A Rare Portrait of Dr. Tarrec

Dr. Tarrec has been variously described over the years as elusive, sneaky, monkish, and reticent.  He is something of a recluse, preferring to live alone in secret, far from the rest of the modern world.  He does venture out occasionally, and does communicate with others - especially members of academia.  But he has never, as far as I can tell, had been photographed, filmed,  or videotaped.

He believes that cameras, whether capturing his image on film or as digital bits of information, steal from him some vital electromagnetic energy, energy that he believes to be essential to his research into the more arcane and esoteric sciences.

He allowed me to paint this quick sketch of his likeness - and informed me that the last time he sat for a portrait was 1908 in Austria .  If I understood him correctly, and sometimes his accent is difficult to get through, I believe he said that the painter was Gustav Klimt.  That portrait, he said, was later destroyed by bombs during WWII.


The rooster, included at his insistence, is a symbol of the passing of time, and an alarum of death.