I was going to write about something else but it’s just too hot. Every summer we get a heatwave around about now, but I’m not sure I remember one quite this heavy. Or long-lasting.
We’ve been having temperatures up around 100 degrees F. (39 degrees C) during the day, slightly less at night, for at least a week. Yesterday the weather report indicated that it was hotter here than in New York. I can tell you without consulting anybody but myself that it’s hotter than the hinges of hell.
Looking toward Murano at 8:30 this morning.
In addition to simple heat, there is the element called “afa,” which means sweltering, sultry, breathless heat, the kind of mugginess that makes you feel like an old sponge that has been left in a dark damp corner next to things that smell.
There are only two places I can think of where this weather would be even more intolerable. One would be anywhere along the Po River plain, where the fields stretch for long, desperate distances with no shade. Where there is shade, among the poplar plantations lining the river, there is no oxygen. Whatever is taking the place of oxygen does not move, because the world has stopped.
Looking toward the Lido at the lagoon inlet of San Nicolo'. The egret is happy, but egrets don't sweat.
The other place where the heat is torment is the mountains. Mountains are made to be cool, at least at night. If I had to endure this kind of heat at 4,000 feet, I’d have to think long and carefully about my revenge.
Clamming takes your mind off the fact that you're suffocating.
We’ve gotten through it so far by going out in the lagoon in a small mascareta, to a place where there is virtually always a breeze. And enough water to immerse myself for ten hours or so. Other people go to the beach on the Lido. Other people go shopping at the small supermarket off Campo Ruga, where the air-conditioning is set to cryogenic depths. We go clamming. More fun, for us. Probably not so much for the clams.
I’m off to bed now, planning to dream of the freezers at the Tyson chicken-processing plant. Do not wake me.
Murano is just ten minutes from Venice, but it's a whole other world. And not just because of all the glass, either.
If you’ve ever been to Murano, one of the world’s great glass-making centers, you will know that it’s impossible to race through it. You will be exhausted, but not because you’ve been going so fast; au contraire, you will have been plodding along at the pace of those debilitated galley slaves in Ben-Hur, going in and out of so many shops you’ll think they’ve been breeding in dark corners when you’re not looking. The five islands that make up Murano, of which you will probably only visit two, cover barely one square mile, and the Yellow Pages list 61 shops. I think there must be more.
Anyway, you will not have been racing. Unless it’s the first Sunday in July, in which you can come to Murano to watch other people race, and believe me, they’re going to be more tired in less time than you and your whole family after an entire day.
A glimpse of the leaders last year, heading from out in the lagoon into the Grand Canal of Murano and the home stretch.
The regata of Murano is really three regatas, each involving solo rowers, which calls not only for stamina but for skill. The races are for young men on pupparinos, women on pupparinos, and grown men on gondolas. It’s always hot, and there is always wind, and sometimes, like a few years ago, there can be sudden thunderstorms with pouring rain. But the race must go on.
Only about ten more minutes to go, and unless something extraordinary happens, at this point the positions aren't likely to change much. But they don't slack off, all the same.
The city of Venice organizes nine regatas a year, plus the Regata Storica. Each race is designed for a particular type of boat and number of rowers, and each is held in a different part of the lagoon, which means that the conditions and course present their own particular quirks. These changing venues also means that some are easier to watch from the shore than others, and the one at Murano is especially exciting not only because you can see both the start and the finish, but because there are good vantage-points along the fondamentas, and even a big cast-iron bridge from which to get a spectacular view of the finish.
The women on pupparinos are about 60 seconds from the finish line and it looks like the pink boat may still have a chance to overtake the white (2009).
Regatas (a Venetian word, by the way), have been an important feature of Venetian festivities since the Venetians crawled out of the primordial ooze; sometimes they were part of a religious celebration, or part of the myriad spectacles staged for the amusement of visiting potentates, but they were one-time events.
Luisella Schiavon -- from Murano, as it happens -- has a clear shot at first place at this point. She won last year, and this year, too. Being tall, as well as talented, makes a difference.
But in 1869, the regata at Murano was established as a regular annual event and not for any prince or pope but to entertain — yes — tourists. And whether or not tourists can look up for a few minutes from the heaps of glass necklaces and picture frames and flower vases, this race is arguably the most important occasion for a Venetian racer to show what he, or she, has really got. I can tell you that the man who wins the gondola race is universally regarded as having won something akin to Wimbledon, or maybe the Ironman Triathlon, or the Tour de France. Maybe all of them.
Here’s what it takes to win: Strength, stamina, skill, luck, and extreme and ruthless cunning. It also helps if you’re tall. It’s a physics thing; short rowers have a hard time keeping up with taller ones, though sometimes a short person has pulled it off, especially if he or she (I’m thinking of a she) is lavishly gifted with the aforementioned luck and cunning. Or just cunning.
