Travelog(ue) IX: Eyewitness to History

I will tread upon your kind indulgence for not much longer, readers. In fact, I have an old fashioned porn post ready to go after nothing more than a few final tweaks and tugs, but when I returned home yesterday evening, after a hellish commute, b&c called my attention to this story in the New York Times. It reminded me that I was there!

It was just after dusk when we first arrived at the Trevi Fountain last Friday evening. The water was decidedly red, but I assumed at first that it was a clever trick of the light. Then I realized that the police tape, government functionaries, and members of the press might indicate that something out of the way had happened. You can read the article and all the talk about artistic statements and what not. To me it was a childish act of vandalism and self-promotion. At least it was relatively harmless. Not long after we got there, they began draining the fountain. Then a man in a maintenance jump suit got out a pressure cleaner, but a woman in a business suit stopped him. Some sort of government protocol obviously needed to be followed.

The next day, we were back in the neighborhood, this time before sunset, so we decided to stop in again and see how the cleanup had gone. It had been a complete success.

I decided to follow tradition and make a wish. I pulled out a small coin, turned my back to the fountain, and tossed the coin in the water. I wished for wealth. Not great wealth, mind you, just financial security. A level of comfort, if you will. I wasn't being avaricious. Really.

Then we took a walk over to Largo Chigi, where we boarded a bus, and I had my wallet stolen. Apparently, I need to be more specific.

Travelog(ue) VIII: Gratia Plena, Dominus Tecum

Handsome, isn't he? I'm afraid that this is going to be one of those long, ponderous, no-naked-or-half-naked-men posts that you've all come to dread, so I'm tossing you a bit of eye candy to start with. The guy in that picture is climbing the Spanish Steps. With his wife. Nobody's perfect.

Speaking of sweet things, I know you're all wondering, so I'll tell you: yes, I did consume my fair share of gelatto while in Italy. For reasons that are unclear to me, the gelatto is cheaper in Venice, but it's not expensive anywhere, and it's everywhere good. I always ordered a piccolo, which is like a single scoop, but lest you think I don't enjoy two scoops, consider this picture taken at the Fontana di Trevi:

He was cute from the front, too, but I've given you the picture with his best side.

Anyway, on to the boring, no-naked-men crap. If, like me, you happen to be blessed (that's the official line) with the sort of life partner/traveling companion who would happily spend six hours of every day of your vacation in a museum, then you have to develop certain coping strategies. Getting separated and lost works in the short term, but ultimately it's counterproductive. It's better to come to an agreement as to a certain amount of time to spend together in the museums, a certain amount of time to spend doing your own thing while he does his, and another (hopefully much larger) block of time to be set aside for drinking wine and ogling the locals. (Our happiness increased significantly when we went from sharing a half-liter of wine in the early afternoon and another half-liter with dinner to sharing a liter on each occasion. Oddly enough, the locals also got handsomer.) Still, if, like me, you're just not all that visually oriented, you need coping skills for the time that you're spending in the museum. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of pretty pictures that you forget as soon as you leave. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that.

In Italy, one good way to make the museums more interesting is to remember to look down as well as up and across. Obviously, you'll look at the walls and the sculptures, and someone will often point out the ceilings to you, but the floors are often works of art in their own right.
That particular floor is from the Vatican museums, but there are equally good examples all over the place. Especially in the Duomo in Florence: there's a floor in there that's almost enough to make a deist out of you. Not out of me, you understand, but presumably you are not as strong in your skepticism as I am in mine.

Anyway, another way -- and the most successful way for me -- to keep the museum experience interesting is to follow a common theme or subject through its treatments by many different artists. And as I mentioned earlier, I saw a whole lot of Annunciations, in a number of different locations. As background, here's the official version of the story, from the King James Version of The Gospel According to Luke:

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

For with God nothing shall be impossible.

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Now I do have some philosophical problems with the whole story. I'm not, obviously, a Christian, and I would argue that the virgin birth is a harmful notion, though not so harmful as the notion of original sin, which makes the virgin birth necessary. The idea that we're inherently sinful and that our inherent sin is propagated through sex is anathema to me. My religion is not big on the notion of sin generally, and we're particularly dismissive of the notion of original sin. But even members of a cafeteria-style religion like mine recognize the beauty of a story about the redemptive power of a child. We're willing to look at the story as a metaphor and see the larger meaning.

