ACTV | Venice: I am not making this up

Carnival: more is less

March 2, 2011 3 Comments

Carnival opened officially last Saturday with the parade of the “Marias.” And it opened in a super-mega-jumbo-cast-of-thousandsly way on Sunday with the “Volo dell’ Angelo,” or flight of the angel, in the Piazza San Marco.

On Saturday we personally got our first taste of Carnival by going — do not ask me why, we must have a death wish — to the Rialto market to shop, as we often do on Saturday morning.

IMG_4890 carn — People can easily acquire costumes, but there also seem to be costumes waiting to acquire people.

There were so many people in the city at 10:00 AM that they were being left on the vaporetto docks because the vaporettos couldn’t take any more passengers.

Let me pause here, because I don’t want to rant at random. Let me organize the current Carnival scene in as concise a way as I can. And I do this, not because I want to dash glacial water onto anybody’s fantasies of a festival which some widely distributed photographs lead you to believe is made only of dreams and glamor and a batch of feathers. No, I don’t want to do that.

But neither is it Rio or Trinidad or the Fasnacht in Basel or the Carnival in Patras or even, God help us, Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It is a strangely soulless, almost totally manufactured event which every year baffles me more than the year before, the only occurrence here which distresses Venetians more than the cost of living and the lack of affordable housing put together. I’ve lived in other cities which swarm with tourists every day (New York, Washington). The difference is that those are cities. Here, it’s like 70,000 people (official Saturday count) are trying to get into your living room.

IMG_4961 carn — Regular common garden-variety confetti, here called "coriandoli."

So every year I wonder why people come and what they remember when they leave — I mean, apart from the spectacular cost of everything. (A bag of confetti, 2.50 euros, or $3.50, in the Piazza San Marco, is one small example. I ask myself, why acquire pieces of colored paper just to throw them away? You’ll already be doing that with fistfuls of other colored pieces of paper issued by the European Central Bank, beginning the minute you need to pay for anything at all, from a drink to a bathroom, not to mention dinner or a bed.)

Euro_banknotes — Just like confetti, only bigger.

Here is what has happened so far:

Parade of the Marias — check. Lovely girls borne aloft on wooden platforms hoisted by gondoliers, and a costumed entourage, wend from San Pietro di Castello to the Piazza San Marco. Great for pictures. So far, so good.

IMG_4824 carn — Trumpeters and many other costumed characters lead the procession of the Marias.

IMG_4838 carn — The "Marias" proceed to the area where their wooden platforms are waiting.

The “Flight of the Angel” — check. Under the Venetian Republic, the intrepid soul who undertook this Flying-Wallendas sort of stunt literally risked (and occasionally lost) his life. This is just a person in a costume sliding down a cable to which she has been cinched at least eight different ways. But there were 80,000 people crammed into the Piazza to watch. Great for pictures.

A “white strike.” I’m not referring to some exotic piece of performance art. It means a major slowdown — not a total strike — by the ACTV, our eccentric public transport company. In its wisdom, the first real weekend of Carnival was clearly the ideal time — two days in which the city’s population doubles — in which to make its labor grievances known, whatever they may be.

On a normal day, the ACTV skips an average of 150 runs anyway. (I’ll wait while that sinks in.) Saturday was worse, because not only did they skip runs at random, thereby creating large accumulations of people at each stop, but the vaporettos went v-e-r-r-r-r-r-y s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y between stops. Seeing as the workers refused to effect extra runs for the entire duration of Carnival, the city was ultimately compelled to hire a private company to provide extra service during peak hours.

Ugo Bergamo, the Assessore (councilor) for Transport, gave a brief interview to explain the situation. To the reporter’s question, “Couldn’t this have been anticipated and prevented?” Mr. Bergamo gave the astonishing reply, “A strike is supposed to create problems, otherwise what kind of a strike is it?” Mr. Bergamo didn’t feel it was appropriate to criticize the ACTV (though plenty of criticism has been made over the past year, not only for erratic service but for ticket sellers stealing money, and the deeply rooted practice of hiring relatives of employees). To him, the ACTV was far more sinned-against than sinning.

