Tuesday, April 10, 2001

At dusk, eighty percent of the tourist mob clears out of Siena. They are day-trippers—hard-core tourists from Firenze, or Italian school outings. Into their void spills the dusky light; and the light in this town is something to spill around liberally. It is ambient and hazy and pale and soft like sheets, cascading over the gently brown buildings. It is really indescribeable, and uncaptureable. I leave the camera in my bag; I know its tricksterism, where light is concerned.

We stumble on another highly winning trattoria, in an extremely funky underground room. Ass-kicking salads. We plan to return. Emerging, rolly polly, Siena is magical under the streetlights, as well, sidestreets meeting ours at 30 degree (vertical) angles, a lit tower in the distance. And the temperature is perfect. In this scene, we decide to stay. I cancel our reservations in Assisi (albeit with substantial penalty), and up our ante here for another two nights. I think I like travelling on whim . . . And, heck, who could leave with this view out our bedroom window?

We duck into the "the cheapest Internet Access in Siena," which we quickly rechristen "The We Suck Cybercafe." On checking out, the guy asks Erin, "Uh, were you able to do anything?" No, total suckage; no charge. Back to Piazza de Campo, which is much nicer dark and empty, and we spot a combination birraria/gelateria; I may never leave.

M: I don't know how I'm going to live without gelato. I guess the good news is that we're going to be Italy for almost another week.
E: Yeah. Also, you're going to be able to get some damned fine Greek salads, after this.
M: I wonder what they call Greek salads in Greece?
E: . . . Salads.

We review a USA Today over breakfast, some of the first news we've gotten from the States. Apparently, we've missed the genesis of a new MTV game show called "Dude, This Sucks." In initial taping, two girls were sprayed with human feces, and subsequently sued MTV. E: "What did they think, from the name of the damn show?"

Yesterday, we spied some folks on a high parapet over the Piazza, and now we endeavor to get up there ourselves. Nothing like climbing in a cramped, spiral, slick-stone, medieval stairwell in glasses darker than bats. Except maybe scribbling in a small notebook at the same time. Up top, and I suddenly understand all the wild talk about Tuscany. We hang for some time in these heights, and Erin facilely shoots a keeper-quality one of me.

By way of descending, we take in the Museo del Opera de Duomo, and it turns out to be our favorite gallery so far. It's mainly composed of artifacts "rescued" from the Duomo—we can only guess the Duomo was previously so ornate that people were dropping dead at the door. In any case, there's a lot of beautiful stuff here: frescos, chalices, bishop's staffs, ancient religious texts in Necronomican packaging, and a guilt gold box that is the final resting place of San Clemente Martine. (Note the skull in the middle, which is surrounded by a number of other clackers.)

There are here a number of old standards, in the Rennaisance canon, but we joke about them. In regard to one particularly gruesome crucifiction scene, we put a couple words into Jesus's mouth: "Dude, this sucks." Interestingly, there is a lot of dinged up stuff, in particular fragmented statuary. Looking at the scraped-up paintings, we're suddenly amazed that 2/3 of the surviving art from the 16th century doesn't look like that. Ever tried to keep a poster healthy for a few years, a couple of moves? We're talking centuries, here.

Moreover, we're actually liking the incomplete, weathered, beaten, fastened-together statuary: it seems to convey a feeling of antiquity, of more transpiring. Also—one of my major beefs with R. art is the endless parade of identically adoring facial expressions (in the presence of Christ); much of the statuary here has much more interesting facial action going on. It's also fodder for epitaphs, captions, and word bubbles on our part. (Such as "Dude, where's my face?" in regard to one heavily eroded bust.) The museum punctuates itself with a killer, surprise, hidden, gilt, bonus room on the way out. We sit for some time; we don't know the story behind this room, but damn.

The museo exit is in front of a lovely cafe patio; this whole berg is designed just right. Amazingly, Erin's friend Lisa (from Wien) emerges from the museo, minutes behind us. We catch up.

Tonight . . . well, for starters, there's me here writing and drinking beer, while Erin does some laundry. (We've come up with some pretty good time-sharing arrangements: she runs in the morning while I sleep, I write/drink while she etceteras . . .) Then, back to our trattoria. As in Budapest: there is NOTHING we have to do, not today or tomorrow. (Except maybe dig up a train to Roma . . .)

Ya'll be good to each other out there. 8^)

Michael

P.S. Sorry for the simultaneous last two dispatches. I actually posted both of them on the dates in their titles—rather, I thought I did. Someone subscribed to the list with an invalid e-mail address (and I'll not mention her Eastern European name ;^), and my posting script barfed on it. Really, the fault was crappy error-handling on my part. The script barfed, but wasn't smart enough to spit up on me, so I'd know about it. Well, something to work on when I'm back at my job . . . Job, ha ha ha.