I'm not sure, though, what larger meaning most of the artists I saw in Italy found in this story. My knowledge of Biblical history is scanty in the extreme, so maybe they were going from a different version of the story. Certainly many of these paintings were done before the KJV Bible existed, but given the Latin writing in the earliest of these paintings, I'm guessing their versions weren't significantly different.

So there's the Biblical Mary: troubled, amazed, and -- finally -- accepting of the will of God. And then here's the fourteenth century version by Simone Martini (at the Uffizi, in Florence):

Mary looks pissed. And Gabriel doesn't look all that happy either. I'm guessing the conversation goes something like this:

Gabriel: Hail, thou art full of grace. God is with you.
Mary: Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing in my room?
Gabriel: I am Gabriel. I'm on a mission from God, and you might want to clean up your language.
Mary: Whatever. Say what you have to say and let me get back to my sudoku.
Gabriel: Fine. You're going to have a baby, and he will save the world.
Mary: Wrong! I am not getting knocked up. I have been very careful not to let Joseph get past second base, and it hasn't been easy: you know how carpenters are.
Gabriel: God is your babydaddy. And that's the closest to intercourse you're ever going to get. You might want to brush up on your oral skills.
Mary: Oh Jesus Christ.

Pissed off, while it seems to have no scriptural basis, is at least a reasonable reaction. A couple of the renaissance masters (both at the Uffizi) go so far as to have a Mary who seems to be trying to wiggle out of the deal. First, Botticelli:

Mary looks both composed and dismissive, and Gabriel looks nonplussed:

Gabriel: Blessed art thou among women.
Mary: I beg your pardon?
Gabriel: Thou hast found favor with God, Mary. Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
Mary: I'm afraid you're mistaken. I never use all caps.
Gabriel: He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
Mary: Listen, that's very sweet of you, but I have other plans, and a baby would really impede my modern dance career. You know, Mary's a very common name around here. Try two doors down: there's another Mary there. She's very devout, and, well, she says she's a virgin.
Gabriel: But I brought along this beautiful lily.
Mary: Yes, and I'm sure Mary will love it. Run along now.

In the Leonardo version, by contrast, Gabriel seems very determined, and Mary seems very composed.

It looks rather more like a negotiation:

Gabriel: Hail, Mary. Blessed art thou among women.
Mary: Well, yes, I am fortunate. How many young women of Nazareth get to live in such a nice Tuscan villa?
Gabriel: Let me bottom line it for you. You're going to have a baby. God's baby. And he's going to be a big deal. You'll be famous, too.
Mary: Frankly, I had other plans. And I'm not sure how Joseph will feel about bedding used goods.
Gabriel: Actually, you're going to have to remain a virgin indefinitely. Just leave Joseph to me.
Mary: Indefinite virginity is especially not what I had in mind. A woman has needs, Gabriel.
Gabriel: Listen. You know that big hammer Joseph carries around? He's compensating. And, well, he's not that bright. I understand the brutish appeal, but you're looking at thirty seconds, six times a week for the first year. After that, he'll come to bed drunk every night, and you'll be lucky if little Joseph stands at attention twice a year. You're better off meeting your needs without the carpenter. You only have to remain a technical virgin. I can fix you up with some state-of-the-art vibrators.
Mary: The idea has merit. Can you throw in a lifetime supply of batteries?
Gabriel: Not a problem.
Mary: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.
Gabriel: Pleasure doing business with you.

The Annunciation that amused me most was Lorenzo di Credi's version, also in the Uffizi. I wasn't able to find a good picture of it online, but here's the best I could do:

When you see this in person, Mary looks downright coquettish, and Gabriel looks like a lovesick schoolboy:
Gabriel: Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum.
Mary: I bet you say that to all the virgins, Gabriel.
Gabriel: Ti amo, Maria.
Mary: Now don't be a bad boy.
Gabriel: Ti amo, Maria.
Mary: Gabriel. You're sweet, but you know I'm taken.
Gabriel: Ti amo, Maria.
Mary: Dude. I'm taken. By your boss!

