Yikes... The Birds!

"Recently, following a research report from the veterinary sector of USL, the local health authority, the most pressing problem in Venice has become the pigeons. Eight birds out of ten are carriers of toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can occasionally be fatal, while others transmit salmonella, fungal diseases, or ticks. According to the monthly tests, their health is getting worse. The primary reason is related to their excessive number -- more than 70,000 -- which is greater than the human population of Venice. In the opinion of experts, the maximum should be less than 30,000 but, to obtain this result, as has been said many times before, it would be necessary to eliminate the St. Mark's street vendors who sell grain to tourists who, in turn, feed it to the birds."

(from Buongiorno Venezia - The News from Venice)

On a side note, strangely, I seem to post my rare news items on Venice's notorious pigeons on the same day each year...

The Prize Inside

The Prize Inside: Lovely prose on food, family, traditions and origins from this month's Utne Reader. Enjoy!

Garibaldi held hostage by turtles!

CURIO. At the entrance to the Public Gardens in the Castello district, there is a bronze monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi. The monument, created more than 120 years ago, and the fountain that surrounds it are in very poor condition and the municipality has decided to start restoration work in the next few days. Such activity is normal in an old town like Venice, but it is not without problems. Over the years, the fountain has been populated with turtles -- more than two hundred-- that Venetians brought there and abandoned. The firm in charge of the restoration, however, hasn't been able to find anyone who wants to care for the wayward amphibians and, without a home to go to for the duration of the project, the municipality won't authorise it to begin.

(from Buongiorno Venezia)

[where: Via Garibaldi, Venice Italy 30122]

Strange Venetian Medical Mystery!

DT Max on the Venetian family dying from a mystery form of insomnia

(from Guardian Unlimited Books)

Even better than the real thing

Anybody who knows me (or at least has read "MMC") knows that my interest in digital photography was jumpstarted this past year by Stuck in Customs!

I just got my rss feed email with this beautiful photo attached, and it reminded me yet again why this is rapidly becoming a passion. As Trey Ratcliff, the brilliant photographer behind the site has written,

When a human eye is actually on location, it is constantly moving, adjusting the pupil size, allowing in more light in some areas, less in others, and the visual cortex actually works to build a patch-like vision of the scene. That is what we remember in our mind’s eye: an idealized super-realistic memory of the scene. [High Dynamic Range Photography] appeals to those people that actually see the world like this.

My own frustration with photography in the past was that the images never quite seemed to capture the splendor of the moment as I remembered seeing it. Now, with digital photography (and, not to mention, LOTS of practice!) I finally have a shot at it!

What's got me thinking again about all this? I've been to that mall in Amsterdam pictured above, and - as unrealistic as the image may seem - that's exactly how I remember it! :-)

Want some more Stuck in Customs (not to mention insight into how I remember stuff...) Check out the slideshow of Trey's "Churches of Italy" photoset! (Sampled below!) In the meantime, keep up the spectacular work, Trey! Someday I hope to be able to capture my own reminiscenses as well as you do!!

"I know my chickens"

Italian sayings are wonderful! "I know my chickens" - originally a farmer's proverb - would roughly translate now as "I know of whom I speak."

The image above is the work of photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia artist Douglas Gayeton, who has a show opening this weekend in California. For those who can't make the trip, here's what Boing Boing has to say about Gayeton's art:

Douglas Gayeton has explored Tuscany and the heart of Italy's "Slow Living" culture since the early 90's. With a keen eye for stories and an ear for Italian dialect, he he intertwines the literal with the figurative in a photographic approach he calls the flat film. To become immersed in one of these works is to experience a world where time is at once collapsed and expanded. Regarding his work process, Gayeton says, "I've always seen photography as being about a single moment, whereas film is about orchestrating a sequence of moments (scenes) to create a larger narrative.

The mix between the realism of Gayeton's photojournalistic photography and the text reflecting Italian popular culture and the oral history of the subject seems a perfect way to transcend "the single moment" and create that larger narrative! (Reminds me a bit of a kind of refreshingly-grounded, photographic version of this lyrical mix by Howard Finster...)

More of Gayeton's work is available on PBS's website in a five-part photo essay called "My shoes are caked with mud: a Tuscan photo diary." I look enthusiastically forward to seeing even more from Douglas Gayeton, and hope you do, too! Enjoy!!

Drive-By Shots of Tuscany

Photos of the Sienese region of Tuscany this past June, taken on the fly from the back of a motorcycle. Enjoy!

More dissing Venice (and ruining the Redentore?)

Seems that the Telegraph's doing an entire series dissing Venice this week... This time, they're criticising the privatization (and therefore "Disneyfication") of the Venetian Carnival.

Fact of the matter is that Carnival in Venice is already "Disneyfied"! It had largely died out by the 1980s, when it was revived as a way to get tourists into the city during the crappy winter weather months. Most Venetians hate Carnival, and skip town during it if they can!

But privatizing also the Venetians' beloved Festival of the Redeemer?? That would be adding insult to injury for the few, already tourist beleagered Venetians left!! (You can read my past posts about Venice's treasured Festa del Redentore here...)

Newsflash: Merchants of Venice have tourist and 'rude-tourist' prices!

