Thematic Photographic - Muted Colors

Carmi at the blog "Written, Inc." posts a photographic challenge each week at Thematic Photographic. This week, the theme is "Muted colors."

Here's a scene in muted colors. A place with a hint of fantastical decay, decrepitude. The arched and graceful vintage windows. The dappled light, the mottled plaster wall, the mauve-grey leaves of a potted plant. Muted. Romantic. Ancient.

A faded fresco, all pastel putti and pearly-flanked goddesses, reclining amid the glaucous and bosky shrubbery of an ancient glen, like a misty Tiepolo fragment.

Where are we, some charming but crumbling palazzo along a Venetian canal, imbued with history and the aura of the past?

No - it's all a stage set, a falsehood, a fabrication.

We're in a downtown Los Angeles bar; a cocktail lounge. The archaic windows are salvaged from the wrecking ball; the plaster wall is trompe l'oeil artistry; the mural is computer printed and pasted on drywall.

It's a twentieth-century office building wearing a mask of false history, a pretend atmosphere meant to provide instant neighborhood ambience for a downtown condominium renovation. In addition to the somewhat steam-punkish décor, there are flat screen monitors and a rocking DJ to draw the hipster crowds.

What do you want, anyway. Musty old muted colors? Or $3 beers for Happy Hour?

Becalmed

Fishing on the Venetian lagoon, near San Erasmo Island

Sorry, there's just not that much going on right now.  Things are quiet, still, motionless; the water before me is glass-smooth.

They say wind is coming in this evening. Maybe that will swell the sails and raise my spirits to flutter.

Thematic Photographic - On the water

Carmi at the blog "Written, Inc." posts a photographic challenge each week at Thematic Photographic. This week, the theme is "On the water."

Water has played an important part in Carmi's life. What about you? Share your images at "Written, Inc."

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 The water is all around you in Venice, Italy. The city rises up from the lagoon; the broad canals serve as roadways for transport both public and private, and in the neighborhoods, narrow waterways route quiet boat traffic.

Here, we've pulled away from the city out into the lagoon, on the vaporetto from the Fondamento Nuove stop, heading toward the islands of Murano and Burano.

The Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta detta I Gesuiti - Church of Santa Maria Assunta -  is silhouetted against the sky. The saints and angels atop the white stone facade strive and reach upward, wind-blown and bristling above the red tile roofs, still visible as we pull away from the city.

We are off to the islands.

Here the vaporetto's wake sluices the ruins of some medieval building off the island Madonna del Monte.

Fishermen try the quiet waters off Sant 'Erasmo.

In Venice, being "on the water" is just like being anywhere else.

Treasures of the Lagoon - a teaser

I'm honored to have been asked to post a few words and photos about our trip to Venice at Skinny Girls & Mayonnaise, a delicious blog authored by our friend and neighbor Sean.

This photo is just a teaser for what you can find there. We explore Venice's Pescheria, or fish market.

And "delicious" is the right word - Sean is a cook and host extraordinaire. His blog will make you hungry! Go HERE to read my post - and after you read my post, explore the rest of Sean's blog.

Thematic Photographic - Travel Travel

Carmi at Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge caled Thematic Photographic. This week's theme is TRAVEL TRAVEL.

Post a photo you've taken while traveling.

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Ah, my heart is still in Venice!  Here, a lone gondolier rows on the Grand Canal at evening. The setting sun gleams off the polished iron ferro at the prow.

Little altars everywhere

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A tourist's life in Venice is one of depraved indulgence. You shop, eat, wander, drink. You laze at outdoor cafes and watch the ever-changing parade of other tourists. A good place to do this is at the broad campo near the Rialto Mercado vaporetto stop. Here, the venerable old building that once housed Venice's thirteenth century bank, now houses several cafes and bacari where you can sit and enjoy a spritz or a glass of wine while overlooking the grand canal.

Ah, the hedonistic decadence of such a life!

Eat a peach

I don't know why, but I've never been attracted to white peaches, not even the odd-looking donut or Saturn peach.  White peaches are sweeter, less acid than yellow peaches, and I've always liked the assertive flavor of the yellow peaches.

But I may have changed my mind after visiting Venice.  Just steps from our door, the Rialto produce market, or Erbaria, burgeoned with ripe fruit. Each morning, I'd choose something for breakfast, and was rewarded by fruit that was perfectly ripe to eat. The white peaches here were luscious, sweet, oozing with juice that ran down my chin, the cherries deep crimson and juice, the nectarines golden and bright with flavor.