I relayed that dialog -- in substantially those same words -- to b&c while we were at the Uffizi. I guess I spoke a little more loudly than I'd meant to because a young woman who was looking at the painting began to laugh. I was afraid that I'd been rude, or at least indelicate, so I began to apologize, but she stopped me, saying, "No, I think you've got the gist of it."

My favorite Annunciation was hanging in the modern art section of the Vatican museums. My knowledge of art history is severely limited, so I was surprised to see that Dali had even done one. Fortunately, the Vatican museums only prohibit photography in the Sistine Chapel, so I was able to take a picture of it. It's tough to find one on the Net.

Even without faces, Gabriel's meaning is clear, and Mary's reaction is just right. Dali even manages to make her look more like a normal person than most of his forebears did.

I'm not, mind you, ready to jump on the Mary bandwagon. In addition to a score or so of Annunciations, I saw any number of paintings representing Mary's coronation in heaven. Where most of the Annunciations failed to represent an intimate moment, the coronations mostly failed to impress. Red and blue angels, forty-two saints, whatever: Mary never looked happy. I understand that the worship of Mary was a necessary replacement for the extensive and multi-faceted goddess worship that existed among the pagan masses, but she's a pale imitation, a criticism that can be leveled at Christianity in general. Most of the pagan goddesses had no particular interest in virginity. I'm more than willing to leave Mary to her place in heaven. Let the rest of us get busy down in the earth at the fires of Beltane. Less purity, more joy.

Travelog(ue) VI: Caffe Threeway

When you book a hotel room in Italy, the price usually includes the following morning's breakfast. It's basically a cold, self-service breakfast (the spread ranges from ample to minimal, depending on the hotel), with a hot beverage. B&c usually gets coffee with milk, but I prefer to be a bit more adventurous. When we were in Florence, the breakfast attendant kept three full pitchers on the counter: one of strong coffee, a second of hot steamed milk, and a third of hot chocolate. I would add equal parts of each to my cup, then take it back to the table to stir and drink. When I first did this, we had the following conversation:

B&c: What's that?
TED: It's a caffe threeway.
B&c: Here we go...
TED: It's equal parts coffee, milk, and hot chocolate. The coffee is the strong, aggressive top. The milk is the smooth, frothy, accommodating bottom. And the chocolate is the versatile exotic, who makes the whole thing decadent. It's really good.
B&c: You're insane.
TED: Excuse me, but could you maybe be a little bit less frothy and a little bit more accommodating?

When we got to Rome, the breakfast offering was a bit on the dismal side, and there was a coffee machine on the counter. I saw the attendant refilling it one morning. It had three chambers for powdered coffee, milk, and chocolate, and it mixed one or two of these with hot water, depending on which button you pushed on the front. I pretty quickly found that if you pushed the cappuccino button, waited for it to do its thing, and then pushed the button for chocolate, the two orders together would fill the cup just to the brim. You had to stir it a bit to make it work, but isn't that always the way?

If you happen to find yourself in a coffee bar in Rome and you notice that there are two attractive men behind the bar (or, if you're there with someone, one attractive man behind the bar: it's not at all unusual to find either situation in Italy), go ahead and ask for a caffe threeway. If the waiter looks at you funny, then explain to him you want cappuccino mixed with chocolate. If, on the other hand, he smiles and invites you into the back room, don't forget to thank me.

Here's a picture of one of the waiters who brought us coffee in Rome. We'd just been through the open air market at the Campo di Fiori, and it was the only cold day we had in Italy. It's (as usual) a terrible picture. The inside of the bar was a bit dark, and the waiter was standing right next to an open doorway, which was quite bright.

Also, while his sweatshirt somehow makes him look hunched over, he was actually tall and slender, with excellent posture. In any case, I found him very cute, and he was clearly lower maintenance than most of the men in Italy. (I'd also guess that he's more frothy than exotic, but I did not, alas, find out.) Italian men are, indeed, very handsome, but I'm not convinced that they're any more handsome than other European men. It is indisputable, however, that they try harder, especially the straight ones: I've never seen such a well-groomed group of breeders. I suspect that they're very high maintenance, though, and I would probably not get along all that well with anyone who has to visit the barber weekly. Still, you can't beat Italy for eye candy. Or coffee.


