Poor guy.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/immigrant.money/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Happy Birthday Augustus Caesar!

Yes, folks, today is the birthday of Augustus Caesar, full name: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Gaius Octavius Thurinus, if we're referring to him before the year 27BC. If he were still alive, he'd be 2,070 years old. During his reign Jesus Christ was born. Among his descendents were Nero, Caligula, Tiberius, and Claudius. Basically a bunch of lunatics (excepting Claudius). But he was a pretty good guy. As far as emperors go. He was also the first emperor. Let's all pour a little out for our dead homey. I mean, this is the man who virtually invented the calendar we use today, and I mean, not many people have an entire month named after them (I can only think of one other, being July, after Julius Caesar). What a guy. Maybe one day they'll change the name of the month of February to Justinuary. One can only dream, right? Did you know that the months September through December were originally the 7th through the 10 months, hence the roots septem-, octo-, nove-, dece-, which are, respectively seven, eight, nine, and ten in Latin. Augustus changed the calendar from an unreliable Lunar one to a Solar one. I believe he also started the world's first fire department, but don't quote me on that.

I am currently listening to Dave Brubeck. Time Out. And today is Sunday. My roommates are gone to some distant place, and I am alone.

Tomorrow I have an 8 hour tour of Rome, starting at the Vatican, then to the Colosseum and Forum, and finally through all of the piazzas and fountains. My friend told me Joanna Newsome is playing tonight in Rome, and I'm hoping that maybe this private tour is with her, just so I can rub it in the face of everyone I know. Another of my fellow "Cultural Historians" (our preferred nomenclature) got to give a tour to Chelsea Clinton. Being British and none too knowledgeable about the finer details of American politics, she made a joke about Bill Clinton (there is an ancient Roman statue in the Vatican that looks an awful lot like Slick Willy). Her boss was none too happy about that. I've yet to walk anyone through the Vatican, but the other two I've done, and I've become quite proficient with the Forum and Colosseum (if I do say so myself). Obviously this is a lot of information I have to keep in my head, so I've been busy studying up on it all. It's basically like delivering a 6 and a half hour lecture (since we travel a bit in the taxi and also stop for lunch). This is why I've been so lazy in terms of posting. For that, I apologize. My days and nights are spent trying to remember the differences between Baroque architecture and Renaissance; between Carlo Maderno, Domenica Fontana, Carlo Rainaldi, and Giacomo della Porta; between the Pamphilj popes, della Rovere popes, Farnese popes, and the Barberini popes; etc.

Since Jim has arrived, however, I've been much more active. Before I was staying at my house, with my nose in books or on the internet (I've filled an entire Moleskin with notes). He's probably the best person I could have here at the moment, since he enjoys walking around and finding new stuff just as much as I do; and since his background is in Art and Art History, he can tell me about the processes through which bronze doors are cast, or what materials artists used to glue gold leafing to the ceilings. Meanwhile I tell him about the history of the founding of the church, institution, or beliefs depicted in the art. Together we are building our knowledge and teaching each other how to read the art, something quite difficult for me, who's always seen a painting as a painting. Saints and Pagan gods are always depicted with some sort of prop to distinguish them from other Saints or Pagan gods (Hercules always has a lion's skin, St. Peter is always holding keys, St. Paul, a sword, St. Agnes is always with a lamb, Hera is often with a peacock, Venus an apple, etc.). I have now read the New Testament from cover to cover, and plan on starting the Old Testament soon (whenever I get a chance). We've also revived the process of "Church Hunting," which is like treasure hunting, only better. Knowing that Caravaggio's three masterpieces of the lives of St. Matthew are in San Luigi dei Francesi is a good start to the day. From there we walk around, going into church after church, looking for them. That particular example took two days for us to find (turns out it was right around the corner from the Pantheon).

At night we get a bottle of wine and sit in the piazzas, trying to talk to girls, with varying degrees of success. Both of us are trying to learn Italian. Since I've been here longer, I feel it would be embarrassing if he mastered it first. So far I speak it better than he does, but he understands it better than I do. Between us we can hold a decent conversation with someone. He has the advantage of being really good friends with several Italians, whereas I only have some acquaintances, most of whom want to practise their English with me. Regardless, his presence is going to motivate me to start really learning this language, if for no other reason than the shame I would feel if I didn't.