As a matter of fact, I had to unlearn my American habit of buying too much fruit, because each piece was at its peak. If I took enough for a few days - it would spoil. Left overnight, a cherry or a nectarine, or a sweet ripe peach would darken and soften until it was overipe and faintly smelled of fermentation - the sugars turning to alcohol and rot.

No - the proper way to shop in Venice is to buy what you want to eat right then.

What delicate delicious treats have you enjoyed this summer?

Introducing a new friend

It might not jump right out at you, but there's a new name on the blogroll. "The Accidental Chef" is a lovely blog I discovered while seeking out more information about Venice, Italy. And as I read more and more of her posts, I noted that its author and I had much in common.

She loves Venice. I love Venice. She's got dogs. I've got dogs (well, one now.) She lives in Los Angeles. I live in Los Angeles. She likes to hike in the Santa Monica Mountains. I like to hike in the Santa Monica Mountains. She's an older woman. I'm an older woman.

We corresponded some and discovered another thing we have in common - we both live in Topanga! This afternoon we met for a lovely lunch in our funky Topanga village center at the Waterlily Cafe.

Go visit her blog and enjoy!

SEE THE UPDATE!

Art in the Palazzo

Palazzo Grimani Museo entrance

In an historic city like Venice, any enterprise is tinged with a sense of history, no matter what it is. This is particularly true of museums. Unlike America, where new museums are built anew specifically for their intended purpose, every museum in the city of Venice is essential two museums in one - the collection of whatever has been curated, plus the physical building where the museum is housed.

Sometimes this works out harmoniously - the beautiful Baroque Ca' Rezzonico, which was completed in 1756, houses the Museum of 18th Century Venice. The artifacts are displayed in rooms that are themselves displays of 18th century architecture - a wonderfully evocative way to experience it.

Thematic photographic - At an angle

Carmi at the blog Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge. This week, the theme is "At an angle."

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 When things get old - like several centuries old - foundations settle, ease, and slump. The skyline of Venice is eerily marked by the unsettling sight of bell towers, or campanile, that are akilter - like the tower of the Chiesa di San Georgio dei Greci, in Castello.

The tower began leaning shortly after it was built in 1592, and still hangs, as it has for centuries, poised, at an angle. What's the tipping point?

Thematic photographic - weathered and worn

 Carmi at the blog Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge. This week, the theme is "Weathered and Worn."

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Well, "weathered and worn" could be a description of anything in Venice, Italy.   But I like, in particular, this house with its ogee gothic windows, and its weathered, worn plaster. This house is in the sestiere Castello, near the Campo di Santa Maria Formosa.

Window shopping in Venice

One of the pleasures of Venice, as in many sophisticated cities, is shopping. There are streets where one can find the finest designer fashions, and there are also streets where one can find the cheapest plastic souvenir crap. What I enjoyed the most were the little, out-of-the-way calles where modest little shops opened directly to the stream of passers-by.

Thematic Photographic - Grey

Carmi at the blog Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge. This week, the theme is "GREY."

As Carmi puts it, grey is more like the absence of color. "Or," as he says, "an in-between kind of color, as grey is one of those colors that always seems to be wavering between one optical state and another."

A cherub on the facade of the Chiesa San Stae in San Polo

 Here are a handful of Venetian Greys.

You think of Venice as a rosy city, but as a city made of ancient stone, there is a grey tone beneath the rosy plaster. Its baroque buildings are often faced with elaborate grey stone carvings, like the Chiesa di S. Eustachio, or in Venetian dialect, San Stae. Centuries of rain, dust, and soot have streaked and mottled the stone a darker grey, making it look as though the cherub's cheeks are damp with blackened tears.

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These traces of pollution mark even newer structures - newness is relative, however. This stone capital crowns a column at the 19th century Pescheria, or covered fish market. The capitals are carved with fishy themes, like this gape-mouthed fish, twisting its scaley sides among the broad leaves of water lilies.

In narrow calles and passages, shrines of the Virgin appear in corners and nooks, put there to ward off bandits and thieves.

Some passages feature other, more modern greys - like this row of brushed-steel pay phones, with their bright orange-red hardware.

