Buongiorno Venezia

Bernardo Bertolucci will receive an honorary Golden Lion award at this year’s Venice Film Festival. and we are updating our website http://www.mostradelcinemadivenezia.tv
let me take this chance to respond some inquiries: do not type that domain name with the extension .com , it redirects you to an adult site (not our fault) . please correct your links, if any.  

collecting opinions about the best things and innovations of this Biennale.

5 votes: the floating bar at the Giardini (!!)
7 votes: the Italian pavillion
3 votes: the Welsh pavillion
4 votes Bill Viola at San Gallo church

-1 the German pavillion (organization problems??)

add yours if you wish

well, regular blogging takes time and i so not have much in these days… but i have not forgotten about you. the opening of the new Hilton Hotel in Venice (the former Stucky mills) was scheduled in the same days of the Biennale exhibit’s opening. result: much excitement, while the more conservative people were wondering how much Paris Hilton’s golden parents would pay to have a quieter daughter, whose last exploit was driving without a licence.

a burglar, released after being arrested in venice, asked the police to have his “professional tools” back. unbelievable but true. as the policemen refused, the thief protested that “there is no democracy in italy”.

want easy money? suggestion: if you are in italy, play the italian superlotto (superenalotto) this saturday, instead. guess 6 numbers. the jackpot is over 70,000,000 euro

an update about the exhibit Sequence 1 at Palazzo Grassi,  Contemporary sculptures and paintings from the private collection of François Pinault, Palazzo Grassi’s owner. A very “home made” exhibit (yet “precious”) which should teach us about the trend of contemporary art. meaning, what is worth buying. So you’ll realize what kind of art the very rich like to bring home.

may i tell you? it’s the worst Palazzo Grassi’s exhibit ever. the art critics reviews have been quite positive - you have to  ”open your mind” - but people are not stupid. word-of-mouth counts. 3 days after the opening the palazzo was DESERT, and i exchanged staring glances and silent laughs with the other 5-6 visitors in all. so stay away from Sequence 1, unless you wish to know who are Mr Pinault’s friends of friends. No emotions, no ideas, no technique, nothing. the big metal skull - which i repeat is the only somehow interesting work - cannot be seen at ease because it has been placed outside, along the grand canal, so that it attracts visitors.

beware: this is the first of a series of 5 exhibit from FP’s collection.  he’d better lock his pieces

The Very Hungry God by Gupta, a huge skull in stainless steel kitchenware. It has been placed outside the palazzo along the Canal Grande, quite impressive. 

Palazzo Grassi’s site is complicated and slow: if you wish see the basic info at veniceword.com then browse palazzograssi.it

Responding to an inquiry - this can be useful to others:

you cannot call Trenitalia (our national railway company) from abroad ; there is no toll free number (even for italians);  the 892021 number without area code means without city codes, and is not  toll free, can be call only from italy  and… definitely you can’t buy a ticket from abroad neither on their website trenitalia.it , nor on the phone. i just called them on your behalf and they replied you should go to a travel agency or buy the tickets in italy at the station. so it goes…. sorry

i wonder if you have the same feeling. often the sunday mail shows more nonsense than ever. and i wonder if it’s just a chance or it’s because of entertainment, big food and wine of saturday night, all over the world. particularly in veneto.

nonsense or not, this deserves a glance. i’ve been forwarded a note by Loris Palmerini, who declares that “the Italian Republic has no legal consistence. we may say, it does not exist”. Reason: the 1946 referendum (when italian citizens were called to choose between becoming a new republic or continuing being ruled by the king) was illegal, because millions could not vote. In fact in 1946 - Palmerini says - also Istria (Capodistria, Pola), Dalmatia (Spalato, Zara) and the Adriatic islands (of formerYugoslavia) were territory of the italian state, occupied by Titus’ troops: they passed to Yugoslavia only in 1947 with the Paris treaty. Though the italian residents living there had the right to vote, no voting site was held in those regions in 1946. More: also the ones who had escaped the local genocide and flew to Italy had no possibility to vote (hundreds of thousands, who according to Palmerini were likely to be in favor of the monarchy). “There was chaos and the civil war going on” Palmerini admits. “But millions of people could not vote: also Trieste, Bolzano and the whole Friuli; was this referendum legal?”. Consider the final results of the referendum: 12.717.923 voted for the republic, 10.719.284 for the monarchy.

