Fluid dynamics. Courtesy of NY Times science section today, interesting article.

Leonardo da Vinci started it. he seems to be lurking everywhere these days, or is it just me. reading Leo Steinberg's wonderful book, Leonardo's Incessant Last Supper. I think he missed one thing, though (while perceptively noting a million others). Leonardo not only caught duration & "sfumato" of multiple meanings in a gesture (in his "Last Supper") - but he also "preserved the unities", saved the appearances. It is an instant of time captured, rather than only a blurred spread of implications. It's both. That is, Christ's right hand, recoiling from the dish : it's not simply both or either recoiling from the dish and reaching for the eucharistic cup. It's rendered at the exact moment after his saying "one of you will betray me - he whose hand is in the dish with mine" - from which both Christ & Judas recoil - and also after he has just said "take, eat, this is my body, this is my blood of the new covenant", etc. His hand is still recoiling from the first statement; his left hand is moving toward the bread; his right hand will soon follow toward the wine. The disciples are responding, each in his own fashion, to both statements. The simultaneiity of this moment is memorialized, in a sense, as Steinberg notes, in 1 Cor. 11:23 : "the Lord Jesus the same night he was betrayed took bread and said, 'Take, eat : this is my body'" - which perhaps was Leonardo's pivotal reference.

But look at Peter, Judas & John. Some mysteries there that Steinberg doesn't deal with, & I'm not going to talk about now anyway. Much more to this painting than "meets the eye" of cursory attention.

Fluid dynamics. There's a lot of water in Minnesota : 10,000 lakes, Lake Superior, Mississippi. I'm doing 2nd chapter of my novel, tentatively titled On River Road (that will probably change).