Mission Renaissance Classes (iPhone)

In honor of the unweaned rabbits being illegally sold in downtown Los Angeles, I present: awkward bunny.

filmmaker Dmitry Trakovsky & artist Gabriela Anastasio: Cubiculum

I'm so proud of my filmmaker Dima, and I can't wait to see his upcoming documentary on Andrei Tarkovsky!

(Dima, when should I expect my autographed copy in the mail?)

La Lupa in Bucharest

A very pleasant event happened today, and it has restored some of my magical perception of life.

I took my Wheelock's Latin textbook into Easy Nails in Torrance to go over some sentences while I was waiting for Dawn, the nail lady, to finish giving some woman a manicure. When she was done, she sat the woman (Anka) across from me at the UV light stand. I smiled at her. She looked at me and did not smile back. Her lack of enthusiasm reminded me of myself lately. Ever since the Tech massacre, I have had to put real effort into looking happy to see people.

I got up with my Wheelock and went to sit at the nail desk. Soon after, the woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Ekscuze me, may I eksamine yourr Latin tekstbook?" Once I got over the automatic "must be a crazy person" thought that every Los Angeleno has when a stranger addresses him, I pushed the book over to her.

She was really happy to see someone studying Latin because it had helped her to learn English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. She already knew Russian and Romanian from growing up in Bucharest. She disagrees with a few aspects of the university system, especially since we aren't required to take any geography or history classes. We talked about Rome and ancient cultures and traveling and learning and the Getty Villa and Roman mosaics in Tunis, all while Dawn was polishing away with her head down over my fingers. Anka said that once upon a time, Italy gave Romania a replica of the famous Lupa statue that is on permanent display in the Capitoline Museum, and now the replica is in the middle of a square in Bucharest. When she saw the real one in Rome, it brought back beautiful memories of her homeland.

Here's a picture of it from my 2005 archives:

I wish waving at people on the street were a common practice here. You can get so much out of human interaction.

Elise McNamara - Roman Roommate

Bigger Farnese Hercules

I've really got nothing to say today. I am intellectually spent from trying to memorize the dictionary by listening to word lists on my ipod. I have to be still to actually memorize, so it doesn't work if I wash dishes or fold clothes.

This is a larger picture of the tiny little Hercules in the column on the right of this website. It's the Ercole Farnese of the Archaeological Museum of Naples. It's a second century (C.E. or A.D.) Roman copy in marble of a bronze by the Greek artist Glykon. I find it interesting that at 190 cm (about 6'3"), it is the same height as Michelangelo's David.

I took this in April 2006.