One of the squillion Befanas that swarmed the stores. Snaggly teeth: check. Broomstick: check. Stockings crammed with candy: check. She’s good to go.
January 6, as all the world knows, is the Feast of the Epiphany in the non-Orthodox Christian calendar. Here in Venice, as most of the world by now must know (if it’s been following my bulletins), the day is personified by a grizzled old woman with a broomstick. This cheerful hag is known as the Befana.
Her arrival and swift departure bring joy to overstimulated and overfed children, even if the joy is tarnished by the fact that she signals the official end of the holiday period — back to school, the party’s over.
Anyone walking around Venice will have noticed, even with only one eye open (not recommended, unless that eye is dedicated to scanning the pavement ahead where the remnants of canine overfeeding may well be waiting), that her distinguishing characteristic is candy — specifically, a stocking full of it known as the calza caena (KAL-tzah kah-EH-na).
But anyone who has foregone the city for an afternoon ramble in the lagoon during this period will have noticed that her distinguishing characteristic is exceptional low tide. This phenomenon is known as the “secche de la marantegabarola,” or the exposed-sandbanks-of-the-ugly-old-lady.
Our favorite patch of lagoon, between Sant’ Erasmo and the Vignole, at a classic late-December/early-January low tide. Here the vegetation is of the non-green variety, but it still reveals plenty of snacks for the birds.The tide is still going out but the egrets have already started noshing. Among other wonders in this scene are what looks like scattered rocks: they’re the half-submerged scallops known as pinna nobilis, or “noble pen shell.” They are returning after not having been seen here for years.A pinna nobile as we normally see them.
High tide, of course, is the star around here, inspiring in transient visitors (fancy term for tourists) a mixture of fear, loathing, terror, pity, catharsis, and whatever other epic emotions a couple of inches of water on the ground can stimulate. High water also makes for interesting pictures, even if they are all pretty much the same.
But every year I feel much greater emotions inspired instead by the absence of water. When the tide really, seriously goes out, as it always does in this little window of time, a concealed world emerges, to the joy of the foraging wildfowl and the marveling eyes of your correspondent. I know it’s not magic — it just feels like it.
The same stretch of water on a summer afternoon. Not only is the water higher, the area is also swarming with trippers from the mainland who come in their motorboats and like to crawl around digging for clams. By the end of the summer they have left nothing behind, except the pinna nobiles. I think these mollusks must have a way of burying themselves, otherwise these savages would be taking them too.
The first time I saw this phenomenon I was taken completely by surprise. Looking from the Lido across the lagoon toward Venice, I saw, instead of the usual expanse of grayish-greenish-blueish water, a vast swath of brilliant emerald green, dazzling marine vegetation gleaming in the sunshine. It was like seeing Nebraska with bell-towers. Of course I knew that the lagoon bottom wasn’t as empty and flat as the high-school swimming pool, but seeing it was astonishing. I was hooked.
Why does January (or this year, also late December) always favor us with this phenomenon? Myself, I’d just give the credit to the Befana and move on, but curiosity has nagged me into looking for a real answer.
After more research than I anticipated, most of which only led me dangerously deeper into the astronomical wilds, I will hazard a summary of the situation.
The high atmospheric pressure not only conduces to the lower tide, it also brings weather which is little short of celestial. Yes, it’s still chilly, but could anyone want to stay indoors when it’s like this out here?The outgoing tide creates a sort of lagoon within the lagoon, dedicated exclusively to the birds.
It’s all based on the indestructible link between the sun, the moon, the earth’s orbit, gravity, centrifugal force,and probably other things as well. (There is also a correlation between high pressure and low tide — the higher the first, the lower the second.) But this only tells us what, not why.
One source explains: “The gravitational forces of the Moon and the Sun both contribute to the tides. The sun’s gravitational force is greatest when the earth is closest to the sun (perihelion – early January) and least when the sun is furthest from earth (aphelion – early July).”
Basically, the sun’s pull can heighten the moon’s effects or counteract them, depending on where the moon is in relation to the sun.
