Today was a beautiful autumn day here in Bologna and so, a perfect day for a public debate in Piazza Maggiore. At about 2:00 I passed by a small cluster of perhaps ten people. One of them, the one speaking, was standing on a little plastic footstool. I didn’t stick around but went on a walk into a part of town I had neglected until now. When I circled back to Piazza Maggiore about an hour-and-a-half later, the crowd had grown to about a hundred. They had formed an ellipse in front of the Neptune fountain. This time I stuck around to get the gist of the argument. It had to do with whether Silvio Berlusconi should stay or go as Prime Minister in light of the corruption charges against him as well as accusations of sex with a minor. He has been quoted as saying, “I’m not a saint.” No kidding.
Anyway, the debate at the fountain concerned these issues. What was interesting to me was the way that whoever had the floor was custodian of the footstool. Whoever wished to hold forth would stand on it. Although only a foot off the ground, it was enough to give the speaker sufficient authority to say his or her piece. Two men who were among the crowd had some energetic exchanges but it never got personal . They were on either side of the space where the group had formed. When one was done making his point he would disembark from the stool, walk about fifteen feet across the space and hand it to the man whose views he had just been criticizing. Then the other fellow would mount the stool, talk about how totally wrong-headed the first guy was, get off the stool and walk back across the no-man’s –land to hand the stool back. This went on for quite some time. Their exchanges were very civil. I was fascinated by the ritualistic aspect of it--it was very Lord of the Flies (with a stool instead of a conch shell). I wondered if it would occur to either of them that it would be more efficient for them to stand side-by-side and just shorten the distance between them by about a million percent, but apprently it didn't. Anyway, the space between them and the ensuing Walk With Stool resulted in a dramatic pause between the airings of their two opposing views. Efficiency clearly isn’t everything.
My own efforts at communication in Italian class are starting to yield results but it has not been easy. As I mentioned in a previous post, the rooms are like echo chambers so I really have to work to hear what everyone is saying. The other day in class we saw a riveting video about three people waiting for a train. I won’t go into detail, but in about three minutes we learn things about the characters that are not apparent at first glance. The problem was I couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying. When I asked my teacher whether the old man in the film (avuncular and yet a pick-pocket) was speaking in a dialect she said, “No. He’s just not opening his mouth.” So, we have this film made specifically for foreigners learning Italian and they choose actors who don’t open their mouths. Very frustrating. Perhaps our next film will feature speakers without tongues. After our first viewing we watched it again with Italian subtitles. Maybe this would be helpful, I thought. Not exactly. Because the actors were speaking so fast the subtitles flashed on the screen so quickly I could barely read five words before one subtitle vanished and the next appeared. They functioned not so much as subtitles but more like a memory test in which cards with various unrelated words are placed in front of you for a milisecond as you try to remember as many as you can. That was really a low point I can tell you.
Happily I’m starting to hear the language better. I know this because I am getting more out of eavesdropping on the bus than I used to. Although I haven’t heard anything exciting it’s nice to know that all over the world people are looking for better apartments or agonizing over the perfect gift for their sisters-in-law.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Boris Among the Pigeons
For today's blog I am thrilled to introduce guest blogger Boris Impasta who happens to be my ten-year old son. I hope you will enjoy his unique take on Venice:
Pigeons are weird, funny, dumb birds. Their lives revolve around food. It doesn't matter if it's strawberries or prosciutto ham. They'll gang up on you or come on your head to get a scrap. They will chase each other for food or be chased by another that has food. If you look from 200 feet, one person feeds one pigeon (some dots are around). It's kind of like a magnet. You see a ton of little dots that come and make one whole big dot around the person who is the bull's eye.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
On the Morandi Trail
The most famous artist to come from Bologna is probably Giorgio Morandi, a painter who lived from 1890 until 1964. For most of his life he lived with his sister in an apartment in a quiet neighborhood, not far from the center of the city. He rarely travelled. The paintings for which he is best known are still lifes of very ordinary objects posed in very intentional ways. Like many art students, including Bill, I was introduced to Morandi’s work in college. As an eighteen-year old art student who was ready to Change People’s Perceptions with my ten-foot tall paintings, I was bored to tears looking at his unflashy, deceptively simple paintings. I still cannot honestly say I love them, but I do think having those thirty years or so acquaintanceship with his work has increased my appreciation of them.
In Bologna there are two places to see the work of Morandi: the Morandi Museum in Piazza Maggiore and the Museo Morandi, Casa, his former apartment which is located not far from Porta San Stefano, an easy bus ride from our apartment. Saturday we spent the day with Morandi, hitting both places. One of my friends, a phrase maker and fish babysitter extraordinaire called this our Moranday.
Morandi’s still lifes were based on a group of vases and bowls that he used and reused during is his entire career. Every once and awhile he would throw in a seashell. This is the stuff I wanted to see, the reason I wanted to visit his studio. Through all my years of seeing his paintings I felt like I could walk right up to the peach colored liqueur bottle with the rectangular sides and say, “I’ve been a fan of yours for years.”
