Random Book Review: Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

Author: Anthony Everitt
Released: 2009 
Format reviewed: Hardcover (library copy)
Pages of content: 325
Rating: 4/5

Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome is great biography of one of the "Five Good" Roman emperors. It's an engaging book which does a good job of setting the subject into his historical context without getting too bogged down in details. A work on a subject as important as Hadrian could easily expand to a thousand pages, and such a treatise should be produced at some point, but this one is perfect for the general reader.

The adult Hadrian was a complex person - intelligent, competent on a wide range of subjects, arrogant, tireless, curious, a hunter, an excellent administrator, a believer in a wide range of superstitions and mystical practices, an experienced military leader, a poet, a provincial, a homosexual, a cautious ruler, a devoted son-in-law, a grecophile, a horrible husband, and many other things. Some of these aspects stemmed from privilege. He was the son of a senator from southern Spain, and was born in the town of Italica near today's Seville, but he was Italian by descent, and spent much of his childhood in Italy near what is now Tivoli, where he eventually built a massive palace/administrative office. He had a quality education and was groomed from a young age to be a leader, if not emperor. But emperor he became at age 42, and ruled for 21 years. Much of that time was spent traveling, as he believed in being hands-on in as many of the far-flung territories as he could manage. He eventually died at Baiae near today's Naples - not at his massive "villa" - at the age of 62.

The book is not without flaws. It is written in a way that makes Hadrian's ascent seem inevitable. I suspect things were not quite as pat as portrayed, given Rome's turbulent politics. There is no doubt about Hadrian's competency, nor his ambition, but given his abrasiveness as emperor I am surprised there isn't more evidence of enemies beyond his much older brother-in-law. I also found the section about the possible reasons for the death of Hadrian's young lover Antinous in Egypt in 130 to be a bit speculatively salacious. The author does have some evidence to back up his position, and does qualify it a bit, but the section still sticks out to me. However, those flaws are minor, and everyone with an interest in Roman history should consider reading this book.

Random Book Review - Rome: A Cultural, Visual and Personal History

Author: Robert Hughes
Released: 2011
Format reviewed: Hardcover (library copy)
Pages of content: 383
Rating: 5/5

Rome: A Cultural, Visual and Personal History is a fantastic exploration of the Eternal City's 2777 years (and counting) of history by the Australian-born but mostly America-dwelling Robert Hughes.  It is not a comprehensive history, of course.  Any one century of Rome's history could easily fill a book, and many single years are worthy of such treatment.  But the author covers the full extent, from the mythical founding through the cultural wasteland of the Berlusconi era.

All of the expected highlights are included - Roman emperors, Catholic popes, Renaissance painters, Baroque architects, and more.  A full chapter is devoted to the transition from paganism to Christianity, and another on the emergence of Italy as a modern state.  The later also provides some insights into the enduring north-south divide that I had not encountered before.  In other chapters art and artists are the main focus.  Bernini is the subject half of a chapter, the most of any individual creator.  Elsewhere, the author runs through several schools of lesser artists in the same space.  Most of the chapters are fairly upbeat, but the final two on Fascism and on the post-WW2 era less so.  The former is for obvious reasons, but latter is less so.  The author finds modern Rome basically bereft of interesting new art of the kind he likes - painting, sculpture, and architecture.  He does mention the brief flourishing of Italian film from the '40s through the '60s, but finds the cultural output of the capital city since then to be lacking.  I don't think that should be surprising, because the vast self-aggrandizing wealth of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church are both long gone.  The notable high art production that exists in modern Italy mostly occurs in the northern cities like Milan, where the country's wealth is concentrated.

The book concludes on an even more sour note, as the author's complaints about over-tourism fill most of the epilogue.  He's not wrong, but he also doesn't have a solution for what is now a globally recognized problem.  Perhaps there is no good way to balance the personal benefits of incomes rising across the globe, which enable vastly more people to at least temporarily escape their daily drudgery through visiting world-class art, and the hard physical limits of something like the Sistine Chapel, which is only about 130 ft by 44 ft (40 by 13 French units) minus any restrictions to protect the space.  The glibertarian/neoliberal response of pricing everything to the point of diminishing returns would be effective, but would also act to attract even more rich people who are simply hoarding exclusive luxury experiences, and exclude people for whom the art or destination in question actually has significant emotional, cultural, and/or educational value.

That vexing question is certainly not a reason to skip the book, as it is wonderfully well-written.  The author effortless switches between art criticism to biographic sketches to political history, and makes all of many topics he touches seem interesting.  It is also supplemented with two sets of full-color plates, which include many of the paintings, sculptures, and buildings mentioned in the text.  I am not a historian or art critic, so as with most of my reviews I am not able to assess whether the book is factually accurate, or if this one provides good interpretations of history and art.  But it is a great read, and a good introduction to what is arguably the most important city in European history.

