Homer L. Twigg IV

DJ MF has been cranking out beats faster than I can count, so it’s time for me to step up, do more updates and keep the limited fan base entertained. Below is some funk not ready for the project, but makes the soul feel good. Feels good to be refreshed – being back in Italy has been a breath of good air and inspiration to get back to basics and to start wispering sweet nothings to the drum machine. Comments are appreciated.

Second installment in the various pieces I’ve done with no home, no father, no nothin’. These don’t make the cut to the Odyssey project, aren’t funky enough for Philly Tea, but nevertheless come into being because I hear a wild sample or twist some knobs and make a nice noise. ENJOY.

A little eye candy from a DC / Marvel penciller, Yanick Paquette

For those of you tuned in, you may have noticed lots of layout and content changes, but few blog posts. I’ve been spending the creative energies on beats and learning enough tech know-how to manage this site, though I’d greatly appreciate someone who’d like to step up.

Last night madlib & J.Rocc played at Circolo in Rome and it was pure fire:

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See the full gallery here.
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Throughout the night we heard a lot of dilla, dilla influences, other bangers, a suprising amount of movie dialogue/stand-up samples, and other stuff. My only critique from last night is this vocal stuff. I had a hard understanding it, and non-english speakers probably weren’t getting much at all. During those sections, J.ROCC & Madlib were the ones having the fun.

There were 2 MADVILLIAN II tracks (one of which they rewound and played again just for kicks), and they had a real funky, slightly disjointed feel to them. There was new Simpson, and Strong arm steady tracks. I’ve got some videos, which I’ll upload once I master this whole .mov -> youtube process.

Other things I picked out (I think): The Sylvers, Galt Macdermot, Raymond Scott (that sample is a diamond among diamonds…), Shuggie Otis, 10cc , Dionne Warwick, and the comedian from the beginning of “Mash”. Name escapes me for the moment. Leave a message.

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During the show, I befriended Ari (excuse the misspelling if there is one), who had the easiest bouncing job in the world– the people there didn’t look to be either threatening nor half of them really banging around (though this didn’t stop me and my lovely companion for the evening). Ari cleared out the back porch after the autographs were done. I had handed off three copies of the mixtape to Egon with Stones Throw, though I had the feeling he hadn’t delivered them like he said he would.

As good fortune and a little blessing have it, I was in the inner concert area when at about 3:45A.M. this morning, I was able to slip in an “excuse me, Mr. Jackson & Mr. Jackson” to the two as they were walking out the door. I asked for thirty seconds and got a few minutes. I explained the project, the target audience, and how I want both their MC & DJ skills and how I had slipped in billions of Zimbabwean currency to the mixtapes as leverage for them to give it a listen. Madlib said something along the lines of

“Well, if it’s bangin’, we’ll be in touch”

And that was almost good enough for me. Of course, we all want a golden ticket, a “hell yeah, love the idea, sign me up”. But I’ll take the silver ticket. Now it’s a matter of J.Rocc and Madlib liking what they hear. And that’s the stretch. I know what I’ve got: a good idea. I’m confident — but trying to avoid hubris here — that my production is quality. I could always use critical feedback from seasoned vets.

Either way, the big question mark in the sky is when I will hear back from them.

Tick, tock.

Update: Egon’s blogpost can be read here

Soon enough (once I figure out these plugins), I’ll upload pictures and some stories. For now, a non-verbal summary of my trip.

Did you read the first book? Sparknote it for key themes. The task is to present the chapter as the muse does, telling the story from a omnipresent divine 3rd person perspective.

