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Italian macabre
Jul. 25th, 2011 10:59 pmMy mother bought us a five-pound box of blueberries. If I disappear in the next few days, it will probably be because I've eaten so many that I've become a blueberry, like Violet Beauregarde in Charley and the Chocolate Factory.
Hey, if you've gotta go, you might as well go deliciously.
***
Also I've finally uploaded my photos from Italy. There are so many that I'm not quite sure which toinflict on share with you, but I figure you've all seen the standard views before, so. Let's try something new. Have a gander at Galileo's finger bone!
Italy has a strong morbid undercurrent running through its veins. I have read so many books where Italy is synonymous with Life! and Love! and Passion! (hello, E. M. Forster!) that this surprised me, but this is clearly my fault. Italy is the land of gladiatorial tournaments and catacombs and keeping your long-dead archbishop in a glass coffin in a side chapel.
San Marco and its embalmed archbishop, however, can't hold a patch on Santa Maria Ricci. Every night, an invisible organist plays a concert in a church lit mainly by flickering candles and burnt-out track lighting, and in an aisle just before the altar there is a glass sarcophagus with a desecrated crucifix. In 1976, someone hacked the limbs off. The church keeps it because, when the parishioners found it, the corpus's face twisted in pain.
But even this doesn't measure up to the crypt in Rome that my friend Monika visited with her boyfriend. For centuries, the monks of one monastery have been buried there, until finally the brothers grew tired of merely stacking the bodies. They piled up the skulls and nailed the long bones to the walls in pretty patterns. Bone art.
So. Italy: probably a good place for your next monster movie.
Hey, if you've gotta go, you might as well go deliciously.
***
Also I've finally uploaded my photos from Italy. There are so many that I'm not quite sure which to
Italy has a strong morbid undercurrent running through its veins. I have read so many books where Italy is synonymous with Life! and Love! and Passion! (hello, E. M. Forster!) that this surprised me, but this is clearly my fault. Italy is the land of gladiatorial tournaments and catacombs and keeping your long-dead archbishop in a glass coffin in a side chapel.
San Marco and its embalmed archbishop, however, can't hold a patch on Santa Maria Ricci. Every night, an invisible organist plays a concert in a church lit mainly by flickering candles and burnt-out track lighting, and in an aisle just before the altar there is a glass sarcophagus with a desecrated crucifix. In 1976, someone hacked the limbs off. The church keeps it because, when the parishioners found it, the corpus's face twisted in pain.
But even this doesn't measure up to the crypt in Rome that my friend Monika visited with her boyfriend. For centuries, the monks of one monastery have been buried there, until finally the brothers grew tired of merely stacking the bodies. They piled up the skulls and nailed the long bones to the walls in pretty patterns. Bone art.
So. Italy: probably a good place for your next monster movie.
