The Biennale, Day 1

Ulrika and I have begun our immersion into this fantasm of comtemporary art, La Biennale.  Yesterday (Friday) morning we got an early start and went to the Giardini.  On the way, there was a stop to get fruit:

The Giardini is a beautiful park where many countries have their own pavilions. It is an exhausting and mind-blowing trek to see all of them in one day, but somehow we managed to do it.  There was so much...  it will not be possible to show or even mention most of it.  But here is a little taste:

One of the main "streets"

The Korean Pavilion

This is called Self-Hatred; the molded image attacks the mold. 

And for the other side of it, La Pieta or Self-Love.

This Pavilion also contained a room with two really large framed mirrors on opposing  walls,  and smaller framed mirrors on the opposite opposing walls.  These all appeared to be completely blank until speakers would broadcast a tremendous crash with breaking glass, and simultaneously the mirrors would begin to show cracks and holes, and the smaller mirrors were heavily damaged (apparently) .  The mirrors look completely normal before the "crash", and completely "realistic" as shattered.

                                                                      The French Pavillion

 Called "Chance", the French Pavillion looks at the role that good luck or bad luck play in our lives.  The main room contains a huge metal apparatus which acts as a conduit for a continuous strand of paper(?) or teflon on which pictures of new-born babies have been printed.  An alarm goes off sporadically, the entire aparatus comes to a halt, and the face of the baby in a specified postition flashes on a large screen.  Perhaps this means  good luck or bad luck, but very randomly this one child has been singled out and will live with the consequences of this event for the rest of their lives.

In smaller side rooms flanking the main one, huge digital counters show the number of births and deaths that have occurred in a specific period of time.

                                                                               

                                         I wish I remembered which Pavillion this was in but I don't

     This was so beautiful to see, like an unbelievably long piece of oragami, made of what looked like very heavy waxed paper.    

Ethiopia

Closeup

    OK, so here's the interesting story about this.  A monk who saw himself as a healer spent his entire life drawing these beyond-intricate art pieces. And he did them to capture the devils and evil spirtis inhabiting people with problems (or maybe people who were seen by others as being problems).  The idea is that the spirits are trapped forever within the work and thus the person is cured.  This closeup shows the encased spirits.

                                            

      Country represented unknown, but this was interesting because it's a theatre for an Opera seen as an open collaboration between countries:  inclusive vs. exclusive.

    The stage is made of mirror.  "Illuminations" is  the theme of this year's Biennale.  There is a widespread use of mirror.

OK, this is getting really long, I know.  So here is just a taste of more without the explanation, for you just to see the images:

These "boats" with video and audio of waves was the Venetian entry, and very beautiful.

I will leave you with a couple of my favorite smaller details.  These are "assignments" in a classroom installation:

And that was only from the Giardini...  much more to come.  Go and get a good rest!  That is my plan as well.

At Home in Venice

We began to settle into our apartment Thursday around noon, and it's everything I had hoped it would be:  a great kitchen, three bedrooms, a large living room... etc.   Here are a few pictures:

The front door

The canal

Bench to the left of front door

Looking right

Looking left

Living room

It was slowly dawning on me that the second phone I had gotten from Verizon and activated in LAX was not going to actually work!  It wouldn't complete any calls, or surf the web. Plus, there was no way to call them to get it worked out.  So Ulrika and I set out to find a phone store, thinking that all I needed was a new SIM card.  We located a TIM store (popular chain for phone services) and began a comedic communication with a charming young man who spoke much better English than I do Italian...  but just barely.  This process consisted of a lot of hand gesturing, shoulder shrugging, laughter and ultimately the purchase of a phone, a SIM card and a data packackage.  It was necessary to buy the phone because the rental phone wasn't unlocked and so couldn't accept a new SIM card. 

"Say Fromaggio!!"... Donato our TIM store host, and his coworker.  It must be true that Italian men have an enhanced sense of fashion, as Donato was sporting shoes that matched his shirt as well as madras plaid bermuda shorts.

We went back to the apartment, rested a bit and while Ulrika was off getting food, our other two housemates arrived.  Deeply involved in trying to figure out the new phone , I  looked up to see two smiling faces bobbing about outside the kitchen window... Lilian and Mary from the UK.   This was the first time we'd met face-to-face, but they were feeling like old friends by the time Ulrika returned.  She had not only found a large supermarket, but a wine store as well that sells "house" wine from big jugs.  The concept is that you bring in your recycled bottles and have him fill them up with whatever you choose.  But he gave her a bottle and so returned with a big plastic bottle of cabernet sauvignon which cost less than a similar-sized bottle of Coke would have in the States.  Celebration all around!

The four of us walked out into the neighborhood and found an excellent restaurant.  After a great meal of gourmet vegetarian fare, I retired to my room for sleep.  We  planned to head to the Biennale the following day... very exciting!!

Transitioning to Italy

The trip from L.A. to zurich took about 11 hours but actually seemed to go pretty quickly... which must  mean that I did sleep.  There were a couple of meals to break up the monotony.