*I* could have told you that! In fact, I did... in an op-ed piece for a Venetian newspaper once (which I alluded to, but didn't get back to on the blog, here).

However, the quote from the article, "We Venetians spend all our time being polite to each other," is still kind of a crock!

Venetian merchants have tourist and "rude-tourist" prices

(via Boing Boing)

Getting ready for the Palio!

Here are some more snapshots taken in Siena during preparations for the last Palio in July. (You can read, if you'd like, my blog post about it here!)

These shots are mostly of the little contradaioli, the little kids of each neighborhood who get free bleacher seats for the trial runs (and intensive socialization in their neighborhood fanaticism!)

Want to see more? The next Palio will be run Aug. 16!

When in Rome...

My first post ever on MetaFilter. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but you gotta start somewhere... Enjoy!

Today's Photos: From Rome's Capitoline Museums

Remember my blog post about the "Road Less Taken"? I have a nasty habit of wanting to feel like I've still accomplished something when my plans wind up being thwarted, so - after discovering the Church of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome was closed - I schlepped back downtown in the blazing heat, past the Colloseum, past the ancient Roman Forums, and up the Capitoline Hill in order to visit the Capitoline Museums, which I'd never seen before.

There are some FAMOUS ancient Greco-Roman statues there... The She-Wolf who suckled Romulus & Remus, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, remnants of the colossal statues of the Emperor Constantine, not to mention "The Dying Gaul," (which I accidently called in Italian "the Dying Rooster... Oops!) All told, I wound up spending FOUR HOURS inside (and afterwards I was so exhaused from walking all around the city and then doing the museum that I could hardly move!)

The photos posted on Flickr today are some random ones of the minor statues in the museum, but ones I really kinda liked nonetheless. You're not likely to see many of these in your average art book, so I thought I'd share them with you here... Enjoy!

Photos for Dr. Dale... (plus site!)

Here's a couple of photos for my favorite criminologist...

First, a police boat on Venice's Grand Canal, then a police segway in the train station of Florence!

Plus, Police Cars from Around the World - Gadling (via grow-a-brain)

Photos Starring... The Gondola!

Tom gives us a couple of links about the new, first female gondolier of Venice. (I've not managed to catch a glimpse of her around town yet though...)

On that note, the latest photos I've posted on Flickr feature that incomparable Venetian trademark, the Gondola!

I'm not sure I've seen a better description of the boat than that from "101 Buildings to See in Venice":

"The gondola is an important part of the Venetian scene, more than folklore it is a typical lagoon boat; it is the product of an ancient constructional art improved on through the centuries to create an object which is perfect both from the functional and from the aesthetic point of view. It might almost be a product of industrial design or, rather, of nature, like the seashell. From the functional point of view the gondola embodies the characteristics of other typical lagoon boats, also very beautiful, such as the "caorlina" or the "sandolo": lightness, shallow draught, minimum resistence to water, great manoeverability, remarkable carrying capacity in relation to its weight and size. These characteristics are strictly bound to the topographical needs of the city. A gondola is a very tough and complex structure, the hull alone is made of 280 pieces of seven different kinds of wood. Intended normally to be rowed by a single oar, the gondola has an asymmetrical plan, being more curved to the left than to the right, to balance the side thrust of the oar; it is also asymmetrical in section, leaning to the right, to balance the weight of the gondoliere. From an aesthetical point of view the gondola has been traditionally famous for its elegant shape; it has numerous interesting details, besides the "ferro" on the prow, there is the "forcola", rowlock of walnut wood, carved like a piece of sculpture. The poop daringly high about the water level, jutting out to take the weight of the gondoliere, with its absolutely pure line, it is perhaps from an architectural point of view the most beautiful part of the gondola."

You can see what they mean in my sidebar slideshow! Enjoy!!

My prediction about Potter...

Actually, I'm not going to make any plot predictions. Instead...

Well, it's now yesterday's news (literally!) that Last Harry Potter leaks online.

All I can suggest is that it would be beyond utter and thorough brillance for the publishers themselves to have deliberately leaked false versions of the book. Decoys, as it were... (Get it?)

Can you just imagine? It might dissuade some folks from continuing to try to get an illicit preview copy if they think that one (or more) is already out there. Plus, you'd have thousands of rabid Potter fans reading hundreds and hundreds of pages of alternative versions in the days before the release... only to announce - at, say, 11 pm on the 20th - that they were all hoaxes. Why, it would be a public-relations (not to mention, security) coup!

It may not turn out to be true... but I hope that it is! It would be such an artful blending of art and reality, fact and fiction... revealing the continuities (even simulacrum?) between the power (and illusion) of both Harry's magic in the world of the books and that of the Information Revolution in the Internet of our own... "Confundus," anyone?

UPDATE: Apparently, some folks on Metafilter have much the same suspicions that I do (although maybe less charitably...)

Still, in the ensuing discussion, there were some priceless "spoilers" mentioned, like...

• "Voldemort is Keyser Soze."
• "Rosebud was the name of his broom."
• "A naked Harry wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette and Bob Newhart!!!"
• "Harry actually dreamed the whole rescue, and is really still in the torture chamber. Oh, and Hermoine is a man."