Piazza San Marco | Venice: I am not making this up

Problems, Tourism in Venice, Uncategorized

O Audrey, where art thou?

August 21, 2014 12 Comments

I want everyone to stop for a moment and think of Audrey Hepburn. Yes, one of the most divine women ever to set foot on earth. Just writing her name is like inhaling a waft of moonflowers and heliotrope from the Isles of the Blest.

Now I want you to imagine her — just for a second, because this hurts — becoming old, neglected, and feeble. Not demented, just left to deteriorate at random. You know: The soup stain on the blouse, the dirty hair, the shuffly slippers instead of shoes, the drooping slip, the general all-purpose “Just don’t care anymore, can’t be bothered, nothing matters anyway. What pile of unopened bills on the kitchen floor? What half-eaten cans of tuna in the laundry basket? A mouse in the refrigerator? Is it alive?”

Now I want you to stop for a moment and think of Venice.

Now put the two pictures together. Not good. Not good at all.

I hinted in my last post at a certain laissez-faire atmosphere which has taken over what I still am determined to consider the Audrey Hepburn of cities. Over the years, signs of distressing degradation have been noticed, and even reported to the authorities — each sign existing in its own little capsule in the municipal consciousness, just as each sign of personal neglect can be passed over by benevolent or apathetic eyes. Each, of course, explained or excused because no ghe xe schei.

Then suddenly the total of them all reveals itself as appalling.

Welcome to the most beautiful city in the world. Enjoy your day. (Photo: Gazzettino). — Most beautiful city in the world, the pool at the community center, your cousin’s back yard — what’s the difference? (Photo: Gazzettino).

This revelation seems to have hit a lot of people lately, if the Gazzettino is anything to go by. And yes, great lamentations continue to rise from the Venetians concerning the tourists. But if tourists are the perpetrators, the municipal non-authorities are the enablers.

First, the tourists. When I use the word, I’m not referring to their quantity, which is distressing though not difficult to understand, but their quality, which utterly bewilders me.

Yes, of course there are millions of wonderful tourists here all the time. And I don’t want to get into an arm-wrestling match over percentages, or what constitutes “quality tourism,” or the God-given universal human right to come to Venice whenever you want.

But I have to say that I do not perceive a human right to come to Venice to DO whatever you want.

I still do not understand this. Do you just lie down in front of the church in your own town? Do the tourists imagine they're invisible, or do they imagine all the people around them are invisible? I must ask one someday. — I still do not understand this. Do you just lie down in front of the church in your own town? Do the tourists imagine they’re invisible, or do they imagine all the people around them are invisible? I must ask one someday.

Every few days some novel behavior appears which the star of the story inexplicably considers just fine, behavior which in their own city is probably regarded as offensive and possibly also illegal. Here the same behavior is also regarded as offensive, and is often illegal, and yet Venice, especially in the summer, and especially this summer, seems to attract a type of tourist who thinks that former Queen of the Seas is more fun than the locally-much-reviled Disneyland, although the comparison isn’t very useful considering that the Magic Kingdom is more strictly run than your average penitentiary. I mean that as a compliment.

Graffiti-sprayers and sun-bathers in the Piazza San Marco are no longer any special big deal, repulsive as they are. But this year has kicked it all up a notch. There was the Indian family which hunkered down in the Piazza San Marco to cook lunch on a camp stove. The man who decided to beat the heat by stripping down to his underwear, blithely wandering the streets in his Jockey shorts, or the European equivalent thereof.

A young couple, all tuckered out, who spread their towels on the street in a nice patch of shade and lay down to sleep. A man who decided to scale the Doge’s Palace, demonstrating a free-climbing skill that would have been admirable if he hadn’t been clinging to pieces of marble and statues hundreds of years old.

A tightrope walker who strung his cord between two lampposts along the Zattere. Carnal knowledge on the Scalzi bridge.

Do these people think that it’s Carnival here all year? Did they come all the way to Venice just to do this, or are they merely responding to some sudden impulse? Or do they intuit, by some imperceptible herd sensitivity, that Venice has become something like homeroom with no teacher, all the time?

Nature calls, and hears no echo in the reptilian-complex area of their brains where dwells some primitive memory of childhood instruction. (Corriere del Veneto)

Now comes the latest: Two male visitors in the Piazza San Marco whose bursting bladders brooked no delay. So they relieved themselves into a garbage can. As in many of the above-noted cases, it was broad daylight.

Much of this revolting behavior is something you’d expect — or not be surprised — to see on the Bowery, Skid Row, the Tenderloin, or whatever is the current term for the devastated section of your city.

