Michelle's Mental Clutter

"A Christmas Story": Gender, History and Generally Overthinking It

2011-12-27T12:44:00.080-05:00

A Dulled Cutting Edge
On Christmas Day, I proudly posted on FB how glad I was to have introduced my Italian mother-in-law to "A Christmas Story," which immediately elicited a surprising comment of profound sympathy on her behalf.

It was only then I realized that this movie, which had been pretty counter-cultural when it first came out and when I had first seen it on early cable tv nearly 30 years ago, was now totally mainstream and - as a result - boring to any twenty-first century edgy crowd. But consider the wonderfully florid and intellectualized prose of the narration, together with the occasionally absurdist and ever-so-slightly subversive take on the usual overly saccharine family tableaux... It most definitely presaged the humor of the Simpsons that debuted just 4 years later! It was rather cutting edge at the time and, yes, I was precisely in their target demographic!!)

Apparently my own little anti-"Christmas Story" troll however wasn't alone, since Mike Ryan of Moviefone also subsequently posted 10 Things That Confuse Me About 'A Christmas Story'.

Overthinking "A Christmas Story": What's Gender Got To Do with It?
In the spirit of another blog that I follow, Overthinking It, for some inexplicable reason I've decided to address at least briefly these concerns head-on, cuz I think there's a reasonable explanation for most of them (while I still have a couple of others that nevertheless continue to perplex me).

The seventeen-year difference in Ralphie's parents' ages: Yeah, it's striking. But the way I figure it, the story is told from the point of view of an older Ralphie remembering how he used to view the world. And his dad is, of course, "the Old Man." So, I figure he just remembers his dad as always having been older (for more, see number 10 below...)
Goggle-kid in the Santa scene: A quick look at the film's IMDb page shows that there had been Flash Gordon scenes cut out. Sure, the kid's creepy, but maybe he was there cuz his hero was Flash, just like Ralphie was there cuz his hero was Red Ryder.
Flick: re goggles, see above. Flick recurs, I seem to recall, in the book of tales which was the basis for the movie, In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash (written, not coincidently, by the film's narrator Jean Shepherd).
A good movie? It's a fun and often clever movie, certainly... but, okay, it's by no means a masterpiece. 1980s nostalgia factor?? Most definitely!
Glitter cowboy: That's easy... it's what a kid during the golden age of Hollywood would imagine his hero wearing. (I'd be really surprised if Roy Rogers had never been forced to wear a similar get-up for some publicity shot somewhere...)
BB gun: Of course it's a bad idea for kids! Then again, our chemistry sets back in the day could legitimately blow stuff up... Not a terribly good idea either! :-)
The Old Man's 'Blue Ball': See number 10 below for more regarding Ralphie's dad!
Jean Shepherd's voice sounding different from Ralphie: Doesn't bother me too much... Jean Shepherd was the story's original author, while Peter Billlingsley is ideal in the role of Ralphie. If the vocal qualities of the two were even to match, that would have just been icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.
Fake teeth episode: Likely based on a vignette from Shepherd's stories... At the very least, communicates pretty quickly how patiently long-suffering Ralphie's teacher is, which comes into play again later.
Ralphie's dad supposedly being a "prick": I'm honestly pleased to see that Mike Ryan has no point of reference for really understanding the character of the "Old Man," which has everything to do with the idealized gender role of mid-twentieth-century authoritarian father figures... My dad (supposedly Ralphie's generation) wasn't like that, but my granddad definitely was! They were supposed to be distant and intimidating (not to mention legendary in their ability to fix absolutely anything). The one emotion that society could easily accept from them, if they were to show any at all, was anger... Hence, most of their emotional range tended to be channelled into being nearly permanently irascible. Above all, the film's "Old Man," as he is always called, successfully models the "man's man" of the time by being this kind of father! Any inconsistencies with the character, like Mike Ryan noted in number 8 above, for example, arise from the fact that no matter how effectively he presents an idealized tough male attitude, he actually could possess a soft heart that he couldn't readily show... That's why he gets so enamored of his "major award" or else allows himself to be sweet and good-humored at least one day a year, on Christmas Day. (Of course, his indulgence of Ralphie's Christmas wish also allowed him to begin indoctrinating his own son with tough masculine values, so he could doubly allow himself to be accommodating on this day...) Ralphie fondly remembers these rare moments when his dad was not so, shall we say, "prickly."

Where's the History in "A Christmas Story"?
In the end, though, these are not the things that, as Mike Ryan put it, confuse me about "A Christmas Story." Instead, why is there no mention at all of the war? There's never a date beyond "the 1940s" given for the setting, but let's say even that it took place right in 1940 (since they show the "Wizard of Oz" characters bopping around). Wouldn't it make Ralphie's memories far more poignant if they were explicitly the last untroubled ones of his childhood before America entered World War II? (Not to mention the fact that Ralphie's big Christmas wish had been a gun! Surely, there'd have been some subsequent ambivalence about that!)

Realistically, however, I know that these stories had originally been set by Shepherd during the early 1930s, so it's natural that there'd be no reference in them to WWII. But at that time there would have been the Great Depression, which then makes a story about the all-importance of receiving stuff for Christmas a difficult one to accept without any explanation, even - I would argue - from an older child's perspective during that time.

But even these weighty issues of authentic historical context vex me less than "A Christmas Story"'s greatest puzzle of them all: what's with the mom's hair?! It's not 1930s... it's not 1940s... heck, it's not even 1960s!! Why, oh why does the verisimilitude decide to check out here??!!!

(Then again, maybe I'm just overthinking it... May your own holidays be uncomplicated!!)

:-)

Venice's Madonna della Salute

2011-11-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

Today, as recounted by the entry on Madonna della Salute at the blog "Venice from beyond the bridge", is Venice's locally observed feast day of Our Lady of Health.

Every Italian city is allowed one local holiday. But since that of the Venetian patron saint, Saint Mark, is the 25th of April and just happens to coincide with the Italian national holiday celebrating "Liberation Day" at the end of World War II, Venice gets to choose another local holiday to observe. It selected that of the Madonna della Salute, founded to commemorate the end of a massive epidemic of plague that began in 1630 and culminated in the construction of the glorious basilica dedicated to the Madonna who was credited with eventually saving the city from the plague.

Today, Venetians don't fear the plague, but many of them still make a pilgrimage to the Basilica to light a candle to the Madonna on this day. Tradition has it that those who do will not get the flu this winter. One year, the cousin of the father of my Venetian husband (say that three times fast!) stopped us on the street on November 21st and asked us whether we were going to the church ourselves. When we said we weren't planning to, she was shocked. "One GOES to the Salute," she insisted.

Best wishes to all for a healthy winter on this feast day of the Madonna della Salute!

11/11 = Venice's San Martino!

2011-11-12T12:46:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was not only the U.S.' Veterans Day, but it was also the Feast Day of Saint Martin of Tours, which is celebrated to this very day in Venice!

It's a bit like "trick or treating" in the States... Children go to shops and sing a traditional song about San Martino while banging pots and pans until the shopkeepers give them small change, and then they move onto the next shop.

I have to say though that my favorite part of the day is the decorated sugar cookie in the form of Saint Martin (who was a knight on horseback until his religious conversion)... Here's a particularly ginormous and ornate one!

You can see more photos at the great blog Venice from beyond the bridge!

Art imitates Academia

2011-11-06T22:42:00.001-05:00

That's right... Even in video games like the Sims Social, they apparently make you write historiographical essays!!

Gondola Joy Ride

2011-08-15T09:59:00.004-04:00

From this week's "Buongiorno Venezia" newsletter:

"Another 21-year-old tourist, this time from United States, distinguished himself by stealing something quite showy, precious, and much bigger than the seven eggs [stolen from a contemporary art exhibition this week]. He nicked a gondola and travelled the canals in a state of inebriation with no idea of how dangerous his actions were. Witnesses say he was rowing as if pickaxing, and when he was blocked by the police, he asked them, 'Where is the boat's rudder?' His knowledge of gondolas was as minuscule as his sobriety."

Just great... Another bad impression left here by another drunk American! *sigh* Oh well...

Saturday Photohunt: One

2011-08-12T18:11:00.007-04:00

It's been a long while since I did the Saturday Photohunt... In the meantime, though, I started recently using Instagram on the iPhone, which is a lot of fun and a great way to share photos with the world! So, for this week's photohunt, I thought I'd go through my Instagram pics so far and post the images that fit the theme.

Those of ya'll who are on Instagram can check out my pictures at @misciel, if you'd like, and those who aren't can still use the Webstagram service, like I've linked to here! I've used a few different hashtags: #photohunt, #saturdayphotohunt, and #saturday_photohunt... Please feel free to use them yourselves if you are Instagrammers too! :-)

Anyway, my Instagram Photohunt pics are also pasted here. I like the Venetian Lagoon shot the best... The other three are from my recent trip to Greece, where as you can see I really enjoyed snapping pics of the local pups!

I hope you enjoy them and best wishes for a great week!!

PhotoHunt

Traditional Transport in Venice

2011-08-09T11:09:00.001-04:00

I've been meaning forever to post here on *MMC* this photo from a French blog dedicated to Venice, TraMeZziniMag, so here it is! When I first arrived in Venice 18 years ago, I still saw (rarely) products being carried through the streets this way... but it's been years since the last time I've seen it. I hope it's not dead and gone the way of so many other lost Venetian traditions...

