Roma – Loose Thoughts from a Light Notebook

– Italiano is an interesting language, so sing-songy.  Methinks, though, that one of the reasons American English is rather flat is because so many other Romance languages (including the English accent) are musical-ish.  Life isn’t a frickin’ musical, stop singing.

– MIMES!!  So many MIMES.  I don’t know if it’s possible to trust a society that allows the continued proliferation of MIMES!!  They’re everywhere.  Also, parents dress their children up in little costumes during the weekend – lions & princesses & Spiderman & Zorro.

– It gives Maher pause, I think.  Are they just letting their children have active and healthy imaginations?  Are they living vicariously thru their children – dressing them up as they wished they could’ve done as children?  Or are they simply training their poor, innocent children for lives as MIMES?!  (shudder).

– The Colosseum is an incongruously celebrated piece of ruinage.  It was used to kill thousands and thousands of people in Bloodsports, a practise that we would find disgusting and uncivilised today.  Yet the Colosseum is the one of the great attractions of this vibrant, modern city.

– I think among the more sortuv morbid highlights of Vatican City is the Tombs of the Popes.  Naturally there was a crowd gathered around the tomb of John Paul II, the most recently deceased Pope.  I stopped & paid my respects, read Surah Al-Fatiha, which is a common practise (at least in Bangladesh) when visiting the graves of the dead.

Is that an incongruous act, reading from the Qur’an for a Catholic leader.  Karol Wojty?a was an unbelievably potent and charismatic figure.  Although I don’t particularly agree with some aspects of conservative Catholic dogma, I think his papacy was an overall positive force, especially during the Cold War.  Positive forces should be celebrated in life and mourned & revered in death.

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