Hiya

Wow this is great:) I love your personification of Venezia as a wrinkled old woman and the tourist as the ever hopeful art student. I think you've hit the nail absolutely on the head with this.

And your descriptions are fantastic :)

Good job

s

As I've said before, the concept is utterly brilliant. If I understand this right, you took the most original stance on Venezia since ever and saw it from an old pessimist-realist's eyes. It's shocking enough to be original and yet still true. Oh, and your opening sentence is perfect. Morbidly fascinating.

Love the diction. None of it is beautiful. It's all grimy and brown and blunt but all the better for it.

Minor qualms: 1. Every time I read the second sentence, I want it to say "toes the line between sanity and pleasant," or "separating," rather than "reading." Is that just me?
2. I don't think that "wannabe" really matches with the tone or the passage. It sticks out as way too casual ...
3. Switching between future and present tense - I don't know if that's just transition from possibility to an actual situation or awkward tenses. Would it be the same thing to say "I feel them zero in on the truth"?

One section has me confused:
"I’ll feel them zero in on the truth. It’s like an electric church bell wired in my head, beating against the fracturing walls of my skull, gonging until the hairline splinters become gaping mouths and ears and eyes wide to my façade of a city."
First you talk about "them" zeroing in on the truth. But then it's I who has the eyes opened to the facade? How does that work out?

A suggestion: You have told us why the narrator sneers at this city of beggars and falsehoods and dirt, but you haven't really hinted at what the artist loves about Venice. I know that we could all make assumptions on this one, but it might be nice to provide that balance and show both sides of the window, because in the end, you do *degrade* both sides, so maybe we should see where both come from? And especially since you talk about his art so much. Perhaps it would be more relevant if you were to tie art+Venice together. However, the piece is so put-together that if any insertions endanger the integrity of the whole, please please please don't do it.

a different suggestion subject to the same disclaimer: if you wanted to talk about the inside of the city as opposed to the facade? this narrator sneers at all the external slime and decay, but we never really get an idea of where the narrator is, except behind a window. or is that completely irrelevant? i don't know.

question: why in the world is a Picasso-admirer in Venice? Doesn't that seem a little strange to you? Abstract-crazy-Picasso in classically-beautiful-Romantic Venice? . . . Unless you chose that on purpose.

note: it should be Venezia (the city), instead of Venetia (the historical region).

Monstrous, isn't this? I just go on and on! And I don't say that much and I'm not quite sure *what* I'm saying, so if you want to talk about this another time, that would be cool :)

So beautiful as always! Maybe it's because it's late but I don't seem to comprehend your meaning here quite as well as normal. I'm still just as intrigued by your skill though, very lovely!

Love,
~Dia