Busy Saturday

This morning I set out on my grand tour of Trastevere. My first stop was the Villa Farnesina, the house belonging to the wealthy Renaissance banker Agostino Chigi. Raphael and his school frescoed a loggia with the story of Psyche and Cupid, and according to the story, Raphael kept running off during the painting process to visit his mistress, so the clever patron finally had her installed in his villa so that his painter could concentrate on the work at hand. It really is a marvelous work, although I'm so used to thinking of Raphel in terms of Madonnas and portraits that seeing his narrative work was definitely an alteration. I particularly loved the fruit-laden bowers that separated all the scenes, which were assigned to his pupil Giovanni da Udine.

Next I headed to San Pietro in Montorio, which is a hilltop church where, according to Christian legend, St. Peter was crucified upside down. In the early 16th century, Isabel and Ferdinand of Columbus fame commissioned Bramante to erect a little temple on the site, and thus today we have the jewel-like Tempietto, which according to the wall panel is considered the first architectural moment of the Renaissance (but don't quote that). I couldn't go in the actual church, however, because there was a wedding going on. I lingered, but as soon as the rice had been thrown, the priest locked the doors, so that was annoying. The next church on my list was Sta. Maria in Trastevere, which had a steady flow of tourists in and out as I walked up. I entered, only to find out that there was actually a wedding in progress--as in, the bride and groom were kneeling at the altar, and there were all these tourists in the back of the church taking photos! OK, I was one of them. It was just so amusing. Hey, if you choose to get married in June in one of the most touristy churches in Rome, on your head be it. Still, I didn't stay more than a minute because I felt bad, and I could tell that this would be going on for a while, so I went to Sta. Cecilia, which was a little difficult to find. When I entered the courtyard and found yet a third wedding party waiting outside the doors of the church for the couple's grand exit, I started to get a little annoyed. I was determined not to miss yet another church, so I parked myself with a couple of Asian tourists and waited until the bride and groom exited and got pelted with more rice (they are not shy about that in Italy, it's really like bullets--at San Pietro, the groom had his jacket protectively over his head as he exited) and then dashed inside to see Stefano Maderno's sculpted version of Sta. Cecilia's body under the altar, which was pretty cool for being a unique representation of what her supposedly uncorrupted corpse looked like when they dug her up.

After these three nuptial encounters, I was done with churches for the day. I grabbed some lunch, with happened to be pizza with fresh tomatoes and arugula that, while good, was a far cry from Naples, and then went to the Orto Botanico. It was magical! Flowers and plants and trees from all over the world, particularly massive specimens of palm trees, a forest of bamboo, a terraced rose garden...this place had it all, but it wasn't manicured or tightly controlled. Rather, there were winding paths and whimsical little stone staircases all over the place. It was also rather unpopulated, and--most unusual for Rome--totally quiet, save for the rustling of branches and the ocassional cry of birds. I saw bright blue dragonflies skimming over a pond in the Japanese garden, jewel-like salamanders darting away in the underbrush, and not one, but two sets of ducklings. In the end, I found a bench where my head was in the shade but I could put my terribly pale legs in the sun and sat for about an hour. Indeed, if I'd had a book, I could have stayed all afteroon, but eventually I had exhausted my abilities of rumination, and regretfully took my leave of the garden. For 4 euro, that was easily the best valued site in this city so far!

It was only about 2pm by that time, so I crossed the river and checked out Palazzo Altemps, which houses the Ludovisi collection, mainly ancient statuary. The palace is grand in scale, but the rooms were rather sparsely populated with objects, which I appreciated after a museum like the Borghese, where everything is crammed together; also, all the panels were bilingual, and a diagram of each piece showed you, with shading, which parts were later restoration and which original. The Suicide of the Gaul is probably the most famous piece. In its room I encountered a French tour group listening to a pair of musicians, a female singer and a man playing a strange, medieval-looking lutelike instrument with a very long neck. I listened to them for a bit, and congratulated myself on stumbling across this little concert. Only when the tour guide got up and said something in French and then conducted the musicians, and the group, into the adjoining chapel, where they proceeded to perform a hymn, did I realize that the musicians were not with the museum, they were with the group! It was odd, but still pleasant, as the rest of us museum-goers benefited from it.

After all of this, I finally headed home around 4pm. Alice and Caitlin went to the beach today, but I received a facebook message from Alice indicating that apparently it was much further off than they'd expected, so it's unlikely they'll make it home for dinner--which is disappointing, as we were going out for our weekly 'fancy dinner' tonight! Ah well, there's always Sunday.

Naples

Yesterday we had to get up at the godforsaken hour of 5:45 in order to be on the bus down to Naples at 7am. In a flashback to the HILL trip, there were only ten of us on a giant coach bus, so we were free to arrange ourselves as we pleased. The ride south took about three hours, and we went through some of the most attractive country I think I've ever seen in Italy: rolling fields dotted with round bales of hay, backed by tree-covered hills and behind them, enormous, blue-tinged mountains. I couldn't get enough of looking at it, and yet unfortunately, taking pictures out the window of a moving bus is not feasible. And move we did, for our bus driver was a true Roman and managed to get us into and out of at least a dozen spots that, logically, our gigantic conveyance should in no way have been able to move through. Other drivers didn't seem to enjoy this, however, and we were greeted by a chorus of honks wherever we went, particular in the tiny, crowded streets of Naples itself.

It's interesting to trace the changes from Florence, which is so tiny and quaint that it now almost seems humdrum, to grand and graffiti-saturated Rome, to the rather squalid deterioration and yet massive sprawl of Naples. All three cities are so very different, and having tasted them all within a week's time, I'll say that I'm glad to be in Rome right now. Florence is a magical place, but I've seen and done pretty much everything there is to do there, while I haven't exhausted a tenth of what Rome can offer, even if it is as loud as all get-out with those damn Vespas everywhere. Naples was dirty, poor, and crowded, but it occupied an amazing spot on the hills above and around the Bay of Naples, sloping down to the water. For some reason, despite the generally lower tone of Naples, we noted almost no graffiti; Rome has graffiti absolutely everywhere, even on beautiful, fancy buildings in the nice parts of the city.

Our first stop in Naples was the site of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by Vesuvius along with Pompeii. (Side note: Vesuvius is HUGE). It's less visited and less touristy, but thoroughly engaging. Unlike Pompeii, which was covered with ash that made excavation prettty easy, Herculaneum suffered the fate of being covered first with stones and then with a volcanic mudslide that turned into a stony substance that's now harder than marble. According to our archaeologist/tour guide, a very nice German guy who unfortunately talked waaaay too much, that meant that they had to dig down twenty meters with pickaxes, and whenever they felt something "soft" they knew they'd found a statue, or the walls of a house. There were no dramatically preserved corpses found in this town, for the most part, unlike Pompeii; for a long time scholars thought that most of them simply hit the road when stones started falling from the sky, but just a few years ago, three hundred corpses were found in what was then the shoreline, leading them to believe that they tried to run to the ocean to escape, but too late, and a tidal wave formed by the volcano's seismic activity either drowned them or pushed them back to shore to await death there. Either way, it's very sad to think of their desperation.

After this we hopped back on the bus and were deposited in front of the National Archaeological Museum, a great pink building, and went in search of lunch. Brunella, one of the professors, luckily knew a great pizza spot down the street, where a huge personal-size pizza with--drumroll---fresh tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella--was merely 6 euro, and which came with the entertaining antics of one of the most amusing Italian waiters I've ever seen. He sang, he danced, he said he could speak to his customers in six languages, and he put his hand over his heart and said "Beautiful!" when I walked by him, so he's all right in my book! I can now say that yes, Neapolitan pizza IS the world's best. Holy crap, I could have eaten it all day. Pepe's be damned, this was a thousand times better, and it did not fall apart when you tried to eat it, either.

The museum itself was a giant letdown. Somehow, the squalid surroundings of the city were echoed in the grandly-designed building itself, which featured stained walls, peeling paint, and dirty handprints on all the doors. Half of the exhibits our guide wanted to show us were closed, but those we did see were amazing: floor mosaics and wall paintings from the destroyed cities, including the very best examples of Roman wall painting in existence, as well as the "Gabinetto Segreto"--the erotic art collection, which, even in Italy, you had to be 14 to enter. We left Naples by 4pm, so there was no time to explore the city on our own, but I have to say that I wouldn't be enthusiastic about wandering aroun there on my own like I am in Rome. The ride home was, if anything, more beautiful than the trip down; the late-afternoon light was absolutely perfect.

Borghese Gardens and Gallery

We booked tickets a few days ago for the Galleria Borghese, which has stricter rules than any other museum in Rome: you must pre-reserve tickets, you can only go in at the start time of your ticket (today, at 2:57, we had to wait three minutes for the stone-faced guard to allow us to enter), you must leave two hours after your entrance, no exceptions, and you must check anything and everything: camera, purse, backpack, hat, umbrella, you name it, you can't have it! For all that, it's not more crowded or housing pieces more delicate than any other museum, so the reason for the strictness is unclear.

