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A week with the folks
Oct. 2nd, 2003 02:49 pmMy favorite part was the guy with the knives. Ok, so, technically this was on my walk through Venice at 5:30 in the morning to catch the train to Milan to catch the bus to the airport to meet my folks to bring them back to Milan to find the hotel to see Milan to catch a train to Venice to get back to the apartment by midday on Friday. And it wasn't my favorite part. My real favorite part was perhaps the Tintorettos, or the risotto, or just the pleasure of spending time with my parents in this city I love. But the guy with the knives was pretty keen.
I was walking through pre-dawn Venice to the train station. As I crossed the Rialto bridge and headed through the tangled districts of St. Polo and Santa Croce, a sweet smell touched the air, one I later identified as the smell of brioches (croissants) baking. Passing the bakery, though, the streets were nearly deserted, and I took note of this. I try, as I move through the world, to remain relatively alert to my settings. I am not paranoid, but I feel that one should, especially alone, think about possibilities. What would you do if someone tried to mug you. Flight? Fight? Give in? Where do you draw the lines? I think about options and reactions. What would you do if someone stepped out onto the misty street with, my god, three foot long gleaming metal knives in either hand! I blinked. I swallowed. I realized he was just heading to a fish shop to start preparing the selection for today, presumably back from a knife sharpener. I walked on.
Venice in the pre-dawn may be even nicer that Venice at night.
I met my parents without incident. We found our hotel, with the help of a garollous taxi driver (who sorely tested my Italian, but then discounted the ride cause we had had a nice chat). We discovered that to see the Last Supper of Da Vinci you need reservations! (Who knew). We did see the Duomo, the big castle (with great 12th century stone carvings. Do not miss them if you go to Milan), the fun trendy shops and people, and eventually selected a restaurant directly across the street from the hotel. It had a big enclosed garden, and the food was lovely. My parents had not yet adjusted to the often present miasma of smoke in Italian restaurants (not really so bad unless you are right next to a smoker), so that was sub-optimal, and I discovered that Veal alla milanese is just a geographically challenged viener schnitzel (breaded cutlet, not very interesting, though not bad). At any rate, Milan was just the warm-up act for the real show.
And Venice with my parents was a delightful experience. I feel (and they will be reading this, so I can't be too schmaltzy) extremely lucky to have parents who can relate to at least some of the things I find so interesting and important and enjoyable in my life. I know many friends (many who read this) who would have a miserable time with their parents in Venice, or with their parents on vacation anywhere, or just with their parents! I had no worries, especially after the great trip I took with my mother to Austria last fall. And they delighted in many of the things I delight in here, and they found the same sorts of things amusing, and we found and made great food together, and walked and walked, and just had a grand experience.
It is hard to say the highlights of the trip, because so many things were wonderful. The flan at Zucca. The waiters at Trattoria della Madonna (and the food was grand too). The porcini and other mushroom risotto my father made. The mosaics at Torcello, which I had seen and studied before. My folks read, and brought, Mary McCarthy's _Venice Observed_, and her discussion of Torcello vastly enhanced my experience there. Tintoretto, first in Academmia, where I realized that his dingy little paintings (as seen in books) are actually grand experimentations on light, movement, emotion, suffering, violence, faith, and hope.
Then, yesterday, we went to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. The Scuole of Venice were semi-religious confraternal organizations in Venice. Such confraternities (think, if you must, of shriners, elks, masons, etc in today's world, but without the silly cars) where vital parts of the social fabric of the medieval town and city, and Venice certainly illustrates that well. Here, they also lasted as important actors well into the Renaissance and beyond. San Rocco, one of the six Great Scuole which operated under a semi-monastic discipline (I don't really know the details), eventually struck a deal with Tintoretto. He decorated ALL of their building. They paid him a decent annuity. He didn't have to deal with competition. They got one of the great painters of their age to turn their building into one of the most beautiful and interesting sites in Europe (and we almost missed it).
Over the course of many rooms, Tintoretto provided canvas after canvas, most shaped to fit a particular space, and all designed to work together. The life of Christ is in a square room, and the paintings communicate together, guiding the eye along paths, turning from suffering to, well, more suffering, but also to the moments of hope and redemption. Then there is the lushness of Eve offering Adam the apple, displayed as if ready for her lover, and in both bodies there is a clear knowledge of good and evil, but also knowledge of the pleasures of transgression. Perhaps Tintoretto learned about the human body from Michelangelo (and it seems clear he did), but there is nothing so sensual in the Sistine Chapel. Or, as a final example, one can compare the Annunciations of Tintoretto and Titian in San Rocco. Titian has a noblewoman meekly kneeling before the bouncy (and obviously gay) Archangel Gabriel, who has just told her that the Holy Spirit is going to knock her up. Tintoretto's peasant woman, in rough house, with Joseph working on his carpentry in the background, reels back in shock and fear as Gabriel swoops in. Such movement!
At any rate, San Rocco was a win, and I look forward to going back there. It is hard to write about paintings anyway, and I am glad I am not an art historian, though I am a historian who does have to use art as source from time to time.
