Ask any kid and naturally he or she is going to say that fish should be sold to buy all this.
Lino thinks I’m going deaf, but I think I still hear too much.
Example: Yesterday morning on the bus. To be precise, the CA bus on the Lido, which I had boarded with a suitcase full of laundry, bound for the laundromat. Useless details, but I like to set the scene.
A very old lady sat down in front of me. A young-middle-aged man sat down facing her. They began to talk. It wasn’t really what I think of as conversation — it was more like verbal badminton in which cliche’s are used in place of the shuttlecock.
It started with the usual sort of pleasantries (“Am I taking up too much room?” “No no, not at all,” and so forth).
Then they began to bat remarks back and forth.
“Unbelievable wind.”
“The bora.”
“Yes, the bora.”
“It will last for three days.”
“It always does.”
“Of course, now it’s cooler, which is good.”
“Yes, the heat has gone on too long.”
“We need rain, though.”
“Yes, the drought is bad now. I was at Jesolo yesterday and there were incredible sandstorms on the beach.”
“Still, what can you do?”
“The weather does what it wants.”
(How true.)
(Are you still with me?)
I must have drifted off for a minute because I lost the thread, if there was one. In any case, they left the weather and moved on to the History of Large Families. Perhaps there was a link somewhere. It might have been Weather in the Old Days. People here love to talk about the way it used to be, in their lives or the life of somebody else. The further back, the better, because then your listener can’t contradict you.
I checked back in at the point where the man was talking. “My grandfather had ten children,” he said.. (So we’re far back in the Olden Times when life was hard but people were honest and we were all better off when we were worse off. I’ve heard this so many times.)
“He used to go out fishing,” the man continued. So far, so normal. Lots of men did this to keep the family alive. “Then he’d take his catch and sell it, and buy steaks.”
He did what? I’m no genius of domestic economy, but even with only two kids this isn’t a scenario I’d ever have come up with. You take fish, which are free and are hugely nutritious, and you sell them — I’m good so far — and then you buy steak? Does the word “shoes” not come to mind? Books? The electric bill? I’d even accept “wine” before we got to steak.
Then I had to get off the bus with my dirty clothes, so I’ll never know what the old lady’s response was. Maybe everybody did that back in the old days. You were taught to sell fish for beef right after you learned how to knit a new heel onto an old wool sock, or shine the copper polenta pot using lemon and salt.
The world may be crazy now, but it doesn’t appear to have been much saner back then, either, no matter how honest and hardworking the people might have been.
Any parent knows that kids should be eating this, not steak. And certainly not fish.Or perhaps the father hoped to come home with something resembling the “Miraculous Draught of Fishes” (James Jacques Joseph Tissot, 19th century)….…while imagining them as a herd of stampeding buffalo in Nebraska (William Henry Jackson, 19th century).
A glimpse of the Bacino of San Marco at 7:00 PM, when the wind and waves made the prospect of staying out on a boat all night something less than appealing. But what are wind and waves when you’ve paid money to drink and dance to deafening house-techno-grunge music for hours?
After all the mutterings on and about the eve of the big feast day (the eve, as you know, being at least as big as the day itself), here is how it all came out. I’ve waited a few days because I needed to let all the post-festa hot air, super-heated words, pumice dust, and floating cinders all burn out from the assorted arguments about what did and didn’t happen.
Here goes:
Good:
The wind dropped. The rain did not fall. There were something like 90,000 spectators/participants that evening, according to the Comune. (The firemen and the gondoliers at the Molo at Piazza San Marco estimated many fewer.) Whatever the number, I guess that’s good — anyway, people didn’t stay home in front of the TV eating soggy pizza.
This inexplicable vessel was boarding passengers on the Lido, down toward the Alberoni. Whatever it’s usually used for, it didn’t seem to fit any of the categories that were made to worry about fines.
Also good, though not a Good Sign: We didn’t go out in a boat, a decision we spent all evening congratulating ourselves on having made. We’d have been rammed to splinters, then sunk. And anyway, it wouldn’t have been any fun to be in a small wooden boat in the midst of the masses of floating migrating mammoths. We also discovered that being on shore meant you could see lots of other things going on, which was more diverting than settling for what you can see from a boat tied to a piling for hours on end.
