The Vestal Morons

View from the roof of Casa Lasalle a few nights back.

Surfer Culture And The Mystery of Rome By Julian Ahlquist An Italian legend, so I’ve learned, says that Rome has a secret name. “Roma” is a mere alias used for public discourse ... as well, on a side note, “Amor” spelt backwards, interestingly (which explains a lot of interesting things I’ve seen in the public areas so far that ought not be public usually). Romulus shrouded its real identity in mystery so that its enemies, not knowing its name, would be unable to bring curses upon it ... or something to that effect. Consequently, it is a great sacrilege to speak the real name of Rome, though no one knows what it is, except the Pontifex Maximus. I’ve embarked on the quest to find that name. The Pontifex Maximus, even though he’s the Pope right now, should really have someone on the side who knows the name too, just in case. Also, I am dying to know. Accusations may come in condemnation of my efforts, but I argue that my mission does not profane the Eternal City...

This Journey Towards Elysium By Romulus For Christendom's The Rambler Rome took all the vanity out of me; for after seeing the wonders there, I felt too insignificant to live, and gave up all my foolish hopes in despair. - Louisa May Alcott in Little Women (1869) The great folly of the anticipation of travel, especially for the young and the inexperienced, is that one is so unsure of what to anticipate. Many prospective and youthful wayfarers will, in the time leading up to their departure to the unknown, dream away their days in idle and ill-informed excitement, conjuring forth a stream of phantasms of this or that distant and exotic land and all without any sense at all for the soul—or, in many cases, the most basic geography—of the place to which their aircraft is set to carry them. In many cases their ignorance naturally leads them—as human nature is wont to do—to create idealizations and expectations that have more in common with all the promises...

Alright, it's got absolutely nothing to do with Rome. Just watch it anyway and stop your whining. http://www.bigad.com.au/ Link courtesy of Julian (Remus).

Multiply this 50X, and you get a sense of the breadth of the excavations of Ostia Antica. The whole purpose is to give some sense of how an ancient city would be laid out. And it gives a very good sense of exactly that. Photo: Danni Ampi

Julian doing deep things outside San Pudentia basilica. Unfortunately I cannot take credit for this beautiful shot with its lovely earth-tones. The credit goes quite thoroughly to Danni Ampi.

A portion (2/3s) of the BC dated amphitheatre located in the ancient city of Ostia Antica where Christina Matatics and I today performed the scene of the confrontation between Ophelia and Hamlet. It was a truly lovely experience, and both of us were quite amazed at how easy it was to get into character in the broad daylight in public and on the stage of an ancient theatre. The acoustics were brilliant. Unfortunately, for reasons that I cannot ascertain, the entire panoramic shot did not work out. I am disappointed. Christina and I running through our lines before performance time. Photo: Danni Ampi. The performance. The stage was, well, a little larger than Little Washington.

John's Unofficial Trip Position : Photographer to the photographers. Where : Ostia Antica Famous Why? : A massive (truly) complex of uncovered largelyBC built ruins, Ostia Antica is particularly famous for being the spot where St. Augustine conversed with his mother St. Monica in what is arguably the most mystical and beautiful passage of The Confessions. St. Monica would die shortly thereafter. We read that passage of the confessions today at that precise spot of Ostia. Who is in this photo? : Front: Dannilu. Middle: Monica. Far back: Angela What are they all taking photos of? : A complicated question. Angela was taking photos of Dannilu and Monica who were taking photos of Danni Ampi, who was up top taking photos of them, while I took photos of all three of them. Confused yet? I am. I suppose the saddest (or best, depending on your outlook) part of this is that this was not staged. Danni Ampi's picture of me taking pictures of Angela taking pictures of Monica and Danni Lu tak...

San Pudenzia. Alright, I know, it's another artistic shot. So sue me. My ever-faithful Dannilu, and an unwitting Claire make for a photo with decent compositional depth. I know, the foreground is washed out, but what do you expect with a $150 digital point and shoot?

Part of a post brought from the Holy Land, to which it is believed our Lord was chained and scourged.

Erin reading unwittingly. Perhaps you won't like this photos as much as myself, but the spot she chose to sit in was so very symmetric that I couldn't help it.

From inside San Pudenzia basilica. Bottom: Anni Clark and Christina Matatics. Top: Angela Von Ehr, Dannilu, Danni Ampi.

THIS is Italy. Tiny cars, and pizza. And yes, that is how we found this particular car on this particular avenue on this particular morning, pizza and all. Julian couldn't resist. After he finished the pizza he stole the car as well.

Danni-Loo. St. Paul Outside the Wall basilica.