My two most vivid memories of this race are from one of the earliest ones I ever attended, and the one from last Sunday. Both, oddly, involve a certain racer named Roberto Busetto.
Roberto Busetto last Sunday, crossing the finish line in third place just ahead of the yellow gondola. Victory is sweet, at least until you black out.
Mr. Busetto is strong — he looks like Mr. Clean, and he has biceps that make you think of whole prosciuttos. He is also experienced, and very determined (I’m not sure that he’s made it up to “ruthless”), but if anything ever upsets him during the race — even if it may not have prevented him from finishing really well — he can be counted on to show up for his prize yelling about it. In fact, there will always be something that’s wrong, and he goes all Raging Bull at the judges, at some fellow racer, at some onlooker, at anyone or anything that might have created even the tinest problem for him. Or who looks like they don’t care. It’s never easy to understand, in the midst of his tirade, what actually went wrong. But you know he’s mad.
Okay, Mr. Clean, let's just check those vital signs again.
The first time I saw Busetto at full throttle, he had barely crossed the finish line when he started ranting. It had something to do with what he claimed was some sneaky, illegal thing that another racer, Franco Dei Rossi, had inflicted on him, thereby preventing him from finishing better.
The confusion of boats immediately following the race doesn't usually include the ambulance. Last year it was just the usual suspects.
But it wasn’t his tantrum that stunned me, though I didn’t know at that point that tantrums are his normal means of expression, the way some people can’t help starting every sentence with “Well” or “You know.” It was the fact that under this deluge of outrage, Dei Rossi was sobbing as he mounted the judges’ stand to be awarded his prize. A grown man, one of the greatest (in my view) racers of his generation, son of one of the greatest racers in history, was standing there weeping uncontrollably. It was so astonishing and distressing that I know I didn’t imagine it, and I’m not exaggerating, either. I’m glad I didn’t have a camera with me, I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at the pictures. It really left a mark on me.
So we come to last Sunday. It’s Busetto again. He has been racing for at least 20 years, maybe more, but he had only a very brief peak, and that was quite some while ago. In fact, I’d have to stop and do some research to determine when was the last time he won a pennant. I think the Beatles may still have been together. (Just kidding; it was in 2000.)
But this year, he finished third. Which means he won the green pennant, which means that after a ten-year drought he had managed to pull himself back into the ranks of the demi-gods. Pennants are awarded to the first four finishers, and they really matter to the racers, almost as much as the cash prize.
This is what normal collapsing looks like -- here, Sebastiano Della Toffola has just finished his first race with the big guys. Franco Dei Rossi, a certified, gold-plated Big Guy, looks on with something that looks like comprehension.
Finishing third is pretty great, but about two seconds after crossing the finish line, he collapsed. First he sort of let himself fall down backwards on the stern of the boat, which isn’t so strange except that it’s usually the younger men who want to show how completely wrung out they are. It’s like when they throw their oar in the water (rage, joy, some other intense emotion — looks very dramatic, till you realize how dumb it is).
An excellent example of what incredible-victory collapsing looks like. Last year, like this year, first place went to Igor Vignotto. On the orange gondola both times. You may laugh, but this is how superstitions are born.
But then my friend Anzhelika said, “He’s too white.” Then I noticed that his boat had drifted slaunchwise across the canal, blocking the arrival of the last gondolas. Then there was some commotion, then the sound of the water ambulance arriving at full speed.
Much pouring of cool water on his head, much checking of his blood pressure. He tore himself away long enough to come pick up his pennant, annoyed (of course), though not yelling, because everybody was fussing over him. He likes attention, but nobody with arms like prosciuttos wants it to be because he fell apart.
But some things in life are bigger than prosciuttos, and rowing under the searing sun for 40 minutes at full blast if you’re not in astronaut-type physical condition is asking for it. “It” being an ambulance and a blood-pressure cuff, and lots of people suddenly looking at you like you’re some kind of invalid.
You know it’s serious when Roberto Busetto isn’t yelling.
Franco Dei Rossi (2009) in a more typical post-race moment: Smiling because he's won another pennant. In this case, a blue one for fourth place. Not at all bad in a field of nine, for a man who's drifting up on 60 years old.
This year's first and second-place finishers. Igor Vignotto on the left (red pennant) and Rudi Vignotto (white pennant). They were adversaries, but only sort of; not only are they cousins, but they have rowed together their entire lives.
The fourth-place pennant, clutched by a sweat-soaked Ivo Redolfi Tezzat. This is an especially nice design, with the rooster, the emblem of Murano, in the upper corner. If you've won this, though, you really don't care if it's a rooster or a wall-eyed vireo.
Then we all followed the scent of the scorching sausage and ribs to the local festa. This little girl out with her grandmother has the most astonishing pre-Raphaelite face. I just can't stand the thought of her growing up and walking around with a cell phone and tattoos and mutilated hair. Must be getting old.