People at Sant’ Elena have known for years that they’ve got the best seat in the house without leaving solid earth. Picnic tables, blankets, room for the dogs to run around — what’s missing but a few trillion waves?
Not so good:
We didn’t go out in a boat. Like almost everybody else who has hung on to the Old Way, who even accepted the gracious concession a few years ago of a tiny patch of water dedicated to boats with oars where we could feel safe, we finally faced the fact that a motorless boat is a suicide boat. I don’t believe anyone went out in a craft powered by fewer than 40 horses.
There were very few topomotori and pescherecci, as far as I could see and rumor can report. The Gazzettino said that there were estimates of some 800 fewer boats than usual. In fact, they were almost completely absent. That’s a lot of no-shows.This has been interpreted as precisely the result desired by….. I don’t know who. “They.” “They don’t want Venetians anymore.” “They only want tourists who come and spend money.”
The waterfront which has customarily been left free for the pescherecci to tie up to was occupied by yachts.
In any case, the threats from the Capitaneria di Porto evidently had a powerful effect. Only 6-10 topomotori braved the hazardous waters of the Bacino supposed mined with fines.
One of the few hardy pescherecci, or fishing boats, that made the trek up to Venice for the fun. All the men on the bow are probably yelling “Land Ho!”The Laguna Trasporti company decided to face the risk of fines straight on and sent three boats out into the fray. After dark, may I note.This is a not-atypical boat heading for the Bacino of San Marco. It’s not how they look that’s so unnerving (a lie), it’s how they sound. Boats like this turned the entire lagoon into a pounding roar that was like standing inside a throbbing boil on your knee.
I add, for the record, that the newspaper states that the Comune had repeatedly denied that there were going to be massive document-checks — the mayor says it was a mysterious rumor accumulated via the internet that created all the tsuris. But the mayor also made clear that the Comune wasn’t in charge of the waters patrolled by the Capitaneria. This is akin to saying “I didn’t forbid you to get married, but I’m not a Justice of the Peace.” The mayor also denied that the threat of fines had any effect on the decision of people to come in topi or fishing boats. Next he’ll be telling us that gravity isn’t really what keeps everything stuck to the surface of the earth.
The sub-mayor for Tourism cheerfully said the absence of boats was probably due to the discouraging weather forecast, and that the absence of the working boats (full of Venetian families, I note) made the departure of smaller boats safer. My own experience of nearly 20 years out on the tumultuous waters of the Bacino after the last firework fades leads me to doubt this. The most hazardous boats aren’t the topomotori, but the big shiny craft loaded with people from the hinterland. It was noted that most of these craft were visibly overloaded, but nobody in uniform pulled up to demand to see their license and registration and lifejackets and safety flares and on and on and on.
Here is a summary of the no-working-boats-or-you’ll-be-fined situation. A mere 40 penalties were imposed, and that was for “viability violations,” which I take to mean parking in the middle of the road, so to speak.
The mayor said “The campaign spread (about the checking of working boats) turned out to be a boomerang. I myself denied many times any intention to turn the screws on the boats during the festa, but they preferred not to listen and now everybody can see who was right and who was wrong.”
“We took the warning seriously,” said Giovanni Grandesso, representing the working boats that belong to the artisans’ association. “The people were afraid. But what we were supposed to do? The vigili (local police) told us this in the presence of the sub-mayor for waterborne traffic. If this is said in an official meeting and the sub-mayor keeps quiet, what were we supposed to do? They also said, ‘You know perfectly well you’re not allowed to carry people.’ And this made us think. We then asked for a meeting with the office of the sub-mayor, but it was all too late. All that was needed was to have clarified this at the beginning — it’s too easy to tell us now that we misunderstood.”
As you see, all the fireworks don’t explode in the sky.
And speaking of fireworks:
The fireworks: Quantity: The show was curtailed from 45 minutes to 32. (Lest we might be tempted to forget that “no ghe xe schei.”)
