A Place To Read A Book And Write A Letter: Siena

From Florence, we took an hour's bus ride across Italy to Siena. Siena had their Tuscan posteriors handed to them with an almost insulting air of superiority by the Medici, the ruling family of Florence, back in the day. Florence decided they liked the color scheme, and took it. That's good business.

Siena is probably best known for its annual horse race; there are no horses when we visit, but there is an unsettling vexation with porcelain horses. I do not buy any.

As with most old cities, Siena orbits its Duomo; this church is a tad more interesting. Not in an architectural way; I'll be the first to tell you I can't tell apses from Adam when it comes to talking about architecture. I think architects have a unique ability to define undefinable things, with words like "rustification" and "plasticity." The catch here is they never tell anyone outside their club what those definitions are. However, this Duomo is interesting for something else. It's a skeleton - or at least half of it is. There is a finished church, but there's also two enormous walls that mark the best laid plans of Renaissance masons which never bore fruit. The money was appropriated before the project reached completion; now, one wall is a museum, and the other is a sort of lookout point for tourists.

The front of the remaining Duomo is covered by gargoyles and biblical equivalents of action figures. These are all duplicates, though. The originals were long ago put into the museum in the wall, having been destroyed by pollution. Their hands and noses gnawed away by the human leprosy, they traded places with look alikes and stunt doubles. The original stained glass window, too, was replaced, but unlike the original statues, it retained its dignity in the museum; it was placed at the end of a dark tunnel, where people can still see it as it was meant.

Most Roman towns operate by rules of mathematics, originating from something called a decumanus, as the homework I copied last night said. From atop that second wall, the lookout wall, it is easily seen that Siena is not like that. Siena is a snake, abandoning hope of a human order for something more organic. While the town orbits the Duomo, the streets grow like roots out of the Campo.

The Campo is a beautiful field of bricks, desperately wanting a frisbee. I could kick myself for not bringing one; I'm not a big advocate of the frisbee, but some situations simply demand it. The floor is slanted towards the main civic building, from which emanate eight silver stone streaks, dividing the Campo into nines; each section is dalmation doted with pockets of tourists, including Adella and Jane, two girls from the Czech Republic. American charm is in high demand over there.

(The italics denote the generic eastern bloc accent I put on during our conversation; I do this unintentionally but uncontrollably. They didn't mention it.)

Confetti in the cracks of the bricks bespoke of a swank celebration, and indeed, the girls tell me there was recently a wedding in the Campo. I don't have to say that in all the places I visit, I don't always read a book and write a letter. I didn't in Siena. Not doing so, in such a place as that open space, will probably go on my Top Five Regrets of the Semester.

I Change My Pants Again

I am preparing for the coming mother, who will arrive, alongside the coming sister, Friday, February 29th. This, as you might deduce, deuces take it, only happens every four years, though four years ago I wasn't in Europe. They just came to pick me up from school.

February 29th not only marks the leap of every four years and serves as a marker for the Olympics (triumphal return of Carly Patterson?), but it also signals the halfway point of my studies. I have been in Rome for two months, and Friday for me will be a sort of winter solstice, where I'm halfway sad seeing the snow slip through an hourglass, and halfway glad to see the spring, halfway to Christmas. So on the morn of the European Solstice, I'll meet my mom and sister at the airport and start a slow pace on the down hill slope.

Halfway, though, begs some pause (and my mother demands cleanliness), so I took an inventory of my room. The lightbulbs in the overhead light above the bed burnt out four weeks ago. When that happened, I stopped working in my room after dark and used the bathroom light for emergencies. That needs to change. The trash in my room has been filling an old box for two months now; I was hoping that if I piled trash heavy enough into such a box, time and natural pressure might turn out coal, or at least something the consistency of a peat bog. Nothing doing. That needs to change. I did laundry back in January, but I'll be darned if there aren't just as many clothes on the floor now as there were prior to the last winter washing. That needs to change.

I ran out of toilet paper two weeks ago, and for a week scavenged from local restaurants. However, I recently pony'd up and bought a brand new six pack. My mother will be so proud.

