes in the rent that are impossible to pay by selling books or pork chops or kiwi fruit or even sporting goods and gear (Andreatta, in the Strada Nova, had been in business since 1883. As of March, it is no more). I’ve seen all kinds of stores close since I’ve been here — hair salons, butcher shops, toy stores — and what follows is usually a bar/cafe, restaurant, or shop selling “Murano glass” made in China, Carnival masks (often made in China), touristic gewgaws and souvenirs (made over there too). Nothing against China, but it’s not Venice.
I don’t know precisely how long the Bottegon was in business; I knew that it occupied a large space that was once a movie theater — you could see the big empty window above the cash registers where the projection room used to be.
You have to understand, this wasn’t a mere store. It was a Noah’s Ark of almost everything required for human life, at least a pair of each so they could repopulate the earth with hair conditioner and thumbtacks and toilet paper and moth repellent and floor wax and all kinds of electrical wire. Except for food and clothing, you couldn’t think of anything that you couldn’t find there. Paint, hair color, mops, ladders, toothpaste, lightbulbs, potpourri, makeup, doorstops, toothpicks, shelving, salad spinners, detergent. It was impossible to go in there and not come out with what you needed. It was crammed so full, up to the top shelves of a very high ceiling, that you sometimes had to ask for help even to locate your item. Then the choice would baffle you.
Then things began slowly to change. They moved the cash registers to the front of the store, the area that you used to have to traverse like a jungle explorer, occasionally climbing over things. They glammed up the shelves, widened the aisles, cut back on a lot of products, and began to add items you’d never have thought of buying there. Olive oil, potato chips, wine. It was weird — there are two supermarkets right across the street. It was like watching Zelda Fitzgerald studying ballet at age 27, imagining she was going to be a star: depressing, and smelling of doom.
People used to stand in line at the registers, eventually there was almost nobody in the store. In a brutal about-face, they never had what I needed anymore. Eventually it stopped being a store and became some old friend with a lingering illness that you just couldn’t visit anymore.
So I’m glad it’s out of its misery. From what my neighborhood source told me, you could have written the cause of death in one word: “Debts.”
A moment of silence.
Happily for me, soulless consumer that I am, I don’t have to worry, because via Garibaldi has two pharmacies, and two supermarkets, and even two bakers. And there is indeed a sort of Bottegon down by the vegetable boat which has already been taking up the slack. I have no idea what it’s called, but it’s small and crammed and has almost everything the old store had. So I’m okay. But I still don’t understand why they had to let the other one die.
Maybe it’s going to rise from the ashes as a restaurant. We certainly need more of those.
Complaints about everything: These never stop, and most of them are completely justified. But I’m tired of reading them and hearing them and even uttering them myself.
So I’ll be looking for something new to share, but it might take a little while. I’m going to have to find one of those three-day cleanses, but for my brain.
Even three floors up, the pink bows announcing the birth of a girl stand out, and make me smile.“Welcome Anna.” I do!A few streets over, another little girl joins the team.Valentina! Wow! You can play power forward!At the end of August we still had heat, but it was leaving gallons of dew on the streets overnight. This was not rain.The difference between the sunny and shady sides of the street is rarely quite so vivid.And this was “good morning” two days ago, a greeting we heard via a large ship’s horn even before we looked outside. Early autumn fog is so normal that they call it the “brume settembrine,” the September mists.And back to clouds again. Or is this a smoke signal, which says “Please come save us before our powers of reason abandon us”?
Most things have to get from A to B by boat here, at least for part of the trip. Here somebody’s garden is being taken down the Grand Canal. A garden, or one heck of a lot of windowboxes. Or centerpieces. Or corsages.
It’s not as if I have nothing to say — I’m sure I have, somewhere — but the summer heat has hit (upper 90’s, F) with humidity to match, and my brain is otherwise occupied in keeping my vital functions going.
There remains one vital function I can manage on my own, and that is the devouring of ice cream. Happily, the newspaper publishes several articles each summer which not only state that ice cream is one of the best possible foods to consume in this heat, but that doctors confirm that it is NECESSARY to eat it, that it’s GOOD FOR YOU, that it’s PRACTICALLY A HEALTH FOOD. I don’t write these articles, but I could if asked to.
Just think, he could have been eating kohlrabi with kelp flakes, but he instinctively knew that ice cream was better for him. He’s obviously destined for a life of Ironman triathlons.
So here, having decided to avoid any brain-intensive topics, I am just going to give some of those glimpses of the sights (I spare you sounds) to be noticed when walking around the neighborhood. Just think, you’re also spared the temperature, which is just about the same inside as outside, except when inside is even hotter.
I’m going on vacation tomorrow, so will not be not making anything up for about six weeks. I intend to return totally bursting with wonders to relate, or at least bursting with the intention of doing so.
