STARRY, STARRY MIND

  From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732       1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120      572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835      130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136      1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571       703       85

Nov    25     2304    12025        620       518      118

Dec    30     3880    14748       1224       299     465

Jan     14       4142    15512        1151        189      712              

Feb      3       4005   14265       1209       107     398

          17         2537   11383        1195         89      165 

          23        2404   10293       1370       100     263

Summary:  

• Looks better for the USA and World, although Brazil, India and South Africa seem not to be going in the right way.  
• There were 71,054 new U.S. cases yesterday, almost 20% of the world total, although we only have a little more than 4% of the global population.
• Brazil had 63,090.
• In Europe, Russia, France, Italy and Czechia remain in five digits for new cases.

Two other bits of COVID-19 info.  As would be expected, asymptomatic cases are more and more making it difficult to control this pandemic.  But that's not new news.  What surprised me is that, apparently, hand washing  is not particularly helpful in curbing the spread.  See if you can find just one piece of information about this.  Evidence is mounting that you need to breathe-in the virus.  More tomorrow.

Wednesday is science/technology day, but I had no idea of what to post until someone sent me this video of Don McLean's Vincent:

What particularly caught my attention was this statement attached to the e-mail:

Don McLean wrote this song about Vincent van Gogh, who never sold a painting while he lived. 

McLean first wrote this song on a paper bag exactly half a century ago while still in high school after reading a biography about van Gogh.  I did not know that it was called Vincent, as Starry, Starry Night stuck in my mind all these years.  I never associated this tune with the painter.  Those handwritten lyrics, later placed on 14 pages, sold in 2015 for $1.2 million, and was on re-sale for $1.5 million last year.

Coincidentally,  I have had a copy of van Gogh's Irises exhibited in my room for more than a decade now.  I bought it when I walked through his museum in Amsterdam, and carried this piece of art the final half of my around the world trip eleven years ago:

I will visit Seoul, Hanoi and other parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, DC, New York City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

That two month long trip was also memorable in a whole number of ways:

• 
  While in Delhi I posted on India Sucks, which has now drawn 89 comments, most of them hilarious from the locals.
• Then my flight from Delhi to Munich to Barcelona was a rollercoaster ride from nightmare to euphoria.
• I got to personally know Chef Rene in Copenhagen before his restaurant became #1 in the world.

But back to Vincent:

• In ten years he created 2100 artworks.
• He cut off his ear when he was 35 (although a more recent revelation is that his friend Gauguin did this), and committed suicide with a Lefaucheux revolver at 37.

• 
  It's not true that he never sold any of his paintings.  He sold one, Red Vineyard, for 400 francs a few months before he died.
• His most famous work, Starry Night, was accomplished in an asylum, where he had admitted himself after that ear incident.  It (the painting) is exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

• 
  His most expensive, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, sold for $82.5 million in 1990, now worth around $150 million.  While the buyer, Ryoei Saito, said he would have this painting cremated with him, he passed away in 1996, and Dr. Gachet was sold to Austrian Wolfgang Flottl, who later sold to an Italian called the Lugano Man, who also died.  His estate is now involved in a war crime recovery controversy.
• Many of van Gogh's paintings were confiscated by the Nazi war machine, were destroyed during the Holocaust and those that survived may never again appear.

• 
  The reason why I wanted a copy of the blue Iris painting was only because Stanford Ovshinsky's wife Iris and I had an ongoing campaign to collect blue flower plants.  Stanford was credited for inventing thin film photovoltaics and the nickel hydride battery.  Iris also had a lot to do with those.

So what have van Gogh and Starry Night to do with me?  While I can't imagine cutting off my ear or committing suicide, I kind of have a starry, starry mind, creating projects which have not sold:

• 
  Hydogen Economy
• OTEC
• Direct Methanol Fuel Cell
• Rainbow Pearls International
• Hawaiian Onsen
• Ultimate Ocean Ranch
• World Peace
• Blue Revolution

van Gogh's most expensive painting sold a century after he passed away.  This might well be my fate, too.  Which would very well validate my life.

The Dow Jones Industrials rose 425 to a record high of 31,962.  Why?  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reassured investors that he would continue to keep the fund rate at near-zero.

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