## Venice 2 We met a friend couple today. They were about to leave after five days walking around and shopping. We had a fun conversation about this and that, T told A about his writing and she told him about her recent collection of poetry. They talk best when alone, so I made sure to disappear to take pictures or go buy some more coffee every time L did as well. At some point they said: "How can you stay here for more than 2 weeks and not get bored", "we get by..." When they left, A brought me to the museo Fortuny and Ca' Pesaro. I have heard a couple of times from friends, that they get bored easily in cities, that there be nothing to do, that they don't want to visit the same places repeatedly and even though I myself am a horribly blase person, whose greatest pleasure is soaking in unfamiliar atmospheres and watch people, meet friends and write or take pictures, I couldn't get bored for the life of me nor ever feel like I'm repeating myself. It is definitely possible to conjecture beforehand that you're going to be disappointed by a place, as a means of convincing yourself not to undertake a bothersome and costly journey but once there, your mind will open up. Every place is infinitely interesting but we are not always infinitely interested, that's the real problem. It takes a certain effort to keep an open mind for new experiences and following other people without knowing one's own needs and passions, disappointments, sadness, self-doubt, self-misunderstanding and expectations can all make the world seem dull. For those who have figured out life, a box contains a tiny sheep, a shirt is a portal to a shared memory and an entire city an endless playground for thoughts and meaning. While our friends drag us through Benetton, I have the feeling that upon seeing the emergency exit sign both of them want to make a run for it, for freedom, for change, but they don't do it because there is only one door and they would have to go through the same one together. In the evening they invite us over and open a bottle of wine and in the time I empty my glass, L has already finished the bottle. I associate different things with wine. A richly prepared french dinner and good company, mom and dad just downing "One more glass, it's okay most of it is water anyway", but the two liter bottle magically empties itself, dinner in Shanghai with my favorite person, where we were treated like instagram idols and a gift I gave to a friend when they had bought a house: "May you age happily here like the fine wine in your cellar". Hopefully they do too. In the right mood any given moment is new and exciting and you don't even need to be in Venice, during the Carnevale, with opera tickets, a love for the italian language and the arts. I have been similarly told that Suzhou, Yokohama, Milano and Berlin are worth one, maybe two weeks tops. Imagine all the inhabitants of tourist destinations moving every fortnight to keep their lives interesting. I have to admit that I wouldn't probably go to museums anymore by myself but the two A chose were surprisingly interesting. Fortuny for one is a Venetian brand of textiles and interior design but now that I know it owes most of it's patents and patterns to one creative genius who astutely followed cultural and scientific developments like the japan craze and electricity, an artist turned inventor and businessman, these timeless objects take on an entirely new significance not to mention the giant medieval palazzo which seemed to sway a bit, but that might have been my mind adjusting to sitting in vaporetto stations in wildly agitated waterways for too long. Ca'Pesaro was even more stunning. The museum is well designed and the collection is fresh almost in every room. By that I mean  I have truly not seen anything like that relief of Maria by Wildt, the Cardinal by Manzu or that table by Carlo Bugatti. I have to admit though that I mostly like to see and be seen by the other visitors. People's minds are somehow in an especially perceptive state and will observe each other like they observe the surrounding objects of art. There are always beautiful people in museums and if the Kiefers, Klimts, Tiziani and Tintoretti cannot impede your attention being drawn away from their work to an elegantly dressed woman with joy and wonder gleaming from her eyes despite their best efforts, you're taciturnly giving her a compliment that can only be communicated in one of these places, where time has been deliberately suspended to focus on the human pursuit of beauty everywhere, all at once. Venetians generally don't smile so I'm particularly proud of having found three smiling partners in this city. Smiling, like dancing, is an activity that works best with another person and creates a moment of intimacy and understanding. Precisely for this reason it's also a tad risky. You could be misunderstood, inviting the wrong person to dance, sending signals that you didn't intend. It took me many years and ultimately meeting a masterful smiler to wrap my head around it, but I am now confident I can most of the time make anybody happier with a smile and am therefore doing it often. Here in Venice, people are for the most part annoyed. A little bit less if you speak italian. Less if you joke and chat a bit and still less if you do it smiling. There was this girl tying the vaporetto which goes between