Chi bestia va a Roma...

the streets of vancouver

2011-05-28T22:42:00.001-07:00

It's that fucking taco shop, man!

I'm all in favor of signs, but this seems like overkill.

Sulfur piles across the harbor on a cold May day.

On the streets of Vancouver.

A different kind of grey.

two visual enigmas

2011-05-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

What does not belong?

What is more soothing?

last lisbon collection

2011-03-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

A ruined house in the botanical garden: no doors, the glass knocked out of the windows. A stellar, and very unusual, example of long-term planning by romantics?

Which way would you go?

The chinese elephant at the bottom of the bowl:

"Loose cock":

Getting lucky in the butterfly house:

more lisbon food

2011-03-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

For 3.95, from the brazilian place on the top floor of the mall at the end of rua garrett, a mountain of food: steak, chicken wing, sausage, ribs, beans, rice, salad, fried potatoes, fried banana, and guanabana soda:

The appetizers at lunch at Manifesto (by far the best food I had in Lisbon), which include goat butter that may have convinced me to get a goat, egg yolk and truffle cooked at precisely 60 degrees C for two hours, so that it was thicker than the butters, and the best vinho verde I've ever had: still fresh, but this time complicated as well:

The stuffed squid at Ad Lib, probably the second best thing I ate: the squid was just like flavorful, perfectly cooked pasta. They must do something to their cephalopods, here.

lisbon or san francisco?

2011-03-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

you be the judge:

Hint: that lateen rig on the water is a traditional rig for a caravel.

The dutch maker of this globe, in 1645, has california as an island; it would have been easier to distinguish san francisco in that case, I think:

Who put the giant tower in Crissy field?

Who put that giant statue, of jesus getting ready for a dip, in the marin headlands?

Who put that giant concrete factory in the way of the sunset? Of course: the Economics professor and dictator. This would never happen in Marin.

cozinha dos pobres

2011-03-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Is, perhaps surprisingly only to me, not as good in Portugal as in Italy. But it's still good, and blessedly cheap as it isn't elsewhere in the well-roped land. For 4 euros 60 I got, with coffee, rose vinho verde, a slice of pumpkin cake, and the three things pictures below.

Caldo Verde, which, I swear, is made not from kale but from cabbage trees: it looks like a brussels' sprout stalk, but with giant independent cabbage leaves coming out from the sides. When I made Caldo Verde it looked nothing like this:

A real mess of beans, rice, and salt, and salt pork, just for that extra salty flavor. Seriously, I like salt, but this was like they had a special on it at the market.

The fried sardines were by far the best part of the meal; but maybe I just think that because they're cute:

Today in Lisbon I spluged - 6 euro 40 - on "polvo", guessing, but not entirely sure, that instead of the Spanish, in which it would mean "dust," it instead meant "octopus," like Italian "polpo." Lo and behold, it did: and, more than that, it was really tender octopus, which I've only ever had before when it's cut into super-thin slices. Still, the skin slid off into its bath of garlicky olive oil in a disconcerting way, the suckers were crunchy, and I couldn't bring myself to eat its tiny purple head. Tasty, but hard to eat.

porto in the daytime

2011-03-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

Across the Douro there are lots of touristy port-tasting places. I walked up to the farthest and highest... which is, alas, closed on Saturdays in the off-season, and then to the next closest, which was open but ridiculously expensive: you could have bought a bottle of the same port in the nearest wine shop for about twice what the 5 cl tasting cost - and this was one that all the guidebooks list as a 'free tasting.' What they don't tell you is that you only get to taste one, of their choice, for free. So I got some free white port, which convinced me not to try anything else there. And then I set out for a wine shop on the North bank, in Porto proper, where they do cheap tastings of independent port-makers. Unfortunately, they either no longer exist, or they were closed both when I went by in the morning before 11 and after 2 when I returned, limping. My old bicycling injury doesn't like it when I go up lots of stairs, apparently, and has been reminding me forcefully. All this means that the only good thing I got on that side of the Douro was some pictures of the main town in the background with the ships that bring port downriver; here's one:

Earlier, from the Torre dos Clerigos, I got to see the Atlantic for the first time in almost a year; it turns out that Porto is really near the coast. It also had lots of the things I love about Naples, including grannies watching TVs in their living rooms, with the door open to the street. Even better, in Porto you don't get the feeling that they can do that because they gave birth to a guy named Tony who's in with the Camorra. Alas, I didn't get a picture of that.

porto

2011-03-19T01:10:00.000-07:00

In this giant house, at 9pm, there is only one light on:

Its neighbor was better lit by the full moon; over the wall is a 300 foot drop, interrupted by a few houses, to the Douro. I didn't get to Porto until late, which is why these are all night shots.