So, we took the bus to Via Fondazza, a quiet, narrow street of shops with apartments above. Number 36 was just past Piazzetta Morandi and except for the “Morandi” label on the doorbell, it looked like all the others. We rang and were buzzed up. The austere stairway was like plenty of others, including our own. Upon opening the door, my perception changed entirely. The first thing I was aware of was a portentious voice decribing Morandi’s life and times. A slide show was projected on a wall. It featured grainy photographs of Morandi at work. This isn’t at all what I expected. Where was the studio ? The kitchen ? The bedroom ? Eventually I discovered these rooms behind floor-to-ceiling plexiglass screens. As if the plexiglass wasn’t obtrusive enough, they were decorated with odd graphic shapes, presumably to keep visitors or wayward crows from bumping into them. The odd thing about all this is that Morandi was not wealthy and had very few precious objects. A discreet velvet cordon would have served purposes of security every bit as well as these huge plexiglass walls. After all, Ca’Rezzenico in Venice, a palazzo transformed into a decorative art museum full of priceless and extremely breakable objects does very well with this method. Actually, most of the time you can walk right up to everything in the Palazzo. I really think the Morandi Casa designers needed a little perspective !
The whole time I was there I kept thinking about a possible episode of the Andy Griffith Show (which is one of my favorite TV shows ever). I could just imagine Andy winning the Best Sheriff in the Mount Pilot Region Award. He goes to collect the award in Raleigh (because he always goes there for the big stuff) and when he returns he is shocked to discover that Barney has turned his house into a museum complete with docents (Gomer and Otis, I’m picturing) and all the familiar rooms sealed off from visitors. (Did they have plexiglass in 1962 ?) I can practically hear Don Knott’s high-pitched voice as he proclaims, ”This is the very kitchen where Sheriff Taylor drinks his coffee every morning before his day of crime fightin.’ He takes his eggs sunny-side up.”
Of course our visit wouldn’t have been complete if somebody hadn’t admonished Boris to stop leaning on the plexiglass. I guess the designers of the space didn’t consider all the energy that would now and forever be expended guarding the plexiglass and removing finger, nose and forehead prints from it.
There is definitely something wrong with a museum that hits you between the eyes with its Museumocity. The brochure brings into perfect clarity everything that is wrong with the place, and I don’t think the problem is a faulty translation. Here is an excerpt:
The projects starts from the concept of a “place of narration and memory” [I am assuming this quote is from the architect Iosa Ghini.] and thanks to the use of contemporary materials and technological equipment, aims at giving value to the different functions of the environments; some of them (studio, store-room, anteroom) came back to life according to a planned operation of symbolic restitution of a lost place. Thanks to a museographic setting exploiting the narrative opportunities contained in the different tools used, the visitor can experience the typical Morandian atmosphere in the smallest detail.
Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve read Artforum Magazine so I’m a little rusty with the art talk. I think the “different tools used” might be the still life objects, the easel, the paints. You know-- all the Morandian stuff. I guess we can’t just say "studio" or "store-room" and leave it at that can we ? No sireee. We have to call them “environments.” It’s so much more museographic that way. Bill figured out that the “symbolic restitution” phrase was an admission that the apartment was a recreation. This makes sense when you consider that there was a thirty year period between Morandi’s death and the opening of the museum when it was probably empty or perhaps a batchelor pad with beaded curtains and a waterbed.
Despite all the hubub of the documentary film and the fact that the museum guards outnumbered the visitors, it really was great to see the place where the paintings were made. I just couldn’t stop looking at the still life objects all crowded into a closet. They were amazingly ugly; exactly the same kind of vases and knick-knacks you get for free from the florist or win at carnivals; the ones that show up years later at yard sales. What did Morandi see when he looked at his collection of objects ? Their ordinariness ? Or did he see something beautiful in them before he even picked up his paintbrush ?
After our visit to the house we went to the “regular” Morandi Museum in Piazza Maggiore, which is an art gallery with room after room of his paintings, spanning his entire career. Besides the still lifes we could see a selection of landscapes. There were perhaps a dozen of these scattered throughout the museum, at least half of which were views into the courtyard from his studio window, the view we had just seen earlier in the day. I had never been wild about the landscapes in the past, but now I could see that the colors absolutely were those of Bologna: the warm red clay of the buildings, the sage green of the foliage. I appreciated the clever design elements of the museum: walls, paintings and benches. Best of all, there was no voiceover and visitors could move freely through the space.
I thought I might come back from our Moranday all primed to paint still lifes or at least a Bolognese landscape or two, but that didn’t happen. Apparently I’m still waiting to come up against my next source of ideas. I just hope I won’t have to bump into a plexiglass wall in the process.
In Bologna there are two places to see the work of Morandi: the Morandi Museum in Piazza Maggiore and the Museo Morandi, Casa, his former apartment which is located not far from Porta San Stefano, an easy bus ride from our apartment. Saturday we spent the day with Morandi, hitting both places. One of my friends, a phrase maker and fish babysitter extraordinaire called this our Moranday.
