skip to main |
skip to sidebar
So it would seem a lot of time has elapsed since my last post. And it would also seem people are not reading my blog seeing as my last two entries went essentially unnoticed. Which is perhaps why I’m less motivated to plop down in front of my computer and churn out these things. That, and I’m pretty unbelievably busy.
Intro to Photo has quickly become my favorite class. Not only because everyone else in the class is incredibly chill or because the teacher is interesting (if often too long-winded), but also because I just really love photography. Being afforded the time to schlep around my camera and capture faces, facades, and flora is bliss.
Our first assignment—“Urban Landscapes”—was due on Tuesday. Thus, on Monday, I spent hours in the darkroom printing and reprinting various photographs of Japanese tourists and vaguely lost-looking Americans. During which I became extremely frustrated several times, particularly when trying to perfect a photo in which the main subject had pitch-black hair and was wearing a pitch-black pea coat. Of course, according to Jamie the TA, I had to allow just enough light so that both items remained black (as opposed to becoming the sort of middle grey all B&W photos aspire to) and so that the viewer could also see the seams of her coat and the strands of her hair. In spite of standing for extended periods of time besides the print processor with my head in my hands, when I presented my collection of five photos in class, my fastidiousness and perseverance paid off—Jacopo said that was one of the two best prints of the five.
* * *
This past weekend I joined the High Renaissance art history class in Rome. I’m using the word “joined” loosely here—I only spent one out of three days with the class and its teacher, Helen Watterson.
On Friday morning, surprisingly enough, I missed the 6:40 train to Rome. Since this was to be my second visit to said city, I can’t say I was too fussed about missing the trip to the Vatican and the one-and-a-half hour wait to get in. Instead I knocked off a few chores I had to do in Firenze—buy new laundry detergent that doesn’t turn all my white clothing blue: check—and took my time heading over to the Santa Maria Novella train station.
My train arrived at the Rome Termini at 7:30. We pulled out of the SMN at 5:52, so I was taken aback when we arrived in Rome so soon. I hadn’t realized I was on the express train, and thus, until the majority of the car had emptied around me, stayed in my seat. Walking along the platform to the terminal, I checked everything around me for signs of Rome or “Rome”. It wasn’t until I recognized the main station from the last time I’d been there that I realized I was in the right place and not getting off at Milan en route.
I managed to catch the correct bus to the hotel, and, even more amazingly, to get off at the right stop. Deciding not to pick up a bus map (as well as not knowing where to get one), I had to carefully check the location sign at each stop. Of course that meant if no one requested my stop, I was in trouble. Thankfully, not only was my stop requested, about half the bus got off as well. Which was fortuitous because, for whatever reason, I was zoning out by the time we got to the Lungo Argentina stop, and only realized it was time to skedaddle when two or so people were still waiting to get off. It would seem late reaction time was something of a theme with me that day.
Helen put me in a room with two girls who were out at the time I found the hotel. Dead tired, I immediately threw on my pajamas, brushed my teeth, and turned out the light. Actually, I never had to turn off the light—I forgot to mention that I never figured out how to flick the lights on in the first place. So imagine me doing all the aforementioned activities with only the dim glare of the streetlamps outside. Fun, no?
I’ve been having trouble sleeping again lately, and, luckily for me, at the very moment my hotel roommates returned from wherever it was they were, had someone break down the door for them (naturally, no one had bothered to tell me each room only had one key), and rudely interrupted my attempt to sleep by announcing that I was in the wrong room, I was on the teetering edge of diving into the void of sleep. So I didn’t actually wind up falling asleep until sometime around five. I listened to a lot of Sufjan Stevens in an attempt to calm my mind down.
So naturally I was unable to make it to breakfast the next morning at the ungodly hour of 7:15. Instead I slept in until noon and went leisurely about my day. I read some Harry Potter in French, took a shower, brushed my teeth, the usual. My plan for the day was simply to go out, get lost, and bring my camera with me. I managed to achieve two out of three goals because, strangely, when you are trying to get lost, it becomes impossible to actually do so. Somehow I always knew where I was even when I thought or hoped I didn’t.
Being as in love with nature as I am, I immediately made a beeline for the Tiber River. Or as they call it here, il Tevere. Once I felt sufficiently frozen by the combination of shade and wind, I allowed myself to be swept away by the tides of Rome. No pun intended. Seriously.
Our second photography assignment—“Portraits”—is due Thursday, March 13. And since Jacopo is obsessed with photographing people, I figured it was time to overcome my fear of potential public humiliation and start inching closer to my subjects. So I went to a small park I’d spotted near the hotel and just sat down on a bench and waited. After thirty minutes of sitting and occasional photo taking, two Italians came over to my bench and plopped down right next to me. They’d brought all the fixings to make sandwiches and immediately started hacking away at some Parmesan cheese with a large Swiss army knife. Suddenly the perfect opportunity to take extreme close-ups of preoccupied subjects had presented itself. I pointed my camera towards them and surreptitiously clicked away.
I subsequently journeyed through a farmers’ market that was closing for the day, along several small side streets with quirky cafes and stores, and across various picturesque bridges from one side of the Tiber to the other and back. Somehow I managed to end up in Saint Peter’s Square right around the time I’d decided to head back to the hotel, grab a soda, and put my feet up for an hour or two.