Inside the Pantheon. It's very difficult to give any sense of the breadth of that dome. But at least we get a good sense of the unbelievable awesomeness of The Julian

After assiduously avoiding the museum guards...

Emma and St. Paul face off.

Blurry picture of the prison where Peter and Paul were kept. There would have be none of the artificial lighting that we had, except maybe for the occasional candle. On the left is me, my head actually touching the ceiling of the dungeon, which gives you a sense of the dimensions.

Umbrella fight outside the pantheon. Adam Wilson is actually the disembodied figure wielding the other umbrella.

My personal favourite place to go. St. Andrea's basilica. The golden hues are something indescribable.

Inside St. Peter's 7:00 AM Sunday morning. There was a Mass of all of the bishops installed into office in the last year, worldwide.

St. Peter's at 6:30 Sunday morning. Gorgeous, rich blue hues in the sky that Julian's camera miraculously captured quite well.

In exercising his infinite wisdom Julian has discovered what he has chosen to label--in sequential order from highest to lowest importance--the three pillars of philosophy . These are: 1) Wine 2) Sleep ... (elipse necessary according to paragraph 58 of the Julian catechism) 3) Rationality As is to be expected, the consequences of this teaching are sometimes bizarre, since at the dinner table it has been known to occur that a neophyte in the study of Julianism will make the request: "Pass the philosophy please." This however is heresy, since Julian has made clear the truth that although wine obviously forms the crux of the study of philosophy, and may be thought of as the most weight-bearing of the three columns, the other two are, in various measures, absolutely necessary for the pursuit of knowledge and the love of wisdom. Without one or the other for support, in the end, although it may take some time for the disaster to occur, and the student may for some time keep up the ...

Contact information for Julian (Remus) and John (Romulus): Casa La Salle Via Aurelia 472-476 00165 Roma Italy Telephone: 0039-06-66523301 Ask for room # 439 E-mail John: jjalsevac@lifesite.net Julian: julesarts@hotmail.com In the distant off chance that any should you feel tempted to send any substantial packages in this direction, I would greatly disuade you from doing so, since, for reasons that nobody can discover, there is an absolutely enormous fee here at the Casa for receiving packages.

Today, horror of horrors, classes have begun. I'm quite sure that until now I didn't believe it possible that we were to waste hours in a classroom with this wealth of knowledge, of history and theology and everything else that man has set his mind to and God has given Man to plow with his intellect and imagination, within a few mere minutes of travel. This morning’s class, however, in an appropriate fashion, rather than being held inside a classroom, was transported to the streets of Rome, to the Pantheon (which boasts the largest dome in the world, which, if you must know, is breathtaking), to some sort of collection of ruinous pagan temples named uncreatively after the first four letters of the alphabet, and to the prison where the apostles Peter and Paul were incarcerated and awaited their eventual executions. The pagan ruins made little impression on me. Such things are scattered everywhere around this city, and furthermore it is a good bet that we walk over a good dozen...

The Confessions of Julian Ahlquist (A continuation of the post by Romulus below. Read previous post first in order for this one to possibly make sense.) By Remus I contemplated abandoning the cursed suitcase at a different terminal and having that one shut-down and swarmed with bomb-squads and airplane delays rather than our terminal, so that we would be just fine. But then I was overcome by the small residue of conscience I had left, as most of it had been eroded away by violent thoughts against the French. My heart oscillated in painful gasps as I surveyed the Airport battleground. To me, this suitcase was worse than a bomb. I wished it was a bomb, so then it would blow up and disappear and leave me alone. But no, it was a normal suitcase. It wouldn’t go away. As I headed toward an alternate terminal, I threw myself at the mercy of the airport ticket agents, saying, “Excuse me, I thought this was my friend’s bag, but it isn’t. What should I do? It’s...

Julian Ahlquist And the Case of the Cursed Luggage By Romulus Nobody said traveling would be easy. And absolutely everybody said that traveling with Julian Ahlquist would be lunacy; and this most especially in my case. Not the least of those who portentously dissuaded me, warning of impending tragedies and devastating mental and physical traumas, is my former roommate Paul Provencher. Paul, it should be noted, has proven himself singularly able to effortlessly keep track of my worldly possessions and in large part my whole physical person, which often wanders about getting into all sorts of trouble without my consciously being aware that that is what it is doing; being aware of just how much I depend on this sort of thing, and well aware that Julian would be more likely to absent-mindedly lead me off a cliff in the Alps onto my final resting place of jagged rocks than to be able to perpetually pinpoint the precise position of my pipe (alliteration strangely uninte...