Every time I pick a vacation spot, I brace myself; I can count on friends, acquaintances, or strangers who overhear me discussing my trip, telling me what’s wrong with my choice: too dangerous, too expensive, too hot/too cold, too dirty, too far away — ‘You’re going that far for only two weeks!?’ When I announced my decision to visit Venice for the first time, a cautionary chorus began to chant: “It’s smelly!” “You should have seen it 20 years ago….” “Ah…the canals are full of floating trash!” “It floods!” and, my favorite: “It’s sinking!” (said as if Venice, and yours truly, might disappear into the Venetian lagoon during my trip). I’m an open-minded traveler but I’ll admit when I boarded the plane to Venice, I was apprehensive — could Venice live up to my high expectations?
After reading many lukewarm reviews of Eau d’Italie’s new Baume du Doge, I braced myself for disappointment as I opened my sample vial of the perfume…
What does communism smell like? How about the Sun, or Cleopatra’s perfume, or the atomic blast that destroyed the city of Hiroshima? This booklet, published on the occasion of the exhibition 