The fireworks: Quality: What we saw was evidently culled from the “factory seconds,” “slightly defective,” “previously owned” barrel because they were possibly the most boring pyrotechnics I’ve ever seen. I am a fireworks fanatic, so it actually takes very little to please me. But these were so generic, so predictable, so perfunctory that even ten minutes of stale rocketry seemed like 45. Lino and I (we discovered later) were both standing there thinking, “Can we go home now?” Of course we could have gone home, but we each thought the other wanted to stay, so we said nothing in order to be good sports. That shows how much difference it made for me to learn to speak Italian: None. You might know 15,000 words and be able to conjugate every verb down to the remote past imperfect, but in order to communicate you’ve got to actually say something.
Forget the fireworks: It was more fun watching the kids from Chioggia jump into the canal from the ponte dell’ Arsenale. You’d be amazed how much foam three people hitting the water together can make.
Terrifyingly Not Good: While everybody was getting themselves worked into a lather about what could happen to somebody out there in a boat, nobody gave any thought to what could happen to somebody on a packed-solid vaporetto dock at 1:30 in the morning.
Because the dock was mobbed — and mobs tend to think in big simple terms like “Me! First! Now!” and not in terms like “Watch your step” or “After you, my dear Alphonse” — somebody almost got crushed between the arriving vaporetto and the dock.
As the vaporetto (also overloaded with people thinking in big simple terms) began to pull up to the dock to tie up and let people on and off, the heavy waves caused by the departing mammoths in the darkness made the equally heavy and bulky vehicle leap and plunge. The mob on the dock began to push forward get nearer the edge to be ready to get on (“Me! First!”). The girl slipped and fell between the dock and the boat.
She managed to grab onto the edge, thanks to her backpack snagging on something on the way down, so she didn’t fall completely in the water. It’s not clear how the vaporetto managed to avoid performing one of its famous plunges against her, the kind that even on a normal day make the dock shake and the metal of the boat’s hull reverberate.
Somehow she got dragged up and out before she was reduced to kindling. The ambulance took her to the hospital, where the doctors stated that she’d been “miracled,” as the Italian verb so neatly puts it. If the waves had been bigger she’d have had at least a shattered pelvis.
Solution: Station pontonieri on every dock all night. These are the individuals at work on certain busy docks who keep the chain stretched that prevents the public from moving toward the boat till it’s stopped and the passengers have gotten off. The fact that evidently human instinct doesn’t lead you naturally toward this behavior means that a person has to be paid to stand directly in your way with a chain. But it works.
My conclusion, based on nothing remotely resembling scientific calculations, is that the truly Venetian festa has already begun to move ashore. It’s a hell of a note, but it was more fun to be with the families and dogs on the street than out on the water surrounded by drunken disco dancing outlanders. The mayor would probably disagree.
Tables began to appear in all sorts of neighborhood nooks.Even in via Garibaldi, there were as many impromptu parties as there were overflowing restaurants.This happy group made seats out of anything solid — I’m pretty sure the pair in the middle are on a dismantled desk.It’s like being in a boat, but without the hassle. I’m thinking we should try this next year.Or you could do like the gang from Chioggia here — do the boat AND the table ashore. Next to the bridge from which you will soon be hurling yourself. They didn’t need no stinking fireworks.The banquet set up outside the Navy non-commissioned officers’ club was impressive. Speaking of fines, I’d be doubting that they (or anybody else with a table and a chair) paid the required fee for occupying public space.
The procession of the feast of the Redentore, depicted by Canaletto. Let us not forget, in all the turmoil about the party, that this is essentially a religious occasion. Or at least it was supposed to be.
As I’ve related probably all too well, summer is loaded with more festas than the average barge with paying festa-goers. I have a reason for making that comparison, because once again we are now on the verge of the festa del Redentore, the “Notte Famossissima,” inspiration of song and story, one of the great parties of the world (though in terms of sheer tonnage I wouldn’t compare it to, say, the Kumbh Mela, which technically isn’t a party. But still). In a word, it’s tonight.
