Pompeii No Mind

Sofia and I went to Italy. Sofia loves Italy; particularly Puglia.
We swam along the coast in the Puglia region—it was the most beautiful swimming I’ve ever seen in my life. No contest.

We did a lot of travel throughout Italy. I have always, always, always wanted to see Pompeii and we did here. It was so much fun. Really amazing. I loved it so much. One of my favorite trips. We had a really good time, everything was very beautiful. We visited Naples, as well. A lot of other places. We went to the 2nd and 3rd oldest pizza joints in the world. They were really fuckin’ good. Really fuckin’ good. The first oldest one was only so-so and required a reservation (as opposed to a long wait), so we didn’t do it. We read it was so-so, anyway. No first-hand experience. That said, who knows? You can’t fuck up pizza too bad in Naples. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Pretty light, pretty building.

It's Ol' Scratch himself.

Secret tunnels underneath Naples (not the Galleria Burbonica) that were discovered recently. Some of them are Roman in construction.

She's a saint.

Fascist architecture.

Here is where some bromigos are hanging out until they head that final trumpet.

Pretty fuckin' cool….

This is some fascist art. It's a statue of Aurelio Padovani, who died in 1926. His death was wild; he was greeting a crowd of idiots from a balcony which collapsed. He and eight others were killed. His statue was made sometime between then and 1944-45 when it was torn down and thrown into a deep hole where cunts like him belong. Like worms.

A lot of abandoned vehicles and trash ended up down here after people stopped using it, post WWII.

The Burbon gallery underneath Naples.

Driving through some strange weather around Vesuvius.

Sofia in front of the Basilica

The Basilica off the Forum

A wild statue made by Igor Mitoraj from 1994. So, ancient history, obviously. I thought this was an original statue initially and I was like, "this is way more fucked up than I thought the Romans were". But, it was just some Polish dude. This is Centauro! It was made about 1,915 years after Vesuvius had finished burying Pompeii.

Sofia in front of the Basilica in the Forum.

Roman Legos.

The fresco in the Villa of Mysteries.

Another fucking atrium.

Outside the Villa of Mysteries.

This basin says, When Gnaeus Melissaeus Aper, son of Gnaeus, and Marcus Staius Rufus, son of Marcus, were duumvirs with judicial authority for the second time, they arranged for this basin to be made, by decree of the town councillors and at public expense. It cost 5,250 sesterces. It was really nice of them to spend money that wasn't theirs. This was in ACE 3 or 4. I looked up the 5350 sesterces and a Roman legionary's basic pay was 900 sesterces a year. This basin cost something like $150-$200,000. Seems like somebody got ripped off. That's 350 tunics or 6 year's work for a legionary or 8 days' gross revenue for a very busy Pompeiian eatery. So, that's math. Maybe it was a huge benefit to the public?

Lockers in the bath.

The Temple of Jupiter (2nd centure BCE) around the forum in Pompeii.

We're in the forum, here. It used to have grass! Now it's just dust and gravel….

This is the exposed under-floor of the bathhouse where they had fires and hot air moving around to heat the water sitting on the floor above these areas.

The entry-way ceiling of a steam bath.

A shambles of what it once was.

Hot lunch counter; they had fire underneath these and would spoon fast food into bowls or leaves or whatever and people could leave with their little Big Mac equivalents.

Not even the children were spared. Joshua Christ pulled that string and saw this child smothered to death in fear, suffering and pain. Praise be!

These folks died and petrified together; maybe they knew each other? Maybe they didn't?

This fucking thing! Dude, I want one of these. It's from around the 1st century, ACE. It was found in the Complesso dei Riti Magici (the Complex of Magical Rites), also known as the House of Sextilius Pyrricus. Presumably the rites were done Sextilly. These are called Mano Pantea; an all-god hand. It gives a holla out to a whole panoply of gods. This is where Catholics got their blessing hand. The Mano Pantea was maybe a symbol of the religion, maybe a token of membership, maybe it represents achieving a level of secret insight or something. This hand symbol in Greek and Hellenistic culture symbolized speech, instruction and transmitted knowledge—how they know this, I don't know. Seems like there wouldn't be a lot of gestures written down, though maybe there are accounts of events that include them?