My camera was out within several seconds; the square was filled with bustling, incongruous tourists and the lighting was great, so opportunities for candid shots of unsuspecting foreigners were abound. I headed over to what is essentially the only place to sit down in the entire wasteland that is St Peter’s Square—the stone ledge around the central fountain—intending to sit there for thirty or so minutes and to take photos when good ones presented themselves.
Unfortunately, I was derailed in the process by a forty-something male, wearing a black beanie with a small, embroidered Italian flag front and center, who pointed in the direction of the Pope’s bedroom and said I should take a picture. Since I had no intention of wasting one of my 36 frames on said image, I just humored him by nodding and glancing at the unremarkable set of windows on the top floor of an ordinary looking building, all the while hoping he would go away so I wouldn’t lose a lot of the late afternoon light.
Of course, I was not so lucky—he asked me where I was from, and when I said New York, he treated me to a long rant about how New Yorkers are so unfriendly, so isolated, and everything is about money, and Italians are so much nicer and sociable. You know, the stereotypical B.S. you hear from foreigners who are just jealous of New York and the United States and, thus, try to convince themselves they’re somehow better than us. Typically, at one point in the conversation, he made the mistake of saying he’d never been to the U.S.
Interestingly enough, in spite of his claim that Italians were superior beings, he never once let me defend my hometown. He talked over me every time I tried to say something, and, in my opinion, that was far more rude than any of the behaviors he was accusing me of embodying. Personally, I believe allowing people privacy and not bothering them when they’re clearly occupied is far more polite than engaging them in pointless, irritating conversation. Quite honestly, I’ve had it up to here with people hassling me when I’m sitting on a bench with my camera.
Nonetheless, I was still pleased with the course of my day. I finally returned to the hotel around six. At about 7:30, I went to dinner with a friend at a salad restaurant. Around nine we parted ways, and I walked back towards my room planning to get some well-deserved sleep. On the way I ran into a bunch of people in the lobby and instead decided to go out with them for a few hours.
The seven of us went to a pub called Sloppy Sam’s, which was not only your conventional American bar, it was also crowded as hell and extremely loud, the two sensations combining to make the place extraordinarily good at inducing claustrophobia. A friend of mine, Libby, and I slipped out within three minutes.
* * *
And now a special announcement about something of little to no importance whatsoever: Since I’ve been banging out this entry over the course of a week, naturally I’ve been mentally compiling multifarious observations about Firenze and other facets of life, the universe, and everything, and I just felt like sharing this one.
I was flipping through a copy of Esquire my dad had bought me in the Logan airport before my plane departed for Italy, and I stumbled upon an article about Bob Dylan’s influence on male clothing. I absolutely cannot believe I’ve never made the connection between Dylan and that hipster style of clothing I loathe so much. It’s so obvious now: the skinny jeans, the vaguely formal jacket over a cotton t-shirt, the Ray Ban sunglasses (or $10 local drugstore sunglasses for those who can’t afford to pony up that much money for a pair of shades…so 99% of America). The bulky Bose headphones that scream music aficionado, however, were probably the personal touch of the first hipster from Greenwich Village to adopt Dylan’s style. Naturally, it would be illogical for Bob to wear a pair seeing as he’s the one under the bright lights. But, I bet, when our mumbling friend sports headphones—in the studio, at some posh cafe that smells more like weed than coffee beans, at home, wherever—they’re Bose.
* * *
And we’re back! (Does anyone else remember the radio show character Jimmy Fallon created who uttered that particular catchphrase after every commercial break during the sketch?)
So there Libby and I are, in Rome at 10 p.m., and neither of us has any particular desire to return to the bare bones hotel. First we went to this coffee place near the Pantheon called Sant'Eustachio Libby and the HR class had frequented earlier in the day—one that Mimi Sheraton, formerly of the NY Times, called the city’s best—and ordered caffeinated beverages close to midnight. Of course we weren’t the only ones; the coffee bar was packed despite the lateness of the hour. My caffè latte was very good, but it was by no means transcendent. My expectations must have been a little too high.
For whatever reason, Libby really loves taking photos after nightfall, so we made our way towards some of the many ruins in Rome. From there we ventured to Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio, the Coliseum, and a lovely but deserted park. When trying to cross this street that more closely resembled a highway, I pointed out a crosswalk we could use, and Libby said it was “stained with the blood of many tourists”, which is probably one of the greatest one-liners I’ve ever heard. In case you were wondering, we didn’t cross there.
We particularly enjoyed going to places that appeared to be off limits. Through a gap in a wire fence to photograph the silhouette of what was quite possibly the only flowering tree north of Sicily against the magnificent grandeur of the Coliseum, over a short iron and stone fence and down a flight of meter long stairs that dropped off suddenly and which was set between a patch of trees and a stucco, three-story building to photograph the perilous mini highway of Rome.
Our own Rome by night. I can’t even begin to explain how incredible and occasionally frightening those three hours were. (So you don’t worry, Mom, by frightening I do not mean axe murderers chased after us, simply that our imaginations ran aground once in a while.)
At 2:30 we returned to the Hotel Smeralda (yes, I thought it was called the Hotel Esmeralda at first too), exhilarated and very ready to go to bed. Once I got to room 302, I was stunned to discover that my roommates weren’t kidding when they’d said they wouldn’t be back until four a.m.
* * *
On Sunday I had to go with the group because they were my ride home. At about 8 a.m. we hopped onto a charter bus and pulled out of Rome listening to the incessant chatter of Helen trying to squeeze in every last detail and fact she could pull out of her hat about the various places we were passing. Our first stop was the Galleria Borghese.