He blamed lack of money for problems which were seen as having been imposed on, not created by, the ACTV. (Translation: “Get over it.”) Rather than bring up the strike in the next City Council meeting, he wants us all to take to the barricades to protest the national and regional funding cuts which are flensing the finances of the rogue whale which is the ACTV. Not so great for pictures.

IMG_4894 carn — Taking pictures is the main Carnival activity. In Rio, people dance. Here, they stand still.

IMG_4916 carn — If you're not taking pictures, you're probably posing for them. Some people even organize themselves to pose for pay, which is prohibited by the same ordinance which forbids begging, to which it bears an amazing resemblance. But so many people can't resist the urge to have their friends snap a picture of them with somebody in costume who is asking for money that it goes on. This pair could make 500 euros a day with their little basket.

Civil unrest. It was inevitable. In the tiny hours of Sunday night/Monday morning, police and Carabinieri were called to Piazzale Roma to deal with a nascent riot. Hundreds of tired, cold, inebriated revelers had accumulated there expecting to find buses which could take them to the mainland. Well yes, there were a few — so few that the masses essentially assaulted them, while the taxi drivers had to deal with many infuriated people who considered the fares to be a ripoff. (Considering how exorbitant the fares are on a normal day, there’s no telling what the drivers were asking on a Carnival night.) After an hour or two of hard labor, calm was restored, mainly by more buses being brought into service.

“Venice on some occasions demonstrates an alarming lack of direction and coordination,” editor and reporter Davide Scalzotto remarked in an opinion piece the next day. “If this is a city that wants to be considered [as a candidate for] European Capital of Culture, they’d better think it over. That in 2011 one of the world capitals of tourism can’t manage to connect the city on the water with the mainland 24 hours a day is verging on the incredible. First they invite tends of thousands of people to a party and bring lots of money to the ‘touristic categories,’ then they abandon them in the middle of the street to work it out for themselves.”

IMG_4898 carn — But there are also plenty of people who are happy to pose with your pal for free. I understand doing it for money, but I don't really understand this. It's not like they send you a print for your scrapbook.

No special trains. This was a departure from past years and obviously creates more logistical misery for the revelers. Negotiations between the city and Trenitalia sputtered and died because nobody could reach an agreement on who would pay the bill for the extra service. Of course we already know that no ghe xe schei. Certainly not here, and evidently not at Trenitalia, either. Perhaps it’s under the potted palm.

The Grand Foyer: Now this was something new. When the partyers finally got to the Piazza San Marco, they discovered that 3/4 of the area had been closed off to form a sort of VIP area called the “Grand Foyer.” Depending on the day, the cost of a ticket to enter this realm ranged from 5 to 100 euros, and was offered as a very special way to enjoy proximity to the stage for the show(s) and some other perks. (Like seats on risers to watch the concert, or bags of confetti for 2.50). The organizers made no secret of their idea that this was intended as another way to make some of that missing schei, but so few people availed themselves of this opportunity– considering that they could see the show just as well from outside the fence — that eventually they let people in for free. (Does this remind you of anything? Peace and love, man.)

It’s true that you could dress up in an expensive rented costume (at least 200 euros) and attend a really glamorous party, like the one given at the Palazzo Pisani-Moretta on the Grand Canal. Tickets to that cost a mere 700 euros.

IMG_4954 carn — All the professional photographers on the hunt don't even pretend to be interested in partying.

Or you could buy a mask and walk around taking pictures of people in masks and costumes. Or you could skip buying a mask and just walk around taking pictures. This seems to be what most people prefer.

We ran into a friend as we walked home Monday morning, and we indulged in a few choruses of a song which by now one knows all too well, the title of which could be “This isn’t Carnival, this is madness.” “People will do anything just to make money.” “Carnival is dead. Every year they just put more lipstick on the corpse.”

