via Garibaldi | Venice: I am not making this up

Starting over

May 20, 2021 25 Comments

The triangular red notice-boards of the Biennale have returned to their ancestral homes in the neighborhood. Here’s an important one, front and center in via Garibaldi.

If there’s one term (among many) that has become fashionable around here this year it’s ripresa — recovery. (Not to be confused with “Recovery Plan,” which is exactly what Italians call the mega-component financial scheme that will somehow reassemble our dismembered economy. Does saying it in English give it some occult power? Wish I knew somebody I could ask.) I would have suggested “comeback,” like for some devastated boxer staggering back into the ring, but whatever you want to call it, everybody’s trying to get back to normal.

Over the past two weeks or so, there have been tiny but unmistakeable signs of life such as gradual lessening of curfew, gradual increase of shops and restaurants opening, etc. We still have to wear masks, though not everybody does, but the only thing missing from a cartoon version of life here right now is birds swooping around with little hearts floating upward.

So I’ve been enjoying the tiny signs — more every day — that belong to life as we used to know it. And many of them are connected to the imminent reopening of the Biennale on May 22 (canceled last year, along with its millions of euros from the municipal budget).

Being that our neighborhood is the epicenter of Biennale activity, of course I’d be seeing things such as enormous crates on barges with cranes being unloaded in the exhibition zone, unknown people wearing unusual clothes just standing on bridges looking around, a person here or there with lots of video or camera equipment, or the ticket booth for the vaporettos about to start selling tickets again, ever more individuals dressed in black with a lanyard and plastic-sleeved document around his/her neck. Press, I presume. More water taxis. Gondolas with people in them. I saw a woman today walking around with a big paper map of the city. Boy, that takes me back.

Let’s also notice the soundtrack: The scrapey clatter of rolling suitcases outside the window, the constant low rumble of motors everywhere. All you need is a barge with three cement mixers aboard trying to get somewhere against the tide and you’ll hear what I mean, but the noise from even smaller motors gets to be big, when there are enough of them. This is one part of the Sound of Venice I did NOT miss during quarantine. But here we are.

So generally speaking non-Venetians are returning to their Venice, and we are sliding back into ours, invisible again. We are all side by side, but we are not in the same city. I’ve commented elsewhere on these parallel tracks of life here that never meet, and so that’s a part of normal that is ineluctable.

Not only is the day after tomorrow Opening Day for the Biennale; the following Saturday will be the opening of the week-long Salone Nautico, or Boat Show, in the Arsenal. So bring on the people. I guess we’re ready.

I’ve really missed the yachts; I look them up online to see what they’re like inside. Monsters such as this are moored here, not for their voyagers (this babe costs 238,000 euros per week) but as the perfect venues for really important Opening Weekend parties. It — or perhaps Plan A? — will probably be back for the same reason at the end of August for the film festival.

This restaurant was created a year ago February in what was the only shoe store in via Garibaldi. As soon as lockdown hit, it closed up and has never opened since then until this week. Getting all spiffed up and ready for hungry art-lovers. I think basil plants instead of flowers is an outstanding idea. Also, they say green is the color of hope.

This Eastern European man is a staple at the entrance to the Giardini, playing the old favorites (including “My Way,” my oldest unfavorite, but also the tango music from “Scent of a Woman”) to a modest recorded accompaniment. He had disappeared for a year, because who was around to give him money? The fact that he’s back is a huge sign of better things on the way.

Shapeless whimsy is seeking fame and fortune — the Biennale’s back and boy, is Venice glad.

You start with a plinth of some sort and work up. No way of guessing what might be due to be put here, we’ll just have to wait and be surprised.

The meaning of this will be revealed in due course, though perhaps not by me. At the moment, it’s sitting there in its perfect shape, though its relevance to “How will we live together?” is not immediately evident.

I have no way of knowing whether bags of mulch are a work of art — it’s a little hard to know where to look in these areas or what to appreciate. So I’ll appreciate the mulch.

One entirely unexpected discovery, beyond the fields of the Biennale, was a collateral effect of the city’s revival: The opening of the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti to the public. I have only ever seen this church open for funerals, not infrequently because it was built in 1634 as part of the city hospital. (Hospitals and funerals are unfortunate companions.) We came upon this on a random afternoon wander, and seized the chance to see the church without mourners and memorial wreaths.