At any rate, the experience of the Borghese Gardens, a gigantic estate that covers a goodly portion of the upper-right hand corner of the city (if you conceptualize Rome in terms of the Lonely Planet map, which I do), was exceptional. When I went there three years ago with my roommates, Sara, and Tess, we had an early entrance time (my fault) and rushed to get there to pick up our tickets on time, 30 minutes before entry (my fault again, because I believed the warning on the reservation that claimed they erased your reservation if you weren't there 30 minutes prior on the dot--as I discovered from my current roommates, who rolled up at 2:55 today, that is not the case) so we didn't spend that much time enjoying the grounds. Today, I was there an hour early, so I strolled around the lake, which has a picturesque Grecian temple in the center, as well as a multitude of ducks, geese, and swans, and a plethora of turtles. There was a musician playing jazz near the courtyard of the museum, as well, so I listened to him as I waited for my roommates and Sanaz, another girl in our group, to arrive. You can rent this little covered carts that are actually double bicycles in the park, so they were zipping around all over the place; it looked like a lot of fun, but alas! I was by myself at the time.

The gallery itself is much smaller in scale than the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Capitoline, the largest museums I've been in lately, but somehow I felt completely worn out in my two hours. Possibly it was the anticipation of 200 people all waiting to cram themselves through the doors at the scheduled time, only to mill about en masse in the first large gallery. Most people went left, so I went right, and got a few precious seconds with Bernini's David, Apollo and Daphne, and Rape of Persephone before people trickled into each of their rooms. Then I darted upstairs to the picture gallery, and managed to get a lot of my 'looking' done while the rooms were relatively uncrowded. Some favorites: Perugino's St. Sebastian, Raphael's Deposition, Savoldo's portraits, Fede Galizia's Judith and Holofernes, Canova's Paolina Buonaparte, and of course, all of the imperial portraits in the Hall of the Emperors, with their heads carved in porphyry and their busts in alabaster.

I've begun to feel that I'm being over-exposed to Bernini in Rome, but the statues in this museum always bring me back to that depth of expression and vibrant realism that makes him such a master. The delicacy of the laurel leaves sprouting from Daphne's fingertips, the roots forming on her toes, and the carefully distinguished texture of her flesh and the bark she is becoming, amaze me. In front of the Rape of Persephone, I was shocked to hear a woman tell her companion that she felt that the faces lacked emotion. Emotion! Hades' face is filled with triumph, savage and gloating, and the way his fingers are digging into the flesh of his victim's thigh is, my opinion, one of the unparalleled moments of Baroque art:

Meanwhile, Persephone is fighting so hard to get away that even her toes are contorted, and there are delicately sculpted tears on her grief-stricken face. So I don't understand how you could consider this "blank." Finally, the David has a warm place in my heart both for being the only representation of him in the act of flinging the stone that will kill the giant and for looking an awful lot like a young, pre-crazy Tom Cruise!

Tomorrow we head to Naples, a city I've never been to before, so I'm pretty excited. Buffalo mozzarella and real pizza, here I come (forget the art...)

Lateran to the Vatican

I started my outing today at San Giovanni in Laterano, the second-largest church in Rome after St. Peter's and the technical seat of the bishop of Rome, (ie, the pope). Together with San Paolo Fuori le Mure and Santa Maria Maggiore, it is one of the Church's four extra-territorial properties in the city. The basilica itself is quite amazing, and I think the work done by Borromini in the nave probably made it much more balanced and easy on the eye. However, it was the cloister outside that was the real gem; it was surrounded by twisty, Cosmati-inlaid colonettes, and displayed pieces of what was in the basilica before Borromini changed it up in the 17th century, including parts of a giant altar to Mary Magdalen, the piece of porphyry where the soldiers supposedly cast lots for Christ's robe, and four pillars supporting a granite slab that is supposed to be the height of Christ (apparently, he only had a couple of inches on me).

Next I went across the street to the Scala Sancta, which is supposedly the staircase from Pontius Pilate's house in Jerusalem. You're only permitted to climb it on your knees, which apparently pissed off Martin Luther back in the day, and I wasn't really interested either; there are two auxiliary staircases for normal people to climb, but the closed-off chapel "Sancta Sanctorum" of the popes at the top wasn't really interesting anyway. From there I went to the church of Quattro Coronati, only to find it closed, as the monks were undergoing spiritual exercises for two weeks. OK. San Clemente, the oldest church in Rome, was open, and had beautiful mosaics in the apse, but it was covered with signs banning you from taking photos, more signs than I've seen anywhere else. I guess they meant business. San Clemente is a stone's throw from the Colosseum, and also from the hill bearing the remains of the Domus Aurea, which were less interesting than the beautiful flowers and the views out over the city. There's something positively transcendental about the blue of the sky here, I can't get enough of it.

From the Colosseum, I took the metro home, but I got off one stop early and hit up St. Peter's, and there was no line at 5pm, so I wandered right in. St Peter's is always incredible, but I think having just seen the Lateran, I was much less taken aback by its scale. The light was perfect, coming in in huge shafts from the windows in the dome right down onto the altar. Mass started in the apse right as I came in, unfortunately, so I couldn't go see the Berninis back there. I did go into the grotto and see the tombs of the popes, including JPII, whoo. It's nice living about fifteen minutes from the Vatican because it's not like I need to cram all my "ocular desire" into one visit. I'll be back, within the two weeks (!) we have left.

The Minims and the Capitoline

We had a small field trip during class today (which meant class reconvened after lunch, which sucked) to SS. Trinita dei Monti, to see the anamorphosistic painting discovered on the corridor walls, done by Minim brothers during the Renaissance. SS. Trinita would be the church at the top of the Spanish steps, giving the steps their distinctive double bell-towered look. This would have been great, if we hadn't been grouped into a French tour, and only one person in our group, Alice, could translate any French. Nor was it a brief tour, either; the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who run it now (it's still French property) were determined to give their countrymen a thorough tour of the property. Anamorphosis means distorted image; basically it's what appears to be an image of St. Francis di Paolo from down the loooong hallway, but when you walk past it, turns into a landscape with clever, tiny little vignettes everywhere, like a cow standing on what was, from another viewpoint, the saint's nose. Alice told me that part of the complex explanation was that this actually had something to do with the Reformation-era conflict over consubstantiation vs. transubstantiation, with the anamorphosis demonstration the changing of one thing into the reality of another thing...anyway, it was pretty cool, if annoyingly unclear due to the language barrier and thirty French people yammering on all around me.

After class, Bailey and I headed down to the Capitoline Museum--we cheated by taking the metro to the Colosseum on the pretext that it looked like rain, but considered the amount of walking one does within the museum complex, and how utterly exhausted I was by the time we reached the Pinacoteca anyway (so tired that I saw Tintoretto, Titian, and Veronese, and went "meh, can we go home?") it was a really good idea. Dear God, half of the ancient statuary with which I am familiar is in that museum (technically plural, because they are housed in two Michelangelo-designed palazzi on the Campidoglio hil! The Dying Gaul, Capitoline Brutus, Capitoline Venus, Commodus as Hercules, the Flavian Woman (love her). Meanwhile, the emperor Trajan, in particular, seems to have left behind more busts than any other emperor put together. I'm getting a little tired to seeing his bearded face bedecking every niche in every museum in this city. Take a seat, sir, let Caracalla have some spotlight--I love his angry, over-the-shoulder look; you always know it's him!

Sunday/Monday

Yesterday morning I set out at 9am on a church tour. Sunday morning is a beautiful time to be out in Rome, I discovered, even if it kept lightly raining; the only people out are rushing to church in their Sunday best (which has real meaning in Rome, I discovered, as I passed a group of men who seemingly stepped out from Versace ads) and you can actually hear the sound of your own footfalls, quite the rarity. First I hit Sant'Agostino, where I saw a very curious and tenacious seabird sitting on the doorstep of the church, seemingly unconcerned with a large German shepherd (sans leash) sitting a few steps below. Caravaggio's Madonna di Loreto was my object in that church. Next I went down the street to the Theatine church of Sant'Andrea delle Valle, with Giacomo della Porta's classic Baroque facade. Randomly I found myself in the church of the Spanish nation in Rome on Piazza Navona, then in the church of the German nation in Rome by the ruins of Domitian's stadium, and finally in some random church called Sant'Eustachio. This was mostly because a couple churches I wanted to see either didn't open until ten or had Masses going on, and while going in during a weekday service is often grudgingly permitted, going in during a High Mass is certainly not cool. Anyway, finally I went in search of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, a masterpiece of Baroque architecture by Borromini. Although it is totally ensconced with a palace, it's possible to find it within a warren of streets by looking for the unique, surging lantern:

I think I fell in love with this church, first because it's just so different from all the other Baroque churches, both inside and out--the interior is white, white, white, instead of crazy multicolor marble and gilding. Second, because it's such a creative solution to a spatial problem, fitting the church into the existing structure and harmonizing it with the surrounding portico. Plus he went above and beyond on creating the external profile, which I love. There are much better pictures here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Ivo_alla_Sapienza. Framed by the doorway of the palace and then by the portico's arms, I think that this building is just visually entrancing. I couldn't pull myself away from it--I kept walking to the gate and turning back, just to watch the clouds passing behind the lantern. It's only open 10-12 on Sundays, as well, meaning I have only two more possible chances to take a look at it while I'm here.

