Venice: I am not making this up

Momspeak

May 9, 2021 14 Comments

Mothers are beyond comprehension. If this woman had had three other kids, I have absolutely no doubt she’d have found a way to carry them as well. Plus the groceries and a sheaf of gladioli.

Happy Mother’s Day. We pluck this day out of the calendar to slather mothers with excessive adoration, usually ignoring the reason why we feel we have to exaggerate (the reason is simply those 364 preceding days of incessant but unthanked lion-taming that mothers perform every waking and often non-waking hour.) Looking past the holiday to the reality of your average Mom’s year, you’ll have to admit that it’s not made of flowers and chocolate and lace-trimmed cards laden with poetry. Lion taming (the lion being life, not merely the children) can become un-poetic very fast, no matter how tough your mother is.

I especially want to recognize mothers’ uncanny ability to say so much using so few words. And the truly amazing thing is that mothers say the exact same things in each of the 7,139 languages in the world. The universal language is not Esperanto. It’s Momspeak.

Any Venetian of any age will recognize the common expressions listed below — as will you — either from having said them or, as a child, having heard them. And if some of these apothegms seem unreasonably violent, just remember that she was almost always driven to it. By you. If we’re being honest.

So as you read, send a silent salute to your mother, wherever she is. And I’d love to hear from anyone who was, in fact, born in a barn.

It all starts out so well. When you’ve just been born, even ladies walking out of the supermarket want to stop to admire you.

Momspeak at this stage isn’t necessary yet, but the classic retorts are already prepared for whenever you might decide to start being clever.

Threats:

Vardime co te parlo. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”

Col vien casa to pare ghelo digo. “I’m telling your father about this when he comes home.”

Come che te go fato, te desfo! “Just like I made you, I can unmake you.” (My favorite, a sort of global, all-encompassing threat coming from the elemental source. This was one of Lino’s mother’s major standbys.)

Verzo la scatola de le tangare. “I’m opening the box that’s full of smacks upside the head.” (A tangara is a smack. This is sometimes said as a very early warning using a delicately menacing tone. Sometimes it’s enough just to say “Verzo?”)

Dai, disi calcossa! Prova parlar se ti ga coragio!!! “Come on, say something! Try to speak if you’ve got the courage!”

Baby steps. Momspeak isn’t much use at this stage, but it soon will be.

Ti pol pianzer in grego, tanto no te lo compro. “You can even cry in Greek, I’m still not buying it for you.”

Vara che te cambio i conotati! “Watch out, I’m going to change your face” (“conotati” are the features of your face, thus “beat you up”).

Mothers are the source of everything: costumes, food, hugs, Carnival confetti…

Vara che quela xè la porta. “Look, that over there is the door.” (Meaning you’re invited to depart by it.)

No sta far che vegna là to pare! “Don’t do it or your father will be coming over there.”

Vara che te meto in colegio! “Watch out, I’m going to put you in the reformatory.”

Happy in a world of their own, but their mothers’ legs aren’t far away.

Will there be repercussions? Mothers know that no child has yet been born who can resist a puddle, however small. But mothers are allergic to mud…

Domestic remarks:

I to amissi no ga minga na famega? “Your friends haven’t got families?”

Ti ga sentio quelo che te go dito! “Did you hear what I just said?”

Ma ti credi che mi fassa i schei de note? “You think I print money at night?”

Mi a la to età gero zà stufo de lavorar. “At your age I was already fed up with working.” (This sounds more like something a man would say to a slightly spoiled or slothful child, but I wouldn’t doubt that a mother might say the same thing.)

In Venice, if you see kids you’ll almost certainly see moms. They may be engrossed in their own conversations with other mothers, but they’re using that mother radar to monitor the entire campo.

No sta strassinar i pìe. Also: No sta savatàr. “Don’t drag your feet.” “Savatar” is a verb created from zavata (ciabatta), or house slipper. Thus “Don’t scuff around as if you were wearing slippers.”

Te par che xe ora de rivar? “You think this is the right time to arrive?” (that is, come home). Said sarcastically when the obvious answer is “No, it’s screamingly late and I have no excuse.”

Ti vedara co no ghe sarà più la serva. “You’ll see (how things are) when you don’t have the servant (female gender) anymore.”

Cò moro mì ti mor da la fame. “When I die, you’ll die of hunger.”

Magna e tasi! “Eat and be quiet.”