I realize that my blogs lack a very important entertaining element: humor. Again, I apologize. I swear I'm funny. Sometimes. I'm just usually so exhausted mentally that I just write out the dryest of details about my life. Keep reading, however, and I swear one day you'll at least crack a smile. Maybe.

Now on to the Gallery of Candelabrae! I can't remember which pope set it up (I think it was Gregory XIII in 1575, but I can't say, "I think" on a tour... too improfessional). Wish me luck, everyone. I'll need it.

Rollin' with the homies...

I'm working again, folks. This is fantastic. I make 25 Euros an hour, and generally give tours around 5 hours long. Then I get tips. I've only given one so far, and it was a 3 hour, and for the rest of the week I'll only be giving 3 hour tours, but next week I'll be getting into the big bucks. Five hours, eight hours. The good stuff. Still, 100 Euros a day isn't half bad. This is good, especially since I still owe my roommate a little bit of money, and I want to move out by the end of the month. We'll see how it goes. In November I'll have to go back to teaching, so most of this money I make will probably set aside for a rainy day, but as soon as the season starts back up in March, I'll be able to actually live and breathe a little. Hoorah.

In other news, my friend Jim lives here now. So now we are two.

I know I've been lazy about posting lately. I actually have about 4 or 5 unposted drafts, but I've been so busy studying that I haven't had time to run through anything and make corrections, etc. Though that's never stopped me before...

Is Cixous a Sick Sue? Philosophical Musings on Theory and the Role of Art in the Modern Community

ok, i'll go ahead and post part 1, since if i extend it much more no one will ever read it...

During the past week, as you may be aware, I have been engaged in a crash course in the art of the Italian Rennaisance. From Bramante to Titian, on through Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo (the namesakes of all four Ninja Turtles), the architectural and sculptural philosophies of Bernini to the mad brawls of Michelangelo Merisi (the other Michelangelo, otherwise known as Caravaggio) or Cellini-- my dreams have been infected with the characters I have been forced to memorize the lives of. Apart from one obligatory Art Appreciation course at Troy State University, from which I learned probably less than the stupid jocks and cheerleaders who sat bored around me, I have no experience in Art Criticism. My only exposure to anything approaching a scholarly understanding of Art and its various roles in society or any of the philosophical questions underlining our approach to it, has been in classes about literature or film. Music, the most important art form I have omitted in the above sentences, I have a more natural inclination towards; though even with music there are problems in defining boundaries which I am incapable of understanding, due to my insuffecient knowledge of Music Theory (read a definition of Baroque vs. Classical and you'll understand the impossibility of anyone less than a genius in truly understanding just what makes up each). All of this being said, I have continually been challenged during the course of my studying to understand just what defines a "Masterpiece," or a "Master." This disadvantage of mine has proven to be quite an obstacle, but, as I hope to illustrate in some way in due course, has also been advantageous in several crucial ways.

Generally we all agree that Michelangelo was a "Master," but not many of us can really explain why without pointing towards the obvious magnitude of his works, such as the monumental 17 foot David chiselled out of a single block of marble, or the 300 figures of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. When trying to explain why we all universally admire a work like Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," we are posed with more difficulties, since the work is not immediately striking to the eye acquainted with someone like Michelangelo. In short, we do not understand the context, or the innovations that made these paintings famous to begin with. Indeed, most people are unaware that several of the paintings lining the walls of the Sistine Chapel were made by the infamous Botticelli; we tend to look at what's famous. Of course, not being any sort of art snob, I don't blame the people who look at it without knowing a damn thing about it: it's naturally impressive and there is a worldwide familiarity with it. In fact, I take a fair amount of comfort in the bovine expressions of the tourists craning their necks and sneaking snapshots to show off to the folks back home. There is something calming about it, like listening to the ocean in a seashell.

