Part two of the European Adventure: it’s Florence. Go HERE for more allegorical battery.
Pass it along, if you wish
50 Responses to Sir Kenneth Clark, I have arrived
Host with the Most
First again! (I need to get more sleep.)
“Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”
Have you noticed that the women in the ancient sculptures have, well, normal bodies? You don’t look at Helen in that sculpture and think “Someone give that poor woman a cheeseburger!”
On a more local note: Crime in Minnesota is out of control!
I hear Europe’s supposed to have some pretty ok Grub.
In my town I have to go easy on the local sophisticates – a nasal voice wears me down fast – but once, to one, I rashly ventured the following commonplace: Europe is eye candy. To my amazement, she thought this not just an insight but a compliment.
Perhaps with a few more beers inside of me, I might have added: many Americans think pampering makes people lazy and that is bad, but most Europeans think pampering makes people quiet and that is good. European antipathy to America ranges, I think, from wildly overestimated to wholly imaginary – I myself have never met with any – but European awareness and incomprehension of Americans are quite real. They can tell we’re…unsubdued. Even before we open our mouths. It’s in our very body language. We look what indeed we are: people who live in big houses, people whose fences are far away. Cosset us all you want, we still won’t change.
Shame you couldn’t get into the Uffizi, James; it’s pretty amazing. I visited there on a whirlwind rental car tour of Western Europe in 1990, and there was no line to get in for some reason. This was a few years before the Mafia detonated a car bomb outside. I took a fair amount of art history in college, especially for an Accounting major, so it was a real thrill to see all that stuff in person.
I’d be interested to hear your take on it, but in my limited experience, the best-behaved tourists in these venues were usually Americans; the Euro types on holiday seemed pretty casual about rules and such.
My, but that’s a lot to take in during a single day. Curious: Does one feel rushed, to get in a much as you possibly can, before having to reassemble at the rally point? I’ve yet to do a tour where my schedule wasn’t dictated by that of the group.
Florence certainly is a lot to take in in a single day. Imagine doing New York city in one day. Since our host didn’t mention it, the Basilica in Santa Croce, by the way, has the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo, among others.
Yes, Europe is eye candy in a good way. I’m sure tourists in the US think of our cities as eye candy, but very differently. And Americans do act differently than Europeans in their body language. There are also other, easier giveaways, at least for men: American adult men wear shorts and athletic shoes, and/or baseball caps. Americans are generally louder, more optimistic and “innocent” (for lack of a better word), whereas Europeans seem more world-weary. This isn’t meant to start a flame war, just my own observations–fill in your own observations as you like.
@wiredog: lordy, heavens, fetch up the whiskey and shotguns, Ma, we’re under attack!
or, if on the Norwegian Riviera: well, ya, sure then ya betcha, then, Lena, it looks like we lost the ice cream here, then. ya suppose we should get some gas on the car and go down the Expressway to Daloot, and call for the sheriff, sure. better ya let the dogs in, then.
Well, as to that inscription: TI IULIO AUG I would be the Emperor Tiberius (Tiberius Julius Augustus Imperator). Maybe the statue was a gift from Mnester to Tiberius.
Slow day around here. Time to stir things up by linking ot a picture of Miss atomic Test, Las Vegas, 1954!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/3813609304/in/set-72157622015478740
So, was Europeans behavior the same before they stopped killing each other or were they more American – like before. . . don’t mention the war?
German tourists in America seem to act pretty much like say, nice Canadian tourist and hard to tell apart until they talk or you see them pop into their rented RVs. I think “Romance language” tourists must stick to the big cities, I hardly ever notice them.
When my then-fiance-now-wife was in Firenze in 1978 and visited that same cathedral, a nun placed a shawl over her shoulders because she was in a sundress. Nice to see their standards of modesty haven’t changed.
Did your room in Florence have a view? Sorry, can’t help it. I adore that book and the film made of it. I half expected to see Miss Honeychurch wandering about with her Baedeker in your photos. It sort of sounds like you enjoyed Florence, but can’t really tell. I’d like to know (eventually) which city you liked best on your visits.
@wiredog: you are begging for a day of nasty fallout jokes.
personally, I believe I’ve been blinded by Science.
@wiredog, it’s the end of the world as we know it and she feels marvelous!
I, too, noticed how the Northern Italians hated the Southern Italians. It is the same everywhere. The Swiss hate the Germans, the Germans hate the French, the English hate the Irish, the Koreans hate the Japanese who hate the Chinese, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseum.
Maybe someday we can live together.
One other interesting fact I noticed in Italy. All of the natives were very friendly and open but everyone lives behind seriously strong fences and gates. This is not just the rich neighborhoods but everywhere. I guess this is the result of 1000 years of semi-continuous warfare.
How wonderful – glad to hear that you had such a great time. Love the photos – it’s like perusing stills from “A Room with a View”.
Too bad you were tied to the ship and had to miss certain attractions due to time constraints. will you be going back and if so, would you do it on your own to hit those sites you missed this time around?
all those stone chippers seemed to have missed the clothing sculpting class.
