Why does Beauty matter?

Whenever I think of the reasons why some people are (or seem to be) happier or more serene than most, I always wonder if it has something to do with how they perceive things and other people. I'll just write about what I've observed around me since I'm not a sociologist/psychologist...

I watched the film American Beauty recently -- for the 3rd or 4th time -- and everytime I watch this film it gets better. This time I decided that the character Rick Fitts, the son of the in-the-closet Marine Col. is the most important character in the film. He appears to be a problematic guy at the start of the film but really, he's the only person in the story who isn't unhappy. I think this is because he sees Beauty, his eyes are always opened to see it and his soul ready to receive it. This gives him strength to endure his father's violent self-denial and abuse, and his mother's catatonia. His calm, poised stance in the face of verbal and physical abuse, prejudice, and fear, comes from his knowledge that whatever happens he would still rather live and make every effort to do so in the best possible way than to give up and become a zombie walking aimlessly in a shopping mall. I think this is because of Beauty.

Beauty -- and I give it a capital B because I am not only speaking about aesthetic beauty as accepted by critics or philosophers or even the aesthetic tradition of the Ancients, but rather the Beauty that transcends, the essence in things, their core (each person has his own idea about it)-- is to me the only thing which makes life alive. People who have given up seeing it or who for some reason have ceased to believe in its existence have no real purpose. I've observed this in many museums. Listless bodies wrapped in gray cloth walking from painting A to painting B all the way thru to painting Z as if they were in the supermarket, checking items off their list as they go. "Mona Lisa? Check. Déjeuner sur l'herbe? Check. Venus de Milo? Check". They take photos sometimes, when they're not worried about being seen as tourists; other times they don't take photos but those are the ones who go to museums to be able to say they've been, not to see anything. Not really SEE. Obviously some go to see, and they're easy to spot: they stand for a long time in front of one piece; sometimes they close their eyes in front of it. Moving.

This might sound rather brazen, but it is what I've seen and felt in most of these places. People who were going there to be seen, not to see; parading around a gallery in order to feel good about themselves, rather like in the olden times: going to church to appease their conscience and especially to make sure everyone saw them there, thus securing a position as upstanding members of polite society. Ardent, genuine faith was then as enthusiastic admiration and genuine emotion is now. Non-existent.

"Artists" who don't believe in Beauty aren't capable of making anyone see it, either. And there are many such artists today. Too bad. People who insist, tiresomely, that art is useless. What a shame.

Are we really only matter? Only DNA? Then why do people who have every material possession that can be bought get depressed? Chemical imbalance. OK. Why do they get sad? Because yes...there is such a thing as sadness! It isn't all about depression. Dissatisfaction, emptiness. These feelings and words come up quite a bit in middle and upper-class circles. A sense of incompleteness. World-weary doesn't cover it, though it is, I suppose, how it starts. Chic-blasé. And then you can't shake it, it takes over, everything means the same, everyone is identical in their mediocrity. No one's eyes are more brilliant than everyone else's. Why bother?

Whether one believes in God or not, it isn't particularly controversial to say that when we are in the presence of something beautiful, grand, extraordinary, whether it be out in nature, or looking at a painting, or listening to a piece of music, or looking at a special face; or reading words which make us cry or laugh... we feel a sense of more, of infinity. It is fresh to find ourselves before something far greater than us, to know that there is continuity, charm in life. Power. Maybe that's called faith, but maybe it's only the ability to sense the ephemeral and intangible, because everything else rots, invariably. Beauty, like truth, like music, stays.

I've noticed that when one stops sensing Beauty with one's heart, the next step is becoming physically blind/deaf to it; the soul withers away. Dead while technically alive. Souldead.

Finally, Beauty does effectively disappear from one's life. Because it is alive, and it doesn't stay where it won't be able to live.

Human Nature and Justice

or

How I've come to like & admire Noam Chomsky even if I don't agree with everything he says

This Saturday we're going to a Noam Chomsky lecture here in Paris. This has been one of the things I've dreamed about ever since I've become acquainted with his work-- at first in the field of linguistics while I was studying modern languages, and then his analyses on politics.

