I am still somewhat tolerable

Insomnia, insomnia, insomnia. The odd thing about these nights is how one manages to reconcile with death. For such reconciliation is, or perhaps should be, the supreme goal of humanity.

The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Bryullov, 1833

Touring one of the new Japanese ships, 1953.

Doors close and lights go out

The Roaring Twenties 1939 / Raoul Walsh

I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.

That honest stories all end strangely

Eruption on Mount Etna, Sicily, gives the illusion of a Phoenix in the sky.

“When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §31 (excerpt).

Vittorio Gassman by Giuseppe Palmas, Roma 1962