Two things that will help:

1.) Hear it as it was done:

http://wiredforbooks.org/iliad/

The writings of Homer are usually in dactylic hexameter- six meters of Stressed/Unstressed lines. (More info on that is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylic_hexameter) Remember that it wasn’t “written to fit the meter”; for hundreds of years this was orally transmitted, and the bards giving this recitation at various festivals of the gods were freestyling with a macrostructure in mind. Recent research (I gotta get the scholars name/work) I studied in school points to evidence where the bard was surrounded by a group of men and women who would stomp out the beat on the ground and rotate slowly around the bard, changing directions of rotation when the meter had a change-up. Think about it: 2,800 years ago people had a fundamental need to explain the story of their culture by singing poetry to a beat while people danced around them– if you don’t get timeless connection, this project isn’t for you. The goal of this project is basically to be more oldskool than anyone else has been…by about 2,760 years. You are the bard; this is your story to modify, as long as you create and sustain the elements. These elements are neatly summed up in the TEACHing protocol that I mentioned briefly over the phone, and explained in detail below.

2.) See the modern graphical rendition of it:

http://movielab.tv/the-odyssey,5163.html

This is the ABC miniseries that you recommended. My connection is too slow to download it, but I’m looking for other sources. My guess is that this throwback will be of great inspiration for you. While I’m sure the film has corrupted details, the only time you should be accused of textual corruption is through omission. In other words, don’t change the storyline and the facts contained within. Of course you’re not going to get all the details on tape. But the primary academic focus is to deliver the story as a modern rendition for modern ears, as well as an instrument through which people of all ages connect with history and the veritable foundation of western culture. On a human level, The Odyssey speaks about timeless themes: war, home, anger, love, rage, conquest, brillance, shrewdness, and getting some good fucking revenge at the end. On a non-academic level, I want it to be catchy, addicting, packed tight and profitable. Let’s get rich.
Now, onto that neat package of common elements that the bard hit upon then, and which you should cover now:

(T)hemes
(E)pithets
(A)ction
(C)haracter development
(H)istory

These elements are ordered as is most proximate to our medium- hip hop. The themes are sparknotable; hospitality, loyalty, war, revenge, propriety, fortune, providence. There are lots, though those are most of big ones. Different books have different themes.
Next, the epithets, are titles that are attributed to certain characters. They’re the most tightly packed words in the book—just a few words explain a book about a character. And they’re used in hip hop all the time. Consider every time someone says “I’m [blank] like a [blank]”. The first blank is the character, the second, his/her epithet. These are things NOT to be omitted, because they were most likely a constant among generations of recitations. But a modern rendition containing the same semantics is not only appropriate, but indeed our goal in a larger sense. Take for example the “hotheaded” Odysseus. While you should use that phrase exactly as a textual quotation, you might also use something that means the same but which is more proximate to our demographic. Irish-blooded? Gun-loaded? Rage-driven? That’s your part to be creative, and I won’t do it for you.
The action is the story line. You have to set up a natural flow and progression of the most important elements of the story so that the MC doing the chapter before and after you can pick up where you left off. How did Homer get from this island to that one? Why is Athena disguised as she is? Stuff like that.
The character development tells about how these characters evolve morph and acclimate to their situation in order to maximize benefit. Telemachus is going to be the big name in this category. Other characters are rather defined by their static nature, and “character response to situation” is perhaps a more appropriate element name.
Lastly, don’t forget the demographic. Many of our potential listeners may not be able to point out Ionia on a map, or even modern-day Greece for that matter. Tell how Odysseus got to his position in the outset of the book (Hint: review The Illiad), why these wars were going on, why there are strange dudes in his house trying to court his wife, etc. Not everything is explained by the bard in the book because it is assumed that the people of the culture of that time knew it already—both in terms of past plot development, as well as cultural norms assumed by everyone. We can’t make those assumptions, and so we have to fill in the gaps.

That’s a lot to chew on, but my expectations are high because I want quality product. In terms of people I’ve ever spoken to and had a conversation with, you’re the best rapper I know. So, if you can’t do it, some hope is lost. It’s a big homework assignment, but we are prophets of profit. Let’s do something big, make money, help people, and die famous.

