Calcio

Last Sunday, I went with Sara, Elyse, and Audrey to a Venetian soccer game. Soccer in Italian is known as “calcio.” I definitely experienced a certain amount of trepidation upon approaching the stadium, because I had heard before of how wild European soccer crowds could become. However, as it turned out, everyone was very nice to us and the crowd was not a great deal wilder than crowds I have been a part of at Purdue football or basketball games. What I found the most interesting, though, was how the battle down on the field was carried over into the stands. As Geertz says, “As much of America surfaces in a ball park, on a golf links, at a race track, or around a poker table, much of Bali surfaces in a cock ring. For it is only apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually, it is men” (2). This applies just as aptly to an Italian soccer match. It was clearly a male-dominated arena. Though there were women there, females were quite strongly in the minority. Also, interestingly, in the area we were sitting anyway, age-wise we were also in the minority; most of the people around us were at least fifty or sixty years old. There were a few boys who were about twelve or thirteen, but they seemed to be an exception, rather than the norm of the spectators. Possibly across the field, where many banners were waving and where the cheering was loudest, we would have encountered others closer to our own age, but there was no way to get over there, Elyse and Audrey tried.

What fascinated me even more than the demographics of the situation was the way in which the action on the field spilled over into the stands. Not literally, of course, for the players were well contained down on their field. What carried over into the crowd was the battle for supremacy. Significantly, the debates over calls belonged almost exclusively to the crowd. The players, after a call was made, usually just shrugged, helped each other up, and moved on with the game. But in the crowd, certain calls could spark a minutes long debate involving two or more men standing up and yelling at each other over the seats. While the players down on the field simply went about their business, the men in the stands carried the game to a new level by being incredibly invested in the outcome, to the point of yelling across the aisles at each other, sharing in a debate about the match. The importance of this social aspect of attending the game cannot be overlooked. The game itself was only a simulacra of the real match, which was taking place in the stands after every call or goal in the form of heated debates among the men watching. To reiterate Geertz, “For it is only apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually, it is men” (2). Though, to make the quote more appropriately fit the calcio situation, it ought to state, “For it is only apparently the soccer players that are fighting there. Actually, it is the men in the stands.”

Venice Longing for Stability

Before coming to Venice, whenever I would talk about getting ready to go or mention something about Venice, my dad would always say, “Venice is sinking, you know,” to which I would reply, “Yeah, I’ve heard.” It was just a little ongoing inside joke, but once I actually got here, it started me thinking. It seems to me that one of the facets of Venice is a longing for stability. Because the city was built on the water, there is a constant battle to create a stable environment. The liquid element is what makes Venice the unique city that it is, for “Venice can only be compared to itself” (Goethe), but at the same time, this feature which makes Venice what it is, is at the same time killing it, slowly but steadily.

This concept of Venice being an attraction which is “only here for a limited time” creates a second type of longing, a longing in people to come to Venice, to see the city with their own eyes, to “collect” it , if you will, as a part of their travels, before it is gone. Susan Stewart writes that, “In his work on tourism, Dean McCannell notes that while sights and attractions are collected by entire societies, souvenirs are collected by individual tourists” (Stewart 4). I agree with McCannell that sights like Piazza San Marco are collected by societies, while souvenirs like a miniature campanile are collected by individual tourists. However, I think that sights can also be collected by individual tourists, not only in the form of photographs, which are really more souvenirs, but just through the pure experience of being present within these attractions or through viewing these sights. A tourist collects cities, and sights within them, even if they are doing it unconsciously. This is made clear by the response to the question, “Where have you been and what did you do there?” In answer to this question, someone will rattle off a list of names of cities and sights as if naming the parts of their collection. And if Venice is considered a dying city, or a rare, “limited time” commodity, then that makes it an even more important piece to add to the “travel collection,” and the tourist longs to do so.

