PRE-BIANNUAL DIARY

Everything here is the furniture of a grotesque mise-en-scène. That's a common statement and it seems to me that it's not quite true. Boats are really being unloaded, first floors are being renovated, friends are being greeted in the alleyways, crowds of tourists are being channeled through the paths intended for them. And the fact that the Biennale is about to open doesn't make the time here surreal. On the contrary, my buzzing head bears very real witness to yesterday evening.

Soundtrack: I am woken up in the morning by the sound of a street cleaner through the open window. This sound serves as a gentle alarm clock. I had my doubts about this when I recently saw the movie Perfect Days.

Many newsstands sell a black and white calendar, Calendario Romano, which shows a close-up of a young priest for each month. The calendar has nothing to do with the Vatican; instead, it advertises a cat museum in Budapest on the back, which belongs to the Venetian photographer who publishes the calendar.

Protagonists: people from France, Munich, Zurich, street sweepers, schoolchildren, waste disposal boat drivers, bricklayers, tattooed coffee operators, smokers with high-pitched voices and non-smokers with low-pitched voices.

A man, an acquaintance of my friends here, has a large garden on Sant'Erasmo and a lumbago. The garden is overflowing and needs maintenance, so we drive to the island and mow the large meadow there, the mosquitoes are biting us, it's very hot on this April 12th.

Soundtrack: In a church, a Yamaha synthesizer plays a preset program, one song with an organ sound, another with a piano sound and a third with a fat synth sound. The device is connected to a new active box, the church is tidy, not very baroque, cool, quiet, uninhabited.

Fragrance level: this year, many perfumes smell decidedly earthy, hemp-like, there is a kind of post-eso fragrance mixture on Zattere. Otherwise, wisteria dominates. And as always, the scent of fried fish and canal water is in the air, rather discreetly in the background.

Storyline: A Vespa is lifted out of a river, the owner is located and informed of the find. She turns up at the site shortly afterwards and realizes that the recovered Vespa is not hers. When she arrives back home, her Vespa is standing intact in front of a house entrance opposite. Where does her missing Vespa suddenly turn up from and why at the exact same time as another Vespa turns up that is thought to be hers? And how did the finders of the other Vespa find her?