The Moon follows an elliptical path around the Earth which has a perigee distance of 356,400 kilometers, which is about 92.7 percent of its mean distance. Because tidal forces vary as the third power of distance, this little 8 percent change translates into 25 percent increase in the tide- producing ability of the Moon upon the Earth. If the lunar perigee occurs when the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, it produces unusually high Spring (not the season Spring) high tides. When it occurs on the opposite side from the Earth that where the Sun is located (during full moon) it produces unusually low, Neap Tides.
Neap: from the Anglo-Saxon hnep, meaning scanty. I knew you were wondering.
It so happened that the day I took the most dramatic photographs was December 23, when the waning moon was one millimeter from being completely new, which it was on the following day. I maintain that the new moon has the same effect as the full moon, as described above.
To sum up: In January, therefore, I deduce that the relative positions of the sun (low) and moon (high) combine with other factors — such as the aforementioned high pressure — to produce the unusually low tide.
You can have your Bay of Fundy, and I’ll throw in Mont-St. Michel as well. I wait all year for this moment to see the lagoon revealed in its spectacular variety and richness.
Postscript: Low tide in the city is also diverting, revealing banks of mud lining the canal walls which were churned up by months, even years, of passing motorboats. It also, may I point out, creates at least as many problems as high water — if not more — for normal life here. If the ambulance or the fireboat doesn’t have enough water to get to your house, it’s arguably worse for the quality of life than whatever happens in acqua alta — for example, having to put on boots for a few hours. This aspect of the secche de la marantega deserves a chapter of its own, but not today.
Between Sant’ Erasmo and Murano, the bottom is revealed to be of yet another sort, mounds of hard mud covered with something green. The boat belongs to an old fisherman who is off in the distance digging clams where nobody ever goes. The brown flat fuzzy tableland behind the boat is all that anyone usually sees here, just inches above the water.More of the same area, at sunset. The tide is still going out.
If the barometer has gone up to this extreme, you don’t even have to look outside to know that the water’s going to be amazingly low.People sometimes ask me, “How deep are the canals?” And I have to ask them, “When?” This canal at Sant’ Erasmo clearly reveals the mark of the normal water level. And, as you see, we’ve only got inches to row on.
Most people think the lagoon must be at its most beautiful in the summer. I beg to differ.
A situation has been brought to light — actually, had light suddenly and dramatically shone on it — that ought to be noticed more clearly than by the faint gleam discernible over here. Allow me to step in with at least a couple of highway flares.
A few paragraphs in the Gazzettino recently revealed that the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta at Torcello is falling apart. Brief and brutal, but there it is. This news may not have interested very many people here because the paper is full of stories, depressingly often, about the ways in which Venice is falling apart.
The basilica of Santa Maria Assunta is on the left; the smaller church of Santa Fosca to the right. May I mention that despite many notations to the contrary, "basilica" and "cathedral" are not synonymous. A basilica describes a building with a specific floor plan, which could just as easily be your school gym. The world is full of basilicas which aren't cathedrals; they don't even have to be churches. A cathedral is the church where the bishop has his cathedra, or seat, which could just as easily be in an Airstream trailer. The cathedral of Venice (also a basilica, as it happens) is San Marco. (Photo: necrothesp)
Pieces of stone drop off facades (November, 2007, a 110-pound/50- kilo chunk fell from the Palazzo Ducale and grazed an elderly German tourist; November, 2008, a 15-inch/40 cm bit of marble from a house in the San Marco area grazed a Swiss tourist as it headed earthward; March, 2010, a 132-pound/60-kilo piece broke off the convent of Cristo Re near the Celestia; October, 2010, a bit of stone decoration fell off the Court building and struck an employee…..). Roofs collapse, bell-towers are braced, and so on. The reason? All together now:No ghe xe schei. The mayor himself has said that he may have to ask for money, not for the sake of the buildings per se, but for the sake of public safety.
But back to Torcello, a lovely, almost uninhabited little island famous for the aforementioned basilica, which is arguably one of the gemmiest of the gems of Venetian history, art, architecture, and above all, mosaics.
Life is hard on Venice in so many ways, from high water to tourist trampling. But let us not overlook what may be the most dangerous hazard of all: Neglect.
Torcello’s parish priest, don Ettore Fornezza, recently drew attention to one example of what neglect can lead to: The floor mosaics are breaking up.
I went to Torcello the other day to see don Ettore and the situation that he was describing.
The ten-minute walk from the vaporetto stop to the church has never been so lovely.
