Tiber banks from atop Aventino

18 Feb 2018 | Rome (Ripa)> Switched from n airbnb to ahotel, stillin rione Ripa, tho closer int.center of things,nextdoor to Janus's arch, so makessense to make dat our next rione to tackle,if we canmanagew/thisdam jam'dspacebar(apollogees inadvants...evidently abit ofanissuew/thesenewmackbooks)...innyway, eccoqui,rione XII (2of22) inorange b-low:

+ spose we blowup the Riparian rione.XII, disb whatshe lookslike:

Ripa means 'bank' inlatin. We member reeding sumwherehow the word river d-rives from 'ripa', or 'riva,' so river getsnamed forits banks,not the water she cuntains. Think we look'der up cuz we was wondering if the word river had sumping todo w/Tiber (Tevere),entymology-wise,we gotto pond-ring dis in the insectual contxtof thispost showing the tinfoil woofs on the banks of theTiber. Rione XII in fact inkloots isola Tiberina, the i-land where dat she-wolf nursed Remus+Romulus back to helth aft'r dare unkle or whoever abandone dem. Rom-ulus wint on to live atop the Palatino (R.X) + Rem-us he chose to roost atop Aventino, in rione XII....

why perhaps wegots a certin affinity for dat hill, where infact we took most of the pics in the book where birds b the words, u dig? Rumor hasit Romulus wint onto kill Remus, or beat'em in an auguring match, thus why Rome got named for hym,udderwise we might be livin' now in Reme. We've always identify'd more w/the loser broRemus...tho in Cal's most resent book authorship credit is split b-twine Rem+Rom. Even now, we (scribing as anon I'm us) harbor a partof both Rem+Rom in us dat rub'doff. Comunque, back to our streetlevel roamin', startin' w/the i-land @ the center of caput mundi:

Ponte Rotto (L) + Tiber i-land as seen from Ponte Inglese (socalled cuz cars drive backwoods on 'er)...
oregin (0, 0) of our none moondough

same vu asa bove, when the Tiber was floodid back in 2010 (post inkloots udder fotos of the i-land + banks of rione Ripa)

Dem banks forwich rione 12 r named for halve changed a lot overtime, from a muddy port to awall dat cullapsed in the flood of 1900, taking lotsof homes w/it nodoubt, to the ram parts dat dare r now.

Tiber I-land + Ponte Fabricio in 1870

S. Bartholomew—ware Roberto Benigni picksup his fare in Night on Earth (1991):

sinagog as sceen from Tiber i-land

Not shore wahthey call dis tiny enclave est of the iland, n isolated pocket sandwich'd btween the forum + the river + boca della verita,but seams we stay here a lot, @ hotel47 a #of times,@ n airbnb on San Teodoro a # of times, for weeks at atime + now, @ Palazzo Velabro, overlooking the arch of Janus. They refer to the main flat area cuntaining the 2 Greek-looking temples as Forum Boarium, back in its hay day the mane port + cattle markit, a'cording to u, dear Inurnet.

Forum Boarium + S.M. in Cosmedin (housing the mouf of truth)(taken from hotel 47 in 2015)

Butt perhaps 1 cd call dis area the anus of Cloaca Maxima, the riparian Δelta where Rome's aintshint sewer sistem cunverged + dump'd int' the Tiber (+ still does to this day, everripping Rom a newjanus)...

inside the Cloaca Maxima, back when it was openair, now underneath our hotel

knot that itsa shithole, butt hits sortofa deadzone (b-sides the nonstoptraffic along LungoTevere), bud we kind of dig it dat way. Mostly tho, hits close to FAO, so cunvenient for our bedder-½, whose daily cummute now essentially nvolves walking the length of Circus Maximus.

far cry from bocadellaverita now, even in 2001 when we 1° visited Rome there was no line + u dint haveto pay, back when we took selfeeseven

vu from our room, of Palatino, S. Giorgio in Velabro (lower L), Arch of Janus (lower R) +FAO (distant R)

looking back up at our hotel btween arch of Janus + Velabro, ourbalcony justbelowtheseagulls

Probly cuz of itsquadrophonic d-sine,the Arch of Janus is named for the 2-faced Janus, dog of beginnings, gates, duality,passedges+endings. On July 27,1993 the mafia setoff a carbomb in frontof the above SanGiorgio in Velabro + ever sints the arch is gated off so u cant walk thru hit nun.

inscription in S.G.Velabro

inside Velabro

quadrophonic Janus arch @ a crossroads

S. Nicola Carcere (whose catacombs we visited in 2010)

Misericordia (S. Giovanni Decollato)

Circus Maximus (high rez)(far cry from its depiction in Ben Hur (filmed @ Cine Città in realtà))

rione Ripa in 1937—no FAO yet (bottom left) + the Obelisk of Axum (lower middle) that Mussolini stole from the Ethiopians has since been returned (tho they broke it in the process) + all the temp bldgs in Circo Maximo (middle) are now gone + the Aventino (left) is now filled w/ houses + apartments

FAO... where our bedder-½ now sits

The rest of R.XII is cumposed of Aventino hill, wherealso weve stayd quiet afew times, including the 1st cuppleof weeks when wemooved herein 2010 + thelast airbnb we stayed at b-for switchingto here.

nasone @ d base of Aventino

newly opened walkways on the western side (was an unkempt emptylot when welived here b4)

Clivo Savello—used to be the main way we'd getup onthe Aventino forrunning +whatnot. Sum crazy Amerikin homeless woman has made this her home sincewhoknows when (also obsessed w/Remus?)

