This Week I Learned - Vol. 1, Iss. 13

Three Things:

1. This week I learned about The Peacemakers, a Civil War painting by George P.A. Healy. My wife and kids gave me a print of it, which now hangs in my home office. The painting shows the only meeting between William Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln, which happened aboard the River Queen steamboat in 1865. This meeting took place just two weeks before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. The original painting was destroyed in a fire in 1893, but an early copy has been in the White House since 1947. Healy created the painting using photographs and descriptions since he wasn't at the actual meeting.
2. This week I learned that Leonardo da Vinci's mother, Caterina, was likely a Circassian princess who became a slave in Italy, according to recent research. While historians have long studied da Vinci's relationship with his father, a Florentine notary, understanding his mother's background adds important context to his early life. The new Ken Burns documentary, Leonardo da Vinci, covers many aspects of da Vinci's life in 15th-century Tuscany.
3. This week I learned how to tune a bass guitar, my first instrument since playing cornet years ago. I decided winter break was a good time to start learning something new. Since my kids are musical, this will be a way to connect with them while doing something good for my brain. I'm focusing on jazz bass, so if you have recommendations, feel free to share them. I feel like it will take a long time before it actually sounds like music, but I'm enjoying the challenge so far.

Quote of the Week:

"I suppose that is one of the purposes of all reading. It helps you live lives beyond the one you are inside. It turns our single-room mental shack into a mansion.

"All reading, in short, is telepathy and all reading is time travel. It connects us to everyone and everywhere and every time and every imagined dream." - from Matt Haig's The Life Impossible

Prompt for top image as generated in Claude and created in Midjourney: Abraham Lincoln seated on vintage leather chair playing electric bass guitar, dramatic lighting, da Vinci painting him on canvas in the corner, oil painting style, warm amber tones, historical realism meets surrealism, Renaissance studio meets 1860s aesthetic