The airport in zurich is very modern and spread out; we took a fairly lengthy tram ride to move from one terminal to the other.  There was about a half hour delay in flying out of zurich.  I amused myself  by taking pictures of a storm moving into the area and watching the sophisticates of Europe move their Dolce and Cabana through the airport.

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The rain provided some great cloud pictures during the short flight to Venice:

And peeks of the still snow-covered Alps:

And finally, the lagoons around Venice begin to appear:

And then we were down, and actually in Italy!

Once the (excessive) baggage had been collected, I walked the 5+ minutes it takes to get to the Alilaguna boats that go into the city, and neighboring islands.   After a twenty minute wait, we all herded our luggage aboard for the last leg of the trip.  The ride takes perhaps 45 min.s and is exhilerating to be out in the open air speeding towards Venice.

Looking back at the airport and another Alilaguna boat identical to the one I was on.

Many little boats were spread across the waterway.  Fishermen using nets on poles sometimes bent to scoop up fish, perhaps sardines., but for the most part just sat, or joked with their neighbors.

After a few stops, we made our way to Lido, my final destination for the evening.  The hotel I chose was situated directly across from the boat dock, so it was fairly easy to haul the luggage that last bit. 

The Hotel Riviera is like stepping back in time.  It appears to have been built in the 20's and has a kind of elegance that is  buried beneath what seemed like a century of accumulated goods.  The overall effect is a bit overwhelming at first, but ended up feeling like the front parlor of a favorite old Aunt.

After dumping my things in the room, I went off to find my friend Ulrika whom I hadn't seen since last Fall (when she and her niece Fredrika stayed with me for three days "couchsurfing", but that's another story).

She accompanied me on the quest for dinner, and we had a good time catching up over a plate of seasoned mussels, clam spagghetti and some house red wine.

We didn't get back to the hotel until around midnight (I had arrived much later than anticipated), but I apparently still had enough energy left to trounce four flights down from my room to the front desk in order to purchase some internet time...  an attempt to keep the blog at least somewhat updated.  Given the password, etc., I trod back upstairs and thus began my lack of enchantment with the Italian offering they carelessly call an internet connection.  It generally goes like this:  you may get on for a few seconds after multiple tries, but surely will be bounced off shortly.  At this point I thought it was just the hotel, but now I think it's more like there are far too few electrons in the air to satisfy the Italian need for Internet.  The best bet you might have is to get up at 3:30AM if you might, say, want to write a blog.  So anyway, I worked and worked to stay on long enough to do a blog entry for the day... but never could get in. 

In the morning, this is the scene to which I awoke outside the windows of my room:

Those are the water buses bound for Venice, and a distant view of San Marco across the water.  And from the other window:

What elation to see such views!!

After a  really great buffet  breakfast provided by the hotel, we checked out and headed to the boat dock to begin the next part of our adventure.

Carryon

Well, the trip has actually begun. It's difficult to believe, after all the anticipation, that the whole thing is real.

I had been determined for months that I would only have one carryon. This involved a lot of plotting and planning. And here is how it evolved:

Here's the carryon, just as anticipated. But, oh wait... there is not an inch of room available in which to tuck even one bottle of Tuscan wine. Well, we can't have that. Maybe I'll just add one duffel bag with the capacity to hold four bottles (in styrofoam and cardboard, perfect for checked baggage).

And then the Crazy Voice piped up: "Well, you know, the box which would hold 6 bottles is only about 15 lbs. fully loaded... how can you pass up this opportunity to bring back Vino Nobile from Montepulciano"?? And that, my dear friends, is how I ended up carrying this:

So much for travelling light.

My friend Aliki drove me to the Airbus stop in Santa Barbara. I wish that I had a picture to share, because she was so happy and excited... and also had made the most delicous heart-shaped raw muffins (with oats, coconut, blueberries and coconut nector mainly) for me to take along! It was a wonderful beginning to the trip.

The bus actually got us to LAX in record time, a whole half hour early. The check-in counter was dark and unmanned, and so I worked on switching over to the "GMS" phone and deactivating my iPhone. (It was a process not unlike choking your beloved pet). Anyway, that kept me occupied for the hour or so that it took for the counter people to show up. And after the luggage was off-loaded (a relief), I went up to the something Grill to sit at a table overlooking the massive check-in operation to have a bottle of sparkling water and a salad.

That's blackened salmon on a bed of Ceasar salad, for the curious. And it would have been a delight at one third the price

I had a fine time people-watching.

The Security Gauntlet was not as bad as I had imagined, though it did include a pat-down because I was wearing a skirt, and who knows what evils could be hiding beneath it. Hopefully they weren't too chagrined to discover that it was largely cellulite.

And then I hiked to the gate for some more waiting, and spent the time continuing my attempt to tame the new phone.

Here's the plane that will be "home" for the next 12 hours or so.

We actually took off right on the dot of 7:30pm. This type of efficiency is seldom seen in the States, but is apparently common for the Swiss.

Since takeoff, I've had a little bag of pretzels, a small bottle of pretty terrible white wine, two bottles of water and vegetarian tortellini for dinner (with salad, a roll, cheese, and a brownie too sweet to eat, believe it or not).

And now I am ready for the long night of sleep (I hope), with visions of what's to come in Venice!