Episode 51: Last Time In Venice

Even if you've never been there, you surely know the Piazza San Marco (left), with its signature basilica and campanile. They're as familiar as the Eiffel Tower and London's Tower Bridge, and the city they symbolize has drawn visitors for centuries.
Geezer first stepped onto a vaporetto, the water bus that chugs along the Grand Canal, in 1956. A few months before, I had seen the movie, Summertime, starring Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi, and was thrilled to be in such a magical place, this city with streets of water lined by palaces centuries old, faced with Venetian Gothic furbelows and golden ceramic murals glinting in the sun.

Those fifty years ago, Venice was assaulted by thundering tourist hordes from March to November, thinning only before chill blasts off the Adriatic and frequent appearances of acqua alta, the "high water" floods that routinely submerge plazas and ground floors of buildings throughout the city.
Today, the crowds are far, far worse, millions of visitors all but overwhelming the ever-dwindling local population of less than 65,000. Most of them are daytrippers or overnighters, in town merely to check off the highlights - San Marco, the Rialto Bridge, a couple of churches, a museum or two. They are too often pushy, rude, loud, and ignorant, grumbling when their ways are impeded by mind-bogglingly tacky souvenir stands and Senegalese peddlers of counterfeit Gucci bags. While the worst of them are by no means only Americans, we overhear our countrypeople making such remarks as "They have something just like this in Vegas!"
Fortunately, the most popular attractions are largely confined to the district of San Marco, one of the six sestieri into which the city is divided. Find accommodations in one of the others and the multinational deluge dwindles to tolerability.
We prefer Dorsoduro, on the south side of the Grand Canal. Venetians live there, pursuing what serve as normal lives in a place where everything has to be delivered and distributed by barge and handtruck. There are supermarkets and hardware stores and pharmacies there, hidden within buildings that were old when Casanova was seducing nuns.
We rented a little house down an alley off the corner of Campo San Barnaba (left), quiet but convenient. The campo (plaza) has a church used as an exhibition space, shops, a bakery, a design gallery, tabacconist, three cafes with more tables outside than in, and a newstand whose owner hides the International Herald Tribune below his window. Every morning we picked up a paper (you have to ask), selected a table under an umbrella, ordered two cappuchinos and two brioche, which is, essentially, Italian for croissant. Schoolchildren, merchants, and office workers hustled past, headed down the street to the vaporetto stop or to the Accademia bridge that crosses over to San Marco. This all made us very happy. Every morning.

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"Of all the dreamy delights, that of floating in a gondola among the canals and out of the Lagoon is surely the greatest. We were out one night when the sun was setting, and the wide waters were flushed with the reddened light. I should have liked it to last for hours.'
- George Eliot (1885)
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Eliot traveled when the British pound was the mightiest of the world's currencies. Now, her nighttime glide down the canal and out into the Lagoon and back would set her back the equivalent of $145, as long as the trip didn't take longer than 45 minutes. There is a brief, cut-rate alternative, of a sort. Traghettos (right) are gondolas that connect sides of the Grand Canal along stretches that aren't served by bridges. They carry up to eight passengers, most of whom stand, if they are Venetian. I usually choose to sit, against the real possibility of getting pitched into the water. The ride is short, but it costs only $.78.

Only two workshops are left in the city specializing in the construction and repair of gondolas, one of which is the vaguely Tudor anomaly below. A gondola fact: The starboard side of the boat is several feet longer than the other. This makes the gondola bear constantly to the left, a motion countered by the gondolier with his long oar on the lee side. That's why he never has to switch sides with his oar, which will be understood by anyone who has ever steered a canoe.