Morandi’s still lifes were based on a group of vases and bowls that he used and reused during is his entire career. Every once and awhile he would throw in a seashell. This is the stuff I wanted to see, the reason I wanted to visit his studio. Through all my years of seeing his paintings I felt like I could walk right up to the peach colored liqueur bottle with the rectangular sides and say, “I’ve been a fan of yours for years.”
So, we took the bus to Via Fondazza, a quiet, narrow street of shops with apartments above. Number 36 was just past Piazzetta Morandi and except for the “Morandi” label on the doorbell, it looked like all the others. We rang and were buzzed up. The austere stairway was like plenty of others, including our own. Upon opening the door, my perception changed entirely. The first thing I was aware of was a portentious voice decribing Morandi’s life and times. A slide show was projected on a wall. It featured grainy photographs of Morandi at work. This isn’t at all what I expected. Where was the studio ? The kitchen ? The bedroom ? Eventually I discovered these rooms behind floor-to-ceiling plexiglass screens. As if the plexiglass wasn’t obtrusive enough, they were decorated with odd graphic shapes, presumably to keep visitors or wayward crows from bumping into them. The odd thing about all this is that Morandi was not wealthy and had very few precious objects. A discreet velvet cordon would have served purposes of security every bit as well as these huge plexiglass walls. After all, Ca’Rezzenico in Venice, a palazzo transformed into a decorative art museum full of priceless and extremely breakable objects does very well with this method. Actually, most of the time you can walk right up to everything in the Palazzo. I really think the Morandi Casa designers needed a little perspective !
The whole time I was there I kept thinking about a possible episode of the Andy Griffith Show (which is one of my favorite TV shows ever). I could just imagine Andy winning the Best Sheriff in the Mount Pilot Region Award. He goes to collect the award in Raleigh (because he always goes there for the big stuff) and when he returns he is shocked to discover that Barney has turned his house into a museum complete with docents (Gomer and Otis, I’m picturing) and all the familiar rooms sealed off from visitors. (Did they have plexiglass in 1962 ?) I can practically hear Don Knott’s high-pitched voice as he proclaims, ”This is the very kitchen where Sheriff Taylor drinks his coffee every morning before his day of crime fightin.’ He takes his eggs sunny-side up.”
Of course our visit wouldn’t have been complete if somebody hadn’t admonished Boris to stop leaning on the plexiglass. I guess the designers of the space didn’t consider all the energy that would now and forever be expended guarding the plexiglass and removing finger, nose and forehead prints from it.
There is definitely something wrong with a museum that hits you between the eyes with its Museumocity. The brochure brings into perfect clarity everything that is wrong with the place, and I don’t think the problem is a faulty translation. Here is an excerpt:
The projects starts from the concept of a “place of narration and memory” [I am assuming this quote is from the architect Iosa Ghini.] and thanks to the use of contemporary materials and technological equipment, aims at giving value to the different functions of the environments; some of them (studio, store-room, anteroom) came back to life according to a planned operation of symbolic restitution of a lost place. Thanks to a museographic setting exploiting the narrative opportunities contained in the different tools used, the visitor can experience the typical Morandian atmosphere in the smallest detail.
Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve read Artforum Magazine so I’m a little rusty with the art talk. I think the “different tools used” might be the still life objects, the easel, the paints. You know-- all the Morandian stuff. I guess we can’t just say "studio" or "store-room" and leave it at that can we ? No sireee. We have to call them “environments.” It’s so much more museographic that way. Bill figured out that the “symbolic restitution” phrase was an admission that the apartment was a recreation. This makes sense when you consider that there was a thirty year period between Morandi’s death and the opening of the museum when it was probably empty or perhaps a batchelor pad with beaded curtains and a waterbed.
Despite all the hubub of the documentary film and the fact that the museum guards outnumbered the visitors, it really was great to see the place where the paintings were made. I just couldn’t stop looking at the still life objects all crowded into a closet. They were amazingly ugly; exactly the same kind of vases and knick-knacks you get for free from the florist or win at carnivals; the ones that show up years later at yard sales. What did Morandi see when he looked at his collection of objects ? Their ordinariness ? Or did he see something beautiful in them before he even picked up his paintbrush ?
After our visit to the house we went to the “regular” Morandi Museum in Piazza Maggiore, which is an art gallery with room after room of his paintings, spanning his entire career. Besides the still lifes we could see a selection of landscapes. There were perhaps a dozen of these scattered throughout the museum, at least half of which were views into the courtyard from his studio window, the view we had just seen earlier in the day. I had never been wild about the landscapes in the past, but now I could see that the colors absolutely were those of Bologna: the warm red clay of the buildings, the sage green of the foliage. I appreciated the clever design elements of the museum: walls, paintings and benches. Best of all, there was no voiceover and visitors could move freely through the space.