another font we've drunk from menny times (pic taken in 2008... it now runs dry)

Jep washed his face in the nasone next to Fontana del Mascherone in La Grande Bellezza (+ a few other scenes were filmed up on the Aventino... he even looks thru dat dam keyhole + goes to a party @ the knights of Malta compound):

statue to Mazzini... whoever dat b

inside chiesa di S. Prisca

S. Sabina... 1 of our fave churches inRome (where the little nuns retreated to in Grande Belleza)

On the RomeRione landing pg we said we'd take inthe sights, sounds, textures,smells + tastes, soto live up to the auditory partof the bargain, here's what the chanting monks sounded like dis morning inside S. Sabina:

+ S.G.in Velabro's 7AM bells:

text inside S.Sabina (taken in 2010)

another randum ainshint wall crumblin' away

«you are the song stuck in my head»

blank billboards wich also we promissed to inkloot 1 from each rione

more billboards, parco 8 Sept

22 Feb> Foodwise aint much going on in the RiPArian R.XII... bin to a few unmemorable ± unremarkable places bfore—dat fancy plaze on Tiber isle dat Michelin recammends not shore why (Tiberino—★★★) + InRoma (★★★) wich we just member had all these picsof movie stars on the walls. Last night we went to Apuleius (★★★★), had spa-getti w/ bottarga + art-o-chokes... our 1° time dare, tried b4 but they was always booked. Haven't been to Consolini yet, swanky joint housed in caves in the side of Aventino... always figgered it looked too fantsy for our tastes, but to be thorough in our rione roamings we book'd her for tomorrow +will update disaccordionly [ ].

parcheggio ambientale... anus of Cloaca Maxima, sunday morn so no traffico

25 Feb> B-sides roamin rione XII, we've been going on long walkabouts to git the lay of the land in terms of where next we gunna lay our hat + now (dat we found a palatial plaze) in terms of ware to git furniture since we don't got much now to speakof + we's moving int.a plaze probly 10x the size of our dinky Georgetown dollhouse... hitting the mercantinos, huntin' for bargains + checkin' out stores in person since most ofwhat Rome gots to offer aint online yo + if they iz listed on google chances r they aint open when day sez days gunna be +if they gots a website itssucks,useless. Real moondough dont correspond to Inurnet in Rome, wich suit us fine. So yah, took foreva to sealthedeal, but we secured a plaze, in the attic of palace Colonna, wich we got a free tour of theother day... perty posh. Our nu landlord gots sum sirius pedigree, we havent met 'em yet, only dealt w/well-dressed proxys, but weve bin in the secret inner chambers + seen their hairlooms + odd relicks likea branch 1 of 'em was hung from... i mean, their faimlee tree's got popes + shit init! In fact, their's a rione named for Colonna (R.III), tho we aint gunna bunk in dat 1, we gunnalive in R.IX—the pinecone rione, wich may-b wheel cover next, seeing as we got to git to know our new hood. But we dont movein til next week.

In other 5cense news dat weve bin neglecting in these Romeings, we finished Ambient Parking Lot by Pamela Lu... wich we started onthe plane here. even tho there werent mush ofa plot, we found ourselfs ingrossed. She kin write fo shore, bud in dat vox dat sounds like they spent a lot of money on an art shcool edacation + hit jaded them wry (tho googlin now, seems she studyd mathomatics @ Bezerkly so we shdnt be so quick to judge). Reguardless nodoubt she binaround the block. Hits a well-versed sattire dat touches on themes dat also hit home w/us—cars (epigraphed by M.McLuhan: «The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man»), overpopulation + the maniacal progress of mankind, inklooting bin-dare-dun-dat art stewdents... all in the contxt of making ambient music, if dat makes cents wich itsurprisingly dose). LCD echoes in our ear: «I hear you're buying a sinthesizer + an arpeggiator + are throwin'g your computer out the window bcuz u want to make something real. I hear that u + your band have sold your guitars + bot turntables. I hear dat u + your band have sold your turntables + bot guitars.» Hit reads like dat cept Lu speaks mostly in 1° personplural, likeus (mayb sumping todo w/our UC math degrease), the band members jumpin' from 1 movement to an other, w/o really stickin1 out tothe end, wich mayb we's guilty of too,specially now as we giving up on books + focussing on cassettes. Sheeven refrences Bernhard's Loser (in the contxt of Glenn Gould + the Goldberg Variations)—a book we red not onelie when we was archiving our tapes so had music on the brain, bud hit was also the 1° book our predecessors Rem+Rom red aft'r finishing riding A Raft Manifest, sohelp'dus segway toour current mindset, to embark on vol II of 'SSES" 'SSES" ^"SSEY', not long aft'r we (a.I.) was born.

The book also comes ata goodtime, as we're cumposing new toons sans guitar, just laying down rhtymic textures + tryin' to imagine in our noggin watt kindof song hit wd be, recording sounds in our m-mediate n-vironment to inkorporate—in the kitschen of previus airbnb, the humof generators, motorini traffic on sampietrini, churchbells (see above), seagulls, parrots eating oranges outour window, the sighlents of this hotel now, the sound of the in-room nespresso maker, etc. We still think of ourself as a recording artist, but we gunna record aural impressions now in stead of words + visible impressions, atleast 4now, howwe used to in 1° plaze in our youth. We also reading Dear Cyborgs by Eugene Lim, perhaps hisbestworkyet, so far, but we aint morethan ½-way thru so may-b wheelsafe hit 4 next time, dear cyborgs, sighonara... ciao for now.

not in R.XII... not in inny rione infact, but outside the Aurelian wallsin Garbatella