I read quite a few of his political texts and books and watched a few lectures and debates (online). Once one gets used to (and past) his... shall we say overly academic writing style, his thoughts and line of reasoning (and his penchant for irony) become familiar and enjoyable rather quickly.

Nevertheless, I don't want to turn this post into a political tract. Rather, I'd like to share the video of his debate with Michel Foucault, an influential (and dead, alas) French sociologist whose work ranges from a comprehensive study on human sexuality to a history of madness and mental institutions through the prism of power. In other words, Foucault posits that power is the single most important element when analyzing systems of any type, religious, political, educational, etc. Chomsky, on the other hand, is far keener on the idea that a sense of justice has a greater role in society -- or at least in individual relationships -- than many give it credit.

The debate that follows is an exploration of how these two concepts - justice & power - influence institutions, but it is also, and perhaps more importantly, an attempt to explain or define (or even decide whether it exists at all!) human nature and whether a sense of justice (innate) or the idea of power (inculcated) is more significant in human and political/socioeconomic relationships.

PS I think Foucault wins the debate though I agree with Chomsky -- but I'll let you decide for yourself-- aren't I just?

PPS You can find the whole debate in print: The Chomsky-Foucault Debate On Human Nature

I didn't say I knew him...

"The sun seems to pour itself down, and pours itself in every direction, but it is not emptied. For this is an extension, and its rays are so named because of their extension. You can observe this if you watch sunlight shining through some narrow crack in a dark room. It extends itself in a straight line until it encounters some solid body which stops its extension. There the light rests, and it does not move or fall off.

This is how the pouring and diffusion of the mind must be, for it is not a pouring out, but rather an extension of itself; and it should not make a violent or angry impact upon whatever stands in its way; nor should it simply fall away, but rather it should stand firm and illuminate whatever receives it. Whatever does not accept it and help it on its way only deprives itself of the light."

The Essential Marcus Aurelius, (2008) translated & introduced by Needleman & Piazza

Everything is good, oh and green

Since yesterday I vented about what went wrong during the weekend and the trip back home, today I want to share something cheerful, different, pleasing to the eye (I hope!), that surprised me when I saw it.

On Saturday we went on a day trip to a place called Mount Grace Priory. It's the ruins of an XI Century monastery founded by Carthusian monks in North Yorkshire.

The ruins themselves didn't impress me much, especially after our trip to Rome, though the reconstruction of an authentic room was rather successful and impressive.

What really caught my attention wasn't man-made though. It was a tree, but not just any tree. I'm not super keen on trees usually; I like them but after a while they become...invisible. They blend with their surroundings and have to be special -- or solitary -- in order to stand out. Like sheep.

I want to live in this one though.

Surrealist Reality

Ok so...it happened again. Britain trip over the weekend. Uneventful. No, not entirely true-- it didn't rain once. That in itself is an event when it comes to Britain, especially Northern Britain, especially York.

Anyway, we were supposed to come back on Sunday evening but of course...of course...the volcano erupted again and we were, once more, stuck in our holiday destination, if indeed one can refer to York as such. And in my sometimes absurd optimism (!!!) I thought I'd never get another opportunity to talk about a volcano again, especially the beastly Icelandic one, unless I decided to study for a degree in geology, but I digress...

After the initial horror and the ongoing, absolute disgust at the thought of having to deal with the ghastly low-cost low-thinking airline company to get a refund, or try to rebook this cursed flight, we found ourselves wondering about how to get back. There were no flights available; the trains were all booked with the exception of 1st class, which was unsurprisingly astronomically priced. Not having wings, we had one choice left: the horrendous bus.

Oh...oh the desperation one feels at that moment...knowing one will be glued to a stinky seat for 15 hours...the sheer horripilation, the helplessness, powerlessness...lessnessnesses a go go. I even shed a weak and solitary tear which ran down my cheek timidly, but which still managed to smudge my mascara and stain a rather nice cashmere pullover, but again...this is immaterial. Cashmere won't get me home, will it?

