Venice: I am not making this up

How we are (part 3)

March 14, 2021 19 Comments

Feel free to look at this star magnolia as long as you need to.

The earliest spring rays have begun to warm our little world (after the fog, that is), and I detect the tiniest sensation of the world opening up somehow, a barely perceptible air of relaxation. It’s a lovely feeling, long awaited, and I would say almost entirely illusory. Because while the temperature may be ever-so-gently rising, and the minuscule blossoms just beginning to emerge from their twigs, pandemic Venice, Veneto, and Italy are still struggling.

Every day over the past few weeks has brought ominous new bulletins, decrees, adjustments in prohibitions and permissions, all expressed in a revolving series of colors applied to Zones. We’ve already gone through being a Red, then Orange, then Yellow, then Orange again. At one point scattered places were Dark Red, and even Dark Orange. At this rate, keeping up with these variations in contagion will probably drive us to color the map with splotches of wenge, celadon, amaranth, sarcoline, burnt sienna, Paynes grey, Prussian blue, and any of the other 1,114 spot colors from the Pantone system. Amazingly, there is one “White” zone (Sardinia). Not sure how they’ve managed it, or if it’s even true today. It was true yesterday.

For the record, Venice — or rather, the Veneto — was in the Yellow zone till last Monday, when it was demoted to Orange. Those days were brief; tomorrow, Monday, March 15 (hello, Ides) it will be Red again, and will persist through Easter. So there goes that holiday. There has been a disturbing increase in hospitalizations, and most of these patients have gone straight into the Intensive Care Unit. In fact, all of Italy is now Red, except Sardinia.

Everything is starting to seem symbolic in some way. I need to find a hobby.

Red Zone basically means lockdown. Stay home. The only stores that can be open are supermarkets, newsstands, tobacco shops, pharmacies, eyeglasses, hardware, fuel. Also bookstores, plants and flower shops/nurseries, cosmetic/perfume shops (who on God’s earth is wearing makeup?) and shops selling sporting goods, even though it’s forbidden to gather to play a sport. A run to buy new equipment for your home gym is okay, seeing that you’re not going anywhere anymore.

If you must go out, your needs had better fit into one of these three categories: Work (justified; if the police stop you, they will call your purported boss to confirm that you have to be out); health (doctor’s appointment, hospital, etc. Manicures do not count as health, though I think a visit to your therapist probably does); serious necessity (visiting your housebound mother to feed her lunch, etc.). Beyond these three categories, a big fine is coming your way.

Yep — just like a year ago. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who haven’t been wearing masks. Looking at you, bright spark at the newsstand who only puts on his mask when his friends tip him off to the approach of a police officer, thereby cleverly avoiding a fine. Then he takes it off again. “Give me liberty or give me death,” Patrick Henry famously stated several centuries ago. Try it today and the response would be “Hey, you can have both.”

The hammer has dropped and we’re back into the Red Zone — near total quarantine — until April 6. Or whenever the numbers improve, or everybody has been vaccinated, or I learn to speak Armenian and how to play the harmonica. At the same time. From left to right: “Infections sky high,” Hotspot in volleyball team,” “Red Zone, ACTV cuts bus, tram and vaporetto runs,” “Children at home from school, controversy on distance teaching.”

The world as it was yesterday, toward noon. A year has gone by and here we are again. I mean “still.”

Two weekends ago, when the city was still Yellow, so many people tried to come to Venice that the traffic was being counted, and at a certain point cars were made to turn around and depart. The same with some streets. But don’t get excited, because that was only during the two weekend days (note: sunny and warm), and considering how many hotels are still closed, these visitors were only intermittently profitable.

In any case, all those people were ~~often~~ always too close together, and masks were not always used. The headline two days ago: “The Veneto is back in full epidemic, hospitalizations are 50 more each day.”

The economic effects of all this? Here’s one of myriad indicators: In the past 12 months, passenger traffic at Marco Polo airport has dropped 89 per cent. Pick a business or attraction at random and be appalled by similar statistics.