Venice doesn't bristle with bargains

even in the best of times. When we were there, a euro cost $1.55. That's in contrast to 2001, when a certain incompetant pinhead walked into the Oval Office and set about wrecking the American economy. When George II took over, a euro cost only $.86.
There are a few scattered ways to trim costs, though not by much. Psychological: Think of the euro as on par with the dollar. That won't do it for you? Then rent a room or apartment instead of staying in a hotel. With a little care and research, you can save 20% to 40% in total lodging costs for stays of three days or more. (More about this in the next episode of Geezer Wisdom.) After that, sustenance is the focus for cost-cutting. Start by resolving to have your big meal at midday, when prices are typically 20% less, and to order no more than two courses. The standard Italian meal is (1) antipasti, (2) primi (soup and such), (3) secondi (pasta or risotto), (4) main course, and (5) dessert, but no one really needs that much food, and you won't be pushed to order more.
Take at least one meal a day in a cafe or bar, where sandwiches and snacks are always available. Types of bar food associated specifically with Venice are cichetti, two- or three-bite munchies routinely compared to Spanish tapas. In truth, they fall short in taste and complexity from the great Spanish invention, but three or four of them can easily constitute a meal and, with jiggers of wine called ombras, can cost less than $15 per person, if the more expensive seafood morsels are avoided. Examples are chunks of marinated octopus, cubes of mortadella or salami, cheese, meatballs, grilled mushrooms, and calamari. (Avoid the snowy-white strips that look like noodles - they are pure lard, the kind of food you have to grow up eating to like.)
Look for cichetti ("chi-KET-tee") down narrow lanes and side canals off main squares and intersections in wine bars called bacari. A very popular bacaro (wine bar) is Cantione Gia Schiavi, a storefront whose walls are lined with thousands of bottles of wine and spirits. Cod puree spread on bread was a good choice, as was the rolled anchovy toothpicked to a pickled cipollino onion.There's a bar, but no seats, so patrons tend to drift outside with their glasses and plates despite signs imploring them not to. It's at a bridge across a narrow canal near the Accademia Bridge, at Fondamenta Maravegie 992, but as for all Venetian addresses, have clear directions or a detailed map.
Not far away, a short block off Campo San Barnaba, is the Osteria-Enoteca Ai Artistic. It's fairly new, with a stand-up bar and outdoor tables bordering the canal. The cherry peppers stuffed with anchovy paste were a hit, as were the leaves of boiled and air-dried ham topping slices of bread and garnished with chopped olives or artichokes. It's on the Fondamenta della Toletta, lined with businesses that included a mask shop, a gelateria, deli, cafes, jewelry stores and three bookstores.
In the San Polo sestiere is the Cantina do Mori, said to date from 1462. It looks like it, with the dark, worn, woody aspect that is catnip for seekers-after-atmosphere. Dozens of copper pots hang from the ceiling. Various wines are drawn from the row of big casks behind the bar. The place fills with vendors after the nearby Rialto Market closes at 1pm. They go for spicy meatballs, tuna on bread, fried vegetable croquettes - good, if unremarkable. But eight of them and two ombras of vino bianco went for only 14 euros.

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"The gondolier's cry, half warning, half salute, was answered from far within the silence of the labyrinth. They passed little gardens, high up the crumbling wall, hung with clustering white and purple flowers that sent down the odor of almonds. Moorish lattices showed shadowy in the gloom."
- Thomas Mann



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YouTube Alert
Capoeira is an athletic blend of dance, games, and martial arts from the Bahia region of Brazil. Here's a compelling example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2VwnBU1-iU.
It's good to have friends, but when they weigh 400 pounds?
Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr1pWzoLvT8 (If this link doesn't work, go to YouTube.com and search for "Christian the Lion - Reunion!").

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From Gary:

McCain can't remember how many houses he has. He had the number written down, but he left it in his other plane.

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Behind the News
Did you catch this? It wouldn't be surprising if you didn't, given the Olympics, Russia's invasion of Georgia, and John Edwards' confirmation of the truth that men are dogs.

A woman by the name of Bemann McKinney paid South Korean scientists $53,000 to clone her departed pet canine, presumably in the belief that what the world needs now is five more pit bulls.
In publicizing her successful effort to replicate her beloved "Booger", McKinney, who lives in Utah, attracted unexpected attention from British tabloids. Turns out that 31 years ago she was a minor beauty queen who had won the title of Miss Wyoming USA. When enrolled at Brigham Young University she became romantically obsessed with a fellow Mormon student. She followed him on his obligatory proselytizing mission to England. With a male accomplice, she abducted the young man and spirited him away to a Devonshire cottage, where she chained him to a bed with fur-lined foot- and handcuffs. Sex ensued, repeatedly, until he was able to escape.

After her arrest, she jumped bail and got back to Utah, where she picked up the trail of the object of her rabid desire. About to stand trial for stalking, she disappeared again. When she reappeared with the artificial progeny of old Booger, she responded to the revelation of her amorous history with:
"It's taken years of therapy to get past this. We go to church and serve the Lord and try to lead good lives and do good things."