I thought I might come back from our Moranday all primed to paint still lifes or at least a Bolognese landscape or two, but that didn’t happen. Apparently I’m still waiting to come up against my next source of ideas. I just hope I won’t have to bump into a plexiglass wall in the process.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Battling La Bella Lingua
I am ratcheting up the Italian class. This week I decided to take a twenty-hour course at the school where I have been studying with a tutor. (Four hours a day for five days, not twenty hours in one day). The idea behind it is to immerse myself in the language so that I hear the words better. As things stand now, I talk better than I listen. To which Bill would reply, “And how is this any different from your English ?”
I have to say that I am very frustrated right now. First of all, because we are in such an old palatial building, with high ceilings and real plaster instead of drywall, the classroom is like an echo chamber. Whenever anyone speaks it comes out sounding like that special effects part of the Led Zeppelin song “Whole Lotta Love.” And baby I’m not foolin’. I’m constantly cupping my hand to my ear like Walter Brennan, that beloved old codger from all the Wild West movies half a century ago. Any minute now I’m going to start saying, “Eh-h-h-h-h? What’s that you say ?”
But it isn't just the room, it's the people in the room that are frustrating me. Oh, I'm sure they're very nice once you get to know them, but they aren't doing much for my Italian studies. Here's why. One of the students is German. He is learning Spanish and Italian at the same time. He seems very proud of this accomplishment but I think he should really rethink it. The result is that every word begins its inception as a distinctly German guttural sound. Then we move on to the Spanish portion of the word. A slight pause and then along comes some sort of extra vowel at the end, for that Italian flourish. He’s the student on my right. On my left is a Russian with huge tatoos all over his arms. Before I took a good look I was ready to compliment him on his sweater. He speaks without opening his mouth. Sometimes when Boris is in a surly mood (my son Boris that is, I don’t think this fellow’s name is Boris although it very well could be) he refuses to open his mouth when he talks and I threaten to take away his allowance. Unfortunately I don’t have that kind of leverage in this case. I assume this student is in Bologna on some kind of ventriloquism scholarship. Next to him is a very nice man from England. He is, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, a “low talker.” I strain to hear what he is saying and catch maybe every third word, but here’s the odd thing—he’s a loud and long laugher. Although I can hear every nuance of his hearty laugh it is not doing much for my Italian conversation.
There’s an American student from Florida who speaks well and clearly. He’s leaving for the United States tomorrow. There’s also an Italian woman sitting in who is minutes from becoming a teacher of Italian and is gearing up for a big exam. Of course she speaks beautifully but since she is only meant to be a mosca (fly) on the wall, she barely speaks at all. And then there’s me. My grammar is a bit improvisational. I speak in that conscientious way that Americans do, with extra hard “r”s. Fortunately my Chicago accent with its flat vowels is actually helpful for Italian where the vowels are quite precise, not rounded like those you hear in Virginia.
At least I’m old enough to "own" my lack of comprehension and to admit it to the teacher . This cluelessness comes across as extreme interest so teachers tend to like me. I’m always the one asking a ton of questions. Today we had to listen to a dialog between two people and then test our comprehension. The catch was that we couldn’t read along with the tape. Remember when we used to have record players and the most hilarious thing was to put the 33rpm album on at 78 rpms? ( Dean Martin never sounded better.) Well, this is pretty much how the dialog sounded to me. When the teacher asked me what I understood I told her “quasi niente.” (Almost nothing). She asked me what I heard specifically. I told her “macchina.” (Car.) Yes, the dialog was about two people discussing the sale of a car although I obviously missed the whole dramatic arc which is unfortunate. Will Guido sell Maria the car of her dreams ? Will her father lend her the money even though he is reluctant to buy a used car ? And what of her independence if she accepts the loan ? Can she come to love a blue car when she has her heart set on red ? There it was, a stirring drama contained within a couple of paragraphs and I missed it all.
After my admission of defeat the teacher did what good teachers do the world over. She tried to find something positive in my handling of the language. As I recall she liked the way I said “buon.” Anyway, I think I’m stuck with this class. As I see it, I can’t switch to another because of the students when the teachers are quite good and I'm in the right class level. My only recourse as I see it is to bring an ear trumpet to class tomorrow.
I have to say that I am very frustrated right now. First of all, because we are in such an old palatial building, with high ceilings and real plaster instead of drywall, the classroom is like an echo chamber. Whenever anyone speaks it comes out sounding like that special effects part of the Led Zeppelin song “Whole Lotta Love.” And baby I’m not foolin’. I’m constantly cupping my hand to my ear like Walter Brennan, that beloved old codger from all the Wild West movies half a century ago. Any minute now I’m going to start saying, “Eh-h-h-h-h? What’s that you say ?”
