Venice: I am not making this up

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.

Events

Musical New Year

January 2, 2021 14 Comments

I don’t often watch New Year’s Day concerts on television (or computer), but lots of people veer toward the version from Vienna, perhaps drawn by the irresistible, fatal lure of the “Radetzky March.”

This year, though, we were keen to see the concert from La Fenice, live via streaming, and apart from the music itself, I was entertained by observing all the measures the orchestra and chorus had taken to maintain distancing and otherwise limit contact in the decidedly closed area of the theatre. I checked them off, mentally, as from some viral bingo card. Masks, of course, though the inevitably maskless wind and brass players were separated by plexiglas panels. The chorus wore masks, which didn’t seem to affect the quality of the singing but must have been somewhat challenging where breathing was concerned. (Not to mention the drippage that masks inevitably call forth.) The next day it was sharply noted by many that the musicians of the Vienna concert had not worn masks.

Making space for everybody meant that the entire orchestra section of the theater was stripped of its pink velvet armchairs and covered with a platform. (Some of the armchairs were moved to the stage for the benefit of the singers.) I’d like some expert to explain how this repositioning might have affected the overall acoustics. I didn’t notice any particular problem.

Lack of an audience threatened depressing intervals of silence between the numbers, but it turned out that the performers applauded each other — the chorus clapped for the orchestra or soloists; the orchestra stamped their feet and the string players also tapped their music stands with their bows. The conductor clapped for everybody. It was perfect.

The armchairs are very comfortable and very luxe. It’s an ambitious space to cover, though. This image was taken before a performance two summers ago.

Naturally the program was entirely composed of old warhorses, and we love them all. This is one moment in the year when rash experiments in music are neither needed nor wanted.

The reason I’m mentioning all this is because someone had the charming idea to complement the “Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffman with a ride through the canals aboard a gondola. Even if you don’t care about music, old or equine, I wanted you to experience this sensation, partly because it has become sadly rare these days, and partly because these few waterborne moments give the most expressive glimpse of the city as she is at the moment that I’ve ever seen. I suppose it was filmed early on a Sunday, because although the taxis and gondolas have almost disappeared, the barges on workdays are still going full tilt. But the sense of emptiness, in canals and along many streets, has become all too common.

Among my many hopes for the New Year is one in particular: To see the city full of gondolas again, slipping through the maze of Venetian waterways. With or without Hoffman.

(Apologies for the quality of these clips; I couldn’t find any better. But they show the organization of the concert, and the music itself is wonderful, as always.)

Events

Christmas refrain

December 31, 2020 17 Comments

This small Nativity scene is just inside the entrance of the church of San Francesco de Paola on via Garibaldi. There’s a bigger scene up near the high altar but I’m sticking with this one: It’s made almost entirely of recyclable materials, primarily bottle caps. It was created, according to the sign below, at the “Sant’ Alvise” day-care center in the neighborhood for persons with various disabilities. Whatever those disabilities may be, the group created a small masterpiece.

Technically, we are still well within the Twelve Days of Christmas, so Christmas images are more than appropriate — except that everyone has now fixed their beady eyes on the arrival of the New Year, so Santas and creches don’t seem quite so…necessary?

Fine, I will go with the marching calendar, but not without sharing a few more glimpses of Christmas hereabouts. To call it “low-key” would imply that there even was a key, but however modest the celebrations may have been, we treasured them even more.

Mary’s face is a bit mystifying — how did they make those eyes? Perhaps I will pursue this matter, perhaps not. Just add it to all the other mysteries of the year.

Are those angels made of fluorescent light bulbs? Outstanding!

The tobacco-toy-lottery ticket shop constructed Christmas in the window entirely from Lego bits. Not for me to say, but anyone who had time to do this must be escaping from something.

Calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa is the site of a silent battle between green-and-red windows. I have awarded the prize to the one on the left.

I’m just sorry you can’t admire how enchanting the twinkling little lights made the whole arrangement. These are just crying out to be turned into wedding bouquets. With the lights.

In the splendid entryway to the hospital (I’m fine) is this phenomenal Nativity scene constructed on a mascareta from the nearby Querini rowing club.

Matting made of rushes from the lagoon marshes. Reliable sources (via Giuseppe Tassini) maintain that the sestiere of Cannaregio took its name from *canne* (rushes) that once lined its canal banks. The calle de le Canne near San Giobbe is named for a long-ago storeroom of rushes; these had various uses, primarily to apply pitch to waterproof the hulls of wooden ships.

Some resourceful person(s) managed to obtain a not-worm-eaten bricola. Many of these pilings out in the lagoon are in desperate shape, but this is worthy of its exalted role here.

From the day after Christmas until Epiphany hundreds of panettoni will remain in the supermarkets, placed front and center at ever diminishing prices. The management obviously hopes it won’t be forced to throw them away at season’s end. Or leave them in a warehouse till next Christmas?

Undaunted sunset reaches via Garibaldi from however many miles away. I hope your 2021 will be just as bright.

Uncategorized

Best of holidays to all

December 24, 2020 32 Comments

I’m down to the holiday wire, sending this out on Christmas Eve, but as I race to finish the dusting (which I had about five months to accomplish) and Lino is wrangling the canoce (Squilla mantis) into pasta sauce and antipasto nibbles, I thought I would send a few Christmasy images from here.

Heartfelt best wishes to everyone for the end of 2020 and all of 2021.

Christmas fish-traps at the Rialto market. A festive sight for everybody, except the fish.

There are so few gondolas to be seen in the canals — phalanxes of them have remained at their moorings for weeks on end — that this brave little red bow stood out like the brightest beacon of the holiday spirit.

The good news was that it was probably the last day of school before the Christmas vacation. The bad news, obviously, was that it was so much earlier in the morning than he would have liked. Having his father nearby to haul his backpack clearly wasn’t enough.

This was edgy — the bright sparks at Nevodi Pizzalab decided to create gifts-of-the-Magi pizza. They sound pretty good, but I’m uneasy that there may be something in the fine print of the catechism that would label this blasphemy. I just don’t know….. (*Peperoni* here are not spicy sausages, but bell peppers.)

And speaking of the fish market, on Saturday there are also flowers there. It’s a little uncanny how she designed her shopping to complement her cart. Or vice versa.

Sunrise always lifts my spirits, and I hope it does the same for yours. I have not done anything to the color here — this is how it was.