Modern Library Built over (Nearly) Millennarian Covent Ruins

2011-08-06T15:10:00.010-04:00

Well, as you can see in the sidebar, I do more FBing of my interesting weblinks than blogging nowadays, but I thought these photos were worth firing up Blogger for! ☺

First thing to know is that these originate from Instagram, a free iPhone app that's also fast becoming a photosharing sensation, not to mention a global social-network community for enjoying others' photography! (Those who don't use the iPhone or iPad can vicariously appreciate Istagram-ography by observing a live-stream of photos as they are being uploaded from all over the world at Hashtagram or by using the Webstagram service. FYI: I'm on there as @misciel!)

Now, the photo here is from Instagram user @mariannehope, a Norwegian who usually lives in Holland and typically shoots lovely desaturated, minimalist images of still-lifes and panoramas. That's why these images caught my eye... not like her usual style at all. Turns out that's because she wanted to give a strong sense of this fascinating building!

It is the Tønsberg Library, which she just visited. According to Wikipedia, Tønsberg is generally regarded as the oldest town in Norway, and they've got the ruins to prove it! As Marianne writes,

What's special about this building is that it's built on and around ancient ruins from the year 1180, the ruins of a convent. They also found 6 graves from the Vikings on the grounds. The building was built in 1992 and is a fantastic piece of modern architecture mixed in with the historic stones.

For more images of this interesting building, you can check out #tønsberglibrary on Webstagram - Instagram Web Viewer! (Turns out that Marianne will even be posting more tomorrow...) Enjoy!!

Gorgeous Venice Photos on Panoramio!

2011-06-10T05:54:00.004-04:00

Until today, I had never heard of Panoramio (which is odd considering that it's even a Google product!)

But while I was reviewing and cleaning out some of the less-used photography apps from my iPhone, I happened to open NearPics which shows you photos taken nearby your current location and posted to Panoramio. Expecting to see the usual trite schlock taken of Venice, I was actually surprised to see truly original, creative and gorgeous views of the island city!

Give Panoramio a try... see if you too are surprised by the unexpectedly beautiful images taken in your own backyard!! ☺

Getting Ready for Blogging Season

2011-05-22T13:35:00.004-04:00

As my annual transhumance is increasingly imminent, thought I'd dust off the blog and update its look a bit... While these days I Facebook and Twitter the links and brief observations I used to blog years ago when I first started *MMC*, I usually do more blogging in the summer when I'm overseas. See you on the flipside! ☺

PhotoHunt: Letters

2010-10-04T18:29:00.005-04:00

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!

So, in the spirit of William Wegman's spelling weimaraners, today's Letter Y is brought to you by Sophie!

photohunt

PhotoHunt: "Natural" at Walden Pond

2010-09-26T16:56:00.011-04:00

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...

Far bigger than what you might think from its name (as you can see below), Walden Pond is located near Concord, Massachusetts and was made famous by the writings of the great American author, Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. His book, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is one of the most important books on nature ever written.

As a result, I thought it would be a fitting expression of this week's PhotoHunt theme, "natural"! After all, as Thoreau himself said in Walden,

"Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still."

photohunt

PhotoHunt: "Anniversary" Locks of Love on the Ponte delle Tette

2010-09-10T12:51:00.017-04:00

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!

Venice is, of course, a city filled with bridges, and most of them are named for a particular landmark nearby. This image is of the bridge named the Ponte delle Tette. It gets this characteristic name from the fact that during the Renaissance it was right next to the city's municipal brothel, and the prostitutes used to hang around in the windows above, letting it all hang out (as it were!)

Surely by now you are wondering what this has to do with anniversaries! Well, notice the padlocks on the railing of the bridge... Known as "love padlocks," apparently they've been appearing on the Ponte Milvio in Rome since 2006, when an author for his teen romance novel invented what he called the long-standing tradition of lovers commemorating their commitment to each other by closing a lock onto the bridge and then throwing the key into the river. From there, the locks spread to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and this past summer officials apparently cut 123 padlocks from the Accademia bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice.

When I was walking around the city back in July, I discovered that the practice had also appeared, interestingly enough, on Venice's Ponte delle Tette. So here's my tribute to these strange but rather poetic (and/or ironic) expressions of anniversary! Enjoy!!

photohunt

PhotoHunt: "Hot" Dog, Italian Style

2010-09-03T14:17:00.012-04:00

Turns out that "hot" was the perfect theme for this week! We've been unseasonably hot on the east coast of the U.S. this past week... In fact, it was Maine's first real heatwave (defined as three or more days above 90 degrees F. ) since 1999!

Anyway, today's pic is one that I snapped on the colorful Venetian island of Burano back in early August, because when I saw it, I just knew it was the perfect "hot" dog!

So, here is my entry taken for this week's PhotoHunt theme, "hot"... a little dog basking in the heat of the island's sunny central piazza. Enjoy!

photohunt

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PhotoHunt: "Framed"

2010-08-27T14:53:00.007-04:00

Two very different shots from my jaunt back in early August to the colorful island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon, taken expressly for this week's PhotoHunt theme, "framed"!

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.

Below, on the other hand, is a view of the 1000+ year-old basilica on the adjacent island of Torcello, the oldest continually-inhabited area of Venice (and well worth a whole trip in itself!)

Back in May, the belltower (campanile in Italian) was closed because of an imminent risk of collapse resulting from a recent lightning strike. It is therefore currently undergoing restoration, and thus is appropriately - as you can see here - also framed!

Have a great week! ☺

photohunt

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A Blast from Italy's Past

2010-08-26T23:20:00.006-04:00

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!! :-)

(via @RobertaK & @SanctuarePress)

PhotoHunt: "Numerical"

2010-08-21T07:19:00.010-04:00

Howdy all!

Since I was in the midst of my preparations for this year's "transhumance" back to the States, I was unable to dedicate a whole lot of time to today's PhotoHunt theme, "Numerical." So I grabbed this shot on the fly this past week!

It's not much... a simple detail from the pegboard that keeps all the keys for the beach cabanas at the Kuyaba Beach (also known as Spiaggia Garbisa) on Venice's Lido...

See you next week... with better photos even!! ☺

PhotoHunt: "Orange" Houses for You & Me

2010-08-13T12:04:00.002-04:00

Ever seen an orange house? Well, you're about to see a bunch right now!! ☺

Today's PhotoHunt theme, "Orange," is again brought to you courtesy of Burano, Italian island of many colors!

photohunt

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The Iron Curtain Once Fell Here

2010-08-11T10:39:00.020-04:00

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.

That's right, they were born after the attempted coup of August 1991 that effectively rendered the Soviet Union moot. Now, we've truly arrived at the end of an era, even though for years now I've already had to point out regarding the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain which was the physical barrier and which was the metaphor... ☺

As you will see, however, even metaphors have a history...

Yesterday, we were driving around the Collio "wine road" in the Italian region of Friuli near the Judrio river that forms there the Slovenian border, when we chanced to see a small gravel track on a little bridge which crossed the river bed. Thinking I'd suddenly get to add visiting an additional country (even just for a few minutes) to my vacation, I suggested we stop and walk across.

That's when my husband noted, "Once upon a time, this is where the 'Free World' ended."

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.

Now, however, the end of the Cold War and the Schengen Agreement unifying the borders of the European Union have rendered all that obsolete. So together we sauntered unhindered down a path which once separated two worlds...

What's left here where once the Iron Curtain fell? Not much... On the Italian side, there is a little checkpoint hut falling into ruin and a flagpole that used to fly the good ol' Red, White and Green. (Another view, together with the former crossbar, is here, and the bridge with the river here...)

On the other side, we found a building (now a private house) that had performed the same function for Yugoslavia (together with the unused flagpole) and the little hamlet of Mišček. At one time, there were in this village a number of inhabited structures, but it seems now that many are abandoned (as also pictured here).

A search for this placename came up with a traveler's account in Italian, which seems to put all these enormous geopolitical changes into context in this lonely rural place. "Here, everything's falling to pieces..." one inhabitant said. "Here, nothing's changed. Yugoslavia, Slovenia... it's all the same. Now, Europe... but what's changed? Here nothing."

Another Splendid "Astronomy Picture of the Day"

2010-08-08T06:20:00.000-04:00

More eye-candy from APOD... A time-lapse image of the recent solar eclipse as viewed from Easter Island!

PhotoHunt: "Colorful" Burano! [UPDATED]

2010-08-06T12:06:00.011-04:00

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!

So, for this week's PhotoHunt theme, I did just that. I took advantage of what seemed like it would be a mild day yesterday and rode the vaporetto across the northern Venetian lagoon to the little island of jewel-colored houses.

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...

No, IMHO, it's because there are few places as melancholically gray as the northern lagoon during the wintertime, and the brilliant colors lend a much-needed joyful glow to what otherwise would likely be a very dreary little place for nearly half the year!

So, for my PhotoHunt entry for this week, here is a "colorful" visit to Burano! Enjoy!!

UPDATED (8/7/2010): Want to see more of multi-colored Venice and Burano? Here's a short but breathtakingly lovely technicolor video called "Around Venice" which celebrates just that! Enjoy!! (via OpenCulture)

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Beautiful "Astronomy Picture of the Day"

2010-08-06T06:02:00.006-04:00

From a few days ago on APOD... it's what's called a "little planet projection."

EAT, PRAY, LOVE... BUY?!

2010-08-05T05:57:00.016-04:00

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!*

Stuff in Italy about the latest made into a film, "Eat, Pray, Love," is only just beginning to break on the internet, but the great blog "Blingdom of God" reports that spiritual tourism (together with its souvenirs) has already been hounding Indonesia. So I think they should totally sell a whole new tourist tee: "I came to Bali for Enlightenment and all I got was this stupid t-shirt"! ☺

More spiritual-tourism, "EPL" cross-promotional marketing bling (rated, even, for your enlightened shopping enjoyment) can be seen here! (Gots to love the Buddha cocktail ring!)