What is inspiring lively conversation this year, however, is the drastic decision announced a mere two days ago by the Capitaneria di Porto, the branch of the navy which is responsible for certain tracts of the lagoon. The commanders have made it clear that this year they’re throwing the book at the festivizers, and are ready to fine and possibly confiscate the large barges known as “topomotori” which usually show up carrying ten times as many people as they’re allowed. Without any safety equipment of any kind.
The classic Venetian topomotore, in the rio di San Trovaso. If it can carry refrigerators or bricks, why not beer and sarde in saor? And, of course, the hordes to consume them?
Yes, illegally overloaded barges have become part of the tradition, because they are a wonderful size for carrying large tables groaning with food and drink surrounded by the aforementioned people, a few of them also groaning. These working boats are typically certified to carry “cose” (things) but not “persone” (people). I suppose a clever lawyer could try to make a case for the people qualifying as things, but I’ll stop here.
Technical note: Of course you’ve seen these barges plying the Venetian waters every day loaded with merchandise with people aboard to heft the cargo, but the legal limit is six.
These restrictions also apply to the big fishing boats that trundle up from Chioggia and Pellestrina — they hold more people (good!) but they are impossible to present as anything other than what they are. (“Certainly, sir, all these women and children are professional fishermen too…..”).
What is really upsetting people isn’t primarily that that oppressed minority known as Venetian families is going to be prevented from enjoying a Venetian (debatable, by now) event. The truly distressed people are the barge owners who are now accustomed to making money by renting their vessels for the evening. The intake (in small, unmarked bills) to the party’s organizer could be 100 euros per person, with a payload of up to 40 people. The barge owner could expect 300-400 euros just for letting his boat leave the dock.
A typical fishing boat from the area of Pellestrina and Chioggia, proudly vaunting its illegal clam-sifting attachment. These boats can hold astonishing numbers of people.
Some nervous organizers have already canceled their parties. Others are saying, “We’re going to chance it. Out of thousands of boats, why should they pick me?” I like the way estimating odds works: Your chance of winning the lottery (in your own eyes) is from reasonable to even very high; your chance of being fined for carrying a clan, a tribe, an entire linguistic group, is almost nil. Such is the power of human desire.
What’s modestly upsetting me is that this drama was avoidable because, as the Capitaneria has pointed out, the owners of these barges could have avoided all this unpleasantness by coming to the office in time to apply for official permission to “occasionally” carry more people than usual. I didn’t know such an option existed because it doesn’t affect me, but it would seem that a person with a barge, especially one who was looking forward to a couple of hundred free euros, might have exerted himself to acquire a more extensive knowledge of the rules of the road. And that forestalling this awkwardness in a timely manner could have been done without even breaking a sweat. But I forgot. Drama is so much more entertaining than just doing things the easy way.
As an interesting additional factor in the evening’s excitement (and in this case, totally unavoidable by anybody) is the weather. They’re predicting wind, and also rain. Perhaps even thunder and lightning. Looking at the forecast, maybe people would have canceled anyway. Or maybe the organizers and owners would have calculated the odds in their favor, as per usual.
I can hear it now: “With all these thousands of boats, why should it rain on me?”
We weren’t planning on being in a boat anyway, but on watching from the shoreline, like two years ago. The only thing that could spoil my evening would be for the gelateria to run out of ice cream.
I see that more time than usual has passed since I posted anything about the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world, and I apologize.
I suppose I could just stop there, but if I had a note from my mother to present to the teacher it would say:
“Please excuse Erla from not writing anything on her blog. She and all of Italy have been suffering from an extreme heat wave which has destroyed her will to live, which flickered out only slightly before her will to write. The heat wave comes from North Africa and is called ‘Charon’ (“Caronte,” in Italian), the name of the mythological man who ferried the deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron to the world of the dead. Unfortunately, he seems very happy in Italy, what with the pasta and gelato and art and all, so he’s showing no signs of wanting to go elsewhere. I don’t know what he’s done with the dead people. She’ll be back as soon as she escapes.”
I would gladly send a post from Lapland, or Baffin Bay, or Queen Maud Land. But I’m stuck here.