Okay, so there is a very good reason why I am not taking art history. Which is I don’t have any passion for Renaissance art. Pretty much anything pre-Impressionism bemuses me. Except for the Pietà. And several other statues. Actually, most other statues. Let me revise my original claim: I don’t like Renaissance paintings. Thus the charm of the Galleria Borghese was sadly lost on me. There were many excellent statues; I was particularly charmed by Bernini’s Pluto e Proserpina and this one of a messenger pulling out a splinter from his foot.
Finally, around lunchtime, we arrive at the Villa d’Este. This is why I signed up for this trip. The garden was saturated with beauty. Fountains that looked straight out of Peter Pan were hung with icicles and swathed in moss. Formidable marble statues enclosed by canopies of ivy appeared to be on the verge of wrenching one of their feet out of the ground after thousands of years of staying put. The unperturbed surfaces of the square pools were as smooth as glass and hundreds of little fish wiggled around in the water. Even the few dying trees seemed majestic, albeit sickly and unstable.
Like so many towns and historical sites in Italy, I was in awe of the idea that someone had once lived here. That this was what they returned home to after vacations and trips, not the destination in itself. If the Villa d’Este had been my home, I’d have pitched a tent outside and never entered the house. All three meals would take place in different parts of the garden. I’d settle in a sunny spot and spend hours writing and reading every afternoon.
Even Italian movie theaters are more civilized and humane than those of the United States! Insane. And I thought this country couldn’t get any classier.
I went to see Charlie Wilson’s War at the Odeon, a cinema that shows films in their original languages: The seats were covered in a gorgeous gold velvet, the floor was spotless, the concession stand looked like a counter at a posh café, the theater itself had a balcony reminiscent of those in Lincoln Center, and there was even a five-minute intermission! And, best of all, the film started on time sans previews at the beginning. It was cinematic bliss.
* * *
After several weeks of perfecting, reshaping and carving my clay version of the Degas dancer, it was time to pour on the plaster. At the end of class one day Dario gave us a step-by-step explanation of our task at hand using a PowerPoint slideshow that visually depicted how to make a waste mold. The general rundown is this: first the sculptor pours a coat of dyed plaster on the clay, then a white coat, then you scrape the clay out of the hardened plaster shell, then you fill the mold with yet more plaster and then, after that’s dry, you use a chisel and hammer to carefully break apart the waste mold leaving a lovely plaster rendition of your original clay model.
While some members of my class incredulously pondered why we didn’t just fire our clay pieces in a kiln, I was having far too much fun making a tornado-esque mess. As someone who believes there is no better way to spend the afternoon than rolling around in mud flats with friends, I was unable understand the disgust that played upon the faces of some of my classmates when they were mixing plaster and cold water by hand.
Chiseling the final sculpture out of its shell proved to be much easier than I thought. Thanks to the media we applied between each layer of plaster, the whole process went smooth like butta’, save a few minor nicks here and there. I felt like something of an archeologist, unearthing an artifact preserved by sediment for thousands of years (or, in my case, for a couple of days).
I’m quite proud of my piece. But I cannot say I’m too jazzed about transporting it across the Atlantic.
* * *
Last Thursday, my photography class went on a field trip to the Casine Parco, which essentially means Central Park Firenze. And yet it’s in the farthest west section of the city. Go figure.
On Tuesday, Jacopo had mentioned that we would be going somewhere as a class, and another student asked if we needed to bring our cameras. The rest of the class laughed at this, but, of course, I left my camera in my apartment on Thursday morning. In my defense, I never heard him say on which day this outing was to occur. Thankfully, I hadn’t laughed when she asked the question; otherwise I’d be a retroactive hypocrite.
At 8:45 a.m., I spent several minutes making sure my light-sensitive photo paper and negative binder were safely secured to the back of my bike. When I got to school, I locked my bike up, went inside and, several minutes later, flew back out and sped home. Thoroughly pleased with how the morning was going, I ran up the stairs of 14 Via Castellani, grabbed my camera, gulped down a glass of peach juice, and took a quick glance my pink-tinged visage in the mirror.
Firenze was clearly never meant to be anything but a city for pedestrians. And chariots, I suppose. Whoever tried to make this city mechanized-transportation-friendly did a fantastically poor job. Which becomes especially irritating when I’m trying to bike somewhere and suddenly, out of nowhere, the street on the opposite side of the intersection is sporting a no entry sign. These befuddling intersections are all over the place. One evening I spent fifteen minutes trying to find a route home even though I was only about five blocks away. Since the streets are so narrow here, it’s inadvisable to try and bike against the flow of traffic, although many Florentines do. I, however, have no intention of meeting my death head-on.
Having been here for a little over a month, I have all my regular routes planned out in a way that ensures expediency and efficiency. Unfortunately my daily activities have never taken me to far west Firenze. So I’m on my own, peddling along unpredictable roads, with only a hazy mental image of the route Jacopo showed me on the map back in the photography classroom. I decide to stick to the bike path along the Arno, thinking that would be the most consistent way to go. And yet, several minutes down the road from my apartment, the path suddenly veers off towards the left and over the bridge to Firenze Sud. Then, after finding my way to the point where the bike path restarts, I’m faced with the choice between heading left into town and joining the cars on a freeway of sorts. Naturally I chose to dip and dodge among the cars. I’m totally kidding, Mom; I went into town.
