089 faccio la tifa per i tigri

Congrats Tigers for manhandling Bama 13-3, and welcome to...

• 11-2 on the season
• a 7 game winning streak
• 9-0 in the division
• a 1-0 record against Alabama
• a guaranteed better finish than last year's 10-4
• and 1 win away from clinching the division championship

088 autobus pubblicita'

Tales from the bus... the number 23 bus, which I take to work, is the
nicest bus that I have ridden in Rome. It's new, clean, with working
air conditioning, and it even has this little centralized TV screen
that informs and entertains the riders.

My commute is about 15-25 minutes, depending on traffic, and during
that time, blips are shown from news headlines and current events,
movie previews, and other public announcements. It also has little
animated horoscopes each morning. I had to figure out that "bilancia"
was mine from the little image of a scale, and then of course realized
the relation to "balance" in English.

There's also a funny little cartoon skit that repeats every 30 minutes
or so with a fat, blond, woman on a bus with sunglasses, a camera
around her neck, and shopping bags. A sneaky thief appears from
behind her and tries to pickpocket her, but at the last minute a cat
from under her hat jumps out onto the thief's face and hisses and
scratches at him. Then the text appears - in English - "Watch out for
pickpockets!" Funny funny.

087 museo d'arte moderna

from Sunday's journal entry:
I tried to go to Villa Borghese, the only remaining major art museum that I haven't seen yet. I went at 5 pm, which usually guarantees empty museums, but the place was so crowded and I didn't want to stand in the sweaty line of tourists complaining, so I struck out farther north to head towards the Etruscan Museum. It was also closed, but just next door is another museum strangely missing from the tourist guides: The Museum of Modern Art.

Ah yes, my favorite genre of museum - I guess I got caught up in all the ancient history buzz to not actively seek this out. Obviously Rome and Italy are not known for their contributions to contemporary art and architecture, so I guess I understand why this museum is so undercover. The very first room were filled with colors and these long Klimt-like tapestries, and my first thought was "why on earth have I been wasting my time in all these history museums?"

I enjoyed my time in the museum, and especially enjoyed the statue pictured above "Similia Similibus", Maccagnani. After seeing so much classical art of heroes and warriors and ancient gods, it was quite a bright spot to just see the simple hello of a friendly cat in stone.

Inspired by this, I googled a bit to find all types of (post)modern architecture around Rome. There are basically 7 pieces, two of which I have seen:

1. Renzo Piano's Auditorium - already seen, elegant, understated
2. Zaha Hadid's MAXXI - (under construction), plan to visit soon
3. Richard Meier's Ara Pacis - already seen, very bad, pro-Meier article, anti-Meier article
4. Richard Meier's Dio Padre Misericordia - critically acclaimed, way out in the 'burbs, plan to visit soon
5. Massimiliano Fuksas' Centro Congressi - (under construction), plan to visit soon
6. Rem Koolhaas - no info yet
7. Calatrava - no info yet, something in Tor Vegata suburb