Let's move on to the term "Art Fag." This term has become ubiquitous in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st, and in some circles has even been embraced. Part of this starts with the insufferable elitism of the art community and their deliberate attempts to alienate their perceived intellectual inferiors, and, by virtue of those very elements, the audience attracted has tended to be the disenfranchised or countercurrent, in other words, kids who never really fit in with a taste for fashion. "Fag" or not, the image that most modern Americans have of art and artists nowadays is the complete opposite of what it once was in other times and places. Art has lost its masculine connotations. In my research, the artists I am familiarizing myself with were, in their days, like the rock stars of today. They were famous and admired; though a Rennaisance wench was still unlikely to throw her bra at him while he was painting, the artists still affected a certain amount of charm on the ladies. One of Caravaggio's contemporaries noted that "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him." Drinking, fighting, gambling, and women: these are some of the characteristics of the famous painters of the Rennaisance era. Both Caravaggio and Celini (whom I mentioned together earlier) were guilty of homicide. Even the great Michelangelo got into fist fights. In one little known incident, he and Leonardo da Vinci (with whom he had a fierce rivalry with), when commissioned to paint opposite walls in the same chapel, started throwing paint at each other. Imagine that. Two of the greatest geniuses ever to live, two men whom the term "Rennaisance Man" was invented for, throwing paint at each other in a temper tantrum. I'm reminded of the snide insults that would pass between Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain when they would pass each other, or even the lyrical jabs that passed between Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd (to state a few examples most of us our familiar with).

I'm not trying to form any opinion about these details, just including them for my argument. When I say that art has lost its masculine side, I am not saying it should move back towards it or that it has any more validity or any less validity than the more feminine art, or even the sexless, abstract kind that cram our museums nowadays to confuse the paying patrons. The question I am attempting to raise is about the universality of art.

Though I am beginning to realize what a difficult task I've undertaken, I'll press on, hopefully illuminating at some point my main point. And please, forgive any ostensible tangents, I promise they have some purpose.

The art of the Rennaisance coincided with the birth of Humanism. Finally the potential and strength of the toiling peasants had been realized (note: irony)! Even in the Roman Republic voting was never popular, it was a mere charade. As far as the Empire goes, people were too busy watching the gladiatorial matches of the Colosseum or the chariot races of the Circus Maximus to be too concerned with politics, and indeed, these were some of the noted functions of the various arenas: to distract the masses from the corrupt political process (does this principle have any relevance today?). The buildings designated for voting soon became theaters of base entertainment(note: no irony). Through the Middle Ages Rome was too devastated by wars and plagues to worry about either art or the political potential of the masses. As the upheavel left in the wake of the fallen Empire gradually began to settle and powerful families and rich merchants began to take over, the quality of life began to improve. Aqueducts were repaired or built providing drinkable water, trade routes re-established bringing in a traffic of products and ideas from around the Mediterranean, building materials imported to build stronger houses, etc. Those in charge were forced more and more to rely upon the common citizens. In the affluent period that followed, there could only be one more step: beautifying the city; making it worthy of all the thousands of pilgrims who came to see where St. Peter was crucified upside down, where St. Lawrence was burned alive (reported last words, doubtlessly apocryphal, were, "I am done on this side! Turn me over and eat," or something to that effect), where St. Paul was beheaded, the fragments of the cross Jesus was crucified on St. Helena brought back from Jerusalem, or any of the thousands of other things that are either located here or happened here. To do this would require an army of ambitious young artists.

Down and Dirty

Meet Jon. What a fun looking guy, huh? (Maybe funny looking, hee-haw). Though it's mostly true, I still had to make him do some pose for the picture. Of the 3 or 4 other pictures I took of him, he looked rather bored.

I met Jon on Halloween of 2003. He was dressed up as the Marvel Comics character, The Punisher; I did nothing but wear a stupid hat and tell everyone I was this man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peisistratos_(Athens) Peisistratus, ruthless dictator of Athens. He is originally from West Philadelphia (Jon, not Peisistratus), and so is one of the few people I know who can sing the opening lines to "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" without irony. Though I didn't really talk to him then, I overheard him talking to my friend Lori. Both of them, apparently, had gone to Tulane University, in New Orleans, around the same time, and both of them had studied philosophy. Though they didn't know each other, they conversed about different teachers and fellow students. Small world, it turns out. Smaller still, I realized, when Jon told me one of his best friends is from Montgomery, and that her father owns a music store there. A little investigation revealed that his friend is the daughter of, presumably Art, of Art's Music Shop (her last name is... Freihling?). She went to The Montgomery Academy, and is friends with the only people I know from that school.