But even the tourists, Venice’s constant pillar of industry, are not completely stable. However, while the tourist industry is still thriving, the instability of the tourists is purely physical. Tourists are subjected to instability in the form of being unable to keep their balance on the vaporetti and the docks, being unused to being constantly on the water. This is representative, though, of the mental wavering of the tourists, as well. They come wanting to see Venice, to experience the city, but for the most part, they really only want the heterotopic, simulacral version of Venice, the Venice born of the myth of the city. They are torn between a longing to know the true city and a desire to have a great experience, which typically involves nicer hotels and pronounceable food. This divide creates an instability in the minds of the tourists, a lack of determination as they struggle with a yearning to truly experience the city while at the same time battling an equally strong wish to avoid assimilation. Then, of course, there is the very simple fact of the individual tourist’s lack of permanence, as they move in and out of the city, sometimes within the span of only a day. So the current most stable institution in Venice, the tourist industry, is also a form of instability because of the constant ebb and flow of tourists throughout the year.

The most obvious examples of Venice’s longing for permanence in a city that is constantly changing are the massive buildings and cathedrals. A mammoth cathedral like San Marco is the very epitomy of permanence and yet, in Venice, it is in constant danger of falling into nonexistence due to the instability of the ground upon which it is built. Between the crypts which are below water level and into which water leaks, the acqua alta which spills into the main entrance of the church and warps the tiles there, and the simple immense weight of the church itself pressing into the swampy ground of the lagoon, the most stable paradigm of Venice is actually constantly in flux.

Venice is longing for stability, but it is unlikely to ever achieve its desire because the very circumstances which make it unique are also the same forces which seek to destabilize and destroy it. And so the concept of viewing Venice as a commodity, as something to be seen before it is gone, will continue.

Italian Beach Culture

A quick note on the pictures: I did not actually have my camera on me the day we went in October, so I took these pictures instead just this past week, which is why the beach is not as crowded as I described in my essay. There were many more people on the beach back in October.

As I’ve mentioned before, in my essay on the politics of Gothic architecture, Americans are, at times, much more restrained as a culture than Italians. This was notable when I went to an Italian beach on the Lido. We had gone as a group to the Lido, the very first weekend of classes, while it was still warm, so the beach was still fairly busy. Not realizing that this was a partially nude beach, it was incredibly shocking to see an entire family stripping down and changing clothes, right there on the sand. The woman, presumably the mother, took her top off, so that she was standing there completely bare-chested in front of God and everybody, while one of the children, who looked at least nine or ten, was completely nude. The father and another child still seemed to be half-dressed. The most amazing thing, to me anyway, was their complete lack of embarrassment. It was absolutely no big deal to be changing clothes right on the beach. Anyone who has ever been to an amusement park with a water park knows that this is not at all the case in the United States, where the line for the dressing rooms can seems to go on for ages and no one, save perhaps for very young children two or three years old and younger, would ever change right out in front of the world like that. Or if they did choose to do so, they would almost certainly be shunned in some way and looked upon as quite odd and strange. Here, it was clearly no big deal.

Another difference that I noted also involved clothes. I saw several men wearing Speedos, the tiny little men’s swimming suits that look more like a woman’s bikini bottom. And here, just let me say that while this look works on some Olympic swimmers because they have fit bodies, it is not such a good look for an overweight sixty-five year old man. I saw an overweight sixty-five year old man wearing a Speedo, along with a couple other men, slightly younger and fitter, wearing them as well, but it was not a look that particularly flattered any of them. But the point of this analysis is not to become a fashion critique. What interested me, socio-anthropologically, about the Speedos, was that these men were wearing them at all, and that multiple men were wearing them. Occasionally at a beach in the United States there is the one oddball older man who is wearing a Speedo, but this is the rarity, not the rule, while on the Lido it seemed as common as swim trunks. This goes along with the concept that Italians are more comfortable with their bodies than Americans, because typical American men are not so comfortable putting their upper thighs and, ahem, other parts, right on display. This, I believe, is why swimming trunks are more common in the United States than Speedos because they are more modest, they cover the body better.

We have discussed in class several times about how, in general, Italians are more comfortable with their bodies than Americans are with theirs. For instance, Italians, though absolutely not dirty, are still far less obsessed with hygiene than Americans, as noted by the fact that on the vaporetti, many times, I have noticed that one or more people around me are giving off the very distinct smell of body odor. Though this does happen in America, I feel that it is far less frequent, largely due to our obsession with deodorant. Also on the vaporetti, it is noticeable that far more couples are involved in public displays of affection. Again, this is not unheard of in America, but still I find it far more frequent here in Venice. I think that it is because, despite our sex-saturated culture as a result of mass media, sex in America is still something that is private and something to be kept behind closed doors. It goes back, once again, to Italians being more comfortable with their bodies than Americans, and less ashamed of displaying affection in public places.