P.S. More ironically materialistic imagery is available for your viewing pleasure at Che Spotting! (If only I'd snapped a shot of the faboo Che Guevara wallet and cellphone lanyard combo I once saw!!)

*For example, "Room with a View," "Enchanted April," "Under a Tuscan Sun,"
and, for a cute Italian twist on the theme, "Bread and Tulips."
(My personal life story may or may not be one of these... ☺)

PhotoHunt "Public": Remnants of World War II on Venice's Lido

2010-07-31T05:39:00.016-04:00

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"!)

PhotoHunt

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The Ultimate in Retro Bicycles

2010-07-27T04:58:00.005-04:00

The British site I Want One of Those (subtitled: "stuff you don't need, but you really, really want!") is selling the ULTIMATE retro bicycle! (It's so old school you won't even find one of them on the Lido!!)*

It's the "Penny Farthing" and it's available for just under a mere 500 pounds! Cash, that is, for us Yanks... not weight! :-)

*Inside joke for Venetians and other Lido habitués!

Scenes from Italy: Awesome Api!

2010-07-26T06:21:00.013-04:00

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.

But just get a load of this load! As you can see here in this shot I took today on Venice's Lido, they really are sturdy little things!!

Previously on *MMC*: "a fantastic little animated short of a love-struck octopus' rescue from one of those cute tiny "ape" scooter trucks on a small Greek island... It's a hoot! Enjoy!!"

LIGHTNING

2010-07-25T16:04:00.009-04:00

The satisfying fruit of my first-ever, very-clumsy attempts to photograph lightning!

PhotoHunt: "Hanging"

2010-07-21T07:02:00.006-04:00

I'm posting this week's submission for PhotoHunt early, since I really don't think I'll come up with anything better! (Although, if I stand corrected, I'll update this post accordingly!)

This week's theme is "Hanging." Lots of stuff hangs, of course... but nothing has spoken to me more than this broken umbrella that was hung out to dry in a surprisingly empty, small dead-end court near Venice's overly-bustling Piazza San Marco.

I transferred the pic to my iPhone and used the ColorSplash application to turn the image monochrome but leave the umbrella bright yellow. See what you think! :-)

PhotoHunt

I Write Like...

2010-07-18T09:36:00.003-04:00

AWESOME! I don't know if it's really true, but I'll take it!! :-)

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

PhotoHunt: "Triangle"

2010-07-16T16:02:00.012-04:00

Wow, this theme for PhotoHunt was harder than you might think, since you don't easily find triangles in nature!

On one hand, I was a little tempted to stage a portrait, but I would have had to scare up three willing participants. On the other, I might have had some interesting opportunities to look for triangles tomorrow at the celebration of the Redentore here in Venice, but I'm simply not up to suffering through the heat- and humidity-wave we're in right now just to maybe get the shot.

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!

The original photo, in which I caught a shot of a bit of a traffic pileup near the Piazza San Marco last week, isn't bad at all, but it's far less surreal, as you can see at right.

Next week's PhotoHunt theme is "hanging". Now, that should be fun!

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunt: Open and Free (but Late)

2010-07-14T07:21:00.011-04:00

I've decided to join the PhotoHunt movement! Each week, tnchick posts a theme and participants display on their own webpages one of their photos that illuminates that theme.

The first theme here on *MMC* is "Open". I really racked my brain on this one because I thought that "open" usually suggests all kinds of warm, fuzzy feelings, but I wanted an image that might challenge those associations. This is what I came up with...

Unfortunately, only afterward did I realize that "Open" was the theme for last week, and I should have had "Free" submitted by July 10th instead! Oh well, for my first PhotoHunt post, better late than never! My thinking is just about the same regarding that theme as well, so here is a slight variation on the above premise for "Free"...

I promise (at least I think I can promise!) that the upcoming PhotoHunt pic will be lighter... It's due the 17th and the theme is supposed to be "Triangle"! :-)

PhotoHunt

UPDATED: "A Question of Taste"

2010-06-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

According to the comic strip "Mother Goose and Grimm," the Wright Brothers invented airplane food using just flour, glue and mayonnaise.

Why does airplane food seem so tasteless? It might be because the average full meal is said to cost less than $3.50 per passenger (down from twice that last decade!) But maybe, just maybe, our own senses are to blame...

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).

In this research, they've discovered, for example, that tomato juice is not just consumed on flights because of the bloody marys! Instead, the mustiness of tomato juice when tasted on the ground apparently becomes refreshing and fruity at 30,000 feet (because, they say, that's when those usually-masked flavor notes are finally released).

We may likewise perceive the average airplane meal differently after take-off: according to the researchers, sugar seems about 20% less sweet in flight and salt about 30% less salty; spicy foods have to be made even spicier, herbs seem to lose their punch, while acids still manage to keep tasting every bit as sour.

Why the difference? Even back in 2005, a researcher at Surrey University had discovered that the combination of low air pressure and low humidity generally have a dulling effect on our tastebuds. As a result, he said, some (unmentioned) airlines apparently even have special kitchens which can replicate high-altitude conditions so that their chefs' compositions don't lose something in the translation between take-off and dinner time. In the end, Lufthansa itself declared, "These findings are in line with phenomena we already knew about and will be adopting in our recipes."

Hopefully, for long-haul flyers like myself, airlines will manage to get it figured out sometime before in-flight meals are eliminated all together! Or, as another editorial cartoon put it, "Sir, would you like juice, milk, a soft drink, coffee? Actually, it's just a rhetorical question."

UPDATED (7/27/2010): Everything you ever wanted to know (and surely way more!) about airline food can be found at AirlineMeals.net, including a gallery of meals from the '70s, '80s, & '90s! (via "50 Best Travel Sites You've Probably Never Heard Of")

(Don't) Send in the Clowns!

2010-06-25T10:28:00.012-04:00

These days, more often than not, I'm microblogging on Twitter (as you can see in my right-hand sidebar). Unless, of course, I have something longer than 140 characters to say, like today, for instance!

You probably didn't know that the youngest son of Benito Mussolini grew up to be a relatively well-appreciated jazz pianist. (Apparently, in his 2006 obituary, they said "he made the refrains run on time"... Get it??)

That's right... Romano Mussolini was too young when the fascist dictator was finally killed to have been directly involved in his politics and instead chose the artistic life. He even married the sister of Sophia Loren and wound up fathering the former centerfold and current Italian parliamentarian Alessandra Mussolini. (Hence, part - but only just part - of the reason for the "30 Rock" joke this year when Cerie says of her Halloween costume, "I'm an Italian Senator!")

But Romano's artistic bent wasn't limited just to music. He also was a self-taught painter. Unfortunately, however, he chose the world's ugliest genre to dabble in... That's right, clown pictures!

We've posted about pagliaccio unpleasantness before here on *MMC*, and to maintain that august tradition, without further ado, we present some of the paintings from around the web which may be featured in an exhibition of Romano Mussolini's paintings which is (inexplicably) being held in Padua, Italy.

Enjoy! (That is, if you can... You'll see what I mean!)

One last note for any would-be art collectors out there: it seems that the first painting is currently for sale on eBay for a mere $1474!

Fun with Music Videos and Fine Art

2010-03-26T19:37:00.104-04:00

A clever little music video has come out that recreates some of the greatest artworks of all time!

In "70 Million" by Hold Your Horses...

...the group brings to life 26 different paintings. I thought it might be fun to compare the originals and their homages in the video side-by-side. Enjoy!!

And, for reference sake, the works recreated in the video were...

Leonardo – The Last Supper; Botticelli – The Birth of Venus; Rembrandt – The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp; Holbein the Younger - Henry VIII and Vermeer – Girl With a Pearl Earring ; Géricault – The Raft of the Medusa; David – The Death of Marat; Michelangelo – The Creation of Adam; Magritte – The Son of Man; Mondrian; Frida Kahlo – Self-Portrait; Munch – The Scream; Picasso – Portrait of Dora Maar; Van Gogh – Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear; Warhol – Marilyn; Unknown artist (Fontainebleau school) – Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters; Cimabue - Madonna and Child in Majesty with Six Angels; Caravaggio – Salome with the Head of John the Baptist; Manet – Olympia; Delacroix – Liberty Leading the People; Otto Dix – Portrait of Journalist Sylvia von Harden; Klimt – The Kiss; Chagall – La Mariee; Velazquez – Las Meninas; Van Gogh – Sunflowers

"Pie Pie Blackbird"

2010-01-10T21:18:00.003-05:00

Watching a PBS documentary on Hollywood musicals, and I saw this amazing clip from the very young Nicholas Brothers... Quite the hoofers! Enjoy!!

Swinging Italian Video: "You Wanna Play the American"

2010-01-02T06:21:00.001-05:00

Cool song from the '50s! Enjoy!!

As the Mist Leaves No Scar

2009-09-29T21:39:00.003-04:00

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill,
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will.

When wind and hawk encounter,
What remains to keep?
So you and I encounter
Then turn, then fall to sleep.

As many nights endure
Without a moon or star,
So will we endure
When one is gone and far.

-Leonard Cohen

Success

2009-09-19T15:31:00.000-04:00

"That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looed for the best in others and gave the best he had."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

2009-09-15T15:14:00.000-04:00

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

- Theodore Roosevelt

2009-09-14T15:01:00.000-04:00

"Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was poor in the long run for having once in a lifetime 'let out all the length of all the reins.'"

- Mary Cholmondeley

"A Bag of Tools"

2009-09-13T14:54:00.001-04:00

"Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?

Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
and each must make
A stumbling-block
Or a stepping stone."