Interested in the races? The ribs? The music? The thunderstorm about to shatter the sky into a billion sharp wet pieces? Not really. Here is an excellent demonstration of what these parties are for. The food and music are just ruses.
Last Sunday (May 16) Venice pulled what was once one of its greatest festivals out of storage for its annual exhibition: Ascension Day, or “la Sensa.”
The boat procession, having passed the Naval College, moves along the Lido shoreline toward the church of San Nicolo’ and the ceremony of the blessing of the ring.
Up until the year 1000 A.D., if you’ll cast your minds back, the fortieth day after Easter had been primarily known as the commemoration of Christ’s ascension to heaven. It still is, but at the turn of the millennium the day took on large quantities of extra importance for Venice.
The day also became just as famous for the “Sposalizio del mare,” or wedding of the sea, a ceremony performed by the doge and Senate in the company of many boats of all sorts which all proceeded toward the inlet to the sea at San Nicolo’ on the Lido. At the culminating moment, the doge tossed a golden ring into the lagoon waters and intoned, “Desponsamus te, Mare, in signum veri perpetique dominii.” (“I wed thee, O Sea, in sign of perpetual dominion.”)
The “Serenissima” pulls up to the judges’ stand to put the doge — I mean mayor — and retinue ashore.
This statement had nothing to do with religion, even though it does sound impressive in Latin, right up there with “till death us do part.” It had much more to do with politics, because on Ascension Day in the year 1000 (May 9, if you’re interested), doge Pietro II Orseolo finally quashed the Slavic pirates who, from their eastern Adriatic lairs, had been harassing Venetian shipping and seriously inconveniencing Venetian progress.
This was a pivotal moment in Venetian history; it opened the way to centuries of expansion, wealth and power, and the Venetians wanted to make sure that all their assorted neighbors and trading partners and possibly also trading competitors remembered what they had done and could do again, if necessary.
For another thing, beginning in 1180 one of the largest commercial fairs of the entire year was held during the Ascension Day period. Merchants and traders from all over the Mediterranean and beyond set up booths in the Piazza San Marco to sell ivory, incense, ebony, oils of jasmine and sandalwood and bergamot, pomegranate soap, tortoiseshell back-scratchers, bath salts, mirrors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, dried figs and apricots, plant-based hair dyes, luxurious textiles, and even Abyssinian and Circassian and sub-Saharan slaves. All this was traded in languages and dialects from Venetian to Armenian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Greek, Turkish, German, Georgian, Iberian, Arabic, French and Persian. I’m sure I’ve left something out. This fair was such a big deal that soon it was extended from eight days to two weeks. Yes, even back then the city was just one big emporium, though incense strikes me as being cooler than the bargain Carnival masks made in China bestrewing the shops today.
A flea market by the church of San Nicolo’ is the best we can do at evoking the fabulous market of yore.
I don’t suppose that the average Venetian on the street would have told you much of the above if you’d stopped to ask what the big deal was about the Sensa. But a smallish contingent of people have applied themselves, since the early Nineties, to bringing back at least some ceremonial in order to acknowledge the moment .
Need a lampshade with a portrait of Audrey Hepburn or Charlie Chaplin? Now’s your chance.I wonder if any merchants from the old days would have been tempted by these.
So yesterday morning there was a boat procession, more or less following the “Serenissima,” the biggest and fanciest of the city’s ceremonial barges which was carrying the mayor (best we could do, seeing as we’re dogeless these days) and costumed trumpeters and a batch of military and civilian dignitaries and also a priest.
At the Morosini naval college at Sant’ Elena, all the cadets were ready and waiting, lined up along the embankment. Standing crisply at attention with their hats in their right hand, on command they raised their hat-holding arm straight out at a sharp 45-degree angle, and shouted with one voice “OO-rah.” They did this three times in succession, then there was a pause. Then they did it again. They do this at intervals till the boats have all passed.
For my money, this is the best part of the event, much better than the ring-and-sea business. In fact, I’m convinced that if the cadets were not to do this, it would ruin the entire day.
The boats surround the “Serenissima” as the declamation(s) proceed.
The boats then proceed to the area in front of the church of San Nicolo’ on the Lido, where they clump together, the priest blesses the ring, and the mayor throws it into the water. One year our boat was close enough that I took somebody’s dare and actually managed to snag it before it sank (all the ribbons tied to it momentarily helped it to float). Then I had a heavy surge of superstitious guilt. Even if it wasn’t gold — it was kind of like what you’d use to hang a heavy curtain — it was a symbolic object fraught with meaning. I wondered if I’d just blighted Venice’s mojo for another year. But I didn’t throw it back — that seemed even stupider than grabbing it in the first place. So, you know, my disrespect just left another ding on the chrome trim of my conscience.
The first three gondolas, battling it out in the back stretch.