Overall, what began as an examination of Italian beach culture, particularly how Italians are not as concerned about nudity in a public place such as the beach, ended with considering how in general Italians are more comfortable with their bodies than Americans. This is just one of the aspects of Italian culture which I have noticed differing from American culture and it was interesting to examine it more closely.

Virtuosi di Venezia

I must admit that I was unsure of what to write a blog about for this week, until tonight when we saw the performance by the Virtuosi di Venezia. I must also admit that I was not necessarily looking forward to the concert. With an essay due this week, plus the readings for tomorrow, I felt as if I was too busy to sit and enjoy a concert, especially when I was unsure how long it would last. However, by the end of the first song, I had completely forgotten my homework and was simply sitting, wishing that the performance could go on all night. Somewhere along the line, I had forgotten that I actually enjoy classical music. And this performance, I felt, was stunning.

I used to play the violin myself, I took lessons about nine or ten years ago now, but I haven’t played in at least seven years. Watching the two violinists tonight, not only was I awed by seeing their masterful playing, I also felt an ache in my chest from remembering how it felt to hold the instrument, and the simple joy that comes from standing in a room, just playing for your own pleasure. I especially love to play Christmas music, and because the season is coming up, that made the ache all the more pronounced. For the first song (I almost don’t like using the word “song” because it seems insufficient to describe the music we heard tonight, but I can’t think of another), I couldn’t take my eyes off the violinists’ hands, jumping easily from first to second position, drawing the bow in long, slow strokes to draw the notes out, then shorter, faster jabs for quicker notes. To be honest, the only times I took my eyes off the violins were when the two singers were on stage.

Until tonight, I had never heard opera and I had the same aversion to it that I think pretty much everyone does, that it would be boring and slightly strange. Instead, I thought that it was beautiful. The songs were amazing and what the singers could do with their voices blew me away. The lady, the soprano, was fantastic, but the gentleman, the tenor, had the kind of stage presence that makes you unable to take your eyes off of him. He was so expressive that even though I couldn’t understand the Italian they were singing in, I still knew what was going on, just from his face.

The thing that struck me the most, though, was just the joy that all the performers seemed to have. Even though it must have been quite stressful, because the music was clearly difficult to play, each and every one of them, the two violinists, the viola player, the cellist, the pianist, and the two singers, all looked so happy to be on that stage and playing their music. The faces of the musicians as they went through the songs not only had a look of joy on them, but also of peace, as if there was nowhere they would rather be than there making music. The faces of the singers were nearly elated, even during the sad scenes, as they stood there and I’m pretty sure that the cellist had a smile on his face throughout most of the performance. I think the fact that they were enjoying the performance so much made it all the more enjoyable, definitely for myself, but also for the audience in general.

It is an amazing thing about music, that, like a good book, it can lift us out of ourselves and carry us away, it can make us forget our present problems and simply exist somewhere else, even if only for a short time. I think that can be said of any true art, though, whether it is a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music, or a book. The best art, of any kind, transforms us, and the greatest paintings, sculptures, songs, and stories stay with us long after we have listened to the final note, closed the book, and walked away.

The Myth of Venice

Reading a classmate’s blog today, I saw something mentioned about a refinery, for gasoline to keep the boats and vaporetti running. This struck me quite hard, because up until that moment, I had not considered that the boats which run here constantly need fuel to continue to run constantly. I have not seen one gassing up, but perhaps that’s because I’ve just been in the wrong part of the city to be able to see that. And as I’ve said, I hadn’t even thought about how the many boats do need fuel to continue their trips up and down canals and around the lagoon. I suppose that to my mind, the boats ran simply because they are supposed to, because this is Venice and it has boats, which I see going constantly. I had not thought about them stopping to replenish their fuel supply. It seems like such an almost vulgar, corporeal thing. I am used to seeing cars getting gas at home and having to go about that weekly chore myself, but in Venice, for some reason, a gas station seems wildly inappropriate, even if it’s for boats. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there are no cars here, so I expect to see no gas stations here. Or maybe it has to do more with the fact that I am still clinging to the myth of Venice, rather than fully seeing the reality, even if it is right before my eyes.