After rather a lot of frustration and rerouting, I finally wound up at the Casine Parco, although only after swallowing my pride and asking several people for directions in broken Italian. Then I had to find the rest of my photography class. On the phone Jacopo vaguely informed me that they were all spread out, taking pictures in “the garden” (for the record, the Casine is just a whole lot of trees; no recognizable garden was to be found).
A few (okay, many) wrong turns later, I found myself on a path akin to that which had been described to me on the cellular. I decided not to wait until I bumped into one of my fellow photographers and whipped out my camera and started snapping photos right away. Several hundred meters of walking and 36 frames later, my film was still advancing. There was no film inside. The vivid memory of loading my camera a couple days beforehand was probably just a replay of one of the many other times I’ve done so over the past four years.
Could this day get any worse? Thankfully, that was the last of the really great errors made on my part. With only about an hour or so left, I took one and a half rolls of film in the Casine (I am, if anything, an expeditious photographer) including some really excellent ones of a closed carnival.
And now the hour is late, and since I have photography at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, I believe it is time andare a letto (to go to bed). In case you were wondering, yes, I do have an Italian quiz tomorrow.
As far as I’m concerned, Carnevale is just much ado about nothing. An enormous crowd, mostly made up of abhorrent American tourists, marches from square to square, buying various Venetian doodads, wearing ugly wigs, bizarre though occasionally elegant costumes, and those felt stovepipe hats you won at the Westchester County Fair way back when. And the costumed appear to take themselves far too seriously.
Our train from the Santa Maria Novella station left at 6:28 a.m. I had a hard time sleeping, so, at that point, I’d been awake since 3 a.m. A friend of mine, Silvi, and I were supposed to be joined by three other people, but they ended up missing the train by about 30 seconds. We switched trains at Bologna Centrale, and at 10 a.m. we got off at Venezia San Lucia.
If anything, the costumes were certainly novelties. We followed a mother wearing a neon pink clown wig down the platform and into the station. A girl wearing a giraffe outfit with the neck growing out of the top of her head put me in mind of a line Harry Potter utters in the fourth book about walking around with a periscope sticking out of his head after contemplating employing human transfiguration in the second task.
Standing yawning in line to buy tickets for the ride home, Silvi and I were forced to stand in front of yet more obnoxious Americans. (Yes, they aren’t in short supply here in Italia, not even in February.) This time it was a loud group of twenty-something females. A short, curly-haired one ducked out of line and squealed something about wanting to take a photo of “Dino”, whatever that meant. I rolled my eyes, embarrassed to be associated with them even if only by nationality.
It was raining like the devil. Stepping onto the square outside San Lucia station for the second time in my life, I was disappointed to see the view marred by furious torrents of water. And me without any rain gear. As Ryan Howard from The Office says when Dwight abandons him in a beet field, “Of course”.
As per Silvi’s orders, we followed the signs pointing in the direction of the Piazza San Marco. We were swept up in a veritable tide of bodies, seething and undulating in and out of the numerous side streets. Many puns about cattle and various other livestock ensued.
It took us about an hour—not including two stops, one at a coffee bar for “due caffè latte”, the other at a small sandwich place for two vegetable and cheese paninis—to get through all the crowds to San Marco, my favorite place in Venezia. After ogling the Basilica—which, I believe, rivals the Duomo for the title of most beautiful building in Italy—and the view of Lido, we hopped onto a waterbus.
Since the winding streets and the large number of bridges in Venezia cannot support cars or any other land vehicles, there exists an infrastructure of boats, water taxis, waterbuses, and gondolas, the last of which are only frequented by tourists. Boats labeled “Polizia” and “Ufficio Postale” roam the high seas as well.
For €6,50, a person and his or her suitcase can ride a waterbus for sixty minutes. So we rode the boat to the Ca D’Oro stop and back. For the first leg of the trip we stood on one side of the boat; during the second, we switched to the opposite side for a new perspective.
In my opinion, riding the waterbus is really the best and only way to see Venezia. The wind whips gently across your face, the view from the boat is phenomenal, and friendly Japanese tourists smile and wave at you from their seats in smaller, more expensive water taxis.
Once we were back on land, we went in search of more food. We stopped at a gelateria; I ordered a waffle cone filled to the brim with stracciatella and mint gelato. Since Venezia, save the Piazza San Marco, is significantly lacking in benches, we decided to lean against the wall of a side street whilst hacking away at our ice cream with tiny plastic spoons. Apparently this sort of behavior is considered just as shady in Italy as it is in the U.S.; we attracted a lot of blatant stares from passerby despite the fact that we weren’t passing a joint back and forth between us.
After eating dessert, we searched for a place to eat dinner. After rejecting several possibilities, we settled on a restaurant called Pane Vino e San Danielle. Almost all of the clientele were Italian, which I took as a good sign. Our waiter, whose name was Omar, was both wonderfully cheerful and annoyingly laid-back. Since Silvi speaks Italian fluently, she and Omar joked around when he came to take our order while I sat idly by, staring off into space, hoping I’d get to eat before I died. Eventually I got a pizza Italia—which was ostensibly a pizza margherita topped with fresh tomato, arugula, and mozzarella di bufula. If it sounds delicious, that’s because it was.
At the end of the meal, Omar took yet another century to bring the check. Used to the Speedy Gonzales pace of American waiters and waitresses desperate for mass tips, the sit-back-and-enjoy-yourself attitude of the restaurant threw me for a loop. (Although personally I think Omar slowed down twice as much because he didn’t want Silvi to leave.) Until I came here, I never realized how accustomed I am to the way I live in New York. And how unusual that lifestyle actually is.
