I think my heart stopped when I heard about this

This totally blew me away. I can't even believe it or explain why.

Da Vinci's Last Supper alive with music?

Last Updated: 2:18am GMT 12/11/2007

A computer technician claims to have discovered a real da Vinci code after finding music hidden in Leonardo's masterpiece, The Last Supper.

Giovanni Maria Pala said that the hands of Jesus and the Apostles, and the loaves of bread in the picture each represented a note, which formed a 40-second composition.

He made the discovery after superimposing a stave - the five lines used in sheet music - on the painting. The composition emerges when the "notes" are read right to left, following Leonardo's own technique.

Mr Pala, who will publish his findings in a book next week, said: "It sounded really solemn, almost like a requiem."

Alessandro Vezzosi, of Tuscany's Leonardo museum, said the theory was "plausible", but added: "There's always a risk of seeing something that is not there, but it's certain that the spaces [in the painting] are divided harmonically.

"Where you have harmonic proportions, you can find music."

(from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/11/wsupper111.xml)

(H)ey, yo, MOVE it.

I've been identifying myself lately as a "hard, urban dweller." Maybe not always the "hard" part, but either way, I've lived in Philly for over a year now, and here's proof of this blessed lifestyle transformation:

- I drink coffee at least four days/week. Large coffees. No of that small , watching-my-figure business. Cutting out sugar- next goes cream.

- By my estimate, every fourth word out of my mouth (mainly when commuting)is one that the FCC wouldn't allow at their most lenient. It cracks me up, cussing. The combinations, such as "I'm a grown a-- man", "F--- that s---" (personal favorite), and, as noted by my little brother, "Hurts like a son of a b----". What do these even mean? If nothing else, cussing provides comic relief.

- I have seen at least three or four different mice today: one at work, two or three at home. After my initial yelp and "HEY!" they still hung around. These yelps have been less frequent, although seeing those same few mice run amok in our dining room has not. In fact, I just heard one in our wall. I might be getting to the point where we are co-existing peacefully, like when I had a hamster, kind of. But this means that extermination will get all the more difficult, as we're getting used to each other. My terms are these: don't crap everywhere, don't crawl on me, and don't give me hantavirus. Especially the hantavirus- I don't have health insurance.

So good, it hurts

For the last couple months, I have taken a very strong liking to jazz. For the first time in my life, really, and I don't know what spurred it on. Maybe it's kind of white noise to me w/ so much other noise; plus, when all of a sudden it's quiet, it's good filler music. In particular, I have been in awe of John Coltrane. "Equinox" was what got me hooked.

How life will be for me on any given day is really anybody's guess. Today was decent, then started to turn into not so decent. All of a sudden, I wanted to be by myself, so I sat here @ my computer and turned on good ole iTunes.

In my African-American history class today, my prof talked about jazz's roots in blues, Negro spirituals, sorrows songs, African lullabies... and how, being that jazz is mainly improvisational, it's like a dialog, in his words. Something about how the drums, the piano, the saxophone, all separate but coming together so nicely in conversation. Something about how you think there's a set pattern in the beginning of a song, then at the end, you can hardly recognize it. Something about how all the roots of jazz are so filled with pain, passion, a desire to go home.

How does this mix end up creating something so beautiful? I feel like jazz is one of the best expressions of life as I'm understanding it right now. Even now, listening to it has brought me such... not peace, well maybe a little... more like, a sense of home? Commonality? Whatever it is, it's deep for me, and it's good.