Venice: I am not making this up

sorry, but this is hilarious

May 6, 2022 17 Comments

The headline at the newsstand Wednesday: “Huge reviewing stand in Piazza (San Marco) Florian closed in protest.”

Some things deserve to be laughed at — laughter with a frisson of incredulity. Incredulity without the guffaws also works well. And Florian closing in protest is hilarious.

Florian is the jewel in the crown of the Piazza San Marco. Opened on December 29, 1720, it is certainly the oldest cafe extant in Venice, and in all of Italy; some sources claim it’s the oldest in the world, though Florian modestly denies it. It’s also extremely beautiful. History and elegance make such a lovely couple. Sipping your prosecco or Bellini or even a tiny cup containing three drops of espresso, a nibble of salmon, a delectable pastry, all brought to you on a silver salver, you can feel wonderfully, uniquely glamorous. Sitting in Venice! At Florian! Am I dreaming? Is this really me?

It is fabulous, there is no other way to put it.

Then the bill arrives, and you have to start planning that second mortgage on your house. Coffee at the bar: 3 euros ($3.17). Seated: 6.50 ($6.85). A little plate of six (6) cookies? 13 euros ($13.71). Is the atmosphere adorned by the enchanting music rippling from the instruments of the quartet on their platform outside? Your conto will request your payment of 6 euros per person, even if you didn’t actually order it. Yes, for a concert it’s extremely economical.

I could go on, but my point is not how expensive it is; Florian can charge any price it wants and nobody is forcing you to go there.

My point is that they closed for a day to protest the “invasion” of the gargantuan stage set up for massive ceremonies in the Piazza San Marco. (More on the ceremonies later.) Florian strongly objects to all this construction encroaching on their territory, primarily because they were not consulted weeks in advance. The city government disputes the accusation of no consultation.

To set the scene, Florian is the cream-colored awning on the left side of his image.

This is the view of the Piazza from the tables at Florian yesterday. The large blue reviewing stand is one thing, but the bleachers will be in front of the tables. Yet where else could you put them? Even though Florian objects to it, the marching always crosses the Piazza lengthwise. Geometry is heartless, as I discovered in 10th grade and Florian discovered this week. The Comune has conceded extra lateral space for the tables to compensate for the distress.

I could understand somebody protesting a situation that would dangerously and cruelly limit, if not eliminate, their income for a few days (April 29 – May 9, to be precise). But I don’t believe this is the case.

They complain that there is too much going on in the Piazza, and huge events such as Wednesday’s graduation ceremony for 800 students of the University of Venice, and the even huger rituals planned for today in honor of the Morosini naval school (details follow), are seriously invading their physical space and even their aura.

The occasion is the 60th anniversary of the school’s re-founding in 1961 (originally established in 1937, but interruptions such as war ensued). And while we’re all together, why not also conduct the requisite swearing-in ceremony by which the first-year class is rendered officially military. This year the second-year group will join in, as there was no oath-taking last year. There will be marching and saluting executed by the 150 cadets, undoubtedly abetted by detachments from other military branches. Did I mention that the president of the republic will also be there? Not to mention many past cadets, going back decades.

To return to the bur under Florian’s saddle, yes, there is an enormous reviewing stand, and yes, there will be big bleachers flanking it. It’s regrettable that these will degrade the scenery of the Piazza, to the detriment of the Florian fascination. But it occurs to me that even though this legendary cafe’, like all businesses that place tables outdoors, pays a tax for the public space they occupy, they don’t actually own that space. Which is to say that the Piazza San Marco doesn’t belong to them. In fact, you could make a good argument that Florian’s appeal does not lie principally in the Piazza, but in its own glorious rooms. If you take the Orient Express, are you really going to spend a lot of time looking out the window at the scenery?

People want glamour, people are willing to pay for glamour, and then they park their baby stroller in the aisle. Power bank recharging something, backpack stashed aboard. The invisible clients on the left could be sitting in the departure gate area of the Dubuque airport. Not saying travelers can’t have their stuff, just saying that the Florian aura is a very frangible thing. If somebody can come to Florian and do this, I seriously doubt that some bleachers outside are going to bother them. If Florian doesn’t mind the stroller parked amidships, I’m not sure why they’re complaining about the atmosphere of their operation outside.

In any case, the Piazza San Marco has been the site of mass confusionary events for centuries. The interminable procession on the feast of Corpus Domini, the week-long market for the feast of the Ascension — stalls everywhere selling everything! — bear-baiting to entertain the Crown Prince of Russia in a Piazza surrounded by yes, bleachers filled with thousands of spectators, and so on. If anything big is going to happen in Venice, it’s almost certainly going to happen in the Piazza San Marco. Did nobody think to tell Florian?

Well, not according to them. They say they got barely 24-hours notice before the scaffolding began to go up, at which I wonder what difference it would have made to have had even 240-hours notice. The scaffolding is going up, and it will be coming down. See: “Ownership of Piazza,” above.