-R. L. Sharpe

2009-09-12T14:48:00.002-04:00

"Today is, for all we know, the opportunity and occasion of our lives. On what we do or say today may depend the success and completeness of our entire life-struggle. It is for us, therefore, to use every moment of today as if our very eternity were dependent on its words and deeds."

-Henry Clay Trumbull

Stop 5: Olympia

2009-08-22T08:21:00.010-04:00

Olympia, Greece was of course the site for the ancient Olympic games. Now, since I'm only about two weeks away from starting to teach Western Civ again, I don't really feel like expounding to the point of writing a history lesson about it just yet... But I will post some of the more interesting photos with some thoughts on them.

Since Olympia was largely destroyed by what had to have been incredibly violent earthquakes in 522 and 551 A.D. (and you'll see what I mean about how strong it must have been shortly) nothing was left standing on the site. Anything you see arising above ground level is thus a reconstruction of the broken pieces that were found by archeologists. But even the sheer amount of the remains still on the ground is impressive.

So, some highlights... Firstly, we have the only circular temple on the site, started by Philip II of Macedon and completed by his son Alexander the Great, called appropriately the Philippeion. While quite unusual, it nevertheless evinces what I expected to see from the site, I guess... the subtle elegance of the ancients. (Even if it had all been painted up gaudier than Las Vegas at the time!)

And of course we have a distant descendant of the Olympic Games that we celebrate today. When we do, the famous Olympic flame is actually lit here, on the ruins of the former Altar of Hera (pictured at left) using a parabolic mirror. And what visit to Olympia would be complete with a visit to the Stadium (at right)?

But for me these weren't the most impressive sights. No, I'm not talking about seeing Mount Olympus there (because it's actually in a whole different part of the country), but rather what would have been the ginormous Temple of Zeus!

Of course, it's in ruins now, and the colossal statue of the god which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is long gone... but it is an impressive sight nonetheless. Just get a load of the diameter of the fallen pillars alone, with yours truly standing next to them for comparison! (See, that really must have been some earthquake!!)

Stop 3: Athens & Its Subway

2009-08-21T04:47:00.011-04:00

Even though I took hundreds of photos in Athens, they were easier to weed through than I thought!

In part, we had far too little time in the city... only about 7 hours. Combining that with the fact that we were with our Athenian friend Vangelis meant that no local taxi driver would pick us up to take us to the Acropolis because he would have to charge us the "normal" fare! Seriously... we were rejected by like a dozen cab drivers - and it just got funnier every time - who were on their way to the golden goose which is the cruise ship. (Pretty quickly, I learned the Greek for "no"... oshi!)

So, in the end, we only had enough time to see the Acropolis and the new Acropolis Museum. And there's practically no way to take a photo of the iconic Parthenon without it being totally cliched... So, I'll teach with those photos and won't bother posting them on Flickr or here. But what I will share are some photos from our cool trip through the Athens metro! Yes, you read that right... the lowly subway!!

Needless to say, you can't dig a hole in downtown Athens without hitting something of historical value. As a result, in an unprecedented move, teams of archeologists worked alongside the metro engineers for a total of six years, uncovering a staggering 32,000 artefacts in the process! The end result is not only a greater knowledge of Athens' buried history, but also metro stations which double as museums! Totally cool.

So, here are some glimpses of these clever exhibits at the Acropolis and the Syntagma Square metro stations... As you can see from the Acropolis stop above, a number of the artefacts (or their reproductions if they're simply too valuable) are on display, including the ancient Greek plumbing (!) and ancient toys exhibited at the Syntagma station.

But at Syntagma they've done even more. Since subways by definition provide a great cross-section of the substrata beneath a city, they've displayed this behind a glass wall... so you can see perfectly well the ancient necropolis which originally occupied that site.

Complete, by the way, with an open grave and a skeleton in it! (I am assuming this is a reproduction, but I can't swear to it...)

Now why can't Rome do the same thing???

Stop 4: Mykonos

2009-08-20T09:25:00.002-04:00

Again, jumping around out of order, photos from the beautiful whitewashed tourist trap that is the Greek island of Mykonos are now up in my Flickr photostream (and in my sidebar slideshow at right!)

Whew, that's pretty much it for the modern cities... now I have to face fixing up the hundreds of photos from classical Athens, Olympia and Delos!!

Stop 2: Corfu'

2009-08-19T17:19:00.003-04:00

A little out of order in presenting my vacation pics, but it was actually easier to start the weeding out process with the ones from the island of Corfu'. A handful of new holiday snaps are thus now available in my Flickr photostream (visible in the slideshow in the sidebar).

More to come...

Dr. V and the Splendour of the Seas in Corfu'

Venice in Vintage Science Mags

2009-08-19T12:20:00.005-04:00

It's always a hoot to look through old issues of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, and with Google Books you can now do just that! But what do you get if you mix an eternally medieval city with eternally hopeful futurists? You get these mags' interesting take on Venice! Through their pages, you see the 20th century slowly but surely arrive to the canal city (or not, as sometimes the case may be...)

As you can see from the pictures, the articles ranged from the ridiculous (at left) to the strangely poignant from World War I below.

For more on Vintage Venice, see my post over at Metafilter...

Worst cruise photo idea EVAR!

2009-08-19T04:37:00.003-04:00

I wanted to pose for it from behind the fishtank but they wouldn't let me!

(Just kidding...)

Proof that I'm easily amused...

2009-08-19T04:20:00.003-04:00

A towel animals mosaic from last week's cruise through the Med!

Wonderful (and Unusual!) Photo of Florence Siena

2009-08-16T14:35:00.007-04:00

(via the great Webdesigner Depot)

Remembering Venice: The Fragrance!

2009-08-07T09:54:00.004-04:00

I've been living in Venice each and every summer for the last 16 years, and I've NEVER encountered the (in)famous so-called "stinky" canals of Venice. As far as I'm concerned, Venice smells no better or no worse than any other coastal city during the summer.

Nevertheless, I was not particularly broken up about the fact that I couldn't take that fragrance home with me. I couldn't, that is, UNTIL NOW!

That's right... there's now (drumroll please!) "Remembering Venice: The Fragrance"! Yes, you too can now enjoy the bottled smells of Venice long after you've left the lagoon city, all for a mere $113!!

A Palladian Afternoon in Venice

2009-08-05T15:37:00.014-04:00

Yesterday, I caught the ferry boat that takes cars to Venice's beach island, the Lido. It passes through the wide Giudecca canal that forms the underbelly of the city, where you can get some unparallelled great Venetian views!

To wit, in one fell swoop, you can get a spectacular gander of not one BUT THREE churches designed by the virtuoso Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio!

As proof, I've uploaded to Flickr these shots of mine taken of the gleamingly gorgeous sixteenth-century white marble churches of San Giorgio Maggiore, the Zitelle, and the Redentore. Enjoy!!

Great photo & good advice: TAKE IT EASY!

2009-08-02T05:20:00.003-04:00

TAKE IT EASY!
Originally uploaded by TIMVANdotCOM

TAKE IT EASY! by TIMVANdotCOM.

From the photo's notes:

"Taking it easy on the world's largest salt flats. Bolivia.

We couldn't decide on what to 'write', the first thought was "BOLIVIA", but no one could figure out how to do the 'B'... though I must add that 'S' isn't easy either... one guy had a t-shirt with the words TAKE IT EASY written on them... and the rest is history.

I only had a 10 second timer window to push the shutter and sprint to finish the '!'"

(via Webdesigner Depot)

Magnificent Pakistani (and Sicilian!) Car Decorations

2009-07-22T14:19:00.010-04:00

Gorgeous collection of photos capturing the Pakistani tradition of elaborately decorating their vehicles. According to Drive Line:

The most striking thing in Pakistan is the vision of trucks and buses completely covered in a riot of color and design. They might spew diesel fumes, they may take up all of the winding, narrow, under-maintained road one is trying to negotiate, but they are certainly noticeable, like so many mechanical dinosaurs adorned in full courtship colors.

The decoration of vehicles is a common practice in a number of countries in addition to Pakistan. Similar techniques and materials are employed in truck and (more frequently) bus decoration in the Philippines, Indonesia, and several countries in Central and South America; in South Asia itself, Indian trucks are painted, as are the scooter rickshaws, called "Baby Taxis", of Bangladesh. What makes the case of Pakistan unique, however, is the pervasiveness of vehicle decoration, since decoration is heavily utilized on virtually all privately and fleet-owned commercial vehicles, from the well known trucks and buses, to vans, share taxis, animal carts and even juice vendors' push carts.

The motifs on the trucks can be categorized in five groups:
1. Idealized elements of life, such as the romanticized village, landscapes or beautiful women.
2. Elements from modern life, such as pictures of political figures or patriotic symbols.
3. Talismanic and fetish objects, such as horns, yak tails and items of clothing.
4. Talismanically or religiously loaded symbols, such as eyes and fish.
5. .Obvious religious symbols and images such as Buraq (a celestial horse that is believed to have carried the Prophet Muhammad on a spiritual journey to heaven).

However, by far the commonest religious symbols appearing on a truck are the Ka'ba and Prophets mosque, appearing on the left and right of the front of the truck somewhere towards the top.

(via The Blingdom of God)

Interestingly, half a world away, some Sicilians (whose culture was also influenced at one time by Islam; coincidence?) used to decorate first their horse carts and then their cars in a a similar kind of way. (The Fiat 500 at left is absolutely fabulous!)

More Ben Hur Vespa Fun!

2009-07-22T07:58:00.003-04:00

(via Vintage Photographs)

"I Drew the Coffin": The "Oblique Strategies" of Marshall McLuhan

2009-07-20T04:05:00.006-04:00

I just posted a long item on Metafilter about my discovery online of an important set of playing cards created by Marshall McLuhan (who presciently coined the phrases "the medium is the message" and "global village").

