Italy

[luka]

they keep it under a kind of suit of armour.

 

[luka]

and it's a small and modest thing. i like it. it feels like a picasso. something about the modelling. but there's this very catholic way of making the whole place form a kind of trumpets and angels giant ta-da! all around it.

 

[shakahislop]

we'd all understand the world a lot better if we realized europe doesn't exist and is in fact western asia. it's a linguistic myth that impedes our conceptuion of what's going on. italy particularly the south has the spirit of asia within it, among other things

 

[shakahislop]

they keep it under a kind of suit of armour.

it's got that hindu temple sense of splashiness. or alternatively that very ancient, pre-industrial reveloution splashiness of gold and colour. you could call it unsophisticated, although that doesn't seem to be exactly the right word. there's a real focus on abundence. it's like all the big gold chains that rappers wear, diamond earrings, gold grills. no-one has pulled it back to something minimalistic.

whereas northern europe's religious buildings are more like the middle east and central asia. or at least they're a toytown version of that sensibility. an amateur version that doesn't achieve the same beauty or gravitas.

 

[luka]

 

[shakahislop]

north america is the pits when it comes to religious buildings. i don't think there's even one good one anywhere north of mexico.

the people with money build art galleries instead and the state builds freeways instead.

 

[luka]

north america is the pits when it comes to religious buildings. i don't think there's even one good one anywhere north of mexico.

the people with money build art galleries instead and the state builds freeways instead.

 

[luka]

 

[luka]

i liked how the byzantine churches look like spiders

 

[luka]

they got that classic european thing of young unattached immigrant men just listlessly standing around or sitting on steps staring into space. or africans peddling bead bracelets and annoying everyone. it's not ideal. loads of african men, almost no women.

 

[shakahislop]

europe doesn't have seriously and obviously mentally ill people walking around in public. I saw a guy walk down Eldridge Street downtown today, stark naked, naked feet on the boiling concrete. i saw a woman gushing piss next to a ticket machine at the Grand Central subway. I saw a guy yesterday shouting over and over again to warn passers-by about sharks. the features of the US urban environment that somehow have not emerged in europe.

 

[luka]

london does. but admittedly not quite at those sodom and gomorrah levels.

 

[Benny Bunter]

The Holy Prepuce of Calcata

 

[thirdform]

we'd all understand the world a lot better if we realized europe doesn't exist and is in fact western asia. it's a linguistic myth that impedes our conceptuion of what's going on. italy particularly the south has the spirit of asia within it, among other things

England is not Western Asia though.

 

[luka]

england is not europe either

 

[thirdform]

I'd definitely like to go to naples, sounds fun.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano's a good read.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I like how the cars don't stop at red lights and how Italian men try to cultivate as gravelly a voice as possible through chain smoking. And how everyone's clothes are coordinated as an entire nation. And how they are all chilled out until there is a disagreement about something incredibly trivial whereupon they explode volcanically for 15 minutes before hugging each other.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I've been wanting to go to Italy for years, especially Rome, but it must be a nightmare if you have to take a young kid with you, gonna have to wait a decade or so.

did you not even manage to find any halfway decent pasta?

 

[luka]

no. i did buy a pumpkin one from a supermarket but it turned out to be full of sugar. it tasted like a german christmas cake. they've got no clue when it comes to cooking.