Bad and Good Roman Art

Our new template is taken from a fine and crappy 'il giallo economico classico' edition mystery I picked up for half a euro from one of those stalls (the ones that have stuff like magazines from the Fascist era) just off Piazza Thingummy (you know, the one just west of Termini). I like the fact that all these books have covers that seem to have been drawn by the same incompetent artist who illustrated all the Scholastic Books I ordered in the 4th-6th grades, from those forms they gave us in school. That was fun.

And while I'm on the subject, just around the corner from Piazza Thingummy is one of the many museums in Rome that folks don't necessary know. I've been there three times, and I've only seen - like, seven other people there. It's Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, a.k.a. one of the three or four (but who's keeping score?) things named Museo Nationale Romano. (That's so that we can arrange to meet our old roommate Geoff, in from Edmonton, Canada for the wedding, and then soon-to-be-groom Jon calls him on the cell: 'but I'm on the second floor, just off from the statue of sexy hermaphrodite and the remains of that cool ship out of lake Nevi those bastard Nazis blew up out of spite while retreating North.' And, of course, Goeff can't see these things because, being as he's in a different museum with the same name.)

Palazzo Massimo contains lots of cool statues and busts of emperors and what-not. Suitable occasion for my friend Jon and I to discuss how I sort of like the name Titus, but probably that's not a popular name for Jewish kids. Right? Right.

There are a number of mosaics of varying quality, from awful to quite beautiful. It's interesting that someone will actually take an obviously lousy drawing and then painstakingly execute it in itty bitty little bits of marble of all colors, gathered at considerable expense from around the empire. Sort of the Roman equivalent of most Hollywood movies. Costly and requiring much effort, but still basically "Sgt. Bilko", starring Steve Martin.

But most interesting are the frescos. Through whatever miracles of moisture resistance a few walls of a few ancient villas endured underground with paint intact; and they've been excavated and the interiors effectively reconstructed and restored. Roman villas were very colorful and appear to have been decorated by stoned college students instructed to paint 'sorta Roman style'. My favorite are the cool scenes of underwater creatures fighting. 'Dude, what if, like, a lobster were fighting with a squid. But then they were both, like, fighting with an eel?' You can play this game with your friends. Lobster [make the heavy metal horns, pointing forwards] beats eel [karate chop]; eel beats squid [cup hand with all fingers pointing forward]; squid beats lobster.

And a very cool coin collection in the basement.

I also lingered lovingly in the Vatican Museum Raphael rooms and Sistine Chapel, just in case you are thinking I only like bad art. The Sistine Chapel is rather well-known, I should think, but worth mentioning because maybe you figure the viewing conditions are so bad - crowded room, fifty feet up, craning your neck to see - that it will be one of those 'just buy the damn book' art experiences. Nope. It's more unbelievable than you think it could possibly be. You've been through the picture galleries - nice tapestries: New School better than Old School. And seen some OK stuff. And then Raphael. La Stanza Signatura - or whatever it's called: the room with the School of Athens in it; and that guy who defeated the other guy at the bridge. Yeah, that one. And then: Michelangelo. He was the man. So much so that all his women are men, too.

The wedding was great. Fantastic klezmer band at the reception, though I thought they were getting a bit John Zorn betwixt certain dance numbers. The band isn't supposed to be doing anything too 'hey, look at me!' There's people trying to finish getting married. But basically the band was incredibly fantastic.

If the groom leaves any comments in the comment box, he should be spending more time with his lovely wife, not reading stupid blogs.

Comments

[Jeffrey Kramer]

How does eel beat squid? (Unless it's an electric eel, in which case should't it beat the lobster too?)

[ben wolfson]

Basically it works like this. The squid can beat the lobster by using its tentacles to force shut the lobsters claws, after which it's the work of a moment to crush the shell with its remaining tentacles (and feast on the gooey mess inside). It's a remarkably effective tactic, as anyone who's seen it in action can tell you. However, it's also the squid's only tactic—and therein lies the eel's advantage. What, ask yourself, what do you know about eels? Well, they're slippery. When the squid tries to grasp the eel with its suction pads, the eel just slides along (like, as a friend just put it, a baby through the forest), tracing a convoluted path. The squid's tentacles become entangled and soon the squid itself, unable to stay afloat, has fallen to the ocean floor (where presumably it dies). The eel can't use the same tactic on the lobster, though, because it can't slide along the pincers—it just gets chopped in two.

HTH, HAND, &c.

[jholbo]

You read my mind.

[The Groom]

Just to let you know, you can get the Klezroym albums. There are now 4 of them. They're not a wedding band, they're a real band. http://www.cnimusic.it/klezing.htm

[Jeffrey Kramer]

I am very impressed, Ben. Now, can you help me with a question which has haunted me since childhood: how do the three dyads involving Dracula, The Wolfman, and Frankenstein's Monster shake out?

Also:

It's a remarkably effective tactic, as anyone who's seen it in action can tell you. However, it's also the squid's only tactic—and therein lies the eel's advantage.

So, if the squid is a hedgehog and the eel is a fox, what does that make the lobster?