Silver is simply grey with gleam, and here silvery sardines glimmer in the Pescheria.

Grey appears on the plate, too - the dark charcoal of squid-ink gnocchi. Smile in the mirror - your teeth are grey, too!

This enscribed drawing of a cow appears on the polished marble storefront of a butcher's shop near the Mercado Rialto.

One of the many resident cats of Venice gives us a grey that's softer and warmer than stone.

The stones of Venice

What's that bump in the corner?

The English art historian and all-around aesthetic know-it-all John Ruskin was so taken with the city of Venice that he wrote a three-volume treatise on the city's art and architecture. Titled "The Stones of Venice," Ruskin reviews every palazzo and church, describing in detail the various architectural styles of the city - Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque - and weighs in with his own theories of moral and spiritual decline as viewed through the lens of art and culture.

Any visitor to Venice is struck by its bricolage of stone, ruin, plaster, marble and stucco. It's as if a thousand years of houses are built on top of one another, bricked over, added onto, tumbled-down. A stone sill is salvaged from one ruin to build another house. A gothic window replaces a Byzantine portico. It's all a jumble, and the mellow tones of the stones and bricks lend a rosy, soft tint to one's overall view of the city. It all looks so beautiful, so romantic, so decrepit.

On a walking tour of the city, as we strolled down the Calle di Boteri, our tour guide, Fiona pointed out something - a kind of bricked-up hump in the corner where one house meets another. "Any guess what that is?" she asked.

"Some kind of drainpipe?"

View from a window

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A vaporetto on the Grand Canal passes the beautiful 15th century Ca d'Oro, pulling into the dock, on a clear summer morning.

This was the view from our window in Venice.

Made in the shade

Cichetti at Cantina do Mori

Let's face it, summer in Venice is hot. And with the sun baking from above and glancing off the water of the canals, hard working people need a little refreshment. "Andar un ombra," they'll say - "Let's go for a little shade."

Un ombra is a small glass of wine, taken during the heat of the day, preferably in a quiet, shady place you can relax. A little corner joint, with a counter and few stools, maybe a couple of small tables outside - as long as it's shady and out of the heat.  And it would be good to serve a few salty snacks, to go with the wine.

These little joints are called bacari - and here in the part of San Polo where we're staying, there are a couple of good ones worth visiting.

They got me!

Tourists can be foolish, but you'd think someone who's used to foolish tourists in her own milieu would be a little smarter than I was yesterday.

In our neighorhood of San Polo in Venice, we've noticed several times a trio of roaming musicians  - accordian, fiddle and guitar - playing outside cafes and bars for tourists; playing near the gondola stops, playing in the wide campi. Sometimes the music is corny - "Carnival of Venice," perhaps, or the theme from the Godfather. Other times it's charming - and yet other times it's incongruous, like American country-western tunes.

But the other day near All' Arco, they strolled up just as we were leaving, playing "My Way". I liked the way they looked near the outdoor tables, and my camera was already in my hand, so I just snapped a quick photo.

Ooops!

I know better than this. I know that when I see the silver-painted statue-dancer on the Third Street Promenade not to make eye contact. I never snap a photo of the guy with the snake twined around him in Palisades Park. I avoid all the countless Spidermen and Sponge Bobs on Hollywood Boulevard, the plastic bucket drummers, the CD sellers down on Ocean Front Walk, the 3-card monte players in Times Square, and I actually don't care if that little kid on Bourbon Street can tell me where I got my shoes at.

I know that interaction, particularly with the sound of a shutter clicking, is a transaction.

I've actually paid some of these guys willingly - once with a visitor friend who wanted a photo with Darth Vader in front of the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard - but never without having small change at the ready. Let me emphasize - small change.

But here in Venice I screwed up. They spotted me immediately, and moved in. We were backed into a corner under the sotoportego, my hand frantically fumbling in my bag for a couple of coins. "No change!" I said, "Sorry!"

Here's where we were trapped!

"I can make change!" said the fiddle player. [The Man I Love] bravely stood by me, though he knew even before I did what a dumb thing I'd done. All I had was a twenty. The fiddle player did change it, but even so we ended up paying a ridiculous sum to take care of my photographic obligation.

Although to be fair, they did play us an entire rendition of "C'est Si Bon" with a fine flourish at the end. But I was so embarrassed I didn't even take the photographs I'd dearly paid for.