But it isn't just the room, it's the people in the room that are frustrating me. Oh, I'm sure they're very nice once you get to know them, but they aren't doing much for my Italian studies. Here's why. One of the students is German. He is learning Spanish and Italian at the same time. He seems very proud of this accomplishment but I think he should really rethink it. The result is that every word begins its inception as a distinctly German guttural sound. Then we move on to the Spanish portion of the word. A slight pause and then along comes some sort of extra vowel at the end, for that Italian flourish. He’s the student on my right. On my left is a Russian with huge tatoos all over his arms. Before I took a good look I was ready to compliment him on his sweater. He speaks without opening his mouth. Sometimes when Boris is in a surly mood (my son Boris that is, I don’t think this fellow’s name is Boris although it very well could be) he refuses to open his mouth when he talks and I threaten to take away his allowance. Unfortunately I don’t have that kind of leverage in this case. I assume this student is in Bologna on some kind of ventriloquism scholarship. Next to him is a very nice man from England. He is, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, a “low talker.” I strain to hear what he is saying and catch maybe every third word, but here’s the odd thing—he’s a loud and long laugher. Although I can hear every nuance of his hearty laugh it is not doing much for my Italian conversation.
There’s an American student from Florida who speaks well and clearly. He’s leaving for the United States tomorrow. There’s also an Italian woman sitting in who is minutes from becoming a teacher of Italian and is gearing up for a big exam. Of course she speaks beautifully but since she is only meant to be a mosca (fly) on the wall, she barely speaks at all. And then there’s me. My grammar is a bit improvisational. I speak in that conscientious way that Americans do, with extra hard “r”s. Fortunately my Chicago accent with its flat vowels is actually helpful for Italian where the vowels are quite precise, not rounded like those you hear in Virginia.
At least I’m old enough to "own" my lack of comprehension and to admit it to the teacher . This cluelessness comes across as extreme interest so teachers tend to like me. I’m always the one asking a ton of questions. Today we had to listen to a dialog between two people and then test our comprehension. The catch was that we couldn’t read along with the tape. Remember when we used to have record players and the most hilarious thing was to put the 33rpm album on at 78 rpms? ( Dean Martin never sounded better.) Well, this is pretty much how the dialog sounded to me. When the teacher asked me what I understood I told her “quasi niente.” (Almost nothing). She asked me what I heard specifically. I told her “macchina.” (Car.) Yes, the dialog was about two people discussing the sale of a car although I obviously missed the whole dramatic arc which is unfortunate. Will Guido sell Maria the car of her dreams ? Will her father lend her the money even though he is reluctant to buy a used car ? And what of her independence if she accepts the loan ? Can she come to love a blue car when she has her heart set on red ? There it was, a stirring drama contained within a couple of paragraphs and I missed it all.
After my admission of defeat the teacher did what good teachers do the world over. She tried to find something positive in my handling of the language. As I recall she liked the way I said “buon.” Anyway, I think I’m stuck with this class. As I see it, I can’t switch to another because of the students when the teachers are quite good and I'm in the right class level. My only recourse as I see it is to bring an ear trumpet to class tomorrow.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Balloon Mystery Solved
Several posts ago I was pondering the mystery of a windowbox decorated with balloons as well as flowers. Whatever could it mean ? And how about the Clown Man ? Was he involved ? Well, yesterday he was planting flowers in his front yard which gave me the chance to ask whether the windowbox was his and if so, why was it decorated like that. Yes, it was his creation. The reason ? He wanted to give children something fun to look at. I will admit to feeling a little creepiness in his answer but I don't think he was expecting to lure anybody with his windowbox. He just seems to be somebody who's child-like himself and wants to reach out to others. So while I didn't uncover an intriguing Italian custom, at least I solved my little mystery.
Dear Old Venice
Good news everyone ! I have come up with a new affectation ! Whenever I reminisce about Venice I’ll say “Dear Old Venice.” Just to clarify how this works, I might be discussing a shortcoming—like the rudeness of Venetians to tourist. At that point in the conversation I’ll just shake my head like a doting mother and say “Ahh, Dear Old Venice” or for variety’s sake, “That’s my Venice !” Is there anything more insufferable than somebody using the possessive when talking about a place ? Well, I certainly hope so because I have about a month left to come up with whatever that might be.
I don’t know what I can say about Venice that hasn’t been said before and by much better writers. This was my third visit and each time I have been struck by how suddenly you are there IN the city. One minute you are looking out the window at cars and buses. Then all of a sudden you get off the train at San Lucia Station, leave its utilitarian confines and find yourself face to face with canals, ornate buildings punctuated by Moorish windows, gondolas-- all the evidence you could possibly require to demonstrate that you did in fact get on the right train.
Now that we can do so much planning online, we chose days which promised to be sunny, so every color was luminous. There may be something a little forced about planning an experience so carefully that the light conditions and weather are pre-arranged. Yet when you consider how heavily touristed a place this is, and how choreographed the visits, it isn't inappropriate. Right away you get the impression that there just might be a few too many tourists in Venice when you see a cruise ship the size of a Las Vegas hotel floating down the Grand Canal. There is a pervasive air of impatience on the part of the staffs at hotels, shops and restaurants. Boy are they sick of us. Throughout the city there are bright yellow signs placed at strategic locations indicating the way to Piazza San Marco, the Rialto Bridge and other must-see locales. Apparently several thousand Venetians got together and said, “If one more person asks me the way to San Marco I’m going to throw them in the Canal !” Hence the signs. Hence also the pay toilets for 1.50 Euros—that more than $2.00 !