After the exhaustive inquiry, I decided that the only things I could immediately change were the clothes that I had on. So I exchanged my current jeans with the ones that I wore my first month here (and that I washed, by golly, until they smelled real nice) and changed socks. I'll have you know that right before I left, Ryan the Southern Gentleman, a very good friend of mine, gave me a three-pack package of socks, which, he claimed, required no washing, even after multiple days of wear. He's a man after my own heart.

Having picked out (and put on) the clothes that I'll wear to the airport on Friday, I decided something had to be done about the state of my apartment. So I went out and rented another apartment for my mother, sister, and I to live in for their week visit. That's a lot easier than cleaning up.

A Place To Read A Book And Write A Letter: Florence

Florence is usually identified as the city of the Renaissance; in fact, it was the city that won back all the English after the Catholic Church scared them off. The imposition of romanticism (whatever that means; I got it from a book) was so strong on Florence that in 1966, when it was flooded with heavy levels of mud (which, in sepia, looks a lot like dark chocolate), the entire world created a committee to fund it's restoration, and international youths descended upon the city to wipe clean all the manuscripts and etchings available.

Naturally, as a program, this could not be passed up. So the entire class took a weekend field trip to Florence, headed by our professor Emilio, a six shooter long ago loaded with art history. What's this Emilio? Bam! Michelangelo! And this? Bam! Brunelleschi! Who - Bam! Donatello! Bam! Audrey Hepburn! Bam! Bam! Bam!

(And yes, Audrey Hepburn did come up, as Emilio compared her merits to Julie Andrews for the good part of a half hour. No surprise, Audrey won.)

The dominating figure in the townscape is the Duomo, flanked by a separate Baptistry. The Dome is advertised to have 463 steps. This time, they are right. The climb to the top is measured in intervals, and at the halfway point tourists are afforded a chance to exit onto the catwalk, right underneath the final judgement frescoes; far away, the Last Judgement looks old and outdated. Up close, however, it literally scared my socks off (I later found my socks on the floor of the cathedral, having dropped six stories down. But here's the kicker: my shoes stayed on my feet the whole time. How in the world does that happen?).

The Baptistry is famous for its golden doors, solid metal doors that, in 1966, were swept away by mud and replaced with imitations, for insurance purposes, I suppose. Less known about the Baptistry is that it was the very chapel in which Dante himself was baptized.

Florence was the city that gave Dante the boot, by the way. His home turf threw him out and told him to, and I quote, "keep the change, you filthy animal" (that's a rough translation of his Inferno). From there he was forced to wander Italy, like the show Kung Fu, except without the use of martial arts. Or anything remotely similar. So it's not like it at all.

There is a Dante museum in Florence, fashioned out of his old house, but it sucks - and rightly so. I would expect nothing more than a large collection of Wikipedia entries, pasted to the walls in an elementary way, from the city which banished him (which, coincidentally, is how the museum goes).

Florence also is the home and shelter of Michelangelo's David, whom everyone has seen in pictures. A picture is of him, though, is not worth moon rocks on Mars. Seeing him in person was an overpowering experience. I like to think that he forced his way into the canon of art by his sheer size.

Our hotel had an English language CNN. I fell asleep bingeing in the news of the world.

BSG: Who Can Resist An Update?

Battlestar Galatica is notorious for its lack of update, flow of information, and general secrecy, not because of the want of disguise, but because, sadly, there just isn't the demand for it. Shows like LOST can motivate millions of people to participate in off-season teaser games, but Battlestar lies in wait, hibernating until a week or so before the start (which is, by the way, April 4), when people begin to pay attention.

And Battlestar, being all that is good and pure spectacle, welcomes the prodigal children back with open, albeit robotic, arms.

After some scouring, I came up with this five minute short, detailing some tidbits for the fourth and final season. Yes, Battlestar is passing on, but if it has to die, it's gonna die last. That's right, it will depart on it's own terms, which hopefully involves superfluous explosions and the character Helo being crowned king of Earth (and yes, he did sign that picture. But it's addressed to Steve, which I find ironic.). That's how I would have it.

