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40 Palatine for Vinnie Broderick Last time we were here, we sensed a stubborn humbug permanence, a ragged, trick-of-the-light immortality. Today, the stones speak only clichés of a blood-drenched piety. The antiquarium: two-faced herms, languid hermaphrodites, charter members of the Severed Appendage Club, predictable classic clutter. The place needs water, lots of water, a big, garish Risorgimento fountain, and off-key bells, a few car horns. The great home of palaces yawns a silence that’s not peace but horrific complacency, of fell deeds witnessed and forgotten. Grandeur, now, there’s a word this place can make you loathe. Today, we hate it up here, yearn for the cheerful millennial bedlam that we know rumbles round and round our lofty disenchantment. ...

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