This minuscule bulletin is for anyone who might think that the most troublesome water in Venice is in the canals.
Actually, it’s in the air.
After about ten days of rain and mist, in varying proportions, with random interludes of damp, persistent wind, my sinuses feel like the average compressed-air can. Just think — if I could breathe, I could blast the dust out of my computer all by myself.
Who — I hear you ask — cares?
I mention it because it leads us to an infinitesimal aspect of life in the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world. Laundry. The fate of wet laundry in what amounts to a World Heritage Site aquarium.
Two nights ago, I slipped between clean sheets which I had wishfully thought were dry, but discovered had retained the subtlest possible essence of humidity, just enough to make me feel like a very old loggerhead sea turtle lying on the wet sand waiting to lay my eggs. I snapped. It was time to launch the death rays.
So I washed several hundred pounds of garments and towels and other heavy stuff, jammed it into the rolling suitcase, and hauled it to the laundromat on the Lido, where four big dryers were waiting for me.
Actually, only three were waiting, because someone had gotten there before me. I sorted my raiment into them, dropped in the coins and hit the highest temperature possible. I think it was close to “incinerate.” At one euro ($1.37) for ten minutes, it wasn’t exactly a deal, but this was no time to haggle.
In the hour I was there, three other people came in, lugging various huge containers of damp laundry.
Apparently everybody had had the same idea.
Only in winter does the absurdity strike you of photographing laundry drying in the middle of water.
After three sessions, I took out the heaviest item, a waffle-weave cotton blanket. It was hot and totally dry, exquisitely dry, irresistibly dry. I could barely resist the temptation to put it back for another ten minutes just to imagine myself becoming one with the transcendent dryness of it. If you had offered me a box of Teuscher truffles — or even white truffles from Alba — at that moment, or maybe six 0.03-carat rubies, I couldn’t have concentrated long enough to decide.
It was like an oasis in the desert, only backwards.
One of scores of winged lions stationed around the Lido; this one is at the vaporetto stop, on meet-and-greet duty.
It would appear that there is always a film festival going on somewhere in the world — 308 at last count, but no doubt the list is growing. That’s practically one a day.
And each one awards a (usually) golden trophy, The most famous give out lions, bears, and palm fronds but let us not disparage the Golden Crow Pheasant, Golden Pyramid, Golden Conch, Golden Frogs, Golden Space Needle, and even (I am not making this up), the Golden Calf, from the Netherlands. Did they do that on purpose?
Special buses start in the morning to take people from the vaporetto to the movies. As part of the multi-purpose art extravaganza known as the Biennale, the film festival is correctly known as the 'Exhibition of Cinema," as if the movies were hung on a wall.
Until September 10, here we’re focusing on the lion, naturally. For a thousand years the winged lion of San Marco stood for power, wealth, and glory, and struck fear, admiration and envy in the hearts of countless thousands. For ten days in Venice, it stands for movie tickets, daily updates on assorted stars and tiny asteroids, a constant drip of complaints and criticism of what there is and what there isn’t, and parties where countless thousands stand around and talk about how they’re going to make some more money, which essentially brings us back to the aforementioned power, wealth, and glory. Or maybe they don’t care about the glory.
The Venice Film Festival — 68 years old and still going strong, I guess — was the first of its kind in the world.
Back in 1932, the Lido must have seemed the perfect place to hold this innovative little event, seeing that in those days the Lido (well, Venice, but let’s be kind) indeed evoked some form of glamour. It’s a little hard to imagine now, because there was basically just an airport, a church, a few luxury hotels, and miles of artichoke fields. The people who came were mostly rich and did rich-people things, like spend a lot of money to drink, eat, and look at each other.
Reporters going to work, checking the paper for news on what they did yesterday, or what they have to do today. These are staying in Venice because there's no more room on the Lido. The symbolic winged animal on their bags looks like a GummiLion.
Now the masses on the Lido have almost no (actually, no) glamour, the artichoke fields are gone, and at least one of the luxury hotels is closed for semi-permanent restoration (Hotel Des Bains).
But the winged lions are posted all around the main streets, the phalanxes of photographers are in maneuvers, and, as usual, the vaporettos and busses are so full they’re practically shrink-wrapped.
Opening Day was George Clooney Day; his new film, “The Ides of March,” launched the ten-day marathon, and received a standing ovation.
