Call It Stormy Wednesday, This Morning

Don't look now, but there's a small detail in the above which may recall Nicolas Roeg's famously spooky 1973 film about Venice, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland

The heading of this post is taken from the title of the old blues song "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)."

Originally written and performed by T-Bone Walker, it's been often on my mind--and playlist--this spring here in Venice as rainy day follows rainy day. Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Allman Brothers, and Eva Cassidy all performed bluesy covers of it, if you find yourself looking at similar weather patterns where you are.

On The Sunny Side of the Street: Calle dei Botteri, This Afternoon

No Laughing Matter, This Afternoon

Considering all the problems that city authorities have allowed (or maybe even encouraged) to spiral out of control in Venice--absurd day-tripper overcrowding, illegal Air BnB rentals, cruise ships, take-away fast food stands, and, most recently, chain candy shops--one might be excused for imagining that anything goes here. But apparently certain transgressions, such as that committed by the two would-be Chaplins above soliciting tourist euros in exchange for a photo op without a license, can still bring law enforcement out in full force.

Local Color: Rio di Santa Maria Formosa

This May has, thus far, seemed as mercurial as a typical Venetian March, teasing you with a soft bright sweet temperate morning or afternoon so lovely as to suggest you've passed out of the world of flux and changing weather and into Eden--only to cloud up and rain for two days straight. Usually Saturday and Sunday.

"Marzo pazzo," is what Venetians say ("crazy March"). This year we've also had maggio pazzo.

But even a string of gray days need not be uniformly so, as the freshly painted topa above attests.

Blue Monday, This Morning

Pigeons (And Part of a Winged Lion), This Afternoon

Ca' Da Mosto on the Grand Canal, long under renovation, is the site of the Venice Pavilion during the newly-opened edition of the 58th International Art Biennale and the drab gray sheeting that usually conceals the scaffolding of any facade under renovation has been replaced by a large pale hieroglyph of St Mark's lion (which also evokes the ferro at the front of a gondola) upon a fluorescent highlighter-pen yellow ground. 

10 Views of the Second Day of the 58th Venice Art Biennale's Vernissage, Today

Viewers contemplate a work by Martin Puryear in the United States Pavilion

Dancers in Canadian-born, London-based Zadie Xa's processional work Grandmother Mago perform in the Biennale Giardni (above and below)

A view of the Dutch Pavilion in which works by Iris Kensmil and Remy Jungerman are on display

The curator of the Dutch Pavilion, Anne-Claire Schmitz, answers questions about the work of the artist duo Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys on display there

An unidentified man makes a point to a woman wearing a rack of mirrored sunglasses on her head

Thinking Head, a work by Lara Favretto installed atop the roof of the Giardini's Central Pavilion, almost completely obscures its facade and the space before it

When the wind is coming from a certain direction, the cool fine mist produced by Favretto's work creates what looks and feels likes a thickly foggy winter day in Venice--regardless of what the actual weather of the day is

Prague-based artist Stanislav Kolíbal discusses his works on display in the Czech & Slovak Pavilion (above and below)