BRUSCHETTA FOR TWO

Sometimes, rarely (okay, almost never, but still...), I feel that by blogging I am, in some small, personal way, helping the world to be better place.  That I am "giving back" or "paying it forward."  Uh-huh.  Well, today is one of those days.

Here is a simple, beautiful recipe for making a wonderful culinary treat. I call it “Bruschetta for Two.”

Ingredients
2 large slices of Italian or artisan bread
A few leaves of fresh spinach
1 -2 tomatoes, preferably Roma, depending on size 

Genoa Salami,
Mozzarella cheese
Whole olives
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Sea Salt, ground black pepper
Ground or freshly chopped oregano and/or basil leaves to taste.

First, gently toast one side of the bread in your broiler. I prefer the Pane Turano from Turano Bakery, personally, but any robust, high quality artisan bread should work. I recommend using a pizza stone, if you have one. While the bread is toasting, clean, dry, and trim a few leaves of fresh spinach. Be quick about it, though, or the bread will burn.

Take the bread out, but leave the broiler on. Flip both slices over so that the toasted side is down. Very lightly drizzle or brush a little olive oil on the untoasted side.

Slice the tomatoes as thin as possible, trim out any pithy parts.

Slice the 6-8 pieces of mozzarella, also thin, about 1/4”.

Slice the salami at the same thickness, then dice it. Genoa salami has this quirky, concentrated flavor that is really tasty. And it cooks very nicely.

Yum. REAL olives...not the tasteless, mealy little funky things they call "Spanish olives." I hated olives when I was a kid. Now I love them. It's good to be a grown-up.

Pit and slice the olives, testing two or three as you go to be sure they are as good as they look (oh, yeah).

Now you are ready to assemble your masterpiece:

Place the spinach leaves on the bread, followed by the tomato slices. Next come the olives (on mine, not on the wife’s) and then the diced salami. Now a dash of sea salt and a bit of freshly ground pepper (not shown, sorry).

Finally, top with the mozzarella slices.

Place them back in the hot oven, on the bottom shelf. Let it stay in there for 5 minutes or so, checking on it occasionally. It is done whenever you say it is, but I like for the mozz to be fully melted and just starting to bubble and brown.

And it will come out looking like this!

Remove from the oven and immediately place on serving plates. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and sprinkle a little of the oregano or basil on top.

And serve. 

At our house, we eat this two or three times a week. It is a very flexible, improvisatory dish that is different and delicious every time. You can add or substitute many ingredients with great results, such as artichoke hearts, lettuce, fresh or roasted bell peppers, garlic in any form, arugula (if you can find it), pesto, tomato sauce, onions chopped or stripped, pickled Italian veggies, smoked  salmon, anchovies, prosciutto(!), diced red cabbage, parmesan or romano cheese, roasted asparagus tips, zucchini, mushrooms, etc. 

I have been known to sprinkle on a little of the pre-mixed Alexander's Bread Dip Seasoning at the end, and it works great.  

You can even add a fried egg on top, serve it around 11:00 AM some lazy, overcast Saturday morning, and call it “Brunchetta for Two.”  Ouch.

This is a really fast, easy, and good recipe.  To insure success every time, just be sure to use fresh ingredients where possible, good bread, and the best olive oil that you can afford. Also, part of what seems to make this work so well every time is that no single ingredient is allowed to overpower another. It is the combination of the subtle savory flavors, harmonized by the olive oil and toasted bread that makes it so delicious.

The good stuff.

Facebook gets personal

Okay, so Facebook's idea of a clever advertising strategy is to put an ad like this on my Profile page:

48 and Overweight?

 

Fat burning green tea will get you in shape! Try it free.

Just pay shipping!

Of course, clicking on the above ad takes me to a webpage that describes in hyperbolic detail the life-changing effect that green tea tablets will have on my physique and pysche.  And it's free!  Just pay shipping!

Now, I ask you, what makes them think that I want to be insulted on my own Facebook page? Obviously, since I gave them my date of birth on signup, they are using that information to attempt a devious ploy.  I wonder what would have happened if I told them I was 103, would I still get the same invitation?  What percentage of 48-year olds have (or want) abs like this, do you think? And what other information from my profile are they bending to their nefarious marketing purposes?

