Dried in the sun

[imomus]

Washing drying in the sun above a canal near the old Jewish ghetto, Venice.

Comments

[arwyn.livejournal.com]

I love photos like this.

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

I love the light you captured..being that I studied glass and ceramics as well as a photography .. I'm really in love with this photo because of all the levels of light and dark and translucancy...

thank you for sharing, good is too weak a word for it, but its early and I don't usually have words this early in the morning...especially these days.

Dorian

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thanks to the tireless efforts of two Venetian students, Davide Fornari and Nik Montaldi, I've spent two weeks in Venice in the last month or so and will probably be back there for a concert on the 16th December. But I'm not living there. I'm back in Berlin now.

I am somewhat in love with the city. I love its patina-ed elegance, of course, but especially the absence of cars, the pedestrian scale. And above all what that does to the acoustics of the city: the way it sounds. Bells, footsteps, water sounds, gossiping voices. There's a focus on human-scaled sound which we've completely lost in other cities, brutalized by machine sound. Venice is an incredible time machine, a trip back to the 15th century (minus the bubonic plague).

[anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com]

That description alone makes me want to forget all of my projects and go there for a couple of weeks. The pictures you've taken merely add to the temptation. I hope you are able to go back for the concert. Reading your posts, I can gather you'd be counting the days until the next trip.

on a side note I'm sure you couldn't care less about, I've finally acquired the funds that will allow me to live in Berlin. Now I just have to wait until I am able to move.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

you're turning sentimental! !

[imomus.livejournal.com]

To show you what I mean, here's a

Venice Sound file (http://www.imomus.com/venicesound.mp3) I recorded yesterday, hanging out of the window on the Calle Tintoretto.

And here's the Venice Podcast (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/141909.html) I made last month.

[bikerbar.livejournal.com]

Venice is amazing ..
I was there last February and it snowed and it was incredibly beautiful

such silvery light

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

Which character from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice do you identify with more or less? von Aschenbach, Tadzio, Jashu?

[http://users.livejournal.com/bobbi_/]

haha, lovely!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'll give you a clue: the one I name-check (http://www.phespirit.info/momus/19970116.htm) in one of my songs.

Save Venice?

[dubow-org.livejournal.com]

We did an architectural project in Venice at the beginning of this year, and part of the project was to look into the rising sea level and the implication it has on Venice and the lagoon. Do you agree with the massive flood defence (the MOSE gates) that they are put in? And if the sea level continues to rise, do you think we should think of another massive strategy to save Venice, or should we just let nature take its course and eventually abandon the city?

[frontporchmafia.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

THere were so many literary allusions I got lost

Trips to do when in Venice

[dubow-org.livejournal.com]

1. Take the combination of vaporetto and buses down to the fishing village of Chioggia. Full of all kinds of 'washing-line' goodness and local people, and on the way you can walk along the sea wall in Pellestrina.

2. Take the vaporetto to Burano and check out all the brightly coloured houses there, evokes strange feelings as you feel like you are in a theme park and the residents are all bizarrely happy.

3. Then up to Torcello and go up the tower in Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, where you can get the most breath taking panoramic view of the lagoon and the salt marshes.

4. If you feel adventurous, then try and see how far you can get into Marghera! The abandoned industrial sites leave plenty of indeterminate spaces, and the giant rusted machines are just amazing!

Re: Save Venice?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I heard of some protest against the flood gates while I was there, but it seems like a wise move. Dredging the canals more regularily also helps keep the water levels down. "Letting nature take its course" is a strange way of describing millions of people driving cars, causing the greenhouse effect, and raising sea levels worldwide. We need to control that "nature" with stringent anti-car legislation and advances in engine technology. Venice, as a car-free city, represents the future as well as the past.

Re: Save Venice?

[dubow-org.livejournal.com]

I think one of the reasons why some people are against the MOSE gates is because it is changing the way sea water flushes in and out of the lagoon; therefore it may very well endanger the delicate eco system in the marshes. Also apparently the gates have failed the Environmental Impact Assessment... so how much good it's actually going to do really remains to be seen.

I agree with your idea of legislation and advances in technology, I just hope it can all happen before it's too late!

[peripherus-max.livejournal.com]

Your friend Gilles, and Alton and I walked past something very similar to this hanging outside the Palais De Tokyo this week! Ah, sweet simulacrum.

[bagrec.livejournal.com]

Lovely photo Nick.
Off topic- but I found something that belongs to you (http://www.livejournal.com/users/bagrec/57575.html)...

[suicidebabybel.livejournal.com]

I returned from Venice a few days ago and saw a Momus poster near the water bus stop near the bus station. xx

[pigpog.livejournal.com]

so how do they get their clothes back without dirtying them?

from Nik Montaldi

[(Anonymous)]

The honour and pleasure of having you play a concert here in Venezia was all ours. Davide and I did do everything possible to let it happen, but that is because we have grown up with your songs and thoughts and wanted to do something for you in return. I'm glad you liked it here in Venezia, it is after all another of the immigrant city and created over the centuries by opposing cultural influences and a meeting place between east and west. Thank you for the concert here and in Torino.
Actually Venetians oppose the flood gates as they will be obsolete in a few decades and will destroy the eco system of the lagoon. They are also financed by the multinational hotel chains and the government in Rome, with little interest in the presevation of Venice, beyond it touristic use. Removable flood gates would be wiser, pouring concrete into the lagoon does not seem like the best choice.
Nik

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

that is very nice!
not enough underwear though.
s.

Illegal

[jqmark.livejournal.com]

I do believe it is illegal to hang your laundry to dry outside in Venice. But it looks like they don't enforce it.

Re: Illegal

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Italy is the most and least authoritarian country in the world. On the one hand, there seems to be a regulation about everything. On the other, nobody pays the slightest bit of attention to the rules. For instance, in internet cafes you're supposed to show your passport now, as stipulated by new anti-terror laws. But although the sign proclaiming this gazed down sternly from the wall of the internet cafes I used, nobody ever asked me for a passport.

Re: Illegal

[jqmark.livejournal.com]

I remember being in Rimini, Italy in 87 and seeing cops in tall black boots with machine guns clearing a park full of kids who where crashing there. It seemed so contrary to what I had experienced while there.
Would they stop you from using the internet if you where from a specific country?

[ciaan]

How do they get the clothes out there in the first place?

Re: Illegal

[(Anonymous)]

No, our legislation is still not *that* mad.
They would only ask your ID, to have a complete profile of everyone who passed there by, in case someone would do sort-of Al-qaeda activities from an internet point, wouldn't matter if you're italian or whatever else.

Antonio

[imomus.livejournal.com]

One word: pulleys.

[ciaan]

I figured it must be something like that. All the clotheslines we've ever had have been groundlevel, though, and this whole tall-buildings-big-city thing is weird. It's a nice picture, though.

nice

[(Anonymous)]

it looks like shanghai's houses.

http://slidingcapture.blogspot.com/