Italians certainly don't hold the monopoly on what we might consider exaggerated forms of religious popular culture. This story from NPR describes a recent book, Roadside Religion, which investigates what author Timothy K. Beal comes to call "outsider religion."
(I'm only sorry that the news story doesn't cover the "Golgotha Fun Park," as explained in the book and listed on RoadsideAmerica.com: Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions!)
Categories: Fun&Games
Venetian Storms
Venice, in the night, is only visible when she rains.
Suddenly, you hear the invisible terrace above,
the drops running down the roof tiles,
maybe deep into cracks which reveal the dreadful age
of your bedroom, your house, your city.
The shower wets the crumbling plaster that envelopes our buildings, separating our close lives from one another.
Still, no human voices.
Just the soft cry of laundry lines and the stones speaking with
rapid tiny drops sounding like Venetian girls
walking quickly, decisively, through the flooded alley on stiletto heels.
You can hear the storm drains backing up; the Grand Canal is full.
And, once again, Venice is a city covered in dark water.
Suddenly, you hear the invisible terrace above,
the drops running down the roof tiles,
maybe deep into cracks which reveal the dreadful age
of your bedroom, your house, your city.
The shower wets the crumbling plaster that envelopes our buildings, separating our close lives from one another.
Still, no human voices.
Just the soft cry of laundry lines and the stones speaking with
rapid tiny drops sounding like Venetian girls
walking quickly, decisively, through the flooded alley on stiletto heels.
You can hear the storm drains backing up; the Grand Canal is full.
And, once again, Venice is a city covered in dark water.
June 17, 2004 (about 2 am)
Journal of Nomadic and Popular Culture
Turn about is only fair play! How 'bout some anthro and material culture in the U.S.? I'm working my way through this one right now: Polar Inertia journal (also from Metafilter).
Live Webcams in Venice
Venice Webcam @ http://www.comune.venezia.it/webcam/piazzasm3.asp.
Can't wait to come to Venice?
You can be here (at least virtually) right now!
From Veniceblog, a list of live web cams throughout the city...
Categories: VenicePot History
"Oops!"
Tom writes, "Hmm, is the clay pot pignatta related to that Venetian legend of the little old lady who threw the flowerpot from her window killing a general?"
Wow, great memory! Good question!! I don't think so, though, since this tradition is all over Italy, and not just here...
But what Tom's talking about is a failed attempt, back around the turn of the fourteenth century, to take over the Venetian government. The conspiracy fell apart when the rebel army had nearly arrived in Saint Mark's Square, and a little old lady, looking out of her window, dropped (whether on purpose or by accident is unclear) a mortar on the head of their standard bearer, killing him instantly. When the rest of the army saw that their flag-bearer had already fallen and the battle hadn't really even begun yet, many fled in panic, and the conspiracy was then easily routed.
Legend has it that when the Venetian Republic asked the lady what she wanted as a reward, she humbly replied that she didn't want her rent to go up. So, she got to live in a Venetian rent-controlled apartment for the rest of her life, and for as long as her descendents lived there (which, now being a rent-controlled place, turned out to be centuries!)
Categories: Venice
Pignatta!
See, I told you that there'd be no wimpy papier mache pinatas at the Festa de San Piero!In Italian, pignatta (pronounced almost exactly the same way as in Spanish) means a solid clay pot, initially one that was used for cooking, say, minestrone. So, that's what they break!! I was thoroughly shocked that this was a kids' activity when I first saw it, even though nowadays, at least in Venice, they tend to use flower pots instead and issue protective helmets for the children. But in the good ol' days, as you can see in this photo from the town of Fenestrelle (near Turin) in the 1960s, there was none of that!
Categories: Venice, Italy
Culture Shock and Skeletons in the Closet
I'm not half the woman I used to be... after my trip to Murano!
You know, after living in Italy for years, part of my brain vainly begins to assume that I'm immune to "culture shock." And then, inevitably, I'm shocked back into the realization that I'm never, ever going to be totally immune.
This past weekend, we went to a open-air theater in Murano, the glass-blowing island just a stone's throw from Venice. As you can see from the photo at sunset, it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we'd set out early to get to the Church of San Pietro Martire before evening mass, in order to get a look at a masterpiece by my favorite Italian Renaissance painter, Giovanni Bellini. (The fact that he also has a cocktail named after him is purely coincidental and actually has no bearing on my preferences... Really!)