A tourist doesn’t stop and think about how the boats run, about where and when they get fuel. All a tourist wants to know is when and where to catch the next vaporetto, as I heard a clearly American gentleman asking one of the workers at the ACTV booth by the San Servolo stop, loudly and slowly in English. I smiled to myself at his blatant touristicness, but then I realized that I’ve caught myself doing the same thing, trying to speak simple sentences to make myself understood, sometimes getting progressively louder, until I catch myself and modulate my voice. Between that experience and reading about the gasoline refinery today, I find myself wondering why it is that I am still clinging to this myth of Venice. After all of our class discussions and readings, after all the analysis we have been doing on the city, shouldn’t I be past this myth, this simulacrum of the city which I have built in my mind? Shouldn’t I be grounding myself more in the reality of Venice, rather than the Venice I imagine? Five weeks into the course, why do I still feel this disconnect with the reality of the city?

Maybe it has to do with the fact that out on San Servolo, which I like to think of as “our island”, there is a very literal, physical removal from Venice, the main portion of it, anyway. From the vaporetto stop on the island, I can look across the lagoon and see the buildings and campanili of Venice, as often as not with the snow-covered Alps piercing the sky behind them, and I find it beautiful, like a postcard, but I feel removed from it. I don’t feel like a part of the real, living, breathing city and at times, when I stand on the vaporetto stop and look across the water, I don’t even feel that Venice is a living, breathing city. It seems more like a mirage or a myth, which rose from the sea like Venus and which will one day simply grow hazy and disappear, leaving only an unobstructed view of the mountains behind it. Even when we descend into the city, as a class, there is still a disconnect from the everyday world. We are in our circle, discussing architecture, off to the side, while the life of the city is flowing around us. We are enveloping ourselves in the past, while the present is floating by and then away. This is not to suggest that we should not concern ourselves with the past and its architecture. Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, after all, and most buildings, especially modern buildings, can do without creepy camels on their facades. No, I am not suggesting that it is wrong to study the art and architecture and the past of Venice, because I find it fascinating; I am simply trying to uncover why I am still attached to my myth of Venice, rather than the reality of the city around me.

There have been times when I can see the city for what it is, rather than what I imagine it to be, both in good ways and bad ways. For instance, walking down the front yesterday, I must have seen at least thirty “purse guys”, the men who stand out on the sidewalk trying to hawk the wares laid out on the blanket in front of them, and at least half of them or more tried to talk to me, to stop me and get me to buy something. I consider that seeing the bad reality of Venice, because annoying purse guys are not something that typically crops up in someone’s fantasy of the city. But then I walked down Via Garibaldi, just wandered up and down the street for awhile, and saw the good reality of Venice, in the normal people going about their daily lives, with far less tourists around than can be seen in other parts of the city. And for that time, while I was immersed in the living, daily business part of the city, the reality before me was stronger than the myth in my mind.

So it seems that I hold on to my myth of Venice, not because I am incapable of seeing the reality, but perhaps because I choose not to. Despite our readings, despite our four times weekly discussions of them and our dissemination of the myth of Venice, in our attempt to probe the reality of the city which underlies the myth, despite all this evidence that I should give up my own myth of Venice and accept the reality of the city alone, still, I cannot do it. Because I like my myth of Venice. Because to me, it represents the Venice I came here for, the city I flew four thousand miles to see. I do my readings and I participate in the class discussions in order to get a fuller picture, a stronger image, of the true city as it exists today, strongly, blatantly corporeal, sometimes vulgar, but also brazenly real. But at the same time, deep down, I still hold to my myth, I still cling to my image of Venice. Because long after the words of Foucault and Ruskin have faded from my mind, the images I have collected in it of Venice will still be burning. Images like that of flying over Venice, seeing for the first time with my own eyes the city rising out of the sea like Botticelli’s Venus, and almost crying because it was so beautiful and I was so exhausted and relieved to see it. And the day I went, alone, to Piazza San Marco and simply stood in the middle of the square, with the columns at my back, the basilica in front of me, the Palazzo Ducale to one side and the biblioteca to the other, with the campanile soaring above it all, and simply let myself be overwhelmed by the massiveness and the majesty of it. Those images, though they may be the perpetuation of a myth, still I feel, deep down, that they are the Venice that I will take home with me.