We all know that big cruise ships enter and leave Venice and that this bothers some people. But that’s not why I’m showing this picture. What interested me was the tugboat astern, which was directly behind the ship as it entered the lagoon. The ship is moving at the speed of a tired two-year-old, otherwise known as 6 knots maximum (6.9 mph/ 11 kmh, though this is a delicate calculation if the ship is going with the tide). In any case, at this point the ship needs to make a moderately sharp left turn to proceed up the Giudecca Canal, therefore the tug moves starboard and simply pulls the stern of the ship, turning it just enough to position the ship correctly for the home stretch.Perhaps you can see the taut line connecting the two vessels. I wonder if knowing that there is a tug at the bow and another astern might influence the general public’s notion of how far out of control such a ship might conceivably go?This maneuver is made in the wide space where www.veniceonline.it is printed. Just to give an idea of the geometry.In the rio di Sant’Anna, there are stretches of cement slabs underwater, slightly tilted down toward the center of the canal. This was a simple means of reinforcing the wall at whatever time the city realized that reinforcement was needed. No problem there, so far, except that the cement makes it impossible to drive a piling into the mud next to the wall, a piling to which you might wish to tie your boat. So therefore…..…the aforementioned pilings are driven in at a slant. Not a monumentally big deal, except that it means that the boats are floating more toward the center of the canal and less right along the wall. When the tide is low (which it is, twice a day) and sometimes very low (at certain periods in the year), the boats inch even further toward the center, which narrows the canal’s available space for traffic.And speaking of fondamentas — which we sort of were — you may have seen low rectangular panels of some material (here it’s plastic) attached to the metal fence by a canal. And you may have wondered what they were for. They’re to prevent anybody who may be sweeping the street nearby (the trashman? just maybe? or some really efficient domestic worker) from sweeping the dust and detritus into the canal or — oops — into your boat. It has happened often enough that individual boat owners have Taken Precautions.Here is another version, slightly further on. A couple of leftover laths work just as well. No more sweepage!Toward sunset I discovered yet another wonder about the very same few feet of fondamenta: the Istrian stone paving its edge. Not only is it beautiful (it’s Istrian stone, after all), but why was it laid in this extraordinary manner? Did the city run out of perfectly rectangular blocks? (Answer: Sure, I guess.) This has instantly become one of my favorite things in the neighborhood.The garbage collection organization will come and remove heavy, awkward objects if you phone and make an appointment. This usually means seeing things like refrigerators, old air conditioners, dead washing machines, outside the owner’s door with a sign attached saying when it’s forecast to be removed. Today I see that it’s collect-old-TVs-and-computers day just outside our door. That…that IS a computer, that little boxie-thingie in the middle?
I’m beginning to think that shadows and reflections are more interesting than the real things that cause them. I wonder if the French have invented a philosophy that would explain that.
There are large and heavy subjects to address, but I’m not going to do it.
I’m not going to talk about the two million euros of fines levied on illegal street vendors over the past year, because all those fines are unpaid and will remain unpaid forever. (Although it costs the city 14 euros each to issue them.) Spending money in order to lose it? Isn’t that what lottery tickets are for? Anyway, there will continue to be more illegal street vendors, and fines, and on and on in the endless cycle of birth and rebirth.
I’m also not going to talk about the political jockeying which has begun as the mayoral election begins to take form on the horizon. Nor is it worth devoting any time to listing the daily perp walk of corrupt politicians and businessmen, a procession which seems to know no end.
Seeing that I do not intend to address these very worthy topics, at least not at the moment, I’ll just share some recent glimpses.
Someone on the next street over has a festive way of giving their garbage to the collector. Either there is not one other piece of string to be found in their house (not even for ready money), or this person has a charming way of brightening up the most mundane tasks and objects. I can almost hear her saying “Here! It’s for you!”While we’re on the subject of tying things, the owner of this boat (an honors graduate of Gordium State Institute of Technology) has secured his deteriorating vessel with this unique knot. Or knots. He doesn’t realize that in the case of knots, quality beats quantity. You just need one knot — the right one, tied the right way — to keep your boat safe till peace and justice reign on earth. But he evidently is the classic belt-and-suspenders person.There’s another nodal creation on the other side. He’ll be ready to withstand Typhoon Brunnhilde, but if he needs to untie the boat in a hurry he’s going to discover the true meaning of remorse and recrimination.Venice is composed almost entirely of buildings and walls which have undergone so many transformations they practically qualify as genealogical charts. I call these “Walls of Second Thoughts,” and this is not the most extreme example I’ve found. It does have a sort of charm, though. I can almost hear the families and the workmen over the centuries, discussing and deciding, then hauling and hammering and just generally slaving and sweating. Sometimes I can just make out the voice of someone muttering, “It was better the way it was.”Several thoughts — second, third, fourth — have passed over the facade of this palace. The door I can dimly understand, but that they thought it best to suffocate a beautiful ogee-arch window perplexes me.Speaking of second thoughts, may I modestly say that I can usually, with more or less effort, figure out what I’m looking at. But this sturdy stone barrier has shut down my brain. I understand the complex and perhaps effective barrier across the door which is obviously intended to keep acqua alta at bay, but the additional slab corresponds to nothing I’ve ever seen or experienced. Theories are welcome, but if any reader KNOWS what this is for, I’m considering offering a reward.And of course no day is complete without its ration of laundry. I wonder if the person who hung all this out had any idea what it looks like. They’re probably more interested in how dry it’s going to be before nightfall.Is this a shadow or a reflection of Tourists Past? Sadly, no — it’s Tourists Present, tourists dormant, tourists without form, and void. The season has begun.I’m going back out to the lagoon, where equally crazy things go on every day, but at least I can count on the egrets to know how to behave.
