That's a lot of Bologna.Galileo invented modern physics in Padova when he dropped a bocca ball from his right hand, a meatball polpetta from his left, and discovered they both landed simultaneously. This also sounds like a lot of Bologna.
The cafeteria was as big as a basketball gym, and the line inside was a block long. Prettier girls were slowly sliding up thru the line with a beautiful smile on their face. I remember feeling indignant at the unfairness of it all, but no one can argue that God and nature are fair — pretty is always a plus. One girl spotted my scowl and gave me that smirky smile which said
You Anglos with your rules...Don't you wish you were this gorgeous?It's a sure thing Casanova relished teaching astrology here. Chow!
Last night, as I was writing this page, my S.O.B. (i.e., Significant Other Being) asked me if I wanted to go down in history. Well, sooner or later, history takes us all down, but this is not what she meant. Like most teenagers beginning to realize their inevitable demise, I wanted my name remembered for something, but this juvenile urge for immortality gave way to a higher calling, as it does for most teens, when I became a missionary for a greater cause; and, although I did not don a white shirt and tie and ride a bike around, I naively believed that music and art could serve all the spiritual needs of me and my fellows. Thus, I became a prophet of art.
Eventually, after enough exercise in music and art, I learned, contrariwise, that symbolic expression is no substitute for actual spiritual engagement. Looking is not doing. Missionaries of God, with or without bicycles, ultimately arrive at the same conclusion. We preserve our arts in museums, concert halls, cathedrals, and universities because they provide testimony that someone somewhere at sometime witnessed the spiritual dimension of our existence. However, art has not done its job until it inspires us to participate somehow in this uniquely human dimension that carries us beyond politics, acquisitions, and, of course, ourselves. Having your name remembered is an empty ambition compared to inspiring others to take this journey that never ends. Of course, it will end for you someday, but you are not all that important. It's the journey that's important. You are only a necessary link in the chain. Ciaou!
Gonna take a spiritualistic journey...
Gonna set my art at ease...
Gonna make a retroactive journey...
To create old memories...
Today, I only trekked 40 miles south of Venice. I stood at Monselice with thumb out till the sun sank. Small cars honked their horns while spiraling up Rocca Hill's narrow road. I fell asleep somewhere in its shadow, perhaps in a cornfield below. Ralph Waldo described this place better 142 years before me...
At night we reached Monselice after crossing the Adige. — Saw our honest countryman the Indian corn growing well. Monselice is the most picturesque town I have seen in Italy. It has an old ruin of a castle upon the hill & thence commands a beautiful & extraordinary view. It lies in the wide plain — a dead level — whereon Ferrara, Bologna, Rovigo, Este, Padua stand & even Venice we could dimly see in the horizon rising with her tiara of proud towers. What a walk & what a wide delightful picture. To Venice 38 miles.