In case you're wondering, you usually have a choice of refined or turbinado sugar. There's only one kind of artificial sweetener, but the packets come in four different colors.

Travelog(ue) V: Eternal Longings

The picture above is of the fourth most attractive priest I saw while in Rome. We had a pretty terrific time in Rome, especially if you exclude from about 6:30 to 8:30 of our last evening there, at the beginning of which time I had a Pickpockets on a Bus (similar to Snakes on a Train, but vastly less interesting) encounter and at the end of which I had finished filing police reports and reporting all of my currency and credit cards stolen. I also spent another few hours this morning visiting the Motor Vehicle Administration, bank, and Target (to get a new wallet), but such are the perils of modern living. This seems like one of those serenity-to-accept-what-I-cannot-change situations. In future, I'll leave the driver's license and most of the credit cards at home and carry only as much cash with me as I'll need. I don't want to sound too Pollyanna here: I was seriously bummed for a couple of hours. But I'm still mindful that having enough money to go to Italy means that the few hundred dollars I lost is money I could afford to lose. And, of course, I'm very grateful that I was with someone who knew what to do in that situation and who was willing to drive me around this morning to help me get my affairs in order. Plus, he paid for dinner that night and the cab to the airport the next morning. He may bill me for half of that, but there's a good chance he won't bother.

Anyway, the only other thing that was disappointing about Rome was the relative lack of clergymen in uniform. I was at the Vatican twice, and I hardly saw any. The most attractive priest I saw was walking towards St. Peter's as I was walking in the other direction. Like most of the curates in Rome, he seemed to be in a hurry, and I didn't get a picture, but he was wearing gray robes. B&c told me that means he was a Dominican, but I think he was probably Filipino. In any case, he would not have looked out of place in the saffron robes of a Buddhist monk, which made him doubly hot. He did smile at me, but I think he was probably smiling at everyone. There's nothing worse than a slutty priest.

The third most attractive priest was wearing white robes and appeared to be either German or Nordic. In either case, he was blond, slight, and handsome. And also walking very, very quickly. (And also towards St. Peter's: the curates are relatively scarce when you're down in the Pagan ruins.)

The priest/monk below wasn't all that cute, though he was better looking than you can see from the picture. I saw him come out of the Trinità dei Monti, descend one flight of steps, and then cross the road.

Fortunately, he stopped, and I got a picture. Unfortunately, he was yawning. I reckon God's work is very tiring.

Trinità dei Monti is in Rome (Italy), at the top of the Spanish Steps, and it houses an order of French priests (Life was complicated before the EU.), including this one (second most attractive, if you're keeping score):

It was late in the afternoon, and he was inside a somewhat dim chapel near the front of the church, and I obviously couldn't use flash, so the picture is terrible, but he was hot. He was just sitting there reading his Bible while all the tourists passed by. When we were back outside the church, and halfway down the Spanish Steps, B&c asked whether I'd gone in to confess to him. Apparently, he was on duty. Who knew?

I'm not Catholic, and even if I believed in confession, I wouldn't really know the protocol, but I was tempted to try. I reckon the conversation would have gone something like this (only in French, you understand):

TED: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
Hot French Priest: And?
T: I'm a little unclear on the protocol.
HFP: How long has it been since your last confession.
T: I've never confessed before. I'm not really Catholic.
HFP: You probably shouldn't be here.
T: Aw, c'mon Father, help an unbeliever out. I saw you turning that same page back and forth for the last fifteen minutes. It's not like you're going to get a better offer.
HFP: All right, why don't you tell me what your sins are.
T: Talk is cheap, padre. I could tell you, but I'd much rather show you. Then you can tell me just how bad I've been.

It's really a good thing that I'm not Catholic, or I'd be going to hell for sure.

(By the way, I'm afraid I'm going to be milking the trip for at least a few more days. I had a truly fascinating time, and I have too much to say. I promise at least a few pictures of handsome Italians.)

Travelog(ue)IV: Perdita in Firenze

Bongiorno, readers. I'm in Rome, where the keyboards in the Internet cafes are a little bit weird, so excuse any bizarre characters. At the moment, I have left b&c standing in the long, long, long line for the Vatican museums. It is unlikely that I will have another chance to post before I get home, so enjoy some scenes from Florence.