Upon leaving the restaurant and realizing that we’d spent a total of two hours there, we decided to return to the train station under the mistaken impression that we had just over an hour until we were to depart. Venezia under the influence of Carnevale (much like its attendees under the influence of alcohol) gets rowdier and more difficult to push through at night. And there I was, mistakenly believing the throng couldn’t get any worse than that of the morning.
After various disagreements, swallowing our pride and asking for directions several times, we found our way back to the San Lucia train station. Upon which we discovered we’d completely misconstrued our time of departure, and that we now had roughly an hour and a half to kill.
Luckily, the Venice train station is not without quirky personalities. After Silvi bit the bullet and paid .70 euro to go to the bathroom, we found two seats in a waiting area and were entertained by two boys showing off for their friends with a concealed whistle and some silly antics. Silvi said she wished they were her friends so they could make her laugh all day. I wasn’t quite as fond of them as she was because, regrettably, I’m über sensitive to sharp, high-pitched noises.
The ride home was relatively uneventful. Silvi befriended two Turkish boys while I, having been awake since three a.m., desperately tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately I don’t have the best track record when it comes to sleeping in moving vehicles.
So yesterday I went to the supermarket, and I had the misfortune of standing in line in front of two ugly Americans. First off, the lines in Italian supermarkets like Standa and Conad are usually horrendous. Especially, it would seem, at 5:30 in the evening. At the most, only four lanes will be open. Since the customers have to both bag and pay for their food, preferably at the same time, that slows the process down even more. And we New Yorkers gripe about the three-person lines at Fairway.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is I had to stand there for a long time listening to their inane chatter and generally ignorant comments.
First the mother gets a phone call. To paint the picture, she’s your average overweight, Middle-American-looking woman—mousey brown, closely cropped hair, small gold-rimmed glasses, humdrum wardrobe. She picks up the phone and starts yammering away about where she and her daughter, who is with her, have visited so far—naturally, the Duomo, Galleria dell’Accademia, etc.—whether they were meeting these people or not tomorrow morning, etc. etc. all in an extremely loud and entitled voice. Then she and her daughter start arguing with each other about who’ll be paying for that night’s groceries. And then, “Oh, look it’s those cute Happy Hippo candies. Grandma would love one of them.” After discussing said item for several minutes, the mom gets irritated that she hasn’t been able to reach over an old Italian woman’s head to grab one yet and makes a comment about pushing her aside, hopefully jokingly. And this when they are still about five people from being at the front of the line. “You’ve got plenty of time, lady” was all I wanted to say.
But I didn’t, because I could tell they thought I was Italian! Which was absolutely hilarious. So I decided to keep my mouth shut. When I started packing up my groceries in the plastic bag I’d brought from my apartment, the mom made a comment about how they “bring their own bags here. We should do that next time.” (You have to pay for plastic bags in supermarkets in Italy.) Of course, tons of people could or should be bringing their own bags from home in the United States too… Maybe if the A&P started charging extra, they would…
Actually, ever since I got this newfangled haircut, a lot of people have mistakenly assumed I’m Italian. Also, I had to buy sneakers, and my new shoes are much classier than my ratty, beat-up, paint-covered ones from New Balance. Now when I walk into stores, I’m always greeted in Italian. Sadly, when I open my mouth and try to speak or hesitate and look confused for a bit, they quickly switch to English.
Personally, I believe one of the best feelings in the world is being mistaken for a native. In the spring of junior year I went to Québec with my French class, and myself and two others were wandering around the lower part of the city in the rain. I needed to find a pharmacy to buy contact solution. So I crafted the question in my head before walking into this small art gallery on the corner, and, after I’d asked, the woman answered me in rapid French. I was extremely proud.
I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night so I decided to get an espresso before the long haul that is video. I was meeting some people at four (class starts at six) to work on the homework—editing some sequences we filmed using the program Media 100, an alternative to Final Cut Pro. I went into one of the many small stores near the school that sell various food items, cigarettes, and coffee. Even after I’d said “ciao” and “espresso” they still spoke to me in Italian! I know those aren’t a full sentence, but it was exciting all the same. The downside was I wanted them to continue to believe I was Italian, so I didn’t ask for milk in my espresso. And since I don’t put sugar in my coffee, I drank a black espresso! Which was an experience in itself. That I’d rather not repeat. I mean, I might as well just inject caffeine in my veins like heroin.
Aside from my hairstyle and footwear, the more significant changes in my routine I’ve noticed are the various Italian mannerisms I adopt up as a means of assimilating into the local culture—drinking espresso instead of lattes, riding a bicycle through throngs of tourists, bringing my own bags to the supermarket, always making sure I’m impeccably dressed.
* * *
What I most love about Manhattan are the small details—break-dancers near Central Park, the man who plays the musical saw in the Times Square subway station, this guy named Lloyd Butler I met with Monica who explained the significance of the number combinations on the billboard in Union Square. Most cities lack that distinct brand of individuality—which is why Manhattan just happens to be one of my favorite places in the world.
But I’ve been witness to moments akin to these in Firenze. Tonight when I was walking home from video at nine p.m., I took my usual route in which I cut through the Piazza della Signoria. In the area behind a row of statues that includes copies of the “Rape of the Sabine Women” and “Jules and Holofernes” the shadow of a man was projected onto a wall. At first sight, he looked like he was fooling around and pretending to be a swordsman. Once I’d gotten close enough to see the actual man, I realized he was a painter doing a portrait of a woman in front of a large spotlight and brandishing his brush energetically.
