We’re standing in the magnificent choir loft of Monasterio de San Francisco, and my guide, Olinda, is a bit frustrated with me. She’s trying to explain key features of the loft, but my eyes have drifted down toward the altar, where a priest is saying Mass in front of a packed house. Above them, at eye level with me, pigeons flap back and forth among the rafters. Below them, in the dank, claustrophobic catacombs, lie the bones of 70,000-some people.
It seems the perfect metaphor for the three themes that constantly recur during my trip to Peru — the heavens, the earth and the underworld.
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Through the magic of Tivo, I’ve been recording the ghost of Christmas past in the form of sitcom Christmas episodes. Not sure why, but I felt a compelling need to do this. I was definitely a TV kid. I remember the thrill we felt when a UHF station launched in Pittsburgh, adding hours of sitcom reruns and cartoons to our limited viewing options. And it’s not unusual for strange commercial jingles to bubble up out of my subconscious and strangle me for hours at a time. (He’s the mystical magical Burger King, he can do most anything …)