Venice: I am not making this up

Relentless brilliance

October 28, 2015 4 Comments

A sailor awaits the sunset signal to lower the flag on the sail-training ship "Palinuro." — A sailor awaits the sunset signal to lower the flag on the sail-training ship “Palinuro.” This has no relation to anything that follows, it’s just here to remind us of why we love Venice.

As has become hugely evident, I am temporarily (I trust) slowing down on not making things up.

I discover that it isn’t easy to find new topics that interest me (“new” and “interest” don’t always coincide). Two decades into my life here, a certain amount of repetition in daily or annual events can make it difficult to whip up enthusiasm to address them again.

Also, as I may have hinted not long ago, I am somewhat worn down by the relentless stream of bad, crazy, incomprehensible, infuriating news that steamrolls over the city every day, and if it depresses me to read these stories, it would depress me even more to write about them. I used to find it sort of entertaining, and imagined that examining the entrails of Venetian life could be interesting to people who don’t live here but who care about the city. Examining entrails used to be one way of predicting the future, and the technique still works extremely well — but the future I glimpse is even less appealing than the entrails themselves. (Full disclosure: I happen to like tripe, which is prepared in various ways here. But I’m not sure if tripe qualifies as entrails.) End of metaphor.

There are the infinite variations on the theme of corruption. If I wanted to focus on that, I’d have to change the name of my blog — there’s just too much material. It appears that just about the only person who hasn’t been stealing money from the city, the region, the nation, her employer (which I don’t have, but that’s a detail), or her clients and customers or suppliers, is me. When a general of the Guardia di Finanza AND a platoon of his troops are found with their hands plunged deeply, up to the shoulder, into the municipal pot, it does make you wonder what this world is coming to.

But what now fascinates me is the ever-increasing number of projects that are living demonstrations of a phenomenon we all know too well and for which the Germans have even invented a word: Verschlimmbesserung, a supposed improvement that makes things worse.

Beauty is the keyword here. Don't forget it. — Beauty is the keyword here. Keep this at the forefront of your brain.

These are projects devised by professionals, remember, but perhaps being a professional is becoming a handicap, because so many seem to lose their way in their professional brain-thickets and forget the simplest, common-sense details that are obvious to any user — amateurs! — of their projects.

The two most recent examples, and then I’m finished for today:

The tram. I’ve already mentioned the hideous installation at its terminus at Piazzale Roma. But you don’t have to look at it, so let’s consider that issue settled. What I’m talking about are the almost daily discoveries of inexplicably stupid mistakes. I define a mistake as “inexplicable” if it was performed by a professional.

From the day of fanfare in which the tram made its maiden voyage from the mainland to Venice, there have been technical problems (losing electrical power, often, for assorted reasons; a nexus where the tracks just didn’t switch the way they were supposed to, etc.). But these, theoretically, can be fixed.

But the other day a car broke down on the bridge from the mainland to Venice, thereby blocking all traffic behind it (normal! there’s no breakdown lane!) including the tram (wait — what?). Yes, the tram’s track was installed in the same lane as the wheeled traffic. A normal old bus can just groan, downshift, and inch around a stalled car or truck. The tram can only sit there until it’s all cleared up. The bridge is 4 km/2.5 miles long, and all the passengers had to pile out and walk the rest of the way to Venice, thereby easily making their healthy daily quota of 10,000 steps. And making hash of their morning schedule, doctor appointments, business meetings, Scout jamborees, whatever was on.

These are the two lanes available for wheeled vehicles to reach the city (or depart from it). The concrete center barrier is moveable, so part of the excellent experiment is going to be shifting it to make a temporary extra lane when needed. Thereby reducing the other side to just one lane. — These are the two lanes available for wheeled vehicles to reach the city (or in this case, depart from it). The concrete center barrier is moveable, so part of the excellent experiment will be to see if shifting the center barrier to create a temporary extra lane when needed will work out, even though even I, sitting at my desk, realize that doing so will thereby reduce the other side to just one lane. Creating a problem by solving another — hasn’t that already been tried? (Photo: Davide Dalla Mora, Facebook.)

