Weekend's End

Word of the day: abrogate : to nullify, cancel

Gabriel had a great birthday party yesterday. It was fun to see family. Gabriel took a good two hours to warm up (a.k.a. the entire length of the party), but eventually he did and ran himself ragged, making me chase him so much that, in a moment of extreme clownishness, I slipped and fell directly on my elbow. Yow!

On today's agenda: a long nap, a game of Wii Jeopardy vs. my formidable wife, leftover pizza, errands, a good attempt at finishing the book I'm reading, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on Netflix, lasagna, and the SAG Awards. I was planning on picking back up with my writing, but I 'm not sure I feel like it.

Jules and I finished The Other Guys last night. It was an entertaining, hit-or-miss affair with some hysterical bits, action scenes that were a bit belabored, some unusual chemisty between leads Will Ferrell (playing it affectedly buttoned-up and straight) and Mark Wahlberg (not the nimblest of comedians, for sure, but earning laughs regardless because he performs with such straightfaced intensity), a funny supporting turn by Michael Keaton as the two's TLC-referencing boss, and the usual try-anything approach to raunchy, splattery humor. It's an odd hybrid, but it works well at times.

Frederic Edwin Church was of the second generation of the Hudson River School of painters, the uniquely American movement in which artists drew the rugged outdoor landscapes of the Hudson River, the Adirondacks, and New Hampshire's White Mountains, among other regional scenery and vistas. He travelled extensively (South America, Jamaica, Greenland, an Old World pilgrimmage through Palestine), studied under the famous Hudson River artist Thomas Cole, and eventually settled with his wife along the Hudson in a Persian-inspired castle, Olana, which can still be visited by the public today.

His The Heart of the Andes, the second image at the top of the page, made him nationally famous and was the most popular American painting during the Civil War period. It was created following expeditions to Ecuador and Colombia in the mid-1850s. His most famous work was, arguably, Niagara, the top image, painted from the Canadian side of the falls. The artists of the Hudson River School expressed a great reverence for nature, a sort of transcendental optimism in the face of such natural wonder, using big canvasses to portray luminous contemplation of the insignificance of man. His works can be seen in museums throughout the country, including Cincinnati and Cleveland.