rome blog

The Roman summer is in full swing, and is filled with special events and must-see concerts. August 30th Hole will be the star, and will perform at the Atlantico Live in Rome to present their latest album “Nobody’s Daughter”, published in April. Obviously fans will also be able to hear some of the hits which made them famous: Teenage Whore, Doll Parts, Violet, and Miss World etc.

Hole is a rock band. Their early work was heavily influenced by punk rock and noise rock, and their sound gradually became more grunge and pop. The album Live Through This (1994) also included collaborations with Kurt Cobain (husband of Hole frontwoman Courtney Love).

The band was founded in 1989 by Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson and Patty Schemel. Bassist Melissa Auf der Maur joined the group in 1995, after original bassist Kristen Pfaff died from an overdose.

After a decade of musical activity and after five albums the group disbanded in 2002. The album presented on tour this summer is the result of the reunification of the group in 2009. For the same reason their concerts raise expectations even further. The current formation of the group, which continues to enjoy the presence of Courtney Love (vocals and guitar) includes new musicians that have replaced the protagonists of the historical era of Hole: Micko Larkin (guitar), Shawn Dailey (bass), Stu Fisher ( battery.) This meeting is quite controversial because Courtney Love seems to believe that “Hole” means Courtney Love and has replaced the rest of the group.

For those who still do not know Hole, seeing them live in Rome is an ideal opportunity to hear the music of this group and to celebrate a summer full of music and fun. If you decide to spend some days in the Eternal City to visit its monuments and bone up on culture, we advise you to rent apartments in Rome: the best comfort for the best price.

Whether you are visiting the Eternal City for a short break or even a week, choosing what to visit is not an easy matter. History buffs can immerse themselves in the past seeing the Imperial Forums, the Colosseum, or the splendid Baths of Caracalla … and for art lovers there is the indispensable Vatican Museum, the Capitoline Museums, and the architectural jewels of the city make for a veritable gallery.

Since May 30th, it’s even more difficult to decide what to see: Rome has a new museum which has been generating high expectations since ground was broken: the MAXXI, the National Museum of XXI Century Arts. The MAXXI is designed to house permanent collection and exhibitions and be a centre for the promotion of art and contemporary architecture. The idea of the institution is dynamic and open to the most innovative artistic proposals and initiatives coordinated with foreign museums and institutions.

The MAXXI is currently hosting a few shows, such as those devoted to the multifaceted artist Gino de Dominicis, as well as another exhibit that gives us the opportunity to meet one of the most important figures of twentieth century architecture, Luigi Moretti. Also worth mention are the p Ataman Kutlung video installations Mesopotamian Dramaturgies. “Spazio” is the result of the work of several architects to show their different visions of space and its use.

The Museum has an archive, a media library and an education department which organizes activities for people of all ages, including adults. Don’t miss the section devoted to the architectural design of MAXXI, designed by architect Zaha Hadid Anglo Iroquois.

The MAXXI is open from 11 to 19 and Thursdays from 11-22. To view the full exhibition schedule you can visit the website www.maxxi.beniculturali.it. After your Roman cultural marathon, you will likely need to rest. Choose apartments in Rome, the best lodging at the best possible price.

Rome will hum with pleasure as the air fills with glorious soul musing during the upcoming concert by the reining anti- diva of neo-soul Erykah Badu on July 20 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica. She is an anti-diva, not because her singing or compositions are lacking: in fact she has one of the most beautiful voices of her generation. Anti-diva because you will never see this singer pulling a prissy star fit and only asking for green M & M´s backstage. She is touring to promote her new album New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh. The tour is called “Out my mind, just in time,” and if you aren’t lucky enough to see her in Rome, you might be able to catch her in Barcelona or Madrid.

