As you know, just going outside and walking around here — as everywhere, probably — provides all sorts of opportunities to observe the strangeness of people and life.
Let’s take tourists. Yes, they’re back — not millions of them, but a choice assortment. The number is increasing as we approach the launch of the Venice Film Festival next Wednesday, September 2, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the glimpses I’ve had. This is not a screed about tourists, they’re just one part of the summer scenery.
Fun fact (that caption was already too long): I could only say “sprawl,” but there’s a great word in Venetian for what’s he’s doing: stravacar (strah-vah-KAR). It’s based on “vacca,” the Italian word for cow. Hence, lolling about like a cow in the field.
I know nothing about this situation; the clip was forwarded to me by a friend via WhatsApp. My friend says it’s not a joke, and frankly, it’s hard to tell anymore when people are serious and when they’re just fooling around (though the fact that her entire outfit is some shade of pink also deserves notice). It looks like the marinaio who is supervising the boarding is taking her seriously. Using both of his hands to indicate “The boat’s already full” means it’s seriously already full. Too bad we couldn’t have put her on the vaporetto with Hermann and his backpack. I could have taken bets, like at a cockfight.
While some people have been working themselves up about the mobs of tourists in Venice (tourists in Venice? I’m shocked! Shocked!) our little lobe of the city has quietly tiptoed away, its denizens going to the mountains, Hammerfest, Saskatoon, the Tuvan Grasslands, anywhere but here where they can enjoy a little peace and quiet and — I hope — not to have become tourists in turn, if you take my meaning.
Between Ferragosto (August 15, as you know) and the onslaught of the Film Festival is this small sliver of time which is like a deep, peaceful breath. Even though the heat continues to enervate us, night and day —
— there is an atmosphere of restfulness along via Garibaldi which is almost like vacation in itself. And that is because many of the shops are closed. Temporary inconvenience to the few remaining inhabitants is more than mitigated by the tranquillity, and besides, it’s not as if ALL the fruit-and-vegetable sellers are gone, and yes, there is one butcher left who can slice you some pork chops. In any case, we now have the mastodontic Coop supermarket to take up the slack (open every day from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM, if you can believe it), manned by staff which does not always look happy to be helping, which I can understand even though they do have air-conditioning.
Let me take you on a brief perambulation of via Garibaldi, rejoicing in the “closed for vacation” (ferie) signs on the windows and doors. It’s as if the supposedly avaricious and insatiable merchants had all suddenly said, “Nah, we don’t care. We should stay here sweltering just on the chance that SOMEBODY might wander in, even by mistake?” Because most of their regular customers are also far away. I’m only here because I have to be, but I get to enjoy this moment and they don’t.
I regret the lapse in communication. The fundamental problem has been a dysfunctional computer which is still awaiting treatment. That’s supposed to happen tomorrow. So there will be no pictures on this post. I’m sorry.
But the morning is too beautiful to pass without recognition. I don’t mean “beautiful” as in meteorologically, though there is that, too. Light clouds, cooler air, gentler sunshine.
What’s beautiful right now is the entire atmosphere. If it were possible for a hapless seagull to pass through an airplane’s turbine and come out in one piece, that would be me. Apart from having guests coming and going, we have also been deeply involved in the Regata Storica and, yesterday, the Riveria Fiorita. (We still have to put the boat away.)
But there has been more, even if we weren’t directly involved: The Biennale of Architecture (August 29-November 25), and the Venice Film Festival (August 28-September 8) — two world-class events opening on essentially the same day — have created their own special wildness. Our neighborhood — that is, the world — is a major center of activity at least for the former event, what with exhibitions strewn all over the lot. The film festival is on the Lido, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get the collateral damage of troop-transport vaporettos and other issues resulting from attempting to fit 1X of people into 1Y of space.
To change metaphors, the sensation I had this morning, walking outside, was of having spent a month in a large pot of water which had been brought to a rolling boil, and which now had been put on the windowsill to cool down.
People have just gone away. Even the kids are nowhere to be seen, because they’re all getting ready for school to start on Wednesday (if children can ever be said to be ready). There is a pale, hushed, tranquil air enlivened only by soft voices saying indistinguishable, agreeable things. This is quite a change from the shouting and crying and assorted other high-volume communications that have been shredding the air at all hours and far into the night.
The procession of French tourists who rent the apartment up one floor across the street has ended. No more listening to their open-window 3:00 PM multi-course lunches, or dodging the dripping from their laundry stretched on the line from their wall to ours. No more (or hardly any more) heavy grumbling from the wheels of overloaded suitcases being dragged to, or from, hidden lodgings somewhere beyond us in the middle of the night (one group arrived at 1:00 AM, another headed to the airport at 3:30 AM. I know because I checked the clock). It’s not just the suitcases, it’s the discussions, though you might think they’d have settled the details before locking the door.
Now it’s just us here.
I don’t want to give the impression that I desire the silence of a Carthusian monastery to reign in Castello. I’m only saying that one savors this particular silence with particular appreciation inspired by having experienced its opposite for a just a little too long.
I’m sorry you can’t all be here to savor this delicate loveliness, disregarding the fact that having you all here would mean it wouldn’t be so delicate anymore, no offense. But in any case, nothing, as you know, lasts forever. And school, as I mentioned, will be starting in 48 hours. Tourists make noise? I challenge them to overcome the clamor of squadrons of children meeting their friends on the street at 7:30 in the morning. The winners will be decided by the Olympic taekwondo judges.
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?
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.
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. ”
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.