A New Marco Polo Bookshop for Kids Launches This Friday

The pleasant sight of a room full of readers in the yet-unfinished space of Marco Polo Kids during last Saturday's Open Day

In the nearly 6 years I've been writing this blog I feel lucky to have never had to worry about advertising or conflicts of interests. I've never taken ads or "monetized" the blog, nor had lodgings or guided tours or anything else to sell. There's nothing wrong with doing any of these things--and maybe I should have been doing some of them for all I know. But it seemed pleasant to do something in which financial considerations were not woven into the fabric of the project, as they are, unavoidably, in so many things we do these days.

If I recommended a store, for example, it was because I'd had good experiences in it or found its merchandise especially interesting before I ever thought of doing a blog post about it or came to know its proprietor.  

This was the case with Libreria Marco Polo, the local bookstore about which I find (after using the "Search This Blog" widget in the right hand margin of this page) that I've done five different posts: the first of them on 4 December 2011, the most recent on 27 September 2015.

The last of these posts was about the grand opening of a second Libreria Marco Polo in Campo Santa Margherita, a beautiful bookstore which seems to be thriving in its new location.

A busy bookmark workshop outside Marco Polo Kids during last Saturday's Open House

Today's post is about the transformation and grand reopening of the original Libreria Marco Polo-- located just behind Mauro Codussi's lovely little ruddy church of San Giovanni Grisostomo, not far from the Rialto--as a children's bookstore: Libreria Marco Polo Kids.

Considering how much I've enjoyed both Marco Polo bookstores over the years, and considering how important they've been as a site of community activity and spirit, I'd almost certainly be posting about this news in any case. But this time it's a little different, as my wife Jen is--along with Elisabetta Favaretti, the long-time co-proprietor of the Marco Polo bookstores, and four other women--one of the founding booksellers involved in the creation of this new store.

A reading during last Saturday's Open House

Marco Polo Kids will stock books for children and adolescents and, along with its Italian books, include a selection of titles in English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic. But in addition to its books, the store will also offer a range of activities for kids: readings, workshops, courses and special events. It aims to be a cultural center for both local kids and their parents and for visitors alike.

A young visitor helps decorate the bookshop entrance

Last Saturday's "Open Day" at Marco Polo Kids was the first chance for people to get a look at the
changes taking place in the new store and, in some cases (as at right), to quite literally leave their imprint on the space. With the store still in an unfinished state, its bookshelves not yet filled, it was a chance for people to meet the booksellers, sample some of the activities the bookstore will offer (last Saturday: a bookmark-making workshop outside, readings indoors), enjoy snacks and beverages, and offer their input on the kind of cultural and educational place they'd like it to be. There was nothing yet for sale--in spite of how many people saw things they wanted to buy. It was all about the free exchange of ideas and building a sense of community.

The official Inauguration of the store will take place this Friday, 28 October, beginning at 5 pm, with home-made cakes and beverages for kids. At 6 pm live music will be added to the mix of activities, and apertifs will be available for adults. And this Friday, in contrast to last Saturday's Open Day, the store will officially be open for business.

As important as the idea of local community building is to the bookshop is the idea that visitors to the city and their children will also be welcome to participate in a space where real Venetian life--not simulated or costumed or commodified versions of it--is taking place. A Venice of the present and the future, not just of the past; a present and future that visitors themselves can participate in.

If you're in town this Friday, stop in for the Inauguration, or, at any time thereafter, to see what you think. 

Two kids read while another draws on the bookshop's chalkboard wall

What a Racket!: Festa di San Martino, Today

Dolcetto o Scherzetto! (Treat or Trick!)

Halloween is not an Italian holiday but it has been adopted to a limited extent in Venice and, because it involves a lot of elements that Italians like--ie, costumes, sweets, and kids on the loose--I suppose throughout most of the country. But here, trick-or-treaters don't go from house to house or apartment to apartment, but from shop to shop, as the kids will soon do for the upcoming Festa di San Martino on November 10.

