How Is The Newcomer To Deal With Rome? What Is One To Make Of This Marble Rubble, This Milk Of Wolves, This Blood Of Caesars, This Sunrise Of Renaissance, This Baroquery Of Blown Stone, This Warm Hive Of Italians, This Antipasto Of Civilization?
The Notion That The Great Artist Requires A Great Patron Has Been Around Since The Pharaohs. That The Born Patron Also Needs An Artist To Patronize Is A Less-studied Phenomenon.
The Federal Building's Large Ceremonial Courtroom, Reserved For Show Trials, Is Veneered In Executive Teak. Bench, Counsel Tables, Jury Boxes, Entrances, And Exits -- All Are As Formally Arranged As An Elizabethan Stage. Only The Drama Is Shapeless, At Least To Those Of Us Who Have Never Seen A Trial Before. We See Only Random Movements, Sequences, Comings And Goings, No Form Or Agenda Apparent. To Us The Action Is Less Like Watching A Play Than Watching An Aquarium.
As A General Rule, Fans And Idols Should Always Be Kept At Arm's Length, The Length Of The Arm To Be Proportionate To The Degree Of Sheer Idolatry Involved. Don't Take A Beatle To Lunch. Don't Wait Up To See If The Easter Bunny Is Real. Just Enjoy The Egg Hunt.
A Plane Is A Bad Place For An All-out Sleep, But A Good Place To Begin Rest And Recovery From The Trip To The Faraway Places You've Been, A Decompression Chamber Between Here And There. Though A Plane Is Not The Ideal Place Really To Think, To Reassess Or Reevaluate Things, It Is A Great Place To Have The Illusion Of Doing So, And Often The Illusion Will Suffice.
Ballet's Image Of Perfection Is Fashioned Amid A Milieu Of Wracked Bodies, Fevered Imaginations, Balkan Intrigue And Sulfurous Hatreds Where Anything Is Likely, And Dancers Know It.
We Are On A Sexual Binge In This Country. ... One Consequence Of This Binge Is That While People Now Get Into Bed More Readily And A Lot More Naturally Than They Once Did, What Happens There Often Seems Less Important.
Rome's Riches Are In Too Immediate Juxtaposition. Under The Lid Of Awful August Heat, One Moves Dizzily From Church To Palace To Fountain To Ruin, A Single Fly At A Banquet, Not Knowing Where To Light.
Mind And Body Are Not To Be Taken Lightly. Their Connection Is Intimate And Mysterious, And Better Mapped By Poets Than Pornographers.
The Law Changes And Flows Like Water, And . . . The Stream Of Women's Rights Law Has Become A Sudden Rushing Torrent.