But this is not them. Nor is it — despite the sun and water and boats — Panama City Beach on Spring Break.

This is a three-square-mile World Heritage Site. It’s more like the Louvre, with sun and water and boats.

So if whatever you’re about to do would be disgusting or ridiculous or rude in the Louvre — or even in Horse Hoof, Kansas, or especially in the much-maligned Disneyland — it would be likewise here.

Maybe Venice isn't a city. Maybe it's some hydroponic social-experiment where the Id is king. This romantic interlude is on the Scalzi bridge, by the railway station, a place I'd never have associated with overwhelming "From Here to Eternity"urges. (Corriere del Veneto) — Maybe Venice isn’t a city. Maybe it’s some hydroponic social experiment where the Id is king. This romantic interlude is on the Scalzi bridge, by the railway station, a place I’d never have associated with overwhelming “From Here to Eternity” urges. (Corriere del Veneto)

So much for the tourists.

Yet, as the always perceptive Davide Scalzotto noted in a brief essay in the Gazzettino, if the city has begun to look like a slum (I paraphrase), people will act as if it’s a slum. I believe there are important studies which support this statement. I won’t start a list here of the dreadful deterioration to be seen just about anywhere because it’s too depressing and also because it would make anybody want to scream.

Hardly any money has been spent over the past decade or more on maintenance, let alone improvement, and now we know why. It’s because the city fathers were pulling out the money for MOSE through virtual pneumatic tubes for their own purposes. And the state funds that come via the Special Law for Venice, which was instituted in 1973 specifically to finance measures to protect the city and its environment, are always too little, and too late.

Are there police? Of course, but not nearly enough. Are there laws? Of course, but probably too many. Considering that it’s impossible to enforce them all, they get enforced on an as-needed basis. No wonder the once Most Serene Republic has come to resemble Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

But let’s say somebody gets arrested — it does happen, though it isn’t always, or even usually, a tourist. Not long ago, we read about a crippled beggar well-known around the crowded streets of Venice and the beaches of Jesolo, just across the lagoon. Hold your sympathy. The story had to do with the fact that at quittin’ time the homeless, 47-year-old Romanian straightened up, brushed himself off, and briskly walked toward wherever he was going that night. When an angry citizen’s photograph was published — the lame walk? The blind see? Is it, in fact, a miracle? — the beggar was hauled in and charged with…. what? Offending public decency? Exploiting the public’s natural compassion? Faking it? What crime, exactly, had he committed?

None. The judge ruled that it is not against the law to beg, even if in the process you callously counterfeit a pitiful condition to earn lucrative sympathy. The mendicant paid an administrative fine, and the judge gave him his cane back.

So: There is no law that forbids a person to present himself as something he is not. I guess I already knew that. We had a mayor who presented himself as honest, but he was not. He was sentenced to four months of house arrest, but his crime wasn’t having pretended to be honest, but for having taken bribes. Ergo, why should somebody be punished for pretending to be a cripple, staggering along, doubled over, supported only by his trembling cane?

So we could all start faking it and still be fine. I know people who pretend to be intelligent, or caring, or lots of things they’re not. I could walk around pretending I was Elaine Stritch and I’d never be arrested, at least not until I started belting out “I’m Still Here” on the street.

Here is the YouTube link: http://youtu.be/CFzmVYNItjU

I started with Audrey and I’ve ended up with Elaine. My God: It’s the story of Venice in two names. Maybe “I’m Still Here” ought to be the new national anthem of Venice.

Except that it shouldn’t have to.

My next post, barring some unforeseen calamity, will take us back to happier topics. I’ve had more than I can take of all this tsuris.

Uncategorized

You want me to go where??

August 2, 2014 5 Comments

A view of the island of San Michele, with the sculpture placed just right. Going my way? (photo: georgy-frangulyan.ru)

One day in 2007 a bronze sculpture suddenly appeared in the water between the Fondamente Nove and the island of San Michele.

It represents two men standing in a boat, one of them pointing somewhere important.

If there had been an announcement about this innovation, I missed it, because I was compelled to try to figure out what it was all by myself.

I failed; in fact, I didn’t even come close. My main theory was that it was Saint Francis with one of his disciples. Logic! Because it is said — or even known — that in 1220 the “Poverello,” returning from the Fifth Crusade, stopped in the Lagoon and founded a hermitage on the little island now known as San Francesco del Deserto.