Random Media Review: Star Trek Picard, Season 1

Producer: Michael Chabon
Released: 2020
Format reviewed: DVD (library copy)
Episodes: 10 episodes
Rating: 1/5

As with most things cultural, I am well behind on my Star Trek viewing.  I tried watching the third season several months ago when it was first released on DVD, but I did not like the first episode at all and stopped there.  Nonetheless, for some reason, as I was browsing in the library the other day, I impulsively grabbed the first season of this show despite the many negative reviews.  It was a bad decision.

Star Trek: Picard S1 is an awful show on many levels.  The story, at its core, is a retread of themes already explored in previous series, but without anything remotely like a new perspective.  The plot as written isn't enough to fill more than two or three classic Trek episodes, but nonetheless it is stretched out over 10 episodes.  The new characters are uninteresting and underdeveloped.  The old interesting characters are made dull.  The dialogue is forced and awkward.  The emotional moments are unearned.  The rousing speeches are boring and trite.  The endless 'member-berries are infuriating.  Conventions about space travel - distances and times - which were well establish in TNG, DS9, and VOY, are discarded.  The actors are poorly directed.  The 3D ship interfaces are unnecessary and distracting.  The early pacing is overly slow, and the ending is rushed.  And on and on and on.

The only positive aspects of the show are some of the visual elements.  Unlike other recent productions, the audience is actually treated to a decent amount of color.  At times it is a little over-saturated for my taste, but at least it is there when appropriate.  Many of the sets are attractive and seem quite real due to them being well-filled with props and detailed surfacing.  And while I don't really care for the 3D interfaces that have everyone tapping in the air constantly, they do seem plausible.  The CGI also looks fairly good, even if the ships and other design elements aren't great.  But a lot of the camerawork is too close, and the number of camera changes within scenes often makes them lose cohesion.

Basically, if you are a classic Trek fan, there is no reason to watch this show.  It has characters most classic fans want more of - Picard, Data, Seven of Nine, even Riker and Troi - but all of them are given absolutely atrocious dialogue.  In the case of Seven, the character is actively regressed and degraded from what we knew of her at the end of VOY.  And Picard's development is disappointing as well.  I now see why the reviews (at least from people I trust) were so negative.  This is a bad season of television that nobody should waste time consuming.  It should be purged from the Star Trek cannon as soon as possible, and the creators blacklisted from the franchise.

2024 Fitness Results

While 2024 was horrible for the world in many ways, for my own selfish self it was a decent year in the pursuit of fitness.

(data in freedom units)	2024-01-01	2025-01-05	2025 Goal
Weight	172.6	171.4	168
Body Fat % (est.)	39%	36%	32%
Workouts per week	3	6	6
Average workouts per week	-	4.28	5.5
Miles walked per week	9	31	30
Biceps	13	13	14
Chest	39	40	40
Waist	38	37	36
Thighs	21	22	23
Calves	16	16	15
Pullups	0	0	1

While I would like the top-line weight number to have moved more, I did "recomp" to a fair degree.  The body fat percentage numbers are guesses, but I can feel and see substantial differences in several muscles, including side deltoids, trapezius, and pectorals.  At the same time, the amount of excess flesh around my torso decreased visibly.  I hope to see substantial muscle gains in my thighs and upper arms this year.

In addition, the amount of exercise I am able to do each week increased substantially, with the number of workouts doubling and the typical walking mileage tripling.  While the actual statistics are not terribly impressive compared to fit people, I have had several health issues in the past six years, including: frozen shoulder in 2019, what may have been COVID in March 2020, possible long COVID in late 2020, another frozen shoulder in 2021, and probable Lyme disease in 2022.  The frozen shoulders led to considerable loss of muscle mass in my upper body, while the long COVID and the Lyme disease led to general exhaustion for several months.  It is only in the past six months that my exercise capacity has reached an acceptable level.  Also, I'm well over 50 now.  That doesn't make getting fitter any easier.

Anyway, the general plan for this year is below.  Like any battle plan, it will change when new conditions arise.

Day/Activity	Workout	Walking
Monday	Upper, 50 minutes	6-7 miles
Tuesday	Lower, 50 minutes	4-5 miles
Wednesday	Upper, 50 minutes	4-5 miles
Thursday	Cycling intervals, 40 minutes	4-5 miles
Friday	Upper, 50 minutes	4-5 miles
Saturday	Lower, 50 minutes	4-5 miles
Sunday		optional