Some gondoliers had tentatively begun to work, primarily on weekends; it was lovely to see them out again. Yet this was but a flicker on the grainy film, metaphorically speaking, of the city’s economy. Last Saturday, a friend who works at one of the gondola stations at the Piazza San Marco had a few clients, as did some of his colleagues. At the end of the day, they all put their money in a hat (or something) and divided it equally. My friend went home with 35 euros.

As of tomorrow, he won’t be out at all, so they can put the hat away. Easter used to be an epic interlude for tourists. Now we’ll be eating lamb and chocolate eggs at home alone, like last year. For Easter weekend (April 3-5) one visit to family or friends per day is allowed within the Region, “Maximum two adults with children under 14 years old or persons who are disabled or not self-sufficient who live with them.”

A sunny Saturday morning (March 13), a great time to take a gondola ride except there are no people and almost no gondolas ready to go.

The fondamenta della Canonica behind the basilica ought to be swarming. But you know that.

Anybody up for a gondola ride? Anybody at all? On Monday, these gondolas and their gondoliers will be back under wraps.

The city is gaunt. Life is gaunt. All the flesh of ordinary life — parties, festivals, big events, family gatherings, making plans, going places, and above all, working — has been starved away, and only the bones seem to be left.

Speaking of bones, every business is in crisis. Here’s an idea somebody came up with: Stop paying taxes. “Fiscal disobedience” is what Paolo Bianchini calls it. He is president of MIO (Movement of Hospitality Businesses), and told Il Giornale that the group has launched legal action against paying the taxes from last March till now.

“This is because our industry has had an average national collapse of 57 per cent, with peaks of 70/80 even 100 per cent. It’s enough to remember that there are businesses that since last March have never reopened. Our legal system foresees ‘the impossibility of paying,’ so just imagine that it wouldn’t be recognized in a period of world pandemic such as this one.”

The protest is being made by restaurants, hotels, bars. pizzerias, pubs, shops, wholesalers, distributors, and freelancers with a financial registration code. “All workers,” he says, “that can’t manage to pay the myriad fair and unfair taxes, when the fiscal pressure has reached 70 per cent of the gross income. ” Please pause and read that last part again.

“All of this in front of a collapse of earnings of -57 per cent, an extremely high number that in some sectors reaches as far as -95 per cent.”

Which taxes are these? “Trash collection,” he begins; “the tax on shop signs…and the contributions to Inps (Social Security) except for contributions for employees. And they still have to explain why we, mostly little entrepreneurs, have to pay the tax on shop signs if we’ve been obliged for six months to keep them turned off.”

Businesses notorious for evading taxes? Fun fact: Italian companies are the second-most heavily taxed businesses in the EU (14.1 per cent, just after The Netherlands’ 14.2 per cent). They pay 101.1 billion euros a year to the government via taxes, levies, tributes, imposts, and contributions.

“The cruel reality is that, even before Covid, we struggled to finish each month with a profit,” Bianchini continued. “So just imagine now, with a fall in business of 50/60/70 percent.” So MIO will be fighting the law by using it against itself.

“Five to seven years could pass with appeals, and various grade of judicial procedure, before receiving a final judgment. Of course we’ll reach an agreement before that, but meanwhile we won’t pay anything for two or three years and we don’t risk any type of foreclosure. And in any case, it’s a battle that we have to win. The hospitality industry accounts for 30 per cent of the gross domestic product; without it, the Italian economy will never be able to recover.”

He’s not going down quietly: Starting at the top left, by vertical columns: “Forced closure government dictatorship,” Closed for abuse of power,” “Closed for the lack of influential acquaintances and application of the table of ‘First Numbers,'” Closed for violation of first 4 articles of the Constitution,” “Closed for violation of human rights,” “Closed after 33 years of sacrifices (Me and you Jesus Christ maybe I was your heir,” “Closed for the lack of admission of political guilt,” “Closed because of psychological and mediatic terrorism,” “Closed for governmental incapacity.” I took this picture a year ago, and the shop hasn’t changed at all except that at some point the furious signs were removed.

