Gondolas on a Sea of Rhetoric

Venetians have a message for Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi: Thanks, but no thanks. In what appeared to be a light-hearted response to a Venetian politician’s comment last month, the official Libyan news agency Jana suggested that Venice’s future could be assured if it were annexed by Tripoli. The politician was lamenting delays in dealing with problems in Venice such as encroaching high tides and crumbling ancient monuments. Jana said that for Libya to gain control of Venice would be “logical and historical” in light of the city’s early Arab connections. Venetian historians promptly discounted the claim, however, and Italian writer Alberto Ongaro told journalists: “Let’s hope that the prospect of becoming Libyan citizens will frighten Venetians into swiftly solving the problems that Kadafi wants to take over.”

--The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize will not be named until Thursday, but reports in the Norwegian media indicated two Czechoslovak dissenters and the Popular Fronts in the Soviet Baltic to be the leading candidates. Jiri Hajek, Czechoslovakia’s former foreign minister, and his countryman, playwright Vaclav Havel, are believed to be the main candidates for the prestigious award, which will be announced in Oslo. But reports suggested that Popular Front movements in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have sought a peaceful road to democracy in the Soviet Union, were also strong contenders. Havel, a founder of Czechoslovakia’s Charta 77 movement, was arrested for arranging protests in January and was released in May. Hajek was foreign minister in 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled in to put down a pro-democracy movement.

--The search for memorabilia for Carnegie Hall’s 100th-birthday exhibit has turned up a Bennie Goodman clarinet, the silver trowel that Andrew Carnegie’s wife, Louise, used to lay the New York concert hall’s cornerstone in 1890, and a ribbon that was cut on its opening night in 1891. Archivist Gino Francesconi is looking for other souvenirs for special exhibitions in 1990 and 1991. “People have responded from all over the country,” he said. Goodman’s daughter, Rachel Edelson, donated one of her father’s clarinets, and lots of photographs and recordings also have surfaced. “We’re desperately searching now for posters prior to 1960,” Francesconi said. “I can’t believe that there aren’t posters of Mark Twain, Woodrow Wilson, Toscanini out there.”