We visited The Musuem of Modern Art  this week to view Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. That painting and the rest of cubism certainly confounded, but in no way animated me. As we migrated through the rest of the 5th floor i was immediately taken by the futurism room and especially by this painting "Dynamism of a Soccer Player" by the Italian artist Boccioni. The founder of Futurism Filippo Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially political and artistic tradition. In his "futurist manifesto" he wrote: "We want no part of it, the past". The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence. But none of that mattered now. Not the past, not the future--nothing besides the fact that i was there in the present, standing in front of this painting completely mesmerized. The lull of the crowd around me ceased to exist, and all i could heart was the throbbing heart beat of the painting. It reminded me of Adriano, who's had a soccer ball at his feet since before he could walk, an All-American who regularly plays in Italy, but who is most importantly my best friend. If i could paint my impression of his essence this is what it would look like. Bold, intelligent, beautiful, and uncommon; the imperishable spirit of his otherwise mortal being. The picture above doesn't do the real painting, or Adriano for that matter, justice, but it was all so visceral and animating that i could not help but be drawn in. I caught myself thinking about this painting even after we left, and will continue to think about it now and again until one day, when Adriano and I are both rich and famous and it is hanging above the couch of our Italian villa. An ever-present reminder of our abundant youth.