Calle de le Rasse, near San Marco. A main thoroughfare of shops, hotels, bars, usually clogged with people. Hey — I saw somebody with a suitcase yesterday. That was weird.

A couple looking at a guidebook? Why? Everything is closed.

The sign says they’re open. Not very, by the look of it.

The storied shop of Venini glass from Murano, in the Piazzetta dei Leoncini near the basilica, is permanently closed.

Go ahead and try to figure out where these blighted scenes of desolation are located. Maybe it will take the edge off the horror.

In the Mercerie, a reflection in the glass of a former shop says “Gucci.” They were open this morning. Whenever you get tired of wondering about larger philosophical issues, please wonder about why a Gucci store could possibly be open right now. Do you detect any potential customers?

This place used to sell some of the best gelato around San Marco.

“50 per cent off everything, business is closing.”

Was a first-rate shoe store. “Total liquidation business closing.”

“Giving up commercial activity. No time-wasters, only if really interested and with “portfolio” (wallet)…Thank you. (Not like certain ministers). Leave name and telephone number under the door I’ll call you.”

Here ends the glimpse of the San Marco area these days. I have about a thousand more photos, but these seemed enough to give an idea of the state we’re in.

To be fair, there was plenty of bustle at the Rialto market Saturday morning. I wonder who will be there next Saturday, if anybody. Pretty sure the fish vendors are wondering the same thing.

Next time, images of life as she has been lived in via Garibaldi lately.

The most work being done these days appears to be renovation and reconstruction of buildings and fondamentas. Street and pipes repairers are underfoot everywhere. At least they have plenty of space to work in.

Venetian-ness

The fog and I

February 25, 2021 13 Comments

Most times you don’t see the fog that is enclosing you — you discern it according to how thickly it covers relatively nearby objects. As in this case I examined the end of our next-door street, which always ends in a canal but on this morning ended also in fog.

We get fog intermittently at various moments throughout the year, and my only objection to it isn’t what it does to my hair (I’ve abandoned my dreams there) but what it does to the vaporettos.

They still run, but the smaller motoscafos that circle Venice undergo an abrupt change of plan, which I totally do not understand. The boats have radar; the boats are almost always in sight of land, or channel markers, or whatever. It may be the crushing influence of the insurers that induces the ACTV to send the motoscafos up the Grand Canal instead of around the city, and iin that case making only a few strategic stops to which you must adapt (Accademia, Rialto, train station, Piazzale Roma).

Or sometimes they simply suspend operations on most of the round-the-city lines, with no notice whatever, meaning you have to reconfigure everything in order to make use of the one truly and eternally reliable transport, the trusty old #1 local.

Sometimes it comes in the night, so when you wake up it’s already there. Other times it drifts up to greet you, in an ominous kind of way.

At that point, you have to plot a new overland route to your destination, and that’s where the real inconvenience comes in. As it happens, not long ago I was accompanying an elderly neighbor to the hospital for an appointment. The boat we usually take requires a mere four stops, and the fourth is right in front of the hospital. But with the fog, the music changes, as they say here when describing an unexpected and disagreeable shift in plans. So we had to A) walk further than our usual stop in order to reach a stop that still was functioning; B) disembark at San Marco; and C) walk inland.

My friend is a trouper, though. By the time a Venetian reaches 82 years old she/he may well have stronger legs than Simone Biles. I had proposed riding to the Rialto stop and walking inland from there. She counter-proposed that we get off at San Zaccaria and walk cross-lots from there. I secretly gave her ten extra points and a gold star. And a bluebird.

Happily for us, the fog lifted while we were indoors, so we took the usual four-stop vehicle and were home in a jiffy (or 15 minutes in ACTV years).

