A friend mentioned in a friendly way that it might be nice for me to lighten up (she didn’t put it that way, but that’s what I heard) and share some glances at Venice these days. Nothing easier.
In the search for diversion you can never go wrong with laundry. Here we have black clothes and white, and their children in the middle.That was the day reserved for all the pink clothes. Or one red item that ran.I can’t imagine that they have anything to talk about. They might have tried, once.Inside and outside are such bourgeois concepts. They manage to mingle rather well.I stopped for the reflection but stayed for everything the heck else. The palm frond is typically an appurtenance of ultra-pious Catholic groups. The nearby surveillance camera does hint at a belt-and-suspenders approach to security, though. The clips on the wall once anchored now-removed shutters. The significance of the flower in the pot eludes me. I am in love with the drainpipes.Reflections are always entertaining.I hesitate to deconstruct this moment’s delicate equipoise. But I think this father is happiest in the service of his daughter, the empress, so at ease with power that she doesn’t need to even look at her faithful servitor. No sarcasm here, I mean it. They’re both exactly where they want to be, and how often can that ever be said.I loathe my cellphone’s camera, for obvious reasons, but it was my only way to grab this extraordinary conjunction of hair before they all got off the vaporetto. They seemed not even to know each other, but most likely they were all going to the nearby high school. Perhaps these tresses are required of some adolescent cult. I’ll never know.I was there, and yet I still can’t explain why they all had open umbrellas. Yes, it had rained, but the street reveals that the danger was long past. They Just Were.The city can’t win. It puts out a trash bin AND an ashtray. But these passersby did not believe in using either. Their disdain almost seems to express some message. Yes, we understand what you want, but we will defend to the death our right to not dispose of them as you require.This tombstone carver is somebody I’d like to know. Or maybe he’s one of those people whose wit doesn’t come through except on paper. Or marble. Here he has substituted the standard “Mario Rossi” with the name of the “Universal Genius.” The sentiment is more modern: “We will always love you, your dear ones.” The dates are funny, though.And here we’re laying this script and design on the shoulders of the divine Dante. I doubt that any classical scholar ever wondered what the tombstone would have looked like as the Supreme Poet wandered the underworld. But here at least the dates are correct.Okay, if this were music it would be trills, arpeggios, scales, and the occasional mordent. I have no idea what the two geniuses mentioned on the marble would think about how their names are being treated, but I’m pretty sure a bereaved spouse or parent would fall apart in the face of all these possibilities. Butterflies for Michelangelo would be an audacious option, don’t rule it out too soon. (If anyone is interested, “N” stands for “nato/a,” or born; “M” is for morto/a, the opposite of born.)The view from the belltower of San Giorgio never disappoints, especially if you appreciate this vision of Giorgio himself in his “bring it” pose, waiting for his dragon. If I were a dragon I’d have been far away, reviewing my life choices.