Admittedly, I'm not built like I was 25 years ago when my metabolism first started winding down to it's present crawl, but I am still reasonably healthy and able-bodied for a geezer.  It is worthwhile to note, also, that is not only circumference, softness, and a general weathering that comes with age, but also at least a modicum of wisdom and understanding about the world. Two things I know: Green tea does not produce six-pack abs (see Buddha), and more importantly, if God intended for 48-year old men to have abs like that he would not have blessed the earth with pasta.  

Amen.

Water Striders

This website has some gorgeous photography and covers a fascinating scientific study. It documents research done recently by a couple of students at MIT on insects who walk on water. Among the amazing things that they've done is design and build a tiny robotic insect to mimic and simulate the movements of various insects.

"Yes, I get it. You don't like my country."

Here's a good article on the fallacy of being popular.  The author comments on a recent Congressional report bemoaning the fact that a lot of the world doesn't seem to like the United States of America these days.

I agree.  Popularity is overrated.

Apostrophe S

This is how big a geek I am. I think this is super duper funny.

Yeah, grammar humor. Because punctuation is a giggly good time for kids of all ages. Not to mention the talking dinosaurs.

The funny thing (usually) about qwantz.com is that every day there is a new one. The cartoon never changes. Not one pixel varies from day to day. Only the script.  And they've got cool T-shirts.

Facebook

I just joined Facebook.  

Against my better judgement.

What was I thinking?

UPDATE:  With a link to my actual Facebook profile.  Who knew there were other people with my name on Facebook?  Imposters, all of them.

----

Reason #1683 to despise the United Nations

Unbelievably, the UN delegate from Sri Lanka is floating the recommendation that the United Kingdom should dismantle its eons-old monarchy. 

The United Nations, as I've noted here before, could be the Anti-Christ except for the fact that it is the most relentlessly stupid organization in the world. It is a truly, deeply, hopelessly evil cabal of corrupt and powerful international criminals, yes.  It is an unfathomable waste of money, resources, and good NYC real estate, yes. But it is capable of a corporate IQ that measures somewhere just above that of dirt.

I don't need to point out the irony here, do I?  I mean everyone who is not a UN ambassador or toady can clearly see and understand the absurdity here, right?

No, the Anti-Christ, when he appears, will be way smarter.  So watch out.  

Amen.

How do it know?

Something that doesn’t make sense to me is how, after installing a new ink cartridge, in order to align the print heads on my printer, I must first print a sheet on my printer, which is then used by my scanner to perform the necessary calibrations.

That doesn’t make sense. This is the same printer that lies like a dead raccoon about the amount of ink that remains. Something is not right here.

Nearly Perfect

It is early Sunday morning, looking out across the east fork of the Niagara River from the second story patio of a beautiful house on the riverfront in Grand Island, New York. Here, in fact:


View Larger Map

Showered, with a fresh cup of strong coffee, watching the clouds roll in and the geese fly by, as I listen to Jeff Beck’s classic “Blow by Blow” and write. No one else is up yet, either in the house or in the neighborhood, except for the birds. I take that back...I do now see a couple of small boats in the far distance. The sun has just established itself, peering through the striated overcast cloud cover.

We arrived here on Friday evening, driving in from Indiana, meeting up with my brother and his family who drove up from Charlottesville, VA. My mom and grandma rode with us.

This trip, planned for nearly a year, was supposed to be a celebratory getaway to Niagara Falls, honoring my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. Their intention was to avoid the typical public hoopla and make it a more private event, a family vacation. My dad died in January, but my mom decided that it would still be a good thing to do, so here we are. And that demonstrates some of my mom’s great strengths, her vision for joy and beauty, her passion for her family, and a determination to embrace life no matter what comes.



Dad’s absence is as as palpable as his presence would be, but our sadness is tempered by our sure knowledge that he is even happier than we are. The only other person missing who would in most circumstances otherwise be here is my son, JP. We haven’t talked to him for a couple of weeks, but he is immersed in the Cavalier’s intense preseason camp. The drum corps, not the basketball team.