Fortunately, Porto at night is stunning. This is the view over to where all the port is - my destination today.

food

2009-01-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

Today I had the first food on this trip which was diverged from something I might make in the direction of good (and it was all of 5 YTL = $3.50): cauliflower with orange and dill. I'm guessing it's fried in olive oil, with a tiny bit of carrot, let cool, salted, and tossed with orange blossom water and fresh dill. What I don't understand is how this can be a traditional dish - even in Armenia, how can oranges and cauliflower be in season together with dill? Anyway, it was really good.

Its sequel was tasty, and well-presented... and I already had the camera out.

The restaurant, "Bostana," was right next to a coffee house, which was so smoky I had trouble breathing when I mistook it for the restaurant (the sign for which was actually in front of the coffee shop). Walking back down Istiklal Cad., there were two distinct anti-Israel rallies. In one, they were singing. I couldn't help but imagine them singing the song from Borat.

In other news, which I unfortunately don't have a picture to accompany, I got scammed yesterday, and didn't even realize it until today. Yesterday, a shoe-shine guy dropped his brush, and I exclaimed until, on the third exclamation, he turned around and picked it up, thanking me profusely. I kept on walking, but slowly, and he caught up, and started talking to me, in a perfectly natural way (Most aren't natural at all - out of nowhere, people say "Where are you from, or more often in my case "Deutsch?" But "Yes. Please, hello." is my favorite faux salutation so far.). He was Kurdish, and had come to city to feed his kids, because his village had been bombed, so it was really important that he not lose the brush. So we walked and chatted halfway across the Galata bridge, at which point he looked as if he'd made a decision, and telling me that he wanted to thank me, he insisted on giving me a shoeshine (but without cleaning them first - I really didn't want him to), and I felt guilty enough to give him 3 YTL for it.

I only realized this was a scam when another guy tried the same thing; but he had jumped up four steps to make the brush fall off, turned the first time I exclaimed, and then wanted to thank me immediately. I almost wanted to tell him: listen, there's this Kurdish guy: you need to go study under him.

things in istanbul 2

2009-01-09T11:05:00.002-08:00

This fragment of a grave stele seems to show a horse ready to eat a philosopher:

An Egyptian-style sarcophagus with Greek knees. They were in Sidon, so I guess they split the difference.

An apprehensive centaur:

A coy bull:

Relatively subtle emotion on a sarcophagus relief:

things in istanbul 1

2009-01-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

This ("elephant foot") column in Sultanahmet, also known as the blue mosque, is one of four which holds up a largish dome all on its own. That's why it so grotesquely big. I like it.

I find it oddly hard to imagine the horses' noses actually intact on this column topper, but it seems like another example of awesome Byzantine innovation.

On the other hand, this sculpture really is why classical sculpture went to shit (it's 6th-century):

From the amazing Alexander Sarcophagus in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, a detail: the paint on the daisies survives!

2009-01-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Look, it's a fancy chicken, in the middle of the street! I felt bad for her - it was so cold, and she's one of those skinny sub-tropical sorts of chicken.

You might have to enlarge this to see it - one of the jillions of stray cats had clearly hit paydirt, in the form of the open bucket of kitty food on the steps of this pet store:

I went for a walk along the shore on the sea of Marmara side of the golden horn, today, and there was quite a line of ships waiting to go through the Bosporus. Probably none of them had been able to procure cattle yet, and so were unable to pass through the cattle-bearing strait.

I mentioned earlier that almost nothing of Byzantium or Constantinople (which reminds me that today I heard, blaring from a purveyor of belogoed spandex, a Turkish cover of Istanbul to Constantinople, or whatever that song by They Might Be Giants is actually called) is incorporated into Istanbul. This, for instance, is what's left of the hippodrome:

a hike

2009-01-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

the chora church, while outside the earlier walls, was just within the later walls, which are remarkably well-preserved, as practically nothing else from Byzantium is. It's a striking contrast to Rome, where there are traces everywhere of imperial Rome.