************************************************************************************* Get Lost
Don't fight it. You will get turned around in Venice. Led astray. Perplexed. Street numbers are infrequent and rarely appear where expected. Most maps are incomplete, fuzzy, or too small-scale to include every alley. Spoken and written directions often start with "find so-and-so bridge or campo, cross over the canal toward the church of whatsis, turn right at the fountain, then ask someone where to go from there."
No matter. As long as your legs and wind hold out, many of your most memorable discoveries result from unintended detours and wrong turns. Shops both beguiling and chic show up at every turn (yes, those are snakeskin shoes down there), and always edgy Italian design takes over small show windows punched into 500-year-old walls.
Go before it's gone.

Episode 50: Leggo The Baton

"Aspirational Time Horizon"
So Dubya, and you, John, does that mean, y'know - um - sorta like a TIMETABLE?

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"The older I grow the more I distrust the doctrine that age brings wisdom."
- H.L. Menken

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Irrelevant Old Poops
It isn't easy to know when to ease off, back away, and leave the stage to the next generation, especially if one has lived a life of accomplishment and is possessed of an ego the size of Rhode Island. But when it's time, it's time, and here are six old crocks who need to grasp that reality.

Ralph Nader is our generation's Harold Stassen, an earlier clueless egotist who made a spectacle of himself time after time after time. This is Ralph's fifth run for the Presidency. He maintains that he is obligated to do so because there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, ignoring the realities of the last three presidential elections. Nader did an important service for consumers forty years ago. You're 74, Ralph. Go tinker with a Corvair.

Phil Gramm has resigned as economics advisor to McCain. Yet another Texas argument for mandatory retirement, Gramm progressed from a career as a college professor and investor in porn films to a Senate seat and a failed Presidential campaign. A few months ago, he said he was a lock for Secretary of the Treasury in a McCain administration. Then he poo-pooed concerns over current economic difficulties with such statements as, "You've heard of mental depression. This is a mental recession" and "We have become a nation of whiners." His compassion for people who don't happen to be multi-millionaires was manifest in his remark some years ago, "Most people don't have the luxury of living to be 80 years old, so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them." Presumably, he'd prefer that old people find themselves an ice floe and push out to sea. These days, he persists as Vice-Chairman of UBS Investment Bank, which has recently agreed to stop concealing the accounts of rich Americans trying to hiding their money. He's 66. Time to go, Phil. Don't scrape your knuckles on the rug on the way out.

Dan Rather had his feelings hurt when CBS eased him out as anchor of the evening newscast in 2005. His employers' reasons had to do with Dan leaping to some unsubstantiated conclusions about Dubya's military service, although the fact that he hadn't been able to drag his program out of last place in over twenty years no doubt had something to do with it. (Who can forget "Gunga Dan"?) Now Rather is suing CBS for $70 million in damages to his reputation. He's 77.
Old people tend to trip over their own tongues. A few days ago, Dan was a guest on an MSNBC morning program, discussing the gaffe by Jesse Jackson (see below) concerning Barack Obama. "I have a great respect for Jesse Jackson," Rather said, "that he was an important figure in paving the way for an Osama bin Laden to appear." Nobody on the show corrected him. Exit gracefully, Dan.

Jesse Jackson is proud of his leadership in three decades of the civil rights movement. He ran for president twice, throwing a scare into fellow Democrats during his strong race in 1988. But Jesse had more than a few pre-YouTube episodes before his latest senior moment. There was his crack during that presidential primary run about going to "Hymietown" - i.e. New York - and his comment that he was "Sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust." A married minister, his shaky grasp of personal morality was illustrated when he fathered a daughter out of wedlock.
On at least a couple of recent occasions, Barack Obama declared that black men had to meet their responsibilities as fathers. It's hard to argue against that statement, given the fact that over 60% of black children grow up with single parents. Jesse plowed ahead anyway. Fox News caught him whispering on a commercial break: "See, Barack's been talking down to black people on this faith-based (stuff). I want to cut his nuts off. Barack, he's talking down to black people."
Obama has stated often that he stands on the shoulders of those who preceded him. It is reasonable to assume that Jesse's grumping is simple jealousy. He's 67. The limelight is moving away, Jesse. Deal with it.

