On the Dante Trail trail: Week 0

No, friends and readers, the title of the post doesn't contain a redundant typo, it describes the upcoming gratuitously self-indulgent journey we are about to embark on following in the footsteps of Rod Dreher as he follows in the footsteps of the famous Italian poet Dante Alighieri, whose footsteps have repeatedly been followed in since sometime after his death in 1321. That's a lot of footsteps following if you ask me.

So since there cannot possibly be anything new and interesting to learn about Dante himself which hasn't already been documented far more richly elsewhere, it's fairly obvious that what we'll be discovering along our journey will be Rod's and, derivatively, my own aesthetic sensibilities as they are variously stimulated along the way.

If you can imagine a Rick Steves food and architecture tour focusing our breathless anticipation on someone like Oprah Winfrey's overstated moment-by-moment account of their overall sensible experience as they bite into a creamy gelato while their bottom explores the contours of an antique Italian chair, I think you'll have a good idea of the excitement to come.

Not only will we be following a follower, we'll also be following the follower's followers as they follow him themselves, giving us the richest aesthetic Moralistic Therapeutic Conservative sensibility experience possible .

I can't wait.