At this point I feel I can make my blog rather useful. You may be getting sick of my quirky little observations about balloon-bedecked windows and such. So here is a hotel recommendation: Hotel San Sebastiano Garden. It is in the Dorsoduro section of Venice, well away from the crowds of San Marco, although for all I know there are crowds here too during the high season. But at least there are less pigeons. The area is full of wonderful old buildings and campi, the Venetian word for piazze (plural of piazza). It is very easy to cut across this part of Venice to reach the Accademia (Venice's large art museum, now underegoing major addition and construction, causing many rooms to be closed) and places beyond. The hotel was clean, with nicely decorated rooms and a very pretty garden in the back. If the staff is not effusive, it is efficient and polite. The prices are not cheap—that’s about impossible to find in Venice—but certainly lower down the scale than many. By the way, I am not receiving any compensation for this endorsement. Unfortunately.
Although it is by no means my favorite part of Venice, we did of course visit Piazza San Marco. How nice to see the Cathedral, the Belltower, the arcades flanking the square, the Doges Palace. Maybe someday we’ll be able to see them all together without a large “Guess Jeans” billboard obstructing the view. You see, companies that subsidize major restoration projects get to decorate the large screens that cover the building you came to see. Which means that right now Piazza San Marco has a little bit of Times Square about it.
There’s always one area or another being cleaned and currently the city is making major repairs to the drainage system so there is a substantial wall surrounding the belltower. On Boris's behest we took the elevator to the top of this last structure, the campanile, in Italian and it was great. You can really get a sense of the way Venice is laid out. It was fun to pick out the various churches and palaces we had seen previously at ground level.
Since our visit took place in mid-October there were definitely less children around, and not even that many college students for that matter. The typical tourist, especially in our hotel, seemed to be a retiree, well-dressed and coiffed and physically fit, rather like an ad for Centrum Silver. A nice-looking crowd. These types hardly ever wear tee-shirts with writing on them although I suppose the discreet Lacoste alligator might be their version of the Outer Banks “Brew Through” shirt. It just isn’t a friendly bunch. I know this because while waiting in lines for museums, inevitable here, I like to make conversation with whomever is next to me. This I was unable to do. It seems that nobody wants to be outed as a tourist, which is of course totally ridiculous. If you aren't a tourist why are you waiting to see Bellini paintings in the middle of the week on a beautiful day ? I mean, I’ve taught college-level art for years and I KNOW that people don’t love Renaissance art as much as all that.
We spent two night in Venice and almost three days. We enjoyed it immensely but were ready to leave. At least Bill and I were. Boris was absolutely entranced and I envied the lack of awareness he has about How Much Things Cost. It was hard for me to surrender to the spirit of Venice when a vaporetto ride (the “economical” mode of transportation) cost $30 a trip for the three of us. A simple pizza lunch cost as much as a substantial dinner in Bologna and virtually every church now charges admission. I ended up visiting more Bancomats than museums.
I don’t know what I can say about Venice that hasn’t been said before and by much better writers. This was my third visit and each time I have been struck by how suddenly you are there IN the city. One minute you are looking out the window at cars and buses. Then all of a sudden you get off the train at San Lucia Station, leave its utilitarian confines and find yourself face to face with canals, ornate buildings punctuated by Moorish windows, gondolas-- all the evidence you could possibly require to demonstrate that you did in fact get on the right train.
Now that we can do so much planning online, we chose days which promised to be sunny, so every color was luminous. There may be something a little forced about planning an experience so carefully that the light conditions and weather are pre-arranged. Yet when you consider how heavily touristed a place this is, and how choreographed the visits, it isn't inappropriate. Right away you get the impression that there just might be a few too many tourists in Venice when you see a cruise ship the size of a Las Vegas hotel floating down the Grand Canal. There is a pervasive air of impatience on the part of the staffs at hotels, shops and restaurants. Boy are they sick of us. Throughout the city there are bright yellow signs placed at strategic locations indicating the way to Piazza San Marco, the Rialto Bridge and other must-see locales. Apparently several thousand Venetians got together and said, “If one more person asks me the way to San Marco I’m going to throw them in the Canal !” Hence the signs. Hence also the pay toilets for 1.50 Euros—that more than $2.00 !
At this point I feel I can make my blog rather useful. You may be getting sick of my quirky little observations about balloon-bedecked windows and such. So here is a hotel recommendation: Hotel San Sebastiano Garden. It is in the Dorsoduro section of Venice, well away from the crowds of San Marco, although for all I know there are crowds here too during the high season. But at least there are less pigeons. The area is full of wonderful old buildings and campi, the Venetian word for piazze (plural of piazza). It is very easy to cut across this part of Venice to reach the Accademia (Venice's large art museum, now underegoing major addition and construction, causing many rooms to be closed) and places beyond. The hotel was clean, with nicely decorated rooms and a very pretty garden in the back. If the staff is not effusive, it is efficient and polite. The prices are not cheap—that’s about impossible to find in Venice—but certainly lower down the scale than many. By the way, I am not receiving any compensation for this endorsement. Unfortunately.