Then there is a boat race — in this case, a race for gondolas rowed by four men each. In Venice the celebration of really important events always involved a regata, and when this festival began to take form, Lino created this one. Yesterday the competition was somewhat more dramatic than usual in that a strong garbin, or southwest wind, was blowing, and it was also really cold. Lots of big irritated waves. Strong incoming tide. All elements that do not conduce to easy victory or friendly handshakes afterward, not that these guys are ever inclined to that sort of thing. But it made for a very exciting 40 minutes — better than usual, if you could stand the cold.
Heading into the home stretch, they held onto third place, well ahead of their closest competitors.
So much for the festivities, so much for the wedding of the sea. No honeymoon, though. We just move on to another 12 months of trying to dominate the sea. Not with galleys anymore; Venice seems to be doing a pretty good job with the ever-increasing flotilla of cruise ships.
It’s probably way past everybody’s bedtime, so I’ll wrap up this little philippic.
Imagining momentarily that a satisfactory conclusion could ever be reached in the Gordian convolutions of the “floodgate” project, permit me to make a few very brief observations.
First, let us make a concerted effort to ban all those irresistible emotional words that acqua alta seems to force from journalists’ subconscious. “Venice under siege,” is a common one. CNN said that the high water of December, 2008 had been caused by the Adriatic “bursting its banks.” (Banks? Bursting? Are we in Holland?). The Discovery Channel stated that the high water was “cannibalizing” the city’s buildings (OMG). And on and on. One could smile if this kind of reporting wasn’t cannibalizing common sense.
If the city can't manage to find some money for people, even when we've got MOSE we may no longer have any people. Good thing we have pictures.
When I think about it really calmly, it appears to me that it’s actually impossible for the planners and builders of MOSE to be able to make any promise (guarantee, statement, claim, whatever you like) about their creation that they can prove is accurate.
There are simply too many unknowns in the many different scenarios devoted to its use: How well it will function — that’s the big one — how much its maintenance (routine or extra) will cost, where the money for feeding and caring for it will come from, etc.
Every claim from its proponents is supported so far only by data assembled by them.
Probably the two major areas of concern for its success are:
First: How high the highest tides are likely to become. Some estimates only give MOSE 100 years of usefulness, after which the highest tides will spill over its maximum height. The frequency and duration of these exceptional high tides are also subject to interminable debate. But nobody knows.
I wonder who will hang out the laundry everybody (including me) loves to photograph. Maybe they'll hire somebody.
Second: How well the individual caissons will remain aligned. As I mentioned in my last post, if they begin to lose their perfect uniform surface (even if only one of them doesn’t rise as high as its neighbor, or the seal begins to leak), the strength of the entire “wall” of caissons will be compromised.
I have rowed against the incoming tide at the inlet at San Nicolo, in normal weather with no hint of wind or surge, and it is nowhere near being a joke. If the barrier isn’t perfect, the tide will come in whether MOSE is ready or not.
But let us not be downhearted. Let’s say that the machinery functions perfectly, precisely as planned. Let’s say that exceptional high water occurs ever more frequently. as expected. Let’s say that every prediction is fulfilled, even though there is no way to assume they will be.
Here is the real question: Has Venice been saved from anything except some water in the street for a few hours?
The true inundation, the most implacable and destructive, is the endless tide of tourists. The number increases 3 per cent every year; in 2009 it reached 21 million in an area of about three square miles.
No need to waste any time worrying about the old folks, they'll be gone anyway.
Whether this fact inspires emotion or not, it is more measurable, and predictable, than the inexact, politically driven “science” that has given birth to MOSE.
So let’s say that while assorted interested parties continue to water and fertilize the popular obsession which the press has with acqua alta, some very real problems continue to be neglected.
Young families will continue to move away because they can’t afford Venice (housing, primarily, though lack of jobs is a close second), the older generations eventually die off, and before MOSE has become obsolete the city will be devoid of residents. In their place will be the tsunami of tourists — tended to by merchants who mostly live on the mainland — which will finally render the city completely unliveable.
So even if MOSE performs perfectly, the Venice that has been “saved” will amount to nothing more than a collection of really old buildings, beautiful or not, according to your taste.
If no comparable effort is made to revive and protect the life of Venice, then even if MOSE turns out to be an engineering marvel to rival the invention of the arch, the once-thriving city will be as devoid of life as Machu Picchu.
When that happens, there’s won’t be much point in vilifying MOSE, or bewailing the triumph of politics and fear over basic municipal common sense.
But unfortunately, and perhaps even unwillingly, even the not-so-old will be gone too.
But it seems clear, even now, before the first button is pushed, that if the time, energy, and billions of dollars that will have been spent to hold back the tide had been dedicated to resolving the chronic, debilitating problems that Venice experiences every day, in 50 years there would still be a living city worth saving.
