I'm in the process of making final rounds to all of you before I step down for a few more weeks. It's wonderful to be back here, and I'm sorry I don't have more time to be here everyday. You all make it so worthwhile for me, and I'm immensely grateful...as I am for sitting with your work once again. This little tale was inspired by an upload by Rod, who was experimenting with light. (Beautifully, I might add.) It brought some old masters to mind, and I came up with this tale as a result. Hope it's enjoyable.. I'll be back tonight and tomorrow to comment more. I wish you all a splendid weekend. Thanks so much for your love and support: You're all grand. Have a terrific Saturday! mark An encounter long ago... The snow slapped our faces like an assault of needles, some stabbing us in the eyes, stinging terribly. We couldn't hear a thing over the din from winds ramming us from side to side. One of us fell---she shot up quickly, the front of her coat caked with snow, suddenly looking like a Santa Claus who got caught in an avalanche. I shouted: "Are you ok?" She didn't hear. (Too much wind.) I wished I knew her name: These people were taking me to my destination, but I never got to meet them or learn their names. Damn. "Is it always like this, this time of year???" I shouted. They didn't answer. They just kept signaling me to follow. "Ik ben hier," I said in faltering Dutch: I wasn't even sure if they'd understand it, since this was 1660, and I was speaking 21st Century Dutch. Then a man---who looked amazingly like one of the men in Rembrandt's famous Syndics of the Draper's Guild---turned to me and nodded as if to say, "keep moving!" Good. He heard me. A gust exploded in our faces, and I almost fell over. Jesus... Finally, that same man shouted, "hier!" (i.e., "here" in Dutch); and he patted me on the back, then everyone disappeared. Whap!!! A snow blast slapped me in the face, hitting me in the eyes: I rubbed my eyes and squinted in the distance: "I know you!" I shouted to the man: "You're in a painting by Rembrandt! It's in the Rijksmuseum! Here in Amsterdam!" I was shouting to the wind. Besides: They wouldn't know the Rijskmuseum from a hole in the wall. This was 1660, and the R.Museum was built in 1800... * * * What brought me here? I wanted to get a glimpse of a painter. A great one. I wanted to see him. I wanted to watch him. I crouched under an eave, trying desperately to shake off the sheets of ice and snow all over my arms, when a light went on inside the flat behind me: Someone lit a lantern! I looked. OMG: Was it him??? Suddenly this terrible blizzard faded into nothingness, and I thought: It's his studio! I recognized a few of his paintings! I craned over the window---ice still pelting my head---and the room was piled-high with old rolled-up canvases, blankets, clothes, half-eaten food and spilled wine. A mouse was chewing on some leftovers. (Did he paint?) Then a man, portly and slow with that oh-so signature face---a gentle lion's face, generous and kindly---entered the room, rummaged around, picked up a paintbrush, picked up some paints and an easel: He set up his easel---it was splattered with paint as if a pigeon had flown over and emptied its bowels all over it. The artist turned around: Omg. He was looking at me! I can't explain it, but looking into the eyes of one of the greatest artists in European history left me convinced his gaze would burn a hole through my chest. Never mind. It was too dark: He couldn't see me. He shook his head and returned to his art... My heart was pounding. I mouthed his name: Rembrandt. Again, Rembrandt. I'd dreamt of this day. On the floor and against the walls, paintings, drawings, etchings strewn like so many newspapers and thread-bare throw rugs. I gasped: Were these the originals of artworks I'd seen in books and museums? Was I seeing their 'first drafts'? I wanted to pound on the window and say: "I KNOW you, dammit, and that painting you just tossed aside like an old sock? I've seen it in New York! And the one next to it? In Paris! Do you have a clue what people'll pay for these, in my time? And you're tossing 'm around like a pair of ratty t-shirts?" He rubbed his nose furiously. He cursed. Then he rubbed more and cursed more. His nose must've bothered him no end, because he rubbed and rubbed it until it was red. Finally he threw down his brush, stomped to another window, lifted up the drapery---it was covered in paint and turpentine (nice way to treat your furniture, Rem!). Then he put the drapery to his nose and blew furiously. Wonderful! (Glad that didn't get into the history books.) The room looked cloistered, sweaty, the walls closed in, you got the feeling the whole place reeked of molded food, paint and turpentine; and he---one of the most celebrated painters in European history---was blowing his nose into a curtain. He rubbed his nose more, but still wasn't satisfied... Then he put the drapery back, cursed to himself, and ambled back to his easel, which he actually apologized to. Then he scratched his nose and cursed more; and I thought: Rembrandt: Did I come all the way back to the 17th Century just to watch you do battle with your nose? Was I going to be the only person in history to write the world's first in-person account of Rembrandt scratching his nose for an hour??? He didn't stop scratching. Oh this is gonna be a blow out, I thought. How would I explain this back home... Finally, he stopped. He snorted, picked up his palette, and slabbed paint on it: My god, it was like a thousand oil-paint droppings had dropped out of the sky and landed on his palette with a splat. Why did he need more? And the surface had taken on that unmistakable tint that every oil painter knows too well: a greenish-gray tint, that muddy, ugly hue that's more suited to people sick at sea than to an artist. He furiously mixed his paints---whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!