Saturday, August 28, 2021

New Tech, Old Lagoon, or, Solar Panel, Sunlight

This is perhaps one of the least photogenic views of the cemetery island's church of San Michele that is possible, and yet... (taken 13 October 2018)

Friday, August 20, 2021

Waterside Music (Though Not in Venice)


We're still so tangled up in getting settled here in Toronto, that I've still had no time to think of Venice, nor even access photos from earlier in the summer in Venice that I might like to post, nor to really reply to comments. 

But I wanted to share this short clip from Monday evening captured with my wife's smart phone in the park on Kew Beach, on the shore of Lake Ontario.

Earlier in the evening were were walking down a busy street and were surprised to see a guy pedaling a bicycle in the bike lane and pulling a cart behind him with what looked to be a little baby grand piano built into it (what's the proper term for a grand-piano-shaped instrument smaller than a baby grand? A new-born grand? A preemie grand?).

We remarked upon it, but it flashed past without us having much time to make much sense of what we saw, nor even begin to imagine where he might be going.

Then about an hour later we encountered the same guy and same piano, as you can see and hear above.  Though the audio, alas, includes as much of a neighboring conversation on a nearby park bench as it does music.

We were only taking a very brief break from errands and so I didn't go close enough to see if he was playing for tips or just for the pleasure of it (though from a distance it appeared to be the latter).   

Saturday, August 7, 2021

180 Degrees of the Grand Canal As Mirror--and An Update

The kind of calm on the Grand Canal that one hopes never to see again: 5 April 2020 during the first lockdown

No, I've not stopped doing this blog, I just haven't had any time to give to it during our long, complicated, and on-going move from Venice to Toronto. 

By this time we'd hoped/planned to be getting settled into a new home, but the apartment in Toronto we rented months ago from a distance turned out, in person, to be no place we could really live. So we are still in a transitional stage, still living mostly out of our suitcases, and once again looking for another home. 

In the meantime, both Toronto and Venice--and any place with any sense (which, alas, leaves out a dismayingly large percentage of my native land)--are doing what they can to fend off or contain a potential fourth wave of Covid infections. 

The surface of Grand Canal so calm as to be mirror-like (as seen in the panorama above) is a rare and wonderful sight, but one that I hope no one will be seeing again because of a pandemic.