Leonardo da Vinci, hack?

A couple of weekends ago, went to Portland and whilst there went to Powell's Book store which has got to be one of the best stores anywhere.

It's good with lots of art books.

Got a book by Niki de Saint Phalle which is pretty cool... I remember once seeing one of her paintings before I painted myself and I think it was an impetus (one of many) that got me going. I had no idea that she had done as much as she has, really lived the life of an artist that's for dang sure.

Did some stuff like shooting her paintings and letting them bleed oil out but mostly I think she's famous for her sculptures, here's a link:http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/women2/images/stphalle_big.jpg

Also got a book about all the Last Suppers that have ever been painted although I'm not sure the book contains ALL the last suppers ever painted. Maybe just the highlights of the Last Supper paintings.

By far (at least I think) the BEST one is the one by Leonardo Da Vinci and it makes me re-evaluate him because I used to think he was severely overrated.

Maybe that's bound to happen when a guy paints the most popular painting of all time, The Mona Lisa, that he's going to get a little backlash.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41123000/jpg/_41123916_monalisa_203.jpg

http://www.mystudios.com/treasure/davinci/davinci-ermine.jpg

See what I mean, they kind of suck (but in a good way)....

but this Last Supper, boy it's pretty good....
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/l/leonardo/lastsupp.jpg

DaVinci painted at the same time as Michelangelo and Raphael which was news to me and they all knew about each other. I think DaVinci was the oldest and Raphael the youngest with Michelangelo being the genius.

The time in which they lived was a raucous chaotic time, with crusades and wars and people trying to take over other people and Popes (Julius II) leading armies himself despite his afflictions which included syphillis. There were prostitutes everywhere, and mistresses and affairs and who KNOWS what else. The woman who is the subject of the Mona Lisa was probably a mistress of a wealthy man who wanted her portrait.

At one point, Michelangelo proposed that Da Vinci's plan to build a bridge from the tip of Italy to Sicily or somepin like that be actually put into operation but nothing ever happened along those lines.

So all these guys were sorta loping all over Italy, doing stuff here and there, going to Rome for the big projects (The Pope's Tomb, etc.) being inspired by the others. Raphael and Da Vinci were not afraid to partake in all that there was to offer a famous artist, but it seems like Michelangelo did not live the high life (except when on top of the scaffolding of the Sistine Chapel, ha ha) probably because apparently he was one ugly dude. Here's his self-portrait:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sistine/0-Michel.jpg

He was one of these guys who are perpetually put upon, with problems in his family and problems with money constantly on his mind. He didn't want to be in Rome because he thought it was unhealthy and longed for the comfort of his home town, Florence. At a moment's notice, or if a war threatened, he would hightail it back to Florence and the pope would get pissed off and drag his ass back, with Michelangelo complaining the whole way.

I recommend a book I recently read about the whole time called Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel by Ross King. I hadn't really ever had put Michelangelo in an historical period in my mind other than I had a vague idea that he was kind of ancient, so he came alive to me when I read this book.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling sound really amazing and some dude, Dante or somebody, said something like it just goes to show you what one man is capable of (the power of the quote lost in my paraphrase) and it sure would be something to see.

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/art/micsis5.jpg

Before they tear it down and put in a Wal-mart I mean.

Baseball

Well, baseball has started and the Mighty Mariners have lost their first one, 5-4 to the defending AL West champeens, the Anaheim Angels or whoever.

Things seemed an awful lot the same as last year, the Mariners falling behind early when Vladimir Guerarro deposited a pitch from Jamie Moyer into the stands which prompted Ron Fairly to wax philosophic on how you don't pitch to Vladimir. Period.

Speaking of Ron, he was in fine form saying the MOST OBVIOUS things..."If you want to win, you've got to score a few runs!"...well, he didn't say that but he coudda. I don't really mind Ron, but a lot of people certainly do.

Komo 1000, the voice of the Mariners, has continued to put as many ads on the air as they possibly can to the point that the game actually seems secondary. I mean, really, the Torve Roofing status of the dome roof? (Closed).

It's too bad that they didn't have the Kellogg's Pop Tart Pop Up of the Game With the Bases Loaded back in Dan Wilson's day, he would have won it every time. Last night, Yuniesky Betancourt got the Lenscrafters Seeing Eye Single that scored a coupla runs and followed that up with the Pooper Scooper Blooper in the sixth.

Komo 1000 (with the news on the fours...or the traffic maybe) has put so many ads in between innings that the broadcasters always miss the first pitch or two of the next inning. This is very irritating mostly because every other media that has ever covered a baseball game has managed to fit their commercials in successfully but KOMO 1000 seems to have a little problem in that regard.

Somebody last season wrote into the Mariner Answer guy and asked why KOMO does their ads that way and the answer guy got somebody at KOMO to talk on the matter. The spokesman had the balls to say that it was all major league baseball's fault.

It's kind of funny to hear the broadcasters at the end of an inning wrap up a play fast because if they don't get to the commercials there will be hell to pay the next inning. Yesterday, missing that first pitch meant that we also missed Kenji Johjima's first at-bat in a Mariner's uniform, a fact not lost on Rick Rizzs I think who would've LOVED to talk about that. You could tell Rick was kind of aching inside as he reported the ground out after the fact.

I'm not sure why KOMO hasn't marketed that first pitch miss, like something like The Seattle Rugby Club First Pitch Miss. Turn that pesky ol' negative into a positive, like those GENIUSES in the marketing department at the airlines who instead of worrying about the physical discomfort of any passenger over 5 foot 10 has instead started charging people for increased leg room.

Commercial endorsements aside, the Mariners seemed a little better than last year, they came back from a 3-0 deficit and tied it up. They even had a chance to blow it open before the Angels relief pitching shut them down.

It really looks like the key to the Mariner's success this year will be the Rolaids Relief Pitching which yesterday was a little Shakey's Pizza Shakey with the winning runs being scored from two Discovery Park Walks given up in the Late Night with David Letterman Late Innings.

If the Mariners can manage to Visit the Maryland Shore that up, they might be pretty goldarned good.