Dear readers,
I appreciate you're subscription to this blog. Plesae excuse the large amounts of typos and grammatical mistakes. Normally I fire these entries of pretty quickly and often slightly intoxicated.
Much lve,
Townsned
08 May 2011
Amsterdam
I returned to Florence Tuesday from Amsterdam, which has become one of my favorite cities. While Amsterdam is not a economic or industrial powerhouse like London or Berlin or a sheik destination like Pairs or Milan, it contains cultural and historical depths that can rival any European cities. Over three hundred and fifty years of a strong middle-class and a balanced liberal mentality has made Amsterdam one of the most pleasant and friendly cities on the planet. When I first arrived there from Florence and found the people to be so nice, I originally thought the Dutch were up to no good -- one never trusts a smiling Florentine.
I went to Amsterdam to visit my friend and distant cousin, Fort, who landed a job there a few years back. He lives in an apartment, which boasts a rooftop deck that overlooks the Vondelpark, the city's largest park. We caught up over a couple of real oltramonte beers, admiring the view and shooting at pigeons with an airsoft pistol. At one point, I noticed a strange, electric green bird flying by; it had an elongated, forked tail and looked like it came from the tropics. I thought that it must have been someone's pet parrot that had escaped. When I pointed it out to Fort, he explained to me that the park was full of those birds. I asked around over the weekend about the parrots, and it seems that Dutch traders brought them to Amsterdam from distant jungles. The birds adapted, and during the winter they survive by growing heavy plumage. It is too bad that other such animals didn't adapt. I would have enjoyed watching monkeys in the park, noodling with the stoners.
The park, like the city, is an excellent human zoo, and I spent many hours walking or riding Fort's bike through the park and the city just observing the people. I have not seen many places where people generally look so happy, and legalized marijuana cannot be the only reason. Folks play frisbee and lounge about, young couples walk their strollers and children along the paths, and older couples stroll about holding hands. The Dutch enjoy going to Vondelpark to relax, and in the late afternoon, many of them lie out on the grassy banks of the park's lakes, taking the sun and napping, while listening to mindnumbing techno, thumping heavily at 120 bps. Nothing more relaxing.
On Friday afternoon, I ventured out to see some of Amsterdam's museums. The following day was Queen's Day, the Mardi Gras of Holland, where everyone dresses in Orange and city becomes one huge, seething party to celebrate the Queen of Holland's birthday. Over the weekend, the city and the museums were crammed full of people, so I deferred visiting the museums until Monday, opting for the churches instead in the hope that the partiers and tourists had a different agenda. I was right. I found the Oude Kerk (Old Church) nearly abandoned and walked around it, surveying its architecture. The church is located in the heart of the Red Light District, and in Amsterdam, the Red Light District is not a misnomer. Hookers display themselves in front of glass doors, over which hang long, red fluorescent lights. The rooms they occupy are minuscule and tacky, decorated with sparse furniture, leopard print sheets, and colored lights that nightly illuminate the women who slither and sway in front of their doors, waiting for the right man, in a hexing glow. Since it was the afternoon, the daylight harrowed these rooms of any mystique, leaving them bare and appalling. Moreover, the B-Team whores were out. They were mostly swarthy, African types, who knowing that looks alone wouldn't likely bring in the big fish, took to more aggressive measures. I was staring up at one of the church's corner buttresses, trying to figure out how the church supported its roof since it contained so many large windows, when one of the hookers started wrapping on the glass door of her whore den. I turned around around, she opened the door and yelled "Baby! Baby! Baby!" I immediately resumed surveying the architecture of the church, but her sisters joined in cracking open their doors, hammering, and hooting at me. Having never been so popular with women, I was a bit flattered as I walked slowly and deliberately around the apse back to the entrance, pretending nothing strange was happening.
