Venice miscellany

Six whole days without typing; nearly a week without the Internet. I really can't remember when that last happened, probably the Christmas of 2003. I didn't miss the Internet enough to enter any of the cybercafés in Venice, though I did occasionally think of all the happy little bloggers and wonder what you were up to. (Who having seen Philip's amazing sandcastles, could sit on the beach without remembering them?)

I found that I missed writing, missed it terribly, and so bought one of these at the Biennale bookshop, and nice fountain pen to go with it. (Yes, a coincidental similarity to Sass's recent birthday presents may be noted - and a difference, but I don't have Jack's budget.) There should have been a link to the pen too, but Parker has the world's second-worst website and I would not insult your eyes by sending you there. Trust me that it is a very restrained matte black finish with gold accents and a medium orthographic nib. It has a nice weight, well balanced, and is not too thin for my long fingers.

I wrote many short reviews (reminders) of works in the Biennale, which will be collected in another post, and some observations. Without more ado:

A bookshop in the university quarter, browsing in the paperback section is reader and book-lover Udge (who can get by in tourist-Italian but couldn't read a proper book to save his life). Udge is joined by a pair of tourists, who walk down opposite sides of a floor carousel looking at the titles, occasionally handing each other a book across the top for closer inspection. Oohs, aahs and appreciative Hmms abound. She: "The Italians have such beautifully produced books, don't they?" He: "Yes, if only I could read a word of it." True book lovers love books as objects in themselves, apart from any value that the words-and-pictures content might have.

A huge cruise ship, eight storeys tall, sails down the Guidecca canal between San Giorgio and San Marco, on its way to the sea. You feel the vibration of its engines before you can hear them. It is the taller than anything but the Campanile, the captain on the bridge can see clear across Venice to the mainland.

James Brown Living in America is on the radio, blaring out of a shop being refitted. Inside, the workmen sing along, waving power tools in the air.

The headwaiter at the restaurant La Theatre recognises and salutes us as we walk past. When we were last there, three other waiters (and the busboy) came up to us in the course of the evening to ask "You've been here before, haven't you?" This is one of the differences between Europe, particularly Italy, and North America: waitering here is a life career, respected and rewarded, to be taken seriously; not something to tide you over for a month or two. We go there once a year, which makes us "regular customers".

A theory of the economics of entertainment: A thing (dinner, drinks, theatre, whatever) is "good value" if the cost per hour of indulgence is less than three hours' of work at your (pro rata) hourly rate.

It is the lighting of the Piazza San Marco that makes it such an effective urban space, it works much better at night than by day. (No, I didn't photograph this, I could never remember to take the camera along.) By day, the sky is dominant by virtue of the contrast to the narrow alleyways of the rest of the city, the walls that surround the square do not impose themselves visually. At night, the walls are lit up to become the dominant element, they define and enclose the space, which becomes smaller, almost intimate; the black (starry) sky seems like a ceiling; the square really does feel like an indoor room. (Being rained on at night in the Piazza is quite a surreal experience.) By day, one looks down the length of the square; by night, one looks across at one's companions.

Late evening, calm and quiet. A gondola drifts into view from beneath the bridge where I stand. In it, two middle-aged men in business suits sit side by side, holding hands. Call it a sign of the times.

[Part one of Venice 2005.]