@bgbear
Collect the whole set!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/sets/72157622015478740/with/3813609304/
@bgbear: have you ever worn a marble tunic? It resists water well, but it just doesn’t breathe.
Good point Dave.
Nice thing about being naked in marble is that if you put on a few pounds, you just chisel it away and you are ready for the beach (caution: deep water wading not recommended).
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto!
I, too, found it hard to tell if OGH actually enjoyed Florence in the same way he enjoys 1950s (American) graphic design. I know the tendency on this site is to poo-poo Europeans, but it’s our cultural heritage, too. We Americans can still get more inspiration from the colors, the shapes, the food. Everything is the same, but different!
_@_v – swiped the ice cream? off dah! thank goodness he didn’t get the lutefisk…
I am afraid, that that investigation will have to go into the “cold case” files.
OGH: “. . . the clerk, upon learning we were Americans, turned frosty.”
Funny how I’ve never seen an American give an Italian tourist the cold shoulder, and we weren’t the ones allied with Nazi Germany. Oops, I mentioned The War, but I think I got away with it.
@shesnailie: take all that slop you want.
note that about the time that comment was posted, a 5.9 earthquake hit central Virginia, with some mild damage to old buildings (BBT building) and the spire toppled off National Cathedral. felt up to New York and down to NC.
heh, and some folks still don’t think the government and economy are shaky. colorado had a good jolt in the past day, too.
in other news, power is out at the U of M main campus, medical building to the Walker Art museum. there are no more HP TouchPads to be had. limited cross-silo action today in PopCrush. BofA stock is down to january, 2009 levels.
it would appear we are all doomed. DOOMED!!! Count Floyd needs another beeerrrrrr.
hey swschrad, maybe a federal check bounced
Here on the west coast, a 5.9 is a “meh, did you feel that?” quake. Building codes and such (developed the hard way) and lots of mini-quakes have inured us the “Oh my god, we had an EARTHQUAKE!” excitement I’m seeing on Twitter and CNN.
I don’t freak out easily, but after what happened to Japan this year, I am so freaking prepared for an earthquake I could feed and house half my block.
I’ll take a 5.9 any day. I’m concerned about the 9.0.
But, throw a Category 1 hurricane our way and you would think the world WAS ending.
I happened to be in the Men’s Room when the tremors hit here in North Jersey. I didn’t feel anything, but when I came out everybody was in a panic! I guess it’s because the loo is in the core of the building.
Since I’m the building’s Fire Marshall, several people asked me what they should do. “Do? The building isn’t shaking, the power is still on. Go back to work, that’s what you should do!”
Kids….
Our DC office closed. I think the phone lines/internet may be out and for a firm like ours, that pretty much brings everything to a halt.
Also, I am sure folks just want to get home to make sure the kids/dog/cat/ferret/hamster/goldfish/crystal vase is OK.
I really can’t blame those folks in Virginia. No warning and next thing you know stuff is moving around. It’s a little more unnerving than a hurricane since you don’t get much notice. I imagine the fear is similar to a tornado. Our little 6.9 shaker we had in Seattle a while ago sure made for a nerve wracking day.
@bgbear: HEY1 QUIT THAT SHAKING! the President is trying to putt!!!
reports from the big 3 ILECs say the infrastructure core is working. distributed stuff might easily fall prey to local power outages, stuff falling on aerial lines, etc. probably no visible faults on the ground, i.e. Evel Knievel looking over the mondo cracks to see if he can get a crowd to pay for him to jump ‘em.
like you get out there in the sometimes-State
looking around our 110-year-old brick building, interiors heavy timber, I think if things started shaking, I’d hit the stairwells first thing. and if I started sliding, hey, make the turns and hit the door running.
I’m sure I am the closest bleatnik to the quake. I am less than 30 miles from the epicenter, which was south of Louisa, VA. We are a couple hundred miles from NoVA and DC.
Sure it is a meh quake by CA standards, but I have never felt an earthquake before. I was standing in my kitchen, and felt a rumble, which rapidly got strong and noisy. The reason it was particularly alarming was because it was increasing over time. How do you know where the top is? Not only that, the thought “earthquake” dod not enter my head for several seconds. I thought the furnace was exploding, somebody was trying to push the house over with a bulldozer…The house started making a “boom boom boom” noise and I ran out into theyard, just in time for it to stop. My wife immediately called from 60 miles east, to say “Did you feel that?” Her Richmond VA hospital was evacuated.
If this happens again, maybe I will be able to say “ho hum, another earthquake”. But for my first, all I could say was “gimme a minute ta clean out mah pants”.
For you folks who normally don’t live in earthquake country, you eventually realize that you hear them coming. I assume the sounds of shaking stuff moves faster in the air than the shock waves in the ground.
oh and that sounds pretty hairy Harry. take care.
Have you played ‘Assassin’s Creed II or Assassin’s Creed: The Brotherhood’? You get a virtual world of Florence, Rome, etc. during the Renaissance and get the scale the outside the Duomo.
There’s a bogus space aliens leaving artifacts plot behind the scenes but mercifully you spend far more of the time checking out the sites, giving bad guys a shiv in the back, hiring courtesans, riding a horse out to the Colosseum, and rambling through the arcades. Really, how many video games make it a point for you to buy painting from art dealers throughout a virtual world?