The thought of rewriting history is fascinating. and shocking. right now, i have no idea if Palmerini is right: his comments may be seen with suspicion as he signs as the “president of the Tribunal of the Veneto People”, he says that the republic is illegal and a sort of a “coup d’etat”. he’s not the first one to promote these ideas.

if you read such message on a sleepy sunday morning and are an italian resident, the first thought that pops your mind is “good, so i do not owe any taxes to anyone”. the second thought is: it’s interesting, but i would not prefer to be ruled by the son of our last king. Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia has been involved (and also arrested last year) in two episodes which are not noble at all. So: i stick to the Republic!!! Viva la Repubblica, viva l’Italia. and let’s choose the lesser evil.

upon kind request, i am starting a new thread about “bag sellers”. i’m sure this request refers to streets vendors who display their goods on the ground, along the streets (calli) or on bridges. quite a shocking view when you get to venice especially for the first time.obviously this business is illegal, but so spread (and well organized, and not only in venice but all over italy) that the officers have a hard time stopping it. the numbers: sellers are more and more, officers come in 2 or 3 per inspection. and there is a net of “sentinels” who inform bag sellers via cell phone if inspectors are in sight. so it is virtually impossible to catch them.

it must be added that some vendors have a regular business permit as “ambulante” (itinerant seller), which they display, and pay an annual fee. in the majority of cases, they do not have such permits.

an advertising campaign in various languages set by the Comune di Venezia and Chamber of Commerce informs people that buying from these vendors is very often a way to reinforce criminal organizations that exploit immigrants, instead of a way to help immigrants. Buyers can be fined: if you buy a Gucci’s bag for — say — 10.00 euro in the street, you are aware that there must be something wrong. Really wrong.

getting married in venice is complicated. (staying married is even more, but that’s another story ) if the bride and groom are from different countries and according to the civil status, there are different papers to have ready.

in years of activity with Veniceword.com and as editor of Buongiorno Venezia i received the strangest requests for helping organize the wedding-of-dreams. some made me shiver (imagine being asked if one can get married in a Mickey Mouse costume during a 17th century carnival party. that was my feeling. i mean, i’ll look traditionalist but the wedding is NOT the party. the wedding is the wedding, the party is the party. you can mix the two, but with intelligence and respect - for your life plans and hopes).

this said, i respect both romantic escapes from the world (”just the two of us”, which inevitably makes you think of deep feelings) and parades.

in italy is not so easy to divorce as in the States. if the couple agrees for separation, 3 years of legal separation are needed before requesting the divorce. this applied to the civil aspect of the marriage. the marriage is unbreakable for the Catholic religion, apart from some reason (e.g. there has never been an intercourse, or the will to have children). so if you made both civil and religious wedding, you end up being divorced for the state but still married for the church.

back to the news. a practical guide has been issued by the hotelliers. haven’t seen it yet. be sure i’ll review it for you and write about this

UPDATE April 10, 2007 - (i am still newbie with blogs, so i can’ decide if a new post or a comment is better. anyway, this is it- if you wish to read on).
the Just married in Venice guide tries to respond to the hotelliers need: finding new ways to make money, without getting mad after the couples’ requests. The best possibile solution would be offering standard dream-packages and superior dream-packages, but it’s not that easy… every country has its own traditions, and the crazy thign is that often couples want to reproduce their traditions in venice. as if italians would ask for a well done spaghetti dish when abroad (nearly impossible). another reason why there may be little understanding between couples and hotelliers/organizers, is that wedding ceremonies in italy are rarely organized by professional agencies (like in the States), but by the couple or the family. a more intimate process? hiring a professional would also be expensive to italians, and couple prefer do the searches personally or choose during wedding exhibit fairs. as a result, the richest couples bring their wedding consultants from their own countries. not a bad idea, if you want a showy wedding. this is one of the udeas that a reader would get from the manual.

the list of requests is interesting: no limits to fantasy, but sometimes dreams must take alternative routes. e.g.: Americans seem to have a special desire for ice sculptures; Italian hotelliers wonder what this has to do with warm climate and the Mediterranean sea, and with Venice. the clients are always right, even if they may look nuts; but as a matter of fact, you’d better forget ice sculptures in venice unless you want to pay a fortune. subliminal message: be reasonable.

impossible is nothing, Nike ads says.. why not? a dream is a dream, a bed covered with rose petals is unforgettable romance… who cares if dreams are also a business

>> Contacts for more info <<

can someone tell me how it works. imagine you need a sponsor for a project of your client’s’. you ask around, someone addresses you to some others who regularly do fund raising. so you ask them for money, but they tell you they have no money, because they will spend much money to organize their next fund raising.

do i miss something?