I had walked there through some less than beautiful neighborhoods, and figured the walk back would be roughly the same. It wasn't: there are bits and pieces of shantytown here, with lots of angry looking young men who presumably would not want to discuss the finer points of international diplomacy in general, but who might be very interested in informing me of their opinion of the US and its role in helping Israel do such things as bomb schools. Did you know that only 7% of Turkish people have a positive opinion of Americans, according to our very own state department? I escaped by heading downhill whereever possible, and then hopping on the nearest water-bus back to eminonu. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the shanty town, but it hardly seemed like the thing to do at the time. Instead, I got a nice picture of a mosque on the way back on the boat:

chora

2009-01-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

So today I wandered farther afield, all the way to the old city walls of Constantinople, to go to a church with some fantastic, but occasionally puzzling, mosaics. It was hard to take pictures, because there was a gang of vigilante children which would run up, giggling, and yelling "no flash!" Now, of course, I almost never take pictures with a flash when I can avoid it, and since mosaics are very slow moving, I wouldn't even *want* to use the flash, even if it didn't contribute to their disintegration. I'm not sure whether the children thought that "no flash" meant "no pictures," since the signs had crossed out images of cameras (with very small flashes attached), or whether they were just playing a game, but it meant that to take a picture I had to walk quickly around the church to lose them, and then quickly set the camera up somewhere to take a shot. Still, I managed to get a couple.

Joseph coming to get Mary from the priest. Why is she half the height of everyone else?

Mary with Jesus in her holy womb (they even turned the word mother into a nomen sacrum - that's the MP with a line over it to her left):

You'll have to enlarge this picture of the Temptations of Christ in order to see the devil; he's the little black minx.

2009-01-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

Another nice naive fresco, totally out of place, outside a gate.

This is my favorite bit of polychrome tile work anywhere:

topkapi palace harem

2009-01-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

Another thing I've never understood the appeal of is the kind of painted texture found on this column. The tiles surrounding the column are amazing. But the column is just tacky - to really appreciate this, you may have to enlarge the photo.

All the other decorative stuff in the harem was great. I apologize for the awful photo of this dome, but the motif is great: trees growing from a garden around the base to the top. Done with conifers, it might even looks natural.

I think it's time for this kind of naive floral fresco to come back.

Also, fountains under window sills.

And incredibly intricately painted domes with skylights in the middle...

other bits of divine wisdom

2009-01-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

One thing the Byzantines did well was columns; even the monogram on the first one isn't tacky.

The green on this wasn't even visible to the naked eye (thanks, telephoto) but it's a strikingly contemporary use of color. I think I'll recreate this in my living room.

One thing that's always seemed to me completely alien, though, is the use of fancy marble: it's hideous. And the whole interior of hagia sophia is covered in it. It just seems like excess, or at least expense, for its own sake. I wonder whether that was clear to anyone at the time.

mosaics at hagia sophia

2009-01-08T10:37:00.001-08:00

Is that an arched eyebrow on Jesus? Even his mustache is arched.

A bit more feeling in this one:

The 19th century restorers of some of the frescoes painted medallions rather than faces on the angels, since hagia sophia was at that time still used as a mosque. But from the ground it really looks more like you're looking at a bird's ass.

hagia sophia

2009-01-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

What they don't tell you about divine wisdom - hafia sophia - is that up close it looks like an ancient apartment block:

They do tell you that the dome is absolutely enormous - the statue of liberty would fit under it - but pictures do a really bad job at conveying that; here's my best attempt:

For a long time I've wanted to take an album of pictures of people posing for a tourist photo; this is even better than that. The people on the right are taking a photo of the people on the left, who are taking a photo of the stray cat next to the... oh - there's an ancient marble urn.

istanbul

2009-01-06T12:20:00.001-08:00

This sign manages to be both comical and more effective at conveying dangerousness than the American versions.

The water flowing under the Golden Horn, over which runs this bridge, is absolutely disgusting, and the only fish I saw caught were anchovy-sized; but that doesn't stop an army of fishermen from fishing off it:

gaudi

2009-01-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

Before I went to Barcelona I thought Gaudi was gimmicky and unnatural, just based on the photos I had seen. And there are definitely some things which seem to me mistakes, or devices which are completely overused - the broken tile mosaics, for instance, work in one or two places but their ubiquity is unfortunate. But actually seeing some of the buildings made me realize that they're actually very comfortable and well-adapted, in ways which pictures don't reproduce very well; so these pictures are of some details which contributed to that overall feeling.

Wooden bricks in the Palau Guell: the flash unfortunately screws with the color

The gate at the Palau Guell: braided together in a way that really suits wrought iron, open to the breeze, but with very limited visibility at eye level.

The three wise men, on a facade of the Sagrada Familia, undergirded by fowl - turkeys, I think.

An angel playing the Oboe on the Sagrada Familia.