Her debut album Baduizm (1997) reached platinum five times, and while other singers in the genre of Soul and R & B have made headlines for their extravagant costumes and personal lives (only need to think of Rihanna or Beyonce) Badu has always been the critics’ favourite, because, well, she makes awesome music and is not afraid of musical innovation or addressing political and social issues. Apart from being a very talented singer with a warm and expressive voice that harkens back to the queens of soul and jazz, she writes serious lyrics with a sense of social commitment, and chooses fantastic producers and collaborators. For example, in the disc New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) Madlib, 9th Wonder, Shafiq Husayn lent her a hand with the beats. Though she also deals with the romantic topics typical of soul, her music’s political attitude is inescapable, and she deftly melds soul music with hip-hop’s most experimental branches in a novel way.

Lately, her career has found her working on her own label, Control FreaQ, founded in 2005, raising her three children, and managing a charity for children. She is also working on another project, The Cannabinoids, with DJs, musicians and beatsmiths from Dallas. The project looks to sound like a live remix session.

Rent apartments in Rome and get your tickets for the concert to enjoy a couple of days to recharge your soul.

The body of Francesco Cenci was found at the foot of the castle. Soon rumors and gossip accused Beatrice and the other family members to be the murderers. Then they were arrested and officially prosecuted for murder after Giacomo, Beatrice’s brother and the 2 castle inhabitants confessed to the conspiracy and the crime.

At the end of the most followed court case of the time, Beatrice and Lucrezia were condemned to be decapitated, her brother Giacomo to be dismembered and the younger Bernardo to spend the rest of his life in the galley.

The execution of Beatrice was attended by thousands of people in the square of Saint Angel Castle; the scene was said to have been extremely chaotic: people asked for the grace of the defendants, soldiers everywhere tried to restrain the pushing crowds and many people fell and drowned in the river…It seems that even the artist Caravaggio was there and became very shocked by what he saw.

After Lucrezia and Giacomo, a proud and beautiful Beatrice got on the gallows and dropped to her knees, ready to receive her punishment. The executioner cut her head off, and showed it to the astonished crowd.

This tragic story became a legend during the centuries and made Beatrice a popular Romanticism figure: she became a heroine for many poets, writers and musicians, for example Shelley and Stendhal wrote about her.

Rent apartments in Rome and don’t miss the chance to see Beatrice’s ghost that, according to the legend, appears in the night in front of Saint Angel Castle, showing off her decapitated head.

Beatrice Cenci was a noble Roman woman and member of an important aristocratic family. In the end of 16th century her sad story aroused a huge clamour in the society of that time.

Beatrice had a very unlucky childhood: her mother died when she was just 7, so she was sent by her father, the Count Francesco Cenci, to a convent. After she was sent back to Rome, at the age of 15, she started seeing the real character of her father: Francesco was a violent man with all the family members, including his new wife Lucrezia, Beatrice herself and her younger brother Bernardo.

Francesco had previously been in trouble for different crimes and his economic situation was desperate: to not pay her daughter’s dowry he decided to forbid her marriage and segregated her and her stepmother in a castle located in Petrella, a small town not far from Rome. However the situation got worse for Beatrice when her father, bound by his debts, escaped from Rome and reached the rest of the family in the castle. From that moment the domestic violence became unbearable: Beatrice was beaten and sexually abused for years.

The chronicles of the time tell that Beatrice, exasperated by the tortures she had to suffer, organised her father’s homicide, together with her stepmother, and her brothers Bernardo and Giacomo. They tried, in vain, to kill Francesco first with poison and then hiring some bandits from the countryside to assault him. As the third is always the charm, they were successful: Francesco was first drugged with some opium and then beaten to death by family members with the help of 2 castle inhabitants. Hurry up and rent apartments in Rome to find out more about Beatrice Cenci and other stories of the Eternal City.

Of course, oral sex has not always enjoyed such a good reputation. Even today, many religions have condemned it as unnatural and immoral practice. However, we can infer that people have never stopped doing it, despite the possibility of legal consequences. In fact, even now it is now illegal in some parts of the world, and in some U.S. states it was illegal until 2003.

There are several reasons why these taboos exist: in part because oral sex is not directly related to reproduction, conflicts with the heteronormative doctrine of the church, or because the sexual organs were seen as shameful and dirty. More than one scholar has argued that the rise of this activity may be related to our hygiene practices, which of course, have changed a bit since the 13th century. Taboos which condemned homosexuality have also helped turn this small way to make life sweeter for everyone, whether homosexual or heterosexual, into a highly controversial practice.