This bar/cafe/bacaro near San Zaccaria reinforces the classic sentiment by adding an extra word from the bartender. Now it reads “Eat Drink Be Quiet.” Not “quiet” as in the serenity of the cloister, but more along the lines of “Zip it! Stuff a sock in it!”

Questa xè la casa de la lasagna…. Chi che no lavora no magna! “This is the house of lasagna — who doesn’t work doesn’t eat.” The point is the rhyme as much as the statement.

Ti ga proprio ciapa’ esempio dai piu’ sempi. “You’ve really taken the dumbest people as your example” (that is, of all the people you could have copied, you picked the dumbest ones).

On the first day of elementary school, the clothes and aprons are clean, as are the new backpacks. Parents’ phones flash, commemorating the event. Mothers hover. Small lumps of advice and encouragement are being tossed around by assorted relatives and friends.

It’s odd to see a child out on his own, but mother radar must be tracking him.

General insults:

Bon da gnente come el pantan! “Good for nothing, like mud.”

Varda el trio paloma: dò inseminii e uno in coma! “Look at the paloma trio: two idiots and one in coma.” The point is obviously the rhyme, but hitting three victims with one invective is motherly target practice at its best. “Inseminio” (in-sem-eh-NEE-oh) is a very common, usually friendly, insult. Nothing to do with insemination, it comes by way of scimunito, meaning fool. It’s a low-voltage jibe, which one source says is used “when a person near you does something irrational based on ignorance, little knowledge or inexperience.”

Te vorìa un poca de Russia a ti. “What you need is a little bit of Russia.” This is heavy artillery. The inference is from the Second World War, meaning that you need to be seriously squared away, perhaps by intense discipline, suffering, defeat — any aspect of the appalling experience the Italian Army suffered during Operation Barbarossa (the doomed German attempt to conquer the Soviet Union that ended hideously in the depths of winter, naturally). This expression may be losing some of its power by now, as the generations pass, though its significance is still clear enough. Father Gastone Barecchia, who was priest of the church of San Sebastiano and passed away in 2016 at the age of 102, served as military chaplain in Russia from July 1941 to March 1943.

Vergognite che xè ora e tempo! “It’s about time you were ashamed.”

No ti te vergogni minga! “You’re not the least bit embarrassed.”

Varda che te tendo. “Look out, I’m watching you.”

Gò un fio solo e anca ebete! “I’ve got just one son and he’s even dimwitted.” (Pronounced EH-beh-teh.) The implication is “Not only did I have only one child” (bad), “he had to be dimwitted too” (even worse). In other words, she’s saying she got screwed twice.

Somebody please explain to me why we so often take them for granted. Mothers are incredible.

Boatworld

A stroll in the Grand Canal

April 27, 2021 12 Comments

Let me set the scene: Below is a glimpse of a typical high-season day in the Venice of yore. Till last year, high season had spread across most of the calendar.

Just a brief refresher on what “normal” used to look like on any summer morning.

A late-summer afternoon in 2016. When I made this photograph I was concentrating on the gondolino — I was so accustomed to the traffic that only later did I notice how much there was. Does it seem like there are more taxis every year? That’s because until 2020, there were more every year. An undated overview of unscheduled water transport (i.e., not vaporettos) listed 271 taxis and 158 tourist launches.

I’m not sure why Tony Catanzaro decided to give this student a rowing lesson in the maelstrom of the bacino of San Marco, and I’ll never know if she ever came back for another one. But if you’re going to row around here, you have to find a way to deal with all this. It’s like those jungle survival courses.

Enormous tracts of Venetian water are essentially off limits to anyone rowing, unless they know how to handle the waves. It may be counterintuitive, but summer is the worst season of all for going out in a boat with oars. One can certainly renounce rowing. But when one suddenly finds the city floating in what amounts to a millpond, the way it has been for a year or so, it’s like a paper-thin silver lining to the rest of life.

Let me state that there is nothing good about the pandemic, so don’t think what I’m about to say is to be taken as positive. Except that in its tiny little way, it is.

Over the past months, the daily armies of motorized boats of all shapes and purposes and horsepowerage roaring around everywhere — particularly in the Grand Canal — have made a forced retreat. This is bad (see above), but the side effect has been a Grand Canal liberated from the appalling turmoil that had long since become normal.

Note: Barges and their cousins are still at work, but what are missing are the approximately 39,210,443 taxis and tourist launches that had claimed the waterways as their own.

Result: Space, tranquility, and calm water for Venetian boats to return to their native habitat, which they have been doing on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Perhaps also at other times, but I’m not there to see them.