Never fear — an excellent experiment will begin in November. For three months (note: containing all the high-traffic holidays), the tram lane will be reserved only for public-service vehicles, which I suppose are considered less prone to breaking down. Did I mention there is no breakdown lane? The bridge has only two lanes in each direction, therefore creating a temporary one by moving into space on the opposite side will crush all the private vehicles into one lane.

If that doesn’t sound especially shudderworthy, consider that about 1,700 vehicles per hour cross the bridge. In 2014 there were 162 cases of stalled vehicles — one every other day, essentially.

So bring on the tram! And bring your hiking boots and Nordic-walking sticks! And just think: You still have to pay for a ticket. The Casino says people aren’t gambling so much anymore, but they’re obviously not thinking of the thousands of people who play Tram Roulette on the bridge every day.

I don’t think an advanced degree in engineering is necessary to help you understand how to keep people’s feet dry getting from the platform to the temporary walkways (neatly stacked in the background). Or maybe it is. All they needed to do was to ask Mr. Canestrelli before it was too late.

Let’s move on to the Rialto area.

The subject is the platforms to which the vaporetto docks are attached. The past few months have seen a mammoth undertaking to build new ones, bigger ones, more efficient ones.

But now that high water has come calling, it has been discovered that these improvements have un-improved the necessary space to set up the temporary walkways. I have disembarked at Rialto when there was very high water, and without the walkways I’d have had water up to and even past my knees. Walkways at Rialto are not some crazy new idea.

And yet the new platforms haven’t taken the walkways into account, and it was suddenly discovered (cue sound of sloshing water) that the spaces involved don’t work anymore. The temporary walkways can’t reach all the way to the fixed platform, so there will be a gap between the platform and the walkway which will be full of water.

Unhappily, the large brains designing the new docks didn’t think to contact anybody, least of all the steadfast but shot-riddled Paolo Canestrelli, director of the Tide Center, to discuss anything so trivial as height of water, need to calculate for.

To raise the fixed platforms at this point will require another huge undertaking. Just think, everyone had so enjoyed the big inauguration ceremony.

Much of the most beautiful city in the world is beginning to resemble those municipal offices where the employees have to adapt by attaching things with rubber bands, hand-writing signs and labels with Sharpie pens, sticky-notes everywhere. Just make it work somehow.

But now I’m going to make you laugh. It’s only fair. I mean, I laughed, even though on paper (this is paper) it isn’t so funny.

Giancarlo Galan, the former president of the Veneto Region, has been sucked deeply into the MOSE corruption scandal, the details of which will be oozing out even after the trumpet call to the Last Judgment. Among other things, he was convicted of having taken 15,000,000 euros in bribes.

He has done some token jail time (he was sentenced to two years and ten months, of which he spent only 78 days in prison and much of the rest at home in his luxurious villa on the mainland). And the state confiscated this villa, worth some 2 1/2 million euros, to pay off part of his debt. The rules said he had to vacate the premises and leave it in habitable condition.

He did vacate the premises, but the next people to go in discovered that there were no more bathrooms. Workmen, presumably not on their own initiative, had torn out all the radiators, toilets, bidets, and sinks in the place.

So now he has added to his list of misdeeds the formal accusation of having damaged state property. And of not having honored the agreement to leave the villa in useable condition.

His lawyer immediately said that this had been an “error,” and of course everything is going to be put back, right away. How anyone could make such an error baffles and perplexes me.

You see? I don’t have to make anything up. It’s all right there in front of me.

One just keeps on making the best of things. — One just keeps making the best of things.

Venetian-ness

More Venetian moments

October 7, 2015 5 Comments

Not a person, but I think it wants to be. It probably has relatives and co-workers all over Venice, like any Venetian. — Not a person, but I think it wants to be. It has relatives and co-workers all over Venice, like any Venetian.

You know what they are — they are those moments when family trees, or shrubs of some personal connection (usually with Lino), spring out of some random event.

A small example: We were walking across Campo San Barnaba the other day and Lino paused to look at one of the everlasting sequence of death notices taped to a convenient column. Because this is his natal neighborhood, of course he wanted to see who it was.