So here is what strikes me as hilarious about all this: What possible difference does it make to anyone except Florian if it closes for a day? I understand the desire to protest, but saying you’re going to close for a day to show how mad you are is kind of like when I was three years old and threatened to hold my breath forever if I didn’t get what I wanted. My mother basically said “Go right ahead,” and I did, and when I regained consciousness on the kitchen floor she was still standing over there, washing dishes or cutting vegetables or whatever she was doing. So much for my protest.

So a day without Florian, even though you can make it sound like something terrible, doesn’t even register on the Apocalypt-o-Meter. I think most of us can say we have other things to worry about.

None of the three other other cafe’s on the Piazza have protested, and they too, as well as the museums, are going to have to close for the ceremonial day.

Birds

the voyage of the swan

May 3, 2022 10 Comments

We expected to see the usual Sunday morning mix of taxis and vaporettos, but a mute swan (Cygnus olor) was a surprise.

May 1 was a national holiday, here and in many other countries, and it’s generally known as International Workers’ Day. So in honor of workers everywhere, we also did not work that day. We went out for an early morning row, and were amazed to be met in the Bacino of San Marco by a very fine, and very unexpected, feathered friend.

There are about 270 species of bird in the lagoon over the course of the year, either pausing in their migrations, stopping for the winter, or just moving in permanently. The Venetian lagoon is on a major north-south flyway, and apart from being enormous, is one of the few, ever-diminishing coastal wetlands in Europe.

He was tranquilly crossing the Bacino without any noticeable destination in mind — more or less like any other tourist wandering the city, except much more beautiful.

He didn’t seem to mind the waves as much as I do.

Recent fossil records, according to the British Ornithological Union, show that Cygnus olor is among the oldest bird species still extant; some fossil and bog specimens date back to 13,000 B.C.E. The young bird is initially gray and gradually becomes white over four years.

We have often seen a pair of swans in the northern lagoon, beyond Torcello, and also on the Brenta river near Malcontenta; one time we counted nearly 50 floating in the distance near Sant’ Erasmo. Lino told me that when he was a lad, some birds that we now commonly see in the city, such as cormorants, egrets, and seagulls, never came to town. You’d see them only in the distance, he says, if you saw them at all. Now they’re everywhere.

But the swans weren’t to be seen anywhere. About 35 years ago, Giampaolo Rallo, now president of the Mestre Pro Loco, then a naturalist at the Natural History Museum, noticed that there wasn’t a swan to be found in the lagoon, “not even if you paid it,” as one account put it. So he got what he calls “this crazy idea” to bring back the swans. On April 13, 1984, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), together with the Gazzettino, launched a drive to find individuals willing to sponsor (fancy word for “pay for”) pairs of swans — not a small contribution, considering that a pair cost the equivalent of $315 today.

He strolled, so to speak, over to the riva Ca’ di Dio where someone was dropping a few crumbs into the water – or so it appeared. Photos ensued. It wasn’t long before he decided to investigate other sources of snacks, such as the seaweed.

Over a period of two years, up to one hundred couples were acquired in the Netherlands and placed in the “fish valleys” of the southern lagoon. “It was a great cultural work,” Rallo explained to a journalist from La Nuova Venezia in 2019, “because we had to teach the respect of all the great waterbirds — I’m thinking also of the flamingoes. But there was real enthusiasm in the city for this initiative and there were important signs, such as the participation of Federcaccia Venezia” (the hunters’ association) “which bought a pair and made their volunteers available to watch over the swans to prevent anyone from disturbing or wounding them.” Who would hurt a swan? Well, hungry people a few generations back had no problem with trying to get these spectacular creatures on the table.

Today there are a thousand swans in the lagoon, and are sometimes seen even in Mestre’s modest waterways. A breeding pair named Silvia and Peter live near the lagoon at Caorle, and are awaiting the hatching of their eleventh brood of cygnets.

Moving on toward some moored vaporettos.

Hello, what’s this? A shiny little metal plate that looks crunchy. Or maybe not.

Well, let’s mosey along and see what else we can find.

While I’m marveling at the wonder of his being in Venice, he is perhaps marveling at the notion that anybody could live in a place like this and not on a muddy tidal islet lined with reeds.

A tasty morsel hiding behind this taxi? He got there first. At this point we moved on, so I have no idea what else happened to him.

This is your swan’s typical territory. You can understand why it was so strange to see one in downtown Venice.

My most powerful memory of swans was a moment that was not, and anyway could not have been, photographed. It all happened so quickly.

Years ago, we were out rowing near the island of Santo Spirito on a deep grey morning in winter. Suddenly a trio of large birds flew toward us — three swans — flying so low it seemed we could touch them.

I had never seen swans flying, much less so near. As they passed overhead, their long graceful necks undulated slightly, and a barely discernible murmuring sound came from their throats.

Swans may be beautiful when they’re doing nothing, but when they fly they are magic.

