Rome via Brooklyn

493 words, 3 minutes read time.

Seeing this statue in person feels like meeting a celebrity. This is where I started my journey of learning ancient Roman art history last fall. 🥺

One of my favorite pieces from Centrale Montemartini is the tombstone of a shoemaker. At first, I didn’t even notice his occupation. All of my attention is drawn to the bust part of the tombstone. Well…. Let’s just say he is blessed with the potential to feed newborns, but he is a dude. The first impression I have of this individual is all about his chest😭. They stand out so that I didn’t even realize until Professor Yarrow walked by and said to me: “He’s a shoe maker, look at the top, those are the type of shoes he would make.” 

“…showing scenes of wild animals being captured, trained, and then released to be hunted again in the amphitheatre or on an aristocratic estate—the wild boar speared by a lance at the pointed end of the mosaic is about to be struck again by the horseman to the left, who could be the patron or a member of his family; his hairstyle and beard dates the work to the mid-late C3 AD.”(Claridge, 469)

Whenever I see animal-related art in the context of ancient Rome, I think about Villa de Livia. Is the similarity in observing what the people in that period knew, and how they chose to function with that piece of information based on their power, states, culture, the trend of the time and beliefs.

My favorite part of today was lunch. The food was amazing, portions were reasonable, the flavors were delicious. All the scent and taste hint that the dish is handmade with consideration for preserving the natural flavour of the ingredients. They are not wrong about it; maybe the Italian way is healthier. Definitely healthier. Now I understand why Europeans would make judgmental remarks about U.S. food portions. I almost forgot how ridiculous the food from the U.S could be; in some way reminded me of one of my mom’s yearly commands before the pandemic: “Alright, remember to buy all the stuff I give you on the list before you fly back to China. Especially the laundry detergents and softeners. Those American versions of product sizes are always so huge, and the scents last so long, probably because of the body odors.” 

The dessert part of the lunch felt so green. This feeling came when I tried the dessert balls, not a single trace of artificial sweetener was tasted, at least for me. It felt strange to try cocoa desserts without tons of sugar, yet it also felt right. Is refreshing to eat in the ways of other cultures, now I’m wondering how long it would take for me to be sick of pasta. I’m gonna eat so much that there will be no blood in my blood vessels, instead, it is going to be TOMATO SAUCE.