At the Duomo, which has another, rather longer name, there are many interesting carvings, including the one below, of the seven deadly sins.

I'm not entirely sure what all the deadly sins are, but since I'm only interested in lust and gluttony, I don't know that it matters. Well, okay, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Envy, but only rarely. That still leaves avarice and pride, of which I am really not guilty. The last one might be wrath, but that only happens with the greengrocer's plural, which is blessedly rare in Italy. There is also a carving depecting, I believe, the seven cardinal virtues.

Beats the hell out of me what they are. But I know exactly what was in that salad: lettuce, bacon, avocado, gorgonzola, and tomatoes: so very, very good.
My inadequacy at catching hot men on camera continues, but I got the back of this very cute young man who was sketching at Santa Croce.

I bought a fake Rolex for 25 Euros. It doesn't work very well, but it's pretty. I have no desire for a real Rolex: I'm not avaricious, remember?

Those are my eyeglasses beside the fake Rolex. The eyeglasses are real, but they are too boring for any Italian man to wear. Similarly my shoes. I have never in my life felt so consistently underdressed. Thank God for all the vino.


Ciao!

Travelog(ue)III: All About David

I said earlier that the only things I wanted to get out of my trip to Italy were to see Michelangelo's David and, well, I forget what the other thing was. I was to some extent joking, of course, but for the most part, not really. I've wanted to see David for years, and much of what we were planning to do in Florence was planned around when we could get reservations for tickets to the gallery at the Accademia. (That's the Accademia in Florence as opposed to the Accademia in Venice: entirely different experiences, but both worth doing.) Naturally, when you make something such a central part of your trip and imbue it with such great importance, you are setting yourself up for tremendous disappointment. And I was not without trepidation as I entered the Accademia earlier today. There are, after all, copies of David all over the place, including one not many blocks from the Accademia and another at the Piazalle Michelangelo, on a hill above Florence, near San Minano, and the copies are nice, but they're not all that.

After a few minutes browsing through some renaissance paintings and looking at renaissance musical instruments, I turned a corner, and there, perhaps thirty meters away, was David. And, well, never have I been less disappointed.

This would be one of those experiences that you can't put into words. Let me just say that I spent half an hour staring at David from many different angles, and then I went through the rest of the museum (which is not large) and came back to spend another forty-five minutes staring at him. There is not an inch of him that does not command your attention. He is miraculous (as evidenced by the fact that despite the strict no photography policy and the multiple guards running around shouting "No photo!" three images of David somehow ended up on my camera: a miracle!).

Reverence might be the only appropriate response here, and I was certainly reverent while I was in the Accademia (By the way, there are another half dozen Annunciations in the Florence Accademia, and in almost all of them, Mary -- and usually Gabriel -- looks reverent. It is a huge improvement over bored.), but if we here at The Neighbors Will Hear stand for anything it's that the distance between the sublime and the ridiculous is infinitesimally small: in fact, they're two sides of the same coin. Can we please get past the notion that life and the people who live it are simple and one dimensional? You can be the sort of person who can be brought to tears by the beauty of a sculpture and still be a low-maintenance guy who chases ass at every opportunity. There's no yin without yang, readers. So let's talk about some of the more profane aspects of the world's greatest sculpture.

David's ass is not all that. I mean, it's an okay ass, but every other bit of him is beautiful beyond words. The ass? Not bubble, not eve perky. And David was, after all, a shepherd, constantly climbing the hills and chasing off mountain lions and what not: he'd have a great ass. B&c disagreed with my assessment and said that it was a perfectly nice ass, but b&c is a bottom and he don't know from ass. I saw a large number of Michelangelo sculptures today, and two things were clear: a) he preferred men, and b) he was a muscle-worshipping bottom.

For reasons that are, I suppose obvious, but are still all wrong, much of the interest in David is all about the dick. Witness this example of a mens wear item that is common in souvenir shops both in Florence and in Venice.