A suicidal angel (or saviour?), a la Wim Wenders, on the Sagrada Familia

barcelona

2009-01-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

A house I ran into while trying to get to Park Guell; the dog-heads made it picture-worthy:

A candy shop by another name:

The roman wall in Barcelona: not all original - and definitely not the balcony railings - but it's amazingly intact and intimidating, in this stretch:

fez

2009-01-02T01:18:00.000-08:00

Basically, all I did in Barcelona was to try to figure out lodging in Fez; I only found out that my second attempt had failed when the conductor on the bus loaned me his mobile phone in order to call and arrange for them to pick me up. That would be Said, on the right below:

Long story short: I stayed at his uncle Djinn's place

on a couch (the red and white one in the picture below) in a room lined with couches with the extended family sleeping on them.

The next morning the women and children left but the men were still sleeping after I'd been awake for an hour, so I left and note and took off to see, among other things, the shrine to the founder of the city (immediately below), and what is purported to be the oldest university. It's not clear to me what exactly the criterion is for that claim, but the library (on the left) sure is nice - and still operating, which, now that I think about it, does separate it from the Academy...

the end approaches

2007-12-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

going to a collective breakfast with the housemates (left->right, sylvia, lucille, till):

i've been wanting to take this beautiful bike home with me, but where it's supposed to come apart (see the screw halfway down the bar), some idiot welded it together:

so i took it to a car-repair place where a nice turkish guy talked to me about california, which was his home for 5 years in the 70s, ground it apart for free:

the hacksaw on the right was from a previous, ill-advised, attempt to break the weld myself.

kathryn visits in berlin

2007-12-11T02:54:00.000-08:00

When I left, I was a bit surprised that everyone wanted to visit in Berlin rather than Rome; but daily life had its way with almost everyone. But lovely Kathryn came to visit for Thanksgiving and took some great pictures...

of me on the other side of the seesaw on Potsdamer Platz

Kathryn crushing the Reichstag:

On an evening stroll through the Tiergarten:

An anonymous mad scientist made the broth for the turkey and duck, which stewed in the shower overnight and then roasted up to... well, if not perfection, a decent first try at roasting larg-ish birds. They were both under 8 lbs.

It was practically Kathryn's last day before we made it to Unter den Linden and all that...

another side of ireland

2007-12-11T02:30:00.000-08:00

namely, the eastern side. Dublin, to be precise, which can be pretty:

and which at least has good people who lend you bikes and take you to parties; unfortunately, my camera has enough juice for one flash (no joke), and so unfortunately only an extremity of Roisin's friend Kavo show up.

there would be another picture here, of Louise (also in Rome for the Summer) and Roisin singing, loudly, in a taxi on the way home from a different night, but I fear their wrath.

ireland

2007-12-11T02:08:00.001-08:00

When I have Alzheimers, I think I'll still remember these views: from the Sneem-Killarney road, from the Mullers' back yard, and from the Kerry way about half a mile down towards Sneem from the Mullers'.

Max took me and Roisin, who drove with me down to Kerry (and who, helpfully, had a mobile phone to call for the help which never came when we got a flat tire at 11pm on a pitch black two-lane highway, with me having only the foggiest of memories of how to change a tire), into Sneem for a gander at the new hotel and some tea on the patio of a pub. By the time we got back I think Max had already inducted Roisin into the family:

And then Etienne very kindly took us kayaking, and I think Roisin understood for the first time why I liked Ireland, not herself being so fond of her homeland.

naples again

2007-12-11T01:52:00.000-08:00

I had to go pick up luggage which I'd left in Rome, and hadn't wanted to travel with. So I flew to Naples, had coffee as many times a day as I had gelato, took a train up to Rome, then flew to Dublin, drove down to Kerry, and flew back to Berlin. Which rules out one explanation of my having taken a picture of this:

Across the courtyard from the budget hotel with a small dorm room in which I stayed, Soggiorno-Imperia.

You may have to look closely at this plaque to see the editing. Someone apparently wants to clarify that the church was destroyed not by the war, but by the Americans.

vehicular appendix to amsterdam

2007-12-11T01:40:00.001-08:00

First of all, the bakfiets:

An entire family on a bicycle: it's Naples without motors.

One of the perks of being a Dutch fireman:

amsterdam

2007-12-11T01:15:00.000-08:00

Dude, are those real, or just awesome?

The Australian Air Guitar Champion was staying in the hostel; he even gave a free performance. This was his brother, roadie, and eventual accompanist, spreading out the tour poster they had made up for their performance at the world championships in Helsinki... which handily flew them to Europe.

The bar at the hostel, the flying pig downtown. Just like it says on the box.