For anybody who loves Torcello, or who believes that there is no place within 50 miles where you can go to escape the tourist tidal waves, I cheerfully recommend you visit the island early on a freezing, windy, gray Sunday morning in January. Yes, it was colder than I don’t know what. (Down side.) But there was literally no one and nothing in sight. (Up side!) I’ve been going to Torcello for years and I have never seen it utterly deserted. The lagoon was empty too. It was so astonishing that it was worth not being able to feel my feet.
Looking toward Burano, normally a scene of motor-driven anarchy.
People go to Torcello to admire the mosaics on the walls. But the floors are no less valuable, and they get a lot more punishment. You can see the evidence of this deterioration everywhere, in the widening spaces between the bits of stone and even in grotty, dark empty areas as big as salad plates and as much as an inch deep. Unchecked humidity, for one thing, has gradually loosened the tesserae (as the bits of stone are called) and made them vulnerable to other forces. Like people and their footwear.
A view of the interior of the basilica. Note the condition of the floor in the foreground. This is nothing.
And so it was that during a recent stroll around the church, don Ettore saw a tourist not only dislodge a small piece of 1000-year-old mosaic with the heel of her shoe (regrettable but not intentional), she then picked up the loose bit and made to put it in her pocket. Or purse. Anyway, to take it away.
When he asked her what she was doing, she replied, “I wanted it as a souvenir.”
Somewhat thunderstruck, he suggested she consider leaving it behind, so it could be kept, if not actually returned to its native habitat.
She gave it back.
When don Ettore reached this point in the story, it occurred to me that it was too bad he hadn’t replied, “Well then, I’d like to take your shoe as a souvenir.” Just a thought.
A detail of damage to the floor mosaics. I would have taken photographs, but it's strictly forbidden, not that that would have stopped me. But the girl on guard that morning made nabbing me her mission. My admiration and appreciation to the intrepid visitors who managed these images. (Photo: ezioman).
But this is no time for gay repartee. The incident of the tessera was merely one random event in a long and all-too-evident decline. Because for some time now, the heels of the shoes of thousands of tourists a day have been weakening what is, in fact, a very fragile creation. All it takes is for one piece to go, and the discussion shifts from what is happening to merely how long it’s going to continue.
For don Ettore, this moment was, as he put it, “the spark” to bring to light the larger, deeper, wider problems of the basilica.
“We can’t go on like this,” he said. “People come from all over the world, and they see the deterioration and they come to tell me. I can’t do anything, because I”m responsible for the spiritual side. But I have eyes, and I see the things that don’t go well. Torcello could be reborn, with a little attention. With the love people have for this place, this would be the pearl, not only of Venice, but of the world. It’s worth the trouble to insist on this, because Torcello is worth it. We don’t want Torcello to die. If it were up to me, it would have been resolved already.”
There are so many distressing aspects to this situation that you can pick any one at random and ruin your day. Given that the present mosaics (not the first mosaic flooring, by the way, which was laid in the 8th century) date from 1008, it’s obvious that they will now be in need of constant and expensive care. Just like a person, actually, when you think of it.
But here we have an ancient and irreplaceable work of religious, historic, and artistic value; we have uncontrolled masses of people using it every day for most of the year; and we also have lack of personnel, lack of serious interest, and — no need to repeat it, but I must — absence (they say “lack”) of money to do anything useful to deal with it. Here, too, the skeletal hand of chronic poverty is tightening its grip.
Speaking of poverty, however, let me insert some startling observations made to me in Hyderabad, India by Mr. P.K. Mohanty, then Commissioner of the city’s governing body. (I was there for my article on “Megacities,” National Geographic, November 2002.)
“What we need in India isn’t money,” Mohanty said. “Large cities of the Third World are reservoirs of wealth. We need political reforms, bureaucratic reforms. The problem is one of poor management. If cities are properly managed, there cannot be resource problems.” I’d guess that the same could be said of large cities of the First World.
As for the mosaic floor of the basilica, nobody can consider spending the money that would be needed to complete a serious restoration — they say there’s no money even to pay for a protective carpet like the one that often covers the floor of the basilica of San Marco. But anyone who has visited the Roman-mosaic-blessed former churches at Aquileia and Ravenna will recall that their mosaic pavements are kept in near-perfect condition. Aquileia and Ravenna have mysteriously found a way to acquire the schei necessary for their mosaic maintenance. Or maybe, as Mr. Mohanty observed, the problem isn’t really schei.
