The Great Theater in the Sky

The Italian village of Taormina is classed as a must-see when visiting Sicily, and for once, we decided to oblige the tourist guides.

The hilltop village takes its name from old Latin and Greek words that once meant "bull", but probably mean little to everyone now.

With a nifty little cable car that rides straight to the beach, Taormina might be the perfect holiday destination, were it not for two things - the prices and the people.

Featured in a bunch of iconic films and TV series (most recently, I think, The White Lotus), Taormina draws quite the crowd, which made it a little confusing for me.

I find crowds pretty tiring, and I wasn't too crazy on the hunt for luxury that seems to permeate Taormina and its visitors. Many of them day-trippers like ourselves, dozens of travelers clamored out in their Sunday best to take the appropriate, social media pictures at fancy bars and bellvistas.

I can't help seeing it as longing for a different life. There's people who'll gladly pay for the overpriced Aperol in exchange for the illusion of that kind of life. Much of the entertainment set in Taormina and such places depicts the lives of the wealthy, and one can just pretend, with that 10 Eur thinned down Aperol in hand that they're birds of a feather.

I always get stymied by this idea. Like, won't the people who know me and my regular lifestyle and haunts know it's all posing? Sure they will, but they do it too, so in the end, they'll just ❤️ that selfie.

Personally, I was more impressed with Noto. I thought it was more beautiful and far less crowded. Prices didn't leave you feeling like a fraud, either.

There was one stunning spot I fell in love with, the antique theater of Taormina.

Carved up high in the hills of Sicily, this mastodon of a venue couldn't have been easy to create.

Which made it all the more moving, not only that someone worked to build it in the first place, but that people would drag themselves up the hill on the regular to take in a spectacle.

With such a stunning view, I can but hope the theater still serves as venue to concerts and plays today. Although, with such a location, I imagine the prices would be equally high.

Wandering the ruins of this great theater, I found myself wondering about the cost of entertainment. How much someone in the past dedicated to art is touching, though I wonder if it might not be more appropriately put, how much one dedicated to bread and circus.

Why pay so much and toil so hard for art? I don't know, especially with the poor reputation artists have traditionally had. I do see value in investing in diversion, though.

Pragmatic? Mayhaps. True, though. As someone who spends a lot of time in theaters, I'm well aware just how much investment there is in art, which prompts such thoughts.

I don't know how it was in your part of the world, but the recent pandemic showed just how important art is in daily life (as well as from an economic perspective). Sadly, not very.

Distraction and circus, however, seem to be ever popular in our existence. In a way, the visitation itself of such a space is that. A distraction. You go pay the hefty entry to take a few pictures, feel all cultures and good about yourself for an afternoon, and that's your dose of art done for the year.

Well, maybe not yours, but that seems to be how a lot of these tourists think.

Do you? How's your art life?