AAR CSS: Day 1

Non-stop orientations. We got to see the inside of the American Academy, where we had lunch and then a lecture, but first we took a short tour of the Janiculan with T. Corey Brennan, a Roman historian from Rutgers:

He showed us a newly cleaned fountain (more impressive than it sounds):

...a monument to war dead:

...the first Renaissance building (inside the Spanish academy):

...and the rooftop of the Villa Aurelia (another panorama of Rome):

Then an orientation to the AAR library, an overview of our program, lunch, and an introduction to the course, followed by an orientation to the Centro (ICCS) with Franco Sgariglia, the guy who runs it. His family also runs the place where people who do the optional add-on down by the Bay of Naples stay - he's very nice, but the sentiment "it's all in the family" takes on a slightly different (read: Godfather) connotation in Italy. They definitely have a monopoly on people staying at the Centro during the summer and the school year. That said, the food is good (M-F breakfast and dinner).

The day ended with a pre-dinner reception in the garden of the AAR, where T. Corey Brennan and Susann Lusnia said a few words. There were quite a few other people there, most associated with the AAR in some way; we got the feeling a lot of them thought we were supposed to recognize them, but none of us did. On the way out some of us saw the Lead Burrito, a burial in which the skeleton was wrapped in a lead sheet. They couldn't x-ray it, of course, but they did some sort of scan to show that there is in fact a skeleton inside. It's now kept in the locked up wine barn in the AAR garden:

The Lead Burrito (warning: not edible):

Dinner: Rigatoni alla Puttanesca | Caprese | Gelato con panna

AAR CSS: T-1 Day

Eight of us went exploring the day before CSS started. First we went to see the American Academy in Rome, the institution that is running our program. (This is not where we're staying, of course - it's reserved for people in the humanities who win year-long fellowships, like our assistant director, Seth Bernard.)

Both the Centro and the American Academy are on the Janiculan Hill, the only one on the other side of the Tiber (Trastevere = Trans Tiberim, "across the Tiber") from the rest of Rome. Vatican City is almost directly north of us. We went to Piazzale Garibaldi, the highest point in Rome, then walked down to the Tiber. Saw this little guy (or gal) on the way down the hill:

Part of the view from Piazzale Garibaldi:

Garibaldi, now a pigeon perch:

Staff hard at work:

From the Janiculan we walked along the Tiber to the Mausoleum of Hadrian (now Castel Sant'Angelo):

Ponte Sant'Angelo:

Part of our group at an intersection:

Statue of Victory at the end of the Ponte Sant'Angelo:

Lamppost along the Tiber decorated with ship prows (rostra):

The Synagogue:

4.4 miles (and a long uphill + stairs we nicknamed "Heartbreak Hill") later, back at the Centro. Then we went back down those stairs and hill to Dar Poeta for dinner. Good pizza, even if they insisted mozzarella di bufala (yes, made from real buffaloes - Campanian water buffaloes, that is) couldn't be cooked with the rest of the pizza in the oven. Silly Italians.

AAR CSS

As promised, some pictures of Italy with a side of commentary:

First, because the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, I was in search of an adjustable hat. (The official championship hat by Reebok is "one size fits all" - which means "one size fits none," of course.)

The latest airport technology: USB chargers. Apple has officially taken over the world (at least the US and the international wings of American airports).

Flight was delayed an hour out of Boston, but arrived only 5 minutes late in Madrid (first time to Spain! yay for foreign airports). Scrambled to a different terminal there only to wait an extra half-hour to board. Secret revealed upon take-off: the entire crew was standby - they hadn't originally scheduled anyone to fly the plane. Forget the captain's name, but will probably never forget Alfredo the Chief Steward (per his own introduction - no joke).

Madrid Terminal 4S - pretty much a ghost town at 7:30am.

Madrid Terminal 4

This is what I call legroom - on the other hand, how exactly am I supposed to eat off that tray? (I'm not, is the answer.)

Got a nice surprise at Roma Fiumicino: my luggage arrived (and intact, too)! Decided to take the local train to Trastevere, then caught a taxi to ICCS - he had no idea where Via Alessandro Algardi was, but I guess he knows now. Met people, got pizza, fiddled with computer & internet, then crashed; now off to hunt down some cioccolata calda and hit up the supermarket two blocks away.

The New York Times update FAIL

A little news!fail humor to start off the weekend:

I know it’s Friday after 5, but part of me can’t believe I’m seeing double triple already.

ista verba non significare mihi videtur quod opinaris, seu, ista non quae verba quaeris sunt

English can be considered a particularly difficult language for many reasons. Homonyms especially often fall victim to those who know what they want to say but don’t quite know how to say it. As annoying as it can be to mentally correct the torturous little things while reading, I personally find it much more distracting when an author uses a word that looks like - but isn’t - the one he wants, not because the word he puts down sounds the same and he fails to catch the error, but because the author genuinely believes the word he’s using means what he wants it to mean rather than what it actually does. Hence the title of the post: “I don’t think those words mean what you think [they mean], or Those are not the words you’re looking for.”

Princeton professor Alexander Nehamas has just posted an interesting bit about censorship on The New York Times’ website in which he compares our attempts to censor parts of modern popular culture we fear - but ultimately can’t prove - corrupt our youth (e.g. violent video games) with Plato’s criticism of ancient popular culture (specifically works by Homer and the tragic dramatists) and its consequentially minimal role in his ideal republic. Ignore the repulsive copy-editing, or lack thereof; Nehamas might have a point.

humanae hostiae

Dr. Krugman’s latest piece in The New York Times may be a poetic and persuasive diatribe against the “policy elite” and the “responsible economic policy” they set, but it has also made me want to put him in a new level of Dante’s Inferno, one reserved for those who have offended the classics gods and us who follow them.

His article, “Appeasing the Bond Gods,” begins as follows:

As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there’s an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it’s over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite -- central bankers, finance ministers, politicians who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue -- are acting like the priests of some ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods.

It’s the end of the last sentence that gets me. While poetic, as I said, and over the top, as he said, the predicate implies that priests of ancient cults (“some” here being quidlibet, “whichever” or “any you please”) generally “demanded that we engage in human sacrifices.” As someone who has studied some of those “ancient cults” and has a professional interest in interesting others in them, I do not appreciate Krugman’s implication, intended or otherwise. Certain cults at certain times in certain places may have included human sacrifice as a regular practice, but that does not seem to have been accepted practice among the majority of cults in the Greco-Roman world - among which may be mentioned one famous cult in particular (hint: it revolved around a figure with the initials J.C. who was not Julius Caesar). Although non-classical cults have become and continue to be popular, a significant percentage of Krugman’s readers will no doubt associate “ancient cult” with the Greco-Roman world and therefore draw the conclusion that human sacrifice was commonplace there. I’m only sorry that such a respected and widely read economist can be held responsible for that assumption.