So yesterday afternoon we start making our way to the first of three buses we ended up having to take. From York to Leeds, Leeds to London, and London to Paris via the English Channel ferry. Absolute dread.

Or would have been, had it not been for the surreal part of the trip. You thought it was the volcano erupting twice in under a month and us being so unlucky that we found a way to be caught twice by it, didn't you? Well...it wasn't that. Not only, anyway.

It gets better. Or worse. I'm not sure yet. Certainly funnier. It's also long, though, so if you've read up to here thinking you're three-quarters of the way through this post, I suggest you go get yourself a glass of water, a cushion and make yourself more comfortable, because the story this entry is about begins here! I'll wait.

...

... ... ...

Come on, hurry up!

... ... ...

OK, ready?

So we take the bus in Leeds... I have my iPod on full volume playing Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name (the invective was directed at the volcano), so I can't hear the driver and Jules arguing at first. When I notice it, I press pause and try to figure out what the problem is. This is when I notice the driver's accent, which could be classified in two main categories: a) general-purpose Northern English from Leeds/York and b) virtually unintelligible. I'm rather good at language though, so I manage a few words such as "I didn't know, did I?" and "where's thas ticket?" He was complaining- loudly- that Jules had boarded the bus without showing him the tickets. So far so fair.

We board it. There aren't two seats together available, so I sit more or less in the middle of the bus and Jules goes to the back. About 10mins after we'd started for London, the driver starts making a safety announcement on the microphone. All the usual things about seatbelts and emergency exits, leaving luggage on floor and what-not.

I turned my iPod off so I could hear what he was saying, and also because I was rather intrigued by his accent.

How surprised was I then when he starts detailing the manner in which we're supposed to dispose of our rubbish during the ride ("make sure the small plastic bag by your seat is properly closed") and how long we were allowed to talk on the mobile phone ("no more than an hour or your phone will be taken away from you"). At this point I started to chuckle. I had not imagined a safety announcement on a 2-hr bus drive could last more than...30 seconds. His had gone on for over 10 minutes at this point.

It was nothing compared to what followed. He heard someone laughing and became very annoyed. And the more annoyed he got, the louder the laughter became. Something about the washing of hands after going to the loo was mentioned, and at this point I simply burst out laughing, a laughter that came from deep within my soul, which erupted from my gut like the magma from inside the Icelandic volcano. "I will finish this announcement AS SOON AS THE CLOWN WHO'S LAUGHING NOW STOPS!" Guffaw. I laughed so hard that I thought I'd pass out. The more he screamed on that mic the less I could help it, and it became a comedy sketch, almost as if we'd planned the whole thing. People all around me started to giggle, and the driver became positively furious.

Indeed, his contempt for me grew to such an extent that he threatened to have me removed from the bus!!! "I WILL tell the next driver and your ticket will be INVALID and you will be proseCUTED! There is CCTV cam-russ spread all over this coach and we WILL find out who you are!! Is THIS funny? Is it?" Yes! It is! And so I laughed more. Oh how I laughed. A hot, round, ungovernable, boisterous laugh which ended up by extracting another solitary tear from my eye, but this one did not stain any pullover as I wasn't wearing one.

At this point, under comical duress, I put my hand up and say through my laughter "I'm sawwwrry, it's me, I'm laughing, but it isn't at you hahahahaha". But he wouldn't have any of it. He wanted me OFF THAT BUS! He started to cite legal articles left right and centre that would allow him to do it, and threatened...threatened...and then he said he's been a driver for 40 years and he's never been treated with such rudeness. And on. And ON. And I laughed and laughed.

This is when a brave woman at the front decided to stand up for Freedom of Laughter. She called him on his aggression in the face of such good-natured appreciation for his comedic skills and said he was going too far now, that enough was enough, that you simply cannot - cannot! expel people from a bus merely because they're laughing, and certainly not after they'd apologized so humbly.

