I’m not a Christian, and certainly not a Catholic. In fact, my beliefs fall pretty much opposite of what anyone could reasonably define as “spiritual,” with the exception that I’m certain there’s a troll living under the Fletcher Dr. bridge. And when it comes to art, my tastes lie with Richard Serra’s monumental, twisted steel plates or Ellsworth Kelly’s radiating colored shapes. Yet despite all of that, the greatest work of art I’ve ever seen, the one that I hope aliens find when they descend upon our dead civilization after following the electromagnetic trail of an ancient Red Lobster commercial, is Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
No photos of the chapel can prepare you for the real thing. Looking at an image of a single panel of the ceiling is like looking at a single frame of a movie, and looking at an image of the whole ceiling is like looking at that movie’s print unspooled across a pool table. The scope of the work just can’t be reproduced in two dimensions. But I’ve just discovered the Vatican’s high-res virtual tour of the chapel, and it comes as close as possible.
More… »
I haven’t posted many pictures of us lately, and since my mother and mother-in-law are the only people still reading this blog and that’s what they want to see, here are a bunch. (We’re having a lovely time in Barcelona, by the way. It’s like New York with LA’s weather.)
-
-
Suomenlinna, Helsinki, FInland
-
-
Narivk, Norway
-
-
Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy
-
-
St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City
-
-
Krakow, Poland
-
-
Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland
-
-
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
-
-
Rome, Italy
Categories: Madejcal Mystery Tour | Tags: around the world, Barcelona, Finland, helsinki, Italy, krakow, narvik, Norway, Poland, Rome, Spain, vatican city, VeniceClick here to comment
My apologies to Civitavecchia which is not in fact the “dingy outskirts of Rome” but actually a rather tony suburb filled with restaurants and hotels and even a block full of carnival games and Italian teenagers. The ferry ticket office, tastefully positioned between the shipping containers and Ms. Bikini beachwear outlet, had enough tickets available not just for us but also for the entirety of the Swiss Guard and their tailors had we happened to bring them along.
The ferry ride itself was pleasant enough, though I was forced to watch most of the video for Sting’s “We’ll be Together” in the ship’s bar. We arrived in Barcelona and over the last four hours have found it to be warm and full of delicious Catalonian food and weird Modernisme architecture and with an easily navigable metro system with ticket machines that are eager to take our money. And that’s all we could ask for.