And don’t belittle my Earthquake, guys. It’s MY earthquake. It’s like Angela’s Shark in Right Ho, Jeeves (anyone?…anyone?…Buhler?)
We’re OK. The damage is laughable. A clock fell off a wall and shattered. Dishes rattled in place but did not launch themselves. A potted palm toppled off a table. A Simpsons diorama (Burns head on Robot, Dog Smithers, etc) and other curiosa which perch on my bookshelves made a dive for the floor.
It has certainly given us something to talk about here in Buckingham County.
As someone once said, or not, “You go to a ‘quake with the Earth you’ve got.” And if it isn’t your Earth, you sort of feel exempt. I believe the only tremors I have ever felt were in Mexico City, which is not Eye Candy or even Eye Sucrose Molecule, and I just got the idea that if Mexico City had a receptionist, the receptionist would wearily say, “Yeah, we can fit you in. We fit everything in.” The only earthquake aftermath I ever saw was in eastern Turkey, and it too barely contrasted with local architectural norms.
If we had a quake in Texas, though, I am sure my reaction would be entirely other. Glad people up North could say, “Go back to work, that’s what you should do!” That’s the Cry of Triumphant Life.
Man, am I jealous! I’ve wanted to go to Florence all my life! It’s a screaming shame you could not wait around for the Uffizi; it’s worth the wait, it’s one of the world’s greatest art galleries. Anyway, if you want to see (and appreciate) the WORK they had to do to clean that city up (especially Santa Croce), read “Florence Rises From The Flood” by Joseph Judge in the July 1967 National Geographic. Where you were standing, the flood-waters were 23 feet deep . . . it was not just water, it was also mud, sewage, carrion and fuel oil. That flood destroyed nearly a million books, and lots and lots of paintings and statues.
And that’s C A R A B I N I E R I, James!!! And yes, the Italians are racist as hell. You should hear what they say about Sicilians.
I’m glad you guys had fun!
This was a nice post to read. Having spent my junior-high years in Florence during the late 70s while my father was on a Fulbright, this post brought back memories.
I’m sorry Lileks didn’t get more time to explore the astonishing artistic and architectural sights in Florence. He should go back with his family some time. Not in the Summer, though, so he could visit the Uffizi, the Accademia, and the Medici chapel without crowds. Along with the many della Robbia chapels and the real Ghiberti panels.
We lived in a Medici hunting villa not far from the Pitti Palace. Our parents bought us bus passes and let us explore downtown Florence at our leisure. My sister and I were 12 and 10. Another age…
I look forward to the Rome post, since I lived there for 3 years after college. Now that was fun…
_@_v – hopefully you got pix of caesar’s palace….
I happen to come across many Euro tourists in a large national park in the west where I go many times a year. They are for the most part fine folks, and they seem to dig the place and most Americans they encounter. Perhaps they are more “American” than the average Euro who goes to a few cities back east and never get west of the Appalachians. Instead, I see couples or families that, say, fly to Seattle and rent a car and drive around the west for a few weeks and then fly back from San Francisco.
Interestingly, the most common answer to “what surprised you most about the US” question is how big and empty so much of America is. I suppose if you get out of Manhattan and drive from Reno to Salt Lake you’d agree.
Oh dear, I didn’t mean to belittle anyone’s earthquake : ( That’s why I said that if a Category 1 hurricane hit here, we’d be scrambling! If you don’t know what’s happening, it’s scary, and having CNN go all “OMG” (which is what it seemed like) doesn’t help.
My point was our buildings (the newer ones) are built to handle that sort of thing out here, and we take ‘em in stride.
But I know they are scary and I didn’t mean for anyone to think I was making light of the event : (
@Kim: Just kidding, no hurt feelings here.
@houlter Oh thank goodness! That’s the last thing I want to do to a fellow Bleatnik! : )
@hpoulter: Yes, you’re closer to the epicenter than I am (Durham, NC) but my daughter’s wedding in April was at her lake house in…Mineral, Va. So I’m claiming “relative” closeness. By the way, all my wife’s family are from Appomattox and Prince Edward counties.
@lileks: That WAS a gorgeous photograph. Although at first I thought you were referring to the naked fascisti as your favorite.
It may seem strange, but if I ever get to Rome (been about everywhere else in Europe, but never made it there) the first place I’d go is Via Margutta 51. Google it. “Roman Holiday” is one of my favorite movies. I live the optimistic post-war Europe vibe. I was living in Germany in 1953 but was only 6 years old. Would love to go back to that period as an adult (speaking of time travel, as we were when lileks was on vacation).
Meant “love the optimistic post-war vibe.” Sorry.
Sir Kenneth Clark? No, I believe he was knocked down in the first by Jack Bodell, who became the new Oxford Professor of Fine Art.
Well, I didn’t encounter Beverly during my one Italian sojourn in 2004 and I was curious. I just went to the World of CocaCola museum in Atlanta where, in part, there is a tasting of a gajillion sodas the CocaCola Company produces all around the world. In the Europe category? BEVERLY! Aaaand? OK, I hated it like everyone else.