The other recipient of this message is a classics professor of mine from school, Professor Myers. Free time and volition move him to spontaneous genius when it concerns this project, and although as of late his thoughts are more nostalgia than active contribution, he is nonetheless a great source of wisdom and inspiration in this endeavor. He teaches this very subject to the very demographic that I wish to reach—children—and for this same reason his cooperation in this project is somewhere between precious and mandatory. If he messages you offering assistance, you should take it.

Dear Blog,

My brain is about to explode from the unfinished product and irons in the fire. Therefore, rather than finishing any of them, I’m throwing them all together into one giant crapfest of beats:

Untitled Waste Mix

<3

Good evening everybody. This is my new mix. There are grown-up words in it. Comments always appreciated.

Featuring:

Sadat X
Median
Away Team
Panama Gat
Saukrates
Koushik
Dr. Dre
BDP
Dilla
Madlib
Black Milk
Common
J-Spliff
Mike & Ike
Nina Simone
Moka Only
Cryptic One
Marsimoto (German, Brigitte)
Illa J
Hocus Pocus
Lee Mason
DJ Mitsu
The Odyssey Project
Part Time Monk

Thank you to Globat for handling my mixes so well.

On top of the previous post, I’ve taken some pictures and stictched them together, creating 90-270 degree panoramas. Warning: They’re big in size, but worth the wait if you want an in-the-moment view from cyberspace.

The shop
The centro
Castelluccio (bottom center) & Mt. Vittore
Castelluccio (left) and clear skies

An average day in paradise:

I wake up at around 7AM. This is my room:

A view from the window. It’s all fog in the morning, but what looks white actually gives way to a beautiful mountain backdrop after the sun has been up for a few hours:

Then it’s off to class. I’ve been hired by the Cooperativa Monte Patino to teach English:

I teach until 10:00AM and then rush off to go open shop and grab breakfast.

This is the Monastery. When I first arrived, we parked on the left, and I asked Br. Basil, “So, where’s the monastery?!” But this is it. The novitiate is on the left, and the portone is the big brown door on the left. Through that door is the rest of the monastery, and the back entrance to the shop.

Now, on and into the shop. First up are the bathrooms. I clean these as an act of humility and charity, and also to make a nice chunk of change. Everyone drops coin to use the bathroom, and I often cut people off to change towels, clean the seats, etc. Then the customers put their money in the little basket. This may seem trivial, but it banks close to $50 on a busy day. It’s tax-free and pays for a lot of things around the shop.

And now a brief look around the shop:

New book shelf and books. Recent addition since I’ve arrived.

That’s my desk. If you ever talk to me on skype, you’ve seen that brick wall in the background.

New Georgian icon display. Icons from Rome, framed locally.

Products from Camaldolsi, and Honey.

A table of medals of St. Benedict, for all your etheral protection needs.

Statues, soap, smellgoods.

Santini. Italians get a big kick out of little cards with saints’ images on one side, and prayers on the back. They carry them in their wallet/purse.

Crosses out the wazoo.

Jam, Booze.

This is the outside of the shop.

This is Enrico. He drops by several times a day to check in on me. He typically has a good story and some Norcian dialect to teach to me. He’s an ironsmith- made the flag holder and half of the other iron on the walls of Norcia.

Daily deals. Always a good deal on alcohol in my shop. The Wabash in me.

Allora. The shop is open by around 10:15. Before it gets busy, I sneak off to the Lanzi shop and get a ‘panino americano’, which means a sandwich with more than one ingrediant on it. What you see here is a sandwich with prosciutto, mortadella and peccorino cheese. Maria is making it for me.

Putting on the finishing touches. This runs me about €3, or $4.00.

I work in the shop until lunch/dinner. There is only one meal between september and Easter– the reason why I buy a sandwich in the morning. At 1:30, I close for about an hour and take care of errands. Then, at 3:00, we eat:

I’m alone or with another guest or two these days. The monks sit on the opposite side of the dining room. Fr. Cassian (the prior) and Fr. Benedict (Subprior) sit in the center.