I enjoyed the inside of the church much more the its exterior. Besides the lack of prostitutes, they had built the wooden roof of the church much like they would build the hull of a ship, the lightness of which explained the lack of buttressing combined with large windows. Because the Dutch have been Calvinists for hundreds of years, they reappointed their churches to reflect their beliefs or at the very least their break from Catholicism. There is not an altar anywhere, and the congregation faces from one side of the nave to a pulpit attached to a central pier. Some of the windows have full or fragmented scenes in stained glass, but most are empty, allowing cool, white light into the interior versus highlighting any religious message. This coolness is the mysticism of the Protestants. It permeates their religious experience and thought, coloring the inexplicable purely with logic or creed rather than mysticism or emotion. Neither the Catholics or Protestants can offer an equally accurate and consistent explanation of the visible and invisible world -- be wary of anyone who can -- but their approaches somehow makes it palatable.
Also in the Oude Kerk was the World Press Photo 2011, which displayed beautiful and often tough photographs.
That evening Fort and I grilled out with some folks and then went out. It was Queen's Night, which was the pre-party to Queen's Day. We wandered around the city, and I met more Italians than I usually meet in one night in Florence. One trattoria that was selling six packs of Heineken at the door, and I spoke with the waiter and the cook, who was also the owner, in Italian, scoring a handful of free beers and an invitation to join the crew in the back for drinking and shenanigans. I hung out there for awhile and came back up front for a few more beers. Fort was talking with the waiter's girlfriend, who was American, asking if they had any Motown -- he was going to teach her how to dance and swing her all over the restaurant, he told her with a glimmer in his eye. The conversation dropped dead. The waiter looked at Fort evilly and told him to get out of his restaurant. Fort was surprised and apologized -- he was just trying to be friendly. The waiter was having none of it. He pointed to the door and repeated his command. The cook came over and asked what happened. Fort explained, adding that he didn't mean anything by it, and that the waiter needed to loosen up. The cook lost it. With both his hands gesticulating wildly centimeters from Fort's chin, he violently demanded why Fort had the audacity to come to his restaurant and hit on the waiter's girlfriend and, even worse, think he could get away with it. I apologized to the Italians, explaining that no offense was intended, and dragged Fort and our friends outside. They were flabbergasted. American and Italian culture differ on some points. One point is that flirting is rarely casual.
We bar hopped the rest of the night, and oddly enough, we ended up in another trattoria, where speaking Italian earned us more beer. After staying out much to late, we awoke the next day to Queen's Day. The air was palpable with the energy of a city in high festival, and the day was the best of spring: clear, cool, and green. We dawned our orange paraphernalia and walked through Vodelpark, which had been transformed into a massive flea market where Dutch children sell all of their family's unwanted items. Dutch children look forward to spending their time during their city's biggest party of the year selling junk and haggling with strangers, which may explain why the Dutch have always been great traders and business people. In fact, the economic crisis has hardly affected Holland.
It took us an hour to walk a kilometer. We met up with more folks, grilled again, and after a few aspirin, began celebrating Queen's Day. It was a great party, and the whole weekend reminded me of college on an citywide scale. Despite a huge party on Saturday, people had been going at it since Thursday as hard as they could. Our group would grow and shrink as we wandered the city, drinking beer and starting random conversations. Techno thumped from every angle, the canals were choked with bottles and refuse, and a sea of orange people, drinking and forcing their shoes through the layers of garbage and crushed cans, talked, gestured, yelled, and danced. If the rapture comes and the Apocalypse goes right, the world will look like Queen's Day.
I spent the rest of my time in Amsterdam's museums, and I found that coming home to Italy was difficult for two reasons. First, I was leaving a beautiful, clean, well organized city to an old, dirty, city full of grimace and pretension. Not every country in Europe is first-world. Second, on the flight back, a beautiful woman sat two seats away from me and removed her scarf. I immediately detected the perfume she was wearing. It was Hermes, from a line that I had believed was discontinued nearly five years ago. It was the same perfume that an ex-girlfriend of mine used to wear, and I was suddenly steeped in memories of her. A time long since faded once again became vividly clear in a gallop of scenes and sense, the memory of her. I leaned over and asked the woman if her perfume was Hermes. She looked surprised and said that it was, but that it was also a new line released this year. I told her that it reminded me of a girl I knew long ago, positing that Hermes let the line go dormant for a few years before releasing it again in order to drive new revenue off of an old product. I am still not sure if I am correct, but I believe this is the most valid theory. I never forget certain scents.