Earlier in the day at an hour when the Piazza is overrun by tourists, I noticed a blonde woman taking a photo of a similarly blonde man pointing up into the sky. I assume they had set up some visual scenario involving the replica of Michelangelo’s David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, which was immediately behind him. Manhattanites think they are familiar with the worst sort of pigeon; these people have clearly never been to Florence. Pigeons here are fearless; they have a Hitchcock’s “The Birds” quality. One of these pigeons decided to fly about three inches over the top of the man’s finger while his photo was being taken.
Speaking of Michelangelo’s David—yesterday morning when I was walking to Italian class, I noticed a set of small David figurines in the window of a store on the Via del Calzaiuoli. (Four vowels in a row! Holy mother of God! I didn’t think a word like that existed.) The visage of the David is everywhere, so the mere presence of copies of the statue in a store window is nothing to write home about. However, these figurines were enlarged versions¬—what David would look like if he were fat. I was trying to figure out why anyone would possibly want to buy or sell that sort of item, and I finally decided they’re meant to make insecure men feel better about themselves in comparison to the perfection that is Michelangelo’s David. Now Dario, my sculpture teacher, does not envy the David’s physique, rather he feels inept when he remembers Michelangelo sculpted said masterpiece at the age of fifteen. [EDIT: He was actually 26 when he sculpted the David.]
Now, speaking of Michelangelo, on Monday afternoon my sculpture class went on a field trip to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, which houses the corner in which scholars believe the David was conceived. But that’s not what I want to write about.
At the top of the stairs to the second floor is a small circular room in which La Pietà di Michelangelo is situated inside a metal barrier. For those unfamiliar with this particular statue (not the famous one in Vatican City), it depicts Mary Magdalene, either Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimethea, and a third unfinished female figure holding up the body of Christ. Dario told us that Michelangelo tried to destroy the statue for religious reasons I cannot recall, so other sculptors finished and restored it in his place.
I love art. Obviously, or I wouldn’t be studying studio art in Firenze. But I’ve never seen a piece of art that stops me in my tracks and makes me feel a tidal wave of different emotions all at once. A sort of artistic transcendental moment, one might say. I am hugely fond of Monet, Degas, Cezanne, and various other impressionist painters, but I’ve only ever been able to appreciate their work; I’ve never been struck dumb by it.
The Pietà is different. Immediately after I first laid eyes on limp and bedraggled body of Christ, I felt I shouldn’t even speak in the presence of such a work of art. There was a woman sitting on a bench in the room. I’d had a feeling that she had been in front of the Pietà for quite some time and that she had no intention of leaving anytime soon. If I hadn’t had two hours left of class, I would have plopped down right next to her and joined in on the revelry.
Anyone who knows me well enough could tell you I have little regard for organized religion. In spite of all that, the story of Jesus has always moved me. When I hear or read it, I become intensely and painfully aware of his suffering. The sight of Jesus pinned to a cross has never stirred anything inside me. The image has become so common and is used inappropriately so often it has become cliché. Instead I found the image of Christ’s body lying limp in the arms of his followers to be much more powerful and to stir many of the same emotions as his disturbing story of betrayal and sacrifice.
So, as far as I can tell, the apartment above mine houses a band that only practices late at night. And it seems their friends enjoy dancing along while wearing wooden clogs. But I’m in Firenze, so what do I really have to complain about? Annoyingly loud neighbors is extremely low on the list of “Things that are incredible grievances”.
I bought a bike last Thursday. The man running the store spoke little to no English. I had to resort to flipping through my Langscheidt pocket phrasebook/dictionary, which, alas, was not very helpful. When I was trying to ask which bicycle lock was strongest, I couldn’t even find the word “best” in the dictionary. Eventually I just pointed to the rack of locks for sale and made a vaguely quizzical thumbs-up sign.
Since I had video relatively soon after I wheeled my shiny and new green bicycle (bicicletta in Italian) out of the store, I immediately sped in the direction I thought SACI was in. After five minutes of pedal-to-the-medal biking, I decided to take a glance at my map to make sure I was on the right track. Of course, that wasn’t the direction SACI was in.
Once I had turned myself around and parked by the sketchy leather market near the school, I checked my watch and thought I was 10 minutes late. On the first day of video, Bruno told us we have to bring cookies for everyone in the event that we arrive late. So I bought twenty cookies at the corner bakery because I also hadn’t done the homework, so I thought I should be extra generous.
When I get to the video classroom, not only is Bruno not there yet, the door’s locked, and I’m not even the last person to arrive. At least my classmates appreciated the cookies.
* * *
On Friday I decided to take a bike ride on the other side of the Arno in the direction of Ravenna. There’s a lovely bike path that runs along the river, which is, naturally and thankfully, car free. Even though Florentine drivers are very good at sharing the road with bicyclists and moped-ists, it’s still unnerving to realize that a huge lumbering vehicle is slowly pulling up behind you.
The part of Firenze below the Arno is called “Firenze Sud”, which is a verifiable community with parks and schoolyards and children kicking soccer balls against walls. It was a refreshing change from the Duomo, all the Piazzas, and various other touristy locations. Wanting to carry as little as possible with me, I jammed 30 Euros, an I.D., a cell phone, and a map of Firenze into the small pockets of my camera bag. I also schlepped along several rolls of film.
