eternallycool.net

So Michael Jackson and Augustus walk into a bar….

We’ve not really managed to finish the joke, having only come up with weak punchlines about first century thrillers and imperial moonwalks.

Our inability to figure out what happens in that imagined bar scene probably stems from the fact that Augustus would have hated Michael Jackson and vice versa–we can only imagine that the meeting of their carefully choreographed self-images would have produced an ugly clash.

That hasn’t stopped the city of Rome from celebrating these two historical figures in a single space, however.  A recent drive down the (blissfully deserted) Lungotevere alerted us to the fact that someone’s decided to honor Michael Jackson at the new Ara Pacis Museum.  There, visible through a massive glass window that faces the Tiber River, stand a sizable boot and glove that sparkle with golden glass mosaic tiles that could commemorate no one else but the King of Pop.

As far as we know, Augustus was never decked out in such a fashion (and would have sternly disapproved of anyone who accessorized their toga this way) but it’s not the first time that the Ara Pacis Museum has been used to display fancy dress, so maybe someone knows something we don’t.