You can also get this on an apron, in which case you get a bit more of David's torso, but the focus is clearly on the dick. When I first saw the boxer shorts, b&c asked whether I wanted a pair, and I said, "a) if you're down to your boxer shorts, somebody's going to see your dick pretty soon anyway, and b) I don't want anybody thinking my dick is too small." The Italians, not surprisingly, have anticipated my second objection, and you can also find pairs of the shorts with XXL printed on the front and with the dick in question greatly enhanced. It was something that even I blushed to take a picture of, but only because messing with David seems tacky.

[This picture has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of this post or with David. These turtles support the iron bars on the outside of the large windows on the ground floor of the school of philosophy and letters at the local university. They symbolize your slow progress in the world if you get a liberal arts degree, I suppose. Also, I think they're cool.]

Here's one of the copies of David. It lacks much of the original's vitality, but it mostly copies the giant scale of the hands. David's hands are incredibly large in proportion to his body. They're nearly twice as big as they should be. My supposition is that Michelangelo was making a comment about size queens, saying, in effect, "Big hands don't guarantee a big endowment, people!" I'm guessing that Michelangelo was trying to cover up certain inadequacies of his own, though since he was so obviously a bottom, I can't imagine why he cared. I'm sure he went to his grave still proclaiming his versatility, though. As if, Mikey.

I'm pretty sure that the Italian commercial emphasis on dick is a reflection of what they expect from American tourists. Europeans generally are neither titillated nor scandalized by nudity: it's mostly Americans who have a prurient interest in the nakedness of sculpture. David does have a pretty cock, but so much of him is even more beautiful. Sit in front of him for half an hour and see how little time you spend staring at his cock, as compared to his strong, veined hands, his powerful feet, his graceful calves, or that intriguing indentation right beneath the front of his shoulder. But the Italians are very clued into commercial opportunity. I didn't get a pair of the David boxers or a David apron (it would make a good gift for someone, but I can't think who), but I did pick up this small calendar.

I was too amused by the notion of a "Dicks in Art" calendar not to pick it up. (Other things I find too amusing to resist include a certain Italian game show -- Heredita, I think it's called -- that I really can't understand, but that's too entertaining to turn off. It runs from 7 to 8, which is generally right after horizontal quality time and right before dinner.) I wish that it were the sort of thing that you could find at public souvenir stands in the U.S., but can you imagine the ruckus that would get kicked up if there were penis-bearing aprons on street corners in Washington, DC? I think it would make Michelangelo weep, though I suspect that the existence of the Internet and the Craigslist M4M ads would more than make up for it.

Travelog(ue)II: Death in Venice

Well, okay, not really. I just needed a title. Today's title was going to be "Renaissance Art Illuminated," and I was going to talk about the clear sexual content in so much of renaissance art, but I can't find good pictures on the Internet. Or at least I can't right now. I'm sure I'll be able to at home. I do, however, have good pictures of Venice, though, really, if I were coming for the pictures, I might just as well stay home and search on flickr: the pictures there are better than mine. I did take all these myself, though.

Yes, I'm drunk again. Need you even ask?

Anyway, b&c tells me that Death in Venice was based on Mahler's life, or, more accurately I suppose, his death. As it happens, though, Wagner also died in Venice. We were wandering along the streets and canals, and we came upon the place where he died. I have to say that I don't really miss Mr. Wagner. Eva Peron did not, I believe, die in Venice, but there is, nonetheless, a hotel there named after her. I only took a picture of the sign, but I looked through the window, and there was a bust of her in the lobby. I'm somewhat grateful I wasn't staying there.

Speaking of opera, I feel bad about coming to any country where I don't speak the language. I've decided to address this deficiency by pretending that I know Italian. There's no way to demonstrate your knowledge of a language so effectively as to go off on a rant in it. But since my knowledge of rantworthy Italian is, well, limited, I have to rant with the only Italian I know, namely, opera lyrics. So the next time b&c ticks me off, I'll impress the locals by gesticulating wildly while saying, "Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso! Notte e giorno d'intorno girando!Delle belle turbando il riposo! Narcisetto, Adoncino d'amor!" I figure that attitude and tone are more important than what the words actually mean, right? Of course, I haven't field tested this approach yet, so you might want to wait for additional reports before implementing the strategy yourself. Still, I can't wait to go to Germany and sneer at b&c while launching into a spoken rendition of "In Diesen Heilgen Hallen."