Enjoy!

At right, one of my favorites of the cards.
(I love the fact he's wearing academic regalia!)

Ves-PA!

2009-07-18T10:51:00.012-04:00

I am now the proud owner of a Vespa scooter! Now, this is the fun life!! (Captured best by this 1999 song by Lunapop, I think!)

lunapop - 50 special songs

The Vespa was war-stricken Italy's reaction to the need for personal transportation in 1946. Little would anyone have suspected then that this sturdy little scooter born of necessity would become associated with the swank good life of the ultra-hip by the 1960s...

To celebrate my finally joining the mod squad here in Italy, here are some WONDERFUL 60s commercials for the Vespa! (Don't miss the girls in skirts riding side-saddle!!) Enjoy!!

(Not last but not least, my question I posted on AskMetafilter and the discussion that ensued where I found these cool videos. Last but not least, here's a great pic of Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd from my latest discovery, Vintage Photographs!)

How much difference a single person can make: "The Man Who Planted Trees"

2009-06-26T12:18:00.005-04:00

I first saw this 30 minute-long animated short film more than 20 years ago, and it's still every bit as poignant today, if not even more so. Please watch - ideally in fullscreen - and I hope you will be as inspired by its beauty, hope, and wisdom as I continue to be to this very day.

"The Man Who Planted Trees tells the story of a solitary shepherd who patiently plants and nurtures a forest of thousands of trees, single-handedly transforming his arid surroundings into a thriving oasis. Undeterred by two World Wars, and without any thought of personal reward, the shepherd tirelessly sows his seeds and acorns with the greatest care. As if by magic, a landscape that seemed condemned grows green again. A film of great beauty and hope, this story is a remarkable parable for all ages and an inspiring testament to the power of one person." -amazon.com

Lots of Parties in Italy!

2009-06-07T15:59:00.003-04:00

But not the fun kind! ☺ I was astounded at how many were listed when I was waiting for my Italian husband to vote in the European elections... Some of these parties he'd never heard of before!

Anywhere else it would be gourmet; in Italy it's just the grocery store

2009-06-05T15:48:00.010-04:00

Thanks to all the wonderful local fresh fruit and veggies here, it's easy to eat low calorie. That is, until you get to the grocery store and see all the wonderful food there!

I snagged such goodies at the Italian grocery hypermarket today!

Fresh Agretti greens (also called "Friar's Beard)
Culatello Prosciutto Crudo
Roast Prosciutto
Radicchio & Speck Pasta Sauce
Grilled Eggplant Pesto Sauce
Bagna Cauda
Dried figs seasoned with sesame and cinnamon
Tuna Bottarga
Mullet Bottarga
Cheese: Imbriago di Prosecco, Imbriago di Cabernet, Cruccolo Gigante, Soligo, Sardinian Cream Cheese with Bottarga
Wine: Sparkling versions of Pinot Bianco, Muller-Thurgau, & Riesling

Eating low cal's going to be kinda tough... ☺

Utterly Fantastic Venice B-Movie Poster!

2009-06-03T06:35:00.003-04:00

This is just so breathtakingly, unbelievably, wonderfully, cheezily beautiful, I couldn't resist its spellbinding kitschy powers! Enjoy!!

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

The Nauseating Nature of Italian Politics

2009-05-30T10:57:00.028-04:00

Longtime readers of "MMC" will know that I typically avoid political discussions, and I am practically never, ever partisan... I believe that people tend to come to their individual political conclusions - whatever they may be - as a result of their own personal reasoned deliberations, and that needs to be respected.

But I guess every rule has an exception... Admittedly, politics is a messy business everywhere, and surely good taste is not a prerequisite. But exceedingly poor (even disgusting) taste seems to be becoming the political rule of the day here. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Prime Minister Berlusconi's Hijinks Have Finally Raised Eyebrows in Italy, and today the Italian neo-fascist party is holding an election rally right around the corner from my house in Venice; they'd originally wanted to march very near - if not through - the historic Jewish quarter of the city! (That was cancelled, but needless to say, I'm not at my house today.)

But it doesn't end there. Check out the posters for the European Parliament elections which are coming up next week... You may have heard in the news that Italian has had a tremendous problem recently with embarkations of illegal immigrants. Well, the party of the Northern League, whatever valid points its platform may or may not have, tends to be notoriously jingoist about Northern Italians and denegrates nearly everyone from south of (and including!) Rome. The poster on the bottom left shows an American Indian and states, "They faced immigration. Now they live on reservations!" As an American, I was shocked and appalled that such an enormous miscarriage of justice by my own forefathers was being completely mischaracterized by the Lega for the sake of grossly misleading political propaganda.

But I believe that even that pales in comparison to what the party of the Radicali, practically the Italian equivalent of the Libertarians, are doing right now. Their politicians are wearing YELLOW STARS OF DAVID! Initially, I believed that they were doing it as an act of solidarity with the illegal immigrants who are being rounded up and kept in containment camps before being deported... and while I still found it deeply questionable equating this admittedly difficult human rights issue with the genocide of six million people, I thought at least I could understand why they were doing it. Instead, it turns out that they're wearing them just because they feel like their party is under-represented in the media!!! While I used to have respect for their leader, Marco Pannella, despite his sensationalist antics sometimes (he was instrumental for example in the legalization of divorce in Italy in the 1970s), this was the last straw!

I am officially disgusted... no, actually nauseated, by Italian politics.

Venice's Marriage to the Sea, or "Liquefied Is My Soul!"

2009-05-24T19:28:00.004-04:00

Today was the annual celebration of Venice's "Marriage to the Sea," and a wonderful reminder of why I love this city.

It was Nan McElroy's blog Living Venice that reminded me that this weekend was the Feast of the Ascension, celebrated in quite a particular way by Venetians.

The "Festa della Sensa," as Venetians call it, has been celebrated for nearly a millennium. Probably the best read you can find about it is in Ed Muir's Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, but - as a quick intro - I can tell you that every year on the traditional Catholic feast day celebrating Christ's Ascension into Heaven after his Crucifixion, the city would take to its boats and row out to the end of the Lido barrier island, right in front of the Benedictine church and monastery of San Nicolò (as you can see in the image by eighteenth-century Venetian painter Gabriele Bella).

There, the Doge (the ceremonial head of the government) would drop a ring into the water, precisely where the Venetian lagoon met the Adriatic Sea, saying "We wed thee, O sea, as a sign of our true and perpetual dominion." (What can I say? Venetians were legendary for being more pragmatic than romantic!)

Today, a similar ceremony occurs, with the mayor standing in for the doge. But what really got me today was getting to wander around the old monastery complex of San Nicolò and the concert of seventeenth-century music which concluded the day's festivities.

Firstly, a couple of iPhone pics of San Nicolò... While most of the complex that one sees today (at left) is later than the sixteenth century, I have a soft spot in my heart for any and all remnants of the early Middle Ages. Sure enough, there is preserved a section of Romanesque-Byzantine mosaic pavement and some columns from the ruins of the nave of the older church, about a thousand years old! Even better is an easy-to-overlook tiny fragment of relief of an eagle, probably meant to be a symbol of the Saint John who is believed to have written one of the Gospels.
But the evening's concert held in the church was the best part of the day! Firstly, as is the case with so many cultural events here sponsored by groups like Musica Venezia, it was FREE! (Particularly amazing when you consider that you'd be hard pressed to find anything of the like stateside at nearly any price!)

Secondly, the musicians (from the group VeniDilecteMi) were fantastic (6 male & female vocalists, 2 violinists, a viola, 1 lutist, and an organist), and performed music composed more or less at the same time as the present church of San Nicolò was itself was built, that is, during the 1600s.

As you can see, it was the perfect setting for these beautiful sounds, many of which had been taken directly from seventeenth-century music books and had never been performed in recent times!* (BTW, while the church is about 400 years old, the crucifix you see in the photo at left dates back about SIX HUNDRED YEARS, to the fifteenth century!)

Most of the works performed were very short, just a few minutes long, and written by minor, lesser-known composers of the time. But still Venice was a major cultural center of Europe, and was absolutely saturated with wonderful music by composers of all levels!

Here, for posterity's sake, is the great program they performed (with the pieces that really struck me in bold):

G.B. Bassani, Suonata IX (1683)
A. Balbi, "Laudabo nomen Dei" (1606)
A. Grandi, "Vocem Iucunditatis" (1637)
A. Grandi, "Quasi Cedrus" (1630)
A. Balbi, "Exsurgat Deus" (1606)
J.H. Kapsberger, "Toccata III" (1604)
F. Lucio, "Jubilate Deo" (1649)
A. Grandi, "In dedicatione templi" (1618)
A. Gabrieli, "Ego rogabo" (1576)
A. Grandi, "Bone Jesu Verbum Patris" (1621)
B. Marini, "Zarabanda III" (1655)
A. Grandi, "Benedictus Dominus" (1610)
J.H. Kapsberger, "Preludio in sol" (1640)
A. Grandi, "Deus canticum novum" (1628)
B. Marini, "Sinfonia IV tuono" (1655)
A. Grandi, "Anima mea liquidfacta est" (1630)
F. Cavalli, "Canzona a 3" (1656)
C. Monteverdi, "O Jesu vita mia" (1603)
G.B. Bassani, "Suonata VI (1683)
A. Grandi, "Memoriam fecit" (1621)
A. Grandi, "Ave maris stella" (1637)
C. Monteverdi, "Cantate Domino" (1620)

I'll just say one more thing: I learned today that there were a number of lesser-known composers whose work I really enjoyed. But then there was Monteverdi! (Along with Andrea Gabrieli, Monteverdi was the only other composer played today who was at all well-known; indeed, he is considered one of the earliest innovators of opera and is buried with honor in Venice's splendid Frari church).