Meals are always silent, except for a reader. Right now we are going through a thick book on Byzantium. Br. Jonathan reads this week.

Amazing food at this monastery. Every meal is well-prepared, although there is not much variation: first platter, then a second platter with protein (egg-based 85% of the time), then a vegtable, then a salad. Sometimes there are cookies or other desserts.

Typically, I go back to the shop and keep the doors open until 6:15. Then I have class from 6:15-7:15, and a private english lesson until 9PM once a week. On sundays, everything is the same except that there is lunch at 1:30 and DINNER at 6:30. Dinner means leftovers with beer. An appropiate celebration of the mass.

On sundays, I close early and go to the mass offered by the monks in the cathedral:

Mass is in Italian, except for the most important parts, which are often in Latin. All of our private conventual masses in the crypt are in Latin. Today is Nov. 2nd, celebration of the faithful departed– thus the black. After Vatican II, many ‘creative’ priests opted to remove black, the idea of praying for the dead and those in purgatory, etc. But here in Norcia, the monks choose not to live their lives like they are going to live forever. Call it radical.

That’s the basic day. After lessons are over, I typically work on my computer making music, listening to music, reading, or periodically keeping up on this blog. There is always beer involved…

Please leave comments on spelling errors and thoughts.

Okay, sorry for not writing more to those two people who check this blog. I’ll be better; it’s not as busy now.

Note: I dropped the lyrics to demonstrate syllable placement. Nobody does it like bus. But–and let me be very explicit in a different way–content like this will NOT be on the cd.

Note #2: Busta Rhymes: Please rap book IIX for me.

“In time, when hunger and thirst were turned away,
the Muse brought to the minstrel’s mind a song
of heroes whose great fame rang under heaven:
the clash between Odysseus and Akhilleus,
how one time they contended at the godfeast
raging, and the marshal, Agamemnon
felt inward joy over his captains’ quarrel”

‘So far so good,’ said she, when I had ended my story, ‘and now pay attention to what I am about to tell you- heaven itself, indeed, will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster.

Listen Now

“Homeward you think we must be sailing
to our own land; no elsewhere is the voyage
Kirk has laid upon me. We must go
to the cold homes of death and pale Persephone
to hear Teiresias tell of time to come.”

Listen Now

Haven’t gotten all the kinks out of this blog yet. Here are the promised pictures.

Florence

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Norcia

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It’s been an increasingly busy few days since I’ve caught up on Jet Lag and started sleeping through the night. The most difficult part has not been staying asleep, but rather getting to bed before midnight (and preferably at 10:00PM)– something I haven’t done regularly since I was nine or ten years old.
On Wednesday Bryan recommended that I go to Florence and get some real-world Italian under my belt. I’ve been in tandem with the only other English-speaking guy my age in this town, Christian. He’s just graduated from high school in Montreal and is on a bit of a tour around Italy (and next Romania), tracing family heritage and discerning exactly where he wants to go to school. As a technophile and Apple nut, he’s got the technology to take wonderful pictures and capture what I am too lazy and unterested to do. So I seized his pictures he took of the “downtown” or Il Centro and of Florence to post up.

The Florence experience was wonderful, but travelling in Italy is no glamorous task. I went to bed that night at midnight and woke up at 4:15 AM for no good reason. After a coke and a cold shower, we were on the road before 5:00 just as the sun was coming up and the monks were finishing their matins or vigil prayers starting at 4:15 and going an hour. We arrived in Spoleto an hour later to take the train to Terontola and another two hours to Florence. Arriving 8:30AM, we stumbled onto the street and found ourselves something to eat: Preschutto, tomato and mozzarella cheese sandwich with some nestea. We kept the bottles and filled up at the periodic public fountain; the water is moderately cold and delicious and free. We took a turn at the Duomo, this magnificant church built during the Medici era of religious nepotism, piety and corruption– all the things that made the church so interesting to study today. As we crossed the Fiume Arno (Arno River) we ended up in the leather dealer district of Florence, and everywhere there was bags and shoes and gloves– everything from a nice $50 pair of dress shoes to $350 pair of leather gloves. By the time noon rolled around, the heat had set in. I was sweating moderatly and Christian was drenched from carrying around two cameras and a video camera that he never used. Our pace slowed, and the stop-and-go action of seeing something and waiting for Christian to take pictures became stop-and-go action at pubs to keep out of the sun and keep properly hydrated. We asked for recommendations of spots to see from everyone we saw who spoke good English, but the streets are sufficiently winding and non-linear enough that we never made it to any of the spots– the scenery from outside the museums with hour-waits was beautiful and we were pressed for time because we had to pick up the 4:00PM train back home.