Small gaps between the stones; you can just imagine where this is going to go.
Back to Torcello. I would like to blame mass tourism, because obviously masses of tourists are not helping the situation. But I hesitate to use a term which is so general that it could describe almost everything except plants (no wait, those travel too) to describe just one certain type of tourist. Of course there are cultivated, intelligent, sensitive tourists who leave a very faint footprint on the delicate, peerless places and cultures they visit.
But there is the clueless tourist who tends to come in chaotic herds, and who passes through leaving behind not much beyond a few sous and a lot of accumulating wear and tear on the places and people he or she has encountered. And some trash, usually.
Taking away pieces of Italian history is nothing new. The Italians themselves, over the centuries, have removed tons of pieces of their monuments for use in other projects. And there are, unfortunately, still too many tomb-robbers who steal and sell priceless artifacts from lost civilizations.
And let us not forget the famous advancing barbarian hordes, who pillaged and burned and wrecked large parts of Europe and its treasures. Also bad, but at least you can fit this damage into the category “Conquer and Dominate,” which does make a kind of sense.
But we’re talking about tourists. They have been known to dislodge and remove, as far as they can, pieces of the Roman walls built by Marcus Aurelius. Tourists climb over altar railings and try to take away historic sacred vessels. (I am not making any of this up.) I learned more than I ever wanted to about this for my article “Italy’s Endangered Art” (National Geographic, August 1999). These are not necessarily evil people, nor even people seeking to make money by selling what they take. They just take. Why?
The lady at Torcello admitted why she did it: She wanted a souvenir. Instead of buying something that had been manufactured, she impulsively felt that something genuine would be better. But how does this work? You take a little piece of old stone, dislodged from its context, dislodged from its reason for being, specifically in order to be reminded of the place you’ve just despoiled? You don’t run to the ticket booth to say “The floor is coming apart!”? Or does the fact that the piece is loose mean that it’s now free pickings?
I pause here to recognize that there may be an insignificant difference between a souvenir and spoils of war; the Elgin Marbles, which I suppose you could regard as a sort of monumental souvenir, come to mind. But if the possessors of cultural patrimony have finally come to recognize at least some of the value of their heritage, it ought to follow that visitors ought to value it even more, otherwise why are they there? They could just as well be sitting under an awning somewhere, eating gelato.
To many visitors, a trip to Torcello is mainly a good excuse for a jaunt out into the lagoon. When they're done here, they go to Burano and buy lace-like objects. Real souvenirs.
All this makes my brain hurt. Because I am convinced that whatever bits of stone or wood or pottery get carried away — a bit that really mattered where it was born — is going to get lost. Thrown away. Forgotten. Hidden under stuff in the attic that nobody ever looks at until they have to sell the house and by then nobody remembers what the thing is, or why it’s there. So what was the point?
Wait! Let’s say the person takes it home and puts it in a beautiful box or frame to display it. This means that either they are capable of spending the next 50 years looking at something they stole, which probably won’t remind them that they stole it, or they want other people to admire it. So they can say, “Yes — I contributed to the destruction of an irreplaceable landmark by stealing this. Nice, isn’t it? I’m glad you like it.” Then they send money to protect the dolphins or save the rainforest.
If you’re still reading, you may be edging toward the door. But I’m not crazy. Or if I am, I’ll never be as crazy as the tourists.
But let’s be fair. Even if the tourists were all made to tiptoe around the church in cloth slippers, it wouldn’t do much to stave off the inexorable damage caused by humidity, salt in the groundwater, storms, subsidence, and many other factors that are part of life on this planet and whose effects are all too visible at Torcello.
The point isn’t that people want to take bits home, it’s that the church isn’t being protected and cared for. It’s just sitting there, enduring what it must till another piece breaks off.
And by the way, the same thing is happening in the church of Santa Maria e Donato on Murano (first building, 7th century, flooring completed 1140), an edifice equally rich in mosaics. Don Carlo Gusso, the parish priest, is also ringing the alarm bells.
So far, though, it appears that nobody but you and me have heard them. Or at least have recognized that they’re not the dinner bell.
