If it is your misfortune -- as it was for my family and I one summer -- to drive in an small unairconditioned vehicle from the northern-most part of the eastern seaboard to the southern-most part, you will undoubtedly begin to notice, somewhere on I-95 between Delaware and Virginia, the early warning billboards that urge you not to miss the turn (“only 150 Miles away!”) for an ill-defined but mysteriously enticing place called South of the Border (S.O.B.).

By lunch-time on the second day of the Venice Biennale’s preview (read about the first here), the quiet neighborhood of Castello, where both the Giardini and the Arsenale are located, is so overrun with art tourists that the osterias have run out of food. One can see elegantly dressed men and women roaming the streets for hours in search of a table for four. In the Giardini, the situation is only more dire.

At ten in the morning on the first press day of the Venice Biennale, the gates of the Arsenale, the former industrial ship-building facility for this coastal city and now the main venue for its international art fair, are opened to a stampede of press corps, who race each other through a labyrinth of brick for press passes, which, secured tightly to the lapel, mean a week of unfettered access and shwag. Once lapelled up, these journos pack into a dim old theater (though everything is old in Venice*) to hear diplomatic niceties first, and then this burner by Paolo Baratta, president of the Biennale:

From one provocateur to another

Reviewed

If exposure is the reason that the College Music Journalism Marathon takes over every single venue in the city each October, then there's no reason to see bands you already know are good. Bands like Cold Cave, The Atlas Sound, Deer Tick, or Ted Leo + The Pharmacists have gotten enough attention so far. Instead, here's a list of shows that basically explain why CMJ was invented.

The Brooklyn-based actor's star turn in 'Coco Before Chanel'