On the Dante Trail trail: Week 0.5

Before we dash off in full follow of our Dante follower's full metal quest to debase a milestone in Western Christian literature into a narcissistic pop-cultural self-help seltzer for the soul, I want to set the scene for all of us so that we can begin with the fullest flavor of our Italian vacation indulgence.

Just visualize me staring at my laptop screen, recalling one of my most beloved Italian memories. No, not Sophia. My Mom, smiling as she opens the Chef Boy-Ar-Dee can herself, microwaving it just right, then lovingly pouring the steaming reddish-brown-and-cream-colored whatever onto my plate before finalizing her devotion by tearing open the cheese packet with her own tiny fingertips and expertly sprinkling it so that every morsel of goodness receives at least one atom of cheesy insouciance. Believe you me, nothing will save you from any sort of lurking cloud of darkness around you like stinging flies like a taste of Italy.

Now that I think about it, though, I might have experienced that experience by watching a commercial on TV Land, but it hardly matters. In either case the important common denominator is that I would have been there.

Where were we? Oh, right. Vicariously off to Italy, the birthplace of Dante and the real Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.

At the bottom of a post longer than the Dante trail itself whose purpose is to inform us that our follower can still get in the door in New York City, we're confronted with a mystery even more profound than those of Orv or Ann and the possum we encountered back when we were reading that book I got at a garage sale together.

Who is "Casella"?

It can't be "the famous James C." unless the C stands for Casella, which would obviously be too easy and besides why would someone already identified need a code name?

No, this is a new mystery companion traveling with Rod as he follows in the footsteps of Dante through the sensuous, enveloping romance that is Italy.

Is Casella a man? A woman? A dog? A mutant combination of all three caused by a freakish industrial accident involving a radioactive spider which has left it with super Dante-following powers but also with a tragic, socially alienating dark side and that ennui that descends like a cloud of stinging flies when waiting too long in the DMV?

A ghost?

These days, as long as it's not some ball and chain making you second-guess your tell-all blogging, does it really matter?

And, so, the game afoot, we're off, following the follower on the trail of the Dante Trail with his mystery companion "Casella" through Italy, where sensuality and spirituality converge.

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.