Venice: I am not making this up

A Christmas Story

December 23, 2009 2 Comments

The following was not written by me, nor is it set in Venice; it was written by a friend whose gifts far outstrip the recognition they have received. And because this small but perfect jewel has become part of my own personal Christmas tradition, I am giving it to you here. Happy Holidays to all.

THE LATECOMER

by George S. Nammack

It was after 10 o’clock on Christmas Eve and I was 12 and wearing my first long trousers. I never had been permitted to attend midnight mass, but I knew that 10:30 was the latest one could be sure of seating at St. Mary, Star of the Sea in Far Rockaway [NY]. After that, you hurried across the dark schoolyard to claim a folding seat in the Lyceum, actually the school’s auditorium, where you would participate in what was perceived to be a somehow second-cabin rite known as The Overflow Mass.

Mother had made her traditional pronouncement that those who chose to go to midnight services were in a state of less rectitude and grace than were those clear-eyed parishioners who led their scrubbed and shining families to the front pews on Christmas morning. My father, splendid in the swallowtail coat that he wore as well to medical society meetings, paced before the fire. He lectured and charmed in favor of the late mass and, finally, prevailed.

It was five minutes before midnight when we were shown to our seats. Mr. Phelan, a huge detective who looked like the legendary John L. Sullivan and was certainly the heavyweight champion of Far Rockaway, was ushering. He smiled at my father and leaned in to speak. “Gee, Doc, you’re just under the wire. Sorry about the seats.”

“That’s all right, Eddie,” my father said. “Even the kings were late.”

The altar was centered on the stage, its snowy linens seeming to move in the dancing candlelight. On a raised platform of red and green two-by-fours, James O’Brien, known as far away as West Hempstead for his rendition of “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home,” was playing “Silent Night” on the small organ. Jockey-size and florid of complexion, he was blessed with a golden tenor.

At four minutes past 12, the popular veteran priest, Father Shine, commenced the celebration of midnight mass. Following communion and the Special Christmas Collection — “I trust we’ll have a lovely soft collection…I don’t want to be hearing any silver!” — Mr. O’Brien launched into his showstopper, Adolph Adam’s beautiful “O Holy Night.”

We sang along, but softly, because it was Mr. O’Brien’s moment. As he reached the somewhat imperative line about falling on your knees, the back door of the Lyceum opened to admit a javelin of frigid wind and, right behind it, Mr. Mitt Gaffney, who lived in an unheated bungalow near the beach and on handouts from saloon keepers, the kitchen ladies at the hospital and the limited largesse of Long Island Rail Road commuters, many of whom had been his classmates in better days.

He stood there for a moment, listening to Mr. O’Brien and filling the already close atmosphere with the unmistakable aroma of cheap muscatel. Mr. Phelan’s neck was turning purple as he looked at Mitt Gaffney’s head. It was covered with a drooping red Santa Claus cap, the peak of which terminated in a once-white pom-pom that fell across the left shoulder of his stained Army overcoat like a medal awarded for congenital innocence.

Mr. Phelan whispered as only a 300-pound man can when he needs to make a point but doesn’t want to disturb the world at large. He said, “Mother of God, Mitt, you’re late and mass is nearly over, and you got a helluva bun on and take off that damned hat in church!”

“Go easy, Eddie, easy,” smiled Mitt, removing his droll topping and stuffing it into a pocket. “We’re not in church, we’re at The Overflow and I just overflowed in for a peek.”

Mr. Phelan said, “I’ll give you a peek and more, Mitt, if you don’t shut up and behave yourself. Now hush!”

The latecomer managed to balance himself behind the last row. As the last lingering note rose in the accepted direction of Paradise, Mitt Gaffney stepped into the main aisle and acknowledged Mr. O’Brien’s tour de force. “Bravo, Jimmy! Bravo! You sounded just like an angel! Honest, kiddo, an angel! A real angel!”

Mitt was teetering from side to side, applauding his friend, his enormous freckled hands crashing into each other. Mr. O’Brien stood and stared through his rimless glasses at this display of uninvited support. His expression was akin to the kind you see at the zoo, when a child sees a rhinoceros for the first time. I believed he was about to faint.

The stunned faithful turned as one to fix the speaker with glares, and Mr. Phelan was puffing back from the front of the auditorium. My father reached out and gently but firmly navigated Mr. Mitt Gaffney into the only empty seat in our row.