I thought I'd have to invoke freedom of speech and that made me laugh even more and even harder and with renewed vitality. Imagine! Freedom of speech on a bus! Caused by a safety announcement! I even had my words ready in my head: "well, if I can laugh at Her Majesty Queen Lizzie the 2nd, and if I can laugh at the Prime Minister -- uh, who is he again? - why can't I laugh at a stupid, surreal safety announcement that presupposes I'm a total idiot, on a bus from Leeds to London?!?! Are you the driver or my mother?" But yes, you guessed it. I did not say any of these things because I couldn't stop laughing and because he apologized quickly "I'm sorry I was a bit off"; so I spent the next 30 mins trying to stop chuckling by turning the iPod back on, feeling slightly sorry for the brute, and smiling at how pointless, pathetic, meaningless, ridiculous my entire weekend had been. I certainly wasn't going to ruin my make-up by crying.

That man will never know how much joy he brought me yesterday.

Notice the detail: word written on ground in front of bus.

Travelling Without Moving

Today we're off to York.

I've been informed it's very cold there at the moment so I guess it isn't difficult to imagine how much that fills me with joy.

In case the question "why are you blogging instead of packing/going to the airport?" pops into your head - and it would be quite a sensible question, afterall-- I refer you to the title of this rather engaging entry (!). *I* have packed, but not everyone that's coming with me has...

I will save some of the whining for when we arrive in the rain/cold/gray/wind.

Back on Sunday.

Cheerio, ta-ta, och aye hoots, &c.! (yes I know this last one is Scottish but York is only a stone's throw from the land of whiskey & porridge. Plus which, they all look the same to me!)

I feel hollow inside.

Maybe exactly like Sartre felt.

Read on.

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

by Marty Smith.

From The Free Agent, March 1987 (a Portland, Oregon alternative newspaper).

---

We have recently been lucky enough to discover several previously lost diaries of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre stuck in between the cushions of our office sofa. These diaries reveal a young Sartre obsessed not with the void, but with food. Aparently Sartre, before discovering philosophy, had hoped to write "a cookbook that will put to rest all notions of flavor forever.'' The diaries are excerpted here for your perusal.

October 3

Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for a Denver omelet.

October 4

Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

October 6

I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.

October 7

Today I again modified my omelet recipe. While my previous attempts had expressed my own bitterness, they communicated only illness to the eater. In an attempt to reach the bourgeoisie, I taped two fried eggs over my eyes and walked the streets of Paris for an hour. I ran into Camus at the Select. He called me a "pathetic dork" and told me to "go home and wash my face." Angered, I poured a bowl of bouillabaisse into his lap. He became enraged, and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw. propelleing the wrapper into my eye. "Ow! You dick!" I cried. I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled.

October 10

I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:

Tuna Casserole

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish

Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustrated.

October 12

My eye has become inflamed. I hate Camus.

October 25

I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Rather, I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work, I produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons of beef, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.

November 15

I feel that I may be very close to a great breakthrough. I had been creating meal after meal, but none seemed to express the futility of existence any better than would ordering a pizza. I left the house this morning in a most depressed state, and wandered aimlessly through the streets. Suddenly, it was as if the heavens had opened. My brain was electrified with an influx of new ideas. "Juice, toast, milk.." I muttered aloud. I realized with a start that I was one ingredient away from creating the nutritious breakfast. Loathsome, true, but filled with existential authenticity. I rushed home to begin work anew.

November 18

Today I tried yet another variation: Juice, toast, milk and Chee-tos. Again, a dismal failure. I have tried everything. Juice, toast, milk and whiskey, juice, toast, milk and chicken fat, juice, toast, milk and someone else's spit. Nothing helps. I am in agony. Juice, toast, milk, they race about my fevered brain like fire, like an unholy trinity of cruel denial. And the fourth ingredient! What could it be? It eludes me like the lost chord, the Holy Grail. I must see the completion of my task, but I have no more money to spend on food. Perhaps man is not meant to know.

November 21

Camus came into the restaurant today. He did not know I was in the kitchen, and before I sent out his meal I loogied in his soup. Sic semper tyrannis.

