High above the Pallazo San Marco, Venice, Italy, spring of 2004, on assignment for Conde Nast Traveler magazine. The Italians thought I was Germ
an. Two different fellas greeted me with, Buona sera, Fraulein, which is a mouthful.
Venice is probably my favorite city in the world, and I am spending all my days and nights trying to figure out a way of spending the rest of my life there. Nothing’s come to mind yet, but I’ll keep you in the loop. 
Interested observers of these phenomena can contrast this with Picture B, taken in the same spot five years earlier. That’s himself looking at the world through his John Lennon glasses, once more above the Palazzo drenched in sunlight, and feeling, as Evelyn Waugh wrote of Venice, like I was “drowning in honey,” which is not at all a bad feeling if you are in love. I hope to drown in it again some day.
Anyway, found these while cleaning up the ol’ hard drive and thought they’d be interesting to share. I’m reminded of Groucho Marx’s observation: “Outside of the improvement you’d never notice the difference.”