The glares gave way to head-shaking, then to snickers, which built to a great wave of relieving laughter. My father put a protective arm around the old Army overcoat and told its frail occupant to be quiet.

Father Shine took a deep breath and spoke. His brogue was as soft as rain on pebbles, and his large blue eyes seemed to hold all of the light. “All right, then, settle down all of you.

“Given the fact that I found his somewhat-demonstrative approbation a bit unusual, given the fact that in these parts we’re not given to applauding the sacred music, I must say that I wholeheartedly concurred with Mr. Gaffney’s appreciation of Mr. O’Brien’s divinely inspired performance. You did sound just like an angel, Jimmy. And Mitt, if you’re to clap and bellow again in church — and you’re in church, Lyceum or not — I’ll have Mr. Phelan cart you off to the hoosegow. Now then, the mass is ended. Go in peace. God bless you all, and drive safely.”

On the way home, my mother said that the interruption was disgraceful, but my father said that things don’t happen unless they’re supposed to and that Mr. Mitt Gaffney had brought a unique gift to midnight mass. Not only that, but he had caused everyone to open it and share it right there at The Overflow, and pity those over at the main church who missed out.

Later, in bed, I thought about the red Santa cap and its almost-white pom-pom, and Mr. O’Brien’s facial expression, and Father Shine’s forgiving eyes, and my father. I gazed out into the starry night and wondered if Mr. O’Brien would sing one day as an angel in Heaven and if Mr Mitt Gaffney would be there to applaud him, and I thought that their chances were pretty good.

Venetian-ness

Cell phones save lives

December 21, 2009 3 Comments

When I was first living in Venice, back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, cell phones were just beginning to catch on. It seems strange — insane — to think of it now, but there were still few enough to justify making passing comments such as “Buy! Buy!” when someone ostentatiously walked by, talking into this little gimcrack.

Now, of course, we can’t even metabolize simple sugars without them.

One night, in those distant years, we were walking home along the Fondamenta San Basegio. All at once we were startled to hear a woman’s voice suddenly, very loud, right behind us.

Mothers: omnipotent, omniscient, omni everything, even before they got cell phones. It was sorcery; now it's just electronics. — Mothers: omnipotent, omniscient, omni everything, even before they got cell phones. It used to be sorcery; now it's just electronics.

“Cominciate a mangiare,” she stated firmly, striding past us. “Fra due minuti saro’ a casa.” [“You all start eating, I’ll be home in two minutes.”] She turned down the Calle de l’Avogaria and was gone.

We went left, over the bridge.

“Wow,” I said. “Good thing she had the cell phone. What would have happened if we were still back in the old days, when people couldn’t phone to say they were almost home?”

“The family would have starved,” Lino answered immediately. “There they are, all sitting around the table, with their knives and forks ready. But Mom isn’t home! What should we do? Should we wait? Should we start? Where is she? What’s gone wrong?”

He was in full sail now. “The police will finally break in, but it will be too late for most of them. The grandfather will already be dead, because he’s the weakest. He couldn’t hold out. The little boy will be barely alive, but that’s only because he was sneaking bits of pasta on the side. The rest of the family will be strewn about the table, unconscious.

“‘What happened?’ the police will cry.

“‘We couldn’t start eating,’ somebody will gasp out, barely able to talk. ‘Mom wasn’t home yet.’

“Thank God she had the phone.”

Fathers are also good. Somebody gets two extra points for getting their little boy a hobbyhorse and then letting him ride it to wherever they were going. I didn't know they still even made them. — Fathers are also good. Somebody gets two extra points for giving their little boy a hobbyhorse and then letting him ride it to wherever they were going. I didn't know they still even made them.

Nature, Water

Snow Day

December 20, 2009 No Comments

We got snow! While I realize that our little meterological adventure was nothing compared to what the East Coast of the US has gone through, not to mention northern Europe (stories of the trains trapped under the Channel inspire a special kind of shudder), it still was enough to jolt us out of our midwinter torpor.

Even here, flights were cancelled, or delayed, and I have no doubt that stories of catastrophes on the mainland will be coming in.

But for us, the situation was more beautiful than distressing, if you don’t count our miscalculation on getting home before the acqua alta was high enough to mostly cover our feet. (Yes, we were warned: two tones on the sirens. But I didn’t take it seriously.) Sorry about my Timberland hiking boots; hope I can salvage something from the effects of salt water.