Naturally the city and its various Carnival-not-organizing components have already begun the spin. Speaking of how the Grand Foyer was working out, Piero Rosa Salva, the head of Venezia Eventi e Marketing, tranquilly described it as a sort of creative work-in-progress, an experiment. You can’t call an experiment a mistake, because, well, you’re experimenting. I myself can’t find a way to take seriously a project which could be labeled, “Let’s charge people lots of money for something they can get for free.” (Actually, I haven’t even tried to take it seriously.) But they’re still trying to understand why it didn’t work — so they can make it work better next time. Meanwhile, the private partners (Expo Venice and Attiva), which signed a three-year agreement with the city to share the cost of the stage, among other things, are probably already wondering what they were thinking.

Me, I’m always wondering what they were thinking.

IMG_4895 carn — I have the uncanny sensation that even the masks are wondering what we could possibly be thinking.

History

Wings over Venice

February 18, 2011 8 Comments

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the first flight in Venice. This might sound like a quaint bit of trivia, if one didn’t know (which one is about to) how important Venice was in the history of Italian and also, may one say, European, aviation.

So pull your minds for a moment from the canals and consider the heavens. I myself am not a connoisseur of the aeronautical, but I am always interested in history, especially in “firsts,” especially if they actually mattered.

On February 19, 1911, Umberto Cagni took off from the beach in front of the Excelsior Hotel on the Lido in his Farman II airplane, and made six brief flights, in spite of the fog. (ACTV, please note.) On March 3, better weather encouraged him to fly, for the first time ever, over Venice.

A few months later, on September 19, 1911, the first airmail flight in Italy departed from Bologna and landed on the Lido. That is to say, Venice.

IMG_1434 air — The symbol of an airplane just above the word “Lido” marks the location of Nicelli airport.

Geography is destiny, as Napoleon observed, and Venice’s position was obviously as valuable to air transport as it had been for centuries to shipping. At that time, the Lido was largely uninhabited, making it the ideal place to establish an airport.

IMG_1436 air — The airport is open to visitors, especially those who want to take a helicopter ride over Venice and the Lagoon (www.heliairvenice.com).

The first was built in 1915, a military base on the northernmost part of the Lido, which was active during World War I. Then, in 1935, with some major variations, it became the Aeroporto Nicelli, and air became yet another way, in the march of progress, to get to Venice. Flights on Ala Littoria and Transadriatica connected the famously watery city to points scattered around Europe. Even to Baku, if you happened to be going that way.

Nicelli immediately became the scene of extremely glamorous arrivals, as movie stars deplaned on the grassy runway to attend the Venice Film Festival. This continued until 1960, when Marco Polo airport opened on the mainland.

IMG_7279 air — As shown on the map displayed in the airport, Venice remained at the center of things into yet another century.

So far I may have made it sound as if all these things were accomplished by an occult hand. But of course many hands were involved, among which none were more important than those of the late Lt. Col. Umberto Klinger.

Klinger, a native Venetian, was already a celebrity by the time he created the Officine Aeronavali at Nicelli, a large workshop dedicated to repairing and maintaining airplanes.

IMG_1445 air — A glimpse of Klinger on the cover of a book written by his daughter.

A highly decorated pilot in World War II, with more than 5,000 hours of flight to his credit, 600 of which were in combat, he earned 5 silver Medals of Military Valor. He also served as Chief of Staff of the Special Air Services of the Italian Air Force, not only organizing the activities of squadrons of Savoia-Marchetti S.75s (troop transports or bombers), but also flying them himself, often at night, over enemy territory. He was president of the first passenger airline in Italy (Ala Littoria), and four other companies. Far from being a mere figurehead, Klinger raised Nicelli to the level of the second airport in Italy.

So much for the history lecture. Now we have to move into the darkened halls of humanity, where to do justice to even the bare outlines of the story of Umberto Klinger you’d need to resort to dramatic opera. Verdi! thou should’st be living at this hour, but you’re not; to the people who knew him, though, the name of Klinger creates its own music. Especially those who remember his last day.

Lino, for example.

Lino went to work for the Aeronavali as an apprentice mechanic at Nicelli in 1954, at the age of 16. He often saw “Comandante Klinger,” and even spoke with him on various occasions. Right up to today, Lino pronounces his name with reverence and regret. This wasn’t unusual — Klinger was by all accounts a powerfully charismatic man admired for his courage, respected for his skill, but with a special gift for inspiring real love.