Robert Novak has been a journalist, of sorts, for over 45 years. One of his less luminous moments was when he outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in 2003. He was illegally leaked that information by Scooter Libby, an assistant to Dick Cheney. Scooter's in jail. Bob didn't even pay a fine.
Add to his right-wing rants the information that Bob is a big fan of dog- and cockfighting, which he will travel to Mexico and the Caribbean to see. He deplores U.S. laws against those activities.
In addition to his syndicated newspaper column, Novak is a professional pundit. He was all over CNN until he had a snit on a talk show, uttered a nasty word, and stalked off. Not long after, he became, predictably, a regular on Fox News.
Around Washington, D.C. he is known as an aggressive driver with a hot temper. On July 23rd, he was tooling along K Street in his black Corvette when he hit a pedestrian. He didn't stop.
A nearby bicyclist saw the accident, raced after the Corvette, and made Novak halt while he called police. The cyclist, a lawyer, reported that the pedestrian, an 86-year-old homeless man (not 66, as initially reported), flew up over the hood and splayed across the windshield before rolling off.
Novak claimed he didn't know a six-foot-tall man landed on his windshield. The judge believed him and levied a $50 fine. He should have taken away his license. Novak is 77. Take the exit ramp, Bob, and you might want to lose about sixty ugly pounds while you're at it.

And then there's McCain. Where to begin? I'll have much, much more to say about ol' John in future episodes (else I'd have to hand in my lefty blogger credentials), but here are a few antipasti to chew on:

*Last year, after a trip to Germany, McCain referred to "President Putin of Germany."

*He said in Spring that troops in Iraq were "down to pre-Surge levels" when there were, in fact, more than 20,000 more troops than when the Surge began.

*In the last month, he has referred to a country that hasn't existed since 1993 -
Czechoslovakia. Look up Czech Republic and Slovakia, John.

*Last week, McCain, the alleged foreign policy expert, confused Somalia and Sudan.

*On a morning television show a few days ago, he talked about problems along the "Iraq-Pakistan" border. (For the geographically-impaired, those countries are 750 miles apart.)

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"There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money."
- Benjamin Franklin

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YouTube Alerts

*If you're old enough to remember Woodstock and Joe Cocker's performance there - or if you've just heard your parents talk about it - go to http://youtube.com/watch?v=T4_MsrsKzMM. Hilarious.

*Many Christians will be deeply offended by this video - http://youtube.com/watch?v=on LbeuEqNIE - but most of us secular humanists find it both startling and hysterical.

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Episode 49: Europe These Days

Sliver
Every city has a "narrowest house", structures usually squeezed into alleys between normal buildings. The one on the left, the slender red band with windows, holds the title for Valencia.
That city was also the assignment for Cindy Loose, a reporter for The Washington Post. She produced a syndicated article that is a casebook demonstration of travel writing in the hands of someone singularly ill-equipped for the task. It began:

"As much as anything, seafood paella enticed me to Valencia. That and the fact that it's an ancient city on the Mediterranean coast, and its very name evokes images of sun-ripened oranges.

"As it turned out, I saw only one orange tree in the Spanish city of Valencia, and it was a rather straggly example of the species. The seafood paella - and I had sample tastes at four restaurants - was so overwhelmingly fishy that I opted for other choices. Twice I picked chicken paella, demonstrating my preference by pointing at the sample dishes in the windows.

"That was great, except both times I had it, I kept wondering why Spanish chickens would all have such oddly misshappen legs. Then it came to me: The 'chicken' legs came off of rabbits."

Ms. Loose was apparently shocked - shocked! - to discover Spaniards, among hundreds of millions of other people, actually eat bunny rabbits! Thumper! That seafood tastes like fish! And she never figured out that Valenciano farmers grow their famous oranges not downtown but in vast orchards outside the city! I have even more bad news for her. Spaniards eat lamb and goat and goose barnacles, too. Deal with it.














Professional travel writers, Ms. Loose, research their destinations before they go. They arrive with some basic understanding of what to expect, from current political issues to the state of the local economy. They are prepared to experience new sights, different tastes, unusual customs, and distinctive notions about how to live their lives. They even try to pick up a few words of the language. You might try those.