Although it is by no means my favorite part of Venice, we did of course visit Piazza San Marco. How nice to see the Cathedral, the Belltower, the arcades flanking the square, the Doges Palace. Maybe someday we’ll be able to see them all together without a large “Guess Jeans” billboard obstructing the view. You see, companies that subsidize major restoration projects get to decorate the large screens that cover the building you came to see. Which means that right now Piazza San Marco has a little bit of Times Square about it.
There’s always one area or another being cleaned and currently the city is making major repairs to the drainage system so there is a substantial wall surrounding the belltower. On Boris's behest we took the elevator to the top of this last structure, the campanile, in Italian and it was great. You can really get a sense of the way Venice is laid out. It was fun to pick out the various churches and palaces we had seen previously at ground level.
Since our visit took place in mid-October there were definitely less children around, and not even that many college students for that matter. The typical tourist, especially in our hotel, seemed to be a retiree, well-dressed and coiffed and physically fit, rather like an ad for Centrum Silver. A nice-looking crowd. These types hardly ever wear tee-shirts with writing on them although I suppose the discreet Lacoste alligator might be their version of the Outer Banks “Brew Through” shirt. It just isn’t a friendly bunch. I know this because while waiting in lines for museums, inevitable here, I like to make conversation with whomever is next to me. This I was unable to do. It seems that nobody wants to be outed as a tourist, which is of course totally ridiculous. If you aren't a tourist why are you waiting to see Bellini paintings in the middle of the week on a beautiful day ? I mean, I’ve taught college-level art for years and I KNOW that people don’t love Renaissance art as much as all that.
We spent two night in Venice and almost three days. We enjoyed it immensely but were ready to leave. At least Bill and I were. Boris was absolutely entranced and I envied the lack of awareness he has about How Much Things Cost. It was hard for me to surrender to the spirit of Venice when a vaporetto ride (the “economical” mode of transportation) cost $30 a trip for the three of us. A simple pizza lunch cost as much as a substantial dinner in Bologna and virtually every church now charges admission. I ended up visiting more Bancomats than museums.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Loving Lard
Greetings. We just returned from a few days in Venice and Padova. So this blog entry was left in limbo for about a week. Much like the cured meats that this entry describes, it has been aging and curing.
I looked at the calendar today and realized that we’d missed the Mortadella Festival. Darn. I hate when I do that. If you thought I was exaggerating when I said that Bologna is very serious about food, maybe the fact that there is a festival devoted to a cold cut will cause you to think otherwise. So you see that it is no coincidence that one of our lunch meats is called bologna instead of, say, venezia.
Despite missing the festival I was not lacking in my own cured meat experience this week. I had an epiphany, or as I like to call it, a lardiphany. Yes, I had sliced lard and I enjoyed it ! It was as though all those years I spent asking for “lean corned beef”, cooking bacon to be extra crispy, looking for the low fat content on ground beef all melted away—much like lard does when served on warm bread . It really tasted like nothing else I have eaten. It was thinly sliced with subtle spices and was a good deal less salty than the prosciutto and other cured pork offerings that are ubiquitous here. Another thing that sets it apart is the color. It’s white. There’s simply no mistaking it for anything other than pure fat.
So here I am, just where I want to be, on the leading edge of a trend because, in case you weren’t aware of it, fat is back baby ! (I keep wanting to write fat is fatback baby.) Yes--after years of being shunned it has returned in a blaze of glory. No longer a food of necessity, it is now artisanal. Of course the lard I ate was extremely artisanal. None of that mass-produced lard you get out of vending machines. Only the finest for me !
The site of my awakening to lard was Tamburini, a food emporium/wine bar. We had been passing by its tables, actually large wine barrels, for a couple weeks How I envied the contented customers dining on huge plates of cheeses and cold cuts along with large glasses of wine. So, one afternoon we happened to be passing by and saw an empty table. What to do ? What to do ? Boris had his heart set on gelato and here we were at the threshold of Cured Meat Paradise. You’re crying your eyes out for us aren’t you ? Not to worry. We solved the problem by sending Boris down the street to the gelateria that sells six types of chocolate gelato, and probably some other flavors too (although why bother with those ?) He brought his dessert back to the table and joined us, so everyone was happy. Especially me. Although I have certainly purchased little samples of meats and cheeses at various salumerie in Bologna, I always did so in a haphazard way. Eating at Tamburini is like having a native Bolognese do the shopping for you, matching condiments, cheeses and meats so that they all complement each other. The fact that every table was occupied by tourists didn’t bother me too much. This place is like a food museum so it made sense that visitors from all over would want to go there. I mean, you'd expect a few tourists at the Sistine Chapel wouldn't you ?