I don’t remember the person’s name — it was a man — but it took Lino only about four seconds to place him. “My older sister Giulia was married to Emilio,” he began. This much I knew — I knew her, though Emilio had gone to glory before I entered the scene. “Emilio had a sister, and this man was one of her sons.”

That would have made him… a cousin-in-law?

These are human root systems, surrounded by their related nodules and rhizomes.

But that’s a mere dustmote compared to the story that came up yesterday, when Lino looked at the last page of the paper. That’s where the obituaries are, and sure enough, there was someone he knew. Knew very well, in fact.

It was another Emilio, but don’t let that distract you. He passed away at the age of 91, which means he was 14 years older than Lino. Pointless information, perhaps, but he was Lino’s “master,” for lack of a better word, at the Aeronavali, the company for whom Lino (age 16) went to work at the Nicelli airport on the Lido. (His older brother and twin brother also worked there.) I calculate quickly that at the time Emilio would have been 30 — vastly older, and of course vastly more experienced. Big. Important.

Emilio was given a few apprentices to train, and Lino was one of them. “None of us liked him,” Lino said. “He treated his apprentices like servants.”

Eight years went by, and Lino was 24 years old, and things were going very well for him. Emilio was now 38, and even more experienced and important, of course. Word began to circulate that a squad was going to be organized and sent under contract for four months to Mogadishu, Somalia, to work in the airport and train the Somali mechanics. (Note: In case one wonders “Why Somalia?”, Somalia had lived through three colonial experiences, and one of those periods was Italian.)

As I say, word was wafting around that a big expedition was being formed, and naturally the older workers — Emilio, for one — assumed they would be asked to go. A few of them — Emilio, for one — had even begun preparing and collecting the necessary tools. They were only waiting for the starter’s gun.

But one day Lino was called to the head office. “What have you done this time?” was the general question from his co-workers as they watched him go. “No idea,” was the reply.

When he came out of the office, several lurkers pounced. What was going on?

“He asked if I wanted to go to Somalia,” said Lino.

“What did you say?” said the thunderstrucks.

“I said yes, of course.”

Consternation everywhere, especially among the older group which had assumed they would be The Chosen. Emilio was not chosen. He had to stay behind and watch his still-young ex-apprentice go off in what he had assumed would have been his place, lugging the tools that he (Emilio) had so carefully assembled.

So much for Emilio, may he rest in peace.

Unfortunately, one of the most reliable moments for hearing stories about people is at funerals. But don't think they'll be talking only about the late departed -- there will be plenty of remarks to go around. — Unfortunately, one of the most reliable places to hear stories about people is at funerals. But don’t think they’ll be talking only about the late departed — there will be plenty of remarks to go around.

There was also “Barba Keki,” the nickname of the head of the group, which roughly translates from the Venetian as “Uncle Frankie.”

“Did you talk this over at home first?” he asked, knowing perfectly well what the answer was. (Lino at the time was a young husband with a several-months’-old son.)

B.K. was concerned, but not because he was jealous. No, it was because B.K. (stay with me here) was the husband of the cousin of Lino’s father-in-law, and if Lino’s wife had protested, B.K. would have found himself in the eye of the cyclone.

Lino merely replied, “They asked if I wanted to go, and I said yes.” Happily, no cyclone touched land.

Today, the flowering of the personal connection shrubbery put out some new blooms.

We had to go the bank to deal with some paperwork, and we went upstairs to see one of the officers, Roberto G.

Lino has known him ever since he (Roberto) was born. This doesn’t surprise me anymore. But he knew Roberto because he had known Roberto’s father, who worked at the Aeronavali when Lino also was working there. He was a carpenter, and his nickname was Pianaura (pee-ah-nah-OO-rah) — “pianaura” in Venetian means “planing.” For you linguists, the Italian word is piallatura. A better rendering would be “wood shaving.”

