"The king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And thus he said as he walked, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!""

"...he was, says Grafton, 'a tightrope performer of self-creation'. Spring and autumn made him melancholy, he said, beccause all those flowers and fruits made him feel how little he had produced in his life - 'Battista', he would tell himself, 'now it's your turn to promise some sort of fruits to the human race'. Leonardo too would have this haunting sense of non-achievement which is the downside of the expansionist Renaissance mood. If the possibilities are endless, the realization of them can only ever be partial."

-Charles Nicholl, regarding the strata of self-doubt inherent in the Renaissance psyche

"You ever drunk Bailey's from a shoe?"

My Favorite Stuff This Week

IT IS AS IF THE MILKY WAY ENTERED UPON SOME COSMIC DANCE. SWIFTLY THE BRAIN BECOMES AN ENCHANTED LOOM, WHERE MILLIONS OF FLASHING SHUTTLES WEAVE A DISSOLVING PATTERN, ALWAYS A MEANINGFUL PATTERN THOUGH NEVER AN ABIDING ONE; A SHIFTING HARMONY OF SUBPATTERNS.

Fall on your knees; Oh, hear the angel voices!

THE MAN WHO'S TEACHING ME TO BE MORE CURIOUS.

AND THEN THIS GUY. HEY, AT LEAST ONE OF YOU ACHIEVED HUMAN FLIGHT.

"Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?"

"No."

"You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"Why thank you."

"It's alright. You've never been out of Boston."

"Nope."

"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one."