Senza Parole... America Elects Its Own 'Roid-Rage Version of Berlusconi

It's darkest before the dawn? Perhaps. But sometimes it's just pitch dark.

As an American of Italian descent, then as one with dual Italian citizenship, it was difficult to bear the election and re-elections of Silvio Berlusconi. To people around the world--and not least of all to people in the United States--this was often used as evidence that Italy was nothing more than a worn-out, corrupt old joke. Only a hopelessly rotten nation, such people said scornfully, a nation with neither any intelligence nor conscience, a hollow desperate nation in which puffed-up vanity had displaced any trace of dignity, could allow itself to be ruled by such a blatantly perfidious, debauched, ignorant, misogynistic, racist gas bag: a painful joke on the world stage, a disaster at home.

And now America--the self-professed "beacon" of the world--has outdone Italy....  

Senza parole.

This Evening's Sunset from Il Fondaco dei Tedeschi--Newly Reopened as a Duty Free Shopping Mall

Is it a good thing that one of Venice's most famous buildings is now a duty free shopping mall? More on this in a couple of days. For now, we can enjoy the view--taken, alas, through a window. 

Two New Exhibitions Reflect on Today's 50th Anniversary of Venice's Great Flood

The blue line on the Olivetti Showroom window indicates the height of the 1966 flood, and appears on each shop around Piazza San Marco that is participating in the exhibition Acqua in Piazza

In spite of the fact that acqua alta has become almost as synonymous with Venice as gondolas, a good many visitors to the city have mistaken ideas about the phenomenon. Understandably enough, the errors usually are inspired by what flooding means in their native lands, or by the frequently misleading images and accounts of high water disseminated by the international press.

Acqua alta, however, in spite of what the most extreme and eye-catching images may suggest, is not a "flash flood," but just part of the normal cycle of incoming and outgoing tides upon which the city's ancient sewage system depends for its effectiveness. I've always found the following saying a useful way of remembering this cycle, as it purports to tell you not only about the tides, but about the supposedly bipolar Venetian temperament: "Venetians are like their city's tides: up for six hours, down for six hours, up for six hours, down for six hours."

At least, this is almost always how acqua alta works. But the most famous and damaging modern instance of acqua alta, the one whose 50th anniversary is being commemorated around the city today, was a "perfect storm" phenomenon, whose various elements combined to overwhelm the usual tidal rhythm.

On 4 November 1966 the problem wasn't just that an extremely high tide rolled into the city. It was that extremely strong scirocco winds and barometric pressure kept it from going back out into the Adriatic (as it usually would have) before the next high tide came in. And if that wasn't bad enough, heavy rains on the mainland (where places like Florence and Siena were experiencing their own disastrous flooding) brought hugely swollen rivers into the lagoon from the west.

The result was a tide that measured 194 cm (6 feet 4 inches) above "mareographic zero", and that didn't go down for nearly 24 hours. As John Keahey describes it in his fine book Venice Against the Sea: 

As soon as the rising salt water hit 1.90 cm and assaulted the city's electrical transformers [which after a major flood in 1953 had been re-positioned at that height], the city went black. All power was down, and all telephone services--its equipment maintained at the same level on the ground floors of the buildings--went dead as well. Fuel tanks holding diesel, then a common fuel for heating (now replaced by natural gas), were breached, and the water became thick and oily, turning black and smelling of petroleum.

The city was without power for a full week.

Acqua alta two days after the show's opening

Food and water supplies were disrupted, people left homeless, businesses closed, and the damage to personal and public property, and to the city's architectural and artistic heritage was immense. Keahey cites older Venetians' memories of "carcasses--rats, cats, dogs--and of mattresses and other bedding and furniture floating in the [diesel-tainted] canals", along with "crates of vegetables and fruit, swept from the market near Rialto."

Even ten days after the great storm, he notes that one woman returned from Milan to her family home to find such debris still floating everywhere. 

Fortunately, in the long history of Venice, this kind of event has been rare. Keahey writes, "Historians estimate that this kind of high water--about six feet (nearly two meters) above relative sea level--has occurred only about five times in the human history of Venice."

Though that's not to say there isn't the possibility that with rising seal levels and changing weather patterns--not to mention human-made alterations in the form of the lagoon--they won't become more common. 