It’s not over. Lino also knew Roberto’s grandfather, Lello, because he too was working at the Aeronavali. Lello was one of the men who did the heavy lifting, the scut work. One of his tasks was to keep the big tank of drinking water filled, a plain but effective precursor of the water cooler. Lello would pump water into the tank from another tank, then put in a chunk of ice (this was summer, clearly), and then a few drops of anise liqueur, such as Sambuca. There are those who swear that water and Cynar is the best thirst-quencher, but the mechanics at the Aeronavali drank water and anise.

So we went to the bank — I signed some papers and got a family tree. I like it.

The end of another story-filled day. I got to hear some of them, but I know there are plenty more out there, waiting.

Venetian Curiosities

Daniela Ghezzo dresses your feet

September 25, 2015 9 Comments

It’s remotely conceivable that I might attempt what Daniela is doing (actually, it’s not), but I can promise I wouldn’t be smiling.

Several readers were kind enough to inquire as to what could possibly be so big and impressive (or time-consuming, or distracting, or whatever) to keep me off my blog for so long.

Now it can be revealed that I was writing a rather big article about Daniela Ghezzo, a Venetian custom shoemaker, for an excellent new online magazine called “Craftsmanship.” And if I have not yet bombarded you with the news via the social networks, let me bombard you here.

http://craftsmanship.net/the-soul-of-the-italian-shoe/

The point of mentioning it isn’t so much to display my amazing creative abilities, but to bring forward a person with even more amazing creative abilities, not to mention skill, not to mention manual dexterity and fabulous imagination. Why do I know how hard it is to do what she does? Because she makes it look so easy. Zwingle’s Third Law: The harder something is to do, the more the ignorant onlooker thinks “Hey! I could do that!” Fred Astaire always looked as if he didn’t even have sweat glands.

I hope if any of you finds yourself in her street that you will pause to imbibe the beauty, but that you will manage not to let your pause interfere too much with whatever she’s doing. Being open to the public is a great thing for her business, of course, but can be a drawback to her work, and if it turns out you’re the tenth person to stop to ask her what she’s doing– which of course, you won’t know — it means she will probably have donated more than an hour of her day to friendly questions, and when you’re working it’s not so easy to start and stop and start again. Some shoemakers work only by appointment for that reason, and some beleaguered artisans in Venice now charge money for stopping long enough to talk to people. Just saying.

Of course, if you intend to ask her to make a pair of shoes for you, your encounter obviously will not qualify as time wasted.

She'd probably make a superb guitarist -- she knows exactly what each finger has to do, and she makes them do it. — She’d probably make a fine guitarist — she knows exactly what each finger has to do, and she makes them do it.

Which is not to say everything always goes smoothly.

Zwingle's TK Law, illustration #1: The simpler it looks, the harder it was to accomplish. — Zwingle’s Third Law, illustration #1: The simpler it looks, the harder it was to accomplish. Each millimeter has been calculated with implacable precision.

But there are also shoes that make me smile, like these sandals.

Especially the heels. It takes a certain turn of mind to enjoy putting the best bit where nobody can see it.

An artist making shoes will eventually do a little painting on them.

It’s the border that makes this shoe, though the thought of folding and stitching it makes me grind my teeth. Her logo is the symbol that was used by the Venetian shoemakers’ “scuola,” or guild.

Sure, I'll just fold this piece of leather into the narrowest conceivable border. — Sure, I’ll just fold this piece of leather into the narrowest conceivable border.

This relief sculpture over the main door of the Scoletta dei Calegheri in Campo San Toma' shows the miracle of San Marco healing the injry suffered by Aniano while repairing his sandals. Saint Aniano became the patron saint of the guild. — This relief sculpture over the main door of the Scoletta dei Calegheri in Campo San Toma’ shows the miracle of San Marco healing the injury suffered by Aniano while repairing his (Marco’s) sandals. Aniano became the patron saint of the guild. Meaning no disrespect, their encounter does sort of look like Androcles and the lion.

On the other side of the city, near Campo Santo Stefano, is what remains of the scuola of the calegheri tedeschi, or German shoemakers. No mingling, no fraternizing. Here the scene is the classic depiction of the Annunciation, the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Annunciation being the guild’s patron saint.