Of course not everyone here is happy about Halloween's growing prominence. The Church of San Martino near the Arsenale posted a very stern notice--two actually, side by side--on the bulletin board in front of their door stating that they would have nothing at all to do with the holiday and its costumes and jack-o-lanterns and candy and other impious nonsense. On the evening of October 31 they would be saying a rosary for the souls of all the departed.

And so they were, murmuring their way from bead to bead, when our sugared-up son and his school friend, fully-costumed and toting maniacally-grinning pumpkin bags filled with their hauls of candy, decided that the best place to stop and goof off and break into ear-splitting banshee screams was directly in front of the open church door.

It's almost as if they took the church notices as a challenge. But as neither of them is yet four years old, and neither can read, it must have just been instinctive primal hooliganism.

Of course we told them to keep it down and hurried them along, but I did so with a very rare sense that at least for a couple of minutes all was right in the world. The Church had done its part and announced what it considered appropriate activity on such a significant night and the pre-schoolers had done theirs and spontaneously flouted that same activity con gusto.

For piety needs impiety to feel itself to the fullest, just as impiety needs piety to really have any fun.

Now in this sense the ostensibly pious have it better these days than ever: they need only turn the computer or television or radio to buck themselves up. Their ancestors might have had to leave their house, or at least look out the window.

While the poor would-be impious of the Western world...! Their case is almost hopeless. When everything and everyone is relentlessly telling you to indulge your appetites and cravings it becomes hard to even recognize those appetites as your own, or as yourself. The only truly transgressive act is to become an ascetic.

But last night at San Martino with the barbarians--or pagans--running wild at the door of the church it all balanced out perfectly, as it so rarely does anymore. I hope at least one cranky churchgoer, or maybe the priest, caught sight of the costumed racket at the door and benefitted from its contrast to his or her own focus. And though neither my unlettered son nor his friend could appreciate the dynamic, I could and did. I considered it my very own Halloween treat.

Belly Up to the Sandbar: "Locals Only" off Sant' Erasmo

Domestic outposts anchored on either side of the sandbar

There are times when one hears or reads the statement that "There are no Venetians in Venice" so often that one is almost tempted to believe it. This is something quite different from the statement that the population of Venice has been declining for decades. The latter is a verifiable demographic fact; the former is a favorite among a certain kind of English speaker (or writer) who is troubled by what he or she fears is the lack of "authenticity" to be found in the city, and who usually ends up implying (or stating outright) that the Venetians one sees in shops or in calli or campi are not quite real people at all. That they have no actual life apart from the roles they perform for the tourists.

I suppose one reason such a view is so alluring is that it seems so "knowing", so superior to all the flimflam that takes in lesser mortals. 

But don't believe it.

There may not be too many Venetians left, but I've been struck by how strongly they maintain traditions very particular to the city--beyond the big spectacles that draw crowds of tourists or even the more intimate feste far away from the centro storico.

For one thing, as a Venetian recently told me, "there are two different Venices: one you experience on foot and with the vaporetti, another that requires your own boat."

As much as my wife and son wish otherwise, we do not have our own little boat. But on a recent Sunday we were invited by Venetian friends to spend a very hot late afternoon with them off--not at or on--the island of Sant' Erasmo.

Now a vaporetto does actually run to Sant' Erasmo, which seems to have its own beach scene and at least one restaurant--though I can't tell you anything about them. We never got closer than several hundred yards from the island. We like, dozens of other boats dropped anchor--to a depth of only about 3 feet--on either side of a very long and narrow sandbar some way off the island's shore and extending in the direction of the MOSE in the Lido inlet. Our friend said that when the tide is very low the sandbar is completely exposed from Sant' Erasmo to the inlet.

I feel safe in asserting (as I'm actually only repeating what I was assured) that the sandbar scene really is "locals only." I've certainly never seen anything like it. It's a little like an old American drive-in burger place, where you park in one of a long line of spaces, order your food and eat it in your car. Except in this case, you're in a boat, there are no designated places or curbside service, and the "curb" itself will, if you stay long enough, disappear beneath the lagoon.

As beaches go--well, I'm a native northern Californian, so it doesn't seem fair to make comparisons. The sand is muddy, the water is shallow and too warm for my taste, and, at least on one side of the sandbar, thick with mucky weeds.