So this is what's being commemorated today, in various ways and various places around the city.

Two of the more interesting exhibitions inspired by this 50th anniversary--gathered together under the title L'Acqua E La Piazza and sponsored by Fondo Ambiente Italiano, Associazione Piazza San Marco, and We Are Here Venice--are taking place in and around Piazza San Marco, and run from their openings today through 8 January 2017.

Both Ritorno in Piazza and Acqua in Piazza take the anniversary of the acquagranda (great flood) as inspiration to reflect upon both the present significance of Piazza San Marco--now one of the lowest places in Venice and, hence, the first to be flooded--and its possible futures.

Photographer Anna Zemella with some of her images currently on display in the Olivetti Showroom

Ritorno in Piazza is an exhibition of black-and-white work by the Venetian photographer Anna Zemella hosted by the non-profit organization FAI in Carlo Scarpa's beautiful Olivetti Showroom beneath the northern arcade of Piazza San Marco. Half of the show, as might be expected given the occasion, is a meditation on water in the Piazza and the Piazza (as reflected) in that water.

The other half is focused upon those monumental human sculptures of the Piazza that are, paradoxically, both integral parts of the Piazza's appearance and yet rarely ever really seen. Each of Zemella's images don't so much bring each subject out of the shadows into the plain light of day, but, rather, captures in striking chiaroscuro the particular force of each subject--bound up within and struggling against their obscurity as Michelangelo's similarly muscled slaves writhe within their blocks of marble in Florence's Accademia. 

In each section, the photographer returns the viewer to an intimate relationship with Piazza San Marco: the kind of relationship usually lost because of the overwhelming presence of mass tourism there.

The exhibition Acqua in Piazza, on the other hand, literally takes us out of the Olivetti Showroom and around the Piazza itself. Created by the local non-profit group We Are Here Venice and the artist Eleonora Sovrani, it leads the viewer to 14 different nearby installation sites (12 of them within the Piazza itself, 2 more just outside it), each of them clearly marked by a blue line on the front window of participating businesses, indicating the water level reached on each facade on 4 November 1966 (and also mapped out on a postcard available in shops and hotels around Venice, in addition to the Olivetti Showroom).

Inside each different site viewers will find a framed montage of image and text offering different perspectives on and information about the complex relationship between the Piazza and the lagoon, ranging from the  most immediately practical issues--such as how businesses prepare for and deal with repeated flooding--to more far-flung, technical and scientific responses to this essential Venetian reality, such as the network of tidal gauges in the lagoon.

Though inspired by a day of commemoration, what I like about both of these projects is that in each of them history acts as a spur to think about the present situation of the Piazza and the lagoon and Venice, and about what might lie ahead--and what we might do about it. One project sends us back out in the Piazza with a new attention to detail. The other quite literally leads us into the businesses directly affected by this unique situation, makes us active participants in the project, learning more about the very space we're walking through from each successive site we visit.

Again, both exhibitions run through 8 January 2017.

And there's also a beautifully produced book for each work, published by lineadcqua press and available for purchase in the Olivetti Showroom.

Pagans at the Church Door: Halloween in Venice

Above is the 6th podcast I've done so far: this one, as you can see, is seasonal in nature.

Since this piece was written 5 years ago, Halloween has become even more popular in Venice: plastic jack o' lanterns and all the other images and costumes of the holiday typical in, say, America, can now be seen in store windows around Venice--competing with the large decorated horse-and-rider cookies synonymous with the local Festa of San Martino for window space.

Indeed, it occurs to me now that perhaps it's no coincidence that the Venetian church mentioned in the podcast as being among the most adamantly opposed to Halloween was that dedicated to San Martino himself--the saint whose feast day not only falls close to that of Halloween, but whose celebration among kids shares similar elements.

Both holidays involve costumes: in the case of the saint's feast day, a cape and sword and crown and, sometimes, a toy horse, all representing important elements of his story of charity. In the case of Halloween, well, anything goes....

Both involve sweets

And both involve groups of kids going from store to store in search of candy handouts.

At present both holidays co-exist, so it's easy to focus on the church's objection to the way in which Halloween secularizes the importance of the eve of All Saint's Day--removing the focus from remembering those who have died and from praying for their souls to a variety of cartoonish frights and, not incidentally, saleable thrills.