The church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti is inserted into the city hospital, and is usually shut up tight, as you see here. (Foto: Abxbay on Wikipedia).

Enter the church and this is what you discover is filling the space over the front door. Meet Alvise Mocenigo (known in Italian as Luigi Leonardo Mocenigo), Admiral of the Venetian navy in the 25-year War of Candia during 1648-51 and 1653-4.

You already have grasped that he was a Capitano da Mar because of his very particular hat, and his baton of command. He defeated the perennial Turkish foe at Paros and Naxos, but his qualities as a commander and as a man were evidently so remarkable that when he died even the Turks bedecked their ships with tokens of mourning for their worthy adversary.

The Battle of Naxos. That rearing horse must have been the sculptor’s absolutely favorite part of the whole thing. The obelisks bear medallions representing the four medals struck in Crete to commemorate Mocenigo’s victories (Civica, Rostrale, Murale, Graminea. This will not be on the final exam.)

So modern art brings tourists, which leads to opening some spaces to lovers of old art. I might like this new normal.

Events

Christmas refrain

December 31, 2020 17 Comments

This small Nativity scene is just inside the entrance of the church of San Francesco de Paola on via Garibaldi. There’s a bigger scene up near the high altar but I’m sticking with this one: It’s made almost entirely of recyclable materials, primarily bottle caps. It was created, according to the sign below, at the “Sant’ Alvise” day-care center in the neighborhood for persons with various disabilities. Whatever those disabilities may be, the group created a small masterpiece.

Technically, we are still well within the Twelve Days of Christmas, so Christmas images are more than appropriate — except that everyone has now fixed their beady eyes on the arrival of the New Year, so Santas and creches don’t seem quite so…necessary?

Fine, I will go with the marching calendar, but not without sharing a few more glimpses of Christmas hereabouts. To call it “low-key” would imply that there even was a key, but however modest the celebrations may have been, we treasured them even more.

Mary’s face is a bit mystifying — how did they make those eyes? Perhaps I will pursue this matter, perhaps not. Just add it to all the other mysteries of the year.

Are those angels made of fluorescent light bulbs? Outstanding!

The tobacco-toy-lottery ticket shop constructed Christmas in the window entirely from Lego bits. Not for me to say, but anyone who had time to do this must be escaping from something.

Calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa is the site of a silent battle between green-and-red windows. I have awarded the prize to the one on the left.

I’m just sorry you can’t admire how enchanting the twinkling little lights made the whole arrangement. These are just crying out to be turned into wedding bouquets. With the lights.

In the splendid entryway to the hospital (I’m fine) is this phenomenal Nativity scene constructed on a mascareta from the nearby Querini rowing club.

Matting made of rushes from the lagoon marshes. Reliable sources (via Giuseppe Tassini) maintain that the sestiere of Cannaregio took its name from *canne* (rushes) that once lined its canal banks. The calle de le Canne near San Giobbe is named for a long-ago storeroom of rushes; these had various uses, primarily to apply pitch to waterproof the hulls of wooden ships.

Some resourceful person(s) managed to obtain a not-worm-eaten bricola. Many of these pilings out in the lagoon are in desperate shape, but this is worthy of its exalted role here.

From the day after Christmas until Epiphany hundreds of panettoni will remain in the supermarkets, placed front and center at ever diminishing prices. The management obviously hopes it won’t be forced to throw them away at season’s end. Or leave them in a warehouse till next Christmas?

Undaunted sunset reaches via Garibaldi from however many miles away. I hope your 2021 will be just as bright.

Venetian-ness

Halloween, bite-size

October 31, 2020 8 Comments

At mid-afternoon, families and costumed kids began to roam around via Garibaldi, shaking down all the shop owners they could find. “Scherzetto dolcetto!” they cry (trick or treat), bouncing into shops and holding out bags or buckets or whatever container was available to receive some sort of placatory offering from the owner. I give a bonus point and a handful of bite-size Milky Ways to the kid who painted his soccer ball to resemble a pumpkin.

Over the past few years, Halloween has made inroads into the autumn-festival calendar here. I would say I’m at a loss to understand it, but then I realize that any excuse for a kid to wear a costume and score free candy is bound to be a success.

