And then I saw him eating the baby. (There's your teaser, and now for the less interesting lead-in.)
Tonight was planned as an early-to-bed night, but I started reading an article on one of my favorite games, Magic the Gathering, by a young writer by the name of Gavin Verhey. Gavin's writing style features a unique mix of obnoxiously trumpeted talent and seeming hubris with actual skill. I don't know whether to think “Burn the witch!”, or “Hey cool” when I read his stuff, but it engages readers at least. For reference the original article is online here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/21506_Flow_Of_Ideas_21.html
Now I can't stop thinking, so I would look to tell you a short story while I try to make my unwilling body go to sleep.
About a month ago I went to see Madrid during the weekend with Skyler. We spent a worthy hunk of our time walking around and exploring like good tourists, and in during that quest went to one of the world's premiere art museums, El Prado. To me, art museums are normally like homework almost, but not quite approaching busy-work levels. You should probably at least take a look at them, and they will provide some redemptive value, but they are hardly the paragon of life's offerings. The Prado was different because many of their collection pieces are famous, famous paintings. I had never walked around a corner and seen a painting that I had already looked at hundreds of pictures of throughout various history textbooks until this:
(Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo - 1814)
The cool factor is extreme.
We continued through the museum amongst spaced crowds of tourists, and despite their many whispers the ambiance was nicely quiet and reflective. I enjoyed stopping at taking long looks at the many pieces by one famous artist or another that were displayed adjacently. Seeing how their style would change or how their choices of color and body characteristics varied made itself into a little game.
One of the more attractive layout features of the museum was their Goya displays. Goya, having been a brilliant painter and Spanish national to boot was one of the major attractions, and there were enough of his paintings present to have two galleries. They were sorted into early, and late paintings. The early paintings were during his financially successful career where he painted rich people. Most of the works are of Spanish royalty, and one particular Spanish king had some dozen of his portraits aloofly smiling back at visitors. The overall effect of the works was clean and crisp.
Downstairs, separate from the first exhibit were Goya's paintings from his later life, when things began to fall apart, when he probably suffered from depression, and where his work took a turn for the darker. The most startling moment of the entire visit, and the moment that may remain as my most memorable from my time here was walking across one particular painting. There I was in a museum filled with almost entirely realistically painted scenes of angels, cherubs, lovely women, the occasional romanticized battle or execution, and then out of nowhere, boom!
I saw him eating the baby:
(Saturn devouring his son)
Looking at those eyes was probably not a wise choice in terms of picking a sleep cultivating activity.
Sweet dreams,
Tim
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