The climax of our trip was back at the duomo. We spent some time in the church, and then when the line was short we paid our €6.00 to climb 463 steps to the top of it. What a view. The new perspective was really a demonstration of the compact-ness of Italian towns– they really aren’t all that big, but contain as much as American towns three times the size.

Sweaty, tired and chafing, we headed back to the station and stopped in the local McDonalds to give a taste to an Italian version of the Big Mac. Everything tasted the same, but the straws were labeled “McDonalds, ©1986”. I got an extra one as my single souvenouir, but Christian threw it away. Jerk.

The trains were unpredictably late, and we missed our first connection in Foligno and had to take the second one. We got the last train back to Spoleto, where the 8PM Bus was waiting for us to take us back to Norcia. We got home, had a delicious meal of meat tortellini at Trattoria dal Francese and a long shower. Meeting up at 10:15, we went out for a glass of wine and decided that we were too exhausted to keep our eyes awake, yet alone be social. I was in bed by 11:00 and asleep by 11:01 with that sort of deep comatose that would make a sleep apnea sufferer look fidgety.

The remaining pictures are of the town square and various statues, door knobs and things Christian thought were interesting. Then there’s a random picture of something that looks like elementary school pizza that’s been puked on; that’s the delicious pizza I had at the gas station in Orte on my way to Norcia some eight days ago; it feels like its been a month.

Peace be to everyone reading this from across the pond and the occasional internet drifter.

I’ve been in Norcia since about 2:00PM local time yesterday, though my body is quite unsure what time it is. The trip started at a brisk pace in Indianapolis, and got off with only a few hitches. Delta has lowered the maximum weight requirement for checked baggage, and I showed up with a bag 14lbs too big. I threw away my hangers, moved some of my audio gear and my gift for Fr. Cassian (crunchy peanut butter — his request) into my bag. Oops.

It turns out that peanut butter can be used as a weapon, and TSA promptly threw it away when they saw it under the x-ray machine. I should have known this, although there would have been no avoiding making the weight requirement. My audio gear bag (an upcoming post soon) was also the cause for some serious curiosity, and agents admitted that I had one of the strangest looking x-rayed bags they’d seen that day. So, at every check point I was forced not only to basically undress and unpack my backpack, but also pull every electronic piece of equipment out and demonstrate that it wasn’t threatening. I wish I had had some speakers so that it could have just played music at their will and made the searching procedure easier. I did this step-aside-unpack-explain-smile-unpack dance three times: Once in Indianapolis, once in NY and once in Dublin. Italians have the uncanny ability to discern explosive materials from XLR and MIDI cables. I ate my last American meal — A Big Mac meal with an extra cheeseburger — and began dreaming right away of the next opportunity I would have to joyfully poison my body. My heart aches for special sauce even as I write about it. That stuff is crack.