I had forgotten that Amsterdam is also very pretty:

1st week in berlin

2007-12-01T10:13:00.001-08:00

Berlin's effect on hair:

Buildings both monumental (Stabi, Deutscher Dom) and bizarre:

prague

2007-12-01T09:56:00.001-08:00

A man riding an upside-down horse, suspended from the ceiling of a shopping arcade. Huh?

Prague is pretty in this way:

Mucha did some amazing stained glass for the cathedral in the castle.

leaving italy

2007-10-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

A sad day, which involved catching the train from Venice to Munich. On the train to the mainland:

The first stop in Germany involved an absurd smoking area painted onto the platform (second photo).

Munich was pretty, but a great disappointment after Italy, perhaps because the weather turned instantly from just below broiling in Italy to just above freezing in Austria. Munich added only rain to the mix; hence the night train to Prague, waking up to a beautiful view out the window.

la serenissima

2007-10-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

Even in August, Venice is fantasy fodder.

vicenza

2007-10-14T06:02:00.001-07:00

Trying to find a restaurant in Vicenza was complicated by some kind of fashion show which filled the main piazza in town:

But finally a doozy of a restaurant appeared, which, should you ever find yourself in Vicenza, you should seek out: Antica Casa Della Malvasia, at C. Delle Morette 5, tel# 0444 543704. Cheap enough to afford to eat (primo!) primi, secondi, contorni, dolci, and separate (excellent!) wines for each, even if you're a graduate student.

cremona

2007-10-14T05:55:00.001-07:00

This (from inside the amazingly comfortable Baptistry in Cremona) is what windows should do:

Every other shop window in the heart of town:

bologna

2007-10-14T05:48:00.001-07:00

If you're going to Bologna for the food, don't go in August.

On the other hand, if you just want a leaning tower, Bologna will set you up:

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the best moment in Bologna: when a little girl who, having repeatedly veered toward me in her headlong rush down the street as I tried to avoid a collision, finally attached herself by a bearhug to my leg, and stayed there until her apolgetic but strangely unsurprised parents arrived to detach her with Italian.

italian weirdness

2007-10-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

Pisa, outside the Campo dei Miracoli, is blessedly not a tourist town. So, in August, it was entirely shut down. Finding a place to eat was hard. I was almost tempted to use this machine, tucked into an alcove, which removes the microwave oven from the tv dinner equation. It's probably better than most Italian food outside of Italy. Still, one has to wonder: why?

So, I'm used to Japanese products with nonsense English on them. But the fad has spread to Italy:

pisa

2007-10-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

One thing no-one tells you about Pisa is that the monuments are actually quite interesting. The Campanile and Duomo from the Baptistry:

Another thing is that the city itself is quite beautiful. The overcast skies were much appreciated; this was August, after all.

They also made a good backdrop for shots of the Duomo from the Campanile:

In Berlin for good...

2007-10-14T05:07:00.000-07:00

or for awesome... behind this glorious door:

a first foray out of Rome

2007-09-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

and to Florence, where someone accosted me on the street with the question "Are you from Chapel Hill?" It turned out to be Joe Devaugh-Geiss (below). Met him later at the one nice and relatively cheap wine bar in Florence, the fox and the grape (le volpi e l'uva, in piazza dei rossi).

I did not get gelato from the same place (Grom) three times in one day:

frescoes from the palazzo massimo

2007-09-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

Didn't go until the day before leaving Rome. That was stupid, as it contains the best frescoes and mosaics I've ever seen. Many of the best, e.g. those from the house of livia, were in low light and couldn't be photographed. Here are some that could.

fausto

2007-09-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

Fausto is a street artist who has his studio space opposite the fancy modern building which houses the ara pacis, and makes far better art than the crap installation in said building. To wit:

rome miscellany

2007-09-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

there's a room in the vatican museum which is stuffed with animal statuary, including this:

half an hour's brisk walk from the forum puts you on the via appia antica, which is pretty:

Ok, so, many of us went to see Genesis. It was in the circus maximus, and it was free. What can I say? We also drank the best box wine we could find - .50/liter.

One evening at sub arboribus, the small daughter of one of the students presented Reggie with a card to celebrate, if I recall correctly, the anniversary of his having been ordained as a monk. She drew a picture on it of a man all in blue. "Who's this," he's asking here. "You." "Why am I wearing all blue?" "Because you often wear all blue." "No, my dear, ALWAYS." Except that all the dialogue was in Latin.

in berlin

2007-09-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

made it to berlin, where i'll be until december with a few interruptions: next week, for instance, Sept. 10-19th, i'll be in the netherlands, and from about sept. 30th - oct. 9th in rome and ireland.

come visit! and send packages, etc., to:
MöCKERNSTR. 92
10963 Berlin.

or call.... +49.30.2630.5252

more soon, with pictures, of the rome-berlin journey.

more aestiva

2007-08-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

David sitting quietly on the trip to Horace's villa:

A rare event indeed: Reggie eating.