Then, after this, I went home and tried to read Lacan, making the fatal error of doing so in bed, under the blanket because I was a little chilly. I fell asleep for four hours--and I do not nap. Such is the soporific quality of that 'philosophical' drivel. Today in class I had a serious issue with the fact that he feels that he can add something to evolutionary biology by bringing in the concept of the Gaze to bear on mimicry, by dismissing the notion of mimicry as being a biological adaptation but rather something to do with ocular fascination...some crap like that. Anyway, his only evidence is a book by one Robert Caillois, and I commented that I didn't feel he had any right, as a psychoanalyst, to be applying his crackpot theories to hard science, especially since mimicry IS an evolutionary adaptation. Our professor first said that well, of course this is the 1960s when Lacan is writing, perhaps it's out of date, then questioned whether what I learned from a biology text would really present the 'cutting edge' of biology research, and then finally assured me that since Lacan is quoting this Caillois fellow, he obviously did some research in the subject. Well, I looked up Caillois, and he's a freaking French intellectual, just like Lacan, and whose interests tend to literature, sociology and the sacred. NOT an evolutionary biologist or indeed, any kind of real scientist. That made me so burning mad. Lacan cannot simply synthesize everything and anything into his cosmology because he is Lacan! He can't toss off a reference to another French jackass and use that as a solid grounding for discussing hard science. I intend to confront our professor, whom we have all agreed is mostly winging this and totally contradicts himself frequently, about this tomorrow. I will have justice!

Anyway, bitterness aside, this afternoon we went on a Caravaggio tour with Liz Lev, and it was pretty fabulous. We started with the St Paul and St Peter in Sta. Maria del Popolo, then back to the Madonna di Loreto in Sant'Agostino, and then finally to the Matthew cycle in San Luigi dei Francesi (the church of the French nation in Rome, meaning I'm really covering my national churches here).

More on Florence

My last post was pretty rushed, so I want to put down some of my other impressions of going back to Florence this weekend. I always take notes in my little moleskine and then never follow up on them or answer my own questions, so I should really take care to do that more this time....

I pretty much saw all the works of art that I used for my paper on family memory in Quattrocento Florence first semester; almost all of the busts were together in one room at the Bargello (where my camera conveniently ran out of battery after I snapped Niccolo da Uzzano), I saw the Sassetti chapel in Sta. Trinita, and then I was stunned by the beauty of the Tornaquinci chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The cycle is monumental, completely intact, and in full, vivacious color. I also confirmed that standing in the nave behind where the rood screen would have been, the side walls of the chapel, which contain all of the family portraits, are invisible, and in fact none of the secular images on the back wall of the chapel would have been visible due to the sixteen-foot screen. Now, if I could only figure out what the access was for family members (this being the main chapel and altar of the church), and more specifically women, I could make an even stronger argument for this being a very private as well as public commemoration of family lineage.

Donatello's David in the Bargello has been recently cleaned and moved to a higher pedestal, so that it's no longer necessary to crouch to see the decidedly triumphant expression on this otherwise rather delicate young man's face. Meanwhile, his St. George, I decided this time, is a hottie. I'd hit it. In Sta Trinita, there was a Magdalen by Benedetto da Maiano that bore a striking resemblance to Donatello's famous one, so I need to check out relative dates there, though I think Maiano is a generation younger. In the same church I encountered an altar by Neri di Bicci, about whom we read ad nauseum last semester because this middling-talent artist happened to leave behind the most complete and anal retentive set of account books for all of his commissions.

The Laurentian library was closed, but I did revisit San Marco and its beautiful Fra Angelicos. I realized on this visit that the long corridor perhaps was for lower-ranking monks, because almost all of those cells feature a white or black-grounded crucifixion scene, while the cells on the shorter hallway, closer to the library and also to the personal cell of Cosimo the Elder, had scenes such as the women at the tomb and the resurrection, so I wonder if it was a mark of spiritual status, that the younger monks perhaps required more inspiration for the 'mortification of the flesh,' as it were. Meanwhile, Ghirlandaio's masterpiece Last Supper (unfortunately positioned in the room which is now a gift shop, so no on spares it much of a glance) enthralled me.

Everyone in this scene is reacting in a different manner to the revelation of the betrayal: Peter holds the knife in anger, John collapses on Jesus in grief, one looks up to the heavens pensively, two look out at us, one (on the left, but cut off in this image) in a more accusatory way, the other more in sadness. The guy in the right corner looks like he's more interested in finishing his meal, and Judas has the "moi?" attitude. I even love the cat! Ghirlandaio is like my artist crush, or something.

In the Ognissanti I was scolded by a monk for not having something on my shoulders, which I did have in my bag but totally forgot as I sprinted into the church out of a rainfall. That in turn made me feel like this monk was giving me the evil eye the whole time I was in there. I waited until he was out of sight in the transept to sneakily take a photo of Ghirlandaio's St. Jerome, which I love, love, love. His St. Augustine, on the other side of the nave, meanwhile, doesn't speak to me--literally; he's looking up to heaven, while Jerome is leaning on his hand, meeting your gaze with a sort of "you're not interrupting, Vulgate, blah blah, who cares, how are things with you?"

It was nice to go back to the Uffizi, and nicer still that I had been there before many times and was not laboring under the 2.5 hr time limit my compatriots were. The Uffizi is not an easy museum; it has to make do with the U-shaped layout of the building, which funnels traffic in certain directions, but my main complaint is that when you see "exit" on the second floor, where the majority of the galleries are, the first-time visitor does not realize that it's going to take another 20 minutes to go downstairs and through whatever exhibit is going on (18th century in Florence, this time) to get to the exit at the other end, and even then, you are in serious peril of missing the total of three rooms that are after the turn-off for the exit: namely, the rooms that contain Guido Reni, Artesmisa Gentileschi, and all of the Uffizi's Caravaggio holdings. Sheer idiocy, since there's only a tiny printed sign saying "Caravaggio" with an arrow, competing with big USCITA sign beckoning wearing museum-goers in the other direction. Ultimately, only a couple of people in my group saw the Caravaggio room, mostly because they thought they had enough time to get out of the museum when they "Exited" upstairs, only to find themselves racing through the temporary exhibition. So on that level, the Uffizi can be discouraging, but what a joy to see the Tribune room again, Bronzino's Eleanora of Toledo, Ugly Baby, and Rosso Fiorentino's Lute-Playing Angel! The Venus of Urbino, the Doni Tondo, The Madonna of the Long Neck, Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi, Simone Martini's Annunciation...the list goes on and on. It was like seeing old friends after an absence, and I was very happy.

I also did some more prosaic things; I visited the thrift store where I got both my coats, but found nothing good...I stopped in at Falsi Gioelli but didn't see anything that struck my fancy...I perused the market and was tempted by a green leather wallet, but reminded myself that I have a great leather wallet and having spent about 60 euro in Florence already, should probably conserve funds. Alice was generous and paid for our hotel room as a wedding present (to me only, lol), and Bailey and Caitlin were able to stay there as well, though their room was on the street on Via Faenza, so ours was quieter. They brought us breakfast in the room, which I have not seen before in Italy! I watched Italian TV for a while, which I haven't done here even though we have a TV. Then we ate dinner at ZaZa's, and it was fabulous, though I forced myself to choose between my favorite pasta and ribollita, and pasta won.

So it was all good and wonderful, but I did miss Carla, and also back when all of us were in Florence together. It was different being there with my current roommates, and a little frustrating because they needed to stop and gawk at everything (one of them took photos in almost every store window, I swear) and I kinda wanted to go off and do my own thing and not tour-guide, which I was able to do in the afternoon when we all went our separate ways. I understood it was all new to them, and I did try my hardest to be patient, I swear. Oh, everyone in my program has a paranoia about pigeons. I mention this because one of my roommates freaked out whenever one came near her as we ate outside Sta Maria Novella, and was making a lot of noise by yelling and kicking at them. It was kind of ridiculous....it's a pigeon! Live and let live.

Florence

We spent about 36 hours in Florence, during which time I visited the Uffizi, Sta. Maria delle Carmine, Sta. Trinita, Ognissanti, San Marco, Sta. Felicita, Sta. Croce, Sta. Maria Novella, the Duomo, and the Bargello. I think I Florence-d myself right out, because yesterday at like 1pm I was pretty done. I ran into Alice in the market and we took the slow, slow, SLOW train back to Rome together.

It was interesting to both see Florence again after a year, and also to see it after having been in Rome for a week. The differences between the two cities are striking, huge, metropolitan Rome versus smaller, medieval Florence. Ironically, it was Florence that felt more crowded because of the size of its streets, and yet I noticed a distinct lack of tourists--no line at the Accademia on a Saturday morning? Or at the Medici chapel? I only got run over by one Asian tour group, too--just one, not flocks of them in fisherman hats. However, I did get sassed by some Germans in Sta. Croce whose gigantic tour group was blocking the main aisle of the nave, the only way up to the Giotto chapels, and they had those stupid headsets on so they couldn't hear me ask them to move; when I tapped one woman on the shoulder, she reacted like I had kicked her, or something, and started snapping at me in German. Bitch!