After biking for about thirty minutes downriver, with a few stops to photograph various waterfowl and Homo sapiens, I decided to hop off my wheeled transportation in favor of my feet. When I got to a park I sat down with my camera and stayed there for several hours. Nature, even human-informed nature, is my lifeblood. Even when surrounded by beautiful old architecture and gorgeous hallowed halls of stone, I’m not content until I notice the flock of birds flying in a V-shape overhead.
I haven’t settled into the role of being a photographer yet. I still feel awkward trying to capture the visages of people I don’t know. Some people are thrilled to be followed by a camera lens; others turn their backs and tense their shoulders. As an ardent viewer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, I feel especially peculiar when taking photos of children or playgrounds. I know I don’t look like your average child molester/fetishist, but the association creeps me out as much as white vans do now.
Once the sun started sinking below the mountains that encircle Firenze, I decided to make for home. On the way to retrieve my bicycle, I stopped to take a few photos of what appeared to be a broken-down community center. At one point, while the viewfinder was pressed against my left eye, I heard a rolling sound coming towards me. After taking the photo I lowered my camera cautiously, and on my right stood a very short, extremely sketchy-looking fellow and his wheeled, black suitcase. He started talking to me in Italian, and I quickly sidestepped around him and walked away briskly. He yelled angrily after me, but since I don’t understand that much Italian, I just assumed the worst and went a little faster.
* * *
On Saturday I took bus #7 to Fiesole with my roommate Sarah, and two of the girls who live across the hall, Alexa and Stephanie. The ride took about 15 minutes, and we ended up pretty high in the mountains. I took my digital camera with me this time and started snapping photos the second I stepped off the bus. Fiesole is beautiful. The streets wind up and down and houses have lemon trees in their front yards.
The view was expansive and probably incredible. Unfortunately, because of the bright sunlight and the pollution that rises from the city like steam out of a boiling pot of water, we couldn’t see much of anything by way of Firenze. I could make out the vague outline of the Duomo and the flashes of the sun reflecting off moving cars, but other than that, everything was just a haze of white smoke. I took several photographs of the supposed view, but unless iPhoto has a feature that eliminates smog like it does redeye, I doubt they’ll be worth saving.
At about three, the four of us had lunch at a restaurant called “Etruscus”. I had, surprise surprise, a pizza margherita! I am, if anything, predictable when it comes to ordering food. We also got a half carafe of white wine to share. Sitting there with my bubbling wine and pizza, I felt like a real Italian donna (woman) soaking up the rays and listening to the chatter of my fellow diners.
* * *
On Sunday I overslept and immediately headed to the darkroom when I awoke. I took my two finished rolls of film with me and hoped for the best. I’ve only developed one roll of film since eighth grade when I took photography with Mr. Stracke, and I did so under the strict and watchful eye of Jacopo.
For me, the hardest part is transferring the film from the roll to a reel and putting the reels into the light-tight bucket. All of this occurs in utter darkness. It’s uncanny because your eyes can’t adjust to the darkness.
I’ll save you the extremely tedious specifics and just give a rough overview—first the photographer must open the roll of film with a can opener. Both Jacopo and our TA Jamie commented on the behavior of other students while performing this particular task. Apparently a lot of blood is involved.
Then you remove the film from the canister and have to roll it around the reel with minimal fingerprint interference. And by minimal, I mean none. I always get stuck on this one because you have to insert the end of the film into this little slot on the outer rim of the reel that feels pretty much like every other part of the rim, and if you insert it incorrectly, it won’t catch and you’ll just be winding and winding fruitlessly.
And now class, we get to leave the darkroom and head out into the light. Developing the film is an eight-step process. So you have to really love photography to sequester yourself in the darkroom for hours upon hours. Or perhaps the chemicals addle one’s brain just enough to make one crazy enough to spend copious amounts of time in the darkroom.
* * *
Because my only food in the refrigerator was half a container of yogurt and some fizzy water, I headed over to the Grana Market. The ingredients I can buy here are light-years better than anything I could buy in the United States. Today I had a definite mission—in broken Italian and broken English (the latter referring of course to the woman packaging the food, not me) I managed to procure five balls of mozzarella di bufala, some sun-dried tomatoes, several ounces of pesto, and half a loaf of pane (pronounced pon-a). And when I got home, I made the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my life.
My only plans for Saturday were to sleep and go buy some stuff I needed. Or “run errands”, as my roommate Sarah dubs it. (In my mind, “running errands” is something 39-year-old moms do while their twins are learning the ABCs in kindergarten.) At 3:15, when I finally forced myself up and out of the house, I decided to head across the Arno instead of wandering around the more familiar downtown.
As per usual, it was a wonderfully frigid afternoon, and, since I had yet to buy gloves and a hat, I was pretty cold. Sporting my new bizarrely colored LeSportsac bag (unlike my old purse, this one zips, which is a very important feature of gypsy-proof luggage) and camera bag—both of which were looped across my chest to protect them from the dreaded purse snatchers, and talking on the phone with my mother, I headed across the Ponte Vecchio.
The difference between the two sides of the river is pretty striking. The area I live in, near the Duomo, is super tourist-oriented. Most everyone speaks English, and lots of restaurants have names like “Snack Bar”. Across the river, shops sell only cheese or only wine and are all called “Italian word” or “Other Italian word” or “Trattoria”.