Unhappily for us, this scenario was repeated this week — two days in succession — and while I may enjoy bragging about it at the end of those days , I do not appreciate being compelled to show how strong and hardy I am. Frankly, I’ll never beat the little old lady to win the Tough as Old Boots trophy.

And a gracious good morning to you, whoever you are.

Rowing clubs hold races all year, and winter is an excellent period for the rowers (if not the spectators) because there is almost no traffic. Here two men are rowing their gondolino toward the nearby starting line out in the lagoon.

I have seen gondolas in the fog even carrying passengers, who must have been in complete now-or-never mode. As for the gondolier, at first I wondered how he could manage to follow his route with almost no visibility, then realized that he does the same circuit ad infinitum — for all I know, he just gives the boat its head and lets it go on its own.

There doesn’t seem to be any rule forbidding racing against boats you can barely see. But in the race on December 4 a few years ago in honor of St. Barbara, caorlinas carrying five dauntless men and one student from the Morosini Naval School fought their way across the Bacino of San Marco. In cases like these, the judges in the following motorboat have to deal not only with navigating “blind,” but can barely make out the color of each boat. The difference between red and orange is hard to differentiate even in broad daylight — here you might be forced to go by the word of the rowers. A situation you obviously would like to avoid.

“Amerigo Vespucci,” the Italian navy’s sail training”tall ship,” arrives on special occasions, and always on those when the President of Italy is here. It has no need of fog to look amazing, but the fog doesn’t hurt, either.

My heart goes out to her, because I would swear she had no idea when she hung out her down comforter that she was going to awake to discover that it’s become soggier than it was when it came out of the last spin cycle. If she’s going to have to rely on the sun to get it dry, it will finally be ready sometime in August.

Our ordinary canal is bordered by a rusty railing that the fog transforms into something magical. I was astonished to see how many of these there were — or are. The next day it was as if they had disappeared.

Venetian-ness

How we are (part 2)

February 16, 2021 15 Comments

I’ve been trying for a month to find some way to write a deep and detailed update on life here these days, but I give up. What follows is the best I can do.

After a year of the virus, and its varying grip on Italy’s 20 regions and 80-some provinces, all I can say is that we are not yet out of the proverbial woods, even though vaccinations have begun. There is an “English variant” now on the scene that has upset everybody’s predictions on progress. Even without this interloper, the danger of assembramenti (gatherings of people) remains paramount, though large numbers of people I see walking around seem not to be concerned. Exhibit A: Mask worn beneath the nose. Exhibit B: Mask around neck. Any time that the restrictions on gatherings are moderately lifted, the campos and fondamente clog up again with bright sparks, glasses in hand, masks lowered or even removed. And so the restrictions clamp down again. It’s like Groundhog Day.

On Saturday, Feb. 13, the Veneto returned to the “Yellow” status and Sunday’s headlines were absolutely no surprise: “Carneval movida, maxi-risk of contagion.” (“Movida” is the term for mass group socializing, usually on Saturday night.) “Saturday Yellow, immediately the movida, tens of calls to the vigili,” or local policemen. Whoever answered the phone repeatededly replied that “We don’t have enough officers on duty to send to make everybody wear their masks and stand one meter apart, even with the threat of a fine.” One wonders why there weren’t enough on duty for the easiest situation to predict since Christmas Morning, but one wonders in vain.

On Feb. 11, this was the utterly predictable report: “Arrival of the Veneti in Venice: Mass gatherings and masks lowered.” (Note: “Arrival” isn’t the right word but I can’t find a better one. To give some idea of the impact implied, calata is the word used for dropping anchor.) Therefore, the rule is that from 15:00 (3:00 PM), you are forbidden to drink standing around. If you’re going to drink, you have to be sitting at a table. That’s until 18:00 (6:00 PM), that is, because that’s when the bars close. Too many people milling around with glasses in their hands and masks completely pulled down. Not sure if table rule will be only on weekends, or every day.