Yesterday we had a wonderful day on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. We went to the observatory deck of the Skylon Tower in the late morning, then had a great meal in the revolving restaurant. After that, all of us kids and grandkids rode the Maid of the Mist, which really exceeded all expectations. A water ride of the first order, wherein a big boat full of tourists in blue ponchos are ferried past the American Falls to the pool at the base of the magnificent Horseshoe Falls. The Maid then slowly turns and motors back, it’s passengers happily drenched and awed by a site of unparalleled natural beauty and astounding power.


It is almost impossible to describe the sights and sounds of this adventure. Go if you can, you will not regret it.

The neighborhood is now beginning to awaken. Not sure what we are doing today. Anything will be fine.

Here are a few more photos:

Heavy Weather

We live in that part of Indiana that is in the news currently for some pretty serious weather.  The storms raged for hours last night keeping us awake. It wasn't that it was that scary, really, it was just astoundingly loud for some 5 hours without ceasing. Here are some pictures that I took this morning from our front yard.


This shot is of our neighbor's house, across the street (Hwy. 27). That water behind their house is a creek that normally is not even remotely visible from my front porch.


I don't think the water actually reached their house, but it defintely flooded 80% of their yard, flooding their storage shed and drowning their garden. They are out of town at the moment.

This is the field just south of our house, on the other side of our driveway. The aforementioned creek goes under the highway, usually unseen, but now freely overflowing it's banks into the field.

Ed, who does an awesome job farming our land, is definitely going to be replanting the soybeans in that part of the field. Lots of extra work and added expense.  And I'm certain this isn't the only flooded area on our farm.

Nothing wrong with making the news, but not like this. Our home happens to be on some of the highest ground around here, fortunately, but in Lynn, the little town north of here, some two dozen families had to be evacuated by boat, I was told. Pretty tough times for those folks.

Niagara Falls

Slowly, I turned...

Exuberance

This is very funny to me.  

In related news, as part of my ongoing effort to improve the quality of my pizza and, ergo, my life, yesterday I made Giada DeLaurentis' (above) pizza dough recipe.  I had never made my own dough from scratch before and it was scary.  I love to cook, but I only barely dabble in the mysterious baking arts.

Turned out okay, though, and I learned a couple of things.  It was edible and no worse than crusts that I've purchased.  A decent first attempt.

h/t: Pic found in the comments section on Fark.com

Hot rod guitars and old friends.

I could write and talk about guitars all day, to be honest. So, if you came here hoping for a new travelogue post about what to do in Rome, you’ll want to come back tomorrow. Today our topic is again the details and minutiae of my hot new guitar rig and the joys of reconnecting with old friends.

This past weekend I played the new amp rig and my recently-modified Stratocaster in our worship services. Overall, it went really well and I am very pleased with the new sound. Most of the songs this week were guitar-driven, blues-rock infused styles and I was especially happy with the big, crunchy sound that the little amp delivered. I still need to tweak and refine some of the clean, sparkly, textural sounds that I often use as those seemed harder to get to and control. This involves some rather extensive reprogramming of my aforementioned Boss GT-6. But I must say that when I needed the bark and growl (and who doesn’t need that in worship?), it was right there at my fingertips and loads of fun. When we we hit the chorus of The Newsboys’ version of “Amazing Love”, I had this humongous, warm, rich, textured heavy-rock rhythm sound that was just...inspiring. Amen.

I am just as excited about the new Tex-Tone pickup that I installed in the bridge last week as I am about the new amp. It has a completely different, and far more nuanced, sound than the stock pickup. The output level is not noticeably different than the still stock middle and neck pickups, but it definitely has a nicer tone. One of the best things about it is the way it seems to respond to the tone control knob. Like most Strat players, for years the bridge tone control has been largely superfluous, left wide open (on 10!) nearly all the time. But with the Tex-Tone, I actually found that it was useful for rolling of some of the highs when I wanted to have the characteristic bite, but perhaps not quite as much razor-pointy edge as this pickup is capable of. That kind of flexibility is a surprising and unique benefit.