I went to Amsterdam to visit my friend and distant cousin, Fort, who landed a job there a few years back. He lives in an apartment, which boasts a rooftop deck that overlooks the Vondelpark, the city's largest park. We caught up over a couple of real oltramonte beers, admiring the view and shooting at pigeons with an airsoft pistol. At one point, I noticed a strange, electric green bird flying by; it had an elongated, forked tail and looked like it came from the tropics. I thought that it must have been someone's pet parrot that had escaped. When I pointed it out to Fort, he explained to me that the park was full of those birds. I asked around over the weekend about the parrots, and it seems that Dutch traders brought them to Amsterdam from distant jungles. The birds adapted, and during the winter they survive by growing heavy plumage. It is too bad that other such animals didn't adapt. I would have enjoyed watching monkeys in the park, noodling with the stoners.
The park, like the city, is an excellent human zoo, and I spent many hours walking or riding Fort's bike through the park and the city just observing the people. I have not seen many places where people generally look so happy, and legalized marijuana cannot be the only reason. Folks play frisbee and lounge about, young couples walk their strollers and children along the paths, and older couples stroll about holding hands. The Dutch enjoy going to Vondelpark to relax, and in the late afternoon, many of them lie out on the grassy banks of the park's lakes, taking the sun and napping, while listening to mindnumbing techno, thumping heavily at 120 bps. Nothing more relaxing.
On Friday afternoon, I ventured out to see some of Amsterdam's museums. The following day was Queen's Day, the Mardi Gras of Holland, where everyone dresses in Orange and city becomes one huge, seething party to celebrate the Queen of Holland's birthday. Over the weekend, the city and the museums were crammed full of people, so I deferred visiting the museums until Monday, opting for the churches instead in the hope that the partiers and tourists had a different agenda. I was right. I found the Oude Kerk (Old Church) nearly abandoned and walked around it, surveying its architecture. The church is located in the heart of the Red Light District, and in Amsterdam, the Red Light District is not a misnomer. Hookers display themselves in front of glass doors, over which hang long, red fluorescent lights. The rooms they occupy are minuscule and tacky, decorated with sparse furniture, leopard print sheets, and colored lights that nightly illuminate the women who slither and sway in front of their doors, waiting for the right man, in a hexing glow. Since it was the afternoon, the daylight harrowed these rooms of any mystique, leaving them bare and appalling. Moreover, the B-Team whores were out. They were mostly swarthy, African types, who knowing that looks alone wouldn't likely bring in the big fish, took to more aggressive measures. I was staring up at one of the church's corner buttresses, trying to figure out how the church supported its roof since it contained so many large windows, when one of the hookers started wrapping on the glass door of her whore den. I turned around around, she opened the door and yelled "Baby! Baby! Baby!" I immediately resumed surveying the architecture of the church, but her sisters joined in cracking open their doors, hammering, and hooting at me. Having never been so popular with women, I was a bit flattered as I walked slowly and deliberately around the apse back to the entrance, pretending nothing strange was happening.
I enjoyed the inside of the church much more the its exterior. Besides the lack of prostitutes, they had built the wooden roof of the church much like they would build the hull of a ship, the lightness of which explained the lack of buttressing combined with large windows. Because the Dutch have been Calvinists for hundreds of years, they reappointed their churches to reflect their beliefs or at the very least their break from Catholicism. There is not an altar anywhere, and the congregation faces from one side of the nave to a pulpit attached to a central pier. Some of the windows have full or fragmented scenes in stained glass, but most are empty, allowing cool, white light into the interior versus highlighting any religious message. This coolness is the mysticism of the Protestants. It permeates their religious experience and thought, coloring the inexplicable purely with logic or creed rather than mysticism or emotion. Neither the Catholics or Protestants can offer an equally accurate and consistent explanation of the visible and invisible world -- be wary of anyone who can -- but their approaches somehow makes it palatable.
Also in the Oude Kerk was the World Press Photo 2011, which displayed beautiful and often tough photographs.