Throughout the rest of the day, we continued to hear them playing in nearby streets. I was torn by the desire to run away from embarrassment, and the thought that maybe I should go get more of my money's worth.

No photos, please

Me taking a photo of an antique mirror in a shop window

 Tourists love to take photos, myself included. So many tourists take photos in Venice that it almost seems as though every tourist's photo album should be full of pictures of other tourists taking pictures of them.

We've seen some amazing sights, including stunning works of art, impeccably preserved historical artifacts, and incredible workmanship that I can't show you because photos were not allowed. Some places are sacred sites, and the taking of photos would be an offense. Works of art and craft are the property of artists, and photographing them is tantamount to theft of intellectual property or copyright violation. In other situations, people with cameras can be disruptive, rude and unpleasant, so shop owners or proprietors forbid photos.

A man taking a photo of himself on the Rialto Bridge.

Now, one can argue whether in today's age of cheap, digital cameras, such prohibitions are really warranted. And, indeed, many places that once forbade cameras now permit them - the Musee D'Orsay in Paris was full of photo-snapping art lovers when we were last there. If one really admires a painting and wants to learn more about it, what better way than to have a record of it, both the work itself and a shot of the information plaque?

But even so - when there is a sign saying "no photos" it's only polite to obey. And when it's uncertain, one should ask. "May I take a photo, please?" Most of the time, people say yes, but if they say "No," put the camera away.

Exterior, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari

Today we toured a famous Venetian church that is home to some truly stunning works of Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance art. the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. I longed to take a photo of Titian's "Pesaro Madonna" - but I didn't - there were many signs posted forbidding cameras. Instead, here's a picture of it from Wikipedia, in the public domain.

Even so, while I stood there looking at it, I noticed there was a man with a camera crouched down by the steps leading to the high altar, snapping away.

Later, we visited a shop where handmade carnival masques were made. There were prominent signs saying "Please do not take photos inside the shop." While we chatted with the owner, two young girls came in, huge cameras around their necks, and while the owner's back was turned, they got off a few shots.

We walked further down the calle, and in another masque shop, we encountered the same girls. This time, the shop's owner sharply rebuked them for taking pictures.

Yet.....at the Museo Palazzo Mocenigo, in a tiny passage between two of the stunning rooms with their magnificent painted ceilings, there is a 17th century painting of a small dog, a black-and-white terrier mutt with a crazy toothy grin. I longed to photograph it. There were no guards and no other visitors there, and I could have slipped my camera out of my bag, snapped a shot and no one would have been the wiser.

I didn't do it.

But since then, I have done an internet search for an officially sanctioned image of the dog painting, and I can't find one.

What do you think? What would you have done? Would it have been harmless for me to do it? What do you think of taking photos, of rules against photos, and of people who break those rules?

The smells of Venice

Venice - A tropical city, densely built, where people live very close together. Not only are there untold amazing sights around every corner - a cornucopia of smells also assails the senses at each turn.

Keeping cool

Folks in the know don't recommend Venice in the summer months - it gets too hot. It's a muggy, damp hot. This morning there was so much moisture in the air that the windows of our air-conditioned flat fogged up. And even at six in the morning, when I opened the casement to take this photo of steam rising off the canal, it was already hot.

Venetians know how to keep cool. They've been doing it for a thousand years. One of the most popular drinks served here is a spritz - a mixture of white wine, sparkling soda, and a bittersweet digestif. Most common is bright Fanta-orange Aperol, but you can also get a spritz made with Campari or Cynar - which makes the drink more rosy.

Elegant spritzes in stemmed glasses

Whether it's sitting out on the broad campo by the Rialto Mercado with the rest of the tourists, overlooking the Grand Canal, or sitting at a working-class bar overlooking a tiny secluded rio, a spritz is the best way to beat the heat of the day. Pick a table shaded from the hot sun, and relax.

Spritzes are served on ice with a wedge of orange to garnish, and often a wooden skewer with a big fat green olive. They can be elegant, in a stemmed glass, or workaday, in a sturdy tumbler.

Something about the bitterness of the digestif keeps spritzes from tasting too sweet or cloying. They take the edge off the heat. A bit of salty snack also helps - even a tiny dish of potato chips or salted peanuts.

A refreshing break from sight-seeing

Cin cin!

Thanks to Une Femme D'un Certain Age for mentioning the spritz in comments!