This palace of food is on Via Caprarie which is becoming my favorite street. It’s like a Rodeo Drive of food. Besides Tamburini there are various smaller salumerie, several caffes, the aforementioned gelateria and the Bottega di Caffe, a serious coffee store balanced by a room devoted to candy. In addition there is a store called Libreria Ambasciatori. It is a bit like Barnes & Noble in the sense that it sells books and has readings by authors. It has a caffe too, but then it goes a few steps further with an enocoteca that sells wine by the glass or bottle and several kinds of pasta and meat platters. It also has a large retail wine and food shop attached, and the staff is very knowledgeable about the foods they are selling. So really, it’s more like a combination of Barnes & Noble and William Sonoma. When we were kids we always used to joke about getting locked in the downtown Chicago Marshall Fields at night. Now that Fields has turned into Macy’s my new fantasy is to spend the night at Ambasciatori.
The funny thing is that five minutes' walk from these shops are four of Bologna’s museums. They’re interesting and they’re free and I know I should be spending a lot of time in them. But something strange happens whenever I walk down Via dell’Archiginnasio. Like a shopping cart with a faulty wheel, I find myself veering right toward the food instead of left toward the art. I guess I'm just exploring new avenues.
I looked at the calendar today and realized that we’d missed the Mortadella Festival. Darn. I hate when I do that. If you thought I was exaggerating when I said that Bologna is very serious about food, maybe the fact that there is a festival devoted to a cold cut will cause you to think otherwise. So you see that it is no coincidence that one of our lunch meats is called bologna instead of, say, venezia.
Despite missing the festival I was not lacking in my own cured meat experience this week. I had an epiphany, or as I like to call it, a lardiphany. Yes, I had sliced lard and I enjoyed it ! It was as though all those years I spent asking for “lean corned beef”, cooking bacon to be extra crispy, looking for the low fat content on ground beef all melted away—much like lard does when served on warm bread . It really tasted like nothing else I have eaten. It was thinly sliced with subtle spices and was a good deal less salty than the prosciutto and other cured pork offerings that are ubiquitous here. Another thing that sets it apart is the color. It’s white. There’s simply no mistaking it for anything other than pure fat.
So here I am, just where I want to be, on the leading edge of a trend because, in case you weren’t aware of it, fat is back baby ! (I keep wanting to write fat is fatback baby.) Yes--after years of being shunned it has returned in a blaze of glory. No longer a food of necessity, it is now artisanal. Of course the lard I ate was extremely artisanal. None of that mass-produced lard you get out of vending machines. Only the finest for me !
The site of my awakening to lard was Tamburini, a food emporium/wine bar. We had been passing by its tables, actually large wine barrels, for a couple weeks How I envied the contented customers dining on huge plates of cheeses and cold cuts along with large glasses of wine. So, one afternoon we happened to be passing by and saw an empty table. What to do ? What to do ? Boris had his heart set on gelato and here we were at the threshold of Cured Meat Paradise. You’re crying your eyes out for us aren’t you ? Not to worry. We solved the problem by sending Boris down the street to the gelateria that sells six types of chocolate gelato, and probably some other flavors too (although why bother with those ?) He brought his dessert back to the table and joined us, so everyone was happy. Especially me. Although I have certainly purchased little samples of meats and cheeses at various salumerie in Bologna, I always did so in a haphazard way. Eating at Tamburini is like having a native Bolognese do the shopping for you, matching condiments, cheeses and meats so that they all complement each other. The fact that every table was occupied by tourists didn’t bother me too much. This place is like a food museum so it made sense that visitors from all over would want to go there. I mean, you'd expect a few tourists at the Sistine Chapel wouldn't you ?
This palace of food is on Via Caprarie which is becoming my favorite street. It’s like a Rodeo Drive of food. Besides Tamburini there are various smaller salumerie, several caffes, the aforementioned gelateria and the Bottega di Caffe, a serious coffee store balanced by a room devoted to candy. In addition there is a store called Libreria Ambasciatori. It is a bit like Barnes & Noble in the sense that it sells books and has readings by authors. It has a caffe too, but then it goes a few steps further with an enocoteca that sells wine by the glass or bottle and several kinds of pasta and meat platters. It also has a large retail wine and food shop attached, and the staff is very knowledgeable about the foods they are selling. So really, it’s more like a combination of Barnes & Noble and William Sonoma. When we were kids we always used to joke about getting locked in the downtown Chicago Marshall Fields at night. Now that Fields has turned into Macy’s my new fantasy is to spend the night at Ambasciatori.
The funny thing is that five minutes' walk from these shops are four of Bologna’s museums. They’re interesting and they’re free and I know I should be spending a lot of time in them. But something strange happens whenever I walk down Via dell’Archiginnasio. Like a shopping cart with a faulty wheel, I find myself veering right toward the food instead of left toward the art. I guess I'm just exploring new avenues.
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