That evening Fort and I grilled out with some folks and then went out. It was Queen's Night, which was the pre-party to Queen's Day. We wandered around the city, and I met more Italians than I usually meet in one night in Florence. One trattoria that was selling six packs of Heineken at the door, and I spoke with the waiter and the cook, who was also the owner, in Italian, scoring a handful of free beers and an invitation to join the crew in the back for drinking and shenanigans. I hung out there for awhile and came back up front for a few more beers. Fort was talking with the waiter's girlfriend, who was American, asking if they had any Motown -- he was going to teach her how to dance and swing her all over the restaurant, he told her with a glimmer in his eye. The conversation dropped dead. The waiter looked at Fort evilly and told him to get out of his restaurant. Fort was surprised and apologized -- he was just trying to be friendly. The waiter was having none of it. He pointed to the door and repeated his command. The cook came over and asked what happened. Fort explained, adding that he didn't mean anything by it, and that the waiter needed to loosen up. The cook lost it. With both his hands gesticulating wildly centimeters from Fort's chin, he violently demanded why Fort had the audacity to come to his restaurant and hit on the waiter's girlfriend and, even worse, think he could get away with it. I apologized to the Italians, explaining that no offense was intended, and dragged Fort and our friends outside. They were flabbergasted. American and Italian culture differ on some points. One point is that flirting is rarely casual.
We bar hopped the rest of the night, and oddly enough, we ended up in another trattoria, where speaking Italian earned us more beer. After staying out much to late, we awoke the next day to Queen's Day. The air was palpable with the energy of a city in high festival, and the day was the best of spring: clear, cool, and green. We dawned our orange paraphernalia and walked through Vodelpark, which had been transformed into a massive flea market where Dutch children sell all of their family's unwanted items. Dutch children look forward to spending their time during their city's biggest party of the year selling junk and haggling with strangers, which may explain why the Dutch have always been great traders and business people. In fact, the economic crisis has hardly affected Holland.
It took us an hour to walk a kilometer. We met up with more folks, grilled again, and after a few aspirin, began celebrating Queen's Day. It was a great party, and the whole weekend reminded me of college on an citywide scale. Despite a huge party on Saturday, people had been going at it since Thursday as hard as they could. Our group would grow and shrink as we wandered the city, drinking beer and starting random conversations. Techno thumped from every angle, the canals were choked with bottles and refuse, and a sea of orange people, drinking and forcing their shoes through the layers of garbage and crushed cans, talked, gestured, yelled, and danced. If the rapture comes and the Apocalypse goes right, the world will look like Queen's Day.
I spent the rest of my time in Amsterdam's museums, and I found that coming home to Italy was difficult for two reasons. First, I was leaving a beautiful, clean, well organized city to an old, dirty, city full of grimace and pretension. Not every country in Europe is first-world. Second, on the flight back, a beautiful woman sat two seats away from me and removed her scarf. I immediately detected the perfume she was wearing. It was Hermes, from a line that I had believed was discontinued nearly five years ago. It was the same perfume that an ex-girlfriend of mine used to wear, and I was suddenly steeped in memories of her. A time long since faded once again became vividly clear in a gallop of scenes and sense, the memory of her. I leaned over and asked the woman if her perfume was Hermes. She looked surprised and said that it was, but that it was also a new line released this year. I told her that it reminded me of a girl I knew long ago, positing that Hermes let the line go dormant for a few years before releasing it again in order to drive new revenue off of an old product. I am still not sure if I am correct, but I believe this is the most valid theory. I never forget certain scents.
26 April 2011
Kebab
It's 23:45, and I have been holding lovely conversations with Best Buy and Apple attempting to discover any possibility of recovering my computer. The chances look bleak, but I was able to eat a kebab during one call with a nice chap named Austin. Kebabs fall under the food group of fats, oils, and desperation. I had quaffed a few rounds with Prof. Ewell after grading exams this afternoon. Having gleaned a solid daytime buzz, I decided to purchase and consume a kebab on my way home. This happened before 21:00, a world record, or at least a Western world record as no one west of the Adriatic has ever eaten a kebab sober or as a proper meal. The kebab, however, is a staple many in the Middle East, who bitter about their lot, which forces them to live a world of sand, heat, mountains, and ice and bans pork products, booze, and women, the three things that prevent most suicides in the West, are ready to cry “jihad” and murder us white, slobbering pig-begotten curs. I can’t blame them for being jealously irate, but I hope they take some small comfort from kebabs, which are delicious, as I did while speaking with Apple earlier this evening.