As the program today said in his biography, "Claudio Monteverdi is one of the absolute musical geniuses of all time." Turns out that this is no understatement. After listening to several perfectly nice pieces by the minor composers of the era, I was utterly blown away by Monteverdi's "O Jesu vita mea"! There was simply no comparison between the unabashed virtuosity of his piece and the others. In fact, one of the earlier works had been called "Anima mea liquefacta est," which means "My soul is liquefied," and that was exactly how Monteverdi's composition - consummately performed in a lovely church constructed at just about the same time as his writing - made me feel! (Have I mentioned lately that God, I love this city?!)

*BTW, anyone interested in recuperating and performing this ancient music can find the musical notation for these pieces and others like them here!

Predictably Irrational!

2009-05-19T12:38:00.015-04:00

I'm spending these couple of days easing into my new (Italian) milieu and catching up on some reading, which - it must be said - I'm doing on the iPhone through a mix of available apps, including eReader, Amazon's Kindle and Stanza. Sure, it lacks the satisfaction of the physical experience of reading a REAL book, but, let me tell you from past experience, it weighs a heck of a lot less than if I'd lugged every book I might possibly want to read over the summer to Italy with me!

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine was quite entertaining, about the real-life events and intrique that unfold following the $156,000 record-breaking auction in 1985 of a bottle of Château Lafite supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson (not least of which was whether this bottle, and several siblings which also surfaced thereafter, was in fact a fake). My only wish for this fun read would have been for its conclusion to be, well, more conclusive. I understand the legal actions are not all finished, but I can't help but think that the author could have nevertheless given a greater sense of closure at the end for the readers who had followed him and the whole story all that way...

Why spend $156,000 for an object which cannot realize the destiny for which it was made without being destroyed? Not to mention for an object which is practically impossible to guarantee complete authenticity? The next book I read might give us a few clues... Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions is the popularization of the groundbreaking research in behavioral economics by MIT prof Dan Ariely. I first encountered his work through a fascinating podcast for the series "All in the Mind." I've since seen him speak live (via stream) at TED2009 about the economics of honesty and on the PBS Newshour about the current economic crisis, and I remain a great fan of his keen and creative intellect.

For further info, Ariely's going to be in the spotlight a lot again soon! TED just posted this afternoon his talk from the EG ("Entertainment Gathering") 2008 conference, and an expanded and updated edition of his bestseller is out TODAY, with additional information regarding his scholarship and experiments, not to mention addressing the astoundingly predictably irrational current stock market crisis!

Hope they pique your interest as much as they did mine! Enjoy!!

A Slice o' Maine Life: Husseys, Guns, Wedding Gowns, and Cold Beer!

2009-04-27T20:05:00.006-04:00

My parents were traveling around Windsor, Maine today and captured what has to be the very best store sign EVAR! (And it *is* serious...) What a kick!! Enjoy!!!

Venice: A Blue Marvel?

2009-04-25T12:35:00.017-04:00

A week ago, I stayed overnight at the Weston in South Boston, where for the wakeup service your tv would turn itself on to the BlueMarvel channel. I wound up waking up to these sights and sounds of dawn at a basalt beach in Maui!

The whole channel's like that... According to the Maine-based company,

The best way to experience nature is simple. Go outside. For those who cannot, BlueMarvel presents an alternative. This is nature's events at nature's pace, bears on bear time, and the passage of the sun according to its own rhythm.

BlueMarvel pioneered a format we like to call "Experiential HDTV", whereby the viewer is allowed to slow down and develop a deeper relationship with the content, as if it were an open picture window in their home, hotel room or place of business. Our inventory of experiences include sunrises, sunsets, storms, distinct animal behaviors and migrations from stunning and evocative landscapes of our planet, all with crisply recorded natural sound.

Needless to say, their soothing video tour through Venice caught my eye... but not my ear! Natural sound, my foot! While people were shown in some of the shots, you never heard a soul. Not to mention there was no sound from the motorboat (the bow of which you constantly see in the video) taking them around... and last but not least when they finally passed a vaporetto on the Grand Canal, the noise it made was just sort of a generic machine sound, but not the loud characteristic churning, almost grinding sound all Venetians know too well. That's when I realized... they were using SOUND EFFECTS!!

So, not only is it a packaged, technological substitute for the real life of the outdoors (which I can't help but think really tells a lot about our twenty-first century society) but they're even faking parts to make it seem more tranquil than the real world actually is!

Still, I have to admit that they've actually succeeded, and it is pleasant viewing. So, here for your viewing pleasure are a couple of BlueMarvel clips not included on their video website. Enjoy!!

Maine Lighthouse:

Maine Lighthouse - by BlueMarvel -

Elephant Seals at Sunrise:

Elephant Seals at Sunrise - BlueMarvel.com -

Twitter me bad?

2009-04-25T09:40:00.002-04:00

A great debate in the media this past week... Print media really seems to want to demonize microblogging!

"Twitter causes immorality nonsense deftly dispatched by bloggers. Most mainstream press lost the plot although Time did a good job and Wired Science were keeping it real."

(via Mindhacks)

VIDEO O' THE DAY: Rube Goldberg vs. the Cadbury Creme Egg!

2009-04-22T10:11:00.002-04:00

As they said on the site, "This has to be the most impressive Rube Goldberg contraption I’ve ever seen." (And with cheap household materials, too...) My words can't possibly do it justice. Watch it and enjoy!!

Things to Do with a Cadbury Cream Egg - watch more funny videos

(Thanks to @jackiegerstein for the heads-up!!)

Cooking Tips

2009-04-21T10:02:00.007-04:00

What's Twitter Good For? Lots of things, even the NY Times says!

To wit, here are some cooking tips that caught my eye while following @foodimentary (who is apparently somebody who's quit their day job to become a fulltime Twitterer, although I have to admit that I have no idea exactly how that would work...)

Anyway, hope they're also useful/interesting to you! Enjoy!!

Tip for Wilted vegetables: Soak wilted veggies in 2 cups water, one tablespoon vinegar to help bring them back to life. @Vegimentary!3:38 PM Mar 18th
Hint for Spaghetti Sauce: Add a small pinch of bicarbonate of soda to your spaghetti sauce to lower acid taste from tomatoes.12:33 PM Mar 18th
While cooking smelly foods, soak a cloth towel & let it dry in the cooking area. It will absorb the smell, keeping the room fresh!4:25 PM Mar 16th

While frying Onions, add a little milk - this will help retain a rich color & prevent them from burning6:30 PM Mar 22nd

If you accidentally burn gravy, just pour it into a clean pan & continue cooking. Add some sugar to cancel out the burned taste.3:23 PM Mar 21st

Twitter!

2009-04-17T20:12:00.003-04:00

Twitter is a great microblogging service which allows you to post updates, thoughts, links, etc. in less than 140 characters. It's great for posting interesting yet fleeting and still half-baked ideas, of which - you can readily see - I have many more than the fully-baked ones! ☺ Anyway, if you'd care to follow my posts, I'm at @misciel! You can also follow my posts in the sidebar at right.

I experimented with automatically posting my twitters to the blog, and it didn't work very well, but I'll get back to real blog posting as soon as I can.

Thanks!
Michelle

Scenes from Today's "Maine Maple Sunday"

2009-03-22T23:52:00.017-04:00

"Maine Maple Sunday" happens every year about this time, when maple syrup producers all over the state open their doors to visitors so they can see (and taste!) the wonderful alchemy which turns 50 gallons of watery sap into just one gallon of gorgeously golden maple syrup!

Today, my hubby and I hit the road and went to about half a dozen sugar shacks in western Cumberland County, enjoying the heavenly, sweetly humid aroma of the saphouse and sampling goodies like homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh hot syrup, homemade doughnuts with fresh hot syrup, maple baked beans, maple snow toffee, freshly baked bread with maple butter, maple-glazed roasted nuts, and more! What a great day!!

Anyway, here are some random shots of the fun... Enjoy, and you oughta plan to join us in Maine for all the sweet maple-y goodness next year!

The Mona Lisa painted entirely by sheep (and more!)

2009-03-21T14:09:00.003-04:00

After having seen this video link for the hundredupteenth time, I finally clicked on it, and now I understand exactly why it's gone viral. It is pretty amazing! Enjoy!!

Surreal art and the blog

2009-03-21T12:02:00.007-04:00

I used to rely on the blog to share fun links, but now I find it better doing that more on Twitter. When I have time, I use *Michelle's Mental Clutter* for longer essays. In the meantime, I thought I'd begin to catalog some great art pieces that I encounter through Google Rea der that are worth far more than just an http address! To start off... (from left to right)

Erik Johannson (from Brainpickings)

Desiree Palmen (from PicoCool)

»Under Discussion«, 2005 by Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla (via VVORK)

»Undecidability Meme Diffusion«, 2007 by Sam Basu (via VVORK)

Weird History: "Vampire" Discovered in Venetian Plague Grave?!

2009-03-06T20:20:00.007-05:00

I've never, ever heard of anything like this, and I can't wait to learn more!

"A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of the 'vampires' widely referred to in contemporary documents.

Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth while excavating mass graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island in Venice."

More here...

(Incidentally, Venice essentially invented quarantine, and the Lazzaretto Nuovo was the quarantine holding island for potentially-exposed people who were not yet symptomatic of plague. More info on the 1575 epidemic previously on MMC.)