So for anyone who might want to breathe the atmosphere of a watercourse that has been unintentionally restored to many Venetians who had been effectively banished for years, here are some views of our Sunday morning row in our own little boat a week ago. There were even more on Saturday, because boaty people like to go to the Rialto market, but Sundays had long since been taken over by herds of taxis thundering along one of the world’s most beautiful streets like the migration of the wildebeest in the Serengeti.

Here are some glimpses of what the Grand Canal looks like when there are more Venetians than anybody else. Enjoy it, because yesterday the Great Reopening began here, and we may have seen the last of this.

Hark! Is that a boat I see on the horizon?

Yes indeed it is, a sandolo rowed by three friends from the DLF Sport Mare rowing club. Odd numbers of rowers are not ideal in Venetian rowing, but maybe somebody couldn’t make it. Or wasn’t invited. Or maybe they just like it this way, because we saw them two days ago as well.

Approaching on the left is a pupparino from the Remiera Canottieri Cannaregio rowing club, while lurking along the right side of the canal is a sandolo from the Associazione Canottieri Giudecca. Surprising how many clubs have chosen red and white as their colors, though the reds vary. Even from this distance you’d never confuse the bordeaux tint here with the fire-engine red (not shown here) of the Unione Sportiva Remiera Francescana (full disclosure: we’re members).

Slipping up behind us is a mascareta from the Reale Societa Canottieri Francesco Querini.

I don’t exactly know the man in the bow, but I have had a little run-in with him and it appears that almost every boating person in Venice has encountered him at some point. Let’s just say he can be difficult. (Also, he likes to video his excursions; note the video cameras set up on the bow and stern of the boat.) Still, he was in a great mood and not only said hello as they went past, but called his partner to execute an alzaremi for us. Too bad their oars weren’t synchronized, and neither was I in time with my camera. But the intention was very nice.

Hark! We meet again. It’s the three from the DLF Sport Mare, heading upstream on their way back to their boathouse.

DLF Sport Mare was previously known simply as the “DLF,” Dopo Lavoro Ferroviario, the Railway Workers After-Work club. Their boathouse is up behind the railway station, of course.

A private s’ciopon being rowed “a la valesana,” with two oars per rower. The man astern is the former president of the Reale Societa’ Canottieri Bucintoro rowing club.

Coming up fast on the inside rail, so to speak, is a gondolino, also from the Bucintoro.

This is a hard boat to row in the throes of the usual Cape Horn waves around Venice, but with water like this it’s really fun.

Another mascareta, this time from the Remiera Ponte dei Sartori, has slid down the Cannaregio Canal and has turned left into the Grand Canal. Seems like everybody had the same idea this morning and I felt somehow that everyone belonged, because of course they do.

The compatriots again. Usually people row to the end of the Grand Canal and back up it again, or go home another way. It just depends on many factors ranging from the weather, the tide, how much time you’ve got for this, maybe what’s for lunch (rush home, or take the long way back….).

Querini club again. Great to see so many people out today.

Two mascaretas from the Gruppo Sportivo Voga Veneta Mestre club, on the edge of the lagoon at the end of the bridge to the mainland. They are indefatigable, especially on Saturday when batches of them row to the Rialto to check out the fish.

We went home by the back roads, so to speak, and found that some gondoliers were making the most of the lack of traffic to help their aspiring students practice rowing. On the gondola hiding just behind the corner was another gondolier with beginner aboard.

So we have swung between two extremes — the old days entailed lots of work and craziness and also hugely damaging motondoso, then the pandemic period was marked by no work, no craziness, lots of people with no money. But I will whisper this: I never would have thought I’d have the chance to feel that the city returned somehow to its origins, and it has been beyond wonderful. Whether some middle ground between the two extremes can be found will be clear only when the pandemic is well and truly over.

Venetian Events, Venetian-ness

The voyage of the bocolo

April 26, 2021 11 Comments

As everyone knows, April 25 is a big date on the Venetian calendar: Not only is it the Feast of San Marco, but also Liberation Day, commemorating the end of World War II.

Seeing that San Marco gets precedence, having been around for some years before World War II, I like to focus on that part of the big day. And arguably the most important element is the long-stemmed red rose known as a “bocciolo” in Italian, and “bocolo” (BOH-ko-lo) in Venetian.

It’s simple: Any and every Venetian man gives a bocolo to the dearest ladies in his life, from wife to mother to sister to whoever else really matters to him. Or they just stick to mother and wife.

