Fröhliche Weihnachten! (a command)

You can refer to any number of sites which will tell you that Thomas Hampson grew up in Spokane, and who he studied under...but not that he speaks German quite well. However, I was told he did make a gender error or two (adjective endings and the like), and I myself could just tell that his native language was probably English--and yet too boring to be the British variety. These native English speakers who hold their own in German are rare, and worth watching. They are rare, even though integration is "encouraged"--especially if you speak a language the Germans were not pounded over the head with from early childhood.

There are a lot of things between the idea and the reality here, like the concern over one's laser printer emitting harmful particulate matter...when, on the other hand, you don't have to smoke to smoke--just walk into any restaurant. Which is fine, but then don’t sit around worrying about your health. Or how specialists can spend years studying the inclination of campaigns promoting nationalism to lead to xenophobia, and yet no one ever points to the fact that drinking heavily (on the street) and scaring the crap out of people (with or without violence), has been a major part of growing up here for centuries. Granted, I can’t talk, as I come from a place where violence is primarily allocated to certain areas...and, as long as you don’t live in them, the system works great.



Anyway, like I said, Merry Christmas.

My Brush with Death in Venice

The novel, not the state of being. Although I did see a casket piled with calla lilies go by, and assumed it would be bad luck (not to mention tasteless) to photograph it. Everything that moves on roads and highways elsewhere, goes by relatively small boat in Venezia; freight, ambulances, penitentiary transports, etc.



While reviewing a clip of a traghetto pulling away from the dock, I noticed that the older, heftier guy at the far side of the gondola said something to the guy in the traditional black and white striped shirt, so he turned around to grin at the camera. It took me awhile, but I finally put this together with the fact that Sarah Brown's blog (having nothing whatsoever to do with Venice) had mentioned a 2007 calendar of gondolieri...well, actually it mentioned the one with priests, but anyway...this was one of the guys (albeit now working the Santa Sofia stop, as opposed to San Tomà). The fact that he thought I was photographing him, and not the entire scene is beyond ironic of course, but I'm glad these kids are getting a bit of attention. If you do happen to be interested in one of these boys, you can spend all day with them for two bucks an hour, going back and forth across the canal.

Speaking of attention, I have found the perfect book for traveling, 'Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads (The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums).' If the mere title doesn't get you left alone, Jan Van Rymsdyk's "truly exceptional" rendering of a "mind-numbingly" detailed gravid uterus will. Pushy sorts can be dealt with by way of a quick reverie of what conditions must have been like when drawing this from a (recently deceased) model in 1774...or perhaps a short rant about how the pig he drew this sort of subject for, over a twenty-two year period, did not credit him in his groundbreaking 'magnum opus' on the topic (although one has to assume he was at least paid).

Want to go to Venice? Here, watch the vaporetti come and go...you'll have to imagine the unbelievable grinding noise they make when pulling up to, or leaving, a stop.