"The Pavement San Marco" by John Singer Sargent (1898). Who would ever have thought that even here, the floor would have been left to deteriorate like this? I'm not referring to the undulations, but to the holes. But if they could fix the floor here, I'm not clear on what's stopping them at Torcello. Did they have more schei back in 1898?
I’m willing to believe that not everyone may be as mesmerized by the problems swamping the world of Venetian rowing racing as I seem to be. So, barring some sensational or truly revolutionary turn of events in the aftermath of the recent unpleasantness in the last two races, this might be my last post on the matter for a while. I said “might.”
But before I leave this theme in my wake as I sail on to other strange (or not strange) yet wonderful aspects of life here, I’d like to add one more element to the “1812 Overture” which the subject here has become. And that is the provocative analysis of the Big Picture recently given by veteran Venetian journalist Silvio Testa.
An exciting finish to the young men's race at Sant' Erasmo. One hopes that if they can be accustomed to the reality of rules early enough, later extreme behavior might be avoided. This is more likely to be where they start practicing being furbo. The same is true for the women, by the way.
Testa’s viewpoint on racing could be summarized as “May the best man win.” Or perhaps, “Every man for himself.” In any case, this radical philosophy of racing does not, for once, involve judges, panels, appeals, fines, and all the other juridical paraphernalia which has wrapped itself around the neck of this activity and is threatening to drag it to the bottom. Au contraire.
In his opinion, in the process of imposing (and imperfectly enforcing) more and more rules, the more acrimonious, bitter, and vicious the races have become — almost as if the rules had fostered the very situations they were meant to prevent. In fact, he thinks that the whole effort to turn Venetian racing into a sport has taken it far down the wrong path. Therefore, as Giuseppe Verdi once remarked, “Let us return to the old way; it would be progress.”
Testa puts it this way:
“In 1981 I was reporting on the race at Murano. Bruno ‘Strigheta’ was in the lead, closely followed by Franco ‘Crea,” so closely that the prow of Crea’s gondola was almost running over Strigheta’s oar. Finally Crea passed him and pulled ahead, and Strigheta finished second.
“‘Now’— I thought — ‘there’s going to be a huge quarrel.’ But Bruno didn’t even open his mouth. When I asked him why, his answer couldn’t have been clearer: ‘He was more furbo than I was.'” (“FOOR-bo” is a mix of sneaky, clever, slick, and cagey.)
“When I asked Crea about it, he replied, ‘I did what my uncle Italo taught me: Don’t ever take the lead at Murano; instead, hang onto a tight second place until you’ve worn him out.” (Literally, “cut his legs out from under him.”)
“The race was beautiful, the spectators applauded, and at the end the rowers all shook each other’s hands.”
If this had happened in the past few years (and memory reveals that it or something like it has), the anger pervading the world of racers and their fans would probably have forced Bruno and/or Franco to change his name and enter the Witness Protection Program.
The poppieri (men who row astern) gather round to draw lots for their position at the starting line. This could be one of the few moments overseen by judges which has never been criticized. Ten numbered billiard balls in a bag -- it's pretty hard to see how a judge could mess that up.
Testa continues: “All this [recent conflict] is the fruit of a 30-year effort on the part of the city to turn the races into a ‘sport,’ which it isn’t. Venetian racing has its roots in the Middle Ages, and [all these rules] are similar to what it would be like if the Palio of Siena, where the jockeys are all whipping each other, were to be conducted according to the rules of Ascot.
“For centuries the races have been carried forward only by their participants; today there are 45 articles in the regulations. But Venetian racing isn’t like crew, or English-style racing, where the boats are kept in lanes. Here it’s an open ‘field’ and contact is — or could be — part of the game.
“If the racers expected that, they’d be watching out and would be prepared to defend themselves, without appealing to judges who are apt to make mistakes because the line between cunning and error is so slight that it practically doesn’t exist.
“The great racers of the past were like this and the winner wasn’t only the strongest, but the more astute, the more heartless, the best. There were no recriminations, except maybe to yourself.
“The future commissioner the racers have requested to calm the world of racing would do well to keep that in mind.”