But it's not hard to imagine the church of San Martino having more than a little anxiety about a time when Halloween might began to overshadow and displace the feast of their patron saint, as well.

But all of this is beyond the concerns of the above podcast, which is concerned more generally with piety, impiety, and preschool pagans.

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

A New Doge Was Elected Saturday: Venetian Fantasy & Venetian Reality

The flags of San Marco were out on Saturday afternoon on the Riva degli Schiavoni: some being waved, some being worn as capes or kerchiefs; some with the familiar red ground, others with the largely forgotten and little-seen blue; some with bookish lions, others with belligerent sword-bearing beasts. It made for a colorful photo op, for myself and any number of tourists crowding the waterfront, though I don't think any of us knew what actually was going on.

The attention of the flag-wavers and flag-wearers was on the equestrian monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, commemorating the unification of Venice with Italy in 1866. I paused beside a young flag-caped man explaining in English to two curious tourists that he "feels Venetian, not Italian...." A minute later, a different man climbed over the wrought iron railing around the monument and covered the head of the large allegorical female figure of Italy at its western end with a flag of San Marco (see image below). Ah, yes, Venetian separatists, who pop up periodically to agitate for the rebirth of an independent Venetian Republic. I went on my way.

Little did I know that at just about the same time, according to local newspaper reports, seven separatists were busy electing a new doge in the Grand Council Chamber of the Palazzo Ducale. They'd bought tickets--a bit odd, as residents are admitted free (but perhaps they aren't residents?)--and though far fewer in number than the electors of old, and having apparently eschewed the famously byzantine electoral procedures of the old Republic, they managed to elect the new doge before being confront by local authorities, who asked to see their IDs.

At which point, according to Il Gazzettino, one of the self-styled electors presented an ID of the Venetian Republic he'd made himself...

And so, even as I type this, Venice--or at least, a Venice that exists in the minds of a few dozen separatists--is ruled over by its 121st doge, and the shackles of bondage to which Venice ostensibly submitted 150 years ago last Saturday have been broken.

Meanwhile, just as Salvatore Settis laments in his important book If Venice Dies, the cultural heritage of the Italian citizenry is put up for sale. In fact, the auctioning off of Lido's beautiful little Giovanni Nicelli Airport takes place today--with a starting bid of just 26,000 euro.

Nostalgic fantasy, in other words, even in Venice, can only take one so far; no make-believe doge is going to be of any help in the real issues confronting Venice.

Holographic City

I think it was John Berendt in his City of Falling Angels who referred to a claim he'd either heard or read that one could count out 50 paces (or 100?--I've forgotten the exact number) in any direction in Venice, stop, and look around oneself and be sure to find at least one beautiful sight or detail or juxtaposition in front of one's face. Then, setting off in any direction, one could count out another 50 paces, stop, and look up to find more beauty. And so on and so on, no matter how many times one set off, and no matter how arbitrary one's choice of direction, at the end of the counted paces there'd always be something extraordinary to see.

Berendt (or whoever wrote this account) actually put this to the test, and he found it to be true.

The two images of this post come from my own impromptu test of this idea. I took them as I was walking my son home from school, simply as a way of acquainting myself with a 40-year-old Soviet-made Helios lens I'd bought at an outdoor flea market in Croatia (it was attached to the old Zenit film camera it originally came on, and the whole thing cost about 25 euros--though I really only wanted the lens). I didn't really care what I shot as we walked along, yet no matter where we paused there was something to see and shoot (even if I didn't necessarily do a good job of capturing it).

It made me think that Venice is rather like a hologram, in that each piece of a broken hologram contains in itself the entirety of the original image as a whole--though seen from a slightly different perspective, or, if broken into very small pieces, with reduced clarity. So, in a similar way, it can seem that every bit of Venice--whether captured from a limited perspective, or in just a detail--represents the whole of Venice. The whole is there, somehow, to be seen in just a piece, it seems.

Though that's not to say that seeing only a small fraction of Venice is enough. No more than seeing "all" of it from the elevated vantage point of a passing cruise ship is enough. As easily and emphatically visual as the city may be, its three-dimensionality--unlike that of a hologram--depends on a certain amount of time and of experiences.