I have an inordinate love of the movie “The Thomas Crown Affair.” Both the old and the new versions I find completely compelling and have seen each more than several times. Perhaps I should not be so taken with the idea of a brillant millionare who has nothing better to do than engineer how to steal paintings, and a love affair between him and the woman who is trying to discover all his secrets. I do, in real life, have a tendency to be attracted to men who have secrets, although unfortunately they are not as glamorous as the one in the movie.

Suffice to say that I was thinking about the movie, because of the news the police had recovered stolen Picasso paintings and because Venus is currently retrograde. Things lost from the past relating to Venus, such as love, beauty, and of course art, are supposed to come to light now! And indeed this has happened with these famous Picasso paintings!

I did a little research and found that there have been other times where when Venus has been retrograde, famous paintings have been returned. For instance there was APPARITION OF ST LEOCADIA TO ST IDELFONSO which was recovered on June 8th of 2004 during what many astrologers thought of as a very important Venus retograde in Gemini because it is one of the rare times when Venus crosses the face of the sun. It was supposed to have important spiritual signifcance, and I can’t remember if it did personally, but the exact day that it was crossing the sun, June 8th was when this painting of several saints was found and brought back to light. I’m not catholic, but perhaps St Leocadia or St Idelfonso aren’t given the due respect that they should be given that this painting reappared on such a monumental day according to astrologers.

But back to The Thomas Crown Affair. I’d just like to point out that the 1968 version has a many things going for it. Number one is Steve McQueen. Number two is perhaps the sexiest chess match in the entire history of film combined with the longest kiss ever. And number three is dune buggies have never looked like so much fun!

I thought about watching it last night when the air was nippy, even though it’s August, I could almost feel the Summer slipping away, and turning to fall. Like the song in the movie “Windmills of Your Mind” it felt like the question “Why did Summer go so quickly?” Like a good love affair, it always goes too soon.