I certainly hope that the future commissioner, if such a person should materialize, will be able to do something useful. Meanwhile, winter is coming on, the season is over, the racers have reclaimed for personal enjoyment at least a few of the endless hours they spend training, and I am anticipating that, as so often happens after an exhilarating crisis of any sort here, oblivion will tiptoe into the room and pull the covers gently up under the collective chin and tiptoe out again, leaving only the soft sound of communal snoring broken by the occasional muttered oath.
Murano is just ten minutes from Venice, but it's a whole other world. And not just because of all the glass, either.
If you’ve ever been to Murano, one of the world’s great glass-making centers, you will know that it’s impossible to race through it. You will be exhausted, but not because you’ve been going so fast; au contraire, you will have been plodding along at the pace of those debilitated galley slaves in Ben-Hur, going in and out of so many shops you’ll think they’ve been breeding in dark corners when you’re not looking. The five islands that make up Murano, of which you will probably only visit two, cover barely one square mile, and the Yellow Pages list 61 shops. I think there must be more.
Anyway, you will not have been racing. Unless it’s the first Sunday in July, in which you can come to Murano to watch other people race, and believe me, they’re going to be more tired in less time than you and your whole family after an entire day.
A glimpse of the leaders last year, heading from out in the lagoon into the Grand Canal of Murano and the home stretch.
The regata of Murano is really three regatas, each involving solo rowers, which calls not only for stamina but for skill. The races are for young men on pupparinos, women on pupparinos, and grown men on gondolas. It’s always hot, and there is always wind, and sometimes, like a few years ago, there can be sudden thunderstorms with pouring rain. But the race must go on.
Only about ten more minutes to go, and unless something extraordinary happens, at this point the positions aren't likely to change much. But they don't slack off, all the same.
The city of Venice organizes nine regatas a year, plus the Regata Storica. Each race is designed for a particular type of boat and number of rowers, and each is held in a different part of the lagoon, which means that the conditions and course present their own particular quirks. These changing venues also means that some are easier to watch from the shore than others, and the one at Murano is especially exciting not only because you can see both the start and the finish, but because there are good vantage-points along the fondamentas, and even a big cast-iron bridge from which to get a spectacular view of the finish.
The women on pupparinos are about 60 seconds from the finish line and it looks like the pink boat may still have a chance to overtake the white (2009).
Regatas (a Venetian word, by the way), have been an important feature of Venetian festivities since the Venetians crawled out of the primordial ooze; sometimes they were part of a religious celebration, or part of the myriad spectacles staged for the amusement of visiting potentates, but they were one-time events.
Luisella Schiavon -- from Murano, as it happens -- has a clear shot at first place at this point. She won last year, and this year, too. Being tall, as well as talented, makes a difference.
But in 1869, the regata at Murano was established as a regular annual event and not for any prince or pope but to entertain — yes — tourists. And whether or not tourists can look up for a few minutes from the heaps of glass necklaces and picture frames and flower vases, this race is arguably the most important occasion for a Venetian racer to show what he, or she, has really got. I can tell you that the man who wins the gondola race is universally regarded as having won something akin to Wimbledon, or maybe the Ironman Triathlon, or the Tour de France. Maybe all of them.
Here’s what it takes to win: Strength, stamina, skill, luck, and extreme and ruthless cunning. It also helps if you’re tall. It’s a physics thing; short rowers have a hard time keeping up with taller ones, though sometimes a short person has pulled it off, especially if he or she (I’m thinking of a she) is lavishly gifted with the aforementioned luck and cunning. Or just cunning.
My two most vivid memories of this race are from one of the earliest ones I ever attended, and the one from last Sunday. Both, oddly, involve a certain racer named Roberto Busetto.
Roberto Busetto last Sunday, crossing the finish line in third place just ahead of the yellow gondola. Victory is sweet, at least until you black out.
Mr. Busetto is strong — he looks like Mr. Clean, and he has biceps that make you think of whole prosciuttos. He is also experienced, and very determined (I’m not sure that he’s made it up to “ruthless”), but if anything ever upsets him during the race — even if it may not have prevented him from finishing really well — he can be counted on to show up for his prize yelling about it. In fact, there will always be something that’s wrong, and he goes all Raging Bull at the judges, at some fellow racer, at some onlooker, at anyone or anything that might have created even the tinest problem for him. Or who looks like they don’t care. It’s never easy to understand, in the midst of his tirade, what actually went wrong. But you know he’s mad.