One thing I was not expecting to notice as much was the attitude of the men in Florence; when we were there, it was par for the course that guys whistle at you, make kissy noises, say "bella signorina," etc, etc, and I never found it unpleasant. But after a week in Rome, when the men just act like you're another person (you know, normal), seeing that attitude in Florence was frankly disgusting. Some guy touched my arm and whispered something to me while we were out walking last night and my total reaction was "ewwwwwww he touched me!!!" Very mature.

Now I'm off for some early morning church visiting.....Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza is only open 10-12 on Sundays, so I have limited opportunity to visit it. Tonight, dinner at the art kids' apartment, which is apparently for sale for no less than three million euro. Sigh.

Giotto and Augustus

Today we had four hours to kill in between class and a video presentation by Mieke Bal, so I headed down to the Vittoriano to see their Giotto exhibit, which cost 10 euro but turned out to be quite the gem. Pretty much any movable Giotto or Giottesque painting in Italy was in the show, and if it was a fresco or couldn't make it, they had videos and high-def images that you could use computers to zoom in on and project onto a wall. It was like going to the Arena chapel in Padua again! The Lamentation of the Dead Christ there, in particular the hysteric cherubim, is probably my favorite Giotto work. Although the labels were in both languages, the wall panels were only in Italian, so it was good practice, as well.

I checked out the top of the Vittoriano after the exhibit, and it had unparalleled views of all of Rome: you could even see the top of the Pantheon. After that I headed to the Ara Pacis, which I both loved for its simplicity and 'purity' and was slightly disappointed in when I realized how much of it was reconstruction, and how few fragments actually survived. That's hard to tell from a picture. People are also ambivalent about the new Richard Meier building, but I think it harmonizes with the altar's overall effect, if not its actual style; it has plenty of light and doesn't distract from the altar itself, so I consider it successful.

Next I went up a very steep hill to the viewing piazza to overlook the Piazza del Popolo, another lovely view of the city, and then I was at the perfect time, four o'clock, to go into Sta Maria del Popolo, literally as the priest opened the doors! I was alone in the Caravaggio chapel for a few precious minutes, and it was awesome.

Finally, Mieke Bal screened her film, State of Suspension, which was a 'diagnosis' of the state of attitudes in Israel towards the conflict with Palestine, through the device of two Israeli comedians who did kind of Borat-like setups with other Israelis, but less ridiculous: for example, asking people to sign a soccer ball for a 14 year old Palestinian boy who had been accidently injured by an Israeli bomb, and to apologize to the camera for innocent casualties--you'd be amazed how many people refused, even a mother with her own 14 year old son said she couldn't feel sad about it. Then conversely, an Arab man refused to sign another ball for an Israeli teenager till they showed him the Israeli ball, and he noted that enough people had apparently signed to satisfy him before signing himself. It was an excellent movie and I wish I could write more, but we have to be at the train station at 815 tomorrow for the train to Florence. I am so happy to be going back, even if it's only for a night and without my Carla!

Yesterday

Yesterday was indeed a long day. After class we came home and I tried to do laundry before a scheduled tour at 4pm, but in an unpleasant throwback to Fairfield, after going to another building I discovered the three washers (for several hundred students) all had 25 minutes left to go on them. Since I was only out of underwear and socks, I handwashed them in the sink rather than truck over there again. There are dryers, too, but they're another 2 euro per cycle, and I have no problem with slightly starchy line-dried clothing.

Our tour was only of two churches, Sta Maria Sopra Minerva (literally above Minerva, so called because there was once a temple to her on the site) and Sant'Ignazio di Loyola. They're situated right next to each other, and one is Dominican and one Jesuit, so no love lost back in the day. Our tour guide was an actual art historian who, I heard it whispered, charges 400 euro an HOUR for her private tours. At that price, I should take my PhD and move to Rome. She was a really wonderful guide, engaging and humorous while giving in-depth info instead of only trivia. We looked at the Carafa chapel in Sta Maria, where Filippino Lippi brought perspective to Rome from Florence, and then we went to Sant'Ignazio, where Andrea Pozzo's illusionistic ceiling and dome literally made my jaw drop. I ended up tracking down the sacristan and paying 5 euro for an image of the ceiling, which they frustratingly did not sell in postcard, but rather in mini-poster form.

After that we had a few hours before we were supposed to meet Robert, one of the professors, in Trastevere for dinner, so our whole group walked a leisurely pace, ate delicious gelato, and got lost in Trastevere. I'm the only person who has been to Rome before and who knows any Italian, at all (not saying much), and thus they seemed content that I should figure out where we were going--which was annoying in so far as no one else felt like looking at a map, but then even more so when they (the art kids) grumbled when we got lost,because they hadn't even wanted to walk the twenty minutes from the other side of the river in the first place--they had wanted to take the tram, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. Ridiculous. Walking around with just my three roommates, I've only gotten us lost once since we've been here, and that was because the road we followed turned out to be a tunnel that took us underneath the cross street we needed. Unfortunately, yesterday I neglected to take into account that not all things on maps are drawn perfectly to scale, and what seemed on the map like a street at least ten minutes after the bridge into Trastevere was more like right after we crossed. After one of the art kids whined about how we should take a taxi, I relinquished map duty to Alice in disgust. It ended up taking us all of fifteen minutes to get to the square, walking through one of the prettiest, leafiest, tree-lined neighborhoods I've seen in Rome, so in my sister's phrase, shut your piehole! Getting lost is part of traveling, and when we got lost the other day, we wound up at the beautiful Borromini church with the cloister garden. The unexpected can be awesome.

Rainy Day

It poured this morning, which made our half hour walk to school somewhat less enjoyable than on Saturday. However, after class we made our first visit to the gigantic indoor market called Trionfale, where we finally procured tasty food at good prices. In fact, as we speak, my roommate Caitlin is making some kind of roast chicken dish over arborio rice.

So our afternoon itinerary included five churches. The first stop was Sta Maria Maggiore, one of the largest and earliest churches in Rome, with nice Cosmati floors and 5th century mosaics. Then we went to Sta Pudenziana, an adorable 4th century church with an amazing apse mosaic that represents the first use of imperial imagery for the figure of Christ: seated on a throned in imperial garb, while the apostles make the senatorial gesture of acclamation. The third church was San Pietro in Vincoli, which contains the relic of St. Peter's chains as well as Michelangelo's Moses, which I've seen before but is still quite arresting. Then we got a little lost trying to find the last two, because a road on the map was actually a tunnel that went under the cross street we were supposed to turn on to, but as often happens on trips, where we wound up was just as great--San Andrea delle Fratte, a church whose exciting Baroque exterior (designed by Borromini) did not at all match the boring interior he inherited from a previous architect. There was however, a beautiful cloister with lemon trees and a fountain formed from a giant, moss-covered stone.

Finally, we walked through the incredibly congested area around the Spanish Steps to the Piazza del Popolo, where we went into the Caravaggio church minutes before it closed and....couldn't find the paintings. Literally, we did a round in the church and couldn't find them. We're going there on a class tour, but I wanted a glimpse of the conversion of St. Paul. This was the only free afternoon we have this week, as we have tours, a program dinner, and we're heading to Florence on Friday, but I'm having so much fun so four. Walking four or five hours a day is really quite energizing, and I've had to forgo Coke Light in favor of water, but that's ok.

Vatican Museums, Il Papa, and Lance Armstrong

We got up at 6:45 this morning to be in line at the Vatican for the free Sunday entrance by 7:45. We were still about a half a city block back from the entrance, where we waited until 9am for it to open, but by the time we went came out hours later, there were literally thousands of people lined up, zigzagging back and forth in front of the entrance in a mazelike queue and then lined up around not one, not two, but three of the Vatican's pointed corners.

Our first stop was a brief walkthrough of the Vatican Pinacoteca, where we really only paused to see Raphael's Transfiguration and Caravaggio's Entombment (incredible!). Then we traversed the extremely packed Egyptian gallery to get to the ancient sculpture hall, where after years of waiting, I finally saw the Augustus of Prima Porta statue in person! I've liked that statue since Dr. Rose's Roman art class, sophomore year of college, and it was in cleaning when I was in Rome before. Of Augustus I can only say: I'd hit it.

Then we went to the Cortile Belvedere, which houses the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, some really giant Roman marble bathtubs, and ludicrous large Gorgon-esque masques (amid many other important pieces of statuary, but this is what I took away). Between each of these stops, meanwhile, there's like miles and miles of corridors filled with frescoes, painted maps, coins, etc. Finally, we make it to the Raphael Rooms, which are exquisite, and the Sistine Chapel, which is still kind of surreal, mostly due to its height. There were the obligatory loud "SHHHHHs" from the guards, as well as my favorite: "Silenzio...no foto..." plus a bonus Italian tour guide yelling at some people "don't take photos! this is a holy place! where do you think you are?" Um, in one of the most important art historical monuments of the Western world, that's where. Zip it.