Jon is enroute to Seattle, where he will pursue his PhD in the epistomological branch of philosophy. Before starting school there he came to Italy to backpack around. His plane arrived in Milan and he took a train from there directly to Venice. After a few days there, he came down here to Rome. He stayed here for a week, and I tried to show him all of the highlights of Rome and Italian culture. After that week, we went together to Naples and to Pompeii. Though I splurged and bought us both tickets on the fancy Eurostar train-- wanting a nice ride in a comfortable train-- it broke down a half hour outside of the city, and we were forced to return to Rome and take one of the cheap, dirty Intercity trains, which meant we got there too late to go to Capri, as we had originally intended (the man who announced the train's malfunction said, in English, "The Large Driving Machine Number 1 has stopped working. We will now use The Large Driving Machine Number 2 to return to Rome."). Instead we spent that afternoon and evening wandering around the streets of Naples. Naples is a city as old and as rich in history as Rome, but Naples is also one of the most filthy cities in Europe. Though with a good cleaning it could be quite beautiful, no one there seems to care. It seems sometimes to me that the people who have the least respect for Italian history and culture and the beauty of the country are the Italians themselves. Not always true, I know, but tourists are not getting off the boat with cans of spraypaint and bags of garbage to cover the streets with. The piazza two blocks from our hostel had a statue of one of the heroes of Italian unification: Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour. In typical Italian fashion, it is covered in spraypaint and the base is strewn with trash--broken beer bottles and cigarette butts, empty bags of junk food, etc. And I wonder if even the most spiteful street thug in America would ever spraypaint a statue of Benjamin Franklin. It is a possibility, but not something you see. Even if it happened, the day wouldn't end without someone coming to clean it up. The next day we went to Pompeii. I've been there before, but it's something one can't complain about seeing twice. Afterwards we returned to Rome. That was yesterday.

This morning he left to go to Florence. He will stay there 2 days and then back to Milan, where he will stay for a day before flying back to America. In Philly, he will stay for just 4 more days before driving across the country with his dog, a friend, and all of his belongings. Part of me envies his adventure, until I realize I'm pretty much in the midst of one myself.

This week has been really nice, and couldn't have come at a better time for me. I've been locked away in my apartment for so long that I think I was starting to go a little stir-crazy.

Here are some pictures of ours from Pompeii. The one on the left is of the interior of one of the baths. The girl on the right is a French girl who was staying in our room at the hostel, and who kept appearing wherever we went (we even saw her outside of Termini, in Rome). The picture on the right is of me and a German girl we spent the day with, hanging outside of a baker's shop. You can see behind us the oven where the bread was made. The conical concrete object to the left is a mystery to me; there were usually several of them in each baker's shop, and there are around 38 baker's shops in Pompeii.

Jon's visit coincided with a new job for me: that of a Tour Guide. Yes, capitalize that 'T' and that 'G' because this is not any ole' tour guide job, but one for one of the most expensive companies in Rome. My last blog was an introduction to a longer blog I intend to eventually write about my exploits in a different tour company, but that job didn't work out. My boss was an incompetant bufoon and, after a simple communication problem on the phone during my second day, he started screaming at me before firing me. There was no compromising or explaining to him what had happened, he completely lost his temper and started insulting me before telling me he "can't have ----- like [me] working for [him]." For the first time in my life I was fired from a job. Though I'd already been to an interview with another company that looked promising, there was no gauruntee, and I was a bit worried, since both tour companies sounded like great jobs for me (except for the slightly pyschotic manager of the first one, who should have been heavily medicated), and they both paid extremely well. Jon arrived right in the middle of my worries and helped distract me from my stress and gave me some sound advice both before and after my second interview with company B, henceforth known as Through Eternity (the name sounds like a crappy romance novel, but whatever).