The year has been entirely color-coded, as Italy has struggled to maintain control of the contagion (and its social, economic, and medical consequences) by applying restrictions according to their level of contagion: Yellow is the least dangerous, Orange is the middle ground, Red is obviously the most dangerous (and at least one doomed region was labeled Dark Red for a while — I think that may have meant something like bomb-shelter-type quarantine).

Handy reference for what we can do, and how, and where.

But the restrictions kept changing, reacting to the bettering or worsening of the epidemic’s numbers. We have spun through variations of life involving the hours that shops/bars/restaurants could be open (restaurants closing at 6:00 PM was obviously problematic, though takeout was the stopgap solution), to the number of persons permitted to enter a shop (from one to as many as six), to whether you would even be allowed to enter at all. Oh — and sitting at tables inside was obviously risky, and sitting at tables outside not much less risky, so as recently as last week you bought your coffee at the cafe’ doorway and stood there drinking it al fresco. Except you weren’t supposed to be standing — assembramenti! — so you had to keep moving to avoid the potentially contagious assembramenti (gatherings of people), so you wandered away with your little paper cup, sipping the rapidly cooling teaspoons of espresso, looking for a trash bin. I gave up coffee abroad because the always-dependable cafe bathrooms were no longer available.

Permission to travel between towns, provinces, and Regions continued to mutate. Schools open, schools closed. Public transport restricts the number of passengers permitted during “rush” hour (“Six people can board,” I heard the marinaio call out as we left the vaporetto), but at other times there have been vaporettos that were completely empty. Except for us, I mean. Not made up.

Sunday, late morning, between the Giardini and Sant’ Elena. Feast your eyes, but just keep in mind (if you want to) that all these seats represent minus-signs on the ACTV budget. Just another link in the losing-money chain.

Some museums are beginning to reopen, though obviously with fewer visitors because cross-border travel is still generally forbidden. Venetians (or Italians) who’d like to see some of their artistic patrimony without scrimmaging through masses of tourists, this is your big chance. Most of the museums are open only Monday through Friday; the Guggenheim and Palazzo Grassi only on Thursday and Friday.

Today is Mardi Gras, but this year’s Carnival has been almost entirely online — that is, whatever remnants of the Old Celebrations they managed to retain. We did see some tourists (mainly from the Veneto) over the past few days, on and off, some of them in costume. But I can confirm that seeing a few random dressed-up people does not a Carnival make, especially when they are walking along streets in the late afternoon, where the few businesses that were open are beginning to close. Curfew for bars and restaurants is 1800 (6:00 PM) and slightly later for other enterprises. Supermarkets are open till as late as 8:30 PM.

The last weekend of Carnival did have its brighter moments, especially Sunday when the sun and the tourists combined to bring a whiff of normalcy to the city.

Sunday morning we rowed to the Rialto, an idea that clearly had occurred to many others, including a heartening number of gondoliers. It’s been months since a gondola with passengers has been seen. There was also a wonderful assortment of regular Venetians, either in their rowing-club boats or out rowing their own, like us. And it’s always a treat to see a kid with an oar, as in the boat furthest to the right.

And this one, too, with two people — presumably father and son — out in their little *s’ciopon*. Gosh: There were two kids rowing around? Where will it end?

Friends from Arzana’, the association dedicated to the recovery of old Venetian boats, rowing a *batela buranela*. We caught up with them down by San Marco. I apologize for the quality of these images — cell phone cameras and sunshine don’t work together very well.

I don’t know them, but they are clearly on a private boat. If there is one positive side to all these troubles, it’s that the pandemic has created space where people can come out and row around in the Grand Canal again. No longer is it surging and roiling with taxis, which over the years increased to a number that effectively took over the entire canal (I’m referring to weekend activity; obviously there continue to be barges during the week). Everyone who was gradually elbowed out by all the waterborne tourist traffic has been able to return home, in a way. It makes you feel like you belong here again.

We went out for a late-afternoon walk today; there was very modest activity in via Garibaldi. Carnival barely touched the city as it drifted past, unable to land. As always, it was the children who made it happy.

