The lower church, built in the Romanesque style, is somber, cave-like and complex, whereas the upper church, a fine example of Italian Gothic, is bright, spacious, rational.
Maybe because his subject matter is so somber, he likes to break the tension with a sense of humor that - depending on the listener is irreverent, puckish or wicked.
Like Boylan herself, Long Black Veil is hard to pin down: It's nominally a thriller, but it's character-driven like literary fiction; it deals with somber themes like murder and shifting identity, but it's suffused with comic moments; it features an ensemble cast yet extends Boylan's exploration of the deepest recesses of trans experience.
There are cheery improvisations, like Stuart Davis's 1935 picture-postcard "Gas Pumps," and somber meditations, like "Rain," Jacob Lawrence's monumental 1937 image of three bent figures deploying buckets against a leaky roof.
By contrast, Tokyo-based social networking site Gree, a privately held company that started around the same time, set its sights on older professionals, much like LinkedIn in the U.S. Gree's users congregated to chat about somber topics like politics.
Its songs touch on somber topics, like war and death, as well as more whimsical ones.
Topics range from lighthearted comedies to more somber fare like "One Day Crossing".
These new works take on somber subjects like isolation, grief and suffering, but thankfully they offer a bit of solace too.
It has no room for somber subjects like the plague and the Crusades, and it understandably favors 21st-century sensibilities: the blacksmith is a black woman.