But I think perhaps all travelers feel that way. Even the ones who know and understand a city the best, still, there is a part of them which has built it up, placed it somehow on a pedestal from which they refuse to remove it. Because even though we, the travelers, see firsthand the vulgar and negative parts of the city, the parts that aren’t always mentioned in guidebooks, we still feel a love for the city to which we have gone and we want others to love it, too. And so we choose to perpetuate the myth, to keep the city on its pedestal, so that others, the ones who have not been here, can also feel for it as we do. We hide the bad and bring forth the good, the positive, the best of the city, all to keep from killing the myth. Because for a city like Venice, so linked to its tourism industry, so bound up with its myth, to kill the myth would be to kill the city. People don’t travel thousands of miles to Venice for the reality of the city, to see boats getting gas and the carabinieri chasing away the purse guys, they come to see the myth of Venice, the breathtaking Piazza San Marco, the awe-inspiring churches, and yes, even the gondole. So, to keep the myth going, to keep the city alive, it is necessary to perpetuate the myth, even to ourselves.

And maybe, in the end, it is possible to have both the reality and the myth, for one could not exist without the other. There can be no myth without there first being a reality on which it can be based. Equally, there is no reality which did not, at some point, for someone, grow out of a myth, or a dream. So I will continue to try to have both, to appreciate Venice for its glorious, fascinating, infuriating reality, but at the same time also to hold onto my myth, which helps to shed just a little extra beauty on a city that, for the most part, doesn’t need the extra help. And I think, if I can find the time, I will also try to find a gas station for boats. Just to be sure it’s not a myth.

Burano

This weekend, I went with Caylen, Audrey, Natalie, and Dane to two of the islands in the northern portion of the lagoon, Burano and Torcello. It felt almost like a day trip out of Venice because it took us so long to get there. And once we arrived, it felt as if we really had completely left Venice. The main city was far enough away that I could just barely make it out across the water. Burano has a completely different feel from the main part of Venice. It is much more relaxed, due partially to being much more residential. Also, the colors on the houses are absolutely fantastic, very bright and vivid, they also serve to give the island a different tone from that of Venice, which is somewhat monochromatic, at least compared to Burano. There are also not nearly as many vaporetto that go all the way out there. However, Burano sees its fair share of tourists. The vaporetti that we were on, both going to and coming from the island, were completely packed, mostly with tourists. The lines to get onto the vaporetti reminded me very strongly of standing in line at an amusement park. That was one of the strong impressions which I got from Burano, that it was more "theme-park Italy" than even Venice is. Not to say that the island wasn't beautiful or that I didn't enjoy it, because it was very beautiful and I really enjoyed being there. However, as I said, it is a much more residential place with several very blatantly tourist spots. The main street which runs away from the cathedral, for instance, is simply lined with shops and, so it seemed to me, over-priced restaurants. Also, the shopkeepers were much more aggressive here than they are on Venice. Whenever we would enter a shop, we would be nearly harassed by the owner, who would want to point out everything and talk about how it was very high quality stuff, and then hover a few feet away while we looked at things. There was a sort of desperation in the attitudes of these shopkeepers, which I don't think is as evident in the main part of Venice. I believe it probably has something to do with the fact that in Venice, there is no lack of tourists. Shopkeepers are not so anxious for visitors to buy things because they know there will always be someone else right behind them who probably will make a purchase. However, on Burano, though the vaporetti were packed, it was still far less tourists than we are used to being around and the fact that the tourism industry, though by no means minuscule, is certainly smaller than on the main island of Venice, it would affect the way the shopkeepers behave because they still have to make a living, but they have less people on whom to ply their wares. Burano was an interesting mix, because while some parts were very "quaint" and strongly residential, other parts were overwhelmingly geared towards tourists. The mix made it clear that while people live on Burano, they must also make their living on Burano.