He would so love to be a swan. Let’s just let him have it.

Events

update from Planet Cube

April 23, 2022 12 Comments

A brief article in the Gazzettino Saturday added a few details about this artefact, which I pass along.

It’s called “Castello Cube.” I hadn’t realized it had a name, it seemed such a generic object. Not that the name is any less generic.

The creator goes by the nom de guerre Niclas Castello. Now I begin to comprehend. And it is being shown in Castello! It’s almost like destiny.

His real name is Norbert Zerbs. I myself would have totally kept this name. Be proud of your heritage, Zerbs!

The cube sat on the riva Ca’ di Dio for 24 hours, it says here, so that would also explain the security guards. There were ten of them.

It weighs 186 kilos (410 pounds) of 24-carat 999.9 fine gold. I’ll admit that for some reason I didn’t want this to be true. I was telling Lino that it was probably an empty cube made of iron sheets covered with gold leaf. Nope. It is precisely what it appears to be: A block of solid gold.

Never before in history has this much gold been worked into one artwork.

The value of this mass of metal is about 12,000,000 dollars.

Zerbs’s net worth is listed at 51,000,000 dollars.

I notice how many facts about this object have to do with quantities. Don’t know why this seems to fascinate people. A man in Alaska told me that a tourist looking at Denali once asked him how much it weighed.

It was displayed in Central Park in New York City last February.

An art historian named Dieter Buchhart made the following declaration (I translate): “It is a conceptual work that seems to have arrived from another world and now is standing on the paving-stones of Venice, without a pedestal.”

I’m as keen on conceptual works as the next person, even if the concept eludes me, but here’s a concept: By all means bring us a cube of gold that seems to have arrived from another world. Just stop talking drivel.

“The artwork is exhibited in public places so that it is accessible to everyone,” said another expert, “and people have the opportunity to rediscover art in the open space.”

I’ll tell you what — you’d need 186 kilos of self-confidence to put something you call art into an open space in a city that is composed almost entirely of art. I might discern something artistic about it if it were standing, say, in an acre of alfalfa, or drifting on a raft down the Monongahela river. But placing an object purporting to be art in Venice takes nerves of tungsten carbide.

Anyway, it’s gone now, continuing its quest to find a pedestal.

These golden objects are also made by hand and can be bought any day at the Pastificio Serenissima on the Salizzada dei Greci. Their weight is measured in grams.

Events

The Biennale, seriously

April 22, 2022 14 Comments

The scene is the riva Ca’ di Dio in front of the Arsenale vaporetto stop.

This week we are in the run-up to the inauguration/starting gun on the Biennale, now back in full force after some Covid side-effects such as lockdown.

Our neighborhood and near environs are absolutely pullulating with people dressed in weird ways, sitting together staring at their phones, drinking lots of spritzes and laughing. If the forecast is fulfilled (never a sure thing), a fierce northeast wind and lashings of rain and low temperatures will put a crimp in the laughing and spritzing on Friday and Sunday, but Saturday, the official opening day, should be sunny and bright. I do hope it works out that way, partly because I never know how far to trust the forecast and it would be interesting to see if they nabbed it this time.

One forecast I can make with total certainty, though, is that there will be inexplicable things strewn around the city that purport to be art. You already know this from past editions. If you think they’re art, they don’t need to be explicated, or you invent your own explication, or you repeat somebody else’s. If you don’t think they’re art, you’re on your own.

Yesterday morning we came upon a piece that, while less off-putting than the phallic column of gold in campo San Vio a few years back, still made Lino and me think assorted non-artistic thoughts.

I add this image in case you’ve forgotten this 2017 contribution to the world of art. I’m glad it’s not up to me to explain it to whoever created the Scythian pectoral.

Your eyes don’t lie: It is a cube made of gold.

My thoughts were these: I know it’s a cube. I know it’s made of gold. I know it weighs 130 kilos (286 pounds). I know that it required several rent-a-security-guards. I’m pretty sure I know that the cube-creator (Cubist?) takes his or her work seriously; he’d have to, considering that the current price of 130 kilos of gold is $8,078,590. But I do not know if it is art. And another thing I don’t know — though not knowing will not disturb my sleep — is why?

The Golden Calf meant life and death. The Mask of Agamemnon sends chills down the spine. The Sican beakers at least were useful as well as beautiful. The Panagyurishte Treasure is a cultural symphony.

And what have we to contribute, in the year 2022, to the multi-millennial history of goldsmithing? A cube.

I wish I had grandchildren just so I could tell them I had seen it.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee….” she may have thought briefly before moving on.

Making sure to photograph the cube from its good side.

The cube is the only regular hexahedron and is one of the five Platonic solids. It is the only convex polyhedron whose faces are all squares. The cube is also a square parallelepiped, an equilateral cuboid and a right rhombohedron. Might as well learn something while we’re out here standing around. It’s certainly geometry. But is it art?