With my daypack and audio bag, boarding, sitting and leaving the plane were a little like being born, although all my seatmates were friendly and I went two for three with the window seat. The Economist got me to New York. I took Restaril just as I boarded the plane to Dublin and woke up in Dublin, missing the meal and all the free half-cans of coke. Feeling the Irish blood boil in me as I stepped in the Dublin airport, I decided to take a traditional Irish breakfast–Guinness– and then spent an hour thinking about America and my family and watching beautiful Irish women look doubtfully at your disheveled traveler. Across the bar, I saw a man get the hic-ups; his neatly protruding stomach jumped like a woman’s in labor and he would occasionally hit it like beating the cirrhosis-riddled child inside. I gathered my things and curled up in my seat for the last 2.5 hour stretch to Rome and slept most of the way, interrupted only by a child who wailed with a blood-curdling cry that only stopped once the plane had come to a complete stop at Di Vinci airport.

Rome is wonderful, and the smell was not altogether unfamiliar to that of the airport in New Delhi, but with less curry and feces in the air. My checked bag that I was sure would be lost at the transfer in Dublin came out before most everyone else’s, and with my remaining energy I stacked my things and headed for outside, unsure of where I was going except to “go meet Br. Basil” per my last email from Br. Benedict. My eyes sifted through the unending row of chafers with scribbled names on signs until I saw a bald monk with a beard to put King Menelaus to shame. He stood there unpretentiously and looked at me, and for a second I thought “there’s lots of monks in Rome”, but “Br. Basil!” came out instead, and he shook my hand. “Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you thirsty?” “No, No, No. Thank you. How are you? Let’s get out of here. No, it’s not heavy at all.” I was shaking and sweating and wanted to sleep and eat and get drink all at once.

—-

The second my bags were in the car and the windows down, the pace has been as delightful and rewarding even up until now. We stopped halfway in Orte for food and petrol, and I honestly ate the best gas station food I’ve ever had: Mushroom pizza, mozzarella and roma tomato salad, a large coke. With difficulty I passed up the cold beer next to the soda, though it was offered. Then back to the road.

The remainder of the drive was increasingly more beautiful, and it is no surprise that Italians call this area “saint-making country”. It has been the inspiration for many holy men and women. On our final stretch to the walls of Norcia, several groups of crotch-rockets blazed by us on blind turns, narrowly missing busses and young people picnicking on the side of the road.

Then there was Norcia. We came into the walls and began navigating through a series of small streets with canopies of wet clothes and telephone lines. The walls closed in on us, and when we could finally go no farther, we stopped in an alley. I asked, “How far is the walk?” Br. Basil smiled and replied, “I said the same thing. We’re here.”

Santo Benedetto is a monastery built on ruins which were built on ruins. The earthquakes come here in cycles of 30 years, and then 70 years, and has been consistently crumbling and rebuilding some time, like much of Italy (in Rome new ground for building is almost never broken as the chances of discovering historical artifacts is almost guaranteed, and the government will promptly take it from the contractor). I dragged my luggage up the last two flights inside a chilled marble-floored guest house that smelled like something between the Tibetan motels in Majnu-ka-tilla in New Delhi and Center Hall at Wabash. The feeling of putting my things down for more than 10 hours was to my body what confession after thirty years would be to the soul. The sun was shining and cleansing and purified the air– which was already pure.

I found Bryan and hugged him; I met Br. John, the Official Guestmaster (he didn’t seem amused quite by me referring to him as the “O.G.” of the monastery, though I could hear Eazy E laughing from heaven) and hugged him too. I think my stench was more of an introduction than my name, and I hope first impressions don’t last forever.

Then I saw the gift shop, the small and cozy den of soaps and honeys and rosaries and post cards and books in languages I don’t speak [yet]. I was happy to just sit and watch Bryan tend to the shop; I thought “In August, this will be me” and was intimidated by my poor Italian. I wish Beth had given me more.

Vespers in the evening was followed by absolutely delicious lasagna and fresh salad and fresh bread and a little wine. Benedictines usually eat some meat but mostly abstain from alcohol; as an act of piety here they abstain from meat but follow the local custom of having wine with meals. It was very good, and when I was full and showered and sitting back in my chair, I felt like I hadn’t travelled at all.