Besides eating a kebab, a few nice things happened today. I finished grading exams. Although they were take-home exams and Professor Ingersoll allowed the full use of notes, some students still did poorly. Amazing! Some people would fail at paint-by-numbers. I had beers with Dr. Ewell and the anthropologist who wrote a book examining the anthropological implications of Walt Disney’s rides at the Magical Kingdom. We attempted to divine exactly how the world would implode upon itself, agreeing that Facebook, corporations, China, polarization in the US, fascism, and the automobile would be the leading culprits. We agreed that baseball offers hope. A charming Russian couple on their honeymoon joined us, and we all decided that Russia and America should be friends. Nasdrovyah! Best of all, I ran into Giulia, my old host-mom, on the street. We had not spoken since last year, when we talked over the telephone about plans that we repeatedly never realized. We caught up again and are planning to meet soon, although I will not believe it until it happens.
I pack tomorrow to begin the next phase of living like a gypsy, not the whining, unwashed “Dammi una moneta per i bambani, per favore” type but the romantic, Stevie Nicks type. I will be living in an apartment during high season in order to allow more vacancies, which will in turn lead to more revenue for the church. Since everything I own fits into two suitcases, moving is only a matter of climbing a few flights of stairs; however, the apartment has no electricity, water, or gas.
Besides eating a kebab, a few nice things happened today. I finished grading exams. Although they were take-home exams and Professor Ingersoll allowed the full use of notes, some students still did poorly. Amazing! Some people would fail at paint-by-numbers. I had beers with Dr. Ewell and the anthropologist who wrote a book examining the anthropological implications of Walt Disney’s rides at the Magical Kingdom. We attempted to divine exactly how the world would implode upon itself, agreeing that Facebook, corporations, China, polarization in the US, fascism, and the automobile would be the leading culprits. We agreed that baseball offers hope. A charming Russian couple on their honeymoon joined us, and we all decided that Russia and America should be friends. Nasdrovyah! Best of all, I ran into Giulia, my old host-mom, on the street. We had not spoken since last year, when we talked over the telephone about plans that we repeatedly never realized. We caught up again and are planning to meet soon, although I will not believe it until it happens.
I pack tomorrow to begin the next phase of living like a gypsy, not the whining, unwashed “Dammi una moneta per i bambani, per favore” type but the romantic, Stevie Nicks type. I will be living in an apartment during high season in order to allow more vacancies, which will in turn lead to more revenue for the church. Since everything I own fits into two suitcases, moving is only a matter of climbing a few flights of stairs; however, the apartment has no electricity, water, or gas.
25 April 2011
Thieves!
Yesterday, someone stole my computer. The burglary took place in the middle of the Easter service when I was celebrating mass with the congregation of St. Mark's in the basilica. I believe that no greater offense has been committed in Tuscany since the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478, when the Pazzi family in cahoots with Pope Sixtus IV (not Fourthstus VI) attempted to murder Lorenzo il Magnifico and his brother Giuliano during high mass at the Duomo. They only succeeded in eliminating the later and then being chopped to little pieces, disemboweled and hung from the public buildings, or driven into exile by Medici partisans. The difference between then and now is that my brother is alive and well, and having never seen the criminal, I do not know who to disembowel and hang from my window, although I would very much like to do it to someone.
Fortunately, I had backed up everything, and nothing else was taken, not even the charger.
Fortunately, I had backed up everything, and nothing else was taken, not even the charger.