November 23

Ran into some opposition at the restaurant. Some of the patrons complained that my breakfast special (a page out of Remembrance of Things Past and a blowtorch with which to set it on fire) did not satisfy their hunger. As if their hunger was of any consequence! "But we're starving," they say. So what? They're going to die eventually anyway. They make me want to puke. I have quit the job. It is stupid for Jean-Paul Sartre to sling hash. I have enough money to continue my work for a little while.

November 24

Last night I had a dream. In it, I am standing, alone, on a beach. A great storm is raging all about me. It begins to rain. Night falls. I am struck by how small and insignificant I am, how the entire race of Man is but a speck in the eye of God, and I am but a speck of humanity. Suddenly, a red Cadillac convertible pulls up beside me. In it are these two beautiful girls named Jojo and Wendy. I get in and they take me to their mansion in Hollywood and give me a pound of cocaine and make mad, passionate love to me for the rest of my life.

November 26

Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a live beaver, challenging the very definition of the word "cake." I was very pleased. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet, and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker Bake-Off.

November 30

Today was the day of the Bake-Off. Alas, things did not go as I had hoped. During the judging, the beaver became agitated and bit Betty Crocker on the wrist. The beaver's powerful jaws are capable of felling blue spruce in less than ten minutes and proved, needless to say, more than a match for the tender limbs of America's favorite homemaker. I only got third place. Moreover, I am now the subject of a rather nasty lawsuit.

December 1

I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week for two months, and I am now experiencing light tides. It is stupid to be so fat. My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less. From now on, I will live on cigarettes and black coffee.

_____

Sartre died in Paris in 1981. [Note from Spade: He did not. He died on April 15, 1980.] His last word is reputed to have been, simply, "Trix."

Supreme Court Upholds Freedom Of Speech In Obscenity-Filled Ruling — The Onion

Excerpt from City of Charleston v. The Kanawha

Players:

"The plaintiff clearly brought this suit without reading the fucking Bill of Rights. I'm not referring to a thorough grounding in the subtleties of Constitutional law, but, rather, the 15 fucking seconds it takes to read Amendement I, Because after 230 goddamn years of the U.S. Constitution, the general citizenry ought to know their own First Fucking Amendment. But it seems that gang of hillbillies is too busy cornholing they's cuzzins to pick up a book, so in review: It doesn't matter how fucking annoying the speech is, nor how filthy the speech is, nor how fucking insufferable a douche-nozzle the speaker is; if we adopted the practice of suspending fundamental rights every time some dried-out cunt from the sticks was offended by the word "balls," this country would be fucked five ways from Fuddrucker's.

"It likewise bears noting that, even if everyone on this court got brain damage and ruled against protected speech, we're sure as fuck not starting on some harmless bullshit play. We'd start on that ignorant-ass, Bible-thumping, Fred Phelps homphobe shit. How would those Jesus-blowing backwoods cracker motherfuckers like that?"

-- Opinion of Justice Breyer

Justice Ginsburg wrote that those who dispute her interpretation of the Constitution can "shove a fat one so far up their ass they choke."

WASHINGTON—In a decisive and vulgar 7-2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court once again upheld the constitution's First Amendment this week, calling the freedom of expression among the most "inalienable and important rights that a motherfucker can have."

"It is the opinion of this court that the right to speak without censorship or fear of intimidation is fundamental to a healthy democracy," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. "Furthermore, the court finds that the right to say whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want, is not only a founding tenet, but remains essential to the continued success of this nation." Added Ginsburg, "In short, freedom of speech means the freedom of fucking speech, you ignorant cocksuckers."

The decision came Monday in response to the case of a Charleston, WV theater troupe that had been sued by city officials for staging a sexually explicit play with public funds. Reversing the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the theater, an outcome free-speech advocates are calling a victory and Justice Ginsburg called "a bitch-slap in the face of all those uptight limp-dicks."

The ruling in City of Charleston v. The Kanawha Players marks the first time in 220 years that the nation's highest court has taken such a fiercely profane stance.