As the tide rises real estate gets scarce

But, then, if one is looking for a sublime Nature experience Venice is not really the place to come. At the sandbar, as everywhere else in the city, it's all about human society.

Venetians of every age hang out at the sandbar: entire families (including grandparents), groups of teens, couples of all ages. One early-arriving family, as you can see in the photo above, staked a claim to a large enough plot of sand for a table, chair & umbrella. Groups of adults meet on the sandbar as if it were Via Garibaldi to catch up. Small kids play on the sandbar and as the tide rises struggle, like their Venetian forbears, to deal with the encroaching waves all around them.

But the vast majority of people spend most of their time at the sandbar in their own boat: eating, drinking, and (that favorite Venetian pursuit) sunbathing. Each boat becomes an outpost of the family's own home: a floating living room--small but persistent examples of the Venetian talent for domesticating the lagoon.  

Because it was so hot we went late in the day, for maybe 3 hours, but most people seem to spend much of the day there. One of our friends was concerned that she had seen a good-sized family she knew, including a grandmother who generally didn't fare well in the heat, setting off in their large open boat before noon to spend the entire day at the sandbar.

We didn't see this family at the sandbar but did happen to pass them in the Canale di San Pietro in Castello in their large beautiful old wooden boat as they and we made our way back home around 7:30 pm. Nonna looked absolutely fine, as did all the rest of the family--except for one member stretched out flat on his or her stomach and fast asleep near the boat's prow. A day at the sandbar can be exhausting.

Kids play in the muddy sand as a sunbather behind them catches the last rays

Festa di San Pietro di Castello: Spettacolo dei Burattini

My son Sandro and I were introduced to traditional Italian puppet theatre last weekend at the Festa di San Pietro di Castello. I can't remember the last live performance of any kind I went to that was so entertaining, perhaps not least of all because the audience was so deeply engaged in it. Kids not only responded enthusiastically to any questions addressed to them by the puppets, but did their best to influence the action. I wish I'd had a video camera to record the way one little girl stood up and, with hands pressed together, pleaded with Brighella not to drink the bottle of wine that had just been dosed with magic sleeping powder by the evil magician. She could've been auditioning for the most heart-rending scenes from Open City or Aida.... Except, of course, she wasn't acting.

The play, Arlecchino, Brighella e i due maghi, was performed by Compagnia Teatrale L'Attimo.

I did not have a camera, but fortunately the local photographer Federico Roiter was there. The photos below were taken by him, and he was kind enough to let me post them here. A google search will turn up more of his excellent photos of events in Venice.

I'd only ever seen puppet shows of this type in old Italian or French movies and had always thought the kids' response was exaggerated for cinematic purposes. At San Pietro I found out it was not. 

                                                         photo credit: Federico Roiter

photo credit: Federico Roiter

photo credit: Federico Roiter

Photo credit: Federico Roiter

View from Le Giostre on Riva dei Sette Martiri

Giostre on the Riva

About 10 days before Christmas my three-year-old son got an early surprise present: trucks appeared on the Riva dei 7 Martiri to the west of Via Garibaldi. It's unusual to see any vehicle with wheels in Venice proper--even adult bicycles are prohibited--and these were big rigs! With trailers!

Now my son's interest in boats had been growing stronger--especially in those that carried cars or heavy machinery--but he was thrilled to be able to walk around these huge things again, his first loves (don't ask me why), parked atop planks to protect the stone walkway. The fact their trailers carried carnival rides was of little interest to him at that point. He didn't care what they carried as long as it was large and mechanical, and when almost all of the trucks disappeared one day leaving only the rides behind, the mini-bumper cars and little roller coaster seemed scant compensation for the loss. 

He has however come to appreciate the rides themselves or le giostre, which is also what the carnival as a whole is called. As the rides aren't especially close to San Marco they are frequented it seems almost exclusively by local kids. According to our neighbor who has lived here since his birth in 1941, le giostre have appeared every year for many years and will remain through Carnevale.

Below are some photos I took of le giostre from the vaporetto one recent evening.