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Maybe some curator should put together an exhibit of Design-L Art. NeoClassical Chili could well be the centerpiece, as in "What's your poison?" I'm sure Brian, Brad, Arthur, etc. can offer a lot more art to choose from too. I'd add No Doubt the Artist Suffered as Well.
Also, did you actually just read De Spectaculis? I haven't read it in several years, and I really only remember the parts that came to relate to Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii -- q/06/1542 and follows. I'd be interested in hearing more of you impressions vis-a-vis "ancient romans and their discussions about christians willing to kill themselves aligns with brian's evaluation of whats happening with .us policing the world."
I sometimes think that others think my interest in "ancient" things is anachronistic, where as, what really interests me is when ancient things reveal how modern things are sometimes not too different, thus broadening but also sharpening the focus upon the present. For example, the multi-culturalism that was virtually the whole essence of the Roman Empire of late-antiquity is hardly even known about today. Rather "Rome" is almost always seen as gladiators, emperors, pristine classical architecture, etc. I would love to know what turn-of-the-fourth-century Treves (today's Trier, Germany) and Nicomedia (today's Izmit, Turkey) (the capitals of Constantine and Diocletian respectively) were really like. Imagine, for example, early fourth-century Treves as a thoroughly bi-lingual city where just as much Greek was spoken as Latin. And I have a suspicion that the original "Constantinian" double basilica at Treves (c. 327, which is today still two large later-built churches joined like Siamese twins) was indeed the touchstone of all subsequent architecture known as Romanesque.
Yes, scholars and historians know about these times and places, but it is definitely not part of what you could call general human knowledge. And the "me and just me" attitude of today doesn't help either. Unfortunately, history, or at least the working of time, does it's own substantial erasing of what once was as well.
ps
I think Tertullian was a lawyer as well.
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