Louise and Roisin making faces on the way back from a trip to Cicero's villa, and the beach, in Formia:

There may have been a toga party. It's not what you think.

Reggie on the trip to Ostia. Looks like he's running past us, doesn't it?

more san gimi

2007-08-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

We already have cover art for our first album:

What we were looking at then:

Two minutes later:

end of the Aestiva

2007-08-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm going to break chronological order here, partly because it's been so long and there's so much to put up, and partly because I can't remember what chronological order would be, here.

After the end of the Latin program, four of us rented a car and drove to Florence, starting by driving out the window of the showroom...

We drove to Civita di Bagnoreggio, which is considerably easier than bicycling to it, as you might imagine. I enjoyed it more this time, since I wasn't sweating like a pig and toting a bicycle up the (only) bridge to town. On the left, Max; center, Nandini; right, Roisin.

In Florence there was some goofing around.

which is conducive to a certain kind of picture taking

After Florence: San Gimignano. We've just had champagne-grapefruit gelato.

More to come.

Aestiva Latinitatis Romae part 1

2007-06-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

Update: some videos of these trips, with sound, are on youtube at: http://youtube.com/user/joepeppercorn

So, I finally took some pictures this weekend on a trip to Ostia. Reginaldus is one of those rare people who appears in photographs exactly as he does in 3D, and the photo below seems to me appropriate because we're all standing around, and he's in mid-stride. Of course, we're all standing around because we have no idea where he's going, and none of us can walk at his pace. If only that general principle applied in Latin as well, we'd all be fluent... but then, none of us would be here. Probably 30 people offered to carry the bag for him.

The theater at Ostia, together with about a third of the class.

If you're interested in audio, I'll try to post some if I get any which is more representative than the inaudible bits I've got so far. While you're waiting, you can hear some of Reginaldus online, with many - but by no means all - of the noises which are used in classes:

http://frcoulter.com/latin/latinlover/index.html

I can vouch in particular for the topmost mp3, having actually listened to it.

http://frcoulter.com/latin/latinlover/latin_06_08_07.mp3

contact info

2007-06-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

The address in Rome (until July 31 - but remember anything will have to come through the Italian post) is:

c/o Onesti-Fattore
Circonvallazione Gianicolense 96, Interno 9
Roma 00152 ITALIA

There's a telephone, too: 065.823.0163 if you're in Italy; outside Italy: +39.065.823.0163
But skype works too, and is free; my username is, unpredictably, joseph.a.barnes

Monreale

2007-06-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, one of the pictures of Byzantine Mosaics came out. This is from the inside of the Cathedral at Monreale - on top are Adam and Eve, and in three layers, more or less all the juicy bits of the old testament are laid out in gold foil for the illiterate (the Latin is done in a blue marble, I think). Anyway, the real effect is in being completely surrounded by this stuff.

The convent next door to the Cathedral has columns which alternate between Classical and Arabian styles. As you can guess, the marketing is basically 'it was California in the 12th century!'

With the Normans playing the role of... well, lions eating something. This is from the base of a column in the Cathedral.

palermo

2007-06-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

I liked Palermo, but it certainly didn't feel easy. It wasn't (contrary to rumor and past fact) dangerous; it just wasn't friendly. I got crappy service (how was I supposed to know that, while on the mainland, a ball of fried risotto is an 'arancino,' in Sicily it's an 'arancina'?), but decent food. Frankly, I'm still not sure how I feel about Palermo. But I really liked some of the simpler mosaics, as below; and there were happier syntheses of Arab and Norman and Byzantine styles in its architecture, as in the Cathedral below. Still a bit weird, but it came together, especially from straight-on, with the whole building in view. Unfortunately, to take that picture would have put me smack in the middle of a wide street, which is not where you want to be in Palermo.

Socrates? They certainly got the ugly right.

And a more conventional bust of Aristotle... both from the Archaeological Museum in Palermo, which was great, in part because it's so eccentric. It houses, interspersed among some actually very valuable things, the world's largest collection of ancient anchors.

cefalu

2007-06-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

From Agrigento to Cefalu - like Positano, a resort town with a hike up onto a hill immediately behind it; but, unlike Positano, in Sicily rather than the Amalfi coast. Beautiful and not quite yet spoiled by tourism - I stayed in an apartment for 30 euros, and the very old but very friendly lady next door tried to invite me over for breakfast (I think - my Italian is almost nonexistent, and Sicilian is about as different, spoken, as Danish and Norwegian), but I had to catch a train to Palermo.