Finally, I discovered to my dismay that only tour groups, of which I have previously always been a part, get to use the special staircase that shuttles you right to the Basilica. Us commoners had to take the long way out, which was still filled with beautiful things, and culminated in like a five story spiral bronze staircase. We decided just to go see if the basilica was open, so we go around to the Piazza and find it thronged with thousands of peope, probably the most people I've ever seen in one open space. It is of course noon on Sunday and the pope is blessing the crowd from his window, high above the piazza. He greeted everyone in Italian, French, English, Spanish, and German, which is pretty impressive, and the various nationalities cheered as he spoke to them. We took a couple photos and left, because none of us are Catholic, it was just fun to see the pope! Like spotting Brad Pitt, only less attractive and annoyingly against birth control.

After a spot of lunch, we headed to the Colosseum, where we discovered that today was the Giro della'Italia, the second most important race besides the Tour de France, and that Lance Armstrong was somewhere amid the cyclists. Because the Colosseo metro stop lets you off on the opposite side of the road-cum-racetrack from the actual monument, we had to take a very circuitous route to get in. It was, as before, anti-climatic for me, and we managed to miss the first group of cyclists as we walked from archway to archway on the upper level, so Lance was probably among them. We had to content ourselveswith the stragglers, each of whom was preceded by a cop on a motorcycle, and followed by his personal coach, who at one point we could actually hear yelling to the cyclist to step it up.

After the colosseum, there were grand plans to visit the Domus Aurea, but we had been going since such an early time that we were all totally drained, so we returned home, where we found Alice waiting. Now we're waiting till an appropriately continental hour to go out for some dinner, and then I need to reread Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and some other theorist before class tomorrow. Whoot!

Forum Boarium, Palatino, and Forum Redux

After our orientation today we had a brief walking tour of Rome for those who had never been...basically we went from Piazza del Popolo to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Then Caitlin, Bailey and I (Alice has still not yet arrived, as of 10pm) went and found lunch, which included some awesome strawberries from a street vendor, and then decided on an ambitious walking tour that took us all the way down along the Tiber to, we hoped, the Baths of Caracalla. Along the way we stumbled on the Forum Boarium, with the Temple of Portunus, which I recognized, and the round Temple of Hercules Victor, which I had never seen before. Across the street was the Bocca della Verita, but we decided to pass on that tourist trap, which had a long line. It was a perfectly beautiful day, and the road by the river was shaded, so it was really lovely. Eventually we wound up seeing what we thought was the baths, but which turned out to be one end of the ruins on the Palatino, which we only realized as we continued up the street and suddenly saw the Arch of Constantine from the other side. So we bought the combined ticket for the Palatino, Forum and Colosseum, and spent about four hours wandering around. It was really, really beautiful--there are gardens up on the Palatino, and amazing views out over the Forum, and Augustus' house, which has gorgeous intact frescoes with the most stunning color of red (photos on facebook!). All the flowers are in bloom here, and there are huge bushes of oleander and honeysuckle plants everywhere.

Sadly, the grocery situation is not as simple as in Florence, where there was a Centro or Conad everywhere--there are only private groceries in this neighborhood it seems, and things are more expensive. The fresh food is also very anemic looking, so we have to wait to go to the open market next week. Plus, no mozzarella, even the Mukki packaged kind! Wtf? We're going to Florence this weekend, though, so I will gorge myself on food from Conad and the central market. Ahhh.

I like Rome more this time around than I ever have before. I think the weather, which has been a pretty ideal temperature, helped a lot. My roommates are really cool, too. We're going to try to be in line at the Vatican at 730am tomorrow morning for the free Sunday. Ticket office opens at 945--this should be fun...

Live from Rome, Friday Night

This is the view from the wrap-around balcony at our apartment...

The Forum, which my roommate Caitlin and I prowled around this afternoon, despite the forum being actually closed when we got there, and my beloved Augustus statue across the street being blocked the by the stadium seats set up for the celebrations on June 2, the 45th anniversary of the post-fascist republic.

Vatican City at night. 'Nuff said. Also, it was followed by gelato...

Buon Viaggio

Consolation

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.

~Billy Collins

After rereading this poem, I looked up the word for ice: it's ghiaccio in Italian and hielo in Spanish.  I guess I'm all set then!
Here's to the hopes of an incredible month and a half of European adventure!

Post-Wedding and Pre-Departure

So I kinda got married, and it was awesome. No, seriously: I think that might have been one of the most fun nights I've ever had. First of all, despite more than a week of weather predictions that showed rain and thunderstorms on our wedding day, it was cool, it wasn't humid, and the sun was out and stayed out until we had already gone into the tent for dinner. Even though it rained for a little while, it only made the gardens more beautiful as the sun went down. Our justice of the peace got lost and showed up at about 5:05, which was the main source of stress directly before the event; there I am, looking out the window of the bridal suite at 4:55 at Sean, who is supposed to be trying to figure out if she's here yet, but who is instead chatting up Dr. Davidson, and meanwhile my wonderful bridesmaids are trying to convince me that it's OK, except it's really not OK if your officiant does not make it to the ceremony. But she did, and even better, she immediately ordered the guys to all button their tuxedo jackets even though Sean had decreed that he wanted them open, so I loved her for that.

The ceremony was wonderfully brief! Everyone laughed at the Odgen Nash poem, and again when Sean emphasized the "for richer or for poorer"during his vows. The JP gave us the wrong rings at first, because of course the plain one should be the guy's and the one with diamonds should be the woman's, right? Wrong. Anyway, no one tripped, my sister's dress stayed up (the other source of pre-ceremony angst, my sister's infuriating presence), and it all went off swimmingly. Unfortunately, Rae's parents missed the ceremony, but we did manage to get the NWC group plus parents photograph that I wanted. Everyone looked amazing: the girls' dresses, another cause of angst pre-wedding, looked great on them, and the chocolate tuxedos worked out perfectly. And the flowers!! I loved those damned bouquets. Best shade of orange EVER. And I don't even like orange, in fact I generally hate the color, but in this situation it was just perfect. Sean looked so handsome, and I have to admit that I looked pretty damn hot myself. It's amazing what you can do with professional hair and makeup and a pair of Spanx. Amazing.

I really can't get over how gorgeous everything turned out. The florist who did our centerpieces was an absolute wonder; Linda and I talked to her less than a week before the wedding and she was so enthusiastic about making them all different and all looking like they came out of a garden, and they really did, they were beautiful. Everything was beautiful, even the freaking tent, which turned out to be something so grand that Phyllis commented that you could throw down some Oriental rugs and live their all year. Our DJ was great; his over-the-top personality, while slightly grating in normal conversation, was perfect for the occasion. I have never had that much fun dancing in my life, I can say that much--for some of the evening, Sean's friends were all gathered around the bar, but toward the end of the night, everyone was on the dance floor, and it was just, frankly, the best day ever. And that was just what Sean and I wanted it to be--we wanted to have fun, we wanted our friends to have fun, and they did.

Oh, but the fun did not end after the reception...all our friends went back to the hotel and the neighboring bar, where apparently Mr. Schread, Sean's high school teacher who flew in from Wisconsin, was doing shots with the guys. The next morning everyone came back to the inn to get their cars and a bunch of us went for breakfast at the Vanilla Bean cafe (this is after Sean and I had eaten the inn's incredible breakfast: fruit salad, fresh squeezed OJ, warm banana bread, french toast, and the best bacon ever). Then goodbyes were said and Sean and I headed off to the lake to see Linda and to drop some things off with her, and then finally we made our way to Mystic, where we checked into the lovely Steamboat Inn, which is right on the water by the drawbridge. Later we had dinner with Anna and TJ, who had come to Mystic for the day. Yesterday we went to Mystic Aquarium, where sea lions might just be my new favorite animal after watching them perform, and then to Mystic Seaport, which was like a salty version of Sturbridge Village.

Anyway, we're home now, and tomorrow I pack for Italy. Wow. What a whirlwind! Saturday night Sean and I looked at each other and were like, what the hell do we do now? Lol. I can't believe all this wedding business is over...done with...gone! But in the end, it was all worth it. It surpassed every expectation that I had had. Plus, any party that can get Pinto to declare that it set the bar for all future weddings is obviously the shindig to end all shindigs. But that could also have been because he showed up alone and went home with Ward's date....

1,000th Post

Today is my wedding day!

I woke up at 6am AGAIN and then tried ever so hard to go back to sleep, but I could only manage to doze till 7 and then I said screw it, I'm up. I was so incredibly tired yesterday from the stress of the rehearsal dinner, which Linda and I agreed we spent way too much energy planning and doing errands for in light of how totally easy and informal it was. My sister even behaved herself admirably, only making a couple of comments on the ugliness of the dresses.

Now I have to wait ten more freakin' hours to get this show on the road. Sean commented last night that people are so taken aback when we say that we just want to get this over with--he said, wait till they have to do it, and then let's see if they're skipping through a meadow, la dee da, or if they're freaking out over 'did you call this person?' and 'did we remember to get that taken care of?" This is, bar none, the most stressful thing I have ever had to handle in my life. I took care of my mom's will and sold our house, blah blah blah--but it was nowhere near as stressful as this.