Giudecca and Zattere to the docking station, I smiled because she seemed friendly, she started greeting, I think she found me and my gf cute, being normal tourists stronzo e stronzina , masked tourists Erik and Pierrot, and at some point regulars A and O. The mask vendor remembered me smiling, asking me across a canal if the new one I bought fits better now. The waitress at the coffee shop had two cappuccini ready before we entered the door every morning the last couple of days and all it took were some smiles and nods plonked over the counter like in a game of tennis. For some reason people have the tendency of treating others like inanimate objects when traveling. Is it because of the feeling that if you tried to communicate, you would take the risk of being misunderstood, of saying something wrong? Is it because you don't care for what or whom you don't understand? Places with high amounts of tourism are always cold at first and there must be a reason ... One evening we made our way through the *calli* dressed in sparkly black dresses with glimmering star paillettes and jewellery of golden street lights to "La Fenice". A wanted to see *Il Barbiere* and had studied the score by heart. It had been ages that I hadn't been to a concert and I was honestly surprised to see so many classy people suddenly pouring in from all sides under the porticus, girls dressed like the city itself, men in hats and long coats, groups of two or three asian tourists, sports chic that effortlessly matches the expectation for elegance. A tall man holding up one tip of a serious German discussion had a regular red patch on his neck: "I think that's a violinist over there!", I learned from A. Somehow I ended up in front of the main door by which we would enter in an instant and had all the eyes on me for some brief moments. Curious, intelligent eyes, excited and romantic ones. I might have gotten out of practice but a group of people looking forward to a good time, while at least tolerating those around them or even grateful for their presence because they only add to the festive nature of the occasion, is a most beautiful sight. There was also one girl, accompanied by her mom, who looked at me so intensive and charming a manner that I felt my heart jump. We didn't talk about that kind of smile yet, the one to invite and show interest, which is longer and more piercing, wandering a bit around the other person's face and body. She was clearly exercising: looking when the mom turned away, to me and also a pair of young men who were more focussed on each other, holding eye contact with intent through the brownian motion of the assembly. "Uno alla volta, uno alla volta per carità!" I smiled back of course but also followed up with an immediate shift of attention to A whom I thanked for bringing me along to this kind of event. I had detached myself from the music over the years but now discovered entirely new ways of appreciating the moment. Happy to be here, the doors behind me opened and I'm the first to enter the theater which has seen the likes of Donizetti, Bellini or La Callas perform before being burned down by two contractors who, instead of paying for fulfilling their contract too late, preferred to torch the place. It reopened in 2003, in part reconstructed from the footage of Visconti's sumptuous "Senso", that I watched a week later because a friend from Palermo who had studied in Venice associates it with her memories.   People go to concerts for all kinds of reasons. The balconies were full of girls posing, by themselves or letting the bfs wield the phones, one masked person perched like a bird on the top floor as A's spirit spread its wings and lifted itself visibly to almost glide over the parterre to the palcoscenico and back up to level 4 because the piece we were about to hear was her guiding light out of a depression. "Liberate yourself. Go to a place you love by yourself and breathe", I had told her and she had chosen Venice. But she also made sure to buy two tickets for christmas: "I'd be happy if you join me for a couple of days." I liked the plan of each doing our own thing and then meeting up in Venice to see an opera. The older couple behind us were on a tour through the opera houses of Europe to listen to their beloved music, now that they had retired an it's not their job anymore. They had met while working for the opera in Lyon as violinists and we started talking during the intermission because I smiled at the guy and he took the chance to ask why A had been rhythmically tapping her hand, just as he had been popping the articulations of his fingers. This kind of behavior only those obsessed with music have and so a good conversation about mutual appreciation of opera, music in general and - as always - Austria ensued, in which I waited for someone to throw kibbles in my direction. I don't like golden retrievers but I look like one and know about as much about music. "Since you are Austrian", they didn't notice, "I'd be happy to share this reinterpretation of the Winterreise for woodwinds and two violins. You can stream it on Spotify". 70 years and going strong! Il Factotum Figaro was full of humor, physically and musically mischievous and good-tempered and helped the count to win his beloved's heart and save her from her greedy old tutor with a good bit of contemporary meme humor.  Bravi!