IMG_1453 air — In 1925, Transadriatica was one of the first passenger airlines in Italy; its first route connected Rome and Venice. This poster promotes the link between Venice and Vienna.

The Aeronavali flourished, with hundreds of employees working on aircraft of all sorts, from the Italian Presidential plane to cargo and passenger planes of many different companies. When Marco Polo airport opened on the mainland in 1960, the Aeronavali moved to the mainland with it.

Then politics began to set in. The broad outlines of what is undoubtedly a hideously complicated story are that certain elements in Rome, wanting to gain control of the company in order to place it under state, rather than private, administration, began to create financial problems for Klinger. The Aeronavali kept working, but payments from the Ministry of Defense were mysteriously not coming through. And the unions, manipulated by the aforementioned political factions, began to stir up discontent.

Lino remembers the increasingly tense meetings of the workers and the unions. He remembers Klinger pleading with them to be patient as he struggled to reopen the financial flow. But the unions rejected any compromises on pay or contracts, however temporary they might be, compelling the workers to resist. They ultimately even went on strike for 72 hours. Celebrity or no, the man — who had looked after his employees with no less solicitude than he had cared for his pilots — was running out of fuel.

IMG_1456 air — The Aeronavali worked on any sort of aircraft — Dakotas, Constellations, and the Savoia-Marchetti S.75, a 30-passenger plane also used as a bomber in World War II. These were Klinger’s specialty, comprising virtually all of the squadrons he commanded of the Special Air Services.

During these harrowing days, Klinger was heard to say more than once that what was needed to resolve this impasse was “something really big.” He ultimately thought of something that qualified.

Early in the morning of January 26, 1971, he went alone to the old hangar at Nicelli, by that time virtually abandoned. And he took a cord. A few hours later, when the guardian made his rounds, he discovered the body of Comandante Klinger. He had hanged himself.

Lino remembers the gathering at work that morning, when they were given the news. There was utter silence, he recalls, though if stricken consciences could make an audible noise there would have been plenty of that.

The first time I heard this story, I thought his was the despairing last act of a man who had run out of hope. Now I am convinced that Klinger’s suicide was an act of voluntary self-immolation in order to save the company — not unlike the Russian officers after the fall of Communism who, left unpaid, finally killed themselves so their widows would get their pensions.

And Klinger turned out to have won his gamble. Almost immediately, the overdue funds began to pour in.

IMG_1439 air crop — The hangar, seen across the runway from the terminal.

The funeral, in the church of San Nicolo’ next to the airport, was attended by a huge number of mourners; many had to stand outside. Did any union officers come to pay their last respects? “Sure,” Lino said. “They were at the head of the line.”

Courage in combat — it isn’t needed only in the skies. Nor does it only involve things that explode, though they can still be fatal. Umberto Klinger deserves another medal, one which doesn’t seem yet to have been created.

IMG_1457 air — Klinger, the way his employees remember him — in mufti, smiling.

Postscript: It’s very easy to visit the airport. At the central vaporetto stop on the Lido at Piazzale Santa Maria Elisabetta, take the “A” bus marked for “San Nicolo’ – Ple. Rava’.” (If the weather’s nice, you can just stroll along the lagoon embankment for about half an hour.) Get off at the last stop, in front of the church and walk a few minutes across the grass and up the driveway.

The terminal has been spiffed to a modern version of its former glory, with a cool retro-design restaurant, “Niceli.” Have lunch, or just a coffee or drink on the terrace. If you come toward the early evening in the summer, bring lots of mosquito repellent.

IMG_7268 air — Or maybe the restaurant is named “Nicely.” I like the design, even if it is unclear.

Boatworld, Nature, Problems, Water

Fogging up

January 17, 2011 No Comments

We’ve been having fog of various densities and persistence over the past – I’d have to check, it seems like a month or so. Or year. A long time, anyway. And the predictions are for more.

“How romantic,” I hear you thinking. And I agree. Fog can be hauntingly lovely here, all drifting shapes and softening colors and the complete evaporation of the horizon.