Shields & Brooks on the NSOTU

2009-02-25T09:37:00.003-05:00

My favorite part of watching the American news is always the commentary of Mark Shields and David Brooks... One's a little bit country and the other's a little bit rock & roll, and they frequently don't agree, but both are intelligent men whose opinions I respect tremendously.

To wit, their assessments of Obama's Non-"State of the Union" Address yesterday and the GOP response... Enjoy!

Carnival in Venice

2009-02-21T17:55:00.031-05:00

I've written, usually not very positively, about the Venetian Carnivale before. Imagine 80,000 tourists crammed into Piazza San Marco for the opening of Carnival, in a city which has a rather elderly population now of about 65,000... and you'll understand why it can all be a bit traumatic for the residents!

Nevertheless, Carnival's ongoing blog coverage from Venice Daily Photo made me want to go back through my old archives and pull out the pictures of the first Venetian Carnival I ever attended, exactly 15 years ago this season.

They're taken from my travel diary of that year, that anno mirabilis, the first time I had ever left the country and the first time I came to Venice. I hope you get to enjoy vicariously even a small part of the wonder and the spectacle even now, a decade and a half later, that I experienced at the time...

Friendly Monsters in Vintage Family Photos

2009-02-21T12:57:00.002-05:00

What a charming idea, and a hoot to boot!

Vintage photographs improved with monsters by Relleno De Mono.

(via bad banana blog)

UPDATED: Fortune Cookies

2009-02-18T16:37:00.002-05:00

I'm one of those people who fondly collected the best fortunes from fortune cookies in my wallet, with the whimsical idea that the ones kept in the wallet are the ones that will (or the ones I'd like to see) come true.

But in a slim wallet there's no longer any room for the fortunes... I figure immortalizing them digitally would be the next best thing. Hence my small homage to this terse but artistic literary form!

UPDATED (7/27/2010): I now twitter my worthwhile fortune-cookie fortunes instead of pocketing them!

Michelangelo's Amphibians

2009-02-17T16:07:00.007-05:00

Clipped this out of some mag years ago... I guess Ribit Productions has since done lots of different takes on froggilicious fine art. In the meantime, enjoy all the Michelangelo froggy goodness here!

T.E.D.: Day Two Talks (Distilled and Hyperlinked)

2009-02-10T23:06:00.003-05:00

Oliver Sacks recounted his adventures with patients who suffer from Charles Bonnet Syndrome, who are losing their sight or hearing but who nevertheless experience sensory visual or auditory hallucinations. (Might this phenomenon have had some impact on the creation of prehistoric cave paintings, he mused quickly, ala How Art Made the World.) "We see with our brains," he said. "Some people call that imagination."

Then, as you might imagine for a session entitled "See," artists presenting on their installations thereafter predominated...
• Olafur Eliasson, author of the New York City waterfalls and the green dye project, started with optical illusions of residual colors, making us viewers "co-producers" of the resulting artwork.
• Ed Ulbrich explained the mind-blowingly infinitely intricate process behind the creation of the digital persona of the old/young Benjamin Button.
• Golan Levin, a former graduate student from the MIT Media Laboratory, creates work that explores the intersection of abstract communication and interactivity, including art that looks back at the viewer. (I loved the program that turned human negative space into digital objects!)
• Daniel Libeskind presented his architectural projects, which he aims to be above all democratic.

The rest of the day seemed to feature mostly scientists...
• Louise Fresco had the incredible presence of mind to bake bread onstage while speaking about how - after 10,000 years - nutritious bread stopped being an accessible staple for people. "To those who have to go without 2 meals a day," as she quoted Gandhi, "God can only appear as bread." "Please ask your government to provide an integrated food policy," she urged.
• Anthropologist Nina Jablonski presented on what she says is our most evident and accessible proof for evolution, the various colors of our skin. The darker the skin color, the more resistant it is to UVB rays, but the harder for it to absorb vitamin B, a testament to our collective ancestral immigration out of Africa.
• Although as a historian of medicine, I can tell you that premodern surgeons weren't all quacks like amazing roboticist Catherine Mohr suggested in the preface to her research, she's in the process of developing the latest generation of the incredibly advanced DaVinci laparoscopic surgical robot!
• Robert Full is a biologist studying how geckos climb up walls and use their tails as a fifth leg for climbing and even as a rudder for gliding, and roboticists are using this information for prototypes of the mega-cool mecho-gecko!

Finally, Sarah Jones stunned with her consumate portrayal of half a dozen characters from her own life's history that populate her one-woman stage show! Her wonderful (and my favorite!) character based on her Jewish great-aunt is viewable here.

Last but not least, earlier in the day bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert cleverly talked about how genuis can - in a sense - ruin genuises, that is, unless they can manage to divorce themselves from it. The video from this spectacular TED presentation is already available here!

Other blog coverage of TED's second day can be found at...

Via My Heart's in Accra:

Via White Africa:

My next post will be on the TED Prizes!

T.E.D.: Day One Talks (Distilled and Hyperlinked)

2009-02-09T09:40:00.010-05:00

Biotech CEO Juan Enriquez discussed what he saw as the future of human evolutionary development, in which we would use bio-technology to pre-design our own future evolution (making homo sapiens - he said - into homo evolutis). His conclusions were based on the fact that, among other things, we're already growing replacement body parts in labs.
Military strategist P.W. Singer presented his investigations for his new book, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, including the 12,000+ robots which are doing battle right now on the ground in Iraq, current military robotic projects in the works, and what might be the strategic and philosophical implications of non-human robotic warfare.
David Hanson of Hanson Robotics demonstrated his research on getting robots to emulate human emotional expressions, and even suggested that an eventual potential development of introducing empathy into AIs might be one approach to the ethical dilemmas posed by Singer in his previous talk.
In a very much publicized talk (in which he unleashed a hoard of mosquitoes on the conference goers), Bill Gates talked about the challenge his philanthropic foundation faces in trying to eradicate malaria. (Video already available here!)
Tim Berners-Lee imagined taking even further his original concept of the World Wide Web and using it to render useful raw data fully public and “linkable” by everybody
Al Gore updated his 2006 presentation of the Inconvenient Truth slideshow by reporting about the disappearance of the Artic ice cap.
Yves Behar and Forrest North of Mission Motors debuted the Mission One high performance electric motorcycle, the top speed of which is 150 mph!
Nandan Nilekani discussed the globalization implications of what he called India's "demographic dividend," in which it will soon become the only young country in an increasingly aging world.
Sustainable business pioneer Ray Anderson explained how, after he read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce, he decided that business what the only institution large and pervasive enough to change the status quo of the "take, make, waste industrial system," and went on to reduce his company's carbon emissions in his successful carpet tile business by 82% in 14 years, all while doubling profits.
Marketer Seth Godin argued that mass marketing is out, but marketing to “tribes” or fostering specialized communities of people with shared interests is where it’s at in order to really “change the world”.
Filmmakers Yann-Arthus Bertrand and Jake Eberts each premiered clips from their own soon-to-be released gorgeous nature documentaries.
MIT Media Lab researcher Pattie Maes debuted a prototype of an internet sixth sense which would give real-time updated information which would be literally directly projected unto products, places and persons, all without the user having to modify his or her behavior to access it. (Plus, she suggested provocatively, it might be potentially implantable in the brain within a decade!) Check out the embedded video below!

Other blog coverage of TED's first day can be found at...

Via White African:

Via My Heart's in Aggra:

When the Lagoon Froze Over... Scientists Reconstruct the Coldest Winter on Record

2009-02-09T08:41:00.008-05:00

In the winter of 1708-9, Venetian artist Gabriele Bella recorded the hijinks that ensued when the city's lagoon froze over between Venice's northern waterfront of the Fondamente Nuove and the island of San Cristoforo della Pace (which would later be incorporated with the nearby island of San Michele and become the official cemetary of Venice).

Why did it happen? We may soon have a better idea. Slashdot notes that...

"In England they called it the Great Frost, while in France it entered legend as Le Grand Hiver, three months of deadly cold that fell over Europe in 1709 ushering in a year of famine and food riots. Livestock died from cold in their barns, chicken's combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travelers froze to death on the roads. It was the coldest winter in 500 years with temperatures as much as 7 degrees C below the average for 20th-century Europe. Now as part of the European Union's Millennium Project, Scientists are aiming to reconstruct the past 1000 years of Europe's climate using a combination of direct measurements, proxy indicators of temperature such as tree rings and ice cores, and data gleaned from historical documents."

The Emerald City of Great Ideas!

2009-02-08T23:24:00.007-05:00

I just spent the last four days with T.E.D., the conference which started out 25 years ago being just about Technology, Entertainment and Design, but has since infinitely transcended these original boundaries, becoming an annual, extraordinary meeting of the minds, driving us all to become together much, much greater than the sum of our individual parts.

Over the next couple of days, I thought I'd distill here as best I could the best of what I saw! I hope it can manage to inspire you to learn more about these deeply fascinating ideas...

First of all, wanna know more about T.E.D.? Here's an intro, courtesy of the BBC!

The Six Emotional States of Mainers

2009-02-08T19:48:00.005-05:00

From an old Down East magazine... Thought it was so funny/true that I kept it for posterity. Enjoy!

Gorgeous photo of Venice with Mountains !!

2009-01-31T10:43:00.003-05:00

If one were to compare this view with, say, my college in Maine's view of the White Mountains, the American mountains are about 20 miles closer but appear maybe half as big as these Italian Dolomite Alps.

That's cuz they just about are! The highest point in the Dolomites is Mount Marmolada (pictured in the background here, if I'm guessing right), which is about 11,000 ft. tall, making our Mount Washington at 6,288 ft. seem a little puny in comparison!

