History's End

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There’s only one track now
Coming to or
Going from?
Castel Gandolpho.

Where once the Popes
Ruled the West
In summer heat
That hasn’t cooled.

Though history
Has…

I wonder if this track is there to fill the now tiny town or to empty it out? I wonder if the devil lies, as they say, in the details? That is to say that the devil dares to lie anywhere near a papal palace.

Geek Stuff
Cannon 20D, Post Processing in PS:CS4: Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt – Colored Pencils, custom textures and brushes.

The Legate Abruptly Returned

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No one expected him so swiftly. No… the Pope imagined his envoy would require years to subtly study the curious beings on their exotic world.

Yet here he came to the Door of Time’s Tunnel. And curiously this legate who moved always midst a whirl of attendants returned… alone.

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Castel Gandolfo, Italy. Canon 40D. PS/CS4. Alien Skin:Bokeh. Custom brushes/textures.

Rot Is Change

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It’s my experience here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that physical change of the city seems to be heavily obstructed at one end. While its physical properties can regress as they deteriorate, they cannot progress as a result of a lack of significant resources on the one hand and on the other a lack of useful consensus on how or where to apply the resources which exist…

Innovation is blocked by noisy political honkers who create such din over anything new that supporters flee and the general population drive their moving vans to the suburbs. I got a similar feeling in Gandolpho when I recently visited that Italian town. Vast hunks of former glory lie rotting in the way of improvements which could make the day-to-day lives of people at the least less irksome.

I wonder when the obstructionists gain the most weight on the see-saw of history? Leaving optimists at best with few opportunities to seize and instead with only dreams of change slowly. A thing worth remembering: Rot is change.

A Bit Of Gandolfo

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Physicists tell us that bits are the universal medium of communication. And physicists might be the smartest scientists (at least that’s what they tell me). So how to communicate the Pope’s vacation palace at Gandolfo? How about in a bit? A tiny piece of a big field that combines the architectural grandeur, with the pomp and two men at the very foundation of Papal authority… two non-coms: a soldier and a priest.

A violinist friend of mine, an amateur musician, once found herself at a reception for present and past violinists of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She told me that she felt like a priest at the Vatican.

Well, here's that priest.

And here is one bit of wall, soldier and priest: a trio that condenses two millennia of heirarchy and grandeur into a narrative I can understand.

BTW, for you metaphor collectors, how about that slope?

Gandolfo, Italy. 10/01/07:11:40pm

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the daily comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those Italian comments begin here.

Wall Whisper

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Susan Sontag wrote, “Photographs (can) give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal.” She goes on to suggest that photographs are, “a way of certifying experience.”

The walls of Castle Gondolfo reflect both the implacable force that Urban VIII breathed into them in 1624, and the current fashion of genteel seediness which coats their façades in crackling layers. From the image we can we grasp either the enormity of the past power of the men who peered down from this window upon Lake Albano, or the situation of its current tenant. Is this a photograph of a past, a present, or a future?

As I leaned against the afternoon warmth of this wall, it was like a rock. And see the etchings in the stone window frame? Beneath your fingers they’re as crisp as yesterday, the artisan’s message left there at the end of a day some four centuries ago.

Odd how imagination’s so one-way. Beneath my fingertips I could feel what his hand felt as it wiped across this surface. And I can picture him packing tools, walking a cart half a block to the town square, getting wine, and wondering where his next job would take him.

I can imagine all of that, yet I cannot image the guy who might come upon this little story in 2507, yet he will know as much about me as I do about the man who made Urban VIII’s window.

We are all something's history.

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to the image here on the main site. Those comments begin here.

Look! Up there... Castel Gandolfo.

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NOTE: You will find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments below. I shall try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to the image here on the main site.

Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's vacation residence, occupies a height in the Alban Hills overlooking Lake Albano about 25 miles South-East of Rome. The lake was formed when an ancient volcanic mountain collapsed. The castle was made part of the few remaining Papal holdings when the ancient power of the Popes in Italy collapsed. It sits amidst a small town in Lazio. Gandolfo shows the wear of time and while a patina of grandeur peeks through it seems to present His Holiness with the same challenge faced by all owners of old homes... The word "money-pit" resonates, eh?

I suppose the Pope is faced with a dilemma. Should he let the facade, at least, deteriorate so as not to seem to be detouring the gifts of the faithful toward maintaining an ancient opulence while millions go hungry or die from preventable diseases (diarrhea comes to mind)? Or should he restore the place to its former glory to show the significant might and influence of the Roman Church? Not to decide it to decide, eh?