What you can't make out in this picture, along with many other things, are two special fog components: A persistent southwest wind to sharpen the fog's edge on your skin, and the many different sizes of drops which run into your face as you walk. — What you can't make out in this picture, along with most of via Garibaldi, are two special fog components: A tenacious southwest wind to sharpen the vapor's edge on your skin, and the many different sizes of drops which fall against your face as you walk.

But if you need to move beyond the visual and into the practical, fog can be a pain in the gizzard. Acqua alta may get all the emotional publicity, but I can tell you that acqua from above, in the form of atmospheric condensation, can be just as inconvenient. I suppose nobody makes the same sort of fuss about it because fog doesn’t come into your house. Or shop.

The vaporetto stop. Not a very promising panorama.

Example: Yesterday morning I was forced to abandon my plan to go to Torcello to meet somebody for an interview (assuming I do, or do not, succeed in re-scheduling said meeting, I will explain who, what and why in another post).

Like many plans — Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, say, or New Coke — it looked perfect on paper. Take the #52 vaporetto at 8:10 to the Fondamente Nove, change to the LN line at 8:40, change to the Torcello line at 9:35, and faster than you can recite the Gettysburg Address, I’d be there. Actually, you’d have to recite it 36 times; door to door requires an hour and a half, but I don’t mind. It’s a beautiful trip, assuming you can see where you’re going.

There's a church over there with a big bell tower. Trust me.

But once again, I discovered — standing there without a Plan B — that the real problem isn’t the fog itself, but the way the ACTV, the transport company, deals with it. The ACTV seems to have wandered beyond a reasonable concern for public safety and into the realm of phobia: “An irrational, intense, and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, animals, or people.” I don’t think the ACTV has a fear of animals. Otherwise, fog fits the phobic bill. The solution? According to the dictionary, “The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive and unreasonable desire to avoid the feared stimulus.” In this case, fog.

But the ACTV exists to be outdoors. Much as it might wish the case to be otherwise, it can’t function anywhere else. And more to the point, by now almost all the boats have radar. Yet it seems that the the more radar the company installs, the less willing the company is to trust it.

May I note that there were a good number of people out rowing in the fog yesterday morning, on their way to a boating event at Rialto. I myself have been out rowing in the lagoon with a compass, as has Lino, as have plenty of people. Lino rowed home one time in a fog so thick he couldn’t see the bow of his boat. Just to give you some idea of what is, in fact, feasible.

The board continued to show the vaporettos and their expected arrival times. I stood there and watched the times change as no vehicles passed. Somebody was either doing it on purpose, or didn't care, neither of which was too helpful. When Venice finally sinks beneath the waves, all that will be visible above the surface will be the angel atop the belltower of San Marco, and a board on which the departure times will continue to advance. — The board continued to display the vaporetto numbers and their expected arrival times. I stood there and watched the times change as no vehicles passed. When Venice finally sinks beneath the waves, all that will be visible above the surface will be the angel atop the belltower of San Marco, and a board on which the vaporetto departure times will continue to advance.

In yesterday’s case, all the vaporettos were, as usual, re-routed up and down the Grand Canal, even those — like the one I wanted — which normally circumnavigate the city’s perimeter. If I’d known in time that the fog was that thick out in the lagoon (as it wasn’t, outside our hovel), I wouldn’t have walked all the way over to the vaporetto stop at San Pietro di Castello. Because once I realized that the boat wasn’t coming, it was too late to activate the most reasonable solution: Walking to the Fondamente Nove to get the boat to Burano. Although there again, even if service were maintained to the outer reaches of the lagoon, it would almost certainly have been on a limited schedule. Like, say, once an hour.

Pause for the sound of the perfect plan drifting out to sea, and the first stifled shriek of the day.

Fog does show the spiderwebs to their best advantage. There is that.

I can’t understand several things. If the boats have radar, why does it not inspire confidence in its operators? And more to the point, if the vaporetto captains can manage to navigate along the shoreline and up the Grand Canal, with or without radar, why could they not, by the same token, circumnavigate the city? The route outside takes them just as close to the shoreline as it does inside — in other words, whichever route they take, they’re not exactly out on the high seas, but within eyeshot of any palaces or pilings or any other landmark that they need to keep track of.

