Rome at the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats (1887)
By Thomas Hardy

Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me? –
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.

I can recall no word
Of anything he did;
For me he is a man who died and was interred
To leave a pyramid

Whose purpose was exprest
Not with its first design,
Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest
Two countrymen of mine.

Cestius in life, maybe,
Slew, breathed out threatening;
I know not. This I know: in death all silently
He does a kindlier thing,

In beckoning pilgrim feet
With marble finger high
To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,
Those matchless singers lie . . .

–Say, then, he lived and died
That stones which bear his name
Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;
It is an ample fame.

The Protestant Cemetery of Rome, now officially called the Cimitero acattolico (“Non-Catholic Cemetery”) and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi (“Englishmen’s Cemetery”), is located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated into the section of the Aurelian Walls that borders the cemetery. The presence of Mediterranean cypress, pomegranate, and other trees, and a grassy meadow suggests the more naturalistic landscape style of northern Europe, where cemeteries sometimes incorporate grass and other greenery. As the official name indicates, it is the final resting place of non-Catholics including but not exclusive to Protestants or British and Americans. It contains the graves of many Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians. It is one of the oldest burial grounds in continuous use in Europe, having started to be used around 1716.

The Cimitero Acattolico di Roma contains possibly the highest density of famous and important graves anywhere in the world. It is the final resting-place of the poets Shelley and Keats, of many painters, sculptors and authors, a number of scholars, several diplomats, Goethe’s only son, and Antonio Gramsci, a founding father of European Communism, to name only a few.

When you visit this cemetery in Rome, one of the first sites you see is the Pyramid of Cestius. I have to admit, the Protestant cemeteries in Rome and Florence were two of the highlights of my research trip to Italy several years ago. Not only are cemeteries a great source of research, but also the gravestones are often more than just markings for the dead, but works of art. One of those pieces of art is the Angel of Grief, an 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story which serves as the grave stone of the artist and his wife Emelyn Story. The grave is now used to describe multiple grave stones throughout the world erected in the style of the Story stone.

If you are ever in Rome, you really should visit the Cimitero Acattolico di Roma.

We Like To Party

I’ve got somethin’ to tell ya,
I’ve got news for you,
Gonna put some wheels in motion,
Get ready cause we’re comin’ through.
Hey now Hey now Hear what I say now
Happiness is just around the corner
Hey now Hey now Hear what I say now
We’ll be there for you

The Venga bus is comin’ & everybody’s jumpin’,
New York through San Francisco,
An Interstate free disco,
The wheels of steel are turnin’ and traffic lights are burnin’,
So if you like to party,
Get on and move your body

We like to party
We like we like to party
We like to party
We like we like to party

Hey now hey now hear what I say now
Happiness is just around the corner
Hey now hey now hear what I say now
We’ll be there for you

The Venga bus is comin’ & everybody’s jumpin’,
New York through San Francisco,
An Interstate free disco,
The wheels of steel are turnin’ and traffic lights are burnin’,
So if you like to party,
Get on and move your body

Mr. Six is an advertising character, first featured in a 2004–05 advertising campaign by the theme park chain Six Flags. Appearing as a bald, decrepit, wrinkled old man wearing a tuxedo and thick-framed glasses, he is usually shown stepping off a bus and inviting stressed and over-worked people to Six Flags by performing a frenetic dance to the Vengaboys song “We Like to Party”.

The first airing introduced Mr. Six as an apparently elderly, slow-moving man dressed in his trademark tuxedo and large glasses, pulling up in front of a house in a retro-style bus. The occupants of the house are sitting around the front yard apparently very bored. Mr. Six slowly shuffles off the bus, then suddenly comes to life and performs a high-energy dance routine as “We Like to Party” begins playing, and invites the bored family to Six Flags. The dance he performs borrows moves from the Melbourne Shuffle, Jumpstyle, and Techtonik. Subsequent ads showed different variations of Mr. Six dancing and inviting people to Six Flags. The role was, initially, non-speaking.
By the way, Matthew Wilkening of AOL Radio ranked the song at number 45 on the list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever while telling the listener, “If you live within a few hundred miles of a Six Flags adventure park, you’ve heard this 4,000 times.”

I thought this song’s lyrics, essentially poetry, would be pretty appropriate considering that I will be spending the day at Six Flags.

And I will add one last thing, for those of you with young children, nieces, nephews, or grandchildren, Jellystone Park is a fun place for them. There was gem and fossil mining, mini golf, horseshoes, a sandbox, a pool, numerous playgrounds, an arcade, and a menagerie of animals: alligators, iguanas, monitors, boa constrictors, macaws, peacocks, tortoises, a bunny, and a pig named Daisy. There are numerous Jellystone Parks around the U.S. and Canada.