I did not Understand what a "Roman nose " WAS until I saw this statue ...
I've been quite busy for the past few weeks trying to get acclimated to schoolwork again and haven't had the time to sit down and write. I'm going to organize this blog in bulleted format because I'm having trouble trying to weave it into paraagraphs.
Our group had a private tour of the Capitoline Museum by one of the directors a few weeks ago and we were able to see the original Equestrain Marcus Aurelius statue as well as the statue of the Marble Faun (Hawthorne's muse). We were given some time to walk around by ourselves and I particularly enjoyed a new exhibit featuring ancient Roman gravestones and was touched by some of the epitaphs. One read: "Here lies our beloved son. Evil spirits cut his life short like a storm from the south cuts a tender plant."
I became enraptured by Kenyon's very own James Wright and his The Shape of Light and I have committed a few of my favorite lines of his to memory. Also, speaking of Kenyon, we were recently ranked the most beautiful school in the world by Forbes/Yahoo. Unfortunately, we still have ugly students. This is true as well, more or less, for our Kenyon in Rome program. I have taken to growing a very ugly mustache--it's a result of what my friend, Clint, has termed the Adonis Factor.
It has cooled down considerably here, especially today. Regardless, I haven't work socks once since I've been here. My two pairs of Birkenstocks have served me quite well.
I've been to a few contemporary art shows--one, titled The One Night Stand II, featured a tuxedoed man who was giving people handshakes full of wet paint. I shook his hand and gave him a pat on the back, leaving my handprint on his tuxedo. In another room of the show an overweight Asian woman in a velvet evening dress held two very large fish (who began the show alive), each weighing about 15 pounds under her arms. Still, yet another woman, a hefty German, spent the duration of the show profusely sweating under a hot lamp in a wool dress, the material of which she was meticulously wrapping back into a ball of yarn. The program says her agenda was to "find out the audience's limits and where her own mental limits are, the limits between strength and pain". I didn't stay to see her finish unweaving her dress.
One of my friends on the program was mugged as he left a gay bar by the Coliseum two weeks ago. He was hit a few times in the face, and more gruesomely, had his ear sliced by a small knife. He had left the bar by himself and presumably, a local committed a hate crime against him. Rome is not Gambier, OH.
I visited the Villa Giulia, the National Museum of Etruscan Art, a few weeks ago and spent a few hours there taking notes. Later that same day I stopped at the National Museum of Modern Art and was intrigued by the Sala del Giardinere where works by Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Degas, and Courbet all reside. The painting I liked best in the museum was a work by Gustave Klimt, The Three Ages of Woman.
Two weekends ago our group went on a field trip to Orvieto. We toured the Cathedral and were able to walk around the quiant town for quite some time. The stillness of the town reminded me just how loud Rome is. On the train ride home I sat next to a Kenyon student who lightly chanted Hare Krishna before he napped.
Our program director, Professor Clarvoe continues to wow me. She's fluent in French, German, English, and Italian and studied Middle English, Ancient Greek, and Ancient Latin. I am loving her classes and I leave every class enlightened. Evidently, I'm not the only impressed by her--she's dating a man considered to be the best Bernini restorer in the world whom I was able to meet a few times since he's been in Rome.
I've befriended the porter at our residence, Armando, who has been very cordial with me and patient as I struggle with my Italian. Also, I met one of the elderly residents across the courtyard named Atilio. He was a very accomplished sculptor and painter and his work can be seen in numerous churches throughout Rome. He's an 88 year old father of 8 and a WWII veteran. He bought me a coffee on Sunday afternoon and as we were walking back he tripped over an exposed grate and fell onto the gravel of the courtyard before I was able to catch him. Luckily, he really only bruised his knee but I hope that doesn't have other complications. I help him struggle to his feet and was able to get him medical attention from the nurses. I was worried about his well being but he waved my concerns away and said the Italian equivalent to "Shit happens."
In my poetry workshop we're focusing on Ovid's Metamorphoses and in our Poetry and the Visual Arts course we're reading works by Elizabeth Bishop as well as various other ekphrastic works including Homer's description of Achilles' Shield in the Iliad.
Out of class I've been obsessed with an Italian author, Italo Calvino, and the English translation of his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, a collection of lectures he was supposed to give before his unexpected death at Harvard which centers around his thoughts about literature. His lecture on "Lightness" is particularly captivating and pertinent because it is just this quality that my writing professors have stressed--to be light and quick, rather than heavy and overbearing on the reader. "Take the weight out of language to the point that it resembles moonlight." Also, I'm currently reading an excellent biography of Caravaggio written by Hellen Langdon. It was one of the books alluded to by Ingrid D. Rowland, an art historian at Notre Dame, whose From Heaven to Arcadia I finished during one reading intensive day last week. She's in Rome for the semester as well, and a friend of Professor Clarvoe's so hopefully we'll be able to tour museums with her.
It looks as if I may be going to Venice this weekend. I'm psyched to see some Giorgione and Titian. Also, an intern on the program, Kenyon '09, and I are planning on a trip up to Parma in the near future to check out Correggio's decoration of the Parma Cathedral, of which I did extensive research my freshman year.
Phew! Until next time!
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