The corner of the building has more shoes, just to make sure we know it belongs to the Germans. The hammer and sickle graffito at no extra charge. — The corner of the building has yet more shoes, just to make sure we understand its significance. The hammer and sickle graffito at no extra charge.

Tracing the shoe's pattern onto a sheet of ostrich-skin is careful work, what with the bumps and all. — Tracing the shoe’s pattern onto a sheet of ostrich-skin is careful work, what with the bumps and all.

This pin-up has been in the shop since the last Ice Age, and she has no intention of removing it.

Every step requires some sort of exertion -- here she is pulling the last out of a nearly finished man's oxford. Talk about a perfect fit: The only way to pull the last out is to hook a long metal rod into a special hole in the plastic form, brace with foot, pull with might and, if necessary, also main. — Every step requires some sort of exertion — here she is pulling the last out of a nearly finished man’s oxford. Talk about a perfect fit: The only way to pull the last out is to hook a long metal rod into a special hole in the plastic form, brace with foot, pull with might and, if necessary, also main.

Speaking of exertion, consider this 70-yeer-old boot from Switzerland. I'd never given much thought to what hobnails really were, but this object looks like it could double as the murder weapon. — Speaking of exertion, consider this 70-yeer-old boot from Switzerland. I’d never given much thought to what hobnails really were, but this object looks like it could double as the murder weapon.

These nails are all over the sole, too. This shoe's in better shape than I am, but then, I'm not studded with hobnails. — These nails are all over the sole, too. This shoe’s in better shape than I am, but then, I’m not studded with hobnails.

When you think of Venetian art, you usually think of paintings and, occasionally, sculpture. Please add this to your artistic considerations: the outer edge of the heel protrudes infinitesimally further than the inner side of the heel. This refinement is to resist the wear which inevitably occurs on the outer edge of the heel -- you know, the part that finally forces you to take the shoe to the shop and have the thing repaired. — When you think of Venetian art, you usually think of paintings and, occasionally, sculpture. Please add this to your artistic considerations: the outer edge of the heel protrudes infinitesimally further from the vamp than does the inner side of the heel. This refinement is to resist the wear which inevitably occurs on the outer edge of the heel — you know, the part that finally forces you to take the shoe to the shop and have the thing repaired.

You're not looking at a mere shoe, but at years of someone's life -- the same sort of years that Vladimir Horowitz spent learning to play an arpeggio that floats itself off the keyboard. This shoe is another of those "nothing to it" feats that lure civilians into dark jungles of unsuspected struggle. — You’re not looking at a mere shoe, but at years of someone’s life — the same sort of years that Vladimir Horowitz spent learning to play an arpeggio that floats itself off the keyboard. This shoe is another of those deceptively “nothing to it” feats that lure civilians into dark jungles of unsuspected labor and toil.

Venetian Events

Be still, my heart

September 22, 2015 5 Comments

Wait, it gets better below. But the scene was beautiful even when we weren't moving. — Wait, it gets better (video clips below). But the scene was beautiful even when we weren’t moving.

Sunday evening at 7:25 PM the Piazza San Marco suddenly came alight in the most extraordinary way. It pulsated, briefly and gloriously, with hundreds (900, if all the people who signed up actually came) of flashlights which, taken together, formed the shape of a heart.

Yes, “Venezia Rivelata” has struck again.

We all remember what fun it was to make a “bocolo” on the feast of San Marco, 2014, and this time the organizers/artists/fantasizers had designed something bigger, more complicated, and also much more spectacular.

The event was the 12th and last in a series created by Alberto Toso Fei and performance artist Elena Tagliapietra. Not every program was so vivid; some were lectures and — to be frank — weren’t all equally publicized, as far as I could tell. Not that I’d have attended them all. I just want to point out that there was in fact a major scheme to all this, the scheme being to focus each time on a particular aspect of Venetian history. And why do this? To bring Venetians to a sense of reclaiming their city, in an emotional if not actual way. (It’s all explained on the press release below.)