We went out early in our little boat to row around the city for a while, and the first step — literally, as we have to cross a bridge to get to the boat — was to buy a rose from the young man prowling on the bridge with a fistful of roses. Lino planned to give me a much more glamorous bocolo a little later, but it was unthinkable to appear in Venice in a roseless boat.

So until we finally reached the florist nearest to our hovel, we rowed around the city on a sampierota proudly bearing its very own bocolo, totally in tune with the day.

P.S.: Any reader who wants to chance his or her arm in plotting our route based on the photos is very welcome to let me know where we went. It’s just a game — if I’d wanted to make it really difficult, I’d have showed mainly reflections and walls.

You are looking at one of the main reasons why starting early is such a good idea — mirror-like water. It has become more common over the past year with the economic collapse of Venice (fewer boats of many types), but don’t let that mitigate your appreciation for seeing the canals as they all were when Lino was a boy.

The roses are almost always inserted into a plastic sleeve. One reason might be to keep the petals in place until you’ve paid your money and are walking away. The cheap roses, such as this one, seem to be cut sometime between Epiphany and Easter (made up) — I’ll never forget the shower of petals that fell from the bloom-downward rose I bought at the last minute from a street vendor to put on our boat a few years ago. Precious little was left in the sleeve by the time I got aboard. This rose, though, seems to be of hardier (or more recent) stock.

The meeting of the Venetian symbols. I just learned that you could call this an example of syzygy, but that would be pretentious even if accurate. It exists in Italian, though (*sizigia*), so I’m going with it.

Not the first image ever made that shows the bacino of San Marco as it is without traffic, but in the pre-2020 era you’d have had to be out at 2:00 AM to see no waves. Here it’s 9:00 AM on a sunny Sunday morning, and there ought to be phalanxes of taxis and tourist launches. I want you to enjoy this as long as you can, even though we know it represents a world of hurt.

The entrance to the Grand Canal, with the slightest wavy trace of the passage of one (1) motorized vehicle, going slowly — specifically, the very small motorboat heading upstream in front of the red dock. Seems only fair that I acknowledge that there is still some sort of traffic. I know things have to change, but I am going to miss this.

Speaking of traffic, this is a scene that I have savored — small boats being rowed on glass-like water, usually on weekend mornings — more than I can say.

A typical sandolo — a private boat, I notice, which is nice — set up to be rowed alla valesana (notice the momentarily unused forcola on the port side). The square of wood attached to the stern, however, reveals that he, or someone, set up the boat to use an outboard motor sometime.

Another private boat — as I’ve discovered in the trafficless Canal, plenty of them still exist — in this case a mascareta rowed by two doughty ladies.

A pause to run to the fancy florist for the fancy bocolo.

Plenty of people have had the same idea, and as we left the line was even longer. There used to be more florists, as I recall….

Not that these aren’t worth waiting for.

Waiting for his friend inside the shop. Better get home soon, the wife is waiting…

Off you go, gents. Well done. Note to apparently undecided man on the right: A bocolo-colored jacket is not going to save you. The florist is right there — make that decision now!

Technically there’s nothing wrong, I guess, with a lady buying her own bocolo. But it seems somehow slightly askew. It’s like any present you buy for yourself: Not the same as someone giving it to you.

Mission accomplished, and he’s walking fast. No telling how far he’s got to go (see: lack of florists in town).

The two musketeers have paused at the end of the street for some light refreshment. The pastry shop unseen at the right dispenses all sorts of wonderful things, but Sunday was the last day in months in which we were required to stay outside to consume them. We had to drink on the street, and not even stand — we were supposed to move along and drink while walking. All this was to avoid cramming people together, especially because, as you see, eating and drinking pretty much depends on not covering your mouth. Danger is still lurking everywhere. I will go to my grave wondering what has happened to the second bocolo.

Like all the other bars/cafes, this one blocked the doorway with a table, which was useful also for the placement of items being bought, or in this case also the customer’s (Lino’s) detritus. The sign on the door says “Orange Zone, Only Takeaway.”

Lino boatward-bound with our very glamorous bocolo.

Our little bocolo still doesn’t know that we’re about to put a rock-star rose into the boat. Not sure what the horticultural equivalent of “I was here first” is, but I hope they’ll work it out.

Not wanting to disrespect Bocolo 1, still standing so firmly in its bracket, I laid the stately Bocolo 2 on the bow. Then I began to worry, and so did Lino, about the wind possibly blowing it around and deranging its perfection. So down it soon went (see below) onto the cruddy floorboards next to the cake in the pink box.