I had one annoying problem that cropped up at the end of the Saturday night service, an audible 60-cycle hum. It wasn’t terrible and in fact, was unnoticeable on the overdriven sounds, but it did prevent me from using it on clean rhythm sounds. Interestingly, tube amps often have some hum and my Valve Jr. is astonishingly quiet as tube amps go. It was immediately obvious to me that it was my guitar that had the problem. But I have modified a fair number of guitars through the years and, from experience, that sound is virtually always due to a cold solder joint or flaky ground wire. So I will do a little remedial troubleshooting this week and it will be fine.

Ultimately, I may want a somewhat hotter pickup on the bridge, moving this one into the middle or neck position since a little extra output on the back never hurts, but for now I’m satisfied to leave it as it is for a few weeks to see what happens.

I am also waiting for a set of new Fender locking tuners to put on this guitar which will help stabilize the tuning and increase the functionality of the whammy bar.   The high-E string tuner has been busted since New Years Eve, actually, and I have just been procrastinating.  I also did a minor cut-down modification on the plastic backplate to facilitate access and speed up restringing.  That one I've been meaning to do for a couple of years. 

To the uninitiated, I realize this all sounds pretty esoteric.  Like listening to the guys at the hot-rod swap meets talk about customizing their collector cars.  It is like that, only much cheaper.

Tex-Tone Pickups are handmade by a good friend in Texas, David Allmon. He and I reconnected a couple of weeks ago after having lost touch for at least fifteen years. Without the Internet, that might have never happened.  The coolest thing was that, once we started talking, it was like no time had passed.  I love that...and it almost never happens.  David is a blessing and always has been. He is married to a wonderful girl, Kimala, and they have a teenage son. 

But back in the late 80's, he wasn't hand winding precision-engineered, custom-designed electric guitar components.  Nope, he was rocking like a hurricane as you can clearly see in this picture:

Heh. David is the one on the right.  With the mane.  

And, from the sound of things, my friend is still rocking it.  While I've never been genetically capable of growing hair like that, to be fair, I don't look the same as I did in the late 80's, either.  And Lord knows I'm not going to post a picture of me from that era on my website, so here is a recent one of me about to enjoy a nice antipasto in Rome:

I am married to an international travel photojournalist

Well, you knew that already from her Flickr pages. But go here to read an interesting online article about the opening of a recently discovered pagan tomb from the second century A.D. under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The author asked Nancy for permission to use a couple of her photos for the feature.

Pizza - What it is and what it ain't

Speaking of pizza, here’s the deal. I love America, I really do, completely, without reservation, and well beyond the limitations of reason. And we do so much so very well. But when it comes to pizza...well, we just don’t do it right.

Here in America, the focus is on the wrong things. The primary problem is foundational, and it is that the quality of the crust is basically ignored. Even the word crust marginalizes it’s importance. All mass produced pizzas basically see the crust merely as a delivery system for the toppings. The quality of the bread is not even a consideration, evidently, in domestic pizza. In Italy, the crust itself is a thing of beauty, simple, but savory, textured and flavorful. It helps that virtually every pizzeria has some type of classic brick oven, like this:

Secondly, the toppings are all wrong. In fact, the culinary philosophy that underlies our pizza is so compromised, so stunted, that our cultural expectations of what a great pizza should be fall far short of what truly is possible. We don't even know what we are missing, sadly enough, so mediocrity has become our benchmark of quality, represented by Pizza Hut, Papa John's, et al.  First and foremost, only fresh ingredients should be used to top a pizza. I really can’t emphasize that enough. After the unbelievable taste of the pizza bread, the single most startlingly delicious thing about genuine Italian pizza is that ALL of the ingredients are fresh. Tomatoes (Roma or Campari, mostly), spinach, zucchini, bell peppers (raw or roasted), onion, garlic, meat. ALL OF THEM. FRESH. (Well, okay, except for the anchovies...salt-cured, packed in cans).

(In fact, let me take this opportunity to assert here that unless you are going on a 6-month sea voyage or stockpiling for the coming apocalypse, there simply are no acceptable uses for canned mushrooms. Those wet, slimy, nasty little giblets do not belong anywhere, and absolutely never, ever on a pizza.)