Venice had its own version of this sort of maneuver (without ghouls and skeletons) in the Saint Martin’s Day fun: Walking around the neighborhood banging on pots and pans and singing a doggerel song about St. Martin, annoying people and asking for handouts. So now the kids have managed to have two sugar-laden feste in the fall, and very close together. This shows either high intelligence or at the least, as a friend of mine used to put it, a form of low cunning.

The lady took so much time talking to the pharmacist that, hopeful as these marauders were, they finally gave up.

The only thing more Halloweeny than fog in the daytime is fog at night ( here on the rio di San Piero). You totally expect to hear or see something creepy.

On a brighter note, a morning row to our favorite farm on Sant’ Erasmo — “I Sapori di Sant’ Erasmo” — is a sort of orgy of autumnal goodness.

Checking out all the pomegranate trees lining the canal on Sant’ Erasmo. There were plenty, but mostly loaded with disastered fruit.

As you see. Somewhere there is a bird asking itself “What was I thinking?”

The best tree was at the farm. Looks like it’s practicing for Christmas.

Venetian-ness

Sandro: Here’s looking at you

September 27, 2020 9 Comments

A few days ago this simple notice was stuck on the glass of the front door of the Trattoria alla Rampa del Piave. That’s the exactly joint three steps from the fruit and vegetable boat and, more to the point, is by the balustrade where Sandro Nardo would sell his fish.

“Sandro has been gone for a year,” it says; “Today he’s standing drinks to all his friends.” (Giorgio Nardo is his brother, Cristina is Giorgio’s wife.) I asked Fabio at the bar of the trattoria how many friends had showed up to drink to Sandro’s memory: “One hundred? Two hundred?” An amiable shrug meant “At the very least.” A free drink? He was my best friend! I apologize for the reflections on the image, but this is the best I could do.

He was no amateur just out making a little extra money — I don’t know that he had any other source of income. In any case, he was always out, night and/or day, depending on whatever conditions were most favorable for a reasonable haul.

And then he’d weigh and bag whatever he’d caught, and in the late morning he would come and pile the bags on the balustrade. He wasn’t there every day; it seemed kind of random. Monday was often a good day to find him, as the fish shop is closed on Mondays. And the balustrade was a prime spot, being at a sort of crossroads as well as a point where the street narrows dramatically. It slows people down enough to give them time to glance, at least, at what he had caught.

We didn’t often buy from him — his prices were no bargain — but we rarely resisted when he had seppie because it’s not easy to find them fresh.

The very useful balustrade at the bottom of via Garibaldi makes a fine temporary sales counter. The plaque is attached to the iron fence where it meets the marble.

This extraordinary memorial appeared a few months after his demise, and is attached to the metal fence by the canal. “Here Nardo fisherman sold his fish and his history. Here we LAST Castellani will remember him with unaltered affection down to the very last one of us.” This likeness isn’t excessively accurate, but it does at least give him a lifelike aspect. My own few recollections of him at work focused on the toil involved in unsnagging the fish from the net. I speak from modest experience that a fish’s fins seem to have been created to get tangled up in filaments of nylon. As to “selling his history,” I have no idea what is meant by that, but considering how taciturn he was, anything verbal must have been really expensive.

We went to his funeral at the church of San Pietro di Castello. It’s a big place, but it was crammed; I’m sure the entire neighborhood must have been there. This was impressive, though not entirely surprising.

What truly surprised me was Nicola (probably not his real name, but the one he goes by). He’s a wiry, gristly bantamweight Romanian man who showed up in the neighborhood some years ago. At first he seemed to be just an anonymous mendicant who had installed himself between the fish shop and the vegetable boat. Tourists passing — there used to be lots, all aiming for the Biennale — would make their contributions.

Then gradually he wove himself into the neighborhood net, doing odd jobs, mopping boats, helping with the loading and unloading of the fruit/vegetable boat, and so on. By now everyone calls him by name, and he reciprocates.

But now we’re all at the funeral. The service is over, and the casket is being wheeled out to the canal where the hearse is waiting, rolling along a paved walkway lined with everybody from within the radius of a mile. Nicola is standing near us, all by himself, clutching his baseball cap, and he looks stricken. I have no idea what his interactions with Sandro ever were, but they must have been important because he is weeping. A lot of people are sad, but he seems to be the only person in tears.

Having nothing else, he wipes his eyes with his baseball cap.

You couldn’t make a memorial plaque big enough to match that.

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