Cefalu also occupies a strategic point on the northern coast of Sicily - from what's now known as the Rock, it's possible to see pretty much all of the northern coastline. So the Saracens had built a fortress on the Rock. When the Normans came, everybody moved downstairs. But presumably not to be close to the Cathedral, which is a stunning example of how not to combine Arab and Norman influences. The mosaics inside are nice, of course. But the camera was not.

agrigento

2007-06-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

On Sundays, I was told by the bus station folks, there is no way to get from Piazza Armerina to Agrigento. There used to be a bus on Sundays, but it doesn't exist any more, nor does any bus from the (slightly larger) Enna. Indeed the only bus out of Piazza Armerina on Sundays goes to Enna Bassa, served neither by any more promising bus, nor by trains, which stop 10 km away. There was one train in the late afternoon, so I figured I'd just take the bus to Enna Bassa and walk or take a taxi. But, when I asked for directions to the station, the friendly station folks in Enna Bassa walked me toward a bus going directly to Agrigento, having come from Rome, but all the while telling me that it was impossible for me to take that bus - it wasn't allowed to take on passengers after Rome. Nonetheless, I impossibly rode the nonexistent bus to Agrigento, and arrived 8 hours before I expected to.

I had never seen a vase like this; it's a much more nuanced style, a bit more like sculpture. Next to Hermes was an even more interesting, but, alas, paler figure whose picture I couldn't take.

Apparently, this (the so-called Temple of Concord) is a hot spot for weddings. It only survived as well as it did because it was turned into a Christian Church. It's constructed in local stone which is naturally the color you see here, which is a bit off-putting at close range.

The appeal of the temple of concord prompted someone to start reconstructing another temple which had fallen down completely. I rather prefer the partial reconstruction.

Though this is really how a ruin should look. This one was never completed - Carthage sacked Akragas, and tore it down. It would have been the largest Doric temple ever.

mosaics 2

2007-06-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

This is from the room of fishing cupids. Yep, that's right. A whole room of cupids. Fishing.

Most of the murals strive for accuracy, however stylized. So I'm puzzled by this elephant.

The owner of the villa had the mosaics in some of the rooms redone in a more modern fashion, as you can see in the top left of the next picture. Apparently, this meant long-haired people in bikinis doing exercises.

villa romana di casale mosaics 1

2007-06-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

The colors are more muted in these pictures that in real life - I plead bright sunlight and camera suckage (the other 'white balance' settings did even worse). You may have seen some of these before - they're some of the most famous and best-preserved (thanks, dirt!) roman mosaics.

To appreciate these first two pictures, you have to look at the expressions on the animals' faces; and especially the donkey on the right in the first one.

Ok, to give you an idea of the scale of this place, the next picture is from the room of the *little* hunt, and I couldn't even fit it all into the frame. And it's barely damaged; you can even see how vivid some of the colors are in the red at the center.

So, this dog is a bit less friendly than most greyhounds, but awfully greyhound-shaped.

syracuse

2007-06-02T11:48:00.000-07:00

If the 7th letter is authentic, then Plato visited Syracuse twice. And apparently he still has some influence here.

That's not grass in the small roman theater below. It's water; even after 2000 years, the place is ready to stage a naval battle.

The famous temple was all dolled up - that is to say, its beauty was dulled by bad Italian stage-setting - for a festival of Greek drama. Alas, it was in translation.

The sun was so bright here, and the limestone so white, that I could barely open my eyes even with my sunglasses on. But the camera caught the beautiful view out to the bay.

About 100' away are the quarries where the Syracusans stuck their Athenian prisoners of war; the cave is called 'Dionysius' ear', because it was supposedly built to allow someone, for instance a certain tyrant, to sit in a small alcove at the top and eavesdrop on the prisoners. It certainly is shaped like the inside of an ear, in any event.

The Cathedral in Syracuse. The roof is supported by the columns of the temple of Apollo, which are exposed on the inside, though covered here by a Baroque facade. Pretty cool; it gives a better sense, in some ways, of how it would have felt to be inside a Greek temple, than do the ruins in Agrigento. I would produce pictures to substantiante that claim, but I'll have to plead cameratic suckage.

animals

2007-06-02T11:39:00.001-07:00

There are dogs everywhere, here. For instance, in the shade of a tiny palm tree in front the Castelnuovo in Naples. But there are very few thoroughbreds - the vast majority are golden-retriever-ish mutts like the one below. I ran into a Neapolitan Mastiff in Syracuse, finally, and the person walking him said I could take a picture. But I couldn't, really, because the massive dog was terrified of me - the second picture was after he stopped actively trying to run away... but still wouldn't look in my direction.

