This morning, I was up early. Rain against my window. Coffee brewing. And reading Innocents Abroad - literally SNORTING with laughter. Especially when Mark Twain just went OFF on the Medicis. He just goes OFF on them for about 3 pages, and ... it's just feckin' hilarious. He was like PISSED at the Medicis. He started to mess with the tour guides - who were showing this or that Medici corpse - with an air of reverence that Twain couldn't stand. He would say, in a tone of horrified uncertainty, as he stared down at the blackened skull of some Medici pope: "Is ... is he dead?" hahahaha He KEPT doing this, on every tour across Italy. He was so sick of the Medicis that he reFUSED to be in awe of them. "Is ... is he dead?" Just to see the befuddled expression on the guide's face.
Mark Twain, come to think of it, has the same response to the Medicis that Cashel did - my dad scrolling through the television, stopped for 2.3 seconds on the History channel - a brief picture flashed on the screen of some be-ruffed velvet-hatted Renaissance dude - Cashel saw that one picture, and rolled his eyes in boredom, saying, "The Medici popes."
hahahaha Cashel is OVER "the Medici popes" - Mark Twain seems filled with righteous anger about them.
It's a great book. A rollickingly wonderful read. It's a really good book that can make you laugh out loud at 6:45 in the morning.
Posted by sheilaThere used to be a street gang in Chicago called The Insane Popes. Their turf-marking graffiti was among the first things my brother noticed upon returning from a year studying his art in Italy...
Posted by: triticale at January 31, 2006 3:06 PMI hate the fact- and yet love it- that Cashel is so much smarter than I could ever hope to be.
Posted by: Just1Beth at January 31, 2006 9:42 PMbeth - hahaha I know ... can you imagine being BORED by the Medici popes??? Or even knowing what the hell a Medici pope is? At 8 years old??
Posted by: red at January 31, 2006 10:12 PM