We usually get at least one severe cold snap each winter, though it seems to want to wait till just after Christmas. So this year we got it early. For the past few days it’s been at or below freezing and Saturday morning we woke to the double-whammy of snow and acqua alta.

Two hours later, the scene had changed. One good thing about acqua alta is that at least it removes the snow.

When Lino was a lad, as soon as the flakes began to fall, men would present themselves at the central office of the Vigili (a sort of local police) to pick up a shovel and make some extra money cleaning the streets and bridges. He says you could hear them out on the street, talking, as early as 4:00 AM, waiting to get to work. Intensely intelligent and also effective and probably didn’t cost the city all that much. All good reasons why they don’t do it anymore.

Our faithful trash collectors were scarce to invisible this morning. Any tiny deviation from the norm throws the squad into total disarray. No snow shoveled, no garbage collected — I can’t believe that every sanitation worker in the city had to be in the Piazza San Marco to set up the high-water walkways. Perhaps they were all clustered in a doorway (more likely it was a warm bar somewhere) drawing straws to determine who’d be the one who had to go out and actually work.

I have some happy, if highly eccentric, memories of a real cold snap here. One winter morning a number of years ago, when the cold had come down from Siberia like the wolf on the fold, we went out rowing. Yes, of course we’re mentally unstable.

This time it wasn't fog that made the city look like this. Blowing snow is also pretty effective for blurring the scenery.

Here’s what I remember: Rowing down a canal and our oars slicing neatly (once in, once out) through the forming ice. What a fun little crunching sound it made. What wasn’t quite so fun was the wind blowing so hard that the spray from the waves froze in the bottom of the boat. I spent the entire time we were rowing back imagining that my shoes were nailed in place, because it was like standing on a skating rink. If I’d slipped just once, I’d never have gotten my footing back. I took my mind off this problem by trying to imagine if it would be possible to row on my knees.

But that was nothing. There was the famous — make that “epic” freeze of February, 1929: people were walking across the lagoon from the Fondamente Nove to San Michele. Impressive. Of course, one reason that happened (and probably could never happen again) isn’t just the factor of the degrees below zero. There wasn’t the constant maelstrom of waves back then that we have today, which would prevent any rational water from freezing. If you’ve got a really low temperature, few or no waves, plus only the tiniest tidal variation (twice a month, when the moon is exactly half, the tide scarcely moves, which would help the freezing, obviously) it’s almost inevitable that ice will form. I have to say I’m glad we didn’t reach that point. Delicate little skins of ice covering the water is one thing, but not this polar purgatory.

So on the whole, we made out really well. The snow came, and then, when the tide turned in the early afternoon, the sun came out and we were fine. Except, I mean, for the bags of garbage which will lie out there till Monday.

The lions in front of the Arsenal were not amused. "Remind me again how we ended up here, surrounded by water? Oh, right: spoils of war. Great."

As long as you don't have to drive, scenes like this are really beautiful.

The guys who run the bumper cars at the temporary amusement park on the Riva dei Sette Martiri have to clean up the old-fashioned way: physical exertion.

Eventually at least a couple of ecological operators, as they're called, had to get out and do something. The Barbie-sized wheelbarrow appears to contain enough salt for exactly one bridge.

All the gondoliers who didn't come to work in the Bacino Orseolo are just going to wait for it to melt, then bail.

History, Problems, Venetian-ness

Turkish not-so-delight

December 17, 2009 7 Comments

There are many things, I admit it, that deeply fascinate me about Turkey and one of them is its complicated linkage over the centuries with Venice. Polar opposites, one might think, until one begins to look closer.

As I was expatiating on this theme recently, I neglected to mention a few of the manifestations of this linkage lurking here. And one of them does not show Venice in her best light.

First: Two steps from Campo San Barnaba is a short, narrow street (with bridge) named the Calle (and Ponte) de le Turchette. If you were to guess, based on your elementary Italian, that this means “Street of the Little Turkish Girls,” you would be right.

Tradition maintains that in the era before the Casa dei Catechumeni was established to accommodate instruction in the Roman Catholic faith, there was a house here where Turkish women (“Turchette”), taken prisoner in assorted battles, were kept. Their time was spent mainly in being converted to Christianity. Or not. No word on the rate of conversion, or whether conversion was considered optional, or what the consequences were for not converting, at least not by the point where I stopped seeking information.