I was slightly troubled by the consideration that if the armless man in bronze were St. Francis, why wasn’t his companion pointing to the island he adopted — or toward Venice, at least? The statue is pointing more toward Murano, but that makes no sense, even if it is something from the Biennale, whose components are not supposed to make sense.

Then I thought it might be some representation of Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters”: “Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land, / “This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.” / In the afternoon they came unto a land / In which it seemed always afternoon.” Mounting wave: check. Plenty of those. It’s a start.

But now I know the truth, and it’s more troubling than ignorance. Perhaps you’ve noticed that truth can be that way.

This pair of metallic men floating in what appears to be a pistachio shell is a creation of a Russian artist, Georgy Frangulyan, and it is known as “Dante’s Barque.”

Excuse me?

In the early 1300’s, a Florentine pharmacist and poet named Dante Alighieri took a trip to Hell — not the Piazza San Marco at noon on a summer Sunday, but the other Hell — in the company of the ghost of Virgil, the famous Roman poet, who acted as guide and fixer. They also went to Purgatory and Paradise, and he wrote the trip up in “The Divine Comedy.”

I knew all that a long time ago, but I never imagined that the creation installed in the Venetian lagoon depicted an interlude in the allegorical travels of the Supreme Poet and the author of the Aeneid — specifically, their preparation to be rowed across the Acheron, a boiling river of damned souls. Many congratulations to all.

Now that I think of it, they could also just be two tourists crossing the Grand Canal on the gondola traghetto. The one that goes to Hell. — Now that I think of it, they could also just be two tourists crossing the Grand Canal on the gondola traghetto. That’s pretty much a boiling river by now. (Flickr)

There’s just one thing. Who came up with the idea that it would be cool to position a big statue showing two men heading for Hell pointing at the cemetery?

It was bad enough when the city’s funeral launches, which carry the coffins to the graveyard, had a big sticker on the stern bearing the name of the city’s garbage collection service. Thank God they finally stopped that.

But this isn’t much better. It isn’t any better. I realize we live in an era which has been deformed by irony and mockery, but that’s no excuse.

If I had to accompany my mother’s body to the cemetery, I would never want to know that those two characters are Dante and Virgil. You could tell me they’re George and Gracie; you could tell me they’re Crick and Watson; you could tell me they’re two of the Flying Karamazov Brothers.

But I’d appreciate your just leaving Dante out of it.

Venetian Events

Just being rosy

April 28, 2014 2 Comments

Find the long-stemmed rose in this picture -- I mean, piazza. (Foto: The Organizing Committee). — Find the long-stemmed rose in this picture — I mean, piazza. (Foto: The Organizing Committee).

And this is how it was intended to look when it was full of appropriately colored participants. (Foto: The Organizing Committee.)

April 25, as all the world knows, is a double holiday here. Not only is the day a national holiday (National Liberation Day), but it is the feast day of Marco, one of the four evangelists and the city’s (once republic’s) patron saint.

There are several ways to observe either or both of these memorable events, but this year another element was added: The Living Rose, or The Human Rose, or The Rose by Any Other Name, or however one wants to put it.

Alberto Toso Fei, a Venetian writer, and Elena Tagliapietra, an artist, came up with a new way to celebrate the traditional “bocolo,” or long-stemmed red rose, which is the customary Venetian homage from a gentleman to his ladylove, or wife, or girlfriend (perhaps both?), sister, aunt, or other deserving feminine personage in his life or family. But why give a rose when you can be one?

Some time earlier, the Gazzettino offered its readers the possibility of applying to participate as one of some 1,000 people who would form the design of the bocolo in the Piazza San Marco on April 25. This would be a sort of flash mob/performance art creation, to last only long enough to be photographed and filmed from the campanile of San Marco.

So we applied. And we were accepted, notified via e-mail, and asked to appear between 1:30 and 2:00 dressed in as much red garb as we could muster. We would embody part of Petal #12.

The day was hot and sunny, but there was a breeze, and although normally I wouldn’t have gone near the Piazza San Marco on a national holiday, the chaos was tolerable and the other rose-components all contributed to a surprisingly sprightly atmosphere.

Almost the best part of the entire event, which went off without so much as a drooping leaf, was to glimpse the by-now famous Tiziana Agostini, she of the mangled-nizioleti fame. She came to join in, dressed in red, which I think is somewhere beyond amazing, considering that the event had the additional purpose of raising funds to pay for the repair of the nizioleti in the area of the piazza. A lesser person might have avoided the piazza, saying “Nizioleti? What nizioleti?” But she was there, and I give her a fistful of gold stars.