Yesterday it was Madonna’s turn, here to promote her new film “W.E.” As I understand it, her goal is to “rehabilitate” the image of Wallis Simpson, and best of British luck with that. The Guardian’s report observes: “It takes a twisted creative genius to produce a compellingly bad film….and that is why Madonna, try as she might, will never make one of the worst films ever made. She just hasn’t got the talent. ”
The lions stand on pedestals which are four-sided billboards for beer, restaurants, and assorted Lido businesses. Wouldn't it have made more sense for some producer to have bought a batch to advertise the name of his/her movie? As in: Lion plus My Movie = Award me the top prize. But what do I know.
She reserved rooms in five hotels, to throw reporters off the track. This is something I wish somebody would explain to me. You come here because you want to be seen and talked about, then you put on this pantomime of craving solitude? Isn’t that why they invented Bhutan? Anyway, she ended up staying in Venice, not even on the Lido. Take that, Hotel Excelsior.
Now she’s probably gone, and so, day by day, the reporters too will shimmer away, leaving only the few hard-core journalists who actually write about movies, as opposed to people and what they’re wearing. By the time the Golden Lion spreads his wings, he almost seems to be an afterthought.
Then the film world will turn its attention to whatever golden creatures are next being shoved into the starting gate. Or at least who’s there and what they’re wearing.
Yachts are excellent places to give parties, and every year a batch of them tie up along the Riva Sette Martiri for exactly that purpose. Expensive but sort of generic, not unlike the people who rent them.The launch belonging to one of those yachts. Lino says it reminds him of a funeral boat. It doesn't cry "Party! Party!" to me, either.
But where there are films (or yachts), there are likely to be girls. These were seriously waiting for something, or somebody.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The lobby today.Or maybe the restaurant is named “Nicely.” I like the design, even if it is unclear.
Epiphany, which it says in the fine print is intended to commemorate the visit of the Three Kings to the Baby Jesus, offering him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, has metamorphosed over the centuries into a day dedicated primarily to a happy little hag known as the Befana. Her name, which I suppose could just as well have been Hepzibah or Basemath, is a homely mutation of the word Epiphany. You probably already figured that out.
She's almost always smiling. That's a good sign.
Her connection to the day is gifts. No, of course children haven’t gotten enough of them yet. Are you mad? It’s been a whole 12 days since the last truckload of presents was dropped on them.
The Befana is a remarkable creature, and to love her you must get past your feelings about hook-nosed, snaggle-toothed harpies with broomsticks. She’s actually closer to honey and poplar syrup and agave nectar, all sweetness and no light. She flies at night.
Stockings don’t belong to Santa Claus, here they’re hung out tonight for the Befana to swoop through and fill with candy and doodads. In my day, a doodad might have been a Slinky. Today, it’s probably an iPhone.
Here is a dish of candy coal, which makes as much sense as candy corn.
She is also liable to leave coal instead of candy, coal being the traditional judgment on Bad Children. But naturally by now a loophole has been found — created, actually — by inventing a candy that looks like coal. I’ve tried it, and it tastes exactly like what you’d think a block of black sugar would taste like. Not that black has a taste, but your imagination instinctively supplies one.
The Befana is always changing, always the same. Averaging out the thousands of versions crowding the candy stores and pastry shops, I’d say she was a combination of Dame Edna Everage and Jimmy Durante. I found one that looked like a distant cousin of Porky Pig, but I’m sure that was unintentional.
There are many and deep significances to this observance which I won’t repeat now; my post last year covered most of them. I only note here that I am looking forward, as always, to detecting the smell tonight of woodsmoke blowing over from nearby farmland — Sant’ Erasmo, or, slightly further away, the settlements by the sea near Jesolo, Ca’ Savio, Treporti, smoke swirling out of the flaming bonfires which are lit in her honor.
I want to note — for the record, whoever may be keeping it, or reading it — that the occasional practice of burning the effigy of the Befana atop the pyre is historically wrong. Bonfires, yes, but with the purpose of disposing of a lot of dead plant material you have to get rid of before next spring’s planting. The “Vecia” (old lady) is more traditionally burned up at the middle of Lent, and some places still plan it that way.
Meaning no disrespect whatsoever to this venerable crone, I have to say that Venice once was swamped with cronish ladies, of various ages, whose mission in life was to patrol the family, and neighboring families, with relentless scrutiny. Now that neighborhood life has changed so much over the past three generations — television, sufficient heating, children moving away, and death have taken their toll on the dense agglomerations of terrifying, invasive, implacable old ladies who could smile like angels as they slashed your reputation to ribbons behind your back. I know this because Lino has told me Stories about them, and does a bloodcurdling impression of a typical conversation between a few of these matrons.