There are trees and gardens on the other side of the Arno. On the Duomo side, there is no flora whatsoever, which, even for a New York City kid, seems kind of weird.
The first store I went into was kitchen/hardware store fusion. The woman who was running the place didn’t speak English, so I had to whip out my Langscheidt pocket phrasebook to look up the word “dishtowel”. Amazingly she understood me and I walked out of there with a 1,50 Euro towel to wipe my hands on after doing the dishes.
Later I entered a shoe store and greeted the manger by saying “Buona Sera”. He later asked me if I spoke English, which may not sound all that exciting, but usually people here just immediately respond in English. It was like that one time in Paris when a woman in a department store started speaking to me in rapid French and I unfortunately had to tell her “Je ne parle pas Français”. (For those who know me and my love of injecting French words into everyday conversation, this was the summer before ninth grade—I had only been studying the language for two years at that point.)
I happened upon a fair-trade/eco-friendly store that sold various cosmetics, honey, tea, tchotchkes, and, to my extreme pleasure, hats and gloves. I bought a pair of llama wool gloves and a llama wool scarf that were hand knitted in Bolivia. Unfortunately, to my extreme displeasure, the set cost 27,50 Euros. But I’ve learned that the conscious consumer has to shill out extra cash, which is perhaps why there are so few.
While walking down some via or another, a group of EMTs exited from a very small door right in front of me. No longer quite so surprised by sudden arrivals in this city, I only jumped about two feet in the air. My jumpiness, although fascinating, I’m sure, is not the reason I wanted to share this anecdote with my adoring fans—incredibly, all the EMTs were wearing super bright neon orange pants with three reflector strips around their ankles. The shock factor was somewhere between 120 volts and seeing Elvis’s ghost. Which is probably helpful if you’ve just had a stroke? (Insert observation about how the color probably makes the EMTs more visible amid a busy crisis scene here.)
After two hours, I found myself back at the Arno. The sky was growing dark quickly, so I figured it was time to get back to my apartment because Sarah and I had plans to have dinner with the SACI students across the hall. When I was on the downtown side again, I turned around to take a panoramic shot. As beautiful as Firenze is, it really is amazingly polluted. I could see the thick smog settling among the churches and apartment buildings. While looking through the photos I’d taken later, I could tell that the haze had even affected the color quality.
* * *
Today I woke up at 2 p.m. At 4 p.m. I hopped on bus #14 and was on my way to Fiesole. Which I hadn’t known at the time. Armed with my camera and one roll of black & white film, I was ready to tackle my photography assignment.
Jacopo told us that people would stop noticing the camera pretty quickly. In my opinion, that’s a lie. One passenger even switched seats because she didn’t want to be in my direct line of sight (I think). Another passenger kept looking over at me every time I lifted the viewfinder to my eye.
I’ve always been afraid of getting old. I think every young person who has grown up in the youth-obsessed United States feels that way, whether they admit it or not. But while I was sitting there across from a pair of old people, I noticed how striking their wrinkles were. Years of experience had formed their features. And there’s something really beautiful about that. When they smiled, I could tell they still possessed some genuine childlike wonder. From a photographer’s point of view, I consider older people and children the best subjects—for different reasons, the two groups don’t cringe at the sight of a camera.
Having lived in Riverdale for the last four years, my opinion of seniority is skewed. I’ve come to associate age with grouchy customers who argue with cashiers over every cent they think they’re being cheated out of, women who yell at family members in the street, and Mrs. Katsoris. It would take me some time to explain that last one—let’s just say she’s pretty wretched and leave it at that.
I think there are definitely more wonderful people in this world than terrible ones; the latter are simply more ubiquitous. There will never be a story about a fireman saving some kid’s cat above the fold of The New York Times—instead whatever any given dictator did yesterday will claim that particular spot of honor. After all, no one needs to be warned about respectable fireman.
When I got to Fiesole, I discovered that my second favorite group of subjects was roaming the streets in full force. Tons of kids were running about in various costumes—Ninja Turtles, princesses, Pooh Bears, and puppies—celebrating what appeared to be Italian Halloween in January. Just without candy. But not without silly string, shaving cream, and confetti.
It was about 4:45 by this time, so the daylight was fading fast. Unfortunately, this meant I had to use a lot of the 1 second, ½ second, and ¼ second shutter speeds even with the F Stop (which measures the amount of light the lens of the camera lets in) on the lowest setting. To give non-photographers a good idea of what this means—the ideal shutter speed is in the neighborhood of 1/60 or 1/125 of a second. So we’ll see Tuesday if I came up with anything even remotely recognizable.
Because darkness was sweeping over Fiesole with alarming alacrity, I didn’t get to explore the town all that much. But now that I know which bus to take, I’ll definitely return another weekend. Instead I spent the majority of my time in the neighborhood photographing signs of decay brought about by neglect and bad weather. I’ve decided to call my (hopefully discernible) set of photos “Behind Bars.” Actually that wasn’t the name I came up with while in Fiesole, but I’ve forgotten that one.
After about ten minutes I found the local park, which is where I took most of my photos. There was graffiti all over the two small playhouses. Gardens outside people’s homes were overrun with weeds and dying perennials. A lot filled with construction materials appeared to have been abandoned. And the smog added to the effect by giving everything a Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd-ish appearance. (Which I discovered will be playing at the Odeon—a cinema that shows movies in their original languages—as will several other movies I’ve yet to see: American Gangster and Charlie Wilson’s War.)
