Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a  lifetime to paint like a child.” ―  Pablo Picasso

In 1814, the explorer and later MP William Bankes, on a visit to Madrid, purchased what he believed to be an early version of Velasquez' masterpiece Las Meninas. He proudly displayed it over the fireplace in his gallery at Kingston Lacy. It hangs there to this day, hanging next to a portrait of a young cardinal he had purchased in Rome. His pride and joy later came to be thought a fake, a copy, probably painted by Velasquez' son-in-law Juan Mazo. It has more recently been re-evaluated yet again as a genuine Velasquez (though x-rays at the Prado suggest otherwise.) What Bankes did not know, what art historians discovered long after his death, was that the young cardinal hanging anonymously nearby was in fact a genuine Velasquez.

Wittgenstein and Hitler were at school together from 1904-5. Wittgenstein was six days younger, but two years ahead in class.

Manet made a pilgrimage to the Prado just to see the work of Velasquez.

Max Weinberg, of the E Street Band, played drums on Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart and Meatloaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Director Allison Anders first film, Border Radio, was funded in part by her parents and in part by actor Vic Tayback!

In 2009, the Pasadena Playhouse produced Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, starring Kelly McGillis as Regina and Julia Duffy as Birdie!