Also in Syracuse, there was a wedding in the Cathedral I was trying to visit, so I sat in a cafe outside for the wedding to be finished and watched the horses (and relearned some Latin). I never really realized that horses are sometimes quite silly.

osteria

2007-06-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

After Positano I headed back to Naples for an afternoon before catching a cheapo flight to Sicily. And all I did in Naples was head back to Osteria Donna Teresa, where for 10 euros including wine I had the best meal I've had so far, as well as the cheapest. The first time it was a rice salad with tuna, tomatoes, and olives, followed by a plate full of incredibly fresh sardines in some kind of citrus broth, with barely cooked carrots as a contorno, and an apple as a last course. Except for the fish, everything was from their farm, including the best wine I've had so far. When I went back I had fresh pasta alla norma, but with provolone instead of the usual (I think) ricotta, followed by these veal meatballs with roasted peppers (skin left on, not burnt off), and an orange so fresh it made my lips numb.

There was some pizza there, too, and it was good. Better than any other pizza I've ever had, sure. But it didn't measure up. So. If you end up in Naples, go to Osteria Donna Teresa: via Kerbaker 58, 13-16 & 20-23, 081.5567070; closed Sunday; cash only. Don't expect a menu.

positano

2007-06-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

Positano is a resort town on the Amalfi coast which used to be hip; the bikini was invented there. Now it's way overpriced and over-touristed. But it has this one great thing - the landscape. When the ferry docked, it was raining, and clouds covered the hills. An hour later I was 2000' above the harbor, taking the second picture, and it was so quiet I could, and did, hear a swallow's wings cutting the air. Also, there's only one drivable street. The rest are called streets, but are actually staircases - the third picture is of one of the main 'intersections' in town.

naples buildings

2007-06-02T06:01:00.000-07:00

Last day in Naples. The first picture is of the Chiesa di Gesu Nuovo. Most pictures of it reproduce its own proportions more faithfully, but don't make the almost grotesque scale of the place apparent. The building below it struck me as peculiarly Neapolitan - the large arches separate off a courtyard between three different buildings, and do it beautifully. But it's harder to appreciate when you have to wade through trash bins and parked cars to get to it.

naples signage

2007-06-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

A pair of signs from the same street in Naples. The true Stradivarius was, as you might guess, for sale. I'm not sure what Moore's Paradox (It's not true but I believe it) was doing on this sign a few stalls down.

inside things in naples

2007-05-22T23:57:00.001-07:00

Inlaid marble in San Domenico Maggiore, which is attached to a monastery where Aquinas lived. They worked the natural striations in the marble into the white columns pointing off to each side.

Last night I went to the Teatro San Carlo on a student rush ticket to catch Werther. Not the best opera ever, but the acoustics and the theater itself were fantastic.

virgil's tomb

2007-05-22T23:48:00.000-07:00

I'll try to rotate pictures correctly when I have my computer again, but for now you're going to have to take Virgil a bit askew. The tripod below was the only thing there.

That is, the only thing aside from the entrance to the Roman-built passageway to \ aqueduct from Positano, on the other side of this hill. Suffice it to say that it's better built than the contemporary Neapolitan subways.

around naples

2007-05-22T23:40:00.001-07:00

Galleria Umberto, built in 1890 for shopping. On the upper levels are apartments - the entrance to which is in the center, pictured below. Clearly, mixing commerical and residential zoning lowers property values.

Who would rather live on Stonybrook Lane than on Vicolette Ecce Homo? Chances are, the latter would be cheaper and safer. Although probably all the buildings have weeds growing on them, as does Santa Catherina di Siena, above.

In the last picture, a convertible.

inside in pompei

2007-05-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

<--- Most, but not all, of the wall decorations were rather gaudy.

For some reason I never realized that columns were made of bricks in the way this piture makes clear.

Outside in Pompei

2007-05-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

On the left, the garden in the house of octavius quartus; none of the pictures I took really do it justice because the camera doesn't have a wide-angled lens, but this garden ran the full length of a city block in Pompei.

Below, (about an eighth of) the palaestra. If gyms looked like this, I'd be found there much more often.

In Naples

2007-05-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

Sculptures from Pompei; unlike the frescoes, the pictures actually came out.

leaving

2007-05-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

For 7 months: three small packs and a man purse, a total of less than $400 in electronics, and fewer than 30 articles of clothing, including socks. About half the bulk is books, and only books I'll actually use. If only I could live like this.