This taboo is still very much in force especially in parts of Africa and the Islamic world. Clean, legal, or convicted and dirty, historical records indicate that it’s been around for ages. Just think about it: if an activity is prohibited by law, it is likely many people do it, and of course, if you dig a little, you will find many cases of people who have faced prison terms or even death for performing oral sex.

In the 20th century, the sexual revolution began to change attitudes towards oral sex. Bathing everyday became common, and there were movies like “Deepthroat” and songs like “Flower” by Liz Phair and of course, the unforgettable Monica Lewinsky scandal that have made oral sex part of the common consciousness. The only step left? Well, there is a common yet unfortunate tendency to understand oral sex as a way to pay tribute to the male shaft, but of course, oral sex does not have to be so, giving is as pleasurable as receiving, whatever gender you might be. Rent apartments in Rome and enjoy a historic session of 69 with your lover.

Sometimes we believe that modern beings is that we have invented everything. Internet, twitter, filesharing, even oral sex or pornography. Of course, at least in the case of oral sex, um, we´re not responsible for it´s invention. Although human culture has passed through more or less permissive times, and it´s a bit creepy to think of our ancestors by doing such things, the history of oral sex is as old as sex. Even our fellow primates the bonobos do it!

We found one of the earliest references to this practice among the hidden treasures of the British Museum, in images of the myth of Osiris and Isis, Osiris was murdered by his brother, and cut up into little pieces like a chicken. His sister Isis gathered all the pieces, but of course, a key piece was missing: the phallus. So she made one out of clay again and to bring it back to life, “blew life into it.” Never underestimate the transformative power of oral sex.

If you travel to India, we can find an entire chapter of the Kama Sutra dedicated to art of the oral encounter, which in Sanskrit is called “auparishtaka.” That’s a mouthful! Don´t forget, the Kama Sutra dates back to the second century BC .

In ancient Rome, fellatio was an act which reflected rather complicated social mores, and was considered taboo depending in what context it was performed. Giving fellatio was considered a passive action so the obligation to perform it was used to control and punish subordinates, and infrequently as sexual practice between two equals. A man could require a woman or a man whose social class was lower to perform oral sex (in a sort of drop-and-give-me-20 sort of way) and it was not just a sexual act, but also a demonstration of his power.

Frowned upon or not, the practice was common enough to merit not one but two verbs in Latin, one describing the act of giving, and one for the act of receiving. Call it what you want to, oral sex can be a wonderful way to communicate with your partner without saying anything. Rent apartments in Rome to perfect your technique and look forward to the second half of this article!

If a genie jumped out of a bottle right now and offered you eternal life, you’d probably jump at the chance. Or would you? You are part of the first generation of human beings who could realistically prolong their life indefinitely, or at least for a very long time. You know how this goes, though, there’s always a price. From the philosophical fear of death that distorts our approach to human life, to the possibility of foetus-farms designed to provide stem cells, there are plenty of objections to immortality. Nonetheless, the Fountain of Youth has been an obsession since the dawn of time, and it isn’t going away in a hurry.

From the moment you are born, you begin to die. Breathing is the cause of natural death, as your cells literally oxidise, and their copies contain tiny flaws in the genetic code that are amplified over time. The main point of anti-aging research is to stop these flaws from occurring, and being passed on to the new copy of the cell.
You can do this by eating foods rich in anti-oxidants while reducing your calorie intake. But the advancing field of anti-aging research has plenty of new tricks. The two main fields are nano-tech and stem cells.

Nano-tech for immortality is about creating armies of invisible road-worker crews in robot form that march around your body repairing cells. Stem cells are ‘blank’ cells (present in foetuses that are only a few days old) that have not yet been designated as a skin cell, a heart cell, a blood cell and so on. These are used to grow new organs – even a whole new you, in the event of cloning.

The ethics of immortality are complicated. No matter what method is devised to keep you alive forever, it will be expensive at first, affordable by the top ten or twenty wealthiest people in the world.

