Plastic Cameras

Having already filled dozens of CD’s with digital photos of Rome during previous stays, we have decided to evolve into some lo-fi photography. You may see us floating around Rome taking snapshots with some odd looking devices. This is the site of the company keeping these cameras into circulation. There is a lo-fi photography movement referred to as lomography (which is the name of a company that supplies equipment and film), a term that has grown to include a wide variety of non-digital photographic equipment with an emphasis on vernacular photography, cross-processing, and a general avoidance of clearly defined aesthetic rules. Exhibits of Lomo photography often include large collections of photographs sent in from amateur and professional photographers alike.

Ironically, this non-digital movement has led to the development of some impressive digital spaces on the internet. There you can find photographs submitted from lomo-photographers from all parts of the world.

You might be interested in scanning through some lomo sites, not to become a convert away from digital, but rather to think about new ways of seeing and representing the city you are learning to experience and share.

Hoosier Audience?

You will be writing a type of semi-public travel journal and creating highly public internet sites on the rhetoric of tourism and travel and the rhetoric of Rome.

You are expected to write your journal every day and revise it as you re-reflect on your travels with a little help from your peers and instructors. You will be writing a minimum of 500 words per day, 7 days a week. Your compiled journal will be collected and graded weekly and will make up a substantial portion of the grade for your film and literature classes this summer. The work you do in the Street and Studio course will involve keeping a blog and producing other mediated texts that will be available to a broader public, including your parents, friends, other tourists, and other students of Rome.

There will be an (more likely multiple) audience(s) implied in your writing. The critical term that scholars of rhetoric use to discuss this in a broader context is the “second persona,” which you can learn about in an essay by Edwin Black. Penn State Students may get a copy of this essay in the Communication and Mass Media Complete found in this list of E-resources.

In both of these projects, you need to ask yourself:
Who are these documents for?
Who will be reading these documents?
What can I reasonably expect my audience to know about the subject I am discussing?
How much background information do I need to provide for my reader to understand me?
For this audience, what is an appropriate balance between description, explanation, and critical analysis and interpretation?
What do I want my audience to take from my writing?
What kind of perception do I want this audience to have of me?

Locating Hilda's Tower in 1871

Cornell Univesity's Library has an index on the "Making of America" with an 1871 publication "Scenes from the Marble Faun" in Scribner's Monthly indicating the site of Hilda's tower. The Cornell page with this document may be found here.

Simple Eating: Vegetarian and Not-So Vegetarian Ideas

By now you’ve located your nearest lower cost grocery stores, fruit and vegetable vendors, maybe some open air markets, and have also realized that eating good food out can be quite expensive. If you aren’t accustomed to cooking for yourself, this post will give you ideas for meals that are simple, quick, inexpensive, and good. These are the first two meals that we have made in Rome this year, which means that we have the barest kitchen consisting of extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pepper, and the actual food items.

Vegetarian meal: Cost about 5 Euros for two people (plus oil and vinegar)

This meal included a pasta dish (spinach and regular fettuccini topped with tomatoes sautéed lightly in olive oil), a vegetable (zucchini and eggplant cooked with olive oil and balsamic vinegar), and a small salad of arugula with balsamic dressing on it. Some Italian words from the meal are: pomodori (tomatoes), melanzane (eggplant), rughetta (arugula – a peppery type of lettuce).





Not-So Vegetarian meal: Cost about 8 Euros for two people (plus oil, vinegar, and pepper)

This meal included a meat dish (beef carpaccio), a pasta dish (spinach and ricotta tortelloni topped with olive oil and ground pepper), a small salad of arugula, bread, and a tomato.
Carpaccio is thinly sliced meat served in olive oil and lemon juice, usually accompanied by capers. The meat is eaten raw. You may also find salmon and other carpaccios. Vegetarians interested in trying a similar dish could look for recipes online to make it with zucchini.

The tortelloni are one of many stuffed pastas that you will find alongside fresh pastas in the cooler section of your local grocery store (near cheese and milk). There are many types to choose from that may vary throughout the summer and across grocery stores. The staples will include pasta stuffed with spinach and ricotta, ones stuffed with prosciutto, and ones stuffed with meat (carne). You may also find ones with more unique fillings like cheese and pears, melon, and radicchio (a bitter purple lettuce).

Gatti di Roma and the death of Julius Caesar

If you are looking for something to do to get yourself involved in a worthy cause and get an excellent opportunity to study part of the Roman touristic experience at close distance, you may want to visit and look into volunteering at the Cat Sanctuary at Largo Argentina. In the past, the sanctuary has lead tours of the perimeter of the ruins, which includes the location where Julius Caesar may have been murdered. Post a comment on the days/times if you find out.

A visit to the sanctuary can be trying because you bear witness to horrors that others have inflicted on animals. It is also quite rewarding insofar as the volunteers there keep this space afloat and take care of the Gatti di Roma. Their gift shop is also a unique place to pick up a souvenir with proceeds going back to the animals.

Two summers ago (don’t get any ideas) a group of students in the CAS Rome program found a 6 week old kitten on the streets of Testacchio and began taking care of her. When the kitten decided to adopt us, the sanctuary was kind enough to file the necessary paperwork for us to bring her home. Penelope is currently vacationing in Pittsburgh.

San Giovanni Rotondo - mixing spirituality, tourism, and the macabre

An article in the The New York Times, "Italian Saint Stirs up a Mix of Faith and Commerce,"cites that thousands of pilgrims have flocked to see the newly exhumed body of Padre Pio in the town of San Giovanni Rotondo in Puglia. Followers attribute many miracles to Padre Pio, who is the first priest thought to have received the stigmata since Saint Francis of Assisi. The town where he lived and preached has become a tourist destination, drawing millions of visitors a year. For some more information about the city and its mix of tourism and spituality, see a 1998 New York Times Article, where one of the monks attending Padre Pio's memory is found saying "'We didn't want them to turn this into a junky country fair.''

Cooking at Home

Here is a simple dinner idea that Jenny and I had in Rome last May.

You are looking at ravioli with pesto coupled with arugula salad, fresh mozzarella, pears, topped with fresh basil, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. The ravioli and mozzarella were bought in a grocery store. We found everything else at open-air markets.