Speaking of my mom, I honestly haven't thought that much about my parents in the past few days. I guess I don't want to, because it will make me sad, and I don't want to cry at my own wedding, and certainly not because I'm a sad little orphan. But I do wish they were going to be there today, I do. I wish JTD were walking me down the aisle with his giant bear paw hands, and I wish my mom were trying to sit wherever she could best sneak away after the ceremony and not talk to anyone. This is the biggest milestone in my life so far that they're both missing; even college graduation, I think, was a little less big, and plus, even if they'd both been alive only one could have come to my graduation, since Jen graduated the same day from law school. I know that they would both be very proud of me, but I would do anything for one of my mom's patented iron-grip hugs before I walk down the aisle. Ah, and now I am crying on my wedding day, even though I said I wouldn't! As long as it's not during the ceremony, I guess it's OK.

Let's finish this 1,000th post on a high note: today I'm marrying the man who makes me happy!

Blergh

It's 6:22 in the morning and I am awake. There's dew on my car! I am never awake in time to see dew on the car! I think I drank a leeeetle too much last night, so my stomach still feels a little like it hates me. Whoops.

Confession: I've been putting up lots of small posts in the past week or so for a specific purpose. Tomorrow morning I will write my 1,000th post on this blog, on the day of my wedding. Booyah!

Poem

The River-Merchant's Wife

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

~Ezra Pound

Two Days

It's a beautiful day today, it's going to be beautiful tomorrow, and it's going to be "cloudy with chance of thunderstorms" on Saturday! Super awesome.

I dropped off my dress, shoes and some other things at the inn this morning, and on the way home I talked to Carla, who arrived late last night. Now Sean is off getting a massage (why is the bride to be not getting a massage, you ask? Who knows!) and I'm kinda dirty because I weeded the back patio. I also talked to this girl Bailey who is the only non-Temple student doing the Rome program. She goes to Case Western in Ohio and she does Baroque art, so it will be very helpful to have her around in Rome, I'm sure! She's never been to Italy, or even abroad, before, which kind of took me aback, but she seems really nice, and she said she was dying to go to Tivoli, which is awesome because that's got high priority on my weekend-trip list as well.

And! Carla told me she saw this incredible exhibit on Bernini portrait sculpture at the Bargello but that it had closed already...but I just discovered that it runs until July. Yessss.

Star Trek Cont'd

Sean and I rented Star Trek IV: The Journey Home tonight, and I laughed my ass off. I've never seen the original series, but as I told Sean I'm pretty sure there's no way the other movies can top Kirk, Spock and the rest trying to blend in with the 1980s in San Francisco. The plot of the movie: they have to travel back in time to bring some humpback whales back to their present so they can save Earth from an alien probe that is trying to communicate with the by-then extinct whales. Yes. It is a thinly-disguised "save the whales" movie, complete with a thrilling last-minute save of the whales in question from dastardly cetacean-killers. And it is hilarious.

Yessss

I finished the last of the Rome readings (whoot #1); I finally remembered to buy my ticket from Rome to Madrid (whoot #2); and I got straight As this semester (WHOOT #3!)

Prep Continues

Test-pack number...two? three? Maybe three, I don't remember. Anyway, this time I had everything in there, including guidebooks and conditioner (I figure I'll buy the shampoo over there, that really doesn't matter as much as the conditioning part), and my check-in bag clocked in at about 28 lbs. Which is not bad, for a month and a half trip, but part of me was kind of disappointed that it wasn't lighter. Boo.

I'm down to two readings left to do: Alberti's On Painting, which I picked up from the library today, and the last Lyotard essay. The other one I read was on the sublime and its relationship to the avant garde. Yes, it was about as interesting as it sounds...

Sigh

Weather.com, The National Weather Service, and even the freakin' farmer's almanac are allllll in agreement that it's going to rain on Saturday. Dammit!

My Saturday Night

I spent most of the afternoon struggling to fix my computer, which has a particularly nasty case of malware that is preventing me from using anything that could possible remove it. My computer works OK, I just get annoying pop-ups that try to convince me to download Coreguard Antivirus protection, which is just a scam. Frustrating, but at least I have Sean's laptop for backup.

Sean's bachelor party (I originally wrote bachelorette...whoops) is tonight, so he's off living it up, while I am on the couch watching You've Got Mail (good movie!). OK, I'm a little less lame than that--Linda and I went out for a drink at a restaurant in New Haven, then we came home, and now I'm watching 1990s rom-coms. Not so pathetic, one would hope. I miss young Tom Hanks. He's old now, and getting kind of chunky. Although, hearing him talk on the Daily Show the other night, I still have affection for him. He's not one of those actors you'd want to hop in bed with (hello Christian Bale, temper and all) but I could settle for an amusing afternoon at Starbucks. Or I could lie on the couch and he could read to me. I think I'd have him read Lamb, I bet he'd do justice to the voices.

Ah, memories of reading our favorite passages aloud in Florence while we were trying not to go to sleep, the night we were leaving...Italy, here I come (again) in a couple of weeks! Whee! And thence to Spain. Sean floated the idea of going to Paris for a day or two in the middle of our trip--I wasn't really tempted, probably because I've already been to Paris, but then I heard about the exhibit on at the Petit Palais: 200 Byzantine art objects from Mount Athos, which is a monastic island colony in Greece that has been closed to women for over a thousand years, and still is today--sneaking in is punishable by three years in prison! They don't even have female animals, only cats. Anyway, these pieces have never been shown outside of Greece, and may never have been seen by female eyes before. Imagine that. Gah. Alas, it would really disrupt the trip to go, and I'm a firm supporter of doing one country, and really experiencing it, rather than the butterfly method of flitting from country to country. I'm in Spain, I want to know Spain. Another time we'll go to France, and then we'll do France, up, down, and sideways. I want to go to Normandy, I want to see the monastery of Sant Michele, I want to see the Louvre again and really spend an entire day there...and I do not want to be rushing, rushing, rushing, trying to pack everything I can see into 36 hours. Not for me. Alas, Byzantium! I'll buy the catalog, if they ever publish it in English.

Scheduling

So in typical me fashion, I've attempted to plot out how I'm going to attempt to see the entirety of Rome in a month, taking into account that I have class Mon-Thu from 9-12:30, several required afternoon tours and two weekend field trips, and that many places have wacky opening hours/days of the week....

Saturday 5/30: 11am orientation at the school
Sunday 5/31: Vatican (free)
Monday 6/1: Ancient Rome
bus stop Gianturco, bus 628 eight stops to Piazza Venezia
Colosseum/Palatino
Circo Massimo
Roman Forum
Piazza della Boca della Verita/Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin (2:30)
Forum of Trajan
Vittoriano
Campidoglio
Santa Maria in Aracoeli (2:30)
Tuesday 6/2: afternoon perspective tour, dinner
Wednesday 6/3: afternoon screening (Borghese Gardens?)
Thursday 6/4:
Farnese Palace
Pantheon
Elefantino
Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva
Chiesa del Gesu (4-7:45, Loyola's rooms 4-6)
Piazza Navona
Palazzo Altemps
Santa Maria della Pace (4-6)
Friday 6/5: Train to Florence, Uffizi, Brancacci chapel
Saturday 6/6: day in Florence, Katti B&B, return to Rome
Sunday 6/7:
Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza (10-12, Sun only!)
San Luigi dei Francesi (7:30-12, 3:30-7:30)
Sant'Agostino (7:45-12, 4-7:30)
Chiesa de San Andrea della Valle 7:30-12:30, 4:30-7:30)
Galleria Pamphili
Monday 6/8:
Santa Maria Maggiore
San Pietro in Vincoli (3-6)
San Andrea al Quirinale (4-7)
Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quatto Fontane (3-6)
Baths of Diocletian (9-7;45)
Museo Nazionale at the Baths (9-7:45)
Tuesday 6/9: morning tour, 11am
Wednesday 6/10:
Domus Aurea (10-4)
Ara Pacis (9-7)
Mausoleo Augusteo
Thursday 6/11: Southern Rome
San Giovanni in Laterano 7-6:30
Baths of Caracalla (9-7:15)
Basilica di Santa Sabina (3-7)
Basilico di San Paolo Fuori le Mure (7-6)
Friday 6/12: trip to Naples
Saturday 6/13: Trastevere
Villa Farnesina (9-1)
Chiesa di S.Francesco di Assisa 7-12, 4-7
Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, 7-12:30, 3:30-7:30
Porta Settimiana
Janiculum
Orto Botanico
Tempietto di Bramante, 9:30-12:30, 4-6
Sunday 6/14: Cerveteri/Tivoli?

Monday 6/15:
Villa Borghese (pre-book) (9-7)
Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia (8:30-7:30)
Tuesday 6/16: afternoon tour, Sta Maria della Vittoria
Wednesday 6/17:
Capitoline Museums (9-8)
Thursday 6/18:
Appian Way
Catacomb of Callixtus (2-5)
Basilica/Catacomb of St. Sebastian (2:30-5:30)
Circo di Massenzio
Friday 6/19: morning visit Casino Ludovisi
Basilica di Sant'Agnese Fuori le Mure (4-6)
Santa Costanza
Saturday 6/20:
Galleria Colonna (9-1 Sat)
Or Vatican?
Sunday 6/21: Cerveteri/Tivoli?

Monday 6/22:
Tuesday 6/23: afternoon tour
Wednesday 6/24:
Thursday 6/25: goodbye dinner
Friday 6/26: depart for Madrid!