Okay, Mr. Clean, let's just check those vital signs again.
The first time I saw Busetto at full throttle, he had barely crossed the finish line when he started ranting. It had something to do with what he claimed was some sneaky, illegal thing that another racer, Franco Dei Rossi, had inflicted on him, thereby preventing him from finishing better.
The confusion of boats immediately following the race doesn't usually include the ambulance. Last year it was just the usual suspects.
But it wasn’t his tantrum that stunned me, though I didn’t know at that point that tantrums are his normal means of expression, the way some people can’t help starting every sentence with “Well” or “You know.” It was the fact that under this deluge of outrage, Dei Rossi was sobbing as he mounted the judges’ stand to be awarded his prize. A grown man, one of the greatest (in my view) racers of his generation, son of one of the greatest racers in history, was standing there weeping uncontrollably. It was so astonishing and distressing that I know I didn’t imagine it, and I’m not exaggerating, either. I’m glad I didn’t have a camera with me, I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at the pictures. It really left a mark on me.
So we come to last Sunday. It’s Busetto again. He has been racing for at least 20 years, maybe more, but he had only a very brief peak, and that was quite some while ago. In fact, I’d have to stop and do some research to determine when was the last time he won a pennant. I think the Beatles may still have been together. (Just kidding; it was in 2000.)
But this year, he finished third. Which means he won the green pennant, which means that after a ten-year drought he had managed to pull himself back into the ranks of the demi-gods. Pennants are awarded to the first four finishers, and they really matter to the racers, almost as much as the cash prize.
This is what normal collapsing looks like -- here, Sebastiano Della Toffola has just finished his first race with the big guys. Franco Dei Rossi, a certified, gold-plated Big Guy, looks on with something that looks like comprehension.
Finishing third is pretty great, but about two seconds after crossing the finish line, he collapsed. First he sort of let himself fall down backwards on the stern of the boat, which isn’t so strange except that it’s usually the younger men who want to show how completely wrung out they are. It’s like when they throw their oar in the water (rage, joy, some other intense emotion — looks very dramatic, till you realize how dumb it is).
An excellent example of what incredible-victory collapsing looks like. Last year, like this year, first place went to Igor Vignotto. On the orange gondola both times. You may laugh, but this is how superstitions are born.
But then my friend Anzhelika said, “He’s too white.” Then I noticed that his boat had drifted slaunchwise across the canal, blocking the arrival of the last gondolas. Then there was some commotion, then the sound of the water ambulance arriving at full speed.
Much pouring of cool water on his head, much checking of his blood pressure. He tore himself away long enough to come pick up his pennant, annoyed (of course), though not yelling, because everybody was fussing over him. He likes attention, but nobody with arms like prosciuttos wants it to be because he fell apart.
But some things in life are bigger than prosciuttos, and rowing under the searing sun for 40 minutes at full blast if you’re not in astronaut-type physical condition is asking for it. “It” being an ambulance and a blood-pressure cuff, and lots of people suddenly looking at you like you’re some kind of invalid.
You know it’s serious when Roberto Busetto isn’t yelling.
Franco Dei Rossi (2009) in a more typical post-race moment: Smiling because he's won another pennant. In this case, a blue one for fourth place. Not at all bad in a field of nine, for a man who's drifting up on 60 years old.
This year's first and second-place finishers. Igor Vignotto on the left (red pennant) and Rudi Vignotto (white pennant). They were adversaries, but only sort of; not only are they cousins, but they have rowed together their entire lives.
The fourth-place pennant, clutched by a sweat-soaked Ivo Redolfi Tezzat. This is an especially nice design, with the rooster, the emblem of Murano, in the upper corner. If you've won this, though, you really don't care if it's a rooster or a wall-eyed vireo.
Then we all followed the scent of the scorching sausage and ribs to the local festa. This little girl out with her grandmother has the most astonishing pre-Raphaelite face. I just can't stand the thought of her growing up and walking around with a cell phone and tattoos and mutilated hair. Must be getting old.
Interested in the races? The ribs? The music? The thunderstorm about to shatter the sky into a billion sharp wet pieces? Not really. Here is an excellent demonstration of what these parties are for. The food and music are just ruses.