18 April 2011
Pompeii and Herculaneum
Yesterday evening I wrote this entry on a train traveling back to Florence from Naples, passing through the mountains that surround the Bay of Naples, the ancient home of the Samnites against who the Romans perfected their Republican war tactics that won them first Southern Italy, then the peninsula, and finally the Mediterranean.
I was Naples leading Professor Ewell's class on Roman and Etruscan art and archaeology through the ruins at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Villa Oplontis, and other sites. The trip was successful, despite the fact that Dr. Ewell, who was suffering from the flu and a poisonous spider bite, was not able to join us. Another TA and I led the group of forty-one students along with a guest lecturer and friend of Charles, Giulia, who is an excellent professor and one of the nicest Florentines that I have met.
The sites we visited were destroyed on August 24th, 79 AD (a Thursday) when Mount Vesuvius erupted and dumped thousands of tons of ash, pumice, and earth on Pompeii and Herculaneum. The larger city of the two with a population of roughly six thousand, Pompeii features an excavated forum and early amphitheater. Herculaneum is a smaller site and is not fully excavated; it was a resort town that was submerged in hot mud rather than ash. The mud carbonized and preserved much of the organic material in the city, and as a result, Herculaneum is in better shaped and offers unique examples of Roman woodwork and furniture. Despite the differences between the two cities, they both boast beautiful homes, baths, and wall paintings.
Villa Oplontis is a stand-alone excavation of a large villa that archaeologists speculate belonged to Nero's wife, poor woman. The earthquake in 62 AD that left Pompeii's forum in such a mess damaged Villa Oplontis, and neither site was fully repaired at the time of the eruption. Nonetheless, Oplontis's grandeur and frescoes, offer examples of all four orders of Roman wall painting, are extraordinarily impressive and beautiful. The paintings cover ever wall surface save those in the servant and working quarters, and the rich saturation of the blacks, reds, and ochres is stunning. Digital photography cannot capture these colors nor the varied tones in illusionistic scenes of architecture and landscapes; it leaves them looking washed out and rather kitsch. Nor can digital means capture the experience of walking through the villa, room to room, and realizing the connections not only between the villa's architecture and paintings but also the relationship between your body and its space. Consider the difference between seeing a masterpiece on Google Images versus that same masterpiece in the Louvre.
Rome's loss was posterity's gain. The eruption of Vesuvius would be similar to a volcano suddenly popping up off the coast of Massachusetts, erupting, and burying -- yet preserving -- the posh towns of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, which would then be discovered seventeen hundred years later. However, the Romans likely never chalked Vesuvius's eruption up to global warming, corporate greed, the coming Apocalypse, or any other conspiracy. Many probably did attribute the eruption to an irate Vulcan, the god of fire who lived and smithed in forges beneath the mountains, believing that he was angry about something humankind did, whether humankind recognized it or not. How interestingly ancient religion parallels modern secular thought. Replace the pantheon of the gods with the ecosystem of the planet, and the similar patterns of capriciously punishing man for transgressions, justly and not, emerge from the dominions both of the gods and of nature. Replace the wrath of Poseidon with global warming, and you have yet another anthropocentric and dubious explanation of the sublime and often dangerous engines of nature. Regretfully, the latter is much less poetic.
Humankind's need for control and understand leads us to conjure such illusions in order to find psychological comfort in the face of the unfathomable. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in gods that embodied both the forces of nature and the nature of the human psychology, knowing that the two can never be divorced nor fully explained. It should not be terribly surprising that many modern secularists follow similar patterns as their counterparts in ancient Rome, who claimed secret knowledge through exclusive, Hellenistic cults that gave them a privileged vantage over the affairs of humankind and the workings of the universe.
A more tenable approach would be the one taken Pliny the Elder, who observed and recorded Vesuvius's eruption in a letter to his nephew, Pliny the Younger. While sailing into the cloud of ash to save one of his friends, he described the eruption in such detail that similar eruptions are now called Plinian. He died during the rescue, but his account of the event, as well those that he included in his masterwork, Natural History, demonstrated his empirical approach to individual natural phenomena. Pliny's approach and many of his conclusions, although not all, have endured, much longer than the writings of cultists that attempted to attribute natural phenomena to grand, simplified causes.