Through Eternity wanted me to go through 2 interviews. The first one was with an American, and I was to give a 15 minute lecture on The Transfiguration of Raphael. The picture below. Though I was nervous through the entire interview, the man doing the interview could tell that I was smart and could handle myself well once I got the hang of it. The problem with studying a painting like this is that I have to study thirty different, seemingly irrelevant or unnecessary things just to be able to talk about it with confidence. I have to study the New Testament story that it represents. Since the scene also has Moses and Elijah (and I'd never even heard of Elijah), I also have to go through the Old Testament. Then I have to familiarize myself with the various techniques that set this painting apart, such as the strong use of chiarascuro (the play between light and shadows), what Raphael's contemporaries were up to at the time, the different art movements represented in the painting (such as something called "Mannerism"). I have to study the life of Raphael, the life of the painting, the life of the man who commissioned the painting. I have to be comfortable discussing the contrasts of this painting, with its rich, dark colors, and tight brush strokes, as compared with the rest of Raphael's works. It really is a mind boggling venture.

If I wasn't having problems again uploading pictures, I would upload Caravaggio's "David with the Head of Goliath," which was the painting I had to discuss in my second interview. Far less interesting in terms of the number of figures or the details of the background (of which there isn't one), the painting presented more of a challenge. Again I had to study all of the things mentioned above about Raphael, but then I also had to study even more art movements, such as German Naturalism, Baroque, Venetian Poeticism, etc. Also I had to delve into modern Art, since Caravaggio marks one of the earliest breaks from traditional style. In short, I need to know the significance of every little detail of the painting and the painter and the time period in which it was painted. The second interview was with an Italian. His apartment was decorated with paintings which I assumed, due to the easel in one corner, were his. There was also a grand piano with sheets of music everywhere. He seemed eclectic and highly intelligent; I doubted I could hoodwink him. He also suprised me with a lot of hardball questions, questions he told me he didn't expect me to know the answers too, but which he wanted to see what sorts of guesses I'd come up with. I should get my Masters in B.S., because I think I did admirably well (example question: "What is the significance of David to the Rennaisance?"; think about that one, reader)But I persevered and beat the other 4 candidates for the job.

Now. Now now now. This is going to be a great job, but if you think the amount of studying I had to do for those two paintings is a lot, consider the fact that I'm going to be giving 5 hour tours of the Vatican museums. That is 300 minutes. Assuming I can manage to talk for 15 minutes about a single painting, I still have to stop in front of 20 paintings. That's boring, so let's cut down the length of each presentation to 5 minutes, that's 60 sections. Subtract 45 minutes walking... blah. Basically I'm doing a crash course in Rennaisance art, in Christianity, in Judaism, in the history of the Catholic Church, I need to know which popes commissioned which paintings and sculptures and basilicas and what years these popes lived in, what families they were from, how they were all related. I need to study Latin and Roman history, medieval Rome, modern Italy. I need to study different periods and movements in architecture and the functions of features. I need to know my Saints, who they are and what they're famous for; I need to know the revolutionary figures who united Italy. I need to know the architects of the piazzas and the years in which they were alive. I need to know enough to be able to do some guesswork if a question is thrown at me that I don't know the answer to. My manager gave me 5 books to read for starting out. I've already finished one and am well into the second.

Finally, never before have I felt more thrilled to be learning.

Adventures in Babysitting.

My phone rang at 10pm the other night. I had forgotten what the ring sounded like, and so didn't even answer it the first time, having wrongly assumed it was that of my roommate. When it rang the second time, however, I walked into my room and found it, buried underneath a pile of books on my bed. The number was restricted.

"Hello? Pronto?" I asked.

Rapid fire Italian accent (this should have all the spacing between words omitted to emphasize the sheer speed of this man's speech, but that would be a distracting device; instead I have omitted punctuation): "Hello Justin this is Jerry Whatshisname I run a tour company you emailed me your CV last month we spoke one day or maybe we didn't either way it is not important are you busy tomorrow morning I need you to give a tour to 24 people of all the piazzas of Rome and of the Forum and the Colosseum and the Vatican it will last 7 hours."

Me, scratching myself while coming out of my internet daze and trying to remember which company this was: "Uh... OK."

"Good show up outside of the Hotel Blahbityblah tomorrow at 9:30 you will meet a girl named Eliza and together you will give a tour of ancient Rome the fountains and the Vatican OK good Ciao-Ciao!"

