René's old blog
Whatever I feel like posting, whenever
This site goes back some twenty-five years, so it is bound to be full of stale links and irrelevant information. It is, at best, updated irregularly.
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Antonio Vivaldi, the composer from the 18th century who wrote The Four Seasons, also wrote operas to be performed in Venetian theatres. They were rather modern for their time, and one of Vivaldi’s critics published a pamphlet against him, called…
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Videos on Facebook
Post a video on Facebook with some music in it, and they’ll remove it due to “Intellectual Property” concerns. I’ve found some classical music that’s free to use in videos, actively put in the Public Domain by the artists, and…
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Martina rowing Venetian style
which is fair enough, as she’s Venetian. Video by René Seindal, music by Beethoven, Sonata no.8 performed by Daniel Veesey.
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Voga alla Valesana
There’s another type of Venetian rowing using two oars. It is probably less well know than the one oar type used in the gondolas of Venice. Voga alla valesana involves using two oars simultaneously, crossed. It can be quite tricky.
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Rowing in the Arsenale
We went rowing inside the area of the ancient navy docks of the Venetian Republic and took some videos. Here’s one of me rowing Venetian style, voga alla veneta, in our small sandolo.
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Foggy evening
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A day a-rowing
Last year we bought a small Venetian rowing boat, a s-ciopon, which is one of the smallest traditional Venetian boats. Usually I just fool around in the lagoon near the Certosa island, but yesterday I took it to Venice. I…
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January paddle
Venice Kayak doesn’t really do many tours in the winter, but we’ve had a few in the last few weeks. Yesterday’s paddle was on a foggy day, postponed from the day before which was even foggier, so we ended up…
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Happy New Year
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Merry Christmas
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Winter in Copenhagen
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Ancient graffiti
The current entrance to the hospital in Venice originally housed the Scuola Grande di San Marco, an important confraternity and one of the six Scuole Grandi of Venice. In the early 19th century it was turned into a military hospital…