Here is the design with the numbered sections. Very useful, like a list of the assigned places at a wedding reception.

The theme on Sunday night was “Venice and Justice,” which is a topic well worth bringing forward, and not because the two terms seem to have become, if we read the newspapers, virtual antonyms. Wait, that isn’t fair. There is justice — in Italy at large, no need to concentrate on Venice alone — but it moves at the pace of a dying diplodocus struggling in a tar pit, and the results are often what might be called debatable. Slow, in any case.

But in the great trajectory of history, Venice often showed herself to be a dazzling innovator — technical, commercial, conceptual, legal — passing laws most of which probably wouldn’t have seemed like a good idea to anyone but the Venetians. To take an example at random, Venice was the first nation in the world to abolish the slave trade (960 AD). Venice invented the copyright, to protect intellectual property (their merchant instincts didn’t stop at the merely tangible). Venice passed laws to protect the rights of women, and of children. Not made up.

Speaking of laws, how about this idea: “The law is equal for everyone,” which is inscribed in big letters on the wall behind every judge’s bench in the land. It can’t be confirmed where this dictum came from, but the Venetians followed it in spirit if not in phrase. For many centuries they were arguably the only people in Europe (and the world?) who didn’t subscribe to the idea that the bigger and richer you were, the more the law was supposed to work for you. If you bothered with the law at all.

The fact that Venice regarded the law as sovereign was never so bitterly and clearly shown than in the agonizing story of Jacopo Foscari, the only surviving son of doge Francesco Foscari (doge from 1423 to 1457). Jacopo was found to be accepting money from a foreign power; he was tried and exiled. More skulduggery, more trials, more exile — three times, each sentence confirmed by his father. I submit that the average criminal whose father was the head of state (or, if you like, the average head of state with an incorrigible child) would have used whatever power was necessary to get the laddie off the hook. Here, no. The laddie died in exile.

The weather was superb; I think the sign-in people might even have been sweating, while keeping an eye on the boxes of umbrellas. Things like those can easily grow legs. Each participant was given one, because at a certain moment we were all to be ordered to open the umbrella and shine our flashlight upward under it. And we all had to be dressed in as much white as we could muster, including a hat, if possible. I wore Lino’s “dixie cup” sailor’s cap.

Toso Fei reports that the following inscription (translated by me) was carved, in Latin, over the entry door of the avogaria of the Doge’s Palace; the avogaria was an ancient magistracy composed of three men who upheld the principle of legality, that is, the correct application of the laws. That such a body even existed was extraordinary — perhaps, in the 12th century, even revolutionary.

PRIMA DI OGNI COSA INDAGATE SEMPRE SCRUPOLOSAMENTE, PER STABILIRE LA VERITÀ CON GIUSTIZIA E CHIAREZZA. NON CONDANNATE NESSUNO, SE NON DOPO UN GIUDIZIO SINCERO E GIUSTO. NON GIUDICATE NESSUNO IN BASE A SOSPETTI, MA RICERCATE LE PROVE E, ALLA FINE, PRONUNCIATE UNA SENTENZA PIETOSA. NON FATE AGLI ALTRI QUEL CHE NON VORRESTE FOSSE FATTO A VOI.

BEFORE ANY OTHER THING, ALWAYS INVESTIGATE SCRUPULOUSLY TO ESTABLISH THE TRUTH WITH JUSTICE AND CLARITY. DO NOT CONDEMN ANYONE IF NOT ACCORDING TO A SINCERE AND JUST JUDGMENT. DO NOT JUDGE ANYONE ON THE BASIS OF SUSPICIONS, BUT SEEK THE EVIDENCE AND, AT THE END, PRONOUNCE A COMPASSIONATE SENTENCE. DO NOT DO TO OTHERS WHAT YOU WOULD NOT HAVE DONE TO YOU.

I think they stole that last idea from somewhere.

So: Beating heart. What better to represent everything good — not only laws fairly and scrupulously applied — but life, period? That was our assignment.

The result was beyond dazzling.

Hats off to everybody involved, right down to the policemen who kept the spectators at bay. And thanks for the umbrella, too.