Rome Journal: Ozymandias

Ramesses II ('British Museum)

Imagine that particularly scary bungee jump in Macau or the  timed dive headfirst off a Mexican cliff. Most people don't subject themselves to such fear. However the collective unconscious functions differently. Gore Vidal's screenplay for Was Bob Guccione's disastrous Caligula any further from the truth than Ben Hur? What motivated those troops facing imminent death as they charged up the cliffs of Omaha Beach? The Roman Empire. You might say that at one point in history a whole city took on the world. Says Shelley's traveler in Ozymandias  "two vast legless trunks of stone stand in the desert..." And where does the cosmic yawn fit in? Have the majestic ruins--that appear like apparitions as you travel through downtown Roma-- earned their immortality?

listen to Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

and watch the trailer for Erotomania