Even more, I can confirm that the Venetian language is gratifyingly rich in terms which describe the myriad nuances of ancient females. I don’t imagine I can do them justice on my own, even though they’re words you could hear every day and eventually begin to use instinctively in certain situations: Marantega, carampane, grima, sbetega, peocio refa‘, and many more, all have deliciously complicated meanings. The fact that there are so many words for the variations on these life-battered and -battering women (not to mention casual expressions to describe them, such as “Ugly as the plague,” “As ugly as hunger,” and so on), show the depth of feeling they inspired in everyone who knew them or even came near them, especially their families.
Espedita Grandesso, in her wonderful book, “Prima de parlar, tasi,” has applied her exegetical scalpel to many of these terms. Here is a brief sample (translated by me):
Marantega: [Ma-RAHN-te-ga]. The Befana is sometimes referred to as the “marantega barola” (barola meaning really old), but that is sort of a slur, in my opinion. A marantega, according to Grandesso, is primarily an ancient and misanthropic woman, dedicated to the cult of the dead in the sense that she keeps daily tabs on who has preceded her to paradise, spreading the news everywhere. This type of woman possesses a mournful sense of existence and is the town crier of every disgrace which occurs in her range of activity. In days gone by, one could find her in the performance of these duties in church, at the hour of saying the rosary, or vespers, in the act of delivering the last horrid news in the ear of yet another unfortunate biddy, chosen from among the meekest and most impressionable.
Carampana: [cah-rahm-PAHN-ah]. By now this term signifies a woman of decrepit agedness, who maintains presumptions of attractiveness and, for that reason, plasters her wrinkles with rouge and continues to dress in the style of the time when she was lovely. In general, she is a pathetic creature who, unfortunately, gives a helping hand to derision. In the past, however, this term literally meant “prostitute,” and can still describe a trollop who is old and out of service, and who, with her excessive makeup and her attitude maintains an equivocal air that is almost the stamp of her long-practiced profession. In fact, it was originally the name of the neighborhood near the Rialto which was the red-light district.
Sbetega: [SBEH-teh-ga]. Literally a shrew and loudmouth.
Grima: [GREE-ma]. Much worse than a sbetega. In this case it means a malignant woman who is, at the same time, aggressive and hard to neutralize. Mothers-in-law often belong to this category, but daughters-in-law also do pretty well for themselves.
Peocio Refa‘: [peh-OH-cho reh-FA]. Literally a made-over cootie. This is a person (who could also be a man) who has made money and enjoys a good financial position, remaining at the same time crude and mean-spirited, whose greatest pleasure consists of humiliating her neighbor, especially if that person is culturally superior to her. The northeast Veneto [and, may I add, much of the Lido] offers excellent examples of this species.
These would be Befana Lite.
Otovario dei Morti: [Aw-to-VAH-ree-oh day MOR-tee]. I myself haven’t heard this term used in daily life around here, but the character it describes is eternal. Grandesso says that the “ottavario” was the word indicating the repetition of a religious feast, one that was particularly solemn or deeply felt, eight days after its first celebration. Therefore the Ottavario dei Morti was tied to All Souls’ Day, or the commemoration of the deceased. This term is given to a person who is sad, either in appearance or temperament, who only talks about depressing or funereal events, whether public or private, reaching the apex of pleasure when they are particularly disastrous. In the days of patriarchal families, this role was generally performed by widowed or spinster aunts, well along in years. These charitable women, having long since left behind the joys of the world, busy themselves in extirpating them as well in the hearts of relatives, friends, and acquaintances.
None of these expressions could ever be used for the Befana, though. She adores children and I myself don’t believe she cares what adults might think or say about her. You can tell she isn’t from around here.
There are many and deep significances to this observance which I won’t repeat now; my post last year covered most of them. I only note here that I am looking forward, as always, to detecting the smell tonight of woodsmoke blowing over from nearby farmland — Sant’ Erasmo, or, slightly further away, the settlements by the sea near Jesolo, Ca’ Savio, Treporti, smoke swirling out of the flaming bonfires which are lit in her honor.
Espedita Grandesso, in her wonderful book, “Prima de parlar, tasi,” has applied her exegetical scalpel to many of these terms. Here is a brief sample (translated by me):
Sbetega: [SBEH-teh-ga]. Literally a shrew and loudmouth.