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Flying
Most frequent travelers in Europe have heard and probably booked flights on one of the low-cost airlines that have recently clogged airport departure gates. Ryanair and easyJet have high profiles, but they have over one hundred competitors, among them such upstarts as Air Berlin, Estonian Air, Alpi Eagles, and Fly Baboo. Most of them give new meaning to the designation "cattle cars". They land and depart from obscure airports distant from their target cities, slash any services that might be remotely regarded as frills, and often make intermediate stops even during relatively short routes.

There's a new sheriff in town. Vueling Airlines is based in Barcelona, with a network that serves several major cities in Spain, plus four in Italy, two in France, and one each in Malta, Greece, and Portugal. The planes are new, prices are among the lowest available, and, best of all, all flights are non-stop and fly only in and out of the main airports of each city. When you make your arrangements on the Internet - www.vueling.com - the site will also offer to make reservations at discounted rates in your destination cities.

All that's to the good for travelers trying to squeeze as much value as possible from the ravaged dollar, but it's entertaining to consider how Vueling assembles its fares. A recent flight from Paris to Barcelona cost 1.40 euros. No, that's not a misprint. At current exchange rates that fare converts to $2.21.

But I'll bet that you'd like to take some clothes and other necessities with you. That'll be an extra 9 euros ($14.22) per suitcase. Use your credit card to pay? That's another 6.50 euros ($10.27).
Want to sit in the front bulkhead row for a couple more inches legroom? 12 euros ($18.96). Then there's something (unexplained) called a spoilage fee - 22.48 euros ($35.52). Add taxes - 39.30 euros ($62.10) - and the total, one way, for one passenger, comes to $143.28. Still a good deal, given the parlous state of the dollar.

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Laundry
Need incentive for escaping your hotel with your dirty clothes and finding a neighborhood laundromat or dry cleaner? After a couple of days at a Barcelona hotel, we sent three shirts and one pair of khaki trousers to the housekeeper. The charge, twenty-four hours later, was 34 euros ($53 at the time).
At least wash out smaller items like underwear, socks, lingerie, and stockings in your bathroom sink. A squirt of the shampoo usually provided works fine. Leave the clothes to soak in the sink for a couple of hours. Wring them out as vigorously as the fabric will allow, then roll them into a towel, squeeze out more moisture, and hang the items on shower curtain rods or any other projection that will allow air to circulate. They should be dry in the morning.

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Puffing
Not so long ago, Europeans visiting those parts of the U.S. with anti-smoking regulations mocked American prudery. Now, smoking has been banned in restaurants and workplaces in Ireland, Spain, France, and Italy, all nicotine-afflicted countries where smokers always felt free to light up wherever they happened to be.
Results of the no-smoking legislation are surprisingly positive, with some unexpected side issues. Italians, known for making a sport of evading laws and ordinances, humbly (and uncharacteristically) accepted the restrictions, to the point where even smokers sitting in outdoor cafes make a point of holding their cigarettes away from others and exhaling into neutral air. Spaniards have grudgingly accepted the strictures but with a lot of grousing and an inclination to violate the borders and intents of the new rules. Never mind that an estimated 700 of their countrypeople die from second-hand smoke every year.

The French have fallen in line, but with an unfortunate result: Smoking is banned inside cafes, so all the addicts have moved to the outdoor tables, spewing clouds of poisonous exhalations over non-smokers who would also like to enjoy the fresh air and people-watching. And in England, home to the quart-of-beer lunch, pub owners are trotting out the tired argument that no-smoking legislation will hurt business, glossing over the threat to the health of the 70% of their patrons who don't smoke.

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Phone Home
Most cellphones sold in the United States don't work overseas. Here's a big, fat, four-star recommendation: The Mobal World Phone. It's a universal cellphone that works in 150 countries. The cheapest model is only $49 (with tax and shipping $63.35). There are no minimum fees, service charges, or usage requirements, even if you use it just one time a year. You pay only for calls made and for voicemail (if you activate that feature). You are assigned a lifetime phone number and the phone comes with an included SIM card. No more pre-paid calling cards, no searching for ever-scarcer pay phones, no stratospheric hotel long-distance rates.

Catches? Not really. The only way you can get nailed is if you talk too long and too often. The phone can't be used within North America, but you can call the U.S. and your friends and family can call you. Setup is tricky for the severely technologically-impaired, but you can always ask your twelve-year-old to do it. For more information, go to www.mobal.com.

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