The mother’s matching mask is a nice touch.

Time to go home. Just follow the clouds.

Uncategorized

A refund for 2020?

January 6, 2021 12 Comments

This doesn’t relate to Venice, but a friend sent it and I want to share it.

Obviously I can’t do simultaneous translation, but I’m putting the translation below. Apart from what they’re saying, the expressions and tones of voice of the two men make the whole exchange something very funny at first, slowly becoming more thought-provoking. I think it’s safe to assume that Fabrizio is at some call center in heaven. (Most sincere apologies to anyone who might have reasons not to find anything amusing in all this.)

Note: The writers/actors are two brothers from Palermo, Fabrizio and Federico Sansone, who create comedy sketches under the name “I Sansoni.” You can find them on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Man A: Customer service?

Man B: Hello, I’m Fabrizio. How may I be of help to you?

A: I want to be reimbursed for 2020!

B (aside): We’ve got another one. (Faking voice): The lines are temporarily busy…

A: Look, don’t be a smart-aleck, I’ve been your client for 26 years and you have never sold me a year as ugly as this one. Never.

Man B: Excuse me, but why didn’t you like it? Did something in particular happen?

Man A: Something in particular? Only a world pandemic!

Man B: Okay, well, now let’s try to resolve your problem, and we’ll try to understand what to do, all right? Remain calm.

A: That is, Paolo Fox (TV personality and astrologer) at the beginning said this is the perfect year to go out, to travel, but maybe for coming out crazy it’s the perfect year.

B: Okay, fine, but that was a simple factory defect. The Paolo Fox program has been updated correctly.

A: That is…?

B: He always says asshole things, but in the end from now on he adds “Maybe.”

A: Such as?

B: Everything will be all right MAYBE. We’ll recover MAYBE.

A: So the fault for this pandemic is whose? The Pope? He’s the one I have to smack? The bats? The Chinese laboratories? Bugo? (A popular singer.)

B: Look, don’t go looking to blame. Look at the positive side! You’ve been at home for months, relaxing.

A: The first days, then I had to divorce.

B: Okay, for now many are divorcing their wives.

A: What wife? I divorced my parents! Maybe I’m the only case in Italy.

B: But in the summer things went a little better. No?

A: Yes, it’s true. There wasn’t any Covid. And then you know how it was? Everybody was open, closed, you had to disinfect all the bars, then the bars closed again, the schools, open, closed, half-open, you couldn’t understand. By now when I see a film, as soon as I see a film and see people who are kissing or hugging I get upset and I have to get up.

B: All right, let’s do this. I’ll talk to the owner and let’s see what I can do. Okay? Hold the line a minute.

(on-hold music: “We’ll make it…everything’s going to be fine…we’ll make it… everything’s going to be fine…we’ll make it…”)

B: All right, look. I spoke to the boss, and we can’t reimburse you for the year.

A: Why not?

B: But we can offer you unlimited masks, Amuchina (a disinfectant) for everybody and 1000 kilometers of moving around from one Comune to another even without relatives. You like it?

A: But you think these things have the same value of the things I’ve lost?

B: (silence)

A: The hugs, who’s going to reimburse me for them? The laughs with my friends that I couldn’t have, who’s going to give them back to me? The trips I couldn’t take, the people I couldn’t get to know? The normal life that I couldn’t live? These things, how do I get them back?

B: You can recover them if you don’t forget. If you don’t forget that a hug from your father isn’t something to take for granted. If you don’t forget that the laughs with your friends aren’t obvious. If you don’t forget that to know a new person, or take a trip, can change your life.

You can get everything back if when all is back to normal you fight for it, and go back to being amazed by everything that happens around us.

Maybe then, only in that moment, even 2020 will have served some purpose.

New Year … real life

A: Excuse me, but one last thing. For 2021, can I get insurance, so if things aren’t going well I can move straight to 2022?

B: You haven’t understood anything!

B: No, okay. I was asking for a friend.

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