Poor person laid low and flat-packed.

A human frozen for millennia, smothered and terrified to death.

Check out the ruts carved into these streets by mere use. Fuckin' bananas, right?!?!

Sexy people hanging out, doing sexy things.

A shrine with an elaborate paint job.

One assumes that the shrine was there first and then the house had to be built around it. I don't know. Either way, I took pictures of each of these things close-up, so you can check them out.

Cool frescoes with porticoes for, I'm assuming, statues or something.

Really fantastic tiles in Pompeii.

Another atrium. Don't worry, there'll be more.

Human detritus. Dem' bones.

This li'l owl is almost gone. It's neat.

Everybody wanted nice images painted onto their walls. It's a much bigger commitment than hanging an image, man. Romans were dedicated.

I found out I was into atriums while here.

I had read a lot about the frescoes extant in Pompeii. I was still completely blown away by them in real life, man.

Sofia outside of the amphitheater.

This translates to: Gaius Cuspius Pansa Sr., four-time Mayor/Judge and quinquennial magistrate; subsequently appointed Acting Chief Magistrate by resolution of City Council pursuant to the applicable municipal vacancies statute. This poor fucker (whose son's recess is on the opposite side of this hallway with similar verbiage) spent stacks of cheese (maybe; we can't be sure because it doesn't say that he paid) to fix this amphitheater and it was buried by Vesuvius not a decade later. They were both mayors of Pompeii. Father and son. Chump and chumpy.

This is the amphitheater at Pompeii. It was rebuilt after earthquakes (possibly by Gaius Pansa, the senior) fucked it up in ACE 62; the rebuilt being completed araound ACE 70. Mind you, this shit was all buried in 79ACE. They completed it just in time for it to be utterly obscured beneath the earth.

Sofia in front of Vesuvius.

Mount Vesuvius! What's left of it after it popped off famously, anyway.

These cave houses were abandoned quite a while ago.

Lots of the city is abandoned; people were kicked out of the city (gently, apparently) and it is being rebuilt to accommodate wealthy people moving into to a city which is now, largely, too dangerous to live in.

Sofia sitting in the city; Matera is a bananas jumble of buildings.

This is a model of Matera. It's in one of the cave houses within the city. It's to scale. I set my balls on the church, which were also to scale.

The mass of Matera.

Me in the middle of the river; the town of Matera is visible, or at least a snatch of the city.

This is down in that slash of green; it looks very different when you're down in it. As opposed to being up above it. I believe this is the Gravina river.

Another shot down the ravine looking at the river (the only lush-looking green stuff in the valley).

This is the famous mountainside town of Matera. The Sassi here (the underground/cave settlements—which were occupied as long ago as 8 BCE!)

Neat picture with the setting sun to my back. Sharp but soft contrast.

Lovely sunsets out there. We drove for about 10 minutes from the campsite to check out the view from a large, rolling hill down onto the valley we were staying in. Sofia peed in public and I took a picture of her. I had it included here because it was funny. She was literally saying, "don't post this photo" in the photo. But then she completed that sentence when I showed her the picture and I wanted to stay married, so it's not here. I thought it was funny, anyway.

The sun on that farmhouse/castle.

This is the chapel attached to the mini castle/farmhouse at our campsite. It was a pretty place. A strange area, to be sure.

These are imitation-stone graves or memorials for folks. I don't know if this is a common thing in Italy or what. They are an orange styrofoam (or a styrofoam that turns orange after time and exposure). They are meant to look like tombs, but are hollow frames. So, I don't know if actual people were under these or what. Some dates on them were from the 80s and 90s.

This is our campsite when we stayed in the countryside around Puglia. It was at a small farmhouse/castle.

This is some classic fascist architecture around Naples. Love the look, hate the fascism.

There’s more I could say, but really, it’s all just noise. Check out the photos and let us know what you think.

Sniff y’all later!