It's easier for a fat man to fit through the eye of a needle... -M

June 6,

Ok, ok. I'm getting the hang of this. Breakfast in Rome today only set me back about ten stones & I even managed to get some of my sandwich in my mouth before it exploded, throwing sandwich shrapnel onto the street. I don't even know what was in it. A lot of cheese, I guess. And I got a glimpse of something pink that might have been prosciutto that lay there silently mocking me from the sidewalk.

Today, Gwen & I went to the Vatican. As a repentant apostate, this was kind of a big deal for me. Saint Peter's basilica is nothing less than awesome. It is an enormous, ponderous testimonial to catholic magnificence. It is also a monument to suffering & the abasement of common folk. Every statue, every painting shows some soul being tortured or in a state of extreme supplication. It Is beautiful & terrifying at once for it is designed to obliterate the human spirit in lieu of the Holy one.

I noticed, on the way in, a few beggars lining the walls of the Vatican hoping for alms from the pilgrim/tourists. On occasion, to assuage any social guilt, I've been known to drop a coin or two. Not this time. I'm on a budget. So was everyone else, I guess. And everyone else was a lot of goddamn people. And this includes the nun I saw walk by with nary a look at the armless beggar. That which you do for the least of me...

The Vatican is also a repository of huge wealth. The art! Greek, Roman, Egyptian... We saw mummies! The gems! Gold! All piled up safely & you can see some of it for about €15. No soup kitchens, though. Maybe, they're around the back.

We had to go through the museum to get to the Sistine Chapel. It is a glorious labyrinth of paintings, tapestries & sculptures with private parts either covered or removed. And then at last Micaelangelo's masterpiece (or one of them, anyway). I won't bother describing that. It's stunning. But, I will comment on two things:

1. In the chapel, women must cover their shoulders & knees & silence must be observed. There are guards roaming the chamber shushing & clapping their hands at the boisterous. This is something one also encounters when viewing the presumably equally holy remains of Ho Chi Minh in Saigon.

2. Flash photography is forbidden because the light degrades the pigmentation of the art. I would get furious at my fellow pilgrim/tourists when they broke this rule & then I relayed something. It's not because I worshipped the subject of the art. I worship the art.

And my apostasy is complete.
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Vatican Art & Sunlight