According to the estimable Giuseppe Tassini, writing in Curiosita’ Veneziane, a document in the Scuola di San Rocco states that the confraternity possesses a house in the parish of San Barnaba, “in Calle Longa, where the Turchette are housed.” That’s all I can tell you about this, though every time I pass this way I admit that images of exotic females, enclosed in another sort of harem, wander through my mind.

Second: An even more intriguing Middle-Eastern, let’s say, element is a mute patera (PAH-teh-ra) affixed to the side of a house behind the former hospital of the Incurabili. (These “incurables” were mostly syphilitics, if you’re wondering.)

This patera is very easy to miss, being so uncharacteristically high. Looking up is always a good idea when walking around in any city, especially here.

Patere were typically circular plaques carved in low relief on Istrian stone, often showing animals, which were placed on buildings generally from the 10th to the 12th century, though a few date till the 15th. These images were intended to ward off evil.

The one that fascinates me, though, has a very different vibe. It shows a cross, whose base is in the suggested form of a sword, standing upon a crescent.

The conclusions one might draw from this are fairly obvious, but that’s what annoys me — because so often the obvious turns out to be excitingly wrong. There is also the curious factor of the points of this crescent not being identical. So far, however, I haven’t been able to learn anything about it. But there it is.

A small digression on Turkishness: Ever since maize began to come to Italy from the Americas in the 1500’s, it has borne the name granoturco, or Turkish grain. There are various hypotheses for this, none of them definitive, but one of the more credible ones refers to the custom of lumping all sorts of foreign things together under the generic label “Turkish.” A relic of this habit applies here today regarding the Slavic women who come from Eastern Europe to work as caretakers of the elderly; even though they may come from Ukraine, Romania, or Moldova, I’ve heard at least a few Venetians refer to them as “Turche.”

Now we come to a longish street whose official name is “Barbarie de le Tole,” but which I think of as the “Street of the Kebab Joints.” And here the theme of Turkishness becomes less attractive.

There are some 20,000 students in Venice, a total of the enrollments in the two universities (Ca’ Foscari, the University of Venice, and the I.U.A.V., or University of Architecture). There is also a noticeable number of immigrants in the city, some from the Middle East or North Africa. And there is also a growing group of tourists who are getting by on a squeaking budget. These are all people who typically seek nourishing and/or good food at a very small price. So from pizza-by-the-slice (Italian, even if not very civilized), the choice has broadened out to include doner kebab, or what in the U.S. is often called by its Greek name, gyros. Foreign. Suddenly this changes things.

Whether or not you read Turkish (or German -- notice the subhead on this banner), the image itself translates as "good cheap food." — Whether or not you read Turkish, the image itself translates as "good cheap food."

Doner kebab was invented in Erzurum, eastern Turkey, and since the Seventies it has become a common and familiar fast food in most European countries. The making and selling of it are virtually always in the hands of Turkish individuals.

But all of a sudden Venice isn’t happy with these little places. I can’t say whether the kebabs’ precursors were available in the declining years of the Venetian Republic, but considering the spectacular variety of ethnicities and creeds which were to be found milling around the streets and markets and waterfronts of Venice back in the Old Days, it wouldn’t surprise me.

In the past decade or so, the subject of immigration (to Europe, not only to Venice) has become an increasingly tormented one politically, economically, and socially. Considering the multi-cultural foundation of this town, any anti-foreign sentiment is in some ways difficult to justify — not that one can’t understand it. This is a theme which I will dissect at another time.

But on December 4, the Gazzettino announced that the mayor has signed an ordinance forbidding the granting of any new licenses for kebab joints until 2012. The reasons given for this are many; they bob like ornaments hanging on a tree which has been hollowed by termites. The reasons as stated are:

The proliferation of these establishments and the consumption of their product on-site contribute to the “impoverishment” of the typical local places, as well as of the architectural and environmental quality of the city “due to the particular nature of their furnishing and equipment,” and
The “incompatibility” of the opening of new pizza/kebab joints with the “conservation of the artistic patrimony” and the “typicality” (if there is such a word) of the historic center, and
Opening such places in certain points in the city conduces to the “maximum vulnerability of the cultural and touristic profile” of the city (whatever that might mean), and
That anyway there are already enough such places to satisfy the demand, so no need for more.

