This is beautiful

As you likely know, this whole map painting business, with the exception of the Map Of Troy series that I do on paper as a fundraising effort for the PeaceWorks Project, consists of electronic studies for paintings to come or not to come.

I love the idea of taking one -- the current thinking is either The Maginot Line or All My Love's in Vain -- and executing it on a massive, pristine canvas roughly the height of Yao Ming.  That would, I believe, be beautiful.

But this is beautiful too ...

Sasha Cohen: Rite of Spring on Nowness.com.

Me?  I've always got a fond spot in my heart for anybody who can leap up and do a perfect split in mid air.  Obviously this is something I choose not to even attempt.  The concern is not the split, per se (although that's certainly a concern too).  The concern is more about executing the split too late in the proceedings and then plummeting, mid-split, to the floor.

Which would leave me in tatters.  Shattered.

For you completists, Ms. Cohen is not in tatters.  She's wearing a Nina Ricci dress.

Sasha Cohen:  "A couple minutes on the ice will change the rest of your life.  Nothing will be the same after, depending on how you perform."

Willem deKooning:  "They don't know it's like jumping off a 12-story building every day."

I can't wait for Sochi.