Now, as an historian, I've seen my share of relics, and by now I can even understand them intellectually and anthropologically. Usually just fragments of bone or fabric, relics provided the devout with a sense of physical connection to the sanctity of a saint. In Catholic culture, though, you're faced every now and then with a larger sample. Less typical in the north of Italy, for example, is the entire body of a saint in full view. My first "saint under glass" was Saint Lucy (or the famous "Santa Lucia," after whom the island of the Italian song was named). While most of these saints have their bodies covered in clothing, their hands with gloves, and their faces with death masks, Santa Lucia still has her hands exposed to demonstrate what's believed to be a common sign of saints' bodies, their "incorruptibility," or the fact that they've essentially become mummified (as you can read in this article, originally published in Discover magazine, but now available to the public for free only here). In her chapel, at the Church of San Geremia in Venice, you can get right up close and personal with the saint, although it took me a good long while to get used to this idea.
Then it was several years before I was truly "culture shocked" again, and once more by the visible dead. It was when I went to the church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome and visited the Capuchin friars' crypt there. In what I understand to be a particularly Capuchin form of devotion, these friars are not buried, but rather their skeletons are on display. Some whole, still wearing their Franciscan habits, others dismembered, and their bones arranged in decorative patterns on the walls and ceilings. (Perhaps not entirely unlike the patterns of what's fashionable these days in decorating with glue guns and seashells!)
Again, that took some getting used to. It was clearly the most explicit expression of memento mori that these friars could imagine: the reminder that death is never that far, and that sooner or later, we'll all wind up anonymous bones (even though, most likely, not with our vertebrae looking like a rather macabre version of kindergarden macaroni art). And yet, even anonymous bones could in this case be elevated to a kind of artistic masterpiece, which I guess could allegorically suggest that all of us, although anonymous in death, will somehow contribute to the ornamentation of the vast legacy of human existence on this earth? Then again, admittedly, I could be reading too much into it... but, you see, I was busy processing the whole thing as rationally and as intellectually as I could. At least, that is, until they turned the lights out...
A couple of Japanese tourists had entered the crypt, and didn't realize that a donation was required to enter. So, before they could see anything, the custodian turned off the lights. No matter that a paying customer, namely myself, was still deep inside. Although, technically speaking, not for long. I subsequently hightailed it out of there as quickly as I physically could!
And then, years later, we had this past weekend. My husband had gone to christen the official church bathroom, while I had wandered up to the top floor of the museum, which turned out to be a little steamy from the bearing-down of the last rays of the afternoon sun. The museum had had lots o' relics throughout, but they were usually non-descript, generic pieces of bone that had to be labelled for you to know what they were supposed to be (i.e., "From the femur of Saint James," and that kind of thing). And then, in a cabinet, I saw them.
Skulls. Dozens and dozens of skulls. Okay, I'm no doctor (okay, well, I am a doctor, just not the useful medical kind...) but I've been to the Smithsonian and stuff. I can take skulls, I tell myself. Problem was, each one was no larger than your fist.
Those relics had certainly done their job. They had driven home the gruesome reality of a senseless mass slaughter of infants. At least, that is, as long as they were authentic when they were acquired by the church back during the Middle Ages. (And I'm not sure I even want to begin to contemplate if they were not!)
And so, I've been "culture shocked" a bit ever since. I had thought that maybe a McDonald's hamburger would have helped re-center me, but then I saw Rhonda McDonald and was "disorientationally anxious" all over again! (And, again, I don't even want to begin to contemplate a female "Grimace"! Yikes!!)
Categories: Italy, Venice, HistoryRhonda McDonald?
And just when we thought that only BK had odd commercials (like the inexplicable "Subservient Chicken"), here's apparently a gender-bending Japanese McMercial (from Planet Tom). Well, at least they didn't say, "Have it your way!" :-)
Categories: Humor
Categories: Humor
No Swimming??
And, now, without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for... photos of people swimming in canals!
Okay, I've cheated, but only just a bit! These boys are swimming in the canals of Murano, the glass-blowing island of Venice. They'd abandoned their bicycles (*see, Toto, we're not in Venice anymore!*) and their shoes, and had hit the canal, just like an ol' swimming hole.
So, the lagoon's a lot cleaner, even just a few hundred meters to the north of the city. According to a great read, The Science of Saving Venice, the microrganisms which make up the natural waste treatment system of the lagoon couldn't cope with the build-up of toxic metals and pesticide residues in the later 20th century (and only started to be cleaned up in earnest in the 1990s). What's more, the dredging of deeper channels throughout the lagoon has apparently altered the currents and the way in which it would be "flushed" twice daily by the changing tides, so parts of the lagoon now wind up getting "flushed" less than others.
Hence, swimming in canals in Murano, when it would be unthinkable in Venice. What's more, it was during high tide after heavy rains, and the water was as high and as limpid as it was gonna get. So, the boys just jumped right on in.
Literally! Some, to get as much "hang time" as possible, were taking turns jumping off the bridge!! (Don't try this at home...)
Categories: Venice
Romance Covers Remixed
Panorama 360: Via Garibaldi
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