And, by the way, in Italy, probably only 50% of the pizza available use some type of tomato sauce as a base. It’s only one of several possibilities and it is not a requirement.

Thirdly, there’s the cheese. Forget about the packaged, pre-shredded cheese-like products from Kraft, Sargento, Yoder, etc. that hang in the cold food section of your grocery. I’m not 100% sure that stuff is even cheese and neither are you. That is what they are putting on your pizza at your typical pizza restaurant. When you make pizza at home, you need to NOT use that crap. I know it’s easy and cheap. That’s because it’s not real. So suck it up and just get the real, actual ingredients that God intended you eat. Look, most of your major grocery chains have specialty cheese sections over there by the deli. What you need to do is buy a ball of fresh mozzarella, for starters. It looks like this:

It’s probably made in Wisconsin, not Italy, but that can’t be helped and it will still be a vast improvement over what you are used to. While you are there, pick up some REAL parmesan cheese, not that stuff in the little green can.

Fourthly, meat toppings on Italian pizza are wonderfully varied. They use a variety of locally produced sausage, pepperoni, pancetta (sorta like bacon), prosciutto, ham, veal, lamb, and assorted seafood. What you won’t find is hamburger. No ground beef. I don’t know why this is the case, but I know I certainly did not miss it.  I really could do a whole post on the wonders of prosciutto, by the way, but I will probably spare you.

Now, just a little bit about construction. In America, we want our pizzas to be covered, edge-to-edge, usually with as many different, processed ingredients as possible on a canned, gooey, red tomato-ish sauce. Possibly we do this to hide the tasteless, doughy bread underneath, but really I think it is because we have this sad, misinformed idea that more is always better. If a little bit is good, then more must be better. This is usually wrong in all areas of life, but especially with food. Without necessarily making a broad sweeping indictment of our contemporary culture, when it comes to food, in America it seems we often try compensate for a lack of quality with an overwhelming quantity. (Ever been to a Cracker Barrel?)

In Italy, you will have fewer ingredients on your pizza. No thick melange of garbled, confused flavors. No heavy spices. Instead, the fresh flavors of two or three high-quality ingredients blend and expand in your mouth. You might have some sprigs of fresh baby arugula sprinkled on top, or a little chopped oregano. It might be lightly drizzled with a sweet olive oil.

And let me just say this. Life is too short for cheap olive oil. Don’t buy the store brand. Get the good kind, the genuine Italian extra virgin olive oil. Get the best you can find.  I promise it makes a difference. The cheap stuff is not good and the good stuff is not cheap...and that is a principle that holds for most things in life.

In Rome we ate a lot of pizza. Every place was different and unique.  Most of the places were family owned and every pizza we had was far, far better than anything we’ve found available in restaurants here. One of our favorites was Pizza Boom, near the street market on Via Trastavere. But the very best place was recommended to us by our Italian friend, Federico the First, who told us, “You must not eat pizza just anywhere in Rome. You will go to Forno. It is the best.  But you must go before noon.  It is very important.”


So we went to Forno Cerulli, arriving about 11:45 AM for lunch.  It was tiny and packed with local Italians.  It was clearly a place that did a huge business.   There were no tables or chairs, just a long deli style counter on one side and a narrow bar at which one stood to eat on the other side. Several employees were working at full throttle to service the hungry, amiable throng.  Most people were getting their pizza to go, but we crowded in with a few others to eat and watch the action.  

Federico was right.  It was the best.  More on our friend Federico later.

Cavaliers 2008

Today JP heads off to Rosemont, Illinois, the Chicago suburb.  He is a Cavalier, playing and marching with the renown DCI drum & bugle corps all summer for their 2008 season.  Except for those times when the corps is competing or performing in our area, we won't see him again until mid-August.

Every year, hundreds of young men from all over the world audition for very few openings, so

 it is both quite an honor and a testimony to his skill and hard work that he made it again.  This 

is the culmination of a dream that he has had 

since he was in junior high school.  It is his second and last year with the Cavaliers since, at 21, he ages out.  He was an alternate last season but will be marching as a starter this year.  This is a big year, too, for the Cavvies since it is their 60th anniversary.  

