The Laboratory

This is a painting from the Venetian High Renaissance, and one of the most famous reclining nudes in Western art. The goddess Venus is depicted in a luxurious domestic interior, reclining on a bed. Her body is relaxed and sensual, and she gazes directly at the viewer with a knowing and confident ...

Scene 1: The Children's Playground (Revised - Fifth Pass) The sandbox was a chaos of fine grit and flung plastic, exactly as any proper sandbox should be.
A couple of parents sat on a nearby bench, faces tipped to the sun, occasionally glancing up from their screens.
You'd think the squealing and the bits of sand clinging to every surface would get to them, but most seemed to have developed an impressive filter.
Seven-year-old Eleanor Vance, her knees already streaked with the day's first lay...

Victor the King! alive to-day, not dead! Behold, I bring thee with a subject's hand A poor pale wreath, the best at my command, But all unfit to deck so grand a head. It is the outcome of a neighbour land Denounced of thee, and spurn'd for many years. It is the token of a nation's tears Which oft has joy'd in thee, and shall again. Love for thy hate, applause for thy disdain, - These are the flowers we spread upon thy hearse. We give thee back, to-day, thy poet-curse; We call thee friend; we ...