A lot of people have been speaking to me in Italian, which
is sweet of them, and has given me tremendous confidence in my ability to
recall all manner of French and Spanish phrases, most of which I had thought
were surely lost to the sands of time. (Once, in Paris, I practiced some French
in my hotel room, squared my shoulders, walked into the hallway, encountered a
person, and said, brightly, “Hola!” Languages: not my thing.) For dinner last
night I tried a place just a block away from my hotel as it was rainy and not
warm. A review had mentioned that it had a very Brooklyn vibe and holy shit why
do I keep going to other countries in order to go to Brooklyn? The waiters were
all bearded and wearing suspenders and denim aprons and they were serving these
HUGE pieces of meat that came on chopping boards and the décor was all rustic
wood and unshaded soft yellow light bulbs and now I really don’t have to go to
Brooklyn because I have been twice, last month in Dublin and now here in Florence and so
I’m good for like a year.
The waiter talked at me in Italian, then, my blank look
perhaps giving me away, seamlessly switched to English the way pretty much
everybody here can, except of course me. I paid attention to my context clues
and noticed people paid at the counter, using a table number. When I asked my
waiter for my number, he was kind enough to bring me the bill. I paid and left
a tip (I know, I know—I just can’t not do that) and then I left the restaurant.
Not two seconds later a bearded apron-wearing dude in suspenders was chasing me
down, “Signora, signora!” When I turned back, thinking I must have left
something behind, he was on me: “Did you pay? Did you pay your bill? Did you
pay?” Before I could even respond—what?!—my bearded, aproned, suspendered
waiter was right behind him and there was a flurry of Italian and then I was waved
away, “Okay, okay, bye bye,” and then it hit me: in additional to possibly being
mistaken for a native, I can also look like a criminal! A life goal unlocked,
for SURE.
But seriously, were I to commit a crime it would hardly be
to dine and dash. I have MUCH bigger plans.
I went to the Uffizi on Tuesday and spent five hours walking
around with my mouth open. I also remembered how much I hate people, or at
least all of the people in the Uffizi on Tuesday morning. It wasn’t super
crowded at all, but since we were all funneled in the same direction and the museum
is a progression of rooms, I kept getting caught in the middle of these three
tour groups. No matter how much I dawdled or sprinted (walked quickly) ahead,
inevitably our museum paces would converge and I would be elbowed, bumped,
and/or pushed in the crush. I honestly started to wonder if I was dead and no
one could see me as that seemed the only possible explanation for how rude
everyone was. Have you ever done that thing where you walk up to a doorway and
realize there is someone coming through from the other direction and then
paused and stepped aside politely to let them go through first? Oh, you have? Well,
you and I would have been the only ones familiar with this concept, at least on
Tuesday morning in the Uffizi.
I am over it.
I am not over it.
I rented an audio guide because Renaissance art isn’t really
my jam and I like learning things, and it was completely worth the five euros
because otherwise I would never have noticed this lonely foot.
This torso and this painting were next to each other; the
torso is a Roman reproduction (from the “first half of the 1st
century AD”) of a Greek sculpture (dated to the “second half of the 5th
century BC”) which feels like too much math but in general: old; it was put next
to this painting of Venus (from 1490) to demonstrate visually how artists of
the Renaissance drew on classical art and wow, okay, yeah—I could totally see
that, and also all this was going on even before Columbus headed out and good
lord it is weird to be in a country with so much history when the one I come from
is not as old as this painting (and by "my country" I mean the one that the people I am descended from lived in, not, you know, the place and the people who were already here when my people starting showing up).