Cosi-cosi

Well, today was a bit of a mix! On the plus side, Linda and I spent most of the day exploring north-eastern CT, and it was a beautiful day for it. We arranged for table flowers and a mini-Venetian table to complement the cupcakes, procured a guestbook and double sided tape for the back of my dress, and ate lunch at this little Lebanese place in some town called Yantic. I got a feta wrap, but the beef shwarma wrap that Linda got was so delicious and better than mine that I brought one home for me and Sean to share. This place was like a mini version of Homsy's, the store in MA near my grandfather's house where we used to buy Syrian pepper (aka allspice), pignoli nuts, and Syrian bread--which, amazingly, they had, even though it was called Syrian-Lebanese bread. Syrian bread is a pita, but it's rolled very thin and is larger than most pitas, maybe a foot in diameter. The owner told me that they have it made for them at a bakery in Worcester. If you have to have it made to order, that explains why I haven't seen any anywhere since Homsy's closed except in a random foreign-food store in Florence, which of course was gone when I returned last year. Anyway, a supply has been found! Sean decreed that now we have to make hushwei so we can eat it Arab-style out of the Syrian bread. Yummy.

Later this afternoon I got a facial, which is always fun--except not really, because some of that stuff they use stings and itches (which, according to the woman doing it, lets you know it's working. Ooook.) Also, you always leave with no makeup on and giant red blotches if they extracted a blackhead, and yet the lady at the front desk assured me that I looked radiant. Please don't lie to me, just let me pay and go hide in peace.

Then I came home and discovered that Hubbard passed out in the entire hour I'd been gone and had been taken to the hospital by ambulance! She had really bad diarrhea the past few days and was severely dehydrated, so now they're keeping her overnight to give her fluids. Sean's aunt went with Linda, leaving us to guard Lulu, who is Michelle's brown, fluffy standard poodle. She looks like a Snuffleupagus, I'm not kidding! She is also very energetic, high-spirited, and strong, as I discovered when we took her over to the sea wall. She terrified some tiny little morsel of a dog that looked like it thought she was going to eat it, and I saw my first chow dog, which is kind of freaky looking. Sean took off to go see his friends, leaving me with the beast, but I think we wore her out. Meanwhile, my computer has a virus of some kind--I'm writing on Sean's computer, as I attempt to run Norton on mine. Ugh. No problems for years, I bring it to New Haven and bam, virus! I tell ya.

But let's finish with a positive--my friend Alice booked us a room at a B&B in Florence that's on Via Faenza, the same road as our school was on, and she insisted that it is her wedding present to me. No Hotel Tina with the bathroom door that doesn't exactly close, what!

Formalities

We got our marriage license today! There was a moment of brief panic when she looked at our application and asked for our social security cards. Mine is in Philadelphia. In my head I was immediately calculating how much time it would take to get in touch with Phyllis and have her FedEx the card to me...but then the girl behind the counter said it didn't matter. Why they even bothered asking for it, then, is beyond me, whatever, we paid our $30, waited with a couple of other couples (including two guys, go CT!) and then, quite anti-climatically, received a form signed by the town registrar. Whoo?

Done and Done

Today I finished my first year of graduate school! I am halfway to my master's and perhaps one-sixth of the way to my PhD. A couple of good things happened today; Dr. Bolman told me that I should consider marketing myself in the future as someone who can teach both Renaissance and Byzantine, since I've shown so much interest in the field. Then, I got the following email from the head of the grad program:

Dear Michelle,
The graduate faculty has met for our annual review of students. We note that you are making very satisfactory progress toward your Masters.
We have agreed to waive the comp in view of your background in art history and your performance.
We urge you to consider taking one of your excellent seminar papers and converting it expeditiously to a thesis.

The Cheshire Cat grin is therefore firmly in place. Even better: I'm getting married to the most amazing man in the world in a couple of weeks, and then I'm going abroad, and then on my honeymoon. Life, overall, is good.

Oww

Somehow I managed to hurt my neck this morning while sitting on the couch planning out my sightseeing in Rome. I sit down fine, and get up forty-five minutes later with intense pain in my neck if I look to the right. Thank you, universe. Of course that didn't stop me from going through with Test Pack Number Two, after which I was able to eliminate a few items of clothing I decided I wouldn't need. I always try to pack as light as possible, but since we'll be moving around in Spain a lot, and without the benefit of the car we had in Greece, it is of extra importance not to be bogged down with crap!

Now I need to type up my notes on a few of the readings I need today, including St. Theresa of Avila's autobiography. Now, people have always commented that her description of the beautiful angel who pierced her in the heart with his spear repeatedly until she reached an ecstatic state sounds like lot like she was just having an orgasm, but combined with her description of the way she could be almost paralyzed, unable to move or communicate, for as many as three days after one of these experiences, sounds like something a little more medical and less mystical. After all, she herself acknowledged she was pretty sickly, and she died fairly young, so maybe she was just having some sort of seizure/hallucination combo? I also rolled my eyes when, after her endless reiteration that only people who are awesome enough to have experienced this pain/pleasure could ever hope to understand it, she also snarkily mentioned that if someone doesn't experience this exactly as she did, then their experience is coming not from God, but from somewhere else-- ie the Devil. Come on--if you believe God so omnipotent that you think he can stop time while you're getting your spiritual jollies(which she mentions), you really don't think he could manage to manufacture a variety of such experiences? Is he just that uncreative, or are you just that nuts? (Answer: the latter).

Tired

I got up at 6:30 yesterday so I could take the 9am Chinatown bus to DC. It was not a pleasant day for travel, cold and raining. Also, the Chinatown bus was slightly skeevy and the guy drove like a maniac in the pouring rain and occasionally yelled for one of the passengers to come wipe condensation off the windshield as he veered around other cars. Megabus and Boltbus are infinitely nicer, but alas, from Philly they only go to New York, not DC.

The day was pretty nice, though. I spent a few hours in the mostly-empty National Gallery, and then I decided, despite the rain, that I would walk down to the Lincoln Memorial and see the WWII memorial, which was not there when I last went to see the monuments in 6th grade or so. I actually really liked it, despite having been slightly prejudiced against it by this speaker I heard this semester who compared it to the work of Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect, and pointed out that contrary to its name, it's a monument, not a memorial. And it's true: the Vietnam Memorial is just that, a testimony to the thousands of individuals who died, but the WWII memorial/monument is in every way larger and grander, fitting for the last war that we feel like we can be proud of.

However, even as I found myself very affecting by the entire setting, I was conscious that this, too, is a performance; not only are there are no good wars, but we tend to focus on our bravery and to deny our complicity in letting WWII and, with it, the Holocaust ,happen. We focus on the fact that it was our push starting in 1941 that brought the war to its conclusion, which is true; we had resources and manpower that the other Allies, after years of fighting, sorely lacked. But just because we stepped in (when forced, by Pearl Harbor, to do so) and helped carry the day doesn't erase the years we spent vacillating on the sidelines. Isolationist arguments aside, we knew what was happening in Europe, and the government knew what was happening to the Jews--maybe not the full grisly details, but Eleanor Roosevelt received visits from Jewish emigres who told the government what was happening to the ones left behind and implored the Americans to do something, and we didn't, not until we absolutely had to. And even in the end, while we memorialized the troops who lost their lives, we only lost around 400,000, or 0.32% of the population. The Soviets lost 23 million people. 13% of their population died. Yes, they originally sided with Hitler, and yes, 'communists, bad,' but they still faced a loss unlike that of any other nation; what's more, could we have won the war without the Russians fighting the Germans on the Eastern front? Perhaps, but it would have been longer, costlier, and far bloodier for the Allies.

Thus, while I found myself affected by the ideals of patriotism, unity under a just cause, and American exceptionalism that the monument presents as historical fact, I had to step back and remember that this is what propaganda does. Someone said in class a few weeks ago that we'd like to think of propaganda as 'what the other guy does' but it's not true; it's all around us, in the Lincoln Memorial as much as in the war memorials--the ideological myth-making of the American people.

WTF, Martin Jay

This gem is from one of the essays I have to read for Rome, entitled "The Rise of Hermeneutics and the Crisis of Ocularcentrism":

"Within linguistic interaction, there may be an implicit teleology toward specular hermeneutic consensus in which transparent intersubjective communication is achieved, but in our current world of distorted and impeded communicative exchanges, it is necessary to assume, in an "as-if" manner, the possibility of a monologic, objectifying gaze in order to examine the blockages."

What does that mean? I've read it four times. Your guess is still as good as mine.

Rome

We had our orientation for the Rome seminar today. Alice and I walked into the auditorium and found it filled with about a hundred undergrads, the less well-heeled versions of the kids I studied abroad with three years ago. The study abroad people started off by showing a slideshow of images of Rome, but when they asked us to close our eyes and meditate on what our lives in Rome were going to be like, I knew there was trouble. Luckily, at that point, the equally-disgusted head of our program jumped us and whispered something to one of them, and then they announced that the Art and Culture students would be continuing their orientation elsewhere. As we left, they were beginning the part on "don't be freaked out by Italians invading your personal space." No thanks.