After dinner I met up with Bryan and we went on a passiggiata. Since birth, the locality in Norcia has made a cultural staple of walking off their meal by pacing from one entrance gate of the town to the other, a fifteen-minute loop in total since the town is only about six or seven times the size of the Wabash campus and 3,000 strong in population. Bachelors, groups of girls, married couples with their kids in strollers, elderly– everyone dressed to impress and then got to trotting. We passed the same groups of people several times, with Bryan occasionally introducing me and I standing there with my thumb in my butt chanting two important mantras to myself: “Nothing wrong with an unspoken thought” and “Better to be quiet and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”. After this walk I could begin to feel my body “wake up” again, and I promply found a draught of brandy to put that notion to bed, so to speak. We retired to the guesthouse (Bryan lives next door), I finished unpacking and laid down to begin rereading the Odyssey. I was asleep before I got through the proem, and slept seemingly more deeply and peacefully than in years.

I woke up today at 6:15 for Lauds and went. I came back to my room and was almost magnetically attracted back to bed. I woke again at 11:45 feeling 90% refreshed and went to Mass. It was in the co-cathedral (it is no longer technically a cathedral because Norcia is no longer the seat of the diocese) and was full of holy men and holy smoke and Gregorian chant. The choir of three monks would simply and elegantly chant the Norvus Ordo in Latin, and the ‘men’ of ‘amen’ would dangle in the air like humidity in New Orleans, asymptotically approaching silence. After mass I found a computer and looked up what the readings were.

Sunday is a happy day for monks. Truly it is a “mini-Easter” as the Church would have us ideally practice, and I had the opportunity to participate in a silent and pious adoration before supper. It was an exquisite dinner of pizza, shrimp cous cous, tuna salad, fresh fruit and whipped cream for dessert. All of this is made from the scratch of the scratch. The Kitchen Masters here earn their title. Bottles of becks and small pitchers of wine dotted the white linen cloth like Christmas lights, and the table we sat at with Fr. Cassian at the center was not altogether unlike the famous scene of the last supper. We were even on the second story. All meals are taken silently here at Santo Benedetto, except for lunch when someone reads from a book (everyone else eats in silence) and on Sunday, when recreation and talking is permitted. There was a bit of very healthy laughter, and although my portions have halved since I’ve been here, I feel more satisfied and nourished than any quantity of Big Macs. There is no “itis”, or lingering feeling of lethargy and sloth. After dinner I sat and conversed about the Eucharist with a very intelligent, pious and pretty lady who used to be the accountant at Santo Benedetto. She has green eyes and knows Latin and the Old Rite and has quiescence about her brought about only by prayer and grace– like the other 90% of the people here.

The greatest hope I had coming here has come true: I correctly predicted that I would have to do little myself to bring myself to pray more. When everyone prays, you pray, and prayer has yet to feel time-consuming or fruitless or repetitive. Perhaps this is because I’m praying in a language I don’t know and which I have to translate on the fly while in a 1,900 year old crypt traditionally called the birthplace of St. Benedict and St. Rita; perhaps it is grace.

If you are reading this and wish to make a donation to Santo Benedetto, put your wallets away for the time being at least. I will surely solicit the world for money for this place soon enough. But for the time being, we are in a pinch as there is no Crunchy Peanut butter. Please, if you read this, send crunchy peanut butter to:

Homer Twigg
Monastero di San Benedetto
Via Reguardati, 22
06046 Norcia (PG)
Italy

I love and miss you all, and look forward to seeing you in Norcia, stateside or somewhere else.

Well, this is the beginning of a long series of headaches and geeking out. This will be the home of frequent musings about the trip — short, simple and informative. It will also be the home of update reporting on the odyssey project and development.

I’ve got something like 600gb worth of samples to move onto globat.com before I head across the pond. Does anyone know where I can jack-in to an OC-48 line and move all this data from Naptown to Cali? Ideas would be appreciated.

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Just before the end of school, DJ Renfro and I put the final touches on a Jay-Z remix. Check it.