I was Naples leading Professor Ewell's class on Roman and Etruscan art and archaeology through the ruins at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Villa Oplontis, and other sites. The trip was successful, despite the fact that Dr. Ewell, who was suffering from the flu and a poisonous spider bite, was not able to join us. Another TA and I led the group of forty-one students along with a guest lecturer and friend of Charles, Giulia, who is an excellent professor and one of the nicest Florentines that I have met.
The sites we visited were destroyed on August 24th, 79 AD (a Thursday) when Mount Vesuvius erupted and dumped thousands of tons of ash, pumice, and earth on Pompeii and Herculaneum. The larger city of the two with a population of roughly six thousand, Pompeii features an excavated forum and early amphitheater. Herculaneum is a smaller site and is not fully excavated; it was a resort town that was submerged in hot mud rather than ash. The mud carbonized and preserved much of the organic material in the city, and as a result, Herculaneum is in better shaped and offers unique examples of Roman woodwork and furniture. Despite the differences between the two cities, they both boast beautiful homes, baths, and wall paintings.
Villa Oplontis is a stand-alone excavation of a large villa that archaeologists speculate belonged to Nero's wife, poor woman. The earthquake in 62 AD that left Pompeii's forum in such a mess damaged Villa Oplontis, and neither site was fully repaired at the time of the eruption. Nonetheless, Oplontis's grandeur and frescoes, offer examples of all four orders of Roman wall painting, are extraordinarily impressive and beautiful. The paintings cover ever wall surface save those in the servant and working quarters, and the rich saturation of the blacks, reds, and ochres is stunning. Digital photography cannot capture these colors nor the varied tones in illusionistic scenes of architecture and landscapes; it leaves them looking washed out and rather kitsch. Nor can digital means capture the experience of walking through the villa, room to room, and realizing the connections not only between the villa's architecture and paintings but also the relationship between your body and its space. Consider the difference between seeing a masterpiece on Google Images versus that same masterpiece in the Louvre.
Since this was my second trip to these sites, rather than listening attentively to the lectures, I let my mind wander through the ruins, imaging living in those cities then they were still alive.
Early morning streets filled with birdsong and hazy golden light filtering down through umbrella pines. The smell of warm bread baking, as women gather at the public fountains to draw the day's water, merchants sweeping the sidewalks and kicking up dust in front of their shops. Afternoons on terraces overlooking the shining sea and the full sails of vessels traveling between ports, the wind whipping through your tunic and hair. Trekking to deserted beaches and diving naked into clear, rich waters alone. Nights traveling between cities on horseback, torch held aloft, firelight dancing through the crypts and funerary monuments that flank the road outside the citygates, and the animal's hooves clapping on the cobblestones, sounding through the tombs. Perfect stars hanging in perfect dark. In August, the heat and emptiness and silence of blue hills buzzing with cicadas, and afternoons in January sweating and laughing in the caldarium of the public baths. That our modern rhythms were more just to our natures.
Rome's loss was posterity's gain. The eruption of Vesuvius would be similar to a volcano suddenly popping up off the coast of Massachusetts, erupting, and burying -- yet preserving -- the posh towns of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, which would then be discovered seventeen hundred years later. However, the Romans likely never chalked Vesuvius's eruption up to global warming, corporate greed, the coming Apocalypse, or any other conspiracy. Many probably did attribute the eruption to an irate Vulcan, the god of fire who lived and smithed in forges beneath the mountains, believing that he was angry about something humankind did, whether humankind recognized it or not. How interestingly ancient religion parallels modern secular thought. Replace the pantheon of the gods with the ecosystem of the planet, and the similar patterns of capriciously punishing man for transgressions, justly and not, emerge from the dominions both of the gods and of nature. Replace the wrath of Poseidon with global warming, and you have yet another anthropocentric and dubious explanation of the sublime and often dangerous engines of nature. Regretfully, the latter is much less poetic.