He's already been to several preseason weekend camps, but now he's moving in.  The physical and mental training is very intense and the musical instruction is world-class.  And there will be many hours spent crisscrossing the country on busses and and sleeping in school gymnasiums.

We'll miss him but are very proud of all he's doing these days.

Please pray for Stephen Curtis Chapman and his family.

This is such a heartbreaking tragedy.  I can't imagine the grief that they must feel at the death of their daughter, accidently killed yesterday by her big brother.

Bob Brozman - Bottleneck Blues Lesson

Here is a short primer on how to play basic acoustic slide guitar blues. Be sure to check out the video links.  This is an excellent first lesson from one of the masters.

h/t www.acousticguitar.com

Epiphone Valve Jr. Mini-Stack

It sounds great.  I can't believe how loud a 5-watt tube amp can be.  Even Roxi, our 16-year old mutt, who hasn't heard anything for several years, cast it a baleful glance as I was trying it out.

Today I install the new bridge pickup in my Stratocaster from my long-time friend David Allmon of Tex-Tone Pickups.  I can't wait.

Mail Order Inspiration

From time-to-time I descend into this place were I don't like any of my guitar equipment and I feel like, for life to continue, I need all new stuff. The malaise presents itself as a creeping and unrelenting dissatisfaction with my tone, my playing, and a general lack of creative inspiration. In effect, it is a slump.

It shouldn't be about the gear, I know, but when sound is your palette, it really helps to get some new colors once in a while.  For the last 6 years or so, my primary tonal effects device is a Boss GT-6:

The GT-6 is a very versatile, fully professional, and great sounding tool. There is a lot of serious processing going on under the hood and it really does a good job. In terms of my regular gig, in particular, playing contemporary praise and worship styles in our church, it works very well. Stylistically, in the course of one service, it is not uncommon for me to have to quickly switch sounds from jazz to country to hard rock, from ambient sound effects to rhythm to lead, and all shades in between.

If there is a weakness in the Boss, and in most all-inclusive integrated effects devices, it is simply that, though they do many things well, they seem to lack a certain, idiosyncratic character that I am more and more trying to find in my playing.

So, I need new stuff. I am willing to concede that this is quite likely a sign of mental illness or, at least, moral weakness.  

But the refreshing winds of change are a-blowin', I am happy to say.   Lord willing, one of these babies will arrive on my doorstep today:

This is an Epiphone Valve Jr. Half-Stack. It is a 5-watt all-tube amplifier. I expect it will be awesome.  It is an early Father's Day present.  I am very pleased.

Now, to be precise, I am not replacing my Boss multi-effects with this new amp.  In fact, for the foreseeable future, the GT-6 will remain my "front-end", effectively driving this amp.  I am replacing a very faithful, 20-year old customized Peavey Stereo Chorus solid-state dual-12 amp (no pic available on Google - it's that old!) that I've used for a long, long time.  But my expectation (and hope) is that the Epiphone is going to change my sound quite dramatically.  

I'm also customizing my Strat a bit, too, going to a custom, hand-wound pickup made by a friend of mine.  That is an exciting prospect, too, and deserves its own post later in the week after I've installed it.

One Month Ago

One month ago today we arrived in Rome, jetting in from Frankfurt. I blogged about that here.  On Sunday, the 20th, the following day, I made the following journal entry:

Slept late. Went to the market in southern Rome near Stazio Trastavere about 2:00. Cruised around, bought some stuff. On the way home, we ate pizza at a local sidewalk pizzaria called Pizza Boom, and it was wonderful.


Came back. took nap until about 6:00. Tried to go to Chiesa di Santa Maria in Trastavere (sp?) and did make it to that area, but were unable to find the actual church. We did find some wonderful shops and and restaurants nestled in the alley ways. We had a gelato, Strawberry and Kaffe And after walking and shopping a bit, decided to eat a marvelous little place called Pizzaria Pan ‘Uto. I had a antipasto, pasta with a ham, mini-lamb kebobs, chocolate cake, and espresso. NCP had a bruscetta w/roast artichoke tapenade and a wonderful pizza that consisted of salmon, mozzarella, light olive oil, and topped with some kind of fresh herb post cooking, then a fruit cheese cake, and an espresso. It was all wonderful. I enjoyed being able to see the cooks make the food, the pizza crust was incredible...made on site, of course.