I read that there were a number of other meanings, purposes, significances, and so on which had been layered onto the event. One headline referred to it as a “cry to the world from Venice,” to show that Venice is still a living city and not just a touristic snakepit. I merely pass that along.

Down at Piazza-level, though, the only thing that seemed to matter was enjoying a few minutes of doing something unusual that made you smile. Not that I’m against Deep Meaning, but for me, the smiling was reason enough to do it. Here’s the YouTube link: http://youtu.be/ZRL4Xh8VDkE

Dimensions: The Gazzettino says that the bloom covered some 850 square meters (9,149 square feet), and the stem and leaves some 150 meters (1,614 square feet). I cannot understand, sitting here, how that might be. It sounds like the size of an average Adirondack Great Camp, the kind that were built by the robber barons of the late 19th-century. But let that go. It didn’t last long enough for its size to really matter.

It was fun. Indubitably there are things that are more important, but God knows there’s a dangerous shortage of frivolity around here, so I’d be happy to leave it at that.

If we saved Venice in the meantime, that’s nice too.

Section 12 looked like this, in the early stages of reporting for duty. It was the upper outer right-hand petal, as you look down at the bocolo from the campanile.

Each section was easily identified by the number on official backs (and on balloons). Here we checked in with the individual managing the list of names. We signed a release form, and moved on to the face-painting stage. — Each section was easily identified by the number on official backs (and on balloons). Here participants checked in with the individual managing the list of names, signed a release form, and moved on to the face-painting stage.

The face-painter also painted on arms and foreheads, but many went with the simple stencil-on-cheek.

Lino, post-painting. He is still holding the container of gummy watercolor-based red ink. Yes, that’s a toothpick in his mouth. It wouldn’t be him without his toothpick.

Your correspondent. I could have had roses all over me, but I like the subtle approach.

Red people were everywhere, but that's only because I didn't think to roam all the way down to the green section. — Red people were everywhere, but that’s only because I didn’t think to roam all the way down to the green section.

Many ladies were already armed with their bocolo.

The definition of "red" ran a generous gamut. — The definition of “red” ran a generous gamut.

One dauntless lad brought out his red terrycloth bathrobe.

This gentleman wasn't part of the rose -- these two bocolos (bocoli?) were clearly destined for important ladies, but I missed my chance to see them arrive. He was extremely patient, so I hope all went as planned. — This gentleman wasn’t part of the event — he had bigger things on his mind. The two bocolos (bocoli?) in his hand were clearly destined for important ladies, who seemed to be running slightly late. I missed my chance to see them arrive. He was extremely patient, so I hope all went as planned.

The Piazza is usually besieged with illegal rose-sellers, but on April 25 the only visible vendors were from the Red Cross. — The Piazza is usually besieged with illegal rose-sellers, but on April 25 the only visible vendors were for the Red Cross.

Lino's son, Marco, is the only gondolier I noticed who installed a bocolo in the place of honor on his gondola. — Lino’s son, Marco, is the only gondolier I noticed who installed a bocolo in the place of honor on his gondola.

Venetian Events, Venetian Food

Signs of approaching Carnival

February 15, 2014 3 Comments

Carnival has become one of my least favorite things about Venice, because each year its negative aspects increasingly outweigh the positive.

I am referring to the Mega-Commercial-Highly-Promoted Carnival whose vortex is the Piazza San Marco. But Carnival in its small, neighborhood version continues to charm me, mainly because it almost exclusively involves children (the smaller, the better) and their doting relatives. Random frolicking. Dressing up for no reason (by which I mean, not the reason of being photographed to, for, by, or with anyone, particularly tourists). Throwing fistfuls of confetti anywhere.

I don’t need to look at the calendar to know that Carnival has, as of today, officially begun. For the past few days the signs have been unmistakable.

Here are a few:

Even though this pastry shop/cafe produces wonderful Carnival sweets (galani and frittelle, in case you're wondering), they are overpriced. But I do like the way their sign is lettered, as if by newspaper bits cut out by someone composing an anonymous ransom note. — This pastry shop/cafe produces wonderful Carnival sweets (galani and frittelle, in case you’re wondering), even though they are overpriced. But I do like the way the words are composed, as if someone was more accustomed to composing anonymous ransom notes using cutout newspaper letters.

There have been explosions of confetti, increasing in quantity and range, for a few days now. The perpetrators have disappeared... — There have been indiscriminate explosions of confetti, increasing in quantity and range, for a few days now. The perpetrators are invisible.

Climbing the stairs to visit a friend two days ago, I discovered this mysterious harbinger of Carnival: The princess costume. Just add princess and throw confetti.