Humankind's need for control and understand leads us to conjure such illusions in order to find psychological comfort in the face of the unfathomable. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in gods that embodied both the forces of nature and the nature of the human psychology, knowing that the two can never be divorced nor fully explained. It should not be terribly surprising that many modern secularists follow similar patterns as their counterparts in ancient Rome, who claimed secret knowledge through exclusive, Hellenistic cults that gave them a privileged vantage over the affairs of humankind and the workings of the universe.
A more tenable approach would be the one taken Pliny the Elder, who observed and recorded Vesuvius's eruption in a letter to his nephew, Pliny the Younger. While sailing into the cloud of ash to save one of his friends, he described the eruption in such detail that similar eruptions are now called Plinian. He died during the rescue, but his account of the event, as well those that he included in his masterwork, Natural History, demonstrated his empirical approach to individual natural phenomena. Pliny's approach and many of his conclusions, although not all, have endured, much longer than the writings of cultists that attempted to attribute natural phenomena to grand, simplified causes.
11 April 2011
Wind breathing in the leaves
Gnarled hands that grasped once towards a blind sky
Trees sway
Young skin stroking the blue
Ferns breaking through the forest floor
Their heady smell golden green
As strong as woodbine in autumn
Seasonless days bright and clear
The world hanging on a pivot
And I stand before you
Fearful of the warmth
Of your flesh against mine
Gnarled hands that grasped once towards a blind sky
Trees sway
Young skin stroking the blue
Ferns breaking through the forest floor
Their heady smell golden green
As strong as woodbine in autumn
Seasonless days bright and clear
The world hanging on a pivot
And I stand before you
Fearful of the warmth
Of your flesh against mine
08 April 2011
Coeds in Florence
The semester is winding down with two weeks left. The apartments are fully booked, and the Popes arrive this afternoon. I am negotiating a job offer with a start-up travel company that could potentially keep me in Florence for awhile longer. In preparation for a trip I am helping to organize next weekend I am reading Robert Harris's Pompeii while still slugging through The History of Western Political Thought, which although convoluted and dry, is absolutely fascinating.
A few things to share:
American girls in Florence. Walking down the street yesterday, I passed a bevy of coeds marching by in their shiny outfits and high stilettos. One asked in her loud, spoiled accent, "Is my ass hanging out?" perfectly cupping and accentuating the "a" in ass as if that situation could potentially present her with an unexpected and embarrassing inconvenience. I laughed out loud, and realizing she had been overheard (as if no one in Florence spoke English), she turned red and scurried into the protection of her friends.
Advice for the ladies, do not buy outfits in which your derrière or décolleté may breath too freely. Although the sexiest part of the human body is the brain, if you would like to draw attention to different assets, cover them up. Modesty makes plain women beautiful and beautiful women irresistible.
If you find yourself complaining about men being contant jerks, observe that when you present yourself as jerkbait, you attract jerks. Amazing correlation. When a woman dresses provocatively, dyes her hair platinum, wears too much makeup, and stumbles about clumsily in high heels, its radiates an aura of high maintenance and desperation. She wants social power over her girlfriends and men, and sex is her means. In a man's mind, such a woman is good for one thing, exactly the instrument of her power, the bait on her hook. You'll be amazed how far a little modesty and confidence will take your love life. Unless, of course, that's not what you're looking for.
Finally, the accent has to go; it labels you as a joke.
A funny story. I went out with some friends the other night after a long, wine-soaked dinner party. I woke up the next morning to a phone call from a buddy. He had lost his wallet and asked if I had seen it. I had not and offered my condolences.
"You think that's bad," he responded in a strong Brooklyn accent, "I woke in the hospital this morning. I just escaped and have no idea how or why I got there."
Quotes. If you ever have the chance to live with a Polish Catholic, leap at it. Here are a few of the less scandalous quotes from my friend and flatmate:
On listening to bluegrass music by The Flying Burrito Brothers: "Is this Jewish music? It sounds like Jewish music. Is he saying, 'Don't let your negro down'?"
T to a guest: "Are you a lesbian?"
MA: "Oh no, Townsend, not at the table!"
Regarding a fancy dress party: "I can dress up as a tiger. That way I can avoid dressing up."
MA: "By the way, I am NOT a feminist."
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