To summarize. Tintoretto good. Titian fluffy. Veal alla Milanese boring. Anything with porcini mushrooms good.
And now back to the library for a few days.
(a good webpage on San Rocco is http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/t/tintoret/3sanrocc/ )
I was walking through pre-dawn Venice to the train station. As I crossed the Rialto bridge and headed through the tangled districts of St. Polo and Santa Croce, a sweet smell touched the air, one I later identified as the smell of brioches (croissants) baking. Passing the bakery, though, the streets were nearly deserted, and I took note of this. I try, as I move through the world, to remain relatively alert to my settings. I am not paranoid, but I feel that one should, especially alone, think about possibilities. What would you do if someone tried to mug you. Flight? Fight? Give in? Where do you draw the lines? I think about options and reactions. What would you do if someone stepped out onto the misty street with, my god, three foot long gleaming metal knives in either hand! I blinked. I swallowed. I realized he was just heading to a fish shop to start preparing the selection for today, presumably back from a knife sharpener. I walked on.
Venice in the pre-dawn may be even nicer that Venice at night.
I met my parents without incident. We found our hotel, with the help of a garollous taxi driver (who sorely tested my Italian, but then discounted the ride cause we had had a nice chat). We discovered that to see the Last Supper of Da Vinci you need reservations! (Who knew). We did see the Duomo, the big castle (with great 12th century stone carvings. Do not miss them if you go to Milan), the fun trendy shops and people, and eventually selected a restaurant directly across the street from the hotel. It had a big enclosed garden, and the food was lovely. My parents had not yet adjusted to the often present miasma of smoke in Italian restaurants (not really so bad unless you are right next to a smoker), so that was sub-optimal, and I discovered that Veal alla milanese is just a geographically challenged viener schnitzel (breaded cutlet, not very interesting, though not bad). At any rate, Milan was just the warm-up act for the real show.
And Venice with my parents was a delightful experience. I feel (and they will be reading this, so I can't be too schmaltzy) extremely lucky to have parents who can relate to at least some of the things I find so interesting and important and enjoyable in my life. I know many friends (many who read this) who would have a miserable time with their parents in Venice, or with their parents on vacation anywhere, or just with their parents! I had no worries, especially after the great trip I took with my mother to Austria last fall. And they delighted in many of the things I delight in here, and they found the same sorts of things amusing, and we found and made great food together, and walked and walked, and just had a grand experience.
It is hard to say the highlights of the trip, because so many things were wonderful. The flan at Zucca. The waiters at Trattoria della Madonna (and the food was grand too). The porcini and other mushroom risotto my father made. The mosaics at Torcello, which I had seen and studied before. My folks read, and brought, Mary McCarthy's _Venice Observed_, and her discussion of Torcello vastly enhanced my experience there. Tintoretto, first in Academmia, where I realized that his dingy little paintings (as seen in books) are actually grand experimentations on light, movement, emotion, suffering, violence, faith, and hope.
Then, yesterday, we went to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. The Scuole of Venice were semi-religious confraternal organizations in Venice. Such confraternities (think, if you must, of shriners, elks, masons, etc in today's world, but without the silly cars) where vital parts of the social fabric of the medieval town and city, and Venice certainly illustrates that well. Here, they also lasted as important actors well into the Renaissance and beyond. San Rocco, one of the six Great Scuole which operated under a semi-monastic discipline (I don't really know the details), eventually struck a deal with Tintoretto. He decorated ALL of their building. They paid him a decent annuity. He didn't have to deal with competition. They got one of the great painters of their age to turn their building into one of the most beautiful and interesting sites in Europe (and we almost missed it).
Over the course of many rooms, Tintoretto provided canvas after canvas, most shaped to fit a particular space, and all designed to work together. The life of Christ is in a square room, and the paintings communicate together, guiding the eye along paths, turning from suffering to, well, more suffering, but also to the moments of hope and redemption. Then there is the lushness of Eve offering Adam the apple, displayed as if ready for her lover, and in both bodies there is a clear knowledge of good and evil, but also knowledge of the pleasures of transgression. Perhaps Tintoretto learned about the human body from Michelangelo (and it seems clear he did), but there is nothing so sensual in the Sistine Chapel. Or, as a final example, one can compare the Annunciations of Tintoretto and Titian in San Rocco. Titian has a noblewoman meekly kneeling before the bouncy (and obviously gay) Archangel Gabriel, who has just told her that the Holy Spirit is going to knock her up. Tintoretto's peasant woman, in rough house, with Joseph working on his carpentry in the background, reels back in shock and fear as Gabriel swoops in. Such movement!
At any rate, San Rocco was a win, and I look forward to going back there. It is hard to write about paintings anyway, and I am glad I am not an art historian, though I am a historian who does have to use art as source from time to time.
To summarize. Tintoretto good. Titian fluffy. Veal alla Milanese boring. Anything with porcini mushrooms good.
And now back to the library for a few days.
(a good webpage on San Rocco is http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/t/tintoret/3sanrocc/ )