So there are nine of us; three photographers, two sculptors, three art historians, and one girl who studies English lit. Besides the English lit girl, who Alice and I requested as our third roommate, I'm pretty sure everyone else is over thirty. Listening to Dr. Singer explain the program and go over the syllabus, it certainly doesn't seem as god-awful as some of the other girls made it out to be; yes, it's intense, but he emphasized that they know these readings are difficult and that we're not philosophers, the intention is that by the end of each week we'll have grasped the arguments being presented and the consequences of accepting or dismissing that argument.

We have two trips outside Rome. For the first trip to Florence, they give us an open-ended ticket for the fast train, which is sweet (sweeter if I could stay with Carla). For the second trip, to Naples, we're going down and back on a bus in one day, which is going to be the definition of grueling, but we're going to see an active excavation site of a Roman villa in the Bay of Naples, and eat some Neapolitan pizza, duh. Dr. Singer is definitely a foodie, he kept reverting to talking about food, and how the bread in Rome is the best in Italy, and where we'll have dinner in Florence, etc. Thus, I will wind up having two weekends where Sat/Sun is free, which will still probably preclude me from going to Venice, because it's five hours away. Dr. Singer pointed out that the Biennale will be on at that point, though, so it's going to be even more of a madhouse there.

So Close to Done

I presented my paper on the Lincoln College Typikon this evening, and it was fabulous, if I do say so myself, even taking into account the fact that three slides into my presentation I realized that lo, the version of the Powerpoint that I had just copied off my computer onto my flash drive this morning was not the right version. Luckily, I knew that I had the correct one in my email inbox, so I downloaded it in two seconds and we were back on track, and Dr. Bolman told us how that happened to her once when she was presenting at Oxford, so I guess having it happen in a class of your peers is not so terrible. My friend Jeannine told me after that she was surprised how composed I was about the whole thing, which may have been my outward appearance, but inside I was screaming "fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!" I also almost made a joke about hoping I didn't have any porn in my inbox when I opened my Gmail account--because whatever you're doing on the computer appears onscreen--but luckily my mental filter was set to 'Bolman' and thus I refrained.

Anyway, the presentation itself went swimmingly after that minor blip, Dr. Bolman had no problems with it, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, which is good. One of the religious studies girls who's in our class told me that she was impressed by my pronunciation of Greek, ironically, despite consulting with Sean, Agnes, and this girl Anna who actually is Greek, as of this morning I was still incorrectly pronouncing ktetor as 'kehtator' instead of really combining the 'kt' sound. Agnes finally corrected me at the last minute, and I was certain that I wouldn't pronounce it correctly when I was actually reading, but apparently it was OK.

In conclusion, a shout-out to the nuns of Theotokos Bebaias Elpidos in all their black-clad glory: you may have gotten the shaft because you were not aristocrats, and your abbess may have completely forgotten to make arrrangements for your funerary commemorations despite you guys being her 'spiritual daughters,' and even when your portrait did get painted you may have been left completely anonymous, but....you still rock.

On the Awesomeness of my Future Mother-In-Law

Awesome is kind of the only word for Linda, I have to say. She booked us a room at the Steamboat Inn in Mystic for the couple of days after our wedding. We were planning to ask if we could go to their camper at the lake for a couple of days, but a posh B&B in Mystic is, um, 1000% times cooler. :-)

Itinerary

I bought the Lonely Planet guide to Rome yesterday, and spent about an hour going through to get a preliminary list of places I want to see in my month in the Eternal City. This is what I have, so far:

Ancient Rome:
Palatine: 11, includes Colosseum
Circo Massimo
Capitoline Museum, 6.50
Chiesa di Santa Maria in Aracoeli
Vittoriano Monument: nice views of city, esp. at night, 7 euro to go up to the roof

Centro Storico
Pantheon
Elefantino statue, behind Pantheon
Chiesa di Santa Maria sopra Minerva
El Gesu (Loyola's rooms, 4-6, Mon-Sat)
Piazza Navona
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pace
Chiesa Nuova
Chiesa di Sant'Ivo della Sapienza (Sun 10-12 only!)
Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi
Chiesa di Sant'Agostino
Palazzo Farnese (4-5 MWF, need to reserve a place and have ID)
Palazzo Spada/Galleria Spada
Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica, 3
Chiesa di San Andrea della Valle
Chiesa di San Nicola in Carceri (excavations underneath)
Ara Pacis, 6.50
Mausoleo di Augusto
Chiesa di San Ignazio di Loyola
Palazzo e Galleria Doria Pamphilii, 8

Esquilino,Quirinale, Piazza di Spagna
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli
Domus Aurea, 4.50
Chiesa di Sant' Andrea al Quirinale
Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
Galleria Colonna, 7
Galleria Nazionale dell'Arte Antica, 5
Museo Nazionale Romano, 7
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria

Southern Rome
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano (Scala Sancta)
Baths of Caracalla, 6
Via Appia/Catacombs,5
Basilica di Santa Sabina
Cimitero Acattolico per gli Stranieri
Basilico di San Paolo Fuori le Mure
EUR

Trastevere
Villa Farnesina, 5
Orto Botanico, 3
Tempietto di Bramante

Villa Borghese and Northern Rome
Villa Borghese, 8.50
Museo Nazionale Etrusca di Villa Giulia
Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo
Foro Italico
Basilio di Santa'Agnese Fuori Le Muri
Chiesa di Santa Costanza

Wow. I didn't even put the Vatican museums on here, because, well, duh, Rome = Vatican. So despite the staggering number of places I want to see, the great thing about the dozens and dozens of churches is that they are free. In fact, I can see everything on this list for under 100 euro. Teehee. If I do wind up having any room in my schedule at all, particularly on the weekend when I will not be in Florence (sans Carla, alas!) or in Pompeii, I'd like to go out to Tivoli to see Hadrian's villa, or to Cerveteri to see the Etruscan tombs.

I think that somehow, after a month of trying to cram two thousand years of art and history into my brain in this one city, Spain will indeed feel like vacation. You might even call it a honeymoon...

One Month and Counting...

Our wedding is a month from today. WTF? I told Sean, until I've finished my papers for this semester, I can't even really focus my attention on it. But I'm close to done. My modern art paper is all set; I present my Durer paper in two hours, and hopefully my professor will not suggest major revisions. This weekend is "Byzantine illuminated manuscript fun time" and then I present that on Tuesday.

I wrote my first abstract to submit to that Bryn Mawr conference! It amuses/horrifies me that my first professionally presented paper could be on Playboy. I will also admit to a bit of the 'sin of pride': when we were hanging out before class earlier this week, another girl mentioned that she was thinking of just coming up with an idea to submit to the conference, and then writing the paper over the summer. I didn't say anything, but in my head I was thinking 'our professor suggested I send my paper in, so THERE!'

Naturally, getting this kind of validation from a professor also makes me more confident that this is somewhere I belong, that I can really do this. My first semester I was nervous that somehow, what I did wouldn't be enough, and they would regret giving me that fellowship. Then I got an A in all three classes, and I felt better, having proved that I was up to snuff academically. Even if it stands precious little chance of being accepted, as the conference is open not only to art history, but to history and classics as well (ladies and gentlemen, an analysis of appropriation in Sappho's poetry, followed by Ms. DiMarzo's naked ladies), just submitting a paper makes me feel, again, like I'm proving to myself that I can be an art historian. And, come fall, I will undertake to prove it a third time by passing the comps, but that's another can of worms entirely!

Eep!

Whenever there's a call for papers, all of us get an email on the listserv. Today there was one for Bryn Mawr's Graduate Symposium on the subject of "Thievery: The Anxiety of Influence and Appropriation," and my modern art professor emailed me to suggest that I submit an abstract for my Playboy paper. Which is AWESOME, even though I highly, highly doubt they will select it, that he thought it was good enough. Cheshire cat grin: check.

The Magnificent Seven

Watching this movie always makes me think of the old "when men were men" cliche, because in this movie, they really were. Men in tight pants with spurs on, riding horses and shooting things: cheesy, yet hot. My favorites are Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson...I love Robert Vaughan's character, too, even though he's a dandy.

Hm, according to IMDB this has one of the most popular movie scores of all time. I don't know if I totally agree with that, it's not a score I could think of without having the movie on. Sean and I discussed this the other day, we agreed that Indiana Jones and Stars Wars are definitely among the most memorable movie scores, but then we couldn't think of any others to add to the list.

War

Yesterday my friend Rachel gave a presentation, comparing Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece of 1512:



to Otto Dix's War Triptych of 1932:

Dix's painting seemed to me like an illustration of All Quiet on the Western Front, which was probably the first book I read that brought home to me the 'horrors of war.' Something about that conflict, about the horrific effects of the gas, the fear of being in the trenches and just waiting to be bombed, scared me in a way that stories about other conflicts, before or since, really haven't. Maybe because it was the first 'modern' war, maybe because we were arrogant enough to call it the Great War as though something that massive and terrible couldn't be expected within the same century, much less the same generation. Maybe also because the reasons for it were so much less clear--and let's be honest, Archduke Ferdinand aside, are still less clear--than the reasons for WWII.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Also

Third post of the day...just to record that this is, in fact, my father's 9th anniversary. Where did nine years go?