Alternatively, if the only way to grow new lungs when yours fail after years of smoking, was to harvest a foetus, would you choose immortality? Although there are hundreds of thousands of legal abortions (and ten times that number of illegal abortions) performed each year, demand could quickly out-strip supply. Could it be a new industry – pregnancy for the purposes of early abortion – to supply the better-advantaged folk with the cells they need to live longer? If you think it could never happen, think of the documented cases of poorer folk selling kidneys on the black market for as little as a thousand dollars.

Let’s say that we all had the money for immortality, and could do it easily. Where are we going to put all these people? The planet is over-populated to the point of exhaustion, and population control strategies like the Chinese one-child rule causes all kinds of problems. What if the only way to live forever was to be sterilised? Would you give up your natural immortality (passing on your genes to your children) for the chance to live forever? Immortality sounds like a great idea, but some of us would rather rent apartments in Rome for a week.

Cindy Crawford´s fitness videos are etched in many minds, and even if it’s no longer the height of fashion, the practice of fitness is not lost. For 22 years, the Italian capital has hosted a fitness festival, an event that attracts millions of people around the world in search of wellness, ready to sculpt their bodies for summer time. Minds and bodies want toning, which they will find during Rome’s marathon of good vibrations from 10 to 13 June.

Get ready to see some bum-shaking, explosive energy. Come to sweat, dance, repeat series, go beyond your limits, and find aerobic fulfilment, worry-free… Rome’s Italico Forum will huff and puff like never before! If you do not have the opportunity to go, you can do exercises at home, a little bit every day will not hurt your health or morale, we promise.

Oxygen

Check out the program: there are conferences, workshops, martial arts, minibasket, pilates, classes for more than 100 different sports led by a professional coaches, awards, competitions… and of course, many meetings! Outlet stores, outdoor parties, a spa area for rest and of course balanced and tasty cuisine await you. Take advantage of this chance to visit Rome, a fascinating capital, with a dynamic cultural life and millions of artistic treasures and sculptural bodies.

Body worship

Italy, the cradle of the culture of sport, with its ancient sculptures of athletic men whose bodies informed the rules and precise standards of beauty, invites you to the largest fitness event in the world. Do not miss it! And for a total rest, don’t hesitate to rent apartments in Rome, are inexpensive and have all the amenities you need for a relaxing stay.

The overwhelming force of the economic crisis has also significantly affected the art market, and the public minces no words proclaiming with a certain satisfaction that a hedonistic and extravagant era has breathed its last. For years, the high prices that have been reached in the upper echeleon of the art market have been viewed with suspicion – and not just the prices for already established modern classics, but also the works of contemporary young artists, who in less than ten years have taken millions home, and been heralded for being genuine rock stars of the art world.

Many critics – including Australian art critic Robert Hughes – have shaken their heads at this new turn in contemporary art, a turn in which the prices of the paintings and the number of celebrities rubbing shoulders in the openings suddenly became more important than artistic achievement.

The art world is changing, and museums are faced with responding to a new current whose direction has yet to be seen. For years, museums have depended on governement subsidies for funding, which allowed them acquire work and focus on their role as cultural institutions. However, more and more institutions have had their government subsidies cut. Now they have to attract a mass audience in order to cope with the budget cuts, which means they cannot risk unprofitable exhibitions.

In recent years a tren has taken hold: to curate one “Blockbuster” exhibition after another, showing the modern classics, preferably figurative, of artists that already enjoy universal recognition and animate a large crowd of visitors to pay a handsome sum at the ticket office without regrets. As it was, they only came to buy a bit of a clean conscience, so they can say they did more than shop while on holiday.

In this line, the Museo del Corso in Rome last February opened an exhibition dedicated to Edward Hopper, one of the most significant – and canonical-American artists of the twentieth century. In your holidays you are encouraged to visit this interesting exhibition which runs until June 13, and don´t forget, there might be more to see! There are still young galleries with noble intentions, who dare to show risky, interesting and above all, fresh artistic proposals. To relax after a cultural tour of the city, rent apartments in Rome.