I went for a more historical approach than an aesthetic one for this week's
PhotoHunt.
Here on Venice's
Lido, the entire barrier island is dotted with small but imposing World War II bunkers. For years, they remained where they were, I guess because they were too difficult to tear down. Or perhaps during the Cold War the military thought they might still come in handy someday. Anyway, nowadays, they can't be removed, from what I understand... Nobody seems to know exactly the reason why, but many are still owned by the state and maybe it's because by now they are presumed to be of historical value, no matter whether the property they are on is public or private.
Why private? Because after the war, there were a lot of squatters who took over abandoned shelters, and over time a number of these habitations became permanent, even after times had gotten better.
So, here are a sample of a couple of these structural remnants of World War II...
At left, at the San Nicolo end of the Lido by
Pachuka Beach is this charming little bunker. (Notice the new fresh paint and stucco!)
Most impressive,
and really good for thinking about the tension between this week's PhotoHunt theme "public" and private, I think, is what had been the barracks for some of the sailors who had manned these bunkers!
It's in the "Ca' Bianca" neighborhood of the Lido, and has the unused bunker pictured at top on one end and now the great pizzeria "
Cason" on the other.
In between, you can barely see still the words painted on the bunker end of the building: "OBBEDIRE. CREDERE. COMBATTERE." These were by-words of Fascism in Italy from the 1920s to the '40s: "Obey. Believe. Fight."
Best of all, I think, is the house that's in between. On the wall, you can still make out the words "è stato e sarà".
The very kind lady who lives there told me the rest of the saying, which has since been covered up with whitewash: "Il nostro destino è stato e sarà sempre sul mare." (Translated: "Our destiny has been and always will be on the sea.") The words were meant to inspire the barrack's sailors who were guarding the coastline.
And there you have it for this week's PhotoHunt: "public" and private. (In fact, as one last nice touch, you can see the sign to the right of the doorway which now reads "Private Property"!)
Are you doing the PhotoHunt too? You can sign in here!
I didn't think I had anything to offer for this week's PhotoHunt theme Letters, that is, until I posted this on FB and my Mom pointed out that it's perfect for it!
My PhotoHunt contribution this week is a tad late, but I couldn't actually even get this photo until yesterday. It is a close-up detail of autumn leaves floating in Walden Pond...
My PhotoHunt post for this week's theme, "Anniversary," is a bit late, but the photo is actually a few weeks old and I was just waiting for this occasion to post it!
Here, I'd turned a corner in Burano and stumbled upon what was once a Venetian Gothic window that had been turned into a brightly painted, impromptu shrine with the addition of this improbably small icon. Still, it made a perfectly unique frame.
A wonderful clip of traffic and pedestrians in 1950s Rome and Milan on the latest video site to make the Internet rounds, Critical Past. Enjoy!! :-)
Howdy all!
This past spring, I was startled to realize that, for the first time ever, students to whom I was teaching the Cold War had never lived during the Cold War.
Sure enough, I'd forgotten that not only was this the boundary between Italy and Slovenia, but it had also been the frontier between Western Europe and the communist East.
If you were to ask anyone in Venice where one could take good photos of things that were "colorful," there would only be one answer... Go to Burano!
The story about why the buildings are painted so brightly seems to be that, in ancient times, the colors allowed the fishermen to find their way home in the fog (see above!) I don't know, but I just don't quite buy it... Lots of foggy places live off fishing but aren't so vividly painted. Besides, it doesn't explain why practically all the houses look like that, not just those on the waterfront...
There's an entire literary genre of uptight and/or disillusioned Anglo-Saxon women who come to Italy, (usually) get laid by an Italian and then finally begin to enjoy life by letting their hair down!*
I went for a more historical approach than an aesthetic one for this week's PhotoHunt.
At left, at the San Nicolo end of the Lido by Pachuka Beach is this charming little bunker. (Notice the new fresh paint and stucco!)
Those little scooter trucks that you see in Mediterranean countries and around the world are "Api." The "Ape" (pronounced "A-PAY"), which means "bee" in Italian, was - like the famous Vespa - created after World War II to give Italians an affordable means of transportation, in this case for merchants and craftsmen to carry their wares.
Wow, this theme for PhotoHunt was harder than you might think, since you don't easily find triangles in nature!
So, depending on whether photo manipulation is allowed, I may or may not have sort of cheated on this one! Actually, though, it honestly happened completely by accident... I was playing around last week with a photo editor on my phone, selected a vertical mirror option, and this is what I got! Rather cool, if I do say so myself!
According to the Lufthansa in-flight magazine from May 2010, that airline contracted with the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics to test food in their decommissioned Airbus A310 fuselage fitted inside a huge low-pressure chamber (pictured at left).
photohunt
