a Florentine week

In class this week we talked a lot about art and censorship. It was interesting how the lecture showed Pompeii then turned into the sexual art displayed in the well preserved frescoes. We talked about what is vulgar, the issue of free speech and art. I like Justice Harlan's "one man's vulgarity is another man's lyric" over the issue of indecent speech. In the Roth vs United States case, I don't really get what makes an object "prurient." I don't agree with how communities establish what is obscene, and how another city can have a different meaning over what obscene is. We saw pictures of Serrano's "Piss Christ" which kind of looked neat with the sunlight in the urine. But apparently it's offensive because its a crucifix inside urine. Diego Rivera's "Man at the Crossroads" is not offensive at all, regardless of Vladimir Lenin's appearance in the mural. I wasn't offended by Robert Mapplethorpe's photos either, I could actually see the artistic value in the photos even though they were sexual in nature. Marilyn Manson also wrote a nice essay in response to not being the artist responsible for the Columbine murders. The other class we watched a documentary on the film "Deep Throat." It's crazy how they wanted to prosecute the actor in the film, and not the star or the director. I also didn't know how much the Mafia was involved with the distribution of the film. It seemed that when the government tried to censor or take down the film, it just made it's appeal even stronger to viewers. We talked a lot about John Paul II in the other class, when discussing Italy and the Church. It's interesting how many Italians claim to be Catholic, but don't practice it at all. Except for the major things like baptism and all that. We learned that crucifixes hang inside the courtrooms.

We were told this week we have to make use of our Florence museum pass, which isn't a problem at all. I climbed the top of the Duomo this week, and you get one of the best views of Florence by far. You can see pretty much all of the historic center of Florence and it's amazing. Giorgio Vasari's last judgement mural in the Cupola was pretty amazing to look at. I can see why it took them almost 11 years to complete it, I think it competes with the Sistine Chapel almost in terms of epicness. The ascent up the stairs wasn't too bad, but I saw some old ladies huffing and puffing their way up to the top. It only sucks that once you get to the top, there is only one set of stairs that goes up or down, so it creates a logjam. We also visited the Santa Croce church after class. Our life and culture teacher is a great tour guide, but man she spews information like she is reading it straight off wikipedia. It drones off after a while. It sucks that Donatello's Crucifix is kind of locked up behind a chapel, or that Cimabue/Giotto's artwork is kind of fading near the altar of the church. Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante, Galileo all have tombs in the church. Michelangelo and Galileo have impressive tombs. I also went to Fiesole this week, the little Roman/Etruscan town up in the hills. You get an awesome view of Florence from up there, and you get the vibe that really rich people live up there. They have an ancient amphitheatre, remains of Roman baths, remains of an Etruscan temple, and an Archaeological museum which houses a bunch of Etruscan ruins. It's a neat little area up there, and its cool to see. We also went and saw the Medici Chapel since it's on the Museum Pass. This place is really impressive. The tombs dedicated to Cosimo/Ferdinand were huge, and maybe 1/4 the size of Napoleon's tomb. What was really neat was the ginormous and gorgeous crowns on top of the tombs. They have a whole room dedicated to relics. They also have a whole other area where like Lorenzo Medici was buried. Michelangelo Dawn and Dusk statues were there. It sucks that there is no pictures allowed in there, because it is probably the most underrated place to visit in Florence. On Friday, it was the city holiday known as San Giovanni. I missed the parade and stuff, but we watched the Calcio Storico game on tv. It sucked that the tickets were sold out, but watching it on tv, I still had no idea what the hell goes on the entire game. You score by throwing it over the walls or something into a net, but you're allowed to wrestle opponents to the ground. But the teams show like zero attacking ambition, and it's backpass after backpass. It's like watching New Zealand play soccer, it's boring as hell. Playing not to lose, instead of playing to score. But it was cool seeing the different neighborhood, whites vs blues chant at each other. It sucked that our street was like the entrance to the stadium or something, so the cops shut down our street. They wouldn't let me leave, and told me I couldn't get back on my street until 20 o clock. It was frustrating, it's also frustrating they use military time. What the hell has Italy's military done in the last 100 years? Flip flop in WWI, lose to Ethiopia, get destroyed in Africa in WW2, complain about the hundreds of troops in Afghanistan? Anyways, they had a firework show at 10 pm, we watched from the bridge to the right of the Ponte Vecchio since all the guidebooks said too. It was packed as hell. Their fireworks show lasted 45 minutes, but Disneyland's fireworks show is still way better.