Once again, my sense of logic has run aground in a falling tide on the mudbanks of municipal management.

But one last question: If the city (and by extension, its transport company) is so willing to confront a temporary meteorological situation (fog) with the attitude, “Suck it up, people,” why has it not been willing to confront another temporary meteorological situation (acqua alta) with the same panache?

Answers do suggest themselves, but they are cynical answers, composed of bitter little thoughts about human nature. Best to leave them unexpressed.

If you've ever wondered what "It is what it is" might look like, this is an excellent illustration. All those women have long since accepted the fact that their laundry is going to be wetter by noon than it was when they hung it out.

Note to people flying, not floating, yesterday. I’m sorry if your flight was delayed. I realize that flying in fog is stupid and dangerous. But slowly driving a boat in fog, hugging the shoreline, isn’t.

But as I say, if you don't have to drive or fly in it, the fog does have a certain fascination.

Water

Water coming ashore

December 3, 2010 No Comments

What is it about December that seems to call the acqua alta with a siren song of irresistible allure? Other people are already thinking about Christmas, but at the moment (6:00 AM) I am thinking about where to put all the stuff that’s on the floor for when the tide tops the predicted 140 cm.

The maximum is forecast for 8:45 and maybe, seeing that is very little wind, and it’s from the north, just maybe we will escape having the lagoon pay us a personal visit. Then again, maybe not.

High water gets here by any and all routes, not merely by spilling over the edges of the sidewalks. It comes up through the drains. And here you can see that it also comes up through any possible cranny. I discovered this tiny hole in the pavement in front of our house only after I noticed the little ripples caused by the invisible jet of water beneath the surface. Oh well.

I mention this for two reasons.

One, because a year ago, the first time the tide reached that height, it did indeed come indoors. Of course we blocked the entrance, which I guess works for some people but for us it only slowed the arrival of the old H2O. And the barrier did nothing, as you may recall, to stop the water from coming in through the wall under the kitchen sink, or up through a fissure in the floor.

The butcher up the street doesn't look too concerned (Nov. 30, 2009).

Two, because I don’t want you to think that when I scoff at the chronic drama suffusing reports of high water, that I am doing so because I am at no risk of having to sweep the lagoon out of the house, then wash the floors with fresh water.

I scoff because washing the floors is a good thing and I should do it more often. And also because last week we put the refrigerator and the washing machine up on wooden beams, three inches above the floor. Yesss!

And I scoff especially today because last night I read the weather news from Eastern Europe and it’s a goddam disaster out there. An Arctic front has assaulted every country from Germany to Albania, visiting blizzards, icy rain, and record sub-zero temperatures on millions of people. People trapped in their cars all night on the highways in the snow, people freezing to death, major airports closed, hundreds of cancelled flights. Thousands evacuated from their flooded houses, and I mean really flooded; some of these dwellings are now ruined by more than three feet of water inside.

More severely undisturbed people getting on with the day (Nov. 30, 2009).

And then we read the forecast for Venice: Acqua alta. I have to tell you, after the deafening symphony of catastrophe from out there, “high water” sounds like a little tune played on a baby’s xylophone.

An inch of water on our floor for two hours, if that’s what transpires, doesn’t deserve more than a few deep sighs. Of course it will be higher in the Piazza San Marco — of course it will be inconvenient for people going to work (the tourists love it, so they don’t count) and will require walking on narrow walkways (I mean, if you haven’t already figured out that you needed to put on boots), and the vaporettos will all be sent up the Grand Canal for a couple of hours because they can’t get under two of the bridges on their route, so people will have to walk somewhat further than they normally do to get from their usual vaporetto stop to wherever they’re going. Terrible.

The emergency forces are out all over Europe trying to save people’s lives. Here, by noon it’s all going to be over.

It’s almost embarrassing.

If you sell things that water could damage, you plan ahead. This shop also has the barrier across the front door, but the owners wisely activated Plan B (Nov. 30, 2009). — If you sell things that water could damage, you think ahead. This shop also has the barrier across the front door, but the owners wisely activated Plan B (Nov. 30, 2009).