This photo below is from the splendid, not-to-be-missed blog Venice Daily Photo, which seems to be back in full swing after a brief hiatus. Enjoy!!

A Light Scratch on the Mind: Breathtaking Poetry of John Updike

2009-01-28T10:07:00.007-05:00

John Updike passed away this week. Oddly enough, I have realized that I'm only two degrees of separation away from this great American author, since I know someone who knew him well (and apparently even inspired one of his early stories). How strange are tangled social webs we inadvertently weave.

What struck me even more though was a poem which was read on the PBS News Hour that he'd published in a collection back in 2001. A poem so amazingly lovely that I cannot help but share it here. May the ink make a light scratch upon your mind as well... Enjoy!

A Rescue
Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever" in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird—a goldfinch?—
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.

Without much reflection for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane, held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely, perishing outdoors.

(via languagehat)

P.S. You can also hear the author read it himself here.

Interesting Fact o' the Day

2009-01-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

"Barack Obama was elected president on November 4, 2008. On January 20, 2009, the date of his inauguration, he became the fifth-youngest person to ascend to the Presidency, at 47 years, 5 months and 16 days old. Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Ulysses S. Grant , in that order, were younger than Obama when they took the oath of office..." (source)

Venetian Art Nouveau

2009-01-23T20:45:00.018-05:00

I spent most of my Christmas break this year on the Venetian island of the Lido, where my in-laws live. It's largely a sleepy suburban version of Venice, with mostly 20th century houses and even cars. It does however have some attractions, which I should start to share here!

First of all, the Lido boasts one of the greatest concentrations of art nouveau villas in Italy (called in Italian "Liberty style.") Most chose to emulate the Venetian gothic palaces of the historic center, except with much more flourish.

To celebrate this unique twentieth-century heritage, the City of Venice has recently inaugurated a website dedicated to Liberty architecture on the Lido. So far, it's only in Italian, but a clickable list of the 250+ buildings catalogued with photographs is here.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the first 50... Enjoy!

Villa Lombardi

Villa "La Montagnola"

Casa Licia

A Glimpse of Tourist-Free Venice

2009-01-23T20:25:00.004-05:00

This past December, when my Venetian husband and I returned to walk the streets of Venice, we found them almost devoid of tourists. It seems that the few hours of exceptional acqua alta that they'd had at the beginning of the month had scared most of them away. It was peaceful, yet unsettlingly eerie... a city out of time.

If you'd like a taste of that profoundly rare experience, here's a lovely video of a touristless Venice. Enjoy!!

Two of the World's Oldest Family Businesses are from Italy's Veneto

2009-01-09T14:55:00.013-05:00

Of the list of the world's 100 oldest family businesses, Venice's local region is represented by Barovier and Toso glass company from Murano, founded in 1295, and shipbuilders Camuffo from Portogruaro, founded in 1438. As a whole, family businesses from Italy represent 13 out of the 100.

The whole list is an interesting one! The world's oldest family business in the world is a hotel in Japan that was started in 718 A.D.!! The other fascinating observation is that, of all the countries in the world, the U.S. is represented the second most often. Not bad for a country that's been around not even half as long as some of the others!

Other countries represented nclude:
Germany - 17
United States - 16
France - 11
Japan - 10
Netherlands - 10
Great Britain - 9
Norway - 3
South Africa - 3
Chile - 2
Austria - 1
Finland - 1
Ireland - 1
Mexico - 1
Scotland - 1
Spain - 1
Sweden - 1
Switzerland - 1

Have a snail in your throat?

2009-01-07T15:15:00.004-05:00

Today was the first day that I've ventured out of my Venetian in-laws' house in over a week. I stopped by the pharmacy to explain that all I have left is a dry cough, and cough syrups and suppressants aren't doing me any good. The only relief I get is holding a mouthful of water, and I can't exactly do that while trying to get to sleep. Luckily, the Italian pharmacist had two moisturizing throat sprays to suggest... I'm so desperate for a solid night's sleep that I took both! And so far I've tried one of them and been thrilled that it works so well!!

While I was waiting for my credit card to process, another customer came to the counter with a similar complaint. The second pharmacist who was there listened to his complaint and said that there was just the thing for it... I expected to hear again about the throat sprays, but instead she took a box off the shelf and handed it to him. "This cough syrup's made from snails," she said in Italian. Snails?! I must have understood that wrong, I think. "Actually," she continued, "it's not really made from snails." Whew, I think! "What you need is a thick, moisturizing syrup," she went on, "and this is one is made rather from the slime of snail trails."

When I got back to my in-laws' house, I looked it up online. One such syrup is apparently called Karacoflu, and comes from Chile. Information about it says that, in addition to its special characteristic consistency, snail slime is supposed apparently to have antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties. The snail farmer reported that he had more than 8500 snails working "so we can get material for this ancient cough medicine recipe."

Wow, there but for the grace of God went I! Had I only arrived a couple of minutes later, that would have been the advice I would have received... and as open-minded as I try to be about the medical practices of other cultures because I know that my own can be biased in all kinds of ways, but this I just couldn't, as they say, swallow!

1960s Italian Design

2009-01-06T11:24:00.011-05:00

For years, I've wanted to take pictures of my Venetian mother-in-law's housewares from the 1960s. Such slick, mid-century design for such quotidian objects! We have here, from left to right, her Girmi blender with coffee grinder attachment, hamper, and sugar and salt canisters, the font on which is particularly fun. Enjoy!

(It's the best first-hand Venetian post I can manage this break even though I'm in Venice, since I've spent the last week cooped up inside with a ferocious virus...)

Peace on Earth, More Goodwill to All

2008-12-24T08:13:00.004-05:00

These days, holiday or no, we could certainly use more of both.

And Italy is by no means exempt. Recent news items certainly make you think about what should be better here, as well as what things are even worse elsewhere.

Even (or perhaps I should say "particularly"?) during a season which is supposed to be joyful, let's not forget the injustices of the past, and in the upcoming new year may we all work together to ameliorate those of the present, wherever we may be.

"Venice under Water" on "The Big Picture: News Stories in Photographs"

2008-12-03T12:44:00.005-05:00

25 high-quality images of the recent "acqua alta" at Venice under water - The Big Picture - Boston.com, including the one below which goes beyond the tourists and tourist sites to give you a slice of everyday Venetian life in the face of the flooding.

(posted using ShareThis)

Surfing, Anyone? (More Amazing Images of Venice Flooded)

2008-12-02T17:18:00.005-05:00

The BBC has some great video of the second day of the high tides flooding Venice, including - believe it or not - a kite surfer in Piazza San Marco!

But my all-time favorite image so far is the very clever (and likely quite functional) shop window in which the mannequins are wearing the same cheapo plastic water booties sold to the tourists at newsstands! Enjoy!!

Record Flooding in Venice

2008-12-01T12:32:00.013-05:00

Flooding in Venice today... A high tide that might have been greater than any since 1979 and the fourth worst in recorded history, over a meter and a half above sea level, submerged the vast majority of the city. What's more, the Nuova Venezia reports, although the tides have gone down some, the seas are still running high, over a meter above normal, so a good 15% of town remains flooded.

These pictures are from readers of La Repubblica newspap er and give you a bit of an idea what life in Venice is like during the worst high tides.

Plus youreporter.it is quickly building a huge collection of user-submitted videos...

Here's the flooding in historic Saint Mark's Square. As you can see, the tourists always seem to get a kick out of acqua alta, which happens often in Piazza San Marco even if almost never at these levels.

But now see how the average people have to cope...

How long can Venice last under these ever-worsening conditions? How soon before many more of us elsewhere in the world will have to face the same thing?? Check out PBS' site "The Sinking City of Venice" for more such food for thought, and in the meantime pray that the seas subside for the Venetians today.

Quantum of Siena

2008-11-30T22:19:00.011-05:00

Finally got around to seeing the new Bond flick. Heavy on good action, light on solid plot development...

But I did enjoy the use of Siena as this film's de rigore Italian backdrop! I haven't seen the specific locations there first-hand (other than the famous Campo), but the premises were certainly good. The underground tunnels would have been part of the medieval "bottini" waterworks that were built up in case the city ever had to withstand a long siege.

The horse race conveniently happening at the same time is of course the famous Palio, of which I've blogged before!

Last but not least, it seems that the chase climaxes in a fight among what looks to be restorations of the Cathedral of Siena. It's surely a soundstage, but they did do a nice job of echoing the black and white Romanesque marble walls of the city's duomo. I don't recall anything like a glass cupola though... and a quick search online reveals a Flickr shot of a characteristic Gothic style arched vault.

Oh well, I guess if the last movie could sink an entire Venetian palazzo, I should tolerate at least this tiny bit of artistic license. I'd give this movie an Italian versimilitude rating of "B."

(What can I say? The kicker was that the Sienese would not be partying like usual after the Palio if somebody had actually been shot during it! I once saw a trial gone horribly wrong in which a horse was injured, and that alone cast a pall over all the celebrations...)

Pictures of Canadian Meteorite Fragments!

2008-11-30T10:54:00.002-05:00

Universe Today has pictures of the remnants from last week's fireball!

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Spectacular 360° Panoramic Photo of Venice from a Gondola

2008-11-28T18:10:00.003-05:00

Wanna feel what it's like to see Venice in gondola? Check out the "virtual reality panorama" taken just off of the church of Santi Apostoli by Hans Nyberg!

The Joy of Yiddish

2008-11-28T11:50:00.007-05:00

The BBC has a lovely slideshow and short musical talk about the Yiddish influence on early Jazz... It's lyrical in every sense of the word and not to be missed. Enjoy!!