And who proposed this extraordinary measure? Not any of the assorted Superintendents of the Artistic/Historic/Cultural/Archaeological Heritage; nor the director of the Academy of Fine Arts, nor the Guggenheim Collection, nor anyone from the battalions of professors of art, history, or even tourism, if you will, though any of those protagonists might be able to make a reasonable case. Not a voice from the syndics of the Venice Atheneaum. Nobody from any sphere or stratum of the cultural or artistic universe here. Not even a wail from Augusto Salvadori, the City Councilor for Tourism and Protection of Traditions and Decorum.

Despite its being couched in cultural and historic and artistic terms, the proposal was in fact made by Giuseppe Bortolussi, the plain old City Councilor for Productive Activity and Commerce. Therefore one can interpret these cultural concerns in economic terms, in favor of the small businessmen who are the competitors of the kebabists.

And the decree will cover 13 of the 24 most important touristic points of the city, including the Rialto, the area of San Marco (where there is already a flourishing McDonald’s), the train station, and the Accademia. They might just as well have said “everywhere,” considering that they have stated that there are already enough such places to satisfy the demand.

I thought capitalism posited that the consumers, not the city councilors, were the ones who get to decide which businesses live and which die. And if it’s possible to determine at what point there are “enough” kebab joints, it ought to be possible to determine at what point there are “enough” shops selling glass and Carnival masks, which a stroll around the city reveals as being somewhere around 249,327. Enabling infinite choice in souvenirs (good!) doesn’t seem to translate into infinite choice in foodstuffs (not good!).

This ordinance looks strangely like an effort to protect the restaurateurs, not the city, from impoverishment. To herd the wandering tourist seeking sustenance back into the trattorias and restaurants where the prices can sometimes go so high, at least compared to the value received, that they practically glow in the dark.

But I’d like to close this little cultural pilgrimage with the observation that hypocrisy evidently provides more fertile terrain than volcano slopes after an eruption if you want to grow a bumper crop of contradictions. All those affirmations of protecting the artistic and historic nature of the city? One hardly knows where to start to list the examples of how that concept has been violated.

I’ll provide just a few random snaps, chosen mainly by their convenience. Anyone who can explain why these alterations are permissible (I’ll spare you the details of the laws designed to “protect” the artistic and architectural nature of the city) is eagerly invited to enlighten me.

The "Danieli Excelsior" (center) was built as an addition to the Danieli Hotel, and wedged between the hotel, formerly a palazzo of the Dandolo family (DATE TK) and the New Prisons (DATE TK). — The "Danieli Excelsior" (center) was built in the 1950s as an addition to the Danieli Hotel, and wedged between the hotel, formerly a palazzo of the Dandolo family (late 1400s) and the New Prisons (1589-1616).

Somebody thought these balconies would be just the thing on this already unattractive modern residence, right next to the church of the Santo Spirito (1506).

Then there is this construction, housing the University of Venice's Department of European and Post-Colonial Studies, next to the TKTK. — Then there is this construction, housing the University of Venice's Department of European and Post-Colonial Studies, next to the Gothic palace now housing the Capitaneria di Porto (Port Authority).

Tramontin and Sons are one of the few squeri still building gondolas in Venice, and their workshop shows the traditional setup, from the wooden-chalet workshop to the ramp sliding down into the water. — Tramontin and Sons (1884) is one of the few squeri still building gondolas in Venice, and it shows the traditional setup, from the wooden-chalet workshop to the ramp sliding down into the water.

Right next door to Tramontin is the squero Daniele Bonaldo, which used to be its identical twin. I watched its inexplicable transformation from the traditional layout (he kept the wooden chalet workshop) into a major boatyard for motorboats. The cement platform covers the beaten-earth ramp, the hydraulic winch was unknown to his forebears, and of course the boats have nothing at all to do with gondolas.

This is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (Venice Savings Bank) in Campo Manin. They say it's called Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin, but it doesn't resemble anything like what most people would call a Venetian palace. — This is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (Venice Savings Bank) in Campo Manin. It's called Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin (1972), not for conjoined noble families but for the two architects, who stated openly that they didn't intend to create a "false antique." They succeeded.