Said video comes out of the network, HypaSpace, which, though I've never heard tale of it, I'm pretty sure is a very hip place to hang out, virtual-wise. Find the video here.

LOST: Hurley/Sawyer Comedy Pilot?

Let's get it out of the way: Kate took Aaron, Claire's baby, off the island. This week's flash concerned Kate's trial, which was won on the basis of character (since American justice is just a balance of all the good and all the bad a person's ever done). The Oceanic Six jerry rigged their story as to make Kate a hero and help her case. It also helped that she adopted an orphaned baby; since her lawyer wanted to bring Aaron into the court room, it's safe to assume that everyone knows she adopted him (plus, it would be pretty easy to check hospital records to see if one Kate Austen ever gave birth). So: does Aaron count as one of the Oceanic Six? Or do you have to be at least this tall to ride that ride?

At her trial, Jack recites the official story: eight survived the plane crash, and were cared for (on an island) by Kate, though two died during the wait. One of those dead is surely Claire; and the other? No idea. The real question is, why insert another character in the story, as to complicate it? Why name drop one more person in the story?

The hard thing to divine is, how old is Aaron. He's fat and talking, a big evolutionary improvement over small baby. He's like four years old. These flashforwards are literally years in the future from the present. And they go further, as Jack is seen in his pre-wino phase (speaking of Jack's wino, in the season three finale, when Kate mentions that "he" would be expecting her, did she mean Aaron? Or can I hold out hope that it's her past cop husband, Nathan Fillion?)

Jack and Kate's parking garage encounter is the stuff romantic comedies are made of - beautiful. And yet Jack doesn't want Aaron in his life (at least their relationship problems have been boiled down to one crux). Does Aaron invoke nightmares of the island?

And P.S. what happened to the Jack-Juliet train? It's a no go, off and currently on island. Jack, I'm afraid you're destined to slight her.

On island, Miles tries to extort Ben, and Ben has a week to figure out how to kill Miles, though Locke might do it first. Kate and Sawyer try to play house, but Sawyer definitely does not pass the relationship litmus test. And the heli is AWOL. Frank is too natural to be conniving, and if he did connive, I doubt that he could overpower both Des and Sayid. The most likely explanation is they put down somewhere. Figures. Or that there's a space-time continuum issue. On this show, that's just as likely.

Or maybe Naomi woke up. I cross my fingers. Like Miles said, "she was hot and I dug her accent."

IN OTHER NEWS, Daniel has memory problems, Kate and Saywer's relationship is abusive, Miles is just as slimy as he looks, laugh track is on cue for Sawyer and Hurley's roomie scenes, and Locke has actually gone Colonel Kurtz.

So, to review: helicopter? Romantic prospects? Grenade in mouth? Tune in next week. And in the mean time (not like angry time, but the time in between), check out Jeff Jensen's interview with the producers, where they bash Heroes and talk about which mysteries will be revealed this season (man in coffin! All of Oceanic Six by episode seven! Space-time contiunucrap!).

I Cook?

As you've probably read, or divined, because to divine this secret you do not need the stars, or even a solid knowledge of me, I do not cook. The girls I live with cook, and I do the dishes and handle directions. Symbiotic.

A week or so ago, however, I was feeling rather can-do, so I went to the store, and bought everything I thought would be needed to bring about a steaming bowl of pasta. Everything that I thought, which was everything that I bought, turned out to be a stick of butter and a bag of noodles. I took these home and set up shop in our airplane bathroom of a kitchen, eager to prove myself. It occurred to me that plain jane pasta wasn't good enough for a first try, so after rummaging around a bit, I pulled together some other ingredients we had stowed for rainy and/or hungry days. My recipe was as follows:

1) Boil the pasta.

2) Put this much butter in a pan, followed by that much oil.

3) Followed by a handful of uncoothly colored mushrooms and tomatoes.

4) Sprinkle salt and mystery spice like a fairy.

5) Go read a book.

Not only did that concoction turn out to be edible, but I didn't start a grease fire, either. And if you say, I would like to try some of this so-called Cass Pasta, it's impossible. I wasn't even eyeballing amounts of ingredients. I cut the stick of butter with my eyes shut.