The Uffizi was built by the Medici family and most of the
art is just their regular stuff. The museum has been open to the public since
1769 (again, since before America was
a country) and every so often an informative plaque would note a piece had been
in the museum’s collection since “at least” 1783 or whatever, the implication
being that some dodo fell down on the job sometime before that and lost the
ledgers or whatever, or maybe shit got burned up, but whatever happened there
is a gap in their records and they are clearly still pissed about it. (Btw the
new European data privacy laws are a ridiculous pain the in ass and make doing
internet research just non-stop clicking “I agree” or “continue” or selecting
boxes to indicate which type of targeted advertising I want and I have no idea
how this is supposed to improve the privacy of my data nor can I imagine how almost
every website has managed to find a different way to implement the new rules it
is dizzying.)
Speaking of dizzying, people around here do like to paint a ceiling
and so I spent a lot of time with my head all the way back, staring up, legit
wondering how people kept coming up with ideas for stuff to put on the ceiling as
they painted SO MANY of them. My favorite example of “Fuck it, just paint
SOMETHING” is this caped mer-baby offering a plate of food (?) to a goat.
It was also thanks to my audio guide that I learned the gray
paint obscuring certain parts of the ceilings was an indication of damage from
bombing raids in World War II and y’all, let’s stop going to war and ruining
all the nice things. What if there was something even BETTER than a caped mer-baby
offering a plate of something to a goat under there? Stop! Bombing! Things!
At some point in the museum (it was a very long morning)
there was an installation of two films which were a commentary on the modern
museum experience. They were shot in the Uffizi and it was mortifying to see
writ large the same behavior I’d engaged in, often with the same piece, just minutes
before. The films were short and had no text, but the point was clear: we’re
all just tramping around taking pictures and looking for the best selfie spot
and posing for pictures that are meant for social media. The most disturbing part,
by far, were two short scenes in which a person was filmed trying to find
exactly the right angle or zoom to take a picture of a painting, tapping and
pinching away, and then, the second they
hit the button, they were instantly turning away, looking for the next thing. I
realized I had done exactly the same
thing two galleries before: I waited out two tour groups so I could get close
enough to this awesome painting so I could get a picture because Judith’s face
here is beyond amazing—”Hold STILL, this isn’t fun for me, either,”—and as
soon as I hit the button I turned and walked away.
But seriously, her face. !
When I did it, it didn’t feel weird, but when I watched
other people do the same thing, I realized how superficial and transactional it
looked. All we wanted was proof we had seen the thing; it didn't look like we were really seeing it. After I watched those
films I stopped taking pictures for a while because it felt so coarse and rude
to do so, but then I decided I wanted more than just the memories in my head so
I started again, but it definitely changed how I thought about and experienced
the relationship between me, my camera, and where I was/what I was doing in the
moment. (And yes, I enjoyed the deliberate irony of taking a picture of the
movie about the taking of pictures.)
Post-Uffizi was a go-home-and-lie-down kind of situation,
not just because of the horrible people but also SO. MUCH. JESUS. Yesterday,
Wednesday, was a get-organized kind of day, and it was rainy and yuck outside
so I futzed around with some administrative stuff and did laundry. There is a
self-serve laundromat just two doors down from my hotel, and I was pretty
chuffed with myself for figuring it all out, losing just one euro in the
process (enter the product number BEFORE you insert a euro or your euro will be
confiscated as a fine for your idiocy), and the fact that there were instructions
in English should not mitigate my accomplishment. A nice young Asian couple
came in while I was mid-laundry and I was quite pleased to be able to show them
how everything worked so they would not lose their euro the way I did and they
kept pressing their hands together and bowing at me and I am only slightly ashamed
to say I was definitely digging it. They also double-checked everything with me—their
washer cycle wasn’t over until I SAID it was over and how about a bow or two
for THAT, thankyouverymuch. Also the smallest bill I had was a 20 and the
washer was 4.50 so I got 15.50 euros in change and I do mean change. Why do you
have EIGHT coins, Europe? That is too many coins and I know because I am
carrying ALL of them around with me.
Off to the Pitti Palace as today is sunshiney and clear and
I am a glutton for being bumped into by people taking selfies with priceless
Renaissance art. Don’t forget to flash a peace sign, you jerks!
x
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