Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: The Pieta

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
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By Maik Strosahl

By my count, this is the 108^th post I have made toward the Moristotle & Co. collection. Most of them I have been very proud of, and yet there is one that I always wanted to take back and redeem the pieces that were highlighted within during their infancy.
    The piece was an exercise in jump-starting my creative mind by playing with several photographic prompts (“Waiting for a Trailer,” April 7, 2021). By no means did I consider those pieces fine poetry, but I always wanted to go back and do something with them if I could.

The Loneliest Liberal: Obsessions, magnificent and mundane

By James Knudsen

Genius is not without its drawbacks. I write this as an assumption, not a statement of fact based on firsthand experience. Having avoided the genius gene generally, I come to my informed conclusion based on the historical record. Whether the genius in question was a person of the sciences or of the arts, being blessed with a gifted mind always seems to entail a concurrent trait or circumstance that, all things being equal, one would just as soon avoid. Michelangleo, an unquestioned genius with the hammer, chisel, and paintbrush, was nonetheless an unapologetic slob who ate merely for the sustenance it provided. Ponder that for a moment. Michelangleo, sitting on the scaffolding in the Sistine Chapel with his assistant and not caring for a moment whether his Subway sandwich was accompanied by Doritos of the Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch variety. A lengthy Wikipedia entry seems small compensation for such a shortcoming in the tastebuds.