Then we went to a record store, FM Non-Stop Music and bought a couple

of albums, G'lam House, Vol. 4, a collection of Italian remixes by various artists, compiled by Andrea Gelli. A lot of it is kind of downtempo and chill, but very nice. Great version of the Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” Some of it is kind of jazzy, kind of latin, all very groove-centered. Also bought “Illusioni Parallele” by Tiromancino, an up-and-coming band from Rome, recommended by the DJ/proprietor in the store, who was very cool about playing sample tracks and making thoughtful suggestions. He says Tiromancino’s music is electro-pop, but kind of alternative, not real mainstream. Can’t wait to hear more of both.

Hear some of Tiromancino's music here.

We rode the very last tram and then the very last bus home, getting in about 12:15 AM local time.

Art, History, and Architecture in Rome

One of the principal reasons we like to travel is to experience and learn about other cultures, in particular through art and history. Nothing opens one’s mind and expands one sense of and appreciation for other people more than actually going and seeing where and how they live.

Art and history are so intertwined in Italy that it is difficult, and probably pointless, for me to disassociate the two. It is seemingly impossible to consider either one without invoking the other.


The architecture of Italy is fascinating because it reflects both art and history, form and function, in very visceral, immediate way. When one enters the Pantheon, for example, one is compelled to consider simultaneously it’s obvious massive structure, profoundly classic design, and the astonishing constructional detail that goes into each square foot. And then comes the appreciation for the fact that it was completed in 125 A.D. under the authority of the emperor Hadrian. Considering that, still today, it holds the record for the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, and remembering that the building utensils of the time were mostly primitive hand tools made by other primitive hand tools, one is quickly overtaken by a sense of awe. The intricacy and intelligence of the design, and the surpassing beauty of the richly colored carved marble components is incredible. Incredible because of it’s age, because it has survived and continues to thrive some two thousand years later.


Throughout Rome, one sees ongoing restoration and preservation. Italy truly understands and values it's historical significance, to be sure. Just as we observed in Vienna a few years ago, there is an army of workers whose perpetual function is to protect, restore, and preserve the historical and artistic treasures. Something is being worked on all the time.  

More than once I marvelled at the careful and precise methods employed by construction engineers and contractors to simultaneously provide for the installation of modern necessities such as indoor plumbing, ventilation, cooking facilities, and reasonable access while at the same time retaining as much as possible the original look and feel of an ancient building.

One of the things that impressed me so much in all of these ancient structures, was the quality of the maintenance. Looking closely at one of the Pantheon's massive pillars, for example, one sees careful patching and repair work in places. But this is repair work that is most often several centuries old, performed by unknown contract artisans, long dead, using classic technique.

The same type of maintenance, repair and restoration was evident in the statuary rooms of the Vatican museums as well. The Vatican museums were fabulous, by the way. That is a "must see" if you go to Rome, and I will probably have a separate post on that at some point.

Again, I direct you to Nancy's Flickr page for her outstanding photo work.

Yeah, well he's no Einstein...

Lest you think that it is going to be all-Rome-all-the-time around here, there is this article that supports a number of theories that I hold:

1)  Just because you are genius by Man's standards doesn't mean you aren't still a gibbering ignoramus by God's standard.  Duh.

2)  Understanding the truth of the Gospel is not about being smart.  Village idiots and little children can figure it out, for crying out loud.  Which, of course, is what drives so many academics crazy and why so many don't get it.  They don't understand how something so profound, so powerful, and so completely and compellingly true can not be dependent on their ability to understand it.  Understanding follows obedience, not the other way around.

3)  No one will ever understand the Bible unless they are willing to allow themselves to be changed by what they learn.

4)  None of this means that the Bible should not or may not be subjected to man's scrutinous gaze, or that it resists serious study by people wanting to apply their intelligence to understand the word of God.  Rather, "Thou shalt bring it on and giveth unto me your best shot, sayeth the Lord."

Way to go, genius...