Xi'an's Og

Read my first book in Italian!, namely the fumetto Favola di Venezia (Sirat Al-Bunduqiyyah) by Hugo Pratt. Which I bought in the nice bookstore of the Santa Lucia train station rather than in the new store dedicated to Corto Maltese, in the Ghetto. It took me a while, as I had to get through word by word, rather than rushing through the dialogues as in French BDs or US comics. But this was most appropriate for a fairly oniric story that is more an homage to Pratt’s childhood place than a political mystery (even though the growth of fascism is also impacting the story). Going through each block that slowly further made me try to recognise some places (without checking websites that identify each real location!). As a coïncidence, The New York Times published a long review of… Fable of Venice and Other Adventures (other meaning “The Secret of Tristan Bantam,” “So Much for Gentlemen of Fortune,” and “The Seagull’s Fault,”) which goes over Pratt’s childhood, in Venice, his family (a grand-father joining early the fascists, via Mussolini’s Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, a father moving the family to Ethiopia in 1937 as an overseer of a fascist labour camp, later dying in an Allied prisoner camp),  his adventures as an errand boy in an Ethiopian brothel, then as a translator for the Allies occupying Venice, and later moving to Buenos Aires to work for a publisher… (Incidentally, I realised during that trip that Milano and Torino only got liberated on 25 Aprile 1945, a few days before the official end of WW II in Europe. Venezia and Padua got liberated on 28 Aprile.)

During my last trip (this semester!) in Venezia, I was (almost) kidnapped for a dinner at la Trattoria alle Vignole, located on the Isola le Vignole, which I had never visited before. (It is located east of Murano, facing the entrance to the Arsenale.) Which proved exceptional in many ways, from the isola(tion), to the absence of any other customers, to the ferry ride, to watching the sunset on Cannaregio and Murano, and of course to the endless flow of sea-food and fish dishes (not mentioning the company!!)… After tasting (or rather devouring!) a colomba pasquale (for Easter), I also brought home several versions of the similar foccacia veneta, for a battle of bakers!

Watched Phantom Lawyer, a rather silly, heavy going, Korean TV series featuring a struggling lawyer who can see ghosts and bring their cases to a satisfactory conclusion. With the usual conflicts of interest, massive coïncidences, and hopelessly slow romantic entanglements.