In the days following, I graduated to sausages, which, left unchecked, will blow a gasket and spurt meat juice like a geyser (not a geezer; this sausage had much more spit power). Nothing creates a false sense of impending doom like a single stream of flying grease.

Next week, anticipating the arrival of my mother and sister (they will come to Rome for the first week in March), I am pushing up my sleeves in preparation to make alfredo sauce from scratch. Virginia the Architecture Student recited the recipe to me; I recently went over the notes from that conversation and found my transcription lacking.

You too want to make alfredo sauce from scratch? Here's the recipe I wrote down:

1) Butter

2) Flour then milk

3) Parmesan (?)

4) Garlic and pepper

There's a surprising lack of numbers, but my favorite detail is the punctuation: whether it was that I did not know if it were parmesan or not, or if I thought parmesan was a questionable cheese choice, I do not know. I'll give you an update afterwards.

I Cross Borders Into The Vatican

Yesterday we high tailed it to the Vatican, much like criminals high tail it to Mexico, because, as you well know, the Vatican is a separate country. They have their own flag, postal service, money - the whole shebang. Guarding the Vatican are the formidable Swiss Guard. Just look at those uniforms, purchased in bulk after a gypsy dance patriarchy disbanded. They can use excess folds of cloth both to confuse attackers and to surrender.

Five million people a year see the Sistine Chapel; most go straight there, ignoring the rest of the Vatican Museum, which, I am told, holds over twelve billion (12000000...000) euros worth of old things. And for no small reason - the Chapel was an evolution of a hundred years. The ceiling alone took four to paint. Heading towards the Chapel, visitors are funneled through a series of long hallways, capped by doors, used as screens to filter out noise. Less and less people talk, the more and more doors we went through. In one of the halls prior to the Chapel, there lies the gigantic marble tombs of Costanza and Elaine. They died immediately after being taken off the air, it seems.

The famous ceiling of the Sistine, the one with the strained fingers of God reaching out to the limp wristed hand of Adam (you know, the one parodied in Rocketman? Now that was cinema), tells the history of Genesis, from creation to the flood. It's really too much to take in, because most eyes start on the main wall of the Sistine, the one containing the Last Judgement frescoes. As you follow the paint up the wall and across the ceiling, by the time you reach the separation of the waters, you're pretty much burned out.

My favorite part of the entire Chapel was a small self portrait Michelangelo left. In the Last Judgement, admist souls being pulled up or pushed down, one angel holds an empty bag of skin, the remains of a man. This is said to be the likeness of the painter Michelangelo; that's just about the best autobiography I've ever heard of, next to Vonnegut's Timequake. After eight years of painting, who was Michelangelo but a empty shell? (And you might say, he was still Michelangelo, but you my friend are a balloon full of hot air. Well, I'm writing this blog, so pipe down.)

The Museum itself takes hours to navigate, if you have a real interest. It's mostly portraits and action shots of saints. Personal favorite: a painting of St. Nick, that's right, Santa Claus, flying by his own power, stopping a raging seastorm, while a mermaid looks on. I wanted to italicize one phrase in that last sentence for comic effect, but I can't decide which.

Obviously, Jesus takes the gold medal for number of times represented, but a close second had to be St. Sebastian. Seabass was tied to a stake by Diocletian and shot chock full of arrows, and, according to tradition, did not die. I wish artists had picked out a more photogenic torture to depict, because this one's quite gruesome. In fact, many of these grotesque paintings saw their rise during the Counter Reformation. After that one Luther raised a ruckus, the church leaders thought the best way to fight back would be to commission as many paintings representing martyrdom as possible, as a type of propaganda/recruitment blitz. Come join our blood cult!

A museum filled with twelve billion euros worth of paintings of martyrs got me thinking the way a cool ten billion could not. We really do try to justify ourselves, try to make ourselves matter in the grand scheme, and not like the grand scheme to rob three casinos in one night, but the grand scheme and endgame of the universe. With these paintings, we seem to be saying: Look, we can bleed, too. Take that, Jesus!

Or it could just be a culture thing.