Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Jerks

Today, I have come to what I think are two pretty obvious conclusions about the universe. I'll try to explain them as accurately as possible, and relate the circumstances that lead to them.

Conclusion 1) Human beings are the most miraculous, incredible, improbably beautiful things that have ever evolved on this earth. And that may sound a little biased, considering that to the best of my knowledge, I am a human being, but I really do mean it. And this is coming from a girl who spent her entire existence until the age of 18 in Montana. And really, if you can apply the words miraculous, incredible and improbably beautiful to any place on earth, Montana would probably be that place. And perhaps I should qualify the above statement by reiterating that I'm an art history major, so basically, without human beings, I would have no field of study. Also, I wouldn't exist, so it wouldn't matter, but... that's just getting waaaaaaaay too existential... leave me alone! It's 11.00 at night and I've had an emotionally exhausting day.

Why, Maggie? You may ask. Why this convoluted existential quandry? What could possibly have been so emotionally draining that it's made you so euphorically arrogant, so philosophically woozy? Well... two words. Sistine Chapel.

Now, I flatter myself that after almost twenty-one years in my head, I've gotten to know myself reasonably well. So it stands to reason that I should have expected this kind of reaction from myself. And to a certain extent, I did. I didn't go immediately gallivanting off to the Sistine Chapel straight off the plane because I wanted some time to mentally prepare myself. People who haven't spent a good two years of their fairly short life studying the time period of which the Sistine Chapel is perhaps the piece de resistance have told me that the first time they saw it fundamentally changed them. I know myself well enough to know that I couldn't just let it be another tourist site.

Now, I know that sounds melodramatic. What makes that silly Pope-choosing room more important, more significant than say, the Raphael stanzae just down the hall? The Caravaggio hanging in the painting gallery downstairs? The Bernini adorning the entirety of St. Peter's? The answer is: it is precisely those things that make this one thing so significant. Whether by design, divine or human, or purely by chance, what I experienced today as I walked through St. Peter's and then through the Vatican Museums, seeing all of these works of genius both classical and modern, was a slowly escalating realization, something that I've brushed up against obliquely since I set foot in the Louvre at the age of sixteen, that human beings are capable of miracles. There is so much beauty and wonder and life inside us that we can't help but let it out in one way or another... and some people just happen to excel at this expression to such an extent that what they create acts as an outlet for others to realize the beauty and wonder and life within themselves. That is why the arts are important. That is why you have a coffee cup with the hands of God and Adam on it. That is why I've seen people's eyes mist over when they talk about the first time they saw their favorite painting in person for the first time, or the first time they experienced Shakespeare, Mozart, Longfellow. What Michelangelo, Leonardo, Chagall, Picasso, Gentileschi, Seurat, Monet, Van Gogh, Klee, Rodin... the list goes on... what they created touches something inside each of us that reminds us of why it is good to be a human being, when there are so many reasons that make us forget.

Now, that was all awfully sincere of me. I'm usually very flippant about this kind of thing... I call myself a nerd (to my face) a lot more often than anyone else does. I'm fascinated by the things that make art political, personal, heretical, whatever, but that doesn't mean that I don't have reverence for what I'm studying. It means a lot to me. It is both chosen profession and religion. And I know it's not that way for everyone, and for some people the Sistine Chapel ceiling is not some portal into deeper humanist awareness but rather just some paint on a ceiling that hurts your neck if you look at it for more than a few minutes... I understand that. Intellectually. Emotionally, viscerally, it's a completely different story. Which brings me to...

Conclusion 2) Human beings are cattle. Silly, stupid cattle. A statement completely at odds with the rapturous, Bambi-esque one above it? Perhaps. Or maybe just two sides of the same perverse and often-baffling coin of human nature. What makes me say this? Poor planning and flash photography.

The first: I knew that the Sistine Chapel would be a much more religious experience for me than it is for the general population. I've spent literally hours analyzing the fulcrum toe of the flippin' Libyan Sybil. It was just going to be more important for me. So I decided to wait until I could have the house to myself and time to process without talking to anyone when I got home... and with my roommates at Oktoberfest this weekend, it seemed like the perfect time. Except... the entire tourist population of Europe decided that today was a good day to move from in front of the Mona Lisa to standing in line at the Vatican. It was poor planning on my part to make my pilgramage on Saturday (the literal Latin translation: day on which we get through all the major tourist attractions in this city before moving onto... what was it again? Oh yeah. Paris.) I was sort of expecting this kerfuffle, but I was also niavely expecting that since the Vatican is considered by some to be rather a holy, sacred place, that that tourist population of Europe might find it within themselves to show some respect. Wrong.

The second: Fun fact-- did you know that there are guys whose JOB it is to stand in the Sistine Chapel all day and yell at people to shut up and quit taking photos? And do you know what keeps these guys employed? The fact that people never cease to talk in very loud voices and take flash photos despite the fact that they're being admonished not to in twelve (I counted) different languages.

While I was sitting and pondering the brilliant contradiction that is humankind, the humankind around me were busy moshing in an attempt to get right underneath The Creation of Adam to take their brazenly un-clandestine photos. Even though they're not allowed! Now, I get the idea that by taking a picture, even if it's a crappy, poorly lit picture of some other person's genius, you get to share a little in that genius. It's nice to bask in the reflected glow. I get that.

But honestly! How do you think these things have lasted as long as they have? When they tell you not to take photos, there's a good reason to listen! It's not just some uptight control-freak thing that all museums have in common; they're trying with all their might to combat your selfishness and stupidity and downright carelessness in order to preserve these things for future generations. And honestly, with the world as it is right now, those things that make us remember those things that are good and beautiful and wonderous about ourselves are more imparitive than ever.

And also, do you really need to talk for the twenty or so minutes that you're in a room where they specifically ask you not to talk? Is that so hard? Could you not just pay attention to what you're feeling inside yourself for a few minutes without having to point out to your companions "Look! There's Adam! Ohmygod, I can't believe it!". Really? Because you're holding a 20 euro bookbag from the gift shop that would suggest that this sight isn't a complete surprise. One would think that you would have been expecting to see the not-so-well-hung naked guy on the bag before you bought it. But that's just me. And I might have weird expectations about these things.

But really. In the paragraph above when I was spilling my guts about art history being akin to a religion for me... I felt like I was going to go all Jesus on their asses and start screaming "Myyyyyyyyyyyyyy temple should beeeeeeeeeeee a house of art! BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT a den of POPERAZZI. GET OUT! GET OUT!" (A reference to Jesus Christ Superstar for your enjoyment). But I held it in.

And nothing I can furiously blog about or bitch about is going to change the fact that, for a lot of people, the Sistine Chapel, really, the entirety of the Vatican Museums, is just another check on the list of things they should really see in Rome. And that Rome is just another check on the list of places they should see in Europe. And that Europe is... you get it. And that makes me so sad. I wish everyone could see these things the way I see them. I wish I could convey some semblance of the wonder they hold for me to the guy sitting next to me on the bench, feverishly reading his guidebook as though there's going to be a quiz in ten minutes.

But really, if everyone saw the world the way I see it, we'd all get bored pretty fast. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and if everyone saw everything the way I see it... well, we'd all take ourselves way too seriously, for one (which I think is already true, but in my case I know it to be fact) and I couldn't have even gotten into the Sistine Chapel today because the entire room would have been full of dead silent, reverent people wiping away single, artistic tears and not moving for hours. And I don't think I would have liked that any more than the poperazzi cattle.

But think of the killing I could make on neck massages.