---and I never thought I'd see Rembrandt mix paints like he had 20 seconds to live. Bang, bang! He mixed those paints like he were Jackson Pollack, the 20th Century abstractionist who poured paint from a can, while running all over his canvas in his shoes. Then Rembrandt started to paint, and I was craning every which way to see what he was doing: I couldn't see a freaking thing because he was smack dab in my view. "Out of the way!" I yelled. (I couldn't believe I yelled. I wasn't supposed to interfere in history.) He didn't budge. What nerve! I traveled all the way from the 21st Century only to be caught behind his huge head? I shouted for real now---the whole damned street could hear me: "OUT---OF---MY---WAY---DAMMIT!" I froze. I'd just yelled at Rembrandt! Would every great artist in history plop on top of me and beat me senseless? I ducked, then peeked in again: He was still in the way! Yahhhhhhh! I banged on the window. Rembrandt shot around and glared. I jumped under a bush. Oh this is great: I'm gonna be arrested by Rembrandt van Rijn, and I'll get in the history books; and Rule One, when going back in time, was: Stay out of the history books. Be discreet. Don't change anything. All the historians will have to rewrite everything. They'll be furious. Don't rock the boat---just don't! In the meantime, Rembrandt ran to the window, and there was that lion's nose again, that gentle gaze, worn, wrinkled and oh-so tired. It was the same face I saw in his amazing self portraits---amazing for his time when portraits were 'monumental', but his weren't: His had that honest, everyman's face that he refused to make a big deal out of: His was haggard, aged, saggy. I yanked out my iPhone to take a picture. But, no! I was pretty sure it was against the law to take photos in history. (When you go back in time, the sign says: "No Photos.") But who would believe me without a photo? He snorted, turned around, and went back to his painting... Then he scratched his ear, picked up a pastry---off the rug, now---which must've been 10 days old; brushed something off of it---an insect? some mold?---sniffed it and then took a bite, then started painting. But this time he stood to the side, so I got to see it! I looked closely: My god: While winds were pelleting me like bullets and ice-shards were falling all over my head, I watched this portly, messy man wincing and making faces while he slowly painted a man emerging out of the shadows of nothing-less than eternity. It was Rembrandt's vision, a human emerging out of darkness and into light; that soft, exquisite emergence that makes his subjects glow. In that inimitable, sublime silence that accompanies all works of art, the man in the painting emerged as out of the infinite past, and into the most gentle, warm, and lushly painted light. It was sublimely silent, sublimely gentle and oh-so affirming: Rembrandt at his best. And Rembrandt---still rubbing his nose between strokes---created this vision out of slabs and clumps of pigment, thick, gloppy, earthen, sloppy pigment...while eternity slowly unfolded in front of our eyes... Suddenly: a knock at the door. I ducked. Pound, pound: He trudged to the door. Someone spoke to him in Dutch. Then Rembrandt ran back into his studio, the floor shook, he took the painting off his easel and threw it on his bed ("hey---That's a Rembrandt!" I wanted to cry), he cursed it for a second, then blew out the lantern, took another bite of that pastry, threw it on the ground, and left the flat. The door slammed and they walked into the snowstorm. WHAP! Someone hit me on the head. "OUCH!" I shouted. Then a man shouted all kinds of questions at me which I didn't understand. I tried to explain how I got here, but the man didn't understand a word. Then he shook his head, made a gesture which I was pretty sure was obscene, and stomped off. I took a deep breath, dragged myself into the street (my legs were frozen), and trudged north, hoping my party would be waiting on the other end. The blizzard stopped and it was one of those winter nights when the whole universe shut down and everything went silent, and the cosmos was at peace with itself. I listened to my feet crunch in the fresh snow, thinking what a beautiful city this was with its flats lit-up by the golden flames of lanterns... Suddenly a woman crashed into me: "Watch where you're going!" she shouted. She stormed off. She spoke English? "Who are you???" I shouted. But she disappeared. (I had no clue.) I walked into the darkness, and, in the distance, a couple emerged, walked into the light, and glittered in the most delicate reds and golds: I looked at them and swore they were the couple from The Jewish Bride, one of Rembrandt's masterpieces. It was: It was them. They looked at each other with infinite gentleness; then they walked into the shadows and disappeared. A piece of gold oil dropped off the man's sleeve, and sizzled in the snow. I turned, kept walking, and disappeared into the prodigious, endless night... ------------------