The cruddy compartment was covered by the small wooden door for most of the return trip, but here you can see how we arranged the most important bits: the cake, the rose, the folded boat cover, also the sponge…. I bet Bocolo 1 was snickering because Bocolo 2 was lying down there in the hold where nobody could see it.

The home stretch. The area looks only slightly better for having the compartment covered. Now that you know that Bocolo 2 is prone you can slightly make out its plastic sleeve.

And finally we’re back to home itself. The boat is moored and ready to be covered and put away for a day or two. Our little bocolo has really gone the distance, not one petal out of place. Bocolo 2 still prostrate.

Walking past us is a man with a mission: It looks like he’s carrying three bocolos (bocoli?). It’s going to be a fun day for him and the family. Hope all the relatives have had their shots.

On the left, the boat’s bocolo, and on the right, the 3-foot monster from the fancy florist. Tradition maintains that the greater your love, the longer the stem, so I’m happy with the monster even though my secret favorite is the runt of the litter. I suppose they’ve reached an agreement, I didn’t hear any scuffling during the night.

Outside on the fondamenta, the monument to the Partigiane (female partisans of World War II) is more than usually floral this year. On the left is the traditional laurel wreath offered by the city, and on the right the traditional mass of roses from the national Partisans Association. The other flowers have obviously come from individual hands and hearts.

Gerbera daisies also welcome. Anything red will do. They earned every blossom countless times over.

Venetian History, Venetian-ness

I brake for justice

April 23, 2021 4 Comments

Another great lion of San Marco, this time painted by Donato Bragadin, also known as Donato Veneziano, in 1459.

This lion is holding a book, as usual, but the message is not the traditional “Pax tibi Marce Evangelista Meus,” etc. It reads: “Legibus quibus immoderata hominum frenatur cupiditas quenpiam parere cogatis.” “Compel everyone to obey the laws by which one restrains the immoderate greed of men.”

What great ideas! Make everybody obey the laws! And put the brakes on greed! Looking at the lion’s expression, however, one intuits that he knows this is a battle that he’s not only losing, but lost. I’ve made an effort to discover what was significant about the year 1459 to inspire this painting, but haven’t found anything out of the ordinary, which is a disheartening realization: The “ordinary” is exactly the situation that the statement was referring to and it has been valid every year since the Cambrian Explosion. To review: Need for brakes, need for laws that will apply brakes, need to force people to obey the laws. Find me one person (or lion) who would disagree with that.

The Sala dell’Avogaria is fairly small, especially compared to the magnitude of the tasks the three avogadori had to deal with. The room is decorated not only with pithy sayings, but with portraits of the trio of avogadori, decked in Venetian scarlet and ready to mete out justice and pump the brakes. (Pere Garcia, on Wikipedia)

The painting was originally placed in the Sala dell’Avogaria in the Palazzo Ducale. The Avogaria de Comùn was an ancient magistrature composed of three members elected from the Great Council who were responsible for the maintenance of constitutional justice. Hence the paintings in the room were intended to reinforce the principles of good government.

So our rainbow-winged lion above is flanked by two Doctors of the Church: St. Jerome on the left of the image, and St. Augustine on the right. St. Jerome holds a white banner that says “nihili quempiam irati statuatis,” or “Do not sentence anyone for anything when you’re angry.” St. Augustine, complete with bishop’s mitre and crozier, displays this thought: “hominum uero plectentes errata illa non tam magnitudine peccati quam uestra clementia et mansuetudine metiamini,” or “In reality, in punishing the errors of men (you must) measure not so much the size of their sins as of your clemency and goodness.”

There was a marble plaque in the Sala dell’ Avogaria incised with the following reminders: “‘First of all, investigate always with diligence, sentence with justice and charity, and do not condemn anyone without having first held a fair and truthful judgment, do not judge anything on the basis of arbitrary suspicions; instead, first test and only afterward utter a sentence inspired by charity; THAT WHICH YOU WOULDN’T WANT DONE TO YOU, REFUSE TO DO TO OTHERS.’

Essentially the same simple dicta that have been expressed over the centuries and that are often inscribed in courtrooms and City Halls and anywhere else that people and the law are destined to meet.

But the lion says it best: Hit the brakes already.

“*Venezia in veste di Giustizia*” — Venice attired as Justice, a role she often played in decoration as well as life. The sword and the scales held in her hand are fine on their own, but she is often buttressed by lions. To keep order in the court? (by Jacobello del Fiore).

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