I swayed on my feet for a minute, digesting what had just happened, before becoming flushed with panic and fear, the primordial, colorless type typical of a cornered Neanderthal. I rushed to my bookshelf and started flinging my way through texts, cramming dates and names into my head. Seutonius. Tacitus. Livy. Plutarch. On to the more modern! Wainright and Boatwell! Wikipedia! Hotel Blahbityblah? I'll Google Earth it! Great, right near the Ottaviano Metro stop. That will take me... 1 hour to get to. Let's see... the Vatican? Oh hell... the piazzas... grr... and I still need to shave. I covered a 1000 years of history in one wreckless hour before falling asleep fully clothed on top of a large stack of books I carried with me from the US of A. Or as I like to call it, the "us of A."

(I have a lot I'd like to put in here, so I think I'm going to rush through quite a bit)

The next morning I awoke bright and early and took the first train into town. Not knowing what to wear, I went with my basic polo and khakis-- the most inoffensive clothes I wear. Not that jeans and a t-shirt are offensive, but some might see them as unproffessional (note the emphasis on "some"; personally I'd trust a tour guide who appreciated the value of comfort more than one who seemed to have no concept of it). There was no hot Italian girl waiting for me; in fact, there was nobody waiting for me. I waited for a half an hour before two vans suddenly pulled up. Both of the drivers got out and started smoking. I approached and asked them in Italian if they were there for the tours, which they were. I asked a few more questions about where we were going, what the tour was like, etc. They just shrugged and kept smoking. One of them, noticing my look of panic, listed off which piazzas we would "probably" see. I looked at the two vans and realized that I'd probably have to give a tour (with a microphone!) to one of the vans, and then, with a horrifying revelation, I realized I couldn't remember the names of the architects of the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps (generally the two most crowded places in Rome, and therefore my least favorite). I sent a text message to my probably sleeping roommate asking her to find this essential information on the internet for me; I could work from that. (afternote: she "never got a text message")

Another 10 minutes passed before the other girl arrived with a man known as "The Professor" (which I still pronounce with an ominous voice in my head before punctuating it with imagined claps of thunder) and "Jerry," the man from the phone. The three of them ignored me until all of the tourists came out of their hotel and started filing into their respective vans. Then Jerry turned to me and introduced me to "The Professor"(ka-POW!) and Eliza before patting me on the back and telling me I'd probably be giving the tour of the Forum. Though I know the Forum pretty well by now, it was still nervewracking to think that I'd be guiding these 24 people around. This Jerry shook my hand and turned away to get on his motorino and drive off, probably to some cafe somewhere where he could do what most Italians seem to do with their time: nothing.

Eliza started speaking to me in Italian and, not wanting to betray my insufficient understanding of the language this early in our relationship, I nodded and followed her, cramming myself into a van of tourists I soon learned were going to about 8 cities in 15 days. Each one would be a crammed, whirlwind tour of whatever most people wanted to see. In short, it was a nightmare.

To wrap up this element of the story, I will say that "The Professor" (BOOM!) decided to stay for the entire tour, so my job was limited to hovering around the fringes of the flock and nipping at the heels of anyone who strayed too far or decided to take time to frame a picture decently. I was told to keep everyone together, and the sheep-dog metaphor sorta dominated my entire day, so that I don't really feel I learned a single new thing.

Ok, well I have a good deal more to this, but since I've been such a slacker lately on the blog posting issue, I think I'll get back to it next week (tomorrow I return to an entirely different job I've started, but I'll get to that). This weekend I'm going to Naples and Pompeii, with my friend Jon, who is visiting from Philadelphia. But just you wait...

More of Tuscany

Here are some more pictures. It takes a really long time to upload each one of these (at least it takes me a really long time), so I've only had the patience to do a few at a time. Above is Russ, the sound guy, in the town Anhiari, where we took some fantastic shots. The valley in the distance is the Tiber river valley, and if this picture were larger I think you could see the mountains in the distance. The mountains in the distance are where we made most of our shots, since that was where the monastery was located, as well as the house of the people we were filming. Both of them were published writers. One of Lucinda's books can be found Here . One of her husband's books is Here .

These are just snapshots of around the place.