Actually, I'm making leaps and bounds in Italian, as illustrated by this exchange which took place today in a small pasticceria in Florence:
[TED grabs a bottle of acqua minerale frizzante and goes to the counter, where stands the proprietor. Within the counter rests a small focaccio, with green olives, after which TED lusts.]
TED: E uno focaccietti
Proprietor: Con olivo o senza?
T: Con.
Proprietor: Mangia subito?
T: Si.
Then he asked me for money, and I gave him the exact amount. I mean, really, I'm practically fluent.

Seriously, though, one of the great things about Italy is that it gives me the opportunity to feel inferior both for not knowing Italian and for not knowing Latin. (Deciding which I want to learn more is tough.) I never learned Latin, though. B&c went through Catholic schools and had to take years and years of Latin, but he recalls little of it, leading to exchanges such as the following:
TED: What does that mean?
B&c: Um. I don't know.
TED: What do you mean, you don't know. Didn't you take like twelve years of Latin?
B&c: It was a long time ago. I forgot it.
TED: Geez. I took French for six years, a long time ago, and I remember most of it.
B&c: You use your French.
TED: Oh as if. I have sex with a French guy once a year if I'm lucky. Latin guys fuck you all the time.

We spent an afternoon in the Accademia, and it's very impressive, but I was mostly taken with how incredibly somber a religion Christianity is, especially when you look at it through its art. There are probably more than six Annunciations in there, and in almost ever one of them, Mary looks bored. (Also, she's sitting at a desk reading a book in Latin, and in some of them, she appears to be sitting in a very well appointed drawing room somewhere in Tuscany, but we'll just leave that aside for a moment, except to say: "What the fuck, renaissance?") In some cases, the angel also looks bored. In others, he looks a bit stern. Personally, if I were given the job of telling someone that she was blessed among women, I'd at least muster some false enthusiasm, but whatever. Mary, though: how is she bored? I can see being frightened, excited, or even angry ("Let me get this straight. I'm going through childbirth, and years later I'm going to die still a virgin? Does this not strike you as a raw deal?")

I posed this question to b&c today in the bus coming back to the hotel from San Minano, and he tried to say that she didn't look bored so much as skeptical and that depending on when in the Annunciation the painting represented, skeptical might be reasonable. And I was all, "Dude. She looks bored. And what do you mean 'when in the Annunciation'? Have you read the Bible? The angel's all, 'Hail, Mary. Blessed are you among women. Sorry, can't stay and chat, gotta go convince your fiance not to dump you when he sees that you're knocked up! Kthxbye!' B&c had to admit that I had a point. My take, of course, has always been that Joseph couldn't keep it in his robes and had to make up the angel to avoid a spear wedding, but I'm willing to leave the Christians their virgin birth. I just don't see why they can't be a little more joyful.

There's not much joy in the Accademia, unless you count the way I felt when I entered the room with the twin Adonis statues. Oh my. My, my, my.

There is a lot of sex, though. There are any number of paintings of Venetians standing around watching processions and such, and in all of those paintings, the Venetians all look alike. They're all dressed alike, sure, but they all have the same pronounced eyebrows and the same long, thin noses. Not huge noses, but decidedly long and thin. It's clear that they're saying, "We're hung, yes. When you've been fucked by a Venetian, you'll know you've been fucked. But we're not so hung that you can't take us, so grab the olive oil, and let's go!"

And then there are all the naked and semi-naked martyr pictures. It's some twink saint or other who's got a great iliac furrow and is run through with arrows. Run through with arrows: how obvious can you get? It's Venice's way of saying, "Yes, we have many hung tops, but you can also find cute, young, smooth bottoms who will take whatever you give them."

I have a good deal more to say about my very short time in Venice, but I'll probably hold it until I'm sober, which likely means when I'm back. I'm not actually drunk all that much, but when I'm not drunk, I tend to be busy. For the moment, let me just say that the gondoliers are moderately attractive, but not more than that. They're pretty much the local equivalent of truck or taxi drivers. Somewhat more fit, perhaps, but not always all that much more fit, since they spend a lot of their time sitting around, smoking, and waiting for their next fare. There are plenty of other Italians more worth lusting after.