During oral arguments, Charleston's chief counsel Dan Roy said his clients could restrict any public speech they deemed offensive, an argument quickly dismissed by Justice John Paul Stevens, 90, who turned to his colleagues and made a repeated up-and-down hand motion intended to simulate masturbation. "I'm beginning to wonder if you really understand what 'abridging the freedom of speech' means at all," said Stevens, a 34-year veteran of the court known for his often-nuanced interpretations of the First Amendment. "I'm also wondering whether you and your fat-faced plaintiffs over there need to have some respect for constitutionally protected expression fucked into your empty hick skulls."

Justice Clarence Thomas, who voted with the majority, wrote a concurring opinion in which he made little mention of established court precedents but emphasized that he himself had viewed materials "way, way nastier than this stupid play."

"I don't know what kind of bullshit passes for jurisprudence down in the 4th Circuit these days," Thomas wrote. "But those pricks can take their arguments about speech that 'appeals only to prurient interests' and go suck a dog's asshole."

Added Thomas, "Just suck it. Get in there and seriously suck it." Writing in dissent, however, Justice Antonin Scalia contemplated the limits of the constitutional guarantee of free speech.

"The court has an interest in protecting meaningful human communication, which is jeopardized when every other word out of someone's mouth is 'F this' or 'F that,'" Scalia wrote. "In practice, such an expansion of free expression becomes far too unwieldy and large to accommodate." To which Justice Ginsberg immediately replied, "Yeah, that's what his mom said."

Conservative constitutional scholars have criticized the Supreme Court's decision, calling it not only a license to provoke, but also an act of provocation in itself, one that saw several justices repeatedly refer to the plaintiffs as "fuckwits," "asshats," and "cumsacks" before informing them that with their appeals exhausted, their only remaining legal recourse would be to "piss up a rope or take two fists in the mommy slot." More than 18 months after the suit was first brought against the theater group, defense lawyers said the road to the Supreme Court was "hard as shit," but well worth it.

"This is a historic victory for free speech, and I wouldn't be surprised if, a hundred years from now, the hallowed walls of this court bear an inscription taken from the eloquent decision handed down today," lead defense attorney Carl Huddleston said. "Particularly the phrase 'That which erodes human rights serves to erode humanity, fuckface.'"

http://www.theonion.com/articles/supreme-court-upholds-freedom-of-speech-in-obsceni,17372/

dreams of hot Summer Sundays

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

by Mary Oliver

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.

It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.

The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.

The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white

feet of the trees

whose mouths open.

Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?

Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,

until at last, now, they shine

in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking

outward, to the mountains so solidly there

in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea

that was also there,

beautiful as a thumb

curved and touching the finger, tenderly,

little love-ring,

as he whirled,

oh jug of breath,

in the garden of dust?

Friday Fotolog Fest

Ahhh the weekend. The markets are down, morale is low, the Brits can't seem to be able to tell the world who their new non-leader will be... Who wants to work?

No one. Not even bloggers. So to try to make things more cheerful - or at least more relaxing - here are some of the photos I didn't post in the Rome trip entries (here's one I didn't make earlier!) May I suggest a glass of ouzo (ugh) or perhaps a chilled glass of retsina (yuck argh ew) while you look at these... and maybe the soundtrack could be Carl Orff's Carmina Burana if you're feeling more dramatic or just want to be transported far far away... Travelling without moving.

Mesdames et Messieurs:

Murals & Mosaics

This is a mosaic depicting Hylas who was attacked and abused by beautiful nymphs, and then made immortal. Lucky chap or what?

I can't remember what this is...but my sources tell me it depicts Roman chariot races. I'll just have to trust this info is accurate.

This is a favourite. It is a mural made for Livia's garden (no...not Livia Soprano, Livia Augustus's wife). This whole room is covered with it, on all walls, and the light changes gradually and almost imperceptibly to make some of elements in the painting (such as birds and insects) appear. It is one of the most intriguing rooms in the museum. Sophisticated.

Some chick looking at this stunning mosaic. It's so big one has to stand well away in order